Wednesday, June 29, 2011

bad/awesome flixxx review: Lady Terminator (1989)



"We've seen more dead bodies than you've eaten hot dogs, so shut up and eat. "- Max

"Joe bought it."- Max

"Fuck you, you vile sea bitch!"- Snake

"Tub- my buddy."- Joe

"Snake- get the Panzer."- Max

"Ima get drunk tonight, I just won a ton of money at the races!- Redneck in bar

"Hey pretty. You too pretty. Yall wanna party? Whatsamatter wanna see it first?"- Redneck in bar

"Hey bartender, do you sell beer in here, or just MILK, har har!- other redneck

Wow. It took me long enough to get around to this one. I guess the trailer just doesn't do it justice. This fucking movie made me laugh all the way through. Basically what we have here is an Indonesian Terminator rip-off mixed with some local folklore about a witch called the South Sea Queen. Classic shit. No one you've ever heard of in - LADY TERMINATOR!!!





So, this movie (which also goes by the name Nasty Hunter) starts off with a scene from the ancient past of a lady who can't be satisfied by any man. No matter how many she fucks, she can't figure it out, so she just kills them after she's finished. She somehow kills them by having a snake come out of her vagina and eat their weiners off. Then one day, this dude comes in and he's giving it to her. Man, he's just... going for it. So while she's creamin, the snake starts to come out and this dude GRABS IT! and then it turns into a knife! The "South Sea Queen" screams that he tricked her and she curses him and claims she'll have her revenge 100 years later on his great granddaughter. Then she splits into the ocean.



Fast forward to the late 80s. There's this chick named Tania and she's a grad student anthropologist. She goes to the library, reads up on it, ignores the librarians warning, rents a boat, ignores the captains warning, and then goes diving in the south sea. Then a huge wave kills the captain, and then she's on a bed at the bottom of the sea, and tied down, and then a snake goes up into HER vagina. Then she walks naked out of the sea, and up to some punkrockers on the beach and fucks both of them and takes their weiners. Then she goes to "recharge" in a hotel in front of a painting of the queen and lightning shoots out of her eyes and then she kills another dude. Meanwhile there's this cop and he's in a flashback scene where he meets his old wife in a bar. Some rednecks try to hit on her and beats them up with the help of his friends Snake and Joe. Snake has the coolest mullet ever.



ok, so then fast forward to now, and he's gotta go with some other detectives and check out the stiffs with no weiners. Then we meet the great granddaughter who is a rock singer. She has on some necklace which is supposed to protect her? Doesn't make sense. Also theres an uncle who comes out of nowhere to help. The Lady Terminator tracks her, kills her friend, takes a fake necklace and gets pissed. She comes to the "pub" to kill her, but Max and the cops get the girl out, but not before one of them gets shot. Now we have a serious chase through the mall with loads of innocents getting killed. They make it outside, and somehow Max opens a car door, and grabs an M-16! How did he know that. And well, maybe it was his car, but why would he have an M-16?! BOOOOM. Basically 5 minutes of explosions. The terminator chick grabs a car and chases them to the police station, where she proceeds to kill at least 50 or 60 riot geared cops. Oh theyre all blasting her with machine guns, but nothing works. Finally the weird uncle throws the necklace at the termi's eye and she goes down. Then she gets up and kills him... but she is hurt. Max and the girl get away. Max tells her about his dead wife. Then he fucks her. Then lady terminator goes to a hotel, CUTS OUT HER OWN EYE, then fucks and kills another dude to rejuvenate her juices. Apparently she can't be satisfied either.



So this all leads to another massive showdown that lasts for probably 30 minutes. I've never seen more gunfire in a movie, I'm talking helicopters, panzer tanks, you name it. Max finally calls in backup from America, and Snake comes running with a group of dudes. Anyway. They burn the termi up but it STILL doesn't stop her. Finally when almost everyone is dead, The young great granddaughter somehow finds or grabs the snake knife from somewhere... maybe the lady termi's hip??! and shoves it in her. Then she tries to grab it, and it just flies out the window into the sea. Max and her live happily ever after. This movie is totally insane. Unintentionally hilarious and filled with the goods. Try and find it if you can, but i'd just try to download this one, because i've only scene it once in like Minneapolis and the dude wanted over 50 bucks for it. YEAH RIGHT!!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

bad/awesome flixxx review: Eliminators (1986)



"That's Italian. It means "We kick ass." "- Ray

"We got robots, we got cave men, we got kung fu...What is this? Some kinda goddamn comic book?- Harry

"Dismantle the Mandroid, we have no further use for him."- Abbott Reeves

This was suggested by my good buddy Tim "True Believer" McLaws. I had never seen nor heard of it until he posted the trailer up for me to watch a while back. This one has a little bit of everything. After watching said trailer, you'll probably fall into two different camps: the ones who say, this looks like SHIT- and the ones who say, this looks like SHIT, but I MUST see it. If you are a fan of movies that are simultaneously low budget, stretching that budget for every single nickel that they can get out of it, AND don't really do a good job of it, or either the vision is beyond that budget, well this one might just be for you. A bunch of nobodies really, except for 2 longtime tv actors (a veteran cowboy guy who looks too young to have been acting in 1957, and kind of looks like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, & the blond chick with the scullet from Star Trek the Next Generation) star in ELIMINATORS!!!







Ok, get a load of this: A half-man/ half-tank cyborg called "the Mandroid" is sent back in time by an evil scientist named Abbot Reeves and his buddy Takata. They've just figured out this time machine and sent the Mandroid back to retrieve a shield from a Roman soldier. Takata really likes the Mandroid, but Reeves doesn't give a shit about him. The Mandroid has memories that he can't really remember but something about he used to be a pilot and he crashed and Reeves pulled him from the wreckage and turned him into the Mandroid. Reeves looks like he's about to die, and he plugs some cord into his side and this juice goes into him apparently giving him his fix of whatever he needs to keep him from suffering. He tells Takata to dismantle the Mandroid, but Takata is like, "He's human!" but Reeves doesn't care. Takata tries to help the Mandroid escape but gets killed. The Mandroid blasts his way out of Reeves compound (which must be somewhere in Mexico- that would explain why all of Reeves henchmen are Mexican), and at some point decides to go by the name John (aka John Doe- yeah, clever).



Takata's last words were for John to go find Colonel Hunter, b/c he's supposed to be a badass technology wizard and help John fix his parts. So he does, and it turns out that Col Hunter is a hot(?) chick scientist who's pretty smart and ol Abbott Reeves stole all of her ideas. Even the ones to build the Mandroid were ripped off from her "Mars probe". Mandroid vows to go kill Reeves no matter what the cost and he's pretty sure he's up to no good. Col Nora Hunter gets John to let her come with him to fight Reeves and she brings along this 80s toy robot that they say is like cutting edge technology called S.P.O.T. Spot looks so dated that its just downright laughable. So they head down to Mexico(?) or somewhere in South America where theres a river. They hire this scamp of a riverboat captain named Harry Fontana, who is like a down on his luck, take all comers/ treasure hunter/ guide for hire type dude. He has a lot of enemies in town, like Bayou Betty the lesbian boat guide and her bumbling French partner guy. Seriously, the characters are all carefully and painstakingly constructed in all of their many idiosyncrasies.



Then they go on a boat ride looking for John/Mandroids old plane, and are chased by Bayou Betty and some other "guides" over and over and then finally chased by this big fat henchmen in a speedboat with shotguns. John & Nora fire Harry just to go on foot when they get down far enough and then Harry ditches the fat man. Then Nora gets stuck in Johns old plane and Harry has to rescue her. Proving his worth, he wants to be a part of the team convinced that they are looking for sunken treasure. Nora promises to cut him in for 1/3 the loot. Then they are going through the jungle and get caught by CAVE MEN!!! Obviously some Reeves time travel experiment, they narrowly escape the Neanderthals (and I shit you not- they introduce a FUCKING NINJA INTO THE CAST- ONE HOUR AND ONE MINUTE INTO THE FUCKING MOVIE!!!) with the help of Takata's kung fu master son Kuji who is out looking for his father. They tell him his pop is toast, but he joins up anyway to get revenge on Reeves.



So then this "motley" crew of "unlikely" heroes heads over Reeves headquarters and break inside. Then Reeves captures them and comes out to reveal himself transformed into a young man. With the success of his time travel machine, he has decided to split from this time stream and head back to become the newest Ceasar in Rome, and he built himself some powerful Iron Man style Mandroid armor that blows the mandroid's shit outta the water. He shoots Mandroid, then encloses the others in a lightning web or something. Mandroid comes alive long enough to absorb the energy, but then he dies. Then Nora, Harry and Kuji make a run for it to try and stop Reeves from going back in time, ultimately changing history forever. They are too late, but Harry kind of punches the keyboard, and "OH NO"! Too bad! Old Abbott Reeves gets send to 15 bajillion years BC, where he is "the Ceasar of Nothing". FREEZE FRAME ENDING!!!!! Of their three faces laughing!!! Isn't that how all the hour long tv dramas ended in the 80s??? Charlie's Angels- "hahaaha, we really pulled a fast one on them." CUT! All 3 girls faces frozen in laughter forever. What a pile of shit! I can't believe they didn't say anything about the Mandroid. He was the one that brought them all together, and he's just laying back there in the other room, and they're all giggling in front of a bunch of rigged up keyboards. WOW. I wish they would pay me to come up with ideas. I would be rich as fuck.

Friday, June 24, 2011

bad/awesome flixxx review: Wizards (1977)



"Oh yeah... one more thing: I'm glad you changed your last name, you son of a bitch! "- Avatar

"Ohh. Oh, Fritz? Fritz, get up for God's sake! Get up! They've killed Fritz! They've killed Fritz! Those lousy stinking yellow fairies! Those horrible atrocity-filled vermin! Take that! Take that! They killed Fritz!"- Soldier

"This has been the biggest bummer of a trip I've ever been on; but if you let me down, or you hurt my friends, especially the broad, I got stuff planned for you that'll take twenty years to kill ya."- Avatar

20th Century Fox's first animated feature from none other than Ralph Bakshi. He had previously only done dirty filthy cartoons like Fritz the Cat up until this one. It was a year where he was battling a young director named George Lucas for budget over at Fox. He even changed the name of the movie from War Wizards so as not to be confused with Lucas' Star Wars. When it came down to it, he succeeded in creating it, writing, directing and producing it all by himself. An epic futuristic story of ancient technology and propaganda being brought back to life in a war that could destroy the planet, I bring you Ralph Bakshi's WIZARDS!!!





So this one starts out with a storyboarded tale about the past. The drawings were apparently from when Bakshi was in college. The story tells of the Earth far in the future and after a holocaust has killed most of the people on Earth. The ancestors of the Humans, the dwarves, elves, and fairies begin to rule and the rest of the populace is comprised of these shitty mutants. After 3000 years of peace, there's this bigass party, and the queen of the fairies gets sick, and goes home. She turns out to have given birth to twin wizards. One named Avatar is the good one, and his brother Blackwulf is a fucking dick- right from the start.



So the mom dies, and then Blackwolf is psyched cause he thinks he can take over and bring doom to the lands, but Avatar is like, bullshit man, and he is so sad that he fights and defeats his brother, and banishes him from Montegar to this really crummy place called Scortch. Of course its all hot and desertlike there. Blackwolf vows to come back and defeat his brother, and he keeps learning the blackest secrets of Earth and trying to overthrow the land with mutants, but the elves kick their asses every time because the mutants are easily distracted and bored and just forget what they're doing. They are "slow" if you will. But Blackwolf was nothing if not determined. So he's amassing his armies, and finds his secret weapon: A projector that has old filmstrips of Hitler preaching to his nazis, and getting his troops all psyched. Blackwolf uses this footage to encourage his own troops and to scare the elf army. The propaganda and loud noises work as well as assassins that Blackwolf sends out to exterminate anyone using magic. The main robot assassin dudes name is Necron 99.



Necron 99 tracks and kills a ton of peeps on his way to exterminate Avatar. But he fails to kill this one dude named Weehawk. Word reaches back to Avatar about his brother back in Montegar from his loyal elf friend. Avatar is busy training this young fairy princess Elinore to being a full fledged fairy. Her dad is president. Necron 99 kills her dad, then she freaks, and Avatar zaps him and changes his name to "Peace". Then Peace, Avatar, Weehawk, and Elinore set out to stop Blackwolf from ruining the planet. Along the way, they get stopped by a bunch of mini fairies who fuck everything up. Also Blackwolf's troops succeed in breaking thru the front lines of the elf army.



Finally they escape the minis, get lost and unlost in a wintery forest, run into some other pissed elves in boats, Elinore for some reason kills Peace and splits in a tank and blah blah blah. Weehawk and Avatar split in the night to infiltrate the castle. I'm not sure what kind of message this was supposed to send but since his magic was weaker, Avatar opts to shoot Blackwolf in the chest instead of killing him with magic. Turns out Elinore had been mind controlled since she touched Peace. Poor old Peace. They tell Weehawk to go be the king of Montegar and Avatar decides he's going to marry Elinore. Kind of a let down/ anticlimactic ending. But whatever. Not as good as "Fire and Ice", but he wouldn't have been able to do that one if he had not done this one. Feel me? A good stone out flick. word.

bad/awesome flixxx review: Street Trash (1987)



"Here's to ya pussy!"- bum

"Now this old honky skin, white, snitch-ass mother fucker tells you something and you say "Come with me!" Now you're taking her word over mine! Now that's descrimination. Now why don't you just pull down your pants so we can all see the lilly white paint on your Hatian black ass?"- Burt

"Hey, com'on, I read like old people fuck."- Bill the cop

One of the most awesome gross out flicks of all time. Here you have a low budget horror comedy about the alcoholic homeless living in a junkyard in the lower east side in the late 80s. Filmed completely in the grime and slime of the streets, if the horrible ways these bums die doesn't make you cringe, the actual scum of the street should. The greatest film that Troma never made, "Fat" Pat Ryan and a cast of unknowns in STREET TRASH!!!





Two brothers are living in a squat they've built for themselves in a local junkyard. The older brother Fred gets up to no good all the time. He's a thief and is constantly on the run from dudes trying to beat the shit out of him. The younger brother is just "bummed" about being a bum. He'd do anything to bang the Asian chick who works at the junkyard owned by Troma regular Pat Ryan. As of right now, Fred's only want and need in life is another pint of booze.



Enter Liquor store owner Ed, another fat greedy asshole pedaling his shit to the bums as cheap as he can, all in order to make another buck. He's digging down in his basement and uncovers a box of pints called Venefly Viper that are over 60 years old. He marks them a buck a piece and takes them upstairs for the masses. Unbeknownst to him, the Viper has gone bad and whenever anyone takes a drink of it, they immediately go septic and start melting into a rainbow of slimy colors.



The brothers and their bum friends are also having to deal with this crazy vietnam vet named Bronson that lives in the dump and beats the shit out of everyone if not actually murdering them. He constantly has flashbacks and holds court openly in the dump surrounded by his cohorts and his own .... well, "fuck wench" for lack of a better term. There's this dude Bill the cop who is trying to find out what is happening and he has an assumption that all the deaths are coming from down at the dump. So he decided to go investigate by himself. While being a badass that actually walks the walk as much as he talks the talk, he ends up proving to be no match for Bronson's femur knife.



Eventually Fred figures out that the Viper is the thing thats killing all the bums and witnesses a few of the grizzly deaths for himself. After tricking his nemesis Wizzy into drinking some to kill himself, Fred decides to go alert Ed as to whats happening so he won't sell anymore. Too late! BOOOOM Ed's guts go flying! This leaves Fred, whatever his little brother's name is, and the Asian girlfriend to somehow kill Bronson before its all too late. Honestly, I'm guessing that the Viper bad liquor plot is supposed to be the main plotline, however, I guess it doesn't really matter, its like they needed to fill out the plot with some other storyline to get a whole movie. Theres also a subplot about a gangster who's girl gets murdered down at the dump and Pat Riley bangs her after she's dead. And then there's a 10 MINUTE SCENE OF HOMELESS DUDES PLAYING "KEEPAWAY" WITH ONE DUDE'S FUCKING WEINER!!!!! Either way, none of that takes away from this being a 10 out of 10 gross o rama. Highly Recommended. This one is BAD and AWESOME.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

bad/awesome flixxx review: The Wicker Man (1973)



"I think I could turn and live with animals. They are so placid and self-contained. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. Not one of them kneels to another or to his own kind that lived thousands of years ago. Not one of them is respectable or unhappy, all over the earth."- Lord Summerisle

"The building attached to the ground in which the body lies is no longer used for CHRISTIAN worship, so whether it is still a CHURCHYARD is debatable"- Ms Rose

"You'll simply never understand the true nature of sacrifice."- May Morrison

We visited Stonehenge the other day and it just so happened to be on the eve of the summer Solstice. Right before we arrived we came upon a huge statue of a man bowing toward the sun, and some dudes up on a ladder decorating his head with a huge crown of flowers and vines. I thought that was weird- it had to mean something, and then we saw acres and acres of fields staved off and being made ready for the thousands of people who would come to see the sun rise between the two pylons at Stonehenge. It just so happened that I had a copy of this creepy old flick on my computer that I had watched a hundred times growing up. This has always been one of my favorite horror/thrillers partially because it seemed totally feasible. There are no monsters, just people who believe what they believe, and that can be terrifying. Christopher Lee, and many hot young English women in THE WICKER MAN!!!






Virgin, Christian Police Sergeant Howie is the laughing stock of his home on the mainland in Scotland. He receives a letter from nearby island SummerIsle from a woman who says a young girl has gone missing but no one seems to care or has tried to do anything about it. Without much thought, Sgt Howie flies his little boat plane over to the Island to do a little investigating. Upon arrival, he receives a very cold welcome by the men by the docks. First they tell him its private property, and then he has to threaten them to send him a dinghy so he may come ashore. When he does, he asks everyone if they've ever seen the girl (Rowan Morrison), and they say no. But they send him over to a candy store/post office where a May Morrison lives.



May Morrison says she has no idea who he's talking about. But the other daughter says she knows Rowan, but that she's a rabbit. Then he starts getting pissed. He goes about asking more questions but receives answers as riddles. Finally deciding to stay the night, he goes to the green Inn, and again is mocked by the patrons and innkeep. The innkeeps daughter is hot as shit. So they give him a room and feed him supper from cans that make him wary, because SummerIsle is known for their apples and great harvest. He also notices that every year there is a girl pictured with the harvest except that year. The innkeep says the frame was broken. He goes to sleep with the sound of the innkeeps daughter Willow being fucked and a bunch of hippies playing soft folk jams downstairs.



Howie keeps investigating and discovers that the inhabitants of the island don't worship his beloved Christian god, but favor the pagan gods of old. He goes to the school, and then he goes to the cemetary, and then to the old man who takes the pics. Then he finally goes to see Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee). Summerisle takes pleasure in explaining to him that his grandfather brought the plants to the island after discovering that it had perfect temperature to grow those exotic seeds. He said before that, they were a barren poor land. He then divulged that he believed in those old gods stories as well. Howie goes to the graveyard, digs up Rowan's grave, finds a rabbit in it, then freaks out and goes to Summerisle's house to yell at him. Summerisle is playing piano with the school marm and just basically laughs in Howie's face.



Howie spends another night at the inn, but deduces that Rowan may not be dead yet. He tries to go back to the mainland, but they've sabotaged his plane. So he decides to tear the town apart looking for Rowan. He beats the shit out of the innkeep and dresses up like Punch, the eternal fool. Then he heads out to the beach along with everyone dressed up in these creepy fucking masks. They bust open a cask of wine to the ocean god, and then march up to the top of a hill. THEN... the little girl shows up in a cave. Howie runs up the hill revealing himself and tells the girl to run, she says follow me, and leads him through the cave to a hole in the top. When they get up there, Lord Summerisle and the town are up there and explain to him that he is the biggest fool, the exact stupid jesus freak asshole that they were looking for all the time, who came there of his own accord, and it was all a big ruse so they could sacrifice his dumb ass to the harvest gods. AWESOME. Then they strip him, put robes on him, and he turns around and sees it: THE WICKER MAN!! Then they burn his ass alive with some pigs and sheep while he prays and they dance and sing below. This movie is totally amazing and has a ton of young nude women and a great creepy folk soundtrack. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. and PLEASE don't get this confused with the stupid remake. I'd probably NEVER watch that. Even though is probably is more suited to this blog. the bad part anyway. CHEERS.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

bad/awesome flixxx review: Don't Deliver Us From Evil (1971)



"O Death, old Captain, it is time.
Weigh anchor!
Let's sail
beyond the doldrums of our days

Though black as pitch the sea and sky
you know our hearts are full of light
Pour us poison to revive our souls!

It cheers the burning quest
that we pursue

Who cares for Hell or Heaven
In the depths of the unknown
we seek out the New!."- Anne & Lore

I've had this film on my hard-drive for over a year, and since we are in France for the next few days, I finally decided to watch it. A friend gave it to me to watch a good while ago, and from the title and within the context of the other movies she shared with me, I just assumed this was some cheesy eighties horror flick. I was completely wrong. This is a "very hard to watch" dark thriller filmed in the French countryside around 1969 or '70. Its been touted as the only French film ever banned in France (which I never checked to see if that was true or not, but it doesn't matter, that may be some old boast to get folks to watch it). Its easy to see why it was banned: the time in which it was made, the manner in which the girls conduct themselves, and the subject matter. It would be easy to chalk it up to some pervert's dream, but what I believe we are dealing with here is something much more interesting. A French film originally entitled "MAIS NE NOUS DELIVREZ PAS DU MAL", translated into English, I present to you: DON'T DELIVER US FROM EVIL!!! (There is no trailer that i can find, well, maybe one with japanese subtitles, but I decided just to pop quick clip so you get a little taste.)





Ill start off by saying this film must be seen to be fully enjoyed. That being said, before I run it down and spoil it all for you, let's talk about the nature of this film. I said it was hard to watch. The girls in this film look super young and they get up to no good. They try to seduce dudes, and then one after another, these older men seem to fall victim to their lusts and uncontrollably try to force themselves on the girls. I hate to use the word rape, I hate to watch anything that feels like theres going to be rape (there never actually is) but these men DO try to force themselves on the girls multiple times, and it feels like they probably WOULD rape these girls if they were allowed to or if the girls didn't keep escaping (On second thought, even the fact that these men are putting their hands on these girls constitutes rapish behavior, even if the girls are egging them on and lewdly provoking them). That put aside, its not really a movie DEDICATED to provoking one to feel uncomfortable about rape. The movie seems to be more about why these two girls who, resistant to the ideals taught to them by their nuns and parents, dedicate their lives to worshipping Satan. Beyond provoking the audience to be stirred by actions that are jarring to watch, Joel Seria (the director) created a film that asks us about the interaction between parents and young adults, specifically amongst the rich. And about the relationship between the church and parents and their children. And this was 40 years ago that he's hinting about corruption in the church.



The film begins in a nunnery in France with two girls, Anne & her best friend Lore sneaking into each other's bed at night and writing in their secret diary about getting other students in trouble and their continued dedication to their lord and master, Satan. They are at the end of the school year and are about to have a big summer vacation. Both girls families are wealthy, but it seems that Anne's parents are probably super rich. When the school year ends, Anne's parents decide to go on a 2 month summer vacation and leave her home alone to get up to no good. Only Lore's mother is the least bit concerned about what the 2 young girls are up to, but not concerned enough to actually do anything to keep tabs on them.



Throughout the movie, led mostly by Anne's charge, the girls get deeper and deeper into the throngs of evil deeds. Starting mildly, then being influenced by some bawdy literature, the girls become fascinated with committing crimes. They poison the retarded gardener's favorite bird, they seduce the field hand and almost get Lore raped in the process. They let all the cows out into the field, then they set the field hand's house on fire. Then Anne kills one of the gardner's birds in her own hand, crushing the life out of it. It disturbed her so much that afterwards, she went and repented. But then she's right back to doing evil. They have there Satanic ritual where they get the gardner to act as the bishop dude, and they recite these vows, place a ring on each other's finger, prick another one, and drink of each others blood, and then take the bread of christ they stole from mass on top of the finger blood. Then they march out to the lake with candles and incense and paddle out to the middle of the lake. Then they kick the gardner in it, teasing him until he tries to rape them. Then later they come upon a dude who's broken down on the side of the road. Not sure, but it looks to be the postman who has scoped them out earlier in the flick. They fixed up this old chateau and were staying in it. He was creeping hard. They strip down to there undies and begin to ask him lewd questions. When Anne leaves for firewood, he immediately jumps on Lore and begins to try to get her. But then Anne comes back and kills him with a stick of wood. They freak out and hide his body in the lake.



Everyone gets suspicious of the car sitting near the town, and wonder about where the dude went. School starts back and the girls are shipped off. An inspector comes to question the girls, and Lore starts to break down because she thinks they are going to be caught. But Anne has a plan. After coming to believe that they are done for, but believing staunchly in her vows to Satan, Anne invites the Inspector to their school play where her and Lore are going to recite some poems. Then it cuts to a dance by these 8 year olds(?) dressed up as parrots on stage, and after its over, the curtain falls. When it rises again, we have one of the most brilliant scenes I've watched in a very long time. I won't ruin for you, but you can watch it for yourself below, if you think "fuck it, I'm never gonna watch this movie." These chicks were nothing if not dedicated. I was not prepared for this one. I give it two thumbs up on some kind of different scale. This is by no means a bad movie, and its awesomeness is of a different sort. It definitely made me cringe many times, but if you're into something that will make your heart race, there's a CURRENT of hecticness running through this one that I could feel as soon as I put it on. The movie feels as evil as the little girls want to be for their lord. (This movie is actually up on youtube right now if you want to watch the whole thing!!!) Enjoy.


!!!!HUGE SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!! / !!!! one of the sickest scenes ever!!!!!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

bad/awesome flixxx review: Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)



"that wasn't a 'Zone dude, that was an "Outer Limits""- car passenger

"Birdie with the yellow bill hopped upon my window sill, cocked his shining eye and said 'ain't you shamed you sleepy head?' "-Mrs. Weinstein

"The day we stop playing is the day we start getting old."- Mr. Bloom

"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... the Twilight Zone. "- Narrator

So it goes. The Twilight Zone is (next to Mystery Science Theater 3000) my favorite show ever. This movie was made by four directors as a tribute to their favorite 4 episodes. Three are remakes, and the first one is an original based on two earlier episodes. Spielburg, Jon Landis, George Miller and Joe Dante directed, and Burgess (The Penguin) Meredith acts as the announcer in Rod Serling's place. John Lithgow, Dan Ackroyd, Albert Brooks, and Scatman Crothers in TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE!!! (PS- prepare yourself for one of the shittiest/ boringest trailers EVER)





So, the flick is busted up into four sections. Each of them except for this first one like I said are remakes of classic 'Zones. There is a tragic story to this first one though. The First one is about a bigot who got passed over for a promotion by a Jewish guy. The guy starts using racist and anti-semetic language in a bar, and then flys off the handle and leaves. When he leaves the bar, he's in Nazi Germany and the SS take him for a Jewish citizen. He tries to escape, and then he's in the south at a clan rally and is about to be lynched because they see him as black. Then he's in Vietnam, and US soldiers are about to shoot him down taking him for the enemy. The tragedy here is in real life there was a helicopter crash on the set and it actually killed the main actor Vic Morrow, and the 2 Asian children he was acting with in the movie. Jon Landis and 3 others were actually charged with manslaughter but not convicted. Bummer. Good piece about how shitty racist assholes are though.



The second story is based on "Kick the Can". There's one old pitiful man who wants his family to take him out and hang with him, but they're always too busy so he becomes a bitter "old" man. Then we meet the others at his nursing home who are pining for the old days when they could play games, and run around and act like children. Then old Scatman Crothers is there straight off the set of the Shining probably and he tells all these oldsters that they can for sure play the old games like they used to. All they have to do is do it. But the one old guy is the spoil sport and he tries to ruin it for everyone, but ol Scatman tells them to meet him downstairs. Somehow that night they turn into kids, but realize they wanna go back to the way it was, except for one English swashbuckler kid. They all laugh in the old crabs face, and he tries to tell on them, but he realizes it was true, and starts living his life like a kid again, kicking a can in the yard, as we transition to segment 3.



The 3rd segment is based on "It's a Good Life". It shows a teacher who is going nowhere fast hanging in a bar. This kid is getting yelled at for messing up the tv with interference from an arcade game he's playing (which doesn't make sense.) So after one of them pushes him down, she tries to leave but backs into the kid and runs over his bike. She offers him a ride home. When they get there, Anthony's family is acting shady as Hell like they're all on speed and trying to hide it. Super apprehensive, they rush Anthony and Helen off to hang out. Anthony turns out to be a little omnipotent king in this world he has seemingly created around himself. But he hates it because no one trusts him and they all just say what he wants to hear instead of being truly honest with him. Anthony likes Helen because she is honest with him. Eventually he makes cartoons out of thin air, and then makes them disappear because he's sick of them. Helen asks him if she can teach him to be a psychic be his mentor or something and then she says she can learn from him as well. Then they drive off.



The last segment may be my favorite, and a lot of people who've seen this say the same thing. Its a remake of "Nightmare at 20,000 feet". John Lithgow is having a freakout session on a plane and finally Donna Dixon and some other stewardesses get him to go back to his seat. He eventually looks out his window, sees a gremlin on the wing going to town on the engine and then he just goes apeshit. Dudes are trying to calm him down, and finally he cools out. But then he sees it again, grabs a gun from an air marshall, and blows a hole in the window, sticks his gordon out there (in minus whatever degrees it is up there temps [yeah right]) and the gremlin grabs his face, sees they are landing and gives him the "unh-unh-unh" finger wag. Insane. They all call him crazy til they see the wing damage. As he's shipped off to the hospital Dan Ackroyd repeats the same line from the beginning about wanting to see something really scary... tying it up in a nice bow for ya. I'd say watch all the original episodes myself, or even the 80s 'Zones were way better than this.... But for pure nostalgias sake, this one wasn't TOO bad.

Monday, June 6, 2011

bad/awesome flixxx review: John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns (2005)



"That's not art, that's just fucking murder!"- Kirby

"I know what you want! You want to see the movie!"- Butler

"I didn't bring you all the way out here to find me something that made a schoolgirl cringe."- Bellinger

So technically this isn't really a movie. Its a short film done by (pretty much) my favorite director- John Carpenter. It was made for the Master's of Horror TV Show that airs on Showtime. It's an hour long, so it fits here as far as I'm concerned. The plot is VERY similar to "The Ninth Gate" by Polansk, but its classic John Carpenter down to the eerie keyboard soundtrack, this time provided by his son Cody. Starring Norman Reedus from Boondock Saints, and Udo Kier from The Kingdom, this is one flick that had me jump and say "OH SHIT" as least twice. Maybe a few more times actually, but definitely twice super loud. Ya gotta check out CIGARETTE BURNS!!!





Here we have the story of a wealthy rare film collector, who is hell bent on getting his hands on a copy of this movie called La Fin Absolue du Monde or The Absolute End of the World. He hires a specialist named Kirby to find it. The film was said to have driven a whole theater mad upon its first screening and was subsequently destroyed before the director could get it out of the country where the film festival was held. Kirby says if there's a copy out there, he would have heard about it. Bellinger (the collector) says he has proof that it still exists, and he shows Kirby an albino dude he's got chained up out back with places on his back where it looks like wings have been chopped off. In the other room are wings hanging on the wall.



The film is shrouded in mystery which makes Kirby curious. Bellinger says money is no problem so Kirby asks for 200,000 bucks to cover the cost of a small independent theater that his dead fiances father gave him a loan to buy. The dad in law is pissed and gives Kirby a week to pay up. Kirby's fiance is dead because they were junkies together and doing drugs kills you. Now he is haunted by her in his thoughts. Ok, so Kirby goes off on his journey looking for the film first checking out this critic who wrote a review of the film. He found a crazy man, surrounded by a house full of stacked papers that had been redrafting his review for YEARS now, and was "almost finished". He desperately wanted to see the film one more time if Kirby found a copy. All the while Kirby is getting more and more curious, even though everyone he meets warns him against it.



The critic gives him interviews he did with the director, and Kirby flies to France to try and meet with someone who helped make the film. He listens to the interviews and starts to see these "cigarette burns" in real life flash before him, and everyone says, "they've begun." He finds out everyone is dead pretty much, but he cons an old buddy into giving him a weird dudes address who may know how to get to the film. He goes to see the weird dude, and the guy has his bodyguards hold him while he sticks a needle in his neck after he views some papers. Then he wakes up, and the weird guy is all in bondage gear, holding a machete, and Kirby and the cab driver are tied up and gagged.

!!!!!!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!

Then he says that "murder has become art" or some crap and chops the girl cab drivers fucking head clean off!! (OH SHIT #1).
Then he hops up on top of Kirby and starts huffing and puffing and somehow Kirby has another cigarette burn flash and the dudes is on the ground, the bodyguards are dead and Kirby starts torturing the guy until he tells him where he can find the flick. He says Seattle.



So Kirby cleans the blood off his shirt and flies to Seattle to meet up with the director's widow. She says the flick is pure evil, the producers are most likely the four horsemen of the apocalypse... because she mentions sorrow, chaos, suffering, and famine. She tells him to take it. He goes back to Bellinger and gets the bread to pay off his dick father in law. That dude has locked up his theater and was sitting outside of it in his car waiting. Bellinger calls him to come back over and the dad in law follows. Kirby walks in and....

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

he sees the Asian butler, and the guy has his shirt off and is bleeding from multiple stab wounds, and he's brandishing this huge knife, and he's like, "what are you doing here? YOU brought this evil here, oh you want to see the movie huh?" And Kirby is like WTF? and then the guy STABS HIS OWN FUCKING EYES OUT!!!! (OH SHIT #2) Then Kirby talks to Bellinger and he's using his own intestines as a film strip, and then the butler unlocks the angel, and Kirby's dad in law confronts him.
I'll spare you the ending since I've given you so much else, just so there's still some magic left. Pretty raw shit though. As far as it goes, I don't remember any "OH SHIT" moments in The Ninth Gate. So its not so much of a rip of that, as just similar in plotline. But a badass short nonetheless. Recommended fo sho.

bad/awesome flixxx review: A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die (1972)



"Gentleman I can offer you nothing... except the chance to die honorably... and possibly live... in any case- freedom at the end."- Col. Pembroke

"What the hell is goin on?"- Major Ward

"You can't kill them, didncha hear, they're surrendering!"- Eli

Every time Netflix puts a "end is near" date on some of the flicks in my instant queue, I move them to the top of my list and then feel like I need to watch about four in a row before they all go off, and my chances are lost! Haha! Anyone else do that? Well, I did it again, it seems like a shitload of movies were scrapped on June 1st, and I managed to view a few of them before they did. This was one of them. I've been on a spaghetti western kick for a while, and this one delivered with a good story, great cinematography, some good actors, and a killer soundtrack. Win, win, win, win right? The story is sort of a civil war version of The Dirty Dozen, with a little bit of the Wild Bunch thrown in. With a haunting score by Riz Ortalani and great performances by James Coburn, Bud Spencer, and Telly Savalas, you can't go wrong with A REASON TO LIVE, A REASON TO DIE!!


A REASON TO LIVE, A REASON TO DIE - 1972 Movie... by chikungfu




This one starts off with a voiceover explaining that the following story is about the events that took place in Joplin, Missouri in 1862. What was super weird to me was that when I put this on, Joplin, Missouri had just been destroyed by tornadoes that morning 2 weeks ago. Very eerie way to begin a flick. Anyway, there was a Fort Holman there during the Civil War held by Union troops under the command of Colonel Pembroke (Coburn). But supposedly the Confederate troops came down and he let them walk right in and surrendered the Fort Holman to them. The movie starts off with Pembroke and Eli Sampson (Spencer) being picked up for stealing at a Union Fort somewhere up north. Everyone thinks Pembroke is a chickenshit traitor coward. But somehow Pembroke convinces the Union commander that he had escaped from being held down south and could make that commander a war hero if he would allow Pembroke and some men to go free on a secret mission to take back Fort Holman.



The Commander calls him crazy, but likes the idea of becoming a hero, so he lets Pembroke take 7 men from the gallows and be set free to go help him reclaim Fort Holman for the Yanks. So Pembroke gets his crew and starts on his way, but the whole way down, the men are plotting against him and planning to kill him and leave. He tells them that if they will just chill out, they'll all be rich, because he's REALLY going back to get a shitload of gold that he hid under a sundial. Eventually he gets them to the fort. Along the way they came to a barn and found some hicks who were killing anyone who came to them. They killed them, and got Eli and Confederate uniform so he could pose as a messenger from another camp.



They sneak Eli in and wait down in the ravine under a bridge for him to send down a rope. When he does, they start up. Eli finds out the bridge will be blown by the "alarm system" if anything goes wrong, so he talks loud enough to warn his friends. He has suspected all along that something else was up with old Pembroke, and gets a Confederate soldier to tell him the real story, that there is no sundial, and that means there is no gold. The real reason Pembroke wants to retake the fort is that, he only surrendered Fort Holman to Major Ward (Savalas) in the first place because Ward kidnapped his son and threatened to hang him. He said he wouldn't hang him if Pembroke surrendered the fort. And he didn't, he shot him instead. So Pembroke is coming back for revenge.



So the gang climbs up, the alarm is set off, the bridge is blown, but not before the boys get across. Most of the gang is killed one by one, but not before they could get into the holding cell with TONS of dynamite, setting it off over and over, blowing the fort all to shit, and manning a couple of gatlin guns, mowing down hundreds of Confederate troops. Man, once they invented those fucking gatlin guns, shit changed in the old west. I remember when Django pulled that one out of the his baby coffin and plowed through like 60 dudes. That was some wild shit. Anyway, basically all of the dudes except Major Ward, Eli, Pembroke, and Sgt Brent are dead. Sgt Brent is a Union man who got volunteered to go with Pembroke against his will because he stole his wife's cross necklace. He's a crab the whole time, and then he starts freaking out about the gold. Pembroke has called Ward out and they are walking to meet each other. Brent is threatening Pembroke and shooting the gatlin gun at his feet and screaming. Finally Eli just caps him. Then Pembroke finishes Ward with Ward's own sword as he yells, " HE WAS INNOCENT!!" Pretty badass. Then Eli and Pembroke walk off into the smoky distance. Recommended.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

bad/awesome flixxx review: The Evil Dead (1981)



"I believe I have made a significant find in the Kandarian ruins, a volume of ancient Sumarian burial practices and funerary incantations. It is entitled "Naturum De Montum", roughly translated: Book of the Dead. The book is bound in human flesh and inked in human blood. It deals with demons and demon resurrection and those forces which roam the forest and dark bowers of Man's domain"- voice on recorder

"Look at her eyes. Look at her eyes! For God's sake, what happened to her eyes?"- Shelly

"Shut up, Linda!"- Ash

One of THE all time classic horror flicks, this campy send up spawned two more famous sequels. This one is a keeper folks. If you haven't seen it, but you've seen Spider-Man, go back and check out the director (Sam Raimi)'s roots. Its great to see what a young innovative filmmaker can do on a limited budget. Take a look at the shitty franchise horror flicks being churned out today in hollywood, and you can tell what it takes to make a really heinous bone chiller. Backwoods and no money. A bunch of fake shemps and Bruce Campbell in the film that made him a cult character, THE EVIL DEAD!!!






So 2 dudes from Michigan State take their girlfriends and one of them's sister out to the middle of nowhere in Tennessee to have a little camping session. Seems like they were a little PG about the whole thing. I mean if I was trying to get laid out in the woods, I'd NEVER take my little sister. I still have no idea about that. But then again, maybe Ash was the old-fashioned type. Things start looking hectic before they even get into the woods, when they start over a bridge, the car they're driving almost goes through the bridge because its so rickety (the bridge, not the car). The car LOOKS like a piece, but I can assure you: Classic Oldsmobiles are BADASS. His is a yellow '73 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Holiday Sedan. I had a green '71 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Super similar, and super badass. His has been featured in every one of his films. But I digress.



So they get to the house, and find this book that's supposedly the Sumerian Book of the Dead. "Bound in human flesh and written in blood." Then they find a tape recorder and play it, and just the speaking of several of the words on the tape causes smoke to begin rising from the ground outside letting us know that the shit is about to go down. Lil sis Cheryl is having none of this shit, so she's hits the bedroom and begins taking off her clothes (yes) and combing her hair. Demons beckon her to "join us" and she GOES OUTSIDE THE CABIN IN A FUCKING ROBE to investigate. Then trees start chasing her and then they hold her down and rape her. Its a pretty fucked up scene as I don't condone rape from humans or trees.



I'm not gonna sit here and ruin the whole thing for ya, because this is nothing short of an indie masterpiece that was banned in tons of countries upon release. You gotta watch it. One of my only beefs with the thing is that no matter how much blood is spilled, or coughed up, splattered, oozed, or melted onto Ash's shirt, pants, face, arms and legs, he's always pretty well dry and clean during the next scene. This doesn't REALLY matter to me, but it makes you want him to be running around with the shit just caked all over him. For all the unbelievable shit that happens to him over the course of those few hours, he should very well look a complete and total mess, yet he somehow maintains his charming good looks even when greased down in dried demon's blood. One other thing- Scott totally got a haircut halfway through filming!!! No bullshit there, that's just how shit goes I guess.



Now I have to go and watch Evil Dead 2 because I feel like watching these as a teenager, I remember thinking that there was some sort of discrepancy between what happened in one and what happens in two. I haven't read about it, haven't thought about it, but it seems like 2 was about the same movie just made better or a bit differently. Or one of the actors played a different character or something....

!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!

It looks like ol Ash got possessed at the end of this one or was about to, so maybe that was the discrepancy I remember. Like they never say anything about it in the next one. I can't remember, it's just been too many years. I guess I'll have to watch and see. Anyway, Enjoy it.