Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: The Crying Game (1992)

"...and as they both sink beneath the waves, the frog cries out, "Why did you sting me, Mr. Scorpion? For now we both will drown!" Scorpion replies, "I can't help it. It's in my nature!" - Jody

"Who knows the secrets of the human heart?" - Col

"You ever try picking up your teeth with broken fingers?" - Fergus

Here's a classic thriller that is almost always ruined or preceded by someone already TELLING you what has happened or is going to happen and ruining the surprise for you. Kind of like that first M. Night Shamalama flick, SIXTH SENSE. I never watched that because someone told the deal before I even heard of it. So fuck it, why do I need to see it now? The suspense is gone. So for whatever reason, maybe you actually haven't heard of the deal with this movie and the surprise is intact, let me go ahead and put a giant *********** SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING!!!!! ************ on here, so that I'm not the one who f'd it all up for you. Also for some reason, I always got this movie mixed up with CRY BABY. So I was always like, "big deal, Johnny Depp has a weiner, who cares, nothing special." Anyway, that's a different movie. This one is Forrest Whitaker, a bunch of Irish people, and a few English blokes in THE CRYING GAME!!!

So Jody (Whitaker) is this British soldier cruising for some ass in Ireland at a country fair. He's got this one chick named Jude hemmed up and she lures him down toward some place where they can get comfortable. Much to the chagrin of our man Jody, it turns out to be a trap and a bunch of Irish IRA dudes jump outta the bushes and beat the hell out of him and tie him up. They mean to hold him for ransom and threaten to execute him if some IRA soldiers are not released by the British. They kind of know all along that the Brits are never going to release him, but they go along with their plan nonetheless. Fergus is one of them that is more sympathetic and gets put in charge of watching over Jody. He sits with him for pretty much the whole three days and they develop a strange friendship, or a least they bond. Fergus has to pull out Jody's wiener for him so he can piss. Guess they should've thought that kind of stuff out beforehand. Anyway, it starts to look bad, and the other IRA guys are calling Fergus out for being kind to Jody. They treat him like shit, and tell Fergus it won't be any easier when they have to kill him. Jody tells Fergus that if they do have to kill him, he wants him to go to England and tell his girl Dil that he loves her and she was the best thing ever, blah blah blah. He also tells him a little moral story about the nature of things called "the scorpion and the frog".

Well it comes time to do it, and Fergus walks him out into the woods and Jody makes a run for it. Fergus screams for him to stop, but Jody runs out into a road and get slammed into by a big British army truck. So he's essentially killed by his own people. Fergus runs like a bastard, and the IRA hideout is exposed and shot full of holes. Fergus then escapes to England. A few years go by I think and Fergus starts to feel bad about the whole thing and he's constantly haunted by the ghost of Jody playing cricket. He goes to find this Dil and ends up getting a haircut from her and then follows her to a bar. Dil takes to Fergus right away and you can tell she's kind of a quirky chick. She speaks through the bartender to "Jimmy" (which is what Fergus is calling himself while he's in hiding from the IRA). He sees her sing the song "The Crying Game" at the bar. She has this English dude treat her like shit in public on the reg, and finally Fergus reluctantly confronts the dude. He threatens him and then starts hanging with Dil. He's very careful though not to do anything to let on that he knew Jody. Only after a while he starts to comment on the pictures she still has up of him.

Fergus starts to fall in love with Dil and they take it slow. Finally one day they begin to make love at her apartment and the camera pans down and BIG REVEAL: SHE HAS A DICK!!! Fergus FREAKS out accidently hitting her and busting her nose on his way to the bathroom to puke! He then splits. Finally after a while he feels super bad about the whole thing and leaves her a note. She eventually forgives him because she's in love with him too. All of a sudden, two of his ex IRA pals show up! He thought they were dead. The chick Jude is a real bitch and she tells him that if he doesn't help them kill a judge they'll kill him and Dil. So ol Fergus is in a real pickle. He has to start treating Dil weirdly because he doesn't want to reveal his secret to her and he also doesn't want her killed.

So Fergus, who even though he feels weird about it, still loves Dil and wants to protect her. So he cuts her hair, and puts her in dudes clothes. He then goes and inspects place where he's to assassinate the judge. He returns and finds Dil drunk as hell. He stays with her overnight and confesses to her about Jody. When he wakes up he's tied to the bed, unable to meet up with the IRA and kill the judge. The one prick IRA guy tries to kill the judge himself and is killed. Jude hauls ass over to Dil's to kill them, but instead is shot several times by Dil and then shot in the neck. Dil almost kills Fergus too, but then tries to kill herself. Fergus talks her into hiding and then wipes her prints off the gun and takes the fall for her and is made to serve 6 years. Then we see Dil visiting Fergus in prison several months later and she's counting the days till he gets out. Dil asks Fergus why he took the fall, and he tells the story of the scorpion and the frog, relaying that it was in his nature. Plus it was his fault that Jody died, so he probably felt he needed to atone for his sins. Pretty great flick. Should you see it? Yeah, hopefully you already have and I didn't just ruin it for you. I did warn you though.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Tremors (1990)

"Cold, my ass, he's dead! We killed it. We killed it! *FUCCKKKK YOOOOUUU!!!* - Val

"There's no way Walter Chang's getting his slick mits on this for no 15 bucks." - Earl

"I think I have a plan. Why don't we throw a bomb the way we want to go and then when it goes off, we run like goddamn bastards!... Pardon my French." - Rhonda

Man, this is one that I just missed out on forever. Now a great cheesy cult horror classic, this one had tons of names, used to be's, and almost was's! Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, EGG CHEN!, Reba McEntire, and Michael Gross (FAMILY TIES) star in TREMORS!!!

Val (Bacon) and Earl (Ward) are handymen in a very small town in Nevada. They are trying to get out of town because they can't really save any money that only has fourteen residents. Finally one day after getting shit sprayed all over them they decide to pack the junk they have in the truck and split. They meet up with a young graduate student who's studying seismic phenomena in the area. On the way out, things keep happening that send the guys back into town. First off, they see an old man way up on an electrical power tower. Val figures he's drunk and goes up to bring him down. He soon realizes the old man is dead and dried up. They take him back into town figuring he died from dehydration after being drunk.

Then Val and Earl go see this dude named "Old Fred" who is a sheep herder. The only problem is all of the sheep are slaughtered and old Fred is dead and his head has a bed in the...dirt. He was dead, whatever. So they think a killer is on the loose and they go to tell the rest of the people in town. They tell these two road workers and then something grabs one of them by the drill and pulls him in the earth, and the other dude gets crushed beneath a pile of rocks. So Val tries to call the police from their town (Perfection), and the phones are dead, so they try to make it to the next town over (Bixby) to get help. Unfortunately there's the rock slide blocking the way and they are now trapped in town. They get ready to go back to town, but Val has the truck trapped in the rubble (he thinks). Back in town at Walter (Egg Chen)'s store, they see that some kind of underground snakes were wrapped around the back axle of the truck. That night, an old man and his wife who are building a house out in Perfection are swallowed up by the snakelike creatures, station wagon and all!

So Val & Earl set out for help on horseback the next morning and some of the snakes attack them. They turn out to really be 3 tongues that are hooked to a giant wormlike creature. It chases them and they run into the grad student Rhonda who is still out there with her readings. The giant worm dies when it crashes into an underground retaining wall and they figure out that there are 3 more of them in the area. One of them traps them out on some rocks because it can feel them move. They are blind but feel through vibrations in the land. So they spend the night on the rocks and escape to the truck in the morning by pole vaulting from rock to rock until they reach it. They get back to town but no one believes them until one of the worms busts through the ground and steals Egg Chen and sucks him into the ground. They then all rush into their homes and the store and up onto their roofs.

So the couple with all the weapons are back in their house and they hit everyone up by cb. They manage to kill one of the worms but another is tearing their underground bunker apart. Back in town, the foundations of the buildings are being torn apart and Val and Earl quickly realize the worms are going to eat them by making the town fall down around them. Suddenly they have an idea about dragging a tractor trailer bed with a bulldozer. They get it going and pick up the couple with the weapon supply. Then they head off into the desert. They THEN get trapped on more rocks because the worms become smart and dig a trench that foils their bulldozer plan. Then they start throwing bombs at the worms and nail one of them. But the last one is much more crafty than the others and it takes them a bit to come up with a spontaneous plan to off it. Finally, Earl urges Val into going for Rhonda who is kind of heinous. Should you? Why not? Its nothing special, but a pretty good stoned out watch.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Savage Streets (1984)

"You're a tough little bitch, aren't you? I like that. But I don't give second warnings. So consider yourself suspended." - Principal Underwood

"Well, well, well... what do we have here? The game's over, bitch. This time you're dead for sure. First, I'm gonna fuck you. Then, I'm gonna slice you into little pieces." - Fargo

"Go fuck an iceberg!" - Principal Underwood

"Ima hide that salami so far up in you, goddamn Christopher Columbus couldn't find it." - Fargo

my buddy Ryan Waste talked this flick up to me a long time before I was able to check it out. If you're a fan of gang flicks, exploitation trash, 80s grit, vigilante justice, or horror film stars Linda Blair or Linnea Quigly then you're in for a treat here. Almost a companion piece to CLASS OF 1984, this one should already be in your collection. Violence, girl's locker room fights, senseless gang murder and the ramifications of raping a girl's deaf sister are all packed into SAVAGE STREETS!!!

So Brenda and her friends have taken her little sister out on the town for the night. A gang of drug dealers who have a young progeny are similarly out doing their thing as well, shaking down low dealers for bread and ripping their girlfriends shirts off and what have you. To teach them a lesson, the girls steal the leader's convertible and drive off leaving them in the dust. The gang finds their car down the street later that night covered in garbage. They scream into the air and vow revenge.

The next day tensions rise all over the place. Brenda is in gym while her school rival is cheering on the squad outside. Brenda's deaf little sister is supposed to wait on her in the gym while she showers and then they'll go hang. However, Brenda gets in a fight in the locker room with her rival over some dimwitted dude and they are sent to the principal's office. While they're in there, the gang comes in and rapes her deaf sister. It's tough to watch. Brenda comes back and finds her sister missing. Her friends help her search for her sister and one of them screams. The girl goes to the hospital, and frustrated, the girls go out to the bar(?). Brenda is crying and getting supported by her friends. Meanwhile, the gang (the Scars) are there at the nightclub too. What are the chances? I thought this was NYC. Everyone at this high school goes to the same hangouts? Must be Brooklyn. Anyway, the gang is still shaking people down and grabbing chicks. They grab one of Brenda's friends (Francine) and some dudes try to stop them and start a fight. Francine stabs the head Scar in the back with a switchblade and escapes.

Vince, the young progeny starts freaking out. The gang shows up at school looking for Francine. Vince makes them promise not to hurt her. Brenda's teacher tries to reach out to her but she isn't having it. In another class, her rival again provokes her by calling her sister a "retard". Brenda rips her shirt off and her titties fall out in front of the whole class. The principal expels her. The gang finally catches up to Francine and Fadden (the leader) THROWS HER OFF A FUCKING OVERPASS! Vince freaks and runs off. He runs to the hospital room of the deaf girl and confesses everything in earshot of Brenda who chases him off and then goes home to take a hot bath.

Brenda sits in the hot bath contemplating while 80s rock music plays and then gets a crossbow and a bunch of beartraps and takes off in her Trakker. She heads over to Vince's house and tricks the dad into letting her in. She threatens to kill Vince unless he tells her where the gang is. Then she goes out to find them and corners the mohawk one and Fargo in a warehouse teasing them with a threesome. The two chase her into the warehouse simultaneously hoping to hurt her and fuck her. She puts a crossbow arrow through Fargo's neck, and then gets Red the mohawk dude. Vince takes out a loan from one of his bosses and is making a getaway until Fadden comes out of the shadows in an alley and runs over Vince with the convertible. He then goes to find the gang, but opens up the warehouse to his two dead buddies. He hears Brenda laughing at him in the distance. He fires off his pistol hoping to hit her, but gets an arrow in his thigh, and then another in the other. He gets caught in a snare and turned upside down, but manages to use the door to knock her out and down. He gets down but she escapes and runs into another paint supply warehouse. He's coming after her but just as she's about to get caught, she slings a pan of Gesso on his head and then sets him on fire. He screams and freaks out and dies. Then the cops come. Cut to a scene where all the girls including the deaf girl are at Francine's grave. The End. Was it worth it? Yeah, pretty much for the girls locker room scene alone. Check it out.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Explorers (1985)

"Look, I know I must look weird to you but how do you think you look to me? Listen, I watched four episodes of "Lassie" before I figured out why the little hairy kid never spoke. I mean, he rolled over, sure, he did that fine but, I don't think he deserved a series for that." - Wak

"Elephantitis is when something gets bloated and ugly like your ASS." - Ben

"I would like... cheese... go... to... hell..." - Heinlein the Mouse

This was SUCH AN AWESOME FLICK when I was a little duder. My lil adopted Earth brother is 11 now and i just told him he basically had to stop whatever he was doing and go watch this immediately. Rewatching it, there are so many little parts that i had forgotten about. I just remembered the basic plotline. Forgot that these guys were the losers. Makes me like it even more now, probably why I dug it so much in the first place. The film debuts of River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke in EXPLORERS!!!

When the flick begins 6th grader Ben (Hawke) is having a dream where he's flying over his town and then he's in some kind of computer or what looks to be an early TRON-like video game. He sees some kind of weird circuit board but he doesn't even know what it is. When he wakes up, he's watching THIS ISLAND EARTH (The movie they watch in the actual MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE) and its super loud and probably why he was having wild dreams in the first place. So he draws a picture of what he saw in his dream and takes it to his buddy at school the next day. His buddy is named Wolfgang (Phoenix) and he's super nerd. He is busy getting beaten up when Ben comes up and helps him pick up his scattered books. He tells him about the chip and shows him the drawing. He tells him don't worry because the kid who beat him up has elephantitis. Word gets back to dude and then Ben is fighting at lunch. Some other negative kid bails him out and runs from the bullies but drops his walkman. Ben follows him home and brings it back to him trying to thank him.

The thing about Ben is that he is SUPER DUPER FUCKING CHIPPER, POSITIVE, AND OPTIMISTIC about the future. About everything. He's so syrupy it makes you wanna puke. And the other kid has a bad home life, & as much as he hates to he takes Ben up on going to hang so he can get away from his abusive alcoholic dad. They stop by Wolfgang's on the way home and he's built the circuit already and when they connect it, some kind of forcefield puts a hole through all of his dime store novels... in a row... like a bullet. So they freak out and then the next day, he's figured some more shit out and he makes whatever the force is visible and says he can program it to go anywhere in space on a fixed grid. Some shenanigans ensue and they end up meeting over the course of the next half hour (for a few weeks) and do tests... way up on a hill, and then they accidentally figure out that they can get inside of it. So they decide to build a "ship" to protect them from falling as they decide to travel around town in it. They must be staying up late every night to build it because we get a montage of them falling asleep in class and getting answers wrong that the teacher is asking, etc.

So they get it up and running and test drive it, zooming by the chick Ben like's house and then destroying the snack bar at the local drive in. Before they can get home a police helicopter catches up to them and can't decide whether it was aliens or a practical joke or what. They begin to go higher and Wolfgang pulls the circuit out and puts it in backwards and the force takes them safely home. The other guys can't wait to go back, but Wolfgang says, no way, we gotta do more tests. The cop goes back out and thinks he's spotted something weird in the ravine where they are hiding the ship. The kids all have the same dream so they know something is telling them to go back into the ship, they can feel whatever it is calling to them. Meanwhile the old cop figures out Ben's identity and goes to his house but Ben slips through his hands and gets to the ship. The boys take off right when the copper rolls up and he looks up at them and smiles, delighted because he always wanted to be a "fun-loving-space-ship-sci-fi-nerd-kid-who-went-to-space" too.

So they go up to space and they are taken into this large ship and they meet a couple of aliens. Then they have some actions, and some reactions, and then something else happens. No spoiler for this one. There's a neat twist to the ending that I don't wanna give away. Its cute, and worth watching even if Ethan Hawke is like a glass of sweet tea that needs to be cut with unsweetened. Undrinkable. But definitely watch this.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Daredevil (2003)

"Hell's Kitchen is my neighborhood. I prowl the rooftops and alleyways at night, watching from the darkness. Forever in darkness. A guardian devil." - Daredevil

"She's hideous. I don't know if it's a fungus or some sort of congenital birth defect. But, as your attorney in this matter, I advise you to take no further action." - Foggy Nelson

"Business. It's all it ever is, business. I was working for Fallon at the time. Your father was supposed to throw a fight. And your girl... was in the wrong family at the wrong time." - Kingpin

I waited ten years to watch this piece of shit. And you know what? Its just as I suspected, a big piece of shit. Well, I WILL say this, the exact same movie could have been made the EXACT same way and could have come out 15 times better had they used different actors. That's all I will say in its defense. The only real bad part is the acting. Otherwise, its a blind guy exacting vigilante justice on mafia-esque criminals in the same city as Spider-Man, just a different part... I guess. Comic book nerds know the deal, these ARE comic book movies, so - AS MUCH AS WE CAN- we suspend our belief and hope that they don't murder our beloved characters that we've grown up with and spent time with for who knows? Twenty plus years?? Well what can I say? I've seen almost all of the Marvel movies, and MOST of them don't let you down. If you WANT a Daredevil movie, then you're gonna get it. If you want a GOOD Daredevil movie, well I guess you're gonna have to wait to they decide its worth it again, which might very well be never (BUT THEN AGAIN, WHAT DO I KNOW? THEY DID A GHOST RIDER SEQUEL....). Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Collin Farrell, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Jon Favreau "star" in DAREDEVIL!!!

In the beginning its raining and Daredevil falls through this cathedral window into the main area of the parish and a preacher guy comes up to him. Apparently then we immediately flashback to what led up to this event. We are introduced to Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer and his buddy Foggy. They don't make much bread because Matt will represent you even if you are completely broke, as long as you are innocent. And somehow he has a way of knowing... somehow he can sense it. And then, we go into a flashback INSIDE OF THIS FLASHBACK!! MINDBLOWN. Matt's dad was a boxer in Hell's Kitchen, but he got in with some mobsters and starting muscling for them and lying to his son about it. But Matt busted him doing it and ran away only to almost get hit by a toxic waste truck which spilt the shit in his eyes. He wakes up in a hospital freaking out because the waste gave him this crazy sonar where his other senses are super heightened. So he teaches himself to flip around and fight like a ninja at 13 on the rooftops like a young blind Spider-Man.

His dad feels bad for causing his son to be blind so he starts boxing again but refuses to throw a fight for the mob dudes and then they kill him leaving a rose on his dead body. Matt vows to avenge his father's death and becomes Daredevil. Flashforward and Matt & Foggy are eating in a deli and this chick walks in (kind of like Seinfeld). Matt goes after her to ask her name and they start ninja fighting in a schoolyard with a bunch of kids watching. Turns out she happens to be Electra, the daughter of a shady businessman who deals with this other shadier business exec named Wilson Fisk. The underground crime syndicate knows him as Kingpin. I kept thinking the whole movie that it reminded me of the Dolph Lundgren version of PUNISHER, because its a badly acted dark Marvel vigilante hero movie. Makes sense that both The Punisher and Daredevil fought against the Kingpin. Anyway Kingpin has it out for this Mr. Natchios and he hires a crazy badguy named Bulleye to come do the job.

Bullseye is a nutjob who never misses at anything be it darts or killing people. Matt falls in love with Electra and they get invited to this big shindig. There is a reporter there who is trying to find out dirt on the Daredevil. Then Bullseye shows up. Daredevil thwarts his first attempt to kill Natchios, and really pissed Bullseye off (because he claims to NEVER miss). But he eventually kills Natchios and frames Daredevil for it. Electra was there and she even thought that Daredevil killed her father. So Daredevil splits and sleeps in his weird coffin. The reporter finds Matt/Daredevil's stick at the coroner's and figures out Daredevil's identity but doesn't rat him out. Then Daredevil goes to fight Bullseye. He shows up but then Electra kicks his ass and rips off his mask realizing she's made a mistake. But she hurt him so bad it would take bit for him to recover. Meanwhile she had to fight Bullseye herself.

So Bullseye kills Electra and is about to finish off Daredevil but the cops show up tipped off by the reporter dude. So he splits and Daredevil does to and falls through that church window bringing us up to speed with the beginning of the movie. The preacher knows him and tries to help but Daredevil says get outta here and finally he does once Bullseye shows up. (A weird side note: At one point Bullseye tells Kingpin he'll kill Daredevil but he wants a costume. I guess he's just making fun of Daredevil because he never puts one on. I thought that was weird because in the comics he totally wears one. whatever.) So they fight and Bullseye figures out that clanging the organ fucks Daredevil up and he can't hear or see or anything when he makes loud noise. So he uses that to get an advantage till Daredevil uses his sonar to pull Bullseye's hands in front of a sniper's bullet. Then Daredevil finds out that its Fisk who killed his father and is behind this whole thing as well. So he goes to kill him and fights him in his office where its raining like hell because they punch out the windows way up on a high floor of this skyscraper. Fisk starts whooping his ass even rips his mask off and finds out his identity too (Dude needs a better mask). Finally Daredevil overpowers him but doesn't kill him. Sends him to the slammer and says he'll be waiting when he gets out. Fisk swears he'll tell everyone Matt's secret, but Matt says yeah right, who's gonna believe you let a blind man whoop yer ass. Then he finds a locket like Electra's but with braille on it, so we assume she's still alive. End. Should you? No. There are plenty more superhero movies you can spend your time with. Nothing special here.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Convoy (1978)

"Piss on you, and piss on your law." - Rubber Duck

"You oughta be shot right where you're standing! So help me if I had a gun, I'd do it myself!" - Cottonmouth Wallace

"This piece of white shit! I knew I should've bought myself a black truck!" - Widow Woman

Really and truly this is nothing but Sam Peckinpah creating a SMOKY AND THE BANDIT except for Smoky is driving a black 18 wheeler instead of a black Camaro in reference to the 1975 country song "Convoy". BUT it IS directed by Sam Peckinpah and stars Kris Kristofferson, Ernest Borgnine, Paulie from ROCKY, and TC from CARWASH, so join me and check out CONVOY!!!

The Rubber Duck is a truck driver and he's hauling ass and this hot chick in a Jaguar pulls up beside him and they race a bit. "RD" gets pulled and I think the Jag actually pulls over a bit ahead. RD tells the copper that the girl had no panties on and she was flashing him. The copper is horny and lets RD go and goes to get the chick. She gets pulled, he passes her by and meets up with a few other truckers he knows, Spider Mike and Pig Pen. A trucker ahead of them tells them that its ok to haul ass again and they speed up but it turns out the trucker was a cop tricking them over their cb's. Copperhead Wallace pulls them and tells them to pay him 50 bucks each or get big tickets. He makes them pay even more for shit talking him. Then they leave and split down to a diner they frequent.

Now the whole time they're doing this, they are shittalking Wallace on their cb's knowing full well that he's out there listening to them. They go check out the diner, and RD has a girlfriend waitress who works there. The chick in the jag is broken down there and hanging too. Wallace pulls up looking for trouble like Ben Affleck's character in DAZED AND CONFUSED. Just a real prick. So RD is getting some ass in his truck, Pig Pen and Spider Mike start making fun of Wallace again and he is searching the lot. They try to tell RD to chill out and get back in there, but Wallace goes in and starts harassing the other guys. Spider Mike has no bread and only wants to get home to his pregnant wife, but Wallace tries to arrest him after he can't pay his "shittalking fee" which is basically extortion. Finally RD peels himself away and comes in to try to smooth things out. Wallace insults Mike and Mike punches him. Then some other cops come in and it starts a full on knockdown dragout. Its an awesome old style slow motion cowboy fight and in the end Wallace is handcuffed to a seat and the drivers decide to split to the state line so they don't get arrested. RD makes his girlfriend get out of the truck and brings the Jag chick with him because she needs a ride in a SUPER AWKWARD exchange of chicks. However, Jag chick is not too psyched once the drivers are blasting out of town as fast as their trucks will take them, one even turning over and crashing.

So the race is on, and more and more truckers decide to join in the "convoy" until its over a mile long. Coppers try to stop the truckers but they blast through weigh stations at high speeds. At one point they smash Wallace's car between two trucks. Then ultimately they decide to go down a treacherous bumpy desert dirt road that leaves dozens of cop cars crashed out and stuck in the sand. All the while the convoy keeps getting longer and longer. At a certain point, Spider Mike leaves to go check out his newborn son. The media grabs hold of the story and attempts to ask RD why the convoy is happening and what his plans are. He keeps it vague and says the point is to keep going. I was wondering if they were going to have him crash a la VANISHING POINT. But then the governor up for reelection wants to look good for his constituents and they apparently support RD, so he wants to support him as well. Meanwhile Spider Mike is arrested and beaten.

The convoy heads to Texas and busts Spider Mike out of jail destroying half the town in its wake. They decide to head to Mexico so they don't get caught. On the way there, there is a traffic incident that stops the whole convoy behind RD. RD heads on towards Mexico but on the bridge there is a huge showdown and Wallace is on top of his car with a gatling gun firing it at RD's truck and destroys it running it off the bridge. Then a funeral is held for the Rubber Duck and the convoy drives by the coffin in salute to his life. At the back of the convoy is a bus full of hippies and a preacher. They ask the jag chick to get inside and in the back she finds the Rubber Duck in disguise who asks her, "did you ever see a duck that couldn't swim?". End credits. The weirdest part is that when the bus drives by, Wallace sees Rubber Duck in the bus and he just starts laughing maniacally. After all that, he doesn't get pissed, he just gives this, "well he got me" smile and shrugs it off. UGGGH. Should you watch this one? Well its not the best trucker movie ever, but its a pretty good late night springtime flick. Have a couple cold ones and you'll feel better about it.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Death Race 2000 (1975)

"You know Myra, some people might think you're cute. But me, I think you're one very large baked potato." - Joe

"Frankenstein! Frankenstein the legend, Frankenstein the indestructible! Sole survivor of the titanic pile-up of '95, only two-time winner of the Transcontinental Road Race... Frankenstein! Ripped up, wiped out, battered, shattered, creamed, and reamed... a dancer on the brink of death... Frankenstein, who lost a leg in '98, an arm in '99! With half a face and half a chest, and all the guts in the world, he's back!" - Junior

"To recap those revisions: women are still worth 10 points more than men in all age brackets, but teenagers now rack up 40 points, and toddlers under 12 now rate a big 70 points. The big score: anyone, any sex, over 75 years old has been upped to 100 points." - Harold

This is an old favorite, and one that Valient Thorr has shown behind us before when we've played live. Its an amazing low budget flick with young "will be" superstar actors David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone. It was produced by ol Roger Corman and was one of only 2 flicks where he gave up a percentage of the gross to an actor. Carradine got 10% of this one, and I believe the other was Ron Howard in GRAND THEFT AUTO. Anyway, a gory ride indeed, kick back and check out DEATH RACE 2000!!!

In the future, the US has run out of money, and the political climate is dismal. The US has eroded into one bipartisan party that rules the country as a business AND as a church. In this Police State the major form of entertainment that has come forward is a bloody three day cross country race in which racers and their navigators are encouraged to not only kill the other racers, but to run over any pedestrians that get in their way. You don't actually win by being the first to cross the finish line, but you can steal the race by the points you accumulate according to how many and what age group pedestrians you murder. That is, if you finish the race at all... (followed by exaggerated Blowflyesque maniacal laughter)

The country is ruled by a "Mister President" who doesn't even come out in public much except for maybe once a year to give his blessing to the games and the winner. The presumed winner of this year's race (as he's won the last howmanyever years in a row) is Frankenstein, a man who wears a mask because of the extensive damage done to his face and body over course of many years transversing and outwitting numerous racers to be victorious. His competitors are Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (a gangster), Calamity Jane Kelly (a cowgirl), Matilda the Hun (a nazi), and Nero the Hero (a Roman). Each one has a car and navigator designed to fit their persona. Frankenstein's car is a custom Shayla Vette that looks like an alligator. Its pretty awesome.

The year 2000 is the 20th annual race and there is a resistance group that is out to kill the racers and make a stand against Mister President. They plan on kidnapping Frankenstein and using him as leverage. They kill almost all of the racers themselves and even go so far as to circumvent the actual national race footage by pirating a signal announcing their mission, but the government covers this up and blames it on the French (the national enemy of the time blamed for ruining their economy in the first place - and their telephone system). Frankenstein's navigator is the granddaughter of the mastermind behind the resistance- Thomasina Paine (a reference to the American Revolutionary Thomas Paine). The granddaughter Annie is supposed to kidnap Frankenstein but instead she falls in love with him when he divulges that all of his character traits are bullshit made up by the government to have a national hero. Whenever one Frankenstein dies, another takes his place. He doesn't even know how many Frankensteins there have been. His fake burnt eyeball, legs, arms, that's all a sham. This guy doesn't even like the President, but he isn't going to let the granddaughter of some revolutionary chick stop his OWN plans... (more maniacal laughter)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILER WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So Frankenstein plans to kill Mister President himself by using his "hand grenade" but Annie has to use it to kill Machine Gun Joe. Then Frankenstein drugs Annie and Thomascina and her resistance think she is dead. So Frankenstein gets Annie to dress up and kill the President by stabbing him. When Mister Pres goes to shake Frankie's hand, he announces a war against France and appoints Frankie the Minister of War or something like that, but Thomascina shoots her own granddaughter thinking she's killing Frankenstein. Frankenstein then jumps in his car and rams the stage killing Mister President once and for all. Then they get married and Frankie abolishes the race. Then this really annoying sportscaster whom we've seen the whole movie gets in front of Frankie's new car freaking out on him for stopping the race. So Frankie gives the people what they want and runs over his ass. Should you see this? Yup, this is a classic. Enjoy.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: The Omen (1976)

"When the Jews return to Zion / And a comet rips the sky / And the Holy Roman Empire rises, / Then You and I must die. / From the eternal sea he rises, / Creating armies on either shore, / Turning man against his brother / 'Til man exists no more." - Father Brennan

"Wrong? What could be wrong with our child, Robert? We're the beautiful people, aren't we?" - Kathy Thorn

"The child is dead. He breathed for a moment. Then he breathed no more. The child is dead. Dead. The child is dead." - Father Spilleto

Richard Donner! Director of the first SUPERMAN (the second one too if they hadn't have fucked him over), THE GOONIES, and the first couple LETHAL WEAPONs brings us this tale of a terribly evil little boy that prophesy says will bring about the destruction of the world. A scary 70s flick with Gregory Peck, Roy Boyd (from THE WICKER MAN), and Lee Remick in THE OMEN!!!

A child dies born to the wife of the newly elected US ambassador to Great Britain. He's stationed in Rome and this old preacher somehow convinces Thorn (the dude) to take another newborn white baby whose mother had just died. He reluctantly does so thinking that it will be better for his wife if she never knows that her baby died.

Fast forward to his fifth birthday party and everyone is having a good time until this big black dog shows up. It catches eyes with Damien (the baby)'s nanny and she goes upstairs and proclaims to the whole party, "It's all for you Damien, it's all for you." and hangs herself out the fucking window. Kids start screaming, a clown hides a kid's eyes, it's a mess. So then this other nanny shows up out of nowhere bullshitting them that "the agency" sent her over after they read about the incident in the paper. And she takes in the big scary growling dog as a pet.

They try to take Damien to church and he has an absolute fucking freakout. Same thing at the zoo, the baboons jump all over the car trying to smash in the windows to get to him, but none of the other animals will have anything to do with him. On a business trip, a preacher comes and warns Thorn that his son is evil and may not be human and gets thrown out. But he keeps showing up telling Thorn that his wife is preggers and that Damien will never let the child be born. So the wife starts acting weird, and says she's pregnant but wants an abortion. Thorn says no way, because he doesn't want to believe the prophesy. So he meets with the preacher again who tells him that he's gotta kill his son, who isn't really his son anyway. And he tells him the only one who can help him. And then that preacher gets killed. And then Damien runs into his mother while she's hanging something and she falls over a railing and loses the baby. Thorn goes on a trip with this photographer who thinks his pics predict the deaths associated with Damien to find out who Damien's mother really was. The photog has a vested interest since his camera caught his reflection in a mirror revealing that he would die soon also.

They visit the hospital where Damien was born. Then they go to a monastery to visit the monk who performed the surgery. Then they go dig up the graves of the mother (a jackal) and Thorn's real son, who had his head bashed in so that the Antichrist would be placed into a family of wealth. Then a bunch of dogs chase them outta there. Then they go see this dude Bukenhagen who gives them the special knives to kill the kid with. Thorn freaks and throws them away saying he'll never do it. The photog goes to retrieve them and is decapitated. Then Thorn learns that his wife was thrown out of the hospital window like 20 stories up by the maid. So Thorn freaks and goes and shaves his kid's head to see if he has the mark of the beast on his gourd. YUP. So he goes to do the deed with the 7 daggers of Megiddo, but is shot to death by the cops who frown on child murder. Then we see the funeral and Damien is standing with his new parents, the president of the US and um... the first lady. Should you? Why not? Should I watch the sequels? Probably! I think I'll do a big sequel fest coming up soon.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Near Dark (1987)

"The light that's leaving that star right now will take a billion years to get down here. You want to know why you've never met a girl like me before?...Because I'll still be here when the light from that star gets down here to earth in a billion years." - Mae

"Well, why don't you lick it up off the bar, meatball?" - Severin

"You have any idea what it's like to be a big man on the inside and have a small body on the outside?" - Homer

Thanks to Skelethorr for the suggestion on this one! A rad 80s vampire movie WITHOUT ever mentioning vampire not once not ever. We all know that it has to be dealing with vampires, but its very subtle in its language, not so much in it execution. This is truly more like a MAD MAX style western than a vampire flick, and it has some very inventive albeit controversial twists. AND LOOK AT THIS CAST: Tim Thomerson (!), Lance Henrikson (!), a very funny Bill Paxton, and the kid from RIVER'S EDGE all starring in NEAR DARK!!!

This one begins with a cowboy going out to some honky tonk to meet up with his buddy cowboys. And they talk some shit to each other and then one of them spots this hot little number hanging out in front the gas station next door. He immediately heads over to talk to her, but she is basically looking up at the stars the whole time they talk. He's totally going for her, but she is acting weird and blowing him off. At some point she asks for a ride home and they stop and listen to "the darkness" and he says he can't hear anything. "Just up the road" must have been pretty far away because by the time they get close, the sun is about to come up. She starts freaking out and says get me home, but he stops the car and hides the keys and says not until you give me a kiss. So she does, and then she bites him on the neck. All he says is "that was some kiss". And then she runs off. He can't get his truck to start anyway (I think that's what happened. For some reason he heads home on foot). By then the sun starts coming up and his skin starts burning, and he's stumbling all over the place and starts coming up to his dad's farm and his lil sister yells for him and then this Winnebago hauls ass across the horizon and grabs him off the dirt road, turns around and splits with the dad and sister chasing along after them.

The killer thing about this movie is they never mention vampires. We know it because of the blood sucking and the hiding from the sun, but there are very few other cliche vampire things in the flick. And there are a couple really crazy ideas that I've never heard of in here too. I think there were a number of vampire flicks that came out around the same time in the late 80s (FRIGHT NIGHT, VAMP, THE LOST BOYS, ONCE BITTEN). I think they were trying to go for something different with this one. A bit darker, drop the comedy, introduce something new to the mix. Bummer, but I'm pretty sure this flopped at the box office.

The Winnebago is full of a gang of vampires. Lance Henrikson and his chick, and the two "sons" Bill Paxton as "Severen", and the kid "Homer" who is now just an old vampire stuck in a kid's body. Severen is wild as hell and wants to kill the cowboy (Caleb) right away. Mae (the chick) tells him she's turned him. They are all pissed as hell, especially Homer because he is the one who turned Mae so she'd be "his" chick. But she didn't go for that because he was too young. Anyway they give him a timeline, if he doesn't make a kill within the week, they are going to kill him. So Mae tries to get him to kill a trucker and she teaches him some stuff, but he just doesn't want to do it, and so to keep him alive she let's him drink her blood. That makes her sick so she tells him he's going to have to kill soon or else they will really kill him. Meanwhile the dad (Tim Thomerson) and sister are searching all over the place trying to find Caleb.

So the gang goes to a bar and Severen is hilarious because he just doesn't give a fuck. He is pure evil and does whatever he wants. They basically massacre the place except this one kid gets away (because fucking Caleb lets him) and everyone is pissed as hell at Caleb and then they have to hole up in this shitty motel. Then the cops surround them, but facing sunlight and bullets, Caleb runs to their blacked out van and crashes it into their room allowing them to escape. Finally they get to another motel and Homer brings this young chick back to the room and he wants to turn her for his own. It turns out to be Caleb's sister! So there's this big fight and Caleb escapes with his dad and sis. This all leads to a huge final scene and sequence and I'm really leaving a lot out here, but if I tell you any more it will ruin it. This is one of those that have to be seen to be really gotten. The thing that happens before the final "battle" if you wanna call it that is unique to any other vampire movie I've ever seen, so if you dig this kind of thing at all, you should definitely see this one.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Xtro (1983)

"Okay Paula, could you stop eating, we don't want to see the crumbs on your toenails. Kev, could you just get rid of that stuff? That's good and dust off the shoes. Could you remove the food? Kevin take it away, we don't wanna see a fat food here. Paula- you're not selling an orthapedic shoe." - Joe

"well that's all it takes. If you think hard about something, you can make it happen. You'll be able to do lots of things. Use it when you need it." - Sam

"Daddy's hurt." - Tony

This is a gross movie that I've heard about for a long time. Just seeing the cover of the flick (same as the poster) made me freak out needing to see it. Looks like it would be a cross between THE SHINING and maybe GHOULIES. Liss said a while back (a few years) that her and her sisters used to watch it as kids and she thinks that one of them still had their VHS copy. I'd wanted to see if for a long time and finally after searching for who knows how long, and finally remembering to grab it when at her house, it was in our grasp. Now after watching it is, why the hell a group of young sisters would wanna watch this GROSS ass flick! A bunch of British never was's in XTRO!!!!

This is a really bad flick. Kind of like the best kind of bad one too. It tries really really hard to impress you and/or gross you out, and I can say that it succeeds on both levels to some degree. The flick begins with a father and son maybe flying a kite or something on a farm and suddenly the dad is abducted. Then we very quickly skip to three years later where the boy is being taken care of by his mother, her live in boyfriend, and a hot french au pair. Suddenly one night Tony wakes up covered in blood.

All he says is "daddy's hurt." They haven't heard from the dad for 3 years, and the everyone thinks he just ran off and no one believes Tony's story about the light taking him away. Then a ship comes from the sky and a backwards alien man-dog thing creeps outta the woods and jumps out in front of a car. A dude tells the chick to wait there and then he checks out what he thought he saw. Which is total bullshit, I would have gotten the F outta there with the quickness. Anyway, he gets got, the whiny chick gets got, then the thing goes to some other chick's house and sucks her neck and then curls up and withers away. He wasn't sucking, he was planting some weird baby inside of her, and then SHE GIVES BIRTH TO A FULL HUMAN MAN. And its the dad.

Sam (the dad) gets Tony from school showing up out of nowhere after 3 years. Boyfriend Joe isn't down. The mom doesn't know what to do. Joe gets pissed. Sam eats Tony's snake's eggs. Then he has to chase Tony down and explain to him that he now has powers. He tells him about getting taken away and then he sucks his blood. Then the au pair gets fucked a lot. Now Tony has powers and he makes a midget clown come to life. His snake disturbs a neighbor and she kills it, so Tony uses his powers to make an army man come to life and murder her. Then he murders the au pair and the midget clown makes a real life Giger painting out of her and uses her to manufacture snake/alien/clone/Tony eggs in the bathtub. Then the dad invites the mom out to the farm.

Joe jumps in his 1982 Range Rover and grabs Tony who has shown up at his photography studio after killing the au pair and her boyfriend (using a deadly toy tank). Then they haul ass out to the farm where Sam is boning the mom after years of her living with her new dude. While they are boning SAM'S SKIN STARTS COMING OFF and he turns into the "Xtro". Then Sam kills Joe and takes Tony to a spaceship that melts Tony's skin off and they fly away leaving the mother all alone. EXCEPT... when she gets home, the home is full of those snake/clone/baby eggs and she picks one up that breaks out and bites into her face. SCENE. Should you see this? Fudge yeah. Everyone should have to sit through that once. Is it good? Not really.