Happy Halloween! (John Carpenter version.) Continuing with the Stephen King viewing I revisited PET SEMATARY. I’ve got a few more horror movies rented so there might be some Halloween spillover into November, but then we’ll get into some blaxploitation, maybe some old gangster movies and some action and shit. You know the drill.
Archive for October, 2008
10/31/08
Friday, October 31st, 2008
LikePet Sematary
Friday, October 31st, 2008This month I’ve done a pretty good job of picking out the best mid-level Stephen King pictures, the INCBIS’s (it’s not CARRIE, but it’s solid). I didn’t think PET SEMATARY would hold up very well, but I was wrong, this was another good one. Good job, PET SEMATARY. Here’s a treat.
It’s a relief to see a Stephen King story where the main guy is not a writer and his marriage is not in trouble. This is the story of happily married doctor Louis Creed and his family of 2 kids and a cat moving to a new town in a house right along a popular trucking route. The road is so dangerous there’s a large pet sematary (sic) nearby, so they start worrying about their cat Winston Churchill. Their worries are not unfounded. But also they should keep an eye on their youngest kid in my opinion. (implied spoiler)
So you got pets and children getting run over, a real fun time at the movies, right? But wait, there’s more. The ghost of a guy the doctor tried to help has been warning him in his nightmares about how he should not do this one thing which, coincidentally his across-the-street neighbor (Herman Munster) shows him how to do: he buries his cat in a Native American burial ground so it will later come back to life.
The cat does come back (the very next day, they thought it was a goner, etc.), but now it’s mean and its eyes glow and it smells like shit. Not sure if it’s cat shit or regular shit but the point is Church smells terrible. Not a fitting tribute to the noted statesman and orator. This zombie cat situation is no good, but at least Dr. Louis didn’t have to admit to his daughter that her cat was dead. So it’s a mixed bag. (more…)
Phantasm II
Thursday, October 30th, 2008PHANTASM II: LORD OF BALLS
There’s actually not a subtitle on this one, I made that up. Anyway this is the first sequel, made 11 years later with the backing of Universal Studios. It’s the year after EVIL DEAD 2 but it’s the same kind of thing Universal did later with ARMY OF DARKNESS, taking a cult movie and its director, putting a little more money behind it and hoping to trick mainstream audiences into thinking they care. Nobody knows why they did it, but we’re kind of glad they did.
The advantage of the Universal money is that they have some pretty good special effects. The disadvantage is that they have to ditch the original star, A. Michael Baldwin (a rogue Baldwin brother not related to Alec Baldwin), and replace him with James LeGros of DRUGSTORE COWBOY. You know, for that guaranteed James LeGros demographic who will just go to any James LeGros movie over and over again, and get all of their friends to come, just to watch James LeGros. It’s like the old Hollywood saying goes, don’t ever make a movie that doesn’t star James LeGros. Trivia: no movie has ever made a profit without James LeGros, and vice versa.
YOUNG HIP UNIVERSAL EXECUTIVE: Yeah, so it’s the sequel to this low budget movie from 1979, it’s a weird movie but it has kind of a following, people really were creeped out by this old man who says “BOY!” and by this metal ball. We got the old guy returning, and it’s a little more action oriented than the first one, we have three different huge fiery explosions, and some really good effects, some weird monsters tearing out of people, and… (more…)
Phantasm
Thursday, October 30th, 2008PHANTASM stands alone in American horror – even of 1979 – because of its emphasis on the fuckin weird. Many horror movies are about the fear of a dude with a knife or ax. That makes sense. We know his immediate goal and why it threatens us. Or sometimes it’s supernatural, or it’s a monster. That brings in the fear of the unknown, but we still sort of know most of the time. It’s gonna bite us.
But PHANTASM creeps us out by giving us a bad guy our minds aren’t used to wrapping around: a mean old man at a funeral home who is unusually strong, bleeds yellow, his body parts can turn into bugs, he commands deadly flying metal orbs, and he steals bodies from graveyards and crushes them into weird little dwarves in Jawa robes who do his bidding. It’s a scheme we have seen in less than 50 movies in the entire history of cinema up until this point so it isn’t worn out yet.
It doesn’t hurt that the hero, Mike, is a kid, a loner orphan who spies on his cool older brother Jody because he (correctly) suspects he’s gonna ditch him again. He accidentally sees some of the weird shit going on in the funeral home but when he tries to tell his brother it has the feel of the kids who, to make life more interesting, start saying that their neighbor is a witch or the house at the end of the street is haunted. So you can’t blame Jody for not believing him. But this movie, although completely deadpan and never outwardly comedic, has a hilarious way of dealing with that. First Jody suggests what Mike saw was “probably just a gopher in heat.” Later he asks “Are you sure it wasn’t that retarded kid Timmy up the street?” Then Mike gets chased by the Tall Man, slams a door on his hand, and slices off his fingers. The fingers are alive though and try to crawl away like worms, but he catches one in a box and brings it to his brother. Jody peeks into the box. Is it still in there? Is it still alive? Yes, it wiggles around. He shuts the box. “Okay, I believe you.” (more…)
Wrestlemaniac
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008Legend has it that in the 1960s the president of Mexico (whoever that was) was obsessed with wrestling. He was humiliated that his country couldn’t beat Russia in the Olympics, so he began a secret program. Scientists took three of the best lucha libre guys and Frankensteined them into one: El Mascerado, the greatest wrestler who ever lived. But after a while something went wrong. He went insane in the ring, poking people’s eyes out and mangling people (both of which are illegal in Mexican wrestling). So they took him away to some small town to put him down and nobody knows what happened. Now, a vanful of American douchebags have accidentally stopped in a ghost town where El Mascerado secretly resides. And they’re about to learn that he’s not exactly retired yet. He hasn’t switched to ringside commentator, he’s still in the game. And still undefeated.
How can you go wrong with a premise like that? Well, they try their best to go wrong. After a nice lucha libre montage under the credits they introduce the obnoxious lead-trespasser, Alfonse, talking about that stupid concept called “the Dirty Sanchez.” I’m not gonna explain what it is because it doesn’t exist, it’s just some stupid bullshit some prick like this guy made up because he impresses himself by yammering about this type of stupid shit. Basically it’s a made-up sex act that would give no sexual pleasure but would be demeaning, racist and disgusting, so Screech did it in his porno dvd.
Why would it exist? Why would it have a name? And why do I want to watch the adventures of some corny wannabe redneck with stupid facial hair who thinks he’s cool for knowing about this type of bullshit? I know, you’re not supposed to like him. (Other than in SCARFACE if they show a character snorting coke it means you’re not supposed to like them.) But there’s a fine line between funny assholes that are entertaining to watch and stupid assholes that make you regret renting the movie (or turning to the Sci-Fi Channel, which is often the case with a character like this). (more…)
Hell Ride
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008The first time I saw KILL BILL VOLUME 2, when Michael Madsen got chewed out by his boss at the strip club, I thought Who is that guy? Because he had such a presence, he seemed so perfect to play that type of sleazy (but completely justified in this case) boss, but I didn’t think I recognized him from anything. Turns out he was Larry Bishop, son of Joey Bishop. He’s an actor going back to WILD IN THE STREETS and an I DREAM OF JEANNIE episode, and the guy who directed that movie MAD DOG TIME a while back. Well, Tarantino obviously liked him so he helped him to make a biker movie, this time not just as director but as writer/director/producer/star.
Tarantino put his name on the movie as a presenter, hooked Bishop up with Dimension Films, and loaned him the use of Michael Madsen and David Carradine for a while. He also seems to be a big inspiration on the attitude of the movie, which is basically a western on motorcycles with lots of weird non-sequitur shit thrown in. The movie also has some pretty hip marketing, one of the first incidents in modern times of a movie released with a cool illustrated movie poster that remains as the DVD cover. Everyone knows you’re supposed to throw away the poster and put a shitty photoshop collage of the actor’s heads on the DVD. That’s in marketing 101. This one breaks that rule.
Okay, I can’t lie to you, after you’re done looking at the cover and put the actual DVD in your player – and after you get past the awesome DEATH PROOF trailer that looks like it’s transferred to VHS and has a cheesy ’80s style narrator – most of you will think this movie is a piece of shit. And it kind of is. Anyone who claims that Tarantino just rips off old movies and pieces them together and anybody could do it needs to compare and contrast this one with KILL BILL. Bishop also mixes and matches old exploitation shit he likes (’60s biker movies, western showdowns, softcore porn, spaghetti western music, songs that Tarantino would use in his movies) but doesn’t have the same strong narrative, memorable characters or great action scenes. It’s a simple story muddled by a way too complicated backstory and flashback structure, and with little momentum, powered only by attitude and the occasional funny or weird little moment or scene. On the positive side it’s less than 90 minutes long so it doesn’t torture you. For me it went down easy in three half hour installments. (more…)
Scream
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008Producers of violent horror movies like to claim their movies are “controversial.” Here’s a more mainstream-acceptable horror movie that actually is controversial among movie fans. It was hugely popular at the time, but it seems to me like most horror fans today look down on it or sent it. Like it or not, SCREAM was an important landmark in the ongoing history of the horror. It singlehandedly resuscitated the rotting corpse of the slasher movie (at least in its whodunit form inspired by FRIDAY THE 13TH, SLEEPAWAY CAMP, PROM NIGHT, TERROR TRAIN, etc.) It made horror big business again, paving the way for an onslaught of low (and medium) budget horror that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. But alot of horror fans see themselves as outsiders, so it bugs them when a horror movie is popular with people who aren’t as into stabbing and monsters as they are. And in my opinion there is a certain amount of sexism there, because they get mad about teenage girls liking the same movies as them. (Don’t tell them that HALLOWEEN is about teenage girls, they might cry.)
But the real problem with SCREAM is that it cursed us with a smart-assy self-referentialism that to this day still pops out like a screeching cat to ruin many a would-be tense moment.
So watching SCREAM in late 2008 comes with baggage. You watch it and can’t help but think of all the mediocre-to-bad movies it inspired and the things the cast have done (or haven’t done) since. Hey, that’s the guy from the SCOOBY DOO movies. That’s the lady that Robert Rodriguez left his wife for. That’s Jamie Kennedy. Hey, I forgot about the guy that looked like Johnny Depp. Didn’t he do a movie with Cuba Gooding Jr.? Is he in TV now? Or does he play Jack Sparrow at Disneyland? (more…)
Road Games
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008After watching DARK AGE and ROGUE recently I started thinking about other Australian pictures, but without giant crocodiles: MAD MAX, RAZORBACK, CHOPPER, WOLF CREEK. And I thought holy shit (American for “crikey”) I gotta see some more Australiama or whatever it’s called. Actually, I have since learned that a documentary on Australian exploitation cinema played in Austin recently and got all my Ain’t It Cool colleagues excited about “Ozploitation.” I’m not ready to accept that term, that seems pretty forced. How bout if we call it “cinemarang.” Or “cinemaroo.” Or “Australian cinema” would be another good one.
Anyway I decided to watch this one by Richard Franklin, best known in the states for the surprisingly decent PSYCHO II. He did that one because he was obsessed with Hitchcock, studied all his movies, even got him to come speak at his film school. Can you believe that shit? “Good evening kids, I’m Alfred Hitchcock. Questions?” I wonder if he hung out in the dorms at all.
Anyway ROAD GAMES is definitely a Hitchcock homage, specifically it’s REAR WINDOW but crossed with Spielberg’s DUEL. Stacy Keach plays a truck driver who spends most of the movie talking to himself, or at least to his pet dingo. He makes up names for the people he sees on the road, and imagines what they’re up to. He has to play these “road games” to survive the long drives.
But then he sees a guy in a van pick up a hitchhiker, and then the same guy digging a hole. He decides this guy is the killer they’ve been talking about on the radio. Of course he tries to find out more and ends up getting into trouble. In one scene an old man seems to think he’s the killer, and there’s a very destructive vehicle chase with boat in tow. Jamie Lee Curtis shows up as a hitchhiker who’s as interested in following the guy as he is. Her name is Pamela but he just calls her “Hitch.” It could be called DINGO AND HITCH but luckily it’s called ROAD GAMES. (more…)
Sleepaway Camp
Monday, October 27th, 2008SLEEPAWAY CAMP parts 1-3
There’s no way around it: SLEEPAWAY CAMP is a blatant ripoff of FRIDAY THE 13TH. It borrows the summer camp setting, the child with a tormented past and messed up guardian, and the unseen killer who’s unmasked in a crazy twist ending that nobody could’ve seen coming because it came out of nowhere. Alot of slasher movies take the same formula and put it in a different setting, this one takes the same formula and puts it in the same setting. It’s like DIE HARD in a building.
The reason it’s survived in the popular consciousness, though, is that it has its own weird brand of sleaziness that gives it a feel different from any other slasher movie, including other summer camp slasher movies. For one thing, the kids at the summer camp are played by actual kids. The vast majority of ’80s slasher movies were about teens played by actors in their early to mid twenties. And FRIDAY THE 13TH focussed on the counselors. Adrienne King, who played FRIDAY heroine Alice, was 20. Felissa Rose, the star of SLEEPAWAY CAMP, was 13. It makes it more uncomfortable.
Rose plays Angela, a troubled new girl at the camp who barely talks or eats food, maybe because she’s so traumatized by that time 8 years ago when her brother and dad were killed by a motorboat. She went to live with her crazy Aunt Martha and her cousin Ricky. Now her and Ricky are enrolled in summer camp.
But please note, this is Camp Arawak, New York, not the much more polite Camp Crystal Lake in Connecticut. These little bastards swear like a sailor who just dropped an anchor on his toe after listening to Redd Foxx records all day. And they’re mean. Because Angela is a girl, and because she’s new, and because she’s weird, the kids swarm in on her. A stuck up girl says Angela has small boobs, makes fun of her for being shy. In a classic bit of kid logic the bully girl argues that Angela must be a lesbian because she doesn’t take a shower with the other girls. (more…)
10/21/08
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008First of all, rest in peace to the one and only Rudy Ray Moore. The man who stuck his finger in the ground and spun the whole world around. I think his movies are hilarious, but he was also a big inspiration to me as a fellow foul-mouthed weirdo trying to do his own thing through whatever low rent self-financed format he could scrounge up. When I self-published SEAGALOGY I liked to fantasize that I was kind of like either Dr. Dre selling NWA tapes out of the trunk of his car or Rudy Ray printing up his own comedy records and travelling around selling them himself. I don’t think I quite matched the level of either of those, but it’s always good to have something to aspire to.
When I saw the man last year it was obvious he was getting older (in fact, it was his 80th birthday). But a man who uses earthquakes to mix his milkshakes, you don’t expect him to be whupped by diabetes. I guess beating up the days of the week or eating an avalanche can wear you down after a while.
I hope I’ll get time soon to sit down and watch my entire Dolemite box set (”Officially Disapproved By the Man,” by the way) and write up some more scholarly works, but I don’t think Petey Wheatstraw would’ve wanted me to interupt my Halloween marathon. So I got a review of a new horror DVD that comes out today, THE STRANGERS.
