Thursday, January 21, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: Maniac (1980)



alahoyus once again yall and yinzers. Im back with another dose of pure heinous that seems to go down so sweet. Today's nugget of brilliance, the 1980 slasher Maniac.



This turned out to be a great flick to watch @ night, under the covers. Now, that's not saying its a great flick. Maniac is the story of the big slob schizoid serial killer named Frank Zito. The film starts out with him breathing heavily and spying on this couple on the beach. After the chick nags her dude to go get some wood for the fire, Zito leaps in, stabs the shit outta her, and then strangles the dude until blood is dripping from his sneaks. This is a pretty graphic flick by the way. Then we have ol Frank frightened awake by god knows what, into a room full of candles lit around a pic of some chick. In the bed next to him is what appears to be a bloody mannequin. Frank looks at some cigarette burns on his chest, dresses and then goes out on the prowl. First he lets a hooker lure him into a scummy hotel, then he eventually strangles her while having hallucinations that she is some other chick that he has presumably strangled. Then he has a minor freakout, and then he scalps the whore. then cut to a scene where he is carrying something to his apartment. In his apartment, he starts to unwrap, yep another mannequin, while talking to himself with inner and outer monologue about how she or he shouldnt go out, but they will, and theyll keep doing bad, and no ones gonna catch them, and more heavy breathing, and more crazy talk. All the while he's dressing the mannequin in the whores clothes and then for the icing on the cake, he puts the scalp on the mannequin, then goes out for more. Ok, so then, best scene of the movie, he goes to a disco, still yammering on about fancy women and richers and how theyll all get theirs, hangs out outside, spots a couple, and then follows them. Then the couple drives to like the verrazano bridge, and the dude turns out to be the motorcycle guy from dawn of the dead! he was in some other shit too- um, from dusk til dawn, and creepshow. whatever, anyway, he tells the chick to get in the backseat, then theyre making out, and ol frank creeps up and shes sees him, freaks out. she says lets split, and then they get in the frontseat, then {best scene in the movie} ol frank jumps on the hood of the car, points the gun at the dudes head- pulls the trigger and BAM!! a slow motion head explosion that makes the one in Scanners look like crap! I said "FUCKIN SHIT!!" outloud when i saw it. Heavy rad stuff. after that, as always, im reluctant to give away the ending unless its just truly not worth watching. theres a couple more good murders and lots more heavy breathing and freakouts from ol frank. A couple hot babes too. Would i look hard for it? Hell no. Would i get stoned and watch it w/ some dudes or a babe again? total.
more soon. yours, valient.

Friday, January 8, 2010

bad/awesome flixxx review: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)


alahoyus hombres! and fancy ladies! I dug this old vhs out of my collection last night. What a rad old movie! Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, and some guy who looks like one of the dudes from Simon and Simon in: THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT



I wish all flicks were this good. Great actors, pretty great little story, filmed well. Everyone knows George Kennedy from COOL HAND LUKE, but he did a couple great films with Clint including one of my favs THE EIGER SANCTION. This flick starts off in a church where apparently Clint is preacher, then about a minute into it, some thug comes in to blow him away. He splits out the back and hauls ass. Meanwhile, a young jeff bridges steals a badass camaro (i think) from a dealership, speeds off. then he almost kills clint. clint jumps in, knocks his arm outta socket on accident. they hit it off. They switch cars, get some whores, then keep running from these 2 dudes who are trying to kill them. Turns out, clint used to be a bank robber, and the dudes chasing are his old partners, who thinks he shit them. Clint hid the bread in an old school house. They go to get it, but the school house is gone. Chase ensues where the thugs catch up with them. Clint beats the piss outta them. Then he explains. Theyre all broke and don't know what to do. The big heist they did in the first place was the Montana Armory. So the kid (bridges) suggests they do the same thing again. He and Kennedy don't get along at all. But they decide its a good plan and go into town and get jobs. Then they somehow buy a fucking anti tank machine gun (??!!?) and Clint puts together this elaborate plan to break into the place. I won't ruin the rest of it. There's a couple twists in there, a great chase, and a hectic ending. Highly recommended. You can probably find this and many of these flicks i review for cheap on ebay. If you still have a vcr. Or whatever. Many more coming soon. Ive been lazy as shit over the holidays and i watched a bunch of flicks. Excelsior!