The Horror Addiction

The Hills Have Eyes (Film Series)

2009-11-18T22:13:00.000-08:00

There have been four films in the Hills Have Eyes series:

1977's "The Hills Have Eyes"
1983's "The Hills Have Eyes Part II"
2006's "The Hills Have Eyes"
2007's "The Hills Have Eyes 2"

There was also a 1995 film called "The Outpost", which was also known alternately as "Mind Ripper" and "The Hills Have Eyes Part III: The Hills Still Have Eyes" and "The Hills Have Eyes 3: The Hills Have A Nose, Chin and Beard Now, Too".

Wes Craven

2009-11-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

Truly, an overly self-important horror director (I know he used to be university lecturer and all, but for every "Nightmare on Elm Street" there's a "Hills Have Eyes Part II" and "Deadly Friend" either side of it) with some true classics as well. When he's good, he's pretty astonishing, so it's really a shame when he doesn't bother.

1974 - The Last House on the Left
1977 - The Hills Have Eyes
1978 - Summer of Fear
1981 - Deadly Blessing
1982 - Swamp Thing
1983 - The Hills Have Eyes Part II
1984 - A Nightmare on Elm Street
1985 - Chiller
1986 - Deadly Friend
1987 - The Serpent and the Rainbow
1989 - Shocker
1991 - The People Under the Stairs
1994 - Wes Craven's New Nightmare
1995 - Vampire in Brooklyn (ugh)
1996 - Scream
1997 - Scream 2
1999 - Music of the Heart
2000 - Scream 3
2005 - Red Eye

The Hills Have Eyes 2 (1983, Wes Craven)

2009-11-18T21:15:00.000-08:00

THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART II
1985, directed by Wes Craven

Well, if you watch this back to back with the first film, it doesn't come off too bad. It's infinitely more lightweight from the get go and the filming of some early scenes is so fucking slack, you can't believe it. Two or three set ups at most in scenes that establish a significant number of characters, accompanied by many takes (the bit where the black girl first gets off the bus) which make you go "if the director cared, he would have done a second take". Yet, the atmosphere is halfway "Hills Have Eyes" desert spooky and half early eighties, "Friday the 13th" type slasher. "Friday the 13th" is a good reference point, as Harry Manfredini also scored this movie - unlike the first movie's enjoyable music, this one is a typical Harry Manfredini score, meaning it sounds identical to "The Children", "Zombie Island Massacre", Craven's own previous "Swamp Thing" and, of course, every single "Friday the 13th" film. Seriously, the desert flats in this movie are painted out as the west coast "Crystal Lake". And, admittedly, the location (similar, but not the same as the first film) is still a very spooky place, especially now it has it's large mine shaft. Also, Kevin Blair from "Friday the 13th Part Seven: The One With the Telekinetic Girl and the Gay Cast" is in this as well, sucking as hard as everyone else.

Some of the logic is so fucked - the script is just too lax to care. In the first movie, the family broke down for at least a reason. In this one, the bus (yeah schoolbus) springs a leak and they just RUN OUT OF FUEL.

If you look at this movie in the context it was released in (1985, a year after "A Nightmare On Elm Street") it's pitiful. Craven shows barely any of the flair he brought to "Nightmare...", which is strange even if you learn "Nightmare" was filmed the year after "Hills Have Eyes Part II", but released first - it'd be a massive progression, if I didn't think the problem with this was ultimately that Craven didn't give a shit. It was nice seeing Bobby in the opening, flashing back to the first movie - continuity like that is still pretty effective. But the actor playing Bobby (I think Robert Houston is his name), looks stoned out of his mind for his two "scenes" here. The first scene, flashback aside, is just the same thing repeated - discussion between Bobby and the psychiatrist, ending with Bobby pulling a face like "heh, shows what you know...".

The idea here is, of course, to start a franchise. A series like Sean Cunningham's "Friday the 13th" series, or Wes's later "Nightmare" or "Shocker" films were intended to become. This movie wasn't a hit when released and, to be honest, that's not fair. I think it's at least as fun as "Friday the 13th Part 2" (but not "Part 3" or "The Final Chapter") and pretty fun overall. The vast continuity with the first film makes for a nice "back-to-back" feel.

It's not Craven's worst film (ever seen "Vampire in Brooklyn" ? "Music of the Heart"?), but it isn't great. It manages to swing my favour by acknowledging and somewhat recapturing the agoraphobic feel of "Hills Have Eyes", but I have to admit its nowhere near as imaginative, compelling or engaging as "Nightmare on Elm Street", "People Under the Stairs" or even the original "Hills Have Eyes". You could do worse, but a lot better too.

A later release poster with an alternate title ("II" instead of "Part II") and an acknowledgment of 1984's "Nightmare on Elm Street"

The Hills Have Eyes (1977, Wes Craven)

2009-11-18T03:01:00.000-08:00

THE HILLS HAVE EYES

(1977, written & directed by Wes Craven)

Here it is, the film that actually showed Wes Craven might be capable of directing great horror pictures. I hesitate to call this film "great" because so much of it isn't - but it's definetely got a lot of great things in it and it's miles above the horrendous "Last House on the Left" which preceded it.
The "plot" is essentially a reworking of Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" writ large on 35mm film, as a family find themselves trapped in the desert while deformed mutant cannibals run around picking them off, but it features the added dynamic of family vs family as the straight family find themselves having to resort to nasty violence to fend off and destroy the mutant cannibals. It's got a pretty solid cast for what it is, featuring early appearances for genre favourites Dee Wallace and Michael Berryman and "Shogun Assassin" director Robert Houston as Bobby. It's got baby-eatin' (intended), bird-eatin' and all kinds of cutting, and shooting. But what makes this a truly exceptional low-budget horror film is it's location. Actually shot in the middle of a startling desert environment, the film is incredible to look at even when the lighting seems a bit rough (which can be quite often, I think). The huge rock face surrounding the family is etched into my brain like few movie locations - this is a barren, horrible place, full of rattlesnakes, tarantulas and mutant cannibals.

What I find particularly interesting is that, dissimilar from most horror film, it enschews traditional claustrphobia for a kind of agoraphobia. The family's kinda trapped in a big scooped out valley in the desert - nothing but highway and desert cliff face. They can be seen from all angles, especially in the dark where they themselves can see absolutely nothing.

Pretty cool film. Evocative landscape filmed atmospherically and with passion and confidence plus a compelling story and script. Actually, this is definetely one of Wes Craven's very best scripts, right up there with "Nightmare on Elm Street". Fair play to him.

Dawn of the Dead (1978, George A. Romero)

2009-11-03T18:14:00.000-08:00

"Dawn of the Dead" (aka. "Zombi"), 1978, written and directed by George A. Romero.

Version reviewed: The entire Region 1 "Dawn of the Dead: Ultimate Edition" collection from Anchor Bay, featuring the three most common cuts of the film.

There are some films that are so groundbreaking in it's genre that they become prerequisite classics. Very much of their time but still impressive today none the less are George A Romero's original zombie films. Both "Night of the Living Dead" and "Day of the Dead" have faults and high points, but the clear masterpiece of Romero's series is Dawn of the Dead - an intimate and atmospheric horror epic with action, stunts and scope. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that Dawn of the Dead just isn't very scary, I could easily consider it comfortably the best horror film ever made for these other respectable merits alone. Today, "Night of the Living Dead" plays like a perfectly sixties shocker with psychedelic musical cues and moody expressionist lighting in the face of the bright colour that was in use in cinema. "Day of the Dead" plays like a very vivid nightmare, but "Dawn of the Dead" is the one that paints a sustained, surreal zombie landscape for all it's length. A quite believable scenario is sketched in the first twenty minutes - society is falling apart, largely due to people's refusal to choose a course - readily abandoning their jobs and no-longer-relevant "responsabilities" or sticking it out together. Our four main characters can hardly be blaimed for running out on it - there was nothing left sticking around for.

For what it's worth, despite the parts that are dated (or, more accurately, of their time) the film paints it's own convincing reality and the four main characters are drawn in a lot of detail. No, the effects are often quite disappointing, but they were groundbreaking for the time and have a fun and surreal feel. George A Romero himself thinks of the film as a live-action comic book and I can definetely see what he means - but it's a long one and worth every minute.

There are three cuts of this film I have seen and all are included in this boxset - Romero's preferred 127 minute US theatrical cut, his 139 minute "Cannes" cut and the 116 minute Dario Argento cut for Europe. All three cuts have their virtues, but my preference is for the Cannes cut - the lengthier pace allows the film more space for atmosphere and this is the cut I grew up watching, anyway. Argento's cut features very little (maybe NO) library music like the Romero cuts, featuring wall to wall Goblins music. Both kinds of music are effective, though I could do without the cheesy music when Ken Foree decides not to shoot himself which appears in both the Romero cuts. The main Goblin piece which appears frequently, especially in the European cut, is a very effective piece for a horror film.
Romero's theatrical cut is the one that features the best music, featuring a mix between Goblin's score and the library cues, sometimes at the same time or seamlessly transforming back and forth. However, this cut just misses too many things I like from the "Cannes cut". Note the transition from Peter and Roger at the slum to Steven at the docks. In the Cannes cut, the transition from Peter's gunshot (right into the camera) to the helecopter in the air, as it lands at the docks. In the theatrical cut, it cuts right to someone who has been shot in the head as Steven investigates him. It misses out the helecopter and most of the material with the policeman leaving for "the islands", which added a lot of scope, giving the feel of one adventure among hundreds.

The Ultimate Edition is truly a great release for this classic. All versions of the film look good (although, the Cannes Cut is definetely the worst looking) and it's really cool to have all the versions together.

Combat Shock (1986, Buddy Giovinazzo)

2009-10-29T20:20:00.000-07:00

The rather misleading poster for the 1986 'theatrical' release.

Combat Shock aka. American Nightmares, 1986, directed by Buddy Giovinazzo.

Version reviewed: The excellent Regionless 2009 Tromasterpiece Collection release ("2-Disc Uncut 25th Anniversary Edition") from Troma Retro (Troma Team Video).

"Combat Shock" was the first feature from Buddy Giovinazzo. Shot on 16mm, it's the gritty and downbeat tour of Hell from the point of view of one Frankie Dunlan. Giovinazzo brings an arty flair to his gutter-level film which shows a world where things will always get worse for absolutely everyone and everything in it. There's not too much of a story - it's essentially the final day of the main character, who I can't bring myself to call "hero", but actually none-the-less performs as an essentially noble man throughout everything he is confronted with. He is given plenty of opportunities to escape the responsibility of his life and family and he never takes them. Right up until the last few minutes, he is pretty sympathetic, even after certain things (which I won't spoil) come to light which redefine all seen before.

An hellish and gory Vietnam.

"Combat Shock" was part of a wave of films in the 1980s that were made by dedicated men, lots of friends and very little money. Usually shot on 16mm, films like "The Evil Dead", "Maniac", "Deadbeat at Dawn", "Basket Case", "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" and "Street Trash" are today often regarded as classics and "Combat Shock" is no exception. Lacking the polish of "Street Trash" or even "Maniac", it more closely resembles "Deadbeat..." and "Basket Case", it's hero ankle-deep in grime. This is real thread-bare stuff - scenes in Vietnam were clearly not filmed in Vietnam, but the Staten Island scenes have a lot of impact and Giovinazzo's visual style is really impressive. A few sequences don't work - I'm definitely not sure about all those super intense, Tetsuo-like human-stop-motion scenes, but the cumulative effect of the whole film is undeniable. It's really impressive what Buddy did with basically nothing. It's cumulative effect is memorable. There are few films that can be so depressing and so hypnotic at the same time.

The new "Tromasterpiece Edition" DVD of Combat Shock is one of the best, if not the best DVD Troma has ever put out. It features two whole DVDS and a lot of extras. On the first disc, it ports over from the first DVD the (pretty good) transfer of "Combat Shock" and the audio commentary by Buddy Giovinazzo and Jorg Buttgereit, but adds a brand new transfer - for the first time on home video or even wide release, Buddy Giovinazzo's original cut named "American Nightmares". Running a good few minutes longer, as far as I can tell the most obvious difference is the opening is missing from the director's cut. Troma, for their theatrical "Combat Shock" version release, added a brief opening credits with stock footage from the Vietnam war, cut with footage from the existing movie and scored by some famous composer I can't remember right now. It, admittedly, didn't fit the film perfectly but it got it off to a very exciting and effective start, adding scope and legitimacy to the scenes in Vietnam that follow (and actually "open" the "American Nightmares" cut). So, even though my preference will have to go to the director's full intended vision, I'm very glad Troma would put both cuts on the disc as the "theatrical version" has a bigger budget feel (having both the great looking stock footage and the fact it's a 35mm blow-up transfer) and is a different, more streamlined film. The director's cut has a very nice new transfer from the 16mm materials and is represented well.

Disc two apes a little style from the "Visions of Hell: The Films of Jim Van Bebber" boxset, and includes a large chunk of short films by director Buddy Giovinazzo. The shorts are simple but compelling, especially "Subconscious Realities", the immediate pre-cursor to "Combat Shock". There's also later shorts that were supposedly to springboard into full length features, both of which are great - "Maniac 2: Mr Robbie" is a kinda remake of "The Psychopath" and "Jonathan of the Night" is an interesting, gritty twist on the vampire legend. There's a selection of music videos by Buddy and Rick Giovinazzo's band, Circus AD (I think that's what they're called? I'll check). In short, this is incredibly in-depth and impressive.
The big extra on disc 2 is the documentary "Post-Traumatic: An American Nightmare", which features no contributions from anyone involved with the film directly, but rather other filmmakers praising and analysing the film. Impressive figures making appearances include John McNaughton (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), Richard Stanley ("Hardware", "Dust Devil"), William Lustig ("Maniac", "Vigilante", "Maniac Cop"), Jim Van Bebber, Scott Spiegel (Evil Dead II) and Roy Frumkes, who pays Buddy back for his appearance in Frumkes' "Meltdown Memoirs" on the "Street Trash" DVD. Even more strange than Buddy's' absence in "Post-Traumatic..." is Lloyd Kaufman. In fact, I don't believe he appears on either DVD at all, even in an intro, which is very strange for a Troma release. That's respect for the film. (Post-script: I remember now, he conducts one of the interviews with Buddy on another section of disc two!) The documentary is a great extra, presumably made by someone outside of Troma, but none the less a fantastic addition with a lot to think about for fans of the film.
There's also three recent interviews with Buddy Giovinazzo (none are the one included on the previous DVD, and one featuring Jorg again and with some really bad sound), one with Rick Giovinazzo, the trailer and also a brief featurette showing you (and me) the filming locations as they are in 2009.

I have to praise Troma here - no one else in 1986 would have released such a transgressive "horror" film, but Troma had the vision to do so. They supported Buddy's vision so much this new release was really birthed at his own dissatisfaction with how the previous DVD treated the film - it was, apparently, cut by a Troma employee for no good reason. Secondly, in 2009, Troma has done Buddy and the film right with the greatest-yet addition to their Tromasterpiece line, a thorough and whole hearted representation of the film on dvd. It's a pretty thorough and astounding DVD release and stands resolutely with the releases of other, comparable films mentioned in this review by companies such as Blue Underground, Synapse, Dark Sky and Anchor Bay.

If you have never seen this film but like low-budget but compelling exploitation films, give "Combat Shock" a try. There's never been a better time and the film is timeless in it's ability to revolt.

The original artwork for the Tromasterpiece Edition. Am I the only one who liked this cover better?

Redneck Zombies (1986, Pericles Lewnes)

2009-10-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

"Redneck Zombies" (1986, directed by Pericles Lewnes)

Version reviewed: The excellent 2009 no-region-coding 'Tromasterpiece Edition' from Troma Team Video.

Nuclear waste falls into the hands of rednecks who use the drum holding the waste to make a still and brew up some moonshine. After they turn into insanely violent zombies, they attack a group of dysfunctional campers from the city. Interspersed with the film are a series of either comedic or mind-fuck vignettes which consist of at least half the craziness.

The 'plot' is a deliberate (but not ironic) attempt at making a bad horror movie. What makes it different is the fact that, in practice, the film is a flat-out comedy. This gives the movie the feel of something custom built to covertly sit between "Troll 2" and "Zombi 3" on the bottom-shelf of your local video store, while in fact celebrating it's own crassness in a way those unintentional bad movie classics never would.

But, in fact, I am of the opinion the film is a much more worthwhile zombie excursion than the vast majority of "Dawn of the Dead" knock-offs produced in this time. There's definitely a touch of "The Return of the Living Dead" here, not just in it's toxic-chemical induced zombies, but in the zeal of the filmmakers making their own rules up as they go. With this movie, the filmmakers decided to show you things no other zombie movie would! They show you the point of view of a terrified man on acid attempting to perform an autopsy on a zombie by lantern-light and you'll see a corpulant redneck seriously contemplate having sex with the (seriously mutilated) remains of a lady camper. It's easy to forget in this post-"Shaun of the Dead"/"Zombieland" world that they were actually no zombie movies where people attempted to 'act' like zombies to move around the world until Redneck Zombies came around. Why George Romero overlooked this, I do not know.

It would be so easy for me to dismiss this movie for one reason or another - it's inherent trashiness or the fact it was shot on video (note: here I am not talking about 'digital' video)- but the fact is I've seen enough films shot on video I can tell you the difference. Most of them are dull and depressing like "Robot Ninja", some of them are atrocious like the "Zombie Bloodbath" trilogy and some of them are just amateur beyond all fucking belief such as "Splatter Farm", which is made as if the filmmakers have only seen two films before, and I only bought the fucking thing 'cause Frank Henenlotter endorsed it on the box! "Redneck Zombies" manages to, rather quietly really, subvert whatever expectations the audience expects. If the audience expects "Dawn of the Dead 2", they're bound to be disappointed and put off with all the weirdness, comedy and the fact it's cheaply shot on video. If someone expects shot on video trash, they get a film that is pretty well shot for what it is, edited tightly with some really neat, trippy effects and all done with a good sense of humour. Intercut with the gory, comedy of the film are genuinely arresting sequences like the Tobacco Man scene (a kind of revolting, redneck twist on the "Ice Cream Man" ) or the "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" influenced scene where one of the rednecks delivering moonshine finds himself in a house where one man, dressed as a butcher and covered in blood, makes an order of 'shine while a bug-eyed redneck holds a rope around a crying woman, tied to a chair. Seemingly, this doesn't really bother our redneck 'hero'. The scene gets weirder - as the girl cries, begs with her eyes in slow motion, close ups on the redneck get more intense, and pretty soon, it's intercut with the slaughter house (actually, beak marking) footage on the TV, featuring a bunch of chirping chicks.
Very strange. "Texas Chain Saw" gets a more direct parody earlier on, when a twitchy barber hitchhiker recreates a similar scene from the Tobe Hooper classic. It's nice to see the filmmakers acknowledge what is, probably, the best 16mm low-budget horror film ever made. There's also some really cool gore and violence here - it's never realistic, but it is frequently disgusting and over the top. One special effect is a clear stand out- one of the best headshots I've ever seen, putting the ones in both "Dawn of the Dead" and "Scanners" to shame, skillfully (and surely patiently) making sure the audience sees for a few seconds the real actor before immediately cutting to the dummy's head exploding apart. The effect is simple but very effective - there's no seam.

I have to give thanks to Troma twiceover - first of all, no one else would release this film. If Pericles Lewnes and co. had made a straight-forward zombie film, maybe they would release it - but ironically, the humour preventing any other company taking the film on is what makes the film so much more worthwhile than it's other shot-on-video ilk. Troma had the good sense (and sense of humour) to release a film that is committed to entertaining it's purely hypothetical audience. Second of all, Troma re-released the film on DVD in this year of our lord, 2009. An earlier DVD from 1998 (I believe) featured a few glitches in the print both visible and, if you scroll down and go to my interview with Ed Bishop, you'll learn parts of the film that seem like cuts are actually glitches too. The only extras were two interviews, one with Pericles Lewnes and one with Ed Bishop. They were okay, but only lasted a few minutes a piece.

The 2009 Tromasterpiece (second in the series, following "Cannibal! The Musical") release is a spiffy two-disc affair that buries any previous versions of the film. The freshly painted cover is a nice touch (though I do miss the original poster, seen up top) and it houses inside two discs - a jam-packed DVD and a CD soundtrack (!). On the DVD, a new transfer has been done that looks a clear three or four times better than the previous DVD edition. There are no glitches in the film so darker scenes (where the problem surfaced before) look a lot better. The whole thing has been colour-corrected, which means it looks much more consistant than the first version did. Perhaps controversial among some small quarters of this film's small fanbase, some of the special visual effects have been redone for this edition. RELAX, this is not a big deal, the two scenes as they stood before were both very funny - the protracted mutation of the rednecks into zombies and the "acid autopsy" scene - but a little dark. This new version preserves the hokey joke of the cheesy effects, but they're more appropriate and less obstructive to the footage underneath. Instead of merely having hundreds of multicoloured squares overlapping themselves to simulate the effects of LSD, this time there are swirls and warping effects, far more appropriate to a "cheesy low-budget approximation of LSD". In fact, I think I saw a kaleidoscope effect in there...?

Overall, the version of the film here is clearly the best there ever was. But wait, there's more! Now there's a commentary from Pericles and Ed, which is a lot of fun and informative too. There's in-depth interviews with just about everybody involved with the production (notably, Anthony Burlington-Smith who was very funny in the film is nowhere to be found here). There is also deleted scenes (including the original mutation and 'acid autopsy' effects), behind the scenes footage, outtakes, trailers, promo-videos and more.

The soundtrack CD, probably the biggest and most unconventional extra here, is a definete boon to fans of the film. Consisting of both Adrian Bond's sometimes hilarious sometimes very effective early synth score and also the songs littered throughout the film, this is an incredible extra to drop on fans (why don't Troma do this with Toxie or "Class of Nuke 'Em High" ? Surely these artists are more obscure!) and a very fun listen for fans of the film.

Overall, in this new DVD I have to say "Redneck Zombies" is one of the best horror or exploitation releases of the year. The extras are really all out, something I never dared hope for in Troma pickup movies, where the cast and crew have usually long given up their filmmaking dreams. I laughed, if you think you will, splash out and join me.

Don't miss out on my great interview with actor/writer/producer Ed Bishop here!

Ghoulies II (1987, Albert Band)

2009-10-29T15:28:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me, you sat through all of "Ghoulies" hoping for that toilet scene. This time out, we get one. Unfortunately, the poster lies once more, promising us yet again precisely one Ghoulie too many in a toilet attack. Don't say I'm nitpicking.

This is it, the "Gremlins" rip-off I'd been waiting for. If one day I make my own hand-puppet vehicle, "Gremlins" will be the large-print Bible and this will be the creased-to-shit Mad Magazine I slip inside during church.

Here are some simple things Ghoulies II has going for it:

Actual Ghoulies action - this time out, the featured characters are given as much screentime as the heroes, they are the main antagonists and the films a lot more fun as a result.
A much wittier script, by Re-Animator writer Dennis Paoli.
A great carnival/funhouse setting.
Featured midget performer - unlike the two faceless midget/dwarves last time out, this one is a guy you'll recognise from everything from "Bordello of Blood" to "Sabrina the Teenage Witch". You know you will. Here, he speaks in Shakespearian verse a lot.
There's some dreadful eighties cockrock, courtesy of the band W.A.S.P. , which stands for "What A Stupid Acronym" (they weren't very good at spelling).
The old alcoholic magician, played by Royal Dano, who I also loved in "Killer Klowns From Outer Space", who says things like "The master [of magic] ? That's great, he can do anything, he can even make this bottle disappear!", then drinks the entire bottle of whiskey and smashes it on the floor. Bare in mind, he was a fairly gentile and senile old man in all the previous scenes.

What results is an immensely superior film that's a lot more fun than the first outing. There's some criticism of this film on sites around the web that it's a poor follow up, and it is - but that's good, the first one was boring and this time out, the filmmakers wisely decided to just make a fun, low-budget version of what the audience wants and expects.

I loved the part where the evil corperate guy who's daddy owns the carnival and is here to fire some faces tells a team of cops "ten thousand dollars if anyone brings me one alive". This has absolutely no bearing on the plot at all - as far as I can tell, it's only there so it can be cut into a trailer and give the impression that the film has much more of a plot than there really is.

Overall, very recommended to hand-puppet horror enthusiasts.

Ghoulies (1985, Luca Bercovici)

2009-10-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

Somehow the theatrical poster for "Ghoulies" beats out even Porky's II for promising far more toilet action that actually occurs in this motion picture.

"Ghoulies", 1985, directed by Luca Bercovici.

Version reviewed: Region 2 MGM DVD with Part 2.

This movie sucks balls. Much like the case with "Critters", the makers of "Ghoulies" denied in their publicity materials copying "Gremlins" in an attempt to emulate their success, citing as proof the fact their script had been in development before Gremlins. Of course, when you see this film you will believe that - the poster (and presumably titular) creatures barely appear in this thing, and only as an afterthought. Little hand puppets swearing and eating people. That's what I want, that's what I paid for. What is all this shit about magic rituals and Henry from "Eraserhead" running around? Why would anyone care?

Fuck, X-Entertainment's review of this film is so much better than mine can ever be so I won't even bother. Go read that and skip this film. Make sure to watch Part 2, if deranged and retarded hand-puppets are your thing.

Ghoulies (film series)

2009-10-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

Ghoulies

The "Ghoulies" series 'concerns itself' with ripping off the superior "Gremlins" series, but in a really downmarket way. For my money, you can't go wrong with "Ghoulies II" for low-budget puppet misadventure and the third film had it's charms. Skip part 1 and burn part 4 if you see it.

1985 - Ghoulies
1987 - Ghoulies II
1990 - Ghoulies Go To College
1994 - Ghoulies IV

Interview - Ed Bishop

2009-10-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

Ed Bishop has credits for writing, editing, operating the camera on and doing visual effects for the classic Troma movie "Redneck Zombies". Today he works for UFC and was kind enough to take time out and answer some questions for me. He's a funny guy, just as you hope one of the lunatics who made "Redneck Zombies" would be and it's clear how much fun it was to make and how much work, too. This is my first ever interview and I'm lucky Mr Bishop gave such in-depth and interesting answers. I'm in italic, his answers are in bold.

First of all, I was anticipating the Redneck Zombies Anniversary Edition eagerly and I wasn't disappointed. You guys did a great job with the DVD.

Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it. Makes all the intense work worthwhile.

I noticed that the cut on the DVD is a little different from the one on the previous DVD, most notably the "Now where's a good place to take a shit?" line cut short on the old release. One of the reasons Buddy Giovinazzio's "Combat Shock" had it's own Tromasterpiece Collection release was that Buddy G felt that the Troma cut of his film had been tampered with, in between it's VHS and DVD releases by some intern at Troma, unbeknownst to Lloyd and Michael. Is this what happened with Redneck Zombies?

As far as we know it wasn’t intentional. There was a glitch in the DVD production that caused it to skip from the middle of “shit” to the hitch-hiker scene, skipping Andy and Wilbur’s reactions and Ellie May’s famous snippet of the song “Ain’t Got No Shoes” (which btw is the hidden bonus track on the cd). No one at Troma noticed and we were in the middle of frantic production on our first video for MTV (Jimmies Chicken Shack “High”) so we didn’t have a chance to watch until several weeks after it came out. By then it was too late to fix. So the new release corrects that. The very very observant will also notice a new shot early in the zombie mob attack of a zombie in red longjohns falling on his face. This shot was accidentally cut from the original edit when we deleted a sequence for pacing, and was always one of our favorite moments, so I found a place to work it back in. Troma was actually very supportive and true to our vision, which is why the “Director’s Cut” originally released on DVD is virtually identical to the Unrated VHS that snuck out a few copies after the disastrous R-rated Transworld debacle.

What is the "disasterous R-rated Transworld debacle." ? I'm assuming there was an attempt to cut the film for an R, and possibly a further attempt by Lloyd to pass the uncut version off as the R?

When Redneck Zombies was first released most newspapers and magazines wouldn’t run advertising for unrated movies and a lot of stores wouldn’t carry them, so TransWorld Entertainment, the distributor that licensed the movie from Troma, cut an R rated version supposedly for limited release, which was common at the time. Not cut so much as “butchered” – they cut out every bit of blood and hence all the zombies. Every time they saw blood they would just cut out until there was no more blood. As you can imagine, the movie as such made no sense whatsoever, and had none of the action or gore that the trailers and early reviews promised. So somehow THAT was the version that they released, with no mention of the unrated at all. Of course there was a huge backlash, lots of negative reviews and disappointed viewers. We launched a massive campaign to get Transworld to release the original unrated edition and under pressure from Lloyd and Michael they finally did make it available, but most stores already had the R piece of shit. My Mom actually called video stores all over the country asking them to trade their R version for the unrated, and a few did. But unless you were one of the lucky few to see the unrated edition, or in one of the international markets that got it unrated (like Australia or Germany, which ironically has since banned it) you would have been screwed. At least we had enough of an underground out there that when Troma released the first DVD, word of mouth from those who knew the truth spread and it became one of Troma’s best selling DVDs.

In hindsight I think it was best that the R rated version was so completely fucked up. If they had just trimmed the gore some it might have become just another mediocre B movie and faded away.

You also updated the graphics in the "mutation" scene and the "autopsy on acid" scenes for the Tromasterpiece Anniversary Edition. For the most part this was clearly an improvement, though I did miss that surreal multicoloured squares leaving trails when Bob closes his eyes. Do you think you came close to crossing the line George Lucas crossed when he rereleased Star Wars?

Wow, that’s a tough question because it’s such a fine line and such a painful dilemma for a filmmaker with any kind of lasting career. While I don’t agree with most of Lucas’s choices, it is tough when you know you made so many compromises in your vision because of budget or limits in the technology, to see the technology catch up so many years later and to have the opportunity and the means to put on the screen what you originally intended. We were never really totally happy with the Bob hallucinations but we did our best with the free Quantel time we had, and it did look cool. I think we improved it now, taking it closer to our vision of what it should look like without taking away the inherent “cheesiness” of the effect. Some people have even questioned our improved color, whether Redneck Zombies SHOULD look better. But we would have done this color correction originally if it were within our reach, and face it, it still looks pretty shitty by today’s standards.
That being said, I think Spielberg replacing the guns with walkie talkies in ET is just being an asshole. (would have to agree!)

The premise for Redneck Zombies is kinda similar to The Return of the Living Dead, with it's noxious chemicals reviving the dead. Was this intentional, and are you aware Return of the Living Dead Part II stole your opening sequence, with military personnel smoking a joint while driving the necromancing chemical?

Yes the military chemical cause for zombies was a nod to Return of the Living Dead, with the extreme carelessness of its transport and over-the-top combination of chemical warfare AND nuclear waste as the joke. In fact one of our favorite negative reviews chastises us for the fact that these two things would NEVER be combined in one barrel! (I think this is the badmovies.org review!) And without even a bungee cord to hold it in place! We can only hope that the opening sequence in 2 was an homage, not a theft. We’ve seen many of these through the years, in fact just recently saw Dead Snow and they have an identical POV shot to ours where the victim wakes up long enough to see the zombies pulling out her intestines. As the saying goes “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. [I didn't think to mention it at the time, but "Redneck Zombies" also did the 'human pretends to be a zombie' thing before "Shaun of the Dead"!]

I know that part of your distribution deal with Troma was that Pericles would work as an indentured servant to Troma, but I saw your name (and I believe William Decker's too) listed in the credits of "The Toxic Avenger Part II" and, I believe, "Troma's War" too. Can you tell me about this?

Because of Lloyd’s appreciation for our Redneck Zombies gore effects he hired me and Bill Decker to create the effect in TA3 where Toxie shoves a goon’s hand into a vcr and you see his hand get ground to bits on the TV screen. Bill also went up to New York to work with Peri as an effects assistant on Toxie 2 and 3. I would have gone up too but I had just started a new job and bought a house so I was stuck in Maryland for a while. BTW Peri originally went to Troma as an indentured servant but quickly became the Special Effects Supervisor and 2nd Unit Director on several Troma movies once Lloyd saw the depth of his talents.

On the IMDB, it says an alternate/working title for "Redneck Zombies" was "Redneck County Rape". Was this a title used to sound more "legitimate" during pre-production/production, or is it some deranged fan's imagined submission?

Actually imdb was the first place we ever heard about that as well. We think it was the title they originally used or were going to use in the first UK release but have no idea if any copies made it out under that name. For the record, we HATE it, so if you see any please send us one for the archive and then destroy the rest with extreme prejudice.
We have always called it Redneck Zombies, and fought hard to retain that as our release title. Anyone looking at us during production would know immediately that there was nothing legitimate about us whatsoever.

The soundtrack CD was a very nice touch. How did the songs come about in the first place, and was it easy to get them to agree to an isolated release after all this time?

Most every song has a story so this could be a long answer. I’ll keep it brief as possible but feel free to ask if you want to know more.

The Love Theme actually burst forth spontaneously one morning shortly after we had started writing the script. We knew it would need a country-ass theme song but hadn’t thought much beyond that. So I was thinking about it one morning in the shower (where I do my best pondering) and the lyrics and melody just started flowing. By the time I dried off I had the first two verses and the bridge complete in my head. So I grabbed my guitar, worked out the chords and called Peri, who immediately loved it. I can’t explain how it happened, keeping in mind I had never written a country song before and in fact detested country music at the time. FYI yes I sang it on the soundtrack but the guitar was played by Rob Martin and the banjo by Jeff Vreeland. I can’t play nearly that well.

I had told everyone at work that I was writing the movie, and they were all excited about it. One morning my boss Kathy came in and handed me a page of lyrics that her husband Don Mayeski had written just for the movie! Of course my first thought was “Oh shit what excuse am I going to use for why I can’t put her husband’s terrible song in the movie?.” But then I read it and it was awesome. I came up with the basic melody and gave it to Rob Martin who had arranged the title song, and he did the kickass blues arrangement you hear. So I had to call it Redneck Zombies Blues.

Once we started production the rest of the songs began to fall into place. The guy who played the Sergeant (Allen Hogg) gave Pericles a tape of his brother’s band, Token Protein. We loved them and asked to use several of their songs (like “My Sweet Cadaver”) as background and incidental music. Not only did they agree, but after seeing a rough cut the lead singer Dana Simson surprised us by writing and recording a hilarious original song that became the end credits music.

Ain't Got No Shoes (aka Ellie's Lament) was improvised by Peri in the hitch-hiker scene, and I later expanded and recorded it for the soundtrack but we never found a place to use it.

For the electronic score the first and only person considered was Adrian Bond. Adrian is the son of Dick Bond, an accomplished photographic artist and good friend of Peri’s. Dick had mentioned that his son, still in High school at the time, was getting into electronic music and suggested we check it out. Not expecting much we dropped by one evening, and were completely blown away! We ended up using his music for a couple commercials, and a couple years later when Peri mentioned him for the Redneck Zombies score I knew there was no better choice. Adrian also plays a wicked guitar when you can talk him into it. Look for his music online (Adrian Bond’s music can be found at http://www.myspace.com/adrianbond)

As for the rest of the songs, we got permission to use a couple from Rob Martin’s band Edge City, and another band Mermin that we had done a music video for.
We’ve had a lot of requests for a soundtrack over the years so when we mentioned it to Lloyd and Michael they were ecstatic. Michael suggested packaging it as a bonus disk with the DVD and we loved the idea. However, since we’re giving it away we had to leave off the songs that we don’t own rights to free and clear. We’re planning to eventually release the cd by itself and hope to include several additional tracks by Token Protein and Edge City.

I also want to mention a band called The Redneck Zombies. I have no idea where they’re from – somewhere in Europe I think – and they never asked for permission to use the name, but I found them on itunes recently and they ROCK.

In the run up to the DVD release, there was a viral campaign on YouTube that appears to have stopped prematurely. Will there be more installments?

I’m hoping there will be more. The campaign stopped partly because Peri became too busy with other projects to do more and I was too busy with other projects to take over as I had planned, and also because I have to admit that even tho DVD sales and interest have been great, the number of hits that the viral videos got was a bit disappointing, which kind of deflated our motivation. If enough people watch the existing ones I’m sure we’ll do more.

Why was some of this material (from the viral videos) not included on the dvd? Some of it, particularly a skit, from (as I recall) a public access sketch show you guys did, was very funny and seemed to be the birthing ground of "Redneck Zombies".

Thanks I’m glad you enjoyed the sketch. It’s true that Crabtown was the birthing ground – Peri was the director and I was the head writer and editor, and many of the other key perpetrators of Redneck Zombies were involved, including Bill Decker, Tyrone Taylor and Henry Dicker (aka Bucky Santini). We had all known each other in high school but it was on Crabtown that we learned to work together as a well-oiled comedy machine (LOL)

Originally were going to include the sketch and a wealth of other material on the DVD. We actually have several hours of outtakes and interviews, plus a 15 minute behind-the scenes short that was put together back while we were still editing the movie. We thought we would have space for about 3 hours of bonus materials, but learned just before the deadline that we were limited to about an hour, so we had to either cut a lot of things out or substitute a second DVD instead of the soundtrack cd. We did an informal poll and the cd won. The plan was to release the best of what hadn't made the DVD in the viral videos, and eventually we may put out a documentary that would include all the interviews and lots more behind the scenes. There could also be a blueray that would include about 5 hours of bonus materials. Send those emails to Troma.com.

On the DVD, you tell us you've been working for UFC. Any favourite fighters?

Randy Couture is the Best of the best! Pericles and I made a documentary on MMA a few years ago called FIGHTER that followed Randy’s start in the UFC through his winning the title for the second time, and he is an amazing fighter and a great person all around. I’m also a fan of Forrest Griffin because he’s hilarious. He`has that same Redneck Zombies combination of slapstick and brute force. I’d love to put him in a horror movie. Plus I'm way into WEC, which is UFC's little brother, featuring the lighter weight classes. Some fast, furious, sick fights!

Is Rampage Jackson that funny in real life?

He's going to play B A Barrachus. Need I say more?

You've made a gruesome horror film, and horror films are often villified as endorsing or supporting violence. Now, you work for UFC which is often compared to a kind of barbaric, human cock-fighting. (I don't hold either of these views). Do you have to explain sometimes to family, friends etc. that your professional interest is merely in entertainment?

Horror movies are an interesting issue in my family because as a whole we’re liberal peace-mongers and my own views are very Buddhist. But I have been raised on horror – my Mom was a huge fan of the classics – Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man – growing up in the 1940’s, so it seemed natural to my parents that I got into horror almost as soon as I could change the channel on my own. We’ve always seen it as pure entertainment and somewhat of a cathartic release. I have had to explain this to a few friends and family along the way, and have certainly had my share of discussions about the negative influence of violent media on society and the children, but for the most part people understand that it’s just in fun and always trying to shock and thrill those who have “seen everything”.
The UFC on the other hand I seem to have to explain to about 90% of the people I talk to about it. It still has the lingering reputation of the old UFC and early Brazilian Shooto that it’s kind of a no rules fight to the death. But once I tell people what the sport is really about (and this is something that our FIGHTER documentary does very well) most people are interested in checking it out.

Finally, do you have any advice for young filmmakers with ideas possibly even more alienating and deranged than "Redneck Zombies" ?

To quote the shoe guys, Just Do It. If you have a great idea and you want to make a movie, make it. Don’t wait around for someone to give you “financing”. If you’re passionate about it find a way. Cameras and tape are so cheap now, and you can edit a film on your laptop so there are no excuses! We made Redneck Zombies with credit cards, made the payments by producing local cable commercials for $400, and we were fortunate enough to get that back plus enough to pay the actors and crew afterward (almost $10. a day!!!) BUT be smart about it. Make your script as tight as possible, and incorporate the locations and actors you know you have access to. Learn as much as you can about HOW to make a movie before you start. Don’t worry, you’ll still find out plenty of things you didn’t know once you’re doing it. Lloyd Kaufman’s books are INVALUABLE tools. I really wish he had written them 20 years ago.

A couple practical tips –

Always expect everything to take longer than you think.
If you’re not paying real rates, put close friends and family in key roles and crew positions. They’re the only ones likely to stick with you by day 6 of a 3 day shoot.
Make a film because you want to make a film. Don’t expect to ever make any money. But do your best and be grateful when you do.
If half your audience loves it and the other half hates it you’ve done something special. If everyone hates it, learn from your mistakes and move on to the next one.
Have fun and don’t ever let anyone tell you it can’t be done.
Please send me a copy. I’m dying to see it.

Thank you Ed Bishop for answering these questions! The last answer is pretty encouraging, eh?

If you're a "Redneck Zombies" fan, you need to get the new DVD - it's quite simply one of the best DVDs Troma has ever put out and every fan will love it (in fact, all of the "Tromasterpiece" series have been exemplery, especially the new "Combat Shock" DVD).

If you've never experienced the joys of "Redneck Zombies" and yet somehow read all the way through this interview, I wonder what the Hell you're doing.

If you like zombie films or Troma films and have a sense of humour, you should definetely buy "Redneck Zombies". Where else can you see the point of view of a terrified man on acid attempting to perform an autopsy by lantern-light, or a corpulant redneck seriously contemplate having sex with the (seriously mutilated) remains of a lady camper?

Rawhead Rex (1986, George Pavlou)

2009-10-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

Rawhead Rex, 1986, directed by George Pavlou)

Version reviewed: Region 2 Prism Leisure DVD.

A year later, the team behind the (not a) hit Clive Barker adaptation "Underworld" (aka. Transmutations) reunited for another bash at low-budget British nonsense. At one point in "Rawhead Rex", footage from "Underworld" is playing on a TV (much like when Tobe Hooper had a TV playing his previous movie in "Invaders from Mars"). Actually this scene is really funny - a guy asks his younger brother "Why aren't you watching the film?" (actually, he said "fillum") and I was laughing already, hoping against hope, he would say "Because it's shite!". Unfortunately he says "I've seen it before", which isn't nearly as funny (or accurate...who's seen "Transmutations"?). Also, you will notice thankfully that the music in "Rawhead Rex" is a much better (and orchestral) score than the horrible 'Duran Duran-go-gothic" synth thing on "Underworld".

Yes, this one is a lot better than "Underworld", even if the cast isn't nearly as good. Here, some numbskull farmer in Ireland upsets a huge rock in his land that's keeping a secret buried. No longer so, the monster named "Rawhead Rex" is now free to murder.

Rawhead Rex in the flesh, with some other flesh.

As per Clive Barker's (England-based) original story, which appears (I believe) in his third "Book of Blood", Rex is the last of his kind, a pre-human species that raped, murdered and did what ever it liked. Actually, Clive Barker imagined it was a giant DICK (even resembling such) which did whatever it wanted with disregard for anyone else. In the film, however, it's this kind of hokey monster that looks a lot like Goro from the "Mortal Kombat" film, but crappier.

The actings all really hokey and the 'plot' unfolds in a totally inexplicable manner, but the film is just plain entertaining. While in "Underworld", Pavlou used his music video background just to light everything in a supremely cheesy manner, here it is definetely a great atmospheric tool - this is a very good looking b-movie for either a British or an Irish production. The music adds to the film this time out and you will enjoy seeing the locals scream and cry at this silly monster.

I recommend it to b-movies fans, especially British ones, and the curious Barker fans with a sense of humour may well enjoy it too.

Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982, Steve Miner)

2009-10-25T19:22:00.000-07:00

"Friday the 13th Part 3", 1983, directed by Steve Miner.

Version reviewed: the Region 1 "From Crystal Lake to Manhattan" boxset.

The one where Jason first wears a hockey mask and is suddenly ten times larger than he was in the last film. Also this is the one in 3D, but not anywhere but it's first theatrical release and the newest DVD, so all that means is that lots of things are thrown towards the camera in an (inevitably unsuccessful) attempt to make you jump.

"Friday the 13th Part 3" is one of the very first horror films I saw. You'd think that I'd have some kind of special attachment to it as a result, but I barely remember what happens in it. When I think of it's violent climax in the hay-covered barn, I only remember the iconic axe hit to the face, and everything else blurs indefinetely with the ending of "Friday the 13th Part V: Let's pretend we weren't lying with Part 4 and make another one without Jason".

An Anamorphic Friday the 13th

Despite this, "Part 3" has a lot going for it, if you're in the market for this type of thing. It was the first 'Friday' to be filmed in California as opposed to the woods of New Jersey. Being a more "Hollywood" production, the film is more polished and well put together than the first two entries. However, the woods are no longer as dusty and dark as they were in the 'grittier' first two films in the series, so it's not all good. However, the film is also the first 'Friday' to be shot 2:35:1 Cinemascope and as a result it looks better than the vast majority of films in this series. In fact, unless you count "Freddy VS Jason", it's the only Friday film in anamorphic widescreen.

Dana Kimmell as Chris

'Final girl' Chris (Dana Kimmell) is, for my money, a lot more attractive than the previous women in this series (Alice, Ginnie) and pretty much all of the ones afterwards too ('cept Jensen Dagget, in part 8, and the heroine of Jason X). She's pretty good, especially in terms of Friday the 13th actors, which just makes it a shame her screentime wasn't in more interesting scenes and not just wrestling with an artificial romance with that guy she wants so bad. Catherine Parks was also pretty sexy back in 1982 and her character, who has to politely tell the fat guy Shelley she's not interested after all signs in the movie seemed to indicate she was going to pair off with him, is actually interesting. As for Kimmell, she never did any more acting for cinema and told campblood.com:

"I'm not a big fan of R-rated movies," she says. "I believe movies should be doing a better job of standing up for good values and morals. I'm also not too fond of onscreen sex."

Good job taking a role in Friday the 13th Part 3.

"I was being mercenary," admits Kimmell as to why she took the plunge in Friday the 13th's second sequel. 'It was a matter of paycheck."

Ahhh that explains it.

Friday the 13th Part 3: in eye-popping 3D

"Friday the 13th Part 3" presented the earliest true incarnation of Jason Voorhees - for the first time, he is a hulking mongaloid in a hockey mask. Also, unlike the weird hillbilly in part 2, this Jason looks a little more like Sloth from "The Goonies". In a weird, wraparound way, this movie having the first real Jason makes "Friday the 13th Part 3" almost as influential as part 1 - the image of Jason Voorhees with machete and hockey mask has been parodied and imitated so many times, it's become one of the most recognisable and satirised images of the 1980s. And all it took was to rip off Halloween a little closer than the first two did.

Overall, "Friday the 13th Part 3" is an impressive first-wave slasher film with some of the series most memorable characters (for what that's worth). If you're only going to see one in this series, this is probably the one you should see - it typifies the series while providing a superior example of it, it has a great look and it's very, very eighties.

It's just a shame everything is in not-3D, with everything being thrown your way. Even the poster is 3D - look, the logo is flyin' at ya in wooden shrapnel, like the log cabins in the movie fucking exploded.

Friday the 13th

2009-10-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

The Friday the 13th series ran from 1980 to 2003 and chronicled 11 (count 'em, 11!) different murder sprees committed by the Voorhees family. The fact that they were all minor variations on the same film (eg. "with a telekinetic girl like Carrie", "in New York", "with a body-jumping hell-worm that likes to kill", "in space") didn't matter to fans - all that mattered is the films were creepy, the cast was young and there'd be a series of gory death scenes. Truth is, these films weren't very good - or gory, on the whole - but they were tremendously influential and anyone with any serious interest in horror should watch a few, preferably early, films in this series.

I won't make any attempt to be a definitive text or knowledge on the series - most of them were made by unenthusiastic cast and crew people against their 'better' knowledge and taste. As such, production stories are largely uninteresting or irrelevant. If you do want to know more - for example how to make your own independant horror hit and sell it to Paramount - I recommend getting a copy of the Region 2 (UK) Warner Brothers release of the first "Friday the 13th" with it's excellent feature documentary and a copy of "Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th" by Peter M. Bracke , a very well-researched hardback detailing the productions of all the Friday the 13th films, in depth and with interviews. There's a great online resource here at Camp Blood too.

1980 - Friday the 13th
1981 - Friday the 13th Part 2
1982 - Friday the 13th Part 3
1984 - Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
1985 - Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning
1986 - Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
1988 - Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
1989 - Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
1993 - Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
2002 - Jason X
2003 - Freddy VS Jason
2009 - Friday the 13th (remake)

David Lynch

2009-10-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

David Lynch is a batshit and occassionally brilliant filmmaker, seen here gnawing on a girl's underwear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioKyxGkBRro

1977 - Eraserhead
1980 - The Elephant Man
1984 - Dune
1986 - Blue Velvet
1990 - Wild at Heart
1992 - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
1997 - Lost Highway
1999 - The Straight Story
2001 - Mulholland Drive
2006 - Inland Empire

Big Trouble in Little China (1986, John Carpenter)

2009-10-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

Big Trouble in Little China was the fourth collaberation between Kurt Russell and John Carpenter.

this guys a cunt:

John Carpenter

2009-10-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

JOHN CARPENTER

John Carpenter, much like George A. Romero, is a genre director influenced by the generation that claimed him - the peace generation. These two hippies, however, decided to make nasty, effective films that were as well-crafted as they were easy to like.
There are two things that mark John Carpenter out as an essential figure in later 20th Century cinema in general: one is his huge influence on his own films, often writing, co-producing, directing, editing and scoring his own films and the other is his apparently effortless movement from one genre to another. Both "Assault on Precinct 13" and "Escape from New York" are action movies influenced by westerns, but "Escape..." managed to throw sci-fi and a little horror in the the mix, for the audiences' huge benefit. "The Thing" was a dark, sci-fi nightmare that remains powerful to this day."Halloween" was a simplistic and purely horrific film, stripping the genre down to it's barest minimum. "They Live" was a cinematic party, with it's fun, sci-fi action adventure making it's satirical message all the more entertaining.With "Christine", Carpenter managed to make a film about a sentient and evil car that liked to kill into something that was at least emotionally effecting, which is a pretty astounding feat. With "Big Trouble in Little China" he made his most bizarre film - a very funny cross-genre masterpiece.

John Carpenter with his trademark lung-cancer.

or seems to have given Carpenter a bit of a kick in the ass. Over the last few years what I heard about Carpenter was that he was happy to sit at home, smoke dope, watch basketball and play video games. Maybe getting back behind the camera for a project that actually got seen and was received well put the salt back in his shaker.

sdsd

dssdds

Dark Star
Assault on Precinct 13
Someone's Watching Me
Halloween
The Fog
Elvis
Escape from New York
The Thing
Christine
Starman
Big Trouble in Little China
Prince of Darkness
They Live!
Memoirs of an Invisible Man
Body Bags
In the Mouth of Madness
Village of the Damned
Vampires
Ghosts of Mars
Cigarette Burns
Pro-Life

Porky's Revenge (1985, James Komack)

2009-10-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

PORKY'S REVENGE

While remaining somewhat more accurate than the "Porky's II: The Next Day" poster, this poster still has some false promises...It is my sad duty to inform you that, at no point in "Porky's Revenge", does Chuck "Porky" Mitchell swell up to Godzilla size and seize "the gang" in his hand.

"Porky's Revenge", 1985, directed by James Komack.

The foreign exchange student who's country's customs conveniently dictate she has to reveal her ample bosom to everyone.

Porky's II: The Next Day (1983, Bob Clark)

2009-10-22T16:45:00.001-07:00

PORKY'S II: THE NEXT DAY
At no point in "Porky's II: The Next Day" does Ms Ballbricker climb from over the top of what is apparently a toilet cubicle suspended in an infinite white void as "the gang" look on like a bunch of smug shits.

What the fuck were they thinking?! Doing a sequel to Porky's without any sex! The idiocy! Look at my equation:

Porky's - Sex = 0

There! That proves there is nothing left after Porky's is robbed of it's smutty, racy humour. But what you will find out watching Porky's II: The Next Day is that without sex, Porky's II is just all the preachy "tolerance" we learned with the Jewish kid in the first movie stretched out to (very unfunny) full-length. You will also learn it doesn't matter if it takes place "the next day" or the next year - the whole thing is totally incongruous with the first film. Kids from the previous day (film) are nowhere to be seen, the kid who got the shit kicked out of him and ended Porky's on crutches, is totally fine here. And, oh yeah, all the kids are gearing up for a big Shakespeare adaptation on stage at school that they are so into, they are willing to actually fight the radical racists who try to stop the performance. Christ, remember that in the first film? When they were all spying on the girls' showers, then Tommy Turner stuck his penis through a hole in the wall, and Ms Balbricker pulled it from the other side? Remember them talking about the big play they're doing in a few nights?

I mean what the fuck, I don't think they even play basketball in this one. What were they thinking? I don't want to see "the gang" working together as a tolerant bunch and toppling oppressive figures in society. The fundamental principle of their revenge in Porky's, was derived from not getting laid at his nightclub.

I will probably, in time, think of something nice to put here. Some deeper analysis. But I just hate this thing so much.

Watch "Porky's Revenge" for a more fun sequel.

Here's the UK video cover, complete with a "toilet" backdrop

Porky's (1982, Bob Clark)

2009-10-22T16:41:00.000-07:00

PORKY'S

The perspective's a little fucked, but this is more or less an accurate representation of the shower scene. Of course, the poster should have had his cock and not his eye in the hole.

1982, directed by Bob Clark.

Version reviewed: Special edition in the region 1 "Ultimate collection".

It also contains a very young Kim Cattral from "Sex and the City" and, of course, "Big Trouble in Little China".

Porky's (Film series)

2009-10-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

The Porky's films are pretty legendary smut films.

Porky's is probably still the best "teen titty" (as Kevin Smith would say) film ever made, so there.

The "Howling" Series

2009-10-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

THE HOWLING

MOVIES:
There are seven "Howling" films and three novels. Not all of them are connected. Some of them are pretty good, some of them are just awful. In the film series, the first is one of the best werewolf films ever made and parts V and VI would both have benefited from severing ties with the series and standing apart as well done low-budget horror films. In contrast, "Howling II" is a wildly-entertaining so bad it's good "new-wave" horror comedy, with a plot that makes no sense and occurs both in America and Transylvania, "Howling III" (by the same director) was really boring but probably better made, "Howling IV" is one of the worst films I've ever seen and part VII "New Moon Rising" is quite possibly the worst film I've ever seen, ever. And I sat through "Actium Maximus", "The Dark Side of Midnight" and the likes.

So, if you like werewolf movies, the first film is a must and parts V and VI are definetely worth a look - they're available on DVD together at a good price. Both are "direct to video" features, but they're also from the late eighties/early nineties when that meant direct to video films were still made on location, on film and professionally. If you enjoy "The Howling" and found much to laugh at in "Troll 2", then you'll love "Howling II", a sequel so ridiculous and incongruous with the first outing, it becomes automatically classic batshit movie-making. It's more fun, actually, than "Troll 2" because, unlike that film, it's competantly made and acted, with some great set design - it's just the script is so fucking awful. The others are not worth your time.

"The Howling"
"Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf" (aka. Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch)
"Howling III"
"Howling IV: The 'Original' Nightmare"
"Howling V: The Rebirth"
"Howling VI: The Freaks"
"Howling VII: New Moon Rising" (aka. Howling - New Moon Rising)

NOVELS:

Gary Brandner's novels are my first exposure to "so-bad-it's-good" novels. The first two, written in quick succession, are straight-forward and nasty horror novels, with sexism, a rape and lots of bad descriptions and prose altogether. They're actually funny how outdated some of this is. The werewolves in the first two books are quadropeds who are very wolflike. In the movies, the werewolves are always a hybrid of human and wolf (with parts 1 and V having the most wolf-like characteristics) and bipedal.
The third book retconned much of the first two books and seemingly took after the films more (Michael Crichton style). The werewolves now walked etc. Brandner also wrote the baffling screenplay for "Howling II" after he took disdain to the first film's treatment of his book (all he seemingly brought was werewolf sex, the gypsie stuff from the book and a complete rewrite of the first film's ending). "Howling III" and, to an extent, "Howling VI: The Freaks" took after "Howling III: Echoes" sympathetic view of the werewolf.

"The Howling"
"The Howling II" aka "Return of the Howling"
"Howling III: Echoes"

Blood Hook (1986, Jim Mallon)

2009-10-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

BLOOD HOOK

Version Reviewed: the Troma Triple B-Header DVD, which also features "Blades" and "Zombie Island Massacre". Overall, two good low-budget slashers from the eighties and "Zombie Island Massacre" make this a worthwhile package.

Now here's a title that doesn't make sense. Don't worry, you haven't missed earlier entries in this series, "Blood Knife" and "Blood Sword", because they don't exist. I have no idea what they were thinking with this title, but I love it - nonsensical and evocative. I imagine Troma retitled it to "Blood Hook" and that it was originally titled "Muskie Madness" or something.

This is a Troma pickup from the late eighties. A very low-budget, off-beat and funny slasher that's half-parody and a lot of fun. As far as plot goes, I seem to remember it as: back in the sixties or seventies, a young boy sees his grandfather killed by an (unseen to us) killer, who appears when music plays and is accompanied by a creepy hissing noise. Years later, that kid (now a teen) comes back into the small fishing town with four friends. They meet some weird, redneck locals:

A guy who was so much like the blemish on comedy that is Red Green, he probably has a similar, two-colour nonsense name, like Black Purple.
A sexy MILF who looks about 18 and frequently leaves her kid unattended.
The big fat guy with a beard, who's a psycho 'NAM vet. He reminds me of a combination of Stooges guitarist Ron Ashton in the other Troma pick-up, "Frostbiter", and someone else who I can't remember right now. He actually says "Some dudes get short wave on their braces and their hip pins. Over in 'Nam, you could hear stuff in the air that wasn't normal, man. Hell, I knew this dude in Clevelend with a steel pelvis? Got a hard-on everytime a train went by."
The creepy old American Gothic-alike who wanders around moaning.
The big fat cheater who cheats at everything and accuses everyone else of cheating (Denny).
The old man who's like Crazy Ralph from "Friday the 13th".
The weird, slow and Canadian sounding bait shop man.

They all enter into the "Muskie Madness" fishing competition and one by one they get knocked off by the same music-invoked killer that kills the old man at the beginning. Convieniently, one of the teenage characters is a frustrated musician. This is like a parody of films where a minister's faith is tested by the devil, or something. Anyway, they attract him with music and a buncha stuff happens and it turns out it's the slow-speaking bait shop guy. The END.

Clockwise from top left: the lonely, horny one of the teens; one of the cartoonish corpses in it's watery grave at the climax of the film; the irresponsible MILF; and finally, the one of the teens who says "dude" and "man" a lot.

But yeah, it also has some memorable imagery - such as the corpses' cartoony but well done appearance in their watery grave at the end and the sound design is exceptional for a film this low budget. Music is pretty good all-round, not a soundtrack I'd buy or acquire, but all listenable and the sound effect for the killer is effective. It's the same kinda hiss you hear in "Shivers" and the end of "Night of the Creeps".
The atmosphere is very well crafted with the slow, creep down to the river by skycar at the beginning and the creepy "lair" at the end being obvious stand outs. Genuine locations are a vital asset to the film - this is really what some place looked like at that time. I have no idea where, but it did anyway.
The film is funny when it needs to be and there are enough secondary characters (including a feuding family) that things keep moving and don't get stuck in a rut. It's not as funny as "Student Bodies", but it's funnier than "Splatter University", "Decampitated", "Scream" or "Scary Movie".

If there is a big flaw in all of this, it's that after the two sidekick men were killed, I lost a little interest. The goofy New Waver guy and the fat guy who loved the MILF were both more entertaining, and therefore endearing, characters than the lead "frustrated musician".
But yeah, all of this only applies if you're into eighties slasher movies. I am, and I'm a fan of it's twin - the eighties sex comedy. They're really the same thing but in one there's a killer. That's it. Even the stereotyping is identical. The only slasher I have ever seen capitalise on or exploit this connection is "Cheerleader Camp".

Also, watching it, I couldn't help but notice how much better looking it is than most low-budget horror films. It's not spectacular, ever, but it all looks competant and some of the shots are pretty swish for a low budget thing. The sound design is also very good.

"Blood Hook" is a good Troma pick-up and the DVD also has the great Jaws homage "Blades" and a piece of crap called "Zombie Island Massacre", all for a one DVD price. It's worth it for the two "b" movies. "Zombie Island Massacre" is just tolerable - but it should have been called "Drug Dealer Slasher Occasionally Kills".

Click HERE to go back to my Troma page.

Troma Inc.

2009-10-22T12:59:00.001-07:00

(Scroll down to the bottom for a list of my Troma reviews)Troma is a lot of things. It's a brand, a team of filmmakers, an aquired taste and the world's oldest independant film studio. Founded in the 1970s by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, the company has repeatedly produced unique, raunchy, satirical and boundary pushing comedy films. They started mostly using established genres - the sex comedy, relationship comedy, Mel Brooks-like fantasy comedy - and pushing boundaries and tastes within them, with films like "Stuck on You!" and "The First Turn On!!" but as time went on, they begin to throw as many genres together as possible, breaking new territory at every turn. A film like "The Toxic Avenger" is part gruesome horror film, part superhero film, part raunchy sex comedy and part environmental satire. "Class of Nuke 'Em High" is a teen movie with sci-fi monsters, mutant punks and rock & roll music, done in the style of a "Reefer Madness", over-the-top, propaganda film. As time went on, they experimented with the mainstream ("Troma's War", "Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD" and the two "Toxic Avenger" sequels), with limited success.

They restaged a kind-of comeback in the 1990s when Kaufman and James Gunn (now, more successful as a Hollywood screenwriter and director - he wrote "Scooby Doo", "Dawn of the Dead" and "The Specials", and directed "Slither") collaberated on the memorable "Tromeo & Juliet". This new Troma had a harder rock soundtrack than ever before (apparently inspired by Alex Winter's Troma-on-crack style cult classic "Freaked", which Kaufman admits on the "Stuck On You" commentary was a "great movie"), a more offensive and less justifiable sense of humour and a faster, "Simpsons" and "South Park"-influenced, style of comedy. This same approach was reused (along with Tromeo's penis monster) in two more films, "Terror Firmer" and "Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part IV", before being modified slightly (with music) for "Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead".

Lloyd Kaufman hard at work toppling the giant conspiracy of the bureaucratic and labour elites.

But Troma also releases films that are not directed, written or even produced by the Troma team head up by Kaufman and Herz. Since the very early days, Troma has purchased the rights to smaller movies that fit somewhat the companies brand (comedic, horrific, sexual, strange) and released them to the general public. Some of them are older, awful films Troma must've gotten for a song and a dance ("Capture of Bigfoot", "The Dark Side of Midnight") but some Troma pick-ups rank up there with the best of the in-house productions - "Combat Shock", "Cannibal! The Musical", "Redneck Zombies" and "Mother's Day" for example.

Some Troma "pick-ups" are actually better made and more professional than the (surely bigger budget) in-house productions! "Def by Temptation", "Surf Nazis Must Die!" and "Chopper Chicks in Zombietown" all spring to mind.

Troma also has quite a large selection of old-school slasher films they've picked up over the years. These include "Graduation Day", "Christmas Evil", "Blood Hook", "Girls School Screamers", "Mother's Day", "The Children" (kinda...), "Zombie Island Massacre" (no, no zombies here) and the slightly newer "Decampitated". You could argue "Fanatic/The Last Horror Film", "Beware: Children at Play", "Bloodsucking Freaks" and "Igor and the Lunatics" fit the mould too. They also used to own distribution rights for Richard "Class of Nuke 'Em High" W. Haines' earlier "Splatter University".

REVIEWS:

(In chronological order) The Kaufman-directed/in-house Productions:

"The Girl Who Returned"
"The Battle of Love's Return"
"Big Gus, What's the Fuss?"
"Squeeze Play!"
"Waitress!"
"Stuck On You!"
"The First Turn On!!"
"The Toxic Avenger"
"Class of Nuke 'Em High"
"Troma's War"
"The Toxic Avenger Part II"
"The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie"
"Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD"
"Tromeo & Juliet"
"Terror Firmer"
"Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part IV"
"Tales from the Crapper"
"Parts of the Family" (Tromatic re-edit)
"Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead"

In addition to these, the company has or had the rights to the following movies:

"Actium Maximus: War of the Alien Dinosaurs"
"Alien Blood"
"Backroad Diner"
"Beware: Children at Play!"
"Blades"
"Blood Hook"
"Bloodspell"
"Bloodsucking Freaks"
"Bugged!"
"Buttcrack"
"Cannibal! The Musical"
"The Children"
"Chillers"
"Chopper Chicks in Zombietown"
"Christmas Evil" (aka. "You'd Better Watch Out!")
"Class of Nuke 'Em High Part 2: Subhumanoid Meltdown"
"Class of Nuke 'Em High Part 3: The Good, the Bad, the Subhumanoid"
"Combat Shock"
"Coons: Night of the Bandits of the Night"
"Cyxork 7"
"The Dark Side of Midnight"
"Decampitated"
"Def by Temptation"
"Drawing Blood"
"Evil Clutch"
"Fanatic"
"Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid!"
"Fatty Drives the Bus"
"Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendigo"
"Garden of the Dead"
"Graduation Day"
"Igor and the Lunatics"
"The Last Horror Film"
"Mad Dog Morgan"
"Monster in the Closet"
"Mothers Day"
"Nightbeast"
"A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell"
"Parts of the Family"
"Rabid Grannies"
"Redneck Zombies"
"Screamplay"
"Space Daze"
"Splatter University"
"Star Worms II: Attack of the Pleasure Pods"
"The Stendhal Syndrome"
"Strangest Dreams: Invasion of the Space Preachers"
"Sucker: The Vampire"
"Surf Nazis Must Die!"
"Unspeakable"
"When Nature Calls"
"Zombie Island Massacre"

They sure like them exclamation points!(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

The First Turn On!! (Michael Herz, Lloyd Kaufman, 1983)

2009-10-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

The First Turn On!!

The US theatrical poster, featuring some of the cast and people I don't recognise at all (middle two girls).

"The First Turn On!" (1983, directed by Michael Herz and Samuel Weil aka. Lloyd Kaufman)
(note: on-screen title has two exclamation marks)
Version Reviewed: Region Free US "Troma Retro" line DVD from Troma Team Video, as part of "The Sexy Box", similar to their "Tox Box" and "Complete Spill-ogy" sets. Essentially a repackage of their earlier "Before There Was Toxie" boxset, with some (cool) new extras and three early feature films (!) as Easter Eggs.

OF the four Troma "sexy comedies", "The First Turn On!" is by far my favourite. Unlike the previous three films ("Squeeze Play!", "Waitress!" and "Stuck On You!"), all of which had their own surreal and silly charm, "The First Turn On!" is much closer to a conventional "sex comedy" in that it the majority of the cast is teenagers, there's a lot of smutty dopey humour and summer camp hijinx and, for the first time, Troma has finally, really landed smack bang into the 1980s. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the quintessential eighties teen comedy - there's no big sports event, parade, competition or race at the end, as far as I can recall there's actually no scenes where a guy pervs on girls naked in the shower - but it is faster than before, with much less flights of fantasy, more flights of logic and more and more of the "traditional" Troma style. Really, aside from the fact there's no gory violence in it, this is pretty much the same style Troma used on it's subsequent films, "The Toxic Avenger" and "Class of Nuke 'Em High". It's really, really funny too. The..."plot"...basically amounts to this: a tough guy from the street (that's him on the poster), a fat guy played by Googy Gress (who you may have seen in some Farrelly brothers films or Wayne's World 2), a Jewish Princess (far left on poster), a camp counselor (far right on poster) and a really, really, really horny camper with red hair are all trapped deep in a cave, after the fat one farts and causes a cave-in. It's dark, they're running out of air and there's a tarantula crawling around down there. Since the counselor followed them there after they snuck off a nature trail to smoke a joint, no one else knows where they are. They all relate to each other their own first sexual experiences in highly exaggerated, comedic flashbacks. Outside in the camp, Mr Zitzler (who runs the place) demands the kids be found because "some of those kids' parents haven't paid yet" while deranged, horny kids make phalluses, vaginas and breasts in their pottery activities.

Some of the campers mid-"circle jerk" flavourd prankery. Centre-right is Lobotomy, played by Academy Award Winning actor, Vincent D'Onofrio. Really.

"Squeeze Play" added sex and comedy to the sports movie mould, "Waitress!" had a wackier, more Airplane!/Kentucky Fried Movie feel, but 'grounded in a single, restaurant environment, "Stuck On You!" was a sweeter film, kind of Lloyd's attempt at a Mel Brooks comedy, with elements not too dissimilar to Woody Allen's more fantastic attempts. But "The First Turn On!" has a very, very simple and more realistic grounding than any previous attempts (it's not half as wacky as the earlier films), which gives it a lot more time for comedy and sex humour, as the campers all learn to relate to each other (in fact, the movie is kind of like a very smutty "The Breakfast Club" in that regard). Of all the stories the teens tell each other, the only one I didn't like was the one the jewish girl told - it wasn't funny or smutty enough. The fat guy (Henry) has a good story where he goes out on Halloween in a scary ghost costume his mother made (that looks like a Ku Klux Klan outfit), only to save a pretty girl from a gang of black muggers. Googy Gress, who plays Henry, is the bartender in the bowling alley in "Kingpin", when Woody Harrelson and Randy Quaid try (unsucessfully) to hustle early in the film. He can also be seen here in "Me Myself and Irene" where he looks pretty different from "The First Turn On!".

Googy gets some.

I also adored both the camp counsellor and the horny kid's storys, too. In the horny kids fantasy, he ends up meeting a Penthouse Pet he likes on the beach and having a threesome with her and his brother's girlfriend. It doesn't sound like much, I know, but the way it's played is total softcore eighties teen beach fantasy with the horny kid constantly wide-eyed and saying "wow" like he's just been told what sex is. The whole segment is a lot of fun, with wall to wall music (that doesn't annoy like earlier songs on Troma soundtracks). The sex in it, like the whole film, is totally unerotic on purpose - it's either being artsy or funny, but it's never sexy.

The camp counsellor's story is also very funny, specifically because of Mark Torgl. If you've ever seen the first "Toxic Avenger", you'll know Mark Torgl as Melvin. Here, Mark's performance is broadly similar - a geeky, twitchy guy with lots of energy - but a lot more knowing. Here, he plays a very sleazy and horny teenager who uses the camp counsellor for sex while she believes he genuinely cares for her. The drive of it is that the counsellor (in voiceover) speaks of Dwayne as some kind of legendary lover, while we see Mark Torgl in bad acne make up drooling and using food to make crude sexually absurd gestures. I'm not sure if the drive is "reality vs camp counsellor's version of events", or "love is blind" or "the entire story is made up". Whatever. Mark is pretty funny in this role and the segment loses something when his character leaves her for another girl.
The other segment is the tough guy's, which is ok, but not great. It's got a hooker plot and there's some nice nudity, but that's it.

It's the eighties - do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan.

The wraparound scenes with the rest of the camp in their absense is also very funny, with Vincent D'Onofrio's character Lobotomy providing some hilarious moments as a deranged and possibly retarded camper who helps with the counselling. There were other very funny moments - the environmental film, the circle jerk prank (a precursor to the sheep prank in "Toxic Avenger") the end with the mother and the water, a joke about a kind of natural aphrodisiac which is obvious but good for a laugh and the end of the film has some nice moments, with the parents going around the camp and being repeatedly shocked.

The end, where the cave-in's all admit they made their stories up, then have a nice little orgy together is not filmed sexily(?), at all, and to be honest, I can think of things more erotic than a naked orgy in a cave-in, with tarantulas crawling around.

I've heard Michael Herz directed this movie solo, and if that's really the case, it's much easier for me to see his contribution to these early films with Kaufman and why they're superior to the later, solo efforts. These films don't make fun of the fact they are in bad taste. They're more sincere this way, and the comedy in this film is faster and less artsy (god, did I say it?) than others of the early Troma period.
I'm not sure what Vincent D'Onofrio thinks of this movie now - Lloyd Kaufman mentions in the commentary that he stopped by at the Tromadance festival and reminded Lloyd that he was fired from "The Toxic Avenger", but on the "Full Metal Jacket" DVD, he definitively states that "Full Metal Jacket" was his first film, which I guess tells us what he thinks of it. Me, I was hoping for him to say something in an interview like "When I did Full Metal Jacket, I was just playing Lobotomy in the army.". Far fetched I know, but he basically pulls the same expressions in both films, it's just in "Jacket", he's fatter and accompanied by heavier, scary music.

If you like the early Troma films ("Toxic Avenger" or "Class of Nuke 'Em High"), you must try "The First Turn On!". If you like early eighties sex comedies (which, like early eighties slashers, is a genre that I find impossible to hate), you will definetely have fun with this. It's far more gratuitous and more consistantly funny than films like "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Porky's 2: The Next Day!", having more in common with the initial, offensive, energy-rush of the sex comedy with films like "Animal House" and "Porky's", but taken further! But it's not very BIG - if I felt one disappointment when first watching this, it's that one expects more hijinks, more set-pieces and bigger crowd shots when one hears the words "summer camp" and "sex comedy" in close proximity. Hell, even "Meatballs III" (not truly a summer camp movie), which was crap, had more to show than this one.

Recommended, especially if you buy "The Sexy Box".

The UK quad poster for "The First Turn On!".

Click HERE to go back to my Troma page.

Star Wars

2009-10-18T08:16:00.001-07:00

STAR WARS!

In case you didn't know, Star Wars rocks.

Star Wars is an inconsistant franchise that can be amazing and can also be very trying. The original trilogy are still the best.

There have been several Star Wars features:

1977 - Star Wars (aka. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope)
1978 - The Star Wars Holiday Special
1980 - The Empire Strikes Back (aka. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back)
1983 - Return of the Jedi (aka. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi)
1984 - The Ewok Adventure (aka. Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure)
1985 - Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
1986 - The Great Heap
1999 - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
2002 - Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
2005 - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
2008 - Star Wars: The Clone Wars

There has also been several TV series:

1985 - Droids
1985 - Ewoks
2003 -Star Wars: Clone Wars (Cartoon Network)
2008 - Star Wars: The Clone Wars
2010 (?) - upcoming live action series

Howling VII: New Moon Rising

2009-10-14T16:50:00.000-07:00

This is one squalid arsehole of a film, shitting through your television into your surely respectable living room. It has got to be one of the worst films ever to be created on this good planet Earth, having no possible redeeming value other than perhaps teaching disappointed horror fans how to line dance.

So yeah, like I said, other than it's notable backwards-toilet-for-the-eyes appeal, this isn't worth anyones time.

Reviews

2009-10-13T19:28:00.000-07:00

REVIEWS

The Abyss
Airplane (film series)
Alien (film series)
The Alien Factor (film series)
Altered States
Annie Hall
Apocalypse Now! (and Redux)
April Fools Day
Army of Darkness
Arthur (TV Series)
Back to the Future (film series)
Bad Biology
BASEketball
Basket Case (film series need to fix link)
Batman (film series)
...Better Off Dead
The Beyond
Beyond the Stars
Big Daddy
The Big Lebowski
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Bill & Ted (Animated Series)
Billy Madison
Black Christmas
Black Sheep
Blades
Blood Hook
Blow Out
The Blues Brothers
Blues Brothers 2000
Blue Velvet
Body Double
The Boneyard
Brain Damage
Brand Spankin' New Doug
The Breakfast Club
The 'Burbs
Butthole Surfers: Blind Eye Sees All
Candyman
Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal: The Musical
Career Opportunities
Casper
Cemetary Man
Child's Play
Child's Play 2
Child's Play 3
Bride of Chucky
Seed of Chucky
C.H.U.D.
C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D.
City of the Living Dead
City of God
City of Men
Class of 1984
Class of 1999
Class of 1999 Part 2
Class of Nuke 'Em High
Class of Nuke 'Em High Part 2: Subhumanoid Meltdown
Class of Nuke 'Em High Part 3: The Good, the Bad & The Subhumanoid
A Clockwork Orange
Combat Shock
Coming to America
Creepshow
Creepshow 2
Creepshow 3
Critters (aka. Critters: They Bite!)
Critters 2: The Main Course
Critters 3
Critters 4
Dad's Army (TV Series)
Dad's Army: The Movie
The Dark Crystal
Darkman
Darkman II: Return of the Bad Guy
Darkman III: Die, Darkman III, Die Die!
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Dawn of the Dead (2003)
Day of the Dead (1985)
Day of the Dead 2: Contagium
Day of the Dead (2005)
Deadbeat at Dawn
Deadly Blessing
Deadly Friend
The Dead Hate the Living!
The Dead Next Door
The Deadly Spawn
The Dead Zone
The Dead Zone (TV Series)
Dellamorte Dellamore
The Devil's Rejects
Die Hard
Die Hard 2 (aka. Die Hard 2: Die Harder)
Die Hard: With a Vengeance
Die Hard 4.0 (aka. Live Free or Die Hard)
Do the Right Thing
Donnie Darko
Doug (TV Series)
Dressed to Kill
Dune
Dune (Miniseries)
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Eaten Alive
The Evil Dead
Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn
The Evolved Part 1
Eyes Wide Shut
Fargo
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Ferris Bueller (TV Series)
Firestarter
Firestarter 2: Rekindled
The First Turn On!!
The Fog
Forest Gump
Frankenhooker
Freak Out
Friday the 13th (Series)
Freaked
Freddy's Nightmares (TV Series)
Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendigo
The Funhouse
Ghost
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters II
Ghoulies (series)
The Goonies
Gremlins
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Groundhog Day
Halloween (film series)
Happy Gilmore
Hellraiser (film series)
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (and horrible sequel)
The Hills Have Eyes (film series)
Home Alone (film series)
Hot Fuzz
Hot Shots
Hot to Trot
House of 1000 Corpses
The House on Sorority Row
Howard the Duck
The Howling
Howling II (aka. "Howling II: Your Sister is a werewolf" or "Stirba: Werewolf Bitch".
The Howling III
Howling IV
Howling V
Howling VI: The Freaks
Howling VII: New Moon Rising
The Hudsucker Proxy
Human Traffic
Inferno
In The Mouth of Madness
Jaws
Jaws 2
Jaws 3D
Jaws: The Revenge
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park III
Labyrinth
The Last Horror Film
Last House on the Left (original)
Last House on Dead End Street
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
Let it Be
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon 2
Lethal Weapon 3
Lethal Weapon 4
Lord of Illusions
Lost Highway
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Mad Max
Mad Max 2 (aka. The Road Warrior)
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (aka. Mad Max III)
Malcolm X
Maniac
Maniac Cop
Maniac Cop 2
Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (aka. Badge of Silence: Maniac Cop 3)
The Manson Family
Meatballs (film series)
Monsters (TV Series)
Monster in the Closet
The Monster Squad
Mortuary

Mother's Day
Mr Smith Goes to Washington
Mullholland Drive
Mutant
My Bloody Valentine
My Bloody Valentine 3D
The Naked Gun
Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear
Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
Napoleon Dynamite
National Lampoon's (film series)
Nightbreed
A Nightmare on Elm Street Series
Night of the Comet
Night of the Creeps
Night of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead (1990)
Night of the Living Dead 3D
One Crazy Summer
Orgazmo
Paperhouse
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
Piranha
Piranha II: The Spawning (aka. Piranha II: Flying Killers)
Piranhas
Police Academy (awful film series)
Police Squad (TV series)
Popcorn
Porky's (film series)
Predator (film series)
Pretty in Pink
Prince of Darkness
Prom Night (film series)
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead
Pulp Fiction
Pumpkinhead (film series)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Rawhead Rex
Reach the Rock
Re-Animator
Redneck Zombies
Repo Man
Reservoir Dogs
The Return of Swamp Thing
The Return of the Living Dead (film series)
Return to Oz
Revenge of the Nerds (film series)
Roadhouse
Robocop
Robocop 2
Robocop 3
Robocop: The Series
Robocop: The Cartoon
Robocop: Prime Directives
Rushmore
Ruthless People
Scarface
Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD
Shaun of the Dead
The Shining
The Shining (1997)
Shocker
Short Circuit
Short Circuit II
The Simpsons (TV Series)
The Simpsons (movie)
Sixteen Candles
Someone's Watching Me
South Park (TV series)
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Space Camp
Space Cowboys
Space Truckers
Spies Like Us
Stand By Me
Starship Troopers
Star Trek Franchise
The Star Wars Franchise
Steel Dawn
Street Trash
Stripes
Sucker: The Vampire
Surf Nazis Must Die!
Superman (film series)
Suspiria
Swamp Thing
Tales from the Crypt (Amicus)
Tales from the Crypt (TV series)
Tales from the Crypt Presents (film series)
Tales from the Cryptkeeper (cartoon series)
Tales from the Darkside (TV Series)
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
Tenebrae
The Terminator (film series)
Terror Firmer
Tesis
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (film series)
The Thing
The Thing from Another World
The Third Mother
Tommy Boy
The Toolbox Murders
The Toolbox Murders (Remake)
Top Secret!
The Toxic Avenger (film series)
Toxic Crusaders (Cartoon Series)
Trading Places
Trainspotting
Trancers (film series)
Trauma
Tremors (film series)
Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (yeah, right)
Tremors (TV series)
Troma's War
Tromeo & Juliet
Uncle Buck
2001: A Space Odyssey
V (TV series)
Vigilante
Waitress
Watchers (film series)
Waxwork (film series)
The Wedding Singer
Weird Science
Weird Science (TV series)
The Wizard of Oz
World's Greatest Dad
Xtro
Xtro II: The Second Encounter (which has nothing in common with the first encounter)
Xtro III: Watch the Skies (a cross over with the "Ski Patrol" series)
Zardoz
Zombi (aka. Dawn of the Dead)
Zombi 2 (aka. "Zombie" or "Zombie Flesh Eaters")
Zombi 3
Zombi 4
Zombi 5
Zombie Island Massacre
Zombieland

Class of Nuke 'Em High Part 2: Subhumanoid Meltdown (1991, Eric Louzil)

2009-10-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

Class of Nuke 'Em High Part 2: Subhumanoid Meltdown (1991, directed by Eric Louzil)

Version reviewed: the R-Rated (only) cut on Region 1 Troma Team Video DVD as part of the "Class of Nuke 'Em High: Parts 1, 2, 3 The Complete Spill-ogy" boxset)

Well, it's got a good theme song, I'll give it that. Better than the one in Part 1, at least. Any song that manages to work a title like "Class of Nuke 'Em High Part 2: Subhumanoid Meltdown" into it's lyrics and still sound better than the theme song to the first "Class of Nuke 'Em High" has my esteem.
Also, the footage of part 1 shown in the first few moments here (with a new soundtrack) with the cheesy Troma narrator over the top looks a lot better than the version of part 1 that's out now on DVD.

Other than those two aspects, there's really not much positive I can say about this. Even the footage from part 1, which is nice, is kind of spoiled by the sequels flippant attitude toward the first film - "[radiation] caused them to dance badly", etc. It's just that the first movie was so funny by playing it totally straight, and this non-stop WACKY right out of the gate is tiresome instantly. Plus, it's topped by horrible, horrible music (until the theme song kicks in).

Okay, the plot is something like this. After "...Nuke 'Em High", the Nukamama Corperation (who?) responsible for the shoddy plant melting down next door to the titular high school built a Tromaville Institute of Technology (TIT, geddit?) in the middle of their power plant! So not only is the title a cheat, since this is a college, it also makes so little sense. Buff Brick Bronsky plays a stinky journalist for a campus newspaper, who's convinced something or other is wrong with Nukamama and it's involvement in the school.

The dialogue is pun heavy, and there are lots of silly voices. It's pretty annoying. It does suffer in one way similarly to the other, Kaufman-helmed in-house Troma productions of the time - it seems padded out with editing. I always wondered if "Class of Nuke 'Em High" parts 2 and 3 were filmed back to back - more or less same cast and crew and stupid feel. Another reason it feels similar is due to all the god damn narration. See, that's the big problem here and with "The Toxic Avenger Part 2"...The originals in these series had big special effects sequences and gags around those. In their sequels, the events are shown in brief clips, while the hero talks over it. There was no effort to make a driving narrative through it. There's lots of great looking stuff in the opening credits of this movie, but they're totally ruined by all the talking. It'd be a lot better without the narration.

The sense of humour is retarded. Some scenes, people just get covered in funny coloured goo. They don't melt, they're just having it drip on them. Tonally, it's a total alien to "Class of Nuke 'Em High".

The film definetely looks more polished that 99 % of Troma in-house productions and the model power plant looks convincing most of the time. At the end, the effects become a joke when the man inside the Tromie the Nuclear Squirrel costume picks up people (G.I. Joes). See, this is done as a joke, a while after "Children of the Corn III" actually ended a film, properly, seriously, with a stop motion monster picking up G.I. Joes.
The DVD is one of the best looking Troma has ever released. The print is impeccable and looks better and more expensive than the company's later "Tromeo and Juliet", for example.

Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986, Richard W Haines & Samuel Weil aka. Lloyd Kaufman)

2009-10-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH

Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986, directed by Richard W. Haines and Samuel Weil (aka. Lloyd Kaufman)

Version reviewed: US Troma Team DVD release, no region coding, as part of the "Class of Nuke 'Em High Parts 1, 2, 3 The Complete Spill-ogy" boxset.

"Class of Nuke 'Em High" is one of the great Troma movies and it almost happened by accident. It's the grand ole mythic tale of a high school and the shoddy, hazard-ridden nuclear power plant that corrupt Tromaville politicians allowed to be built next door. In the high school, teen lovers Warren (Gilbert somethng) and Chrissy (the sexy Janelle Brady) plan to go to a big party with Warren's douchebag friends Eddie and Greg. All around them is nuclear waste, which in Tromaville leaks out of pipes going right through the middle of the high school, and the breaks in pipes are always right above the water reserves in the school's basement fall-out shelter or the water that gets pumped through drinking fountains.

The radiation affects the students in different ways -

The "Honor roll" become a gang of violent criminals ("The Cretins"),
Nerds vomit green foam and head for the windows ("The Toxic Avenger" took 30 minutes to show us a nerd fall unconvincingly from a window, in "Class of Nuke 'Em High" it takes 8, and the nerd is doing the most hilarious karate chops through the air as he makes his way to the window).
Smokers of radioactive joints either become vengeful radioactive monsters who fight crime (not unlike "The Toxic Avenger") or get pregnant with nuclear monster babys from their radioactive boyfriend and have miscarriages in the school toilets.

Dewey has a meltdown

The style of humour is a little different than before. Some of the dialogue is the unique mix of teen sex comedy and Vaudevillian humour akin to "The First Turn On" era Troma (the "miscarriage" sequence with the mother at the hospital, the party), but a lot of it is even more deadpan than "The Toxic Avenger". The tone of this film is like one of those propaganda films of the fifties like "Reefer Madness". It's like the whole film is the most over the top "science-lab" film/cautionry tale ever made. I hear Kaufman claim deeper meanings in most of the Troma catalogue, but not often about "...Nuke 'Em High". It's anti-nuclear message was done better in "Toxic..." and more clearly. If this film has significant things to say about radiation or corruption, it probably ends at the point the guy starts growing breasts after nuclear exposure. No, most of it is played just for laughs - which makes it funnier, per minute, than "The Toxic Avenger". I can't say the whole film makes a lot of sense, but I can say the few moments it's not funny, it's got a cool monster or a cheesy visual effect on it. The deadpan sense of humour frequently meets the ridiculous eg. the scene where the atomic joint is smoked is funny mostly because everytime someone takes a drag of the joint, an intense close up is shown of them smoking, along with the same cheesy sting. It happens like five times and gets funnier each time.

Despite all these positives, there are some signs of a troubled production (most people probably can't tell the difference between a "troubled production" and a "Troma production"). Apparently Richard W Haines wanted to make a straight-forward and dramatic teen science-fiction b-movie called Atomic High School. He was part way through directing from his own script when Kaufman took over as co-director. I'm not sure if that means Haines was fired, or merely accompanied for the rest of the shoot. According to extras on the DVD, Haines was demoted to second-unit-director after only a week, having only shot the scenes in the basement with the monster at the end. Knowing that, it's easy to notice how much more serious those scenes were than the rest of the film and also how well the monster was filmed. The finished film runs as more or less a "First Turn On!" type sex comedy with occasional toxic spills, but gradually becomes more far out and horrific as it goes on. Lloyd Kaufman's influence is most keenly felt in the first half.

Warren & Chrissy

In any case, it takes what would have been the first in-house Troma production not directed by Michael and Lloyd (and potentially a more serious film) and turns it into the logical successor to "The Toxic Avenger". Tonally the film seems like a marriage of the teen sex comedy/verbal comedy stylings of "The First Turn On!" and "The Toxic Avenger"'s ultraviolent Sci-Fi. A lot of cast members return from "The Toxic Avenger" including Slug and Bozo who are now Cretins (with the power roles reversed between them - they also have a variation on their old "punching an old woman to rob her' "routine") and Wanda is now a German teacher who becomes a cretin after a particularly passionate kiss. The "Welcome to Tromaville" sign reappears, in a new location. Pat Ryan, the Mayor in "Toxic Avenger" plays a different member of the elite, the head of the power plant (Ryan also starred in the cult classic eighties horror movies "Street Trash" and "Eat and Run"). Professor Snodburger reappears, sans German accent, as a high school science teacher with a hilariously fake looking laser in his laboratory, who drinks chemicals out of a beaker after students leave his room.

Warren & Chrissy's radioactive mutant monster offspring

The special effects are as good, if not better, than those in "The Toxic Avenger", especially the cool monster which shows up throughout the second half. How awesome is the scene where Chrissy first vomits it up? And how awesome does that monster look when we see it later on, fully grown? Pretty great, for Troma. The soundtrack has about five or so songs, which we hear about six times each (I'm exaggerating) while the score is a simple synth thing, similar to the deliberately awful music in"Redneck Zombies", which is sometimes great, other times inseperable from the the synth pop songs either side of it.

Gonzo, a cretin

It's all very anarchic and stupid in principle, but in play it transcends it's litter due to it's fun soundtrack and low-budget John Hughes-on-acid-in-Tromaville feel. In fact, it's strange that rather than resemble "Commando" director Mark Lester's "Class of 1984", to which it was retitled after, the influence on the high school characters definetely seems more informed by the films of the late, great John Hughes, who's "Sixteen Candles" and "The Breakfast Club" were coming out around this time and featuring self-aware and emotional young people in a way not seen previously in cinema. Of course, if this film were a John Hughes production, Warren would be played by either Matthew Broderick, Anthony Michael Hall or Jason Lively, Chrissy would be Molly Ringwald or Ally Sheedy, Eddie would be...John Cusack? I don't think any Hughes actor would do it justice, so I'd use Bobcat Goldthwait, Keith Gordon or the fat guy who played Shelley in "Friday the 13th 3D", and for Greg it'd have to be Robert Downey Jr. (In the film, Eddie is the shorter, jewish one and Greg the tall one with New Waver hair).

Also, like John Hughes' films, the soundtrack shies away from punk and has a lot of new wave instead, usually with people putting on English accents and over-emoting. Actually, "Class of Nuke 'Em High" has some bad pop metal on it too, including an awful song by someone called "Stratus" called "Run For Your Life" which plays fifty million times and is from their album "Throwing Shapes" available here. Also, the final song in the end credits is another awful pop metal thing, only in this one, "Angel" by G.M.T., the vocalist sounds like early James Hetfield or early Dave Mustaine singing this awful shit. It's pretty funny. Actually, this is the exact same kind of awful metal Pantera was playing in the eighties.

Ironically, the quasi-sequel to "Class of 1984" named "Class of 1999", also directed by Mark Lester, featured a post-apocalyptic feeling high school in a war zone in the (then) future, cumulating with the rebel students riding motorcycles through the high school halls as they fight their robotic teachers. This is very similar to the end of "Class of Nuke 'Em High".

It's a shame both of the "Class of Nuke 'Em High" sequels were awful, awful in-house, non-Kaufman productions made on the West Coast. I want to say they're okay, or they're only as bad as the first two Toxie sequels, but that's just not fair. They're really, truly awful, only peripherally related sequels with no spark or wit or passion in them. But I'll probably review them someday too.

Hey, sing it with me, possibly the worst theme song ever recorded by somebody for this movie:

"But outside of the classroom walls,
The geiger counter tells it at all,
Can't see or feel, smell or taste
The remnants of a nuclear waste

I!
JUST!
Really wanna knowwww!

I!
JUST!
Really wanna know!......

WHAT'S GOING ON?
AT NUKE 'EM HIGH
WHAT'S GOING ON?
AT NUKE 'EM HIGH
WHAT'S GOING ON?
AT NUKE 'EM HIGH
WHAT'S GOING ON?

Nuke 'em High....

Nuke 'em High...."

There, that's just a small portion of the credits song to this movie. Convinced we're onto a winner yet?

It's not quite as good as "The Toxic Avenger", the quintessential Troma movie, but it's as good as "The First Turn On!", "Troma's War" and "Stuck On You!", which is very good in the Troma stakes. If you like Troma, you'll like it.

Click HERE to go back to my Troma page and click HERE for a full list of my reviews.

Troma's War (1988, Michael Herz & Samuel Weil/Lloyd Kaufman)

2009-10-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

Troma's War (1988, Michael Herz & Samuel Weil/Lloyd Kaufman)

Version reviewed: The excellent Region 1 Troma DVD

"Troma's War" is Troma's biggest budget film and Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman themselves deem it Troma's masterpiece. It's certainly unique in their catalogue - it marked the zenith of Troma's pulling power in the marketplace and found them at a transition point between the classic period of "The First Turn On!", "The Toxic Avenger" and "Class of Nuke 'Em High" and the more mainstream sequels to "Toxic Avenger" and "...Nuke 'Em High" which followed shortly thereafter. It is not only their most expensive-looking, commercial and mainstream in-house production, it's also one of their most offensive and violent. It's definetely a film a Troma fan will love (in it's uncut form). The tone throughout is deadly serious, with the best laughs coming despite the material, as in the earlier classics, but this time even the main cast is playing it straight. Despite this, Troma's increased production budget shows itself in spades throughout the film (and this is after significant portions throughout the film were cut out!) and despite standard Troma staging, it does manage to convey a level of professionalism not found in much of the Troma catalogue.

The opening of the film immediately seems to spite this as a compelling narrative device (a plane crash) is only heard by the audience over the opening credits. This is countered somewhat by some funny jokes in the dialogue (Over the intercom after we hear the pilot screaming "oh shit" and "what are we going to do?, "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Hayden speaking again, I hope you're enjoying your tropical fish dinner, we've encounter a few, minor, technical difficulties, if you look out of the window to your right, you'll notice we have fires in two of our engines, if you look out to your left, you will see the Carribean ocean...approaching rapidly,"), which more or less sets up the film effectively over the opening credits. (Troma would use a similar audio narrative device in the "Toxic Avenger" and "Class of Nuke 'Em High" sequels, but it wasn't very funny there).

The film proper opens on a gorgeous tropical beach, as a woman cries amidst stagey but plausable looking plane wreckage. She moans and mentions "Oh my God, Oh my God, we crashed!". Immediately, we get to see some considerably more dramatic footage - the same wreckage the night before, smouldering in the fire. People run around, on fire, screaming. The stuntmen look pretty good on fire here.

We quickly meet the other survivors - the broadly heroic looking Taylor, the gorgeous blond with nice breasts, the English guy, the Spanish woman, the crazed Vietnam vet (Parker), the old guy with Cancer, the fat jewish guy (Cooney), the blind girl, the recent mother and her baby, the old jewish lady, the New Wave punk band ("The Bearded Clams"), the Catholic priest (shockingly, for a Troma production, he is NOT portrayed as a pedophile), the compassionate and effeminate "Senior Flight Attendant", and the wealthy yuppie who smokes cigars and says things like "why did she have to survive this crash?" for no mean-spirited reason at all.

Pretty soon, the gang find there's a huge army on this island, planning a few terrorist acts and, inevitably, a hostile takeover of the USA. They decide to take up in arms and fight back, while very cheesy music plays.

In terms of performance, pretty much everyone does at least a serviceable job. Most of the main cast are great - the guy who plays Taylor is a likeable hero, Parker is played especially well by a real Vietnam vet (who was the weapons handler for the film), the English guy keeps his dignity and the female lead lights up the screen everytime she's occupying part of the frame. (In the DVD extras filmed circa 1998, she is shown to be every bit as attractive today, but in a '1990s mom' kind of way rather than an '1980s blonde' way, and not at all flippant and whiny like her character could sometimes be). I will also note the guy who plays Senor Sida, for being creepy as fuck, and also Dan Snow, who's priest is nothing like his "Cigarface" character from "Toxic Avenger", but equally comedic. His performances between films differ in a key way, which is pretty indicative of the difering tones of the films (more on this later).

In terms of the villains, we get a mix of broadly comic performances, and deadpan malevolance.
The head villains are apparently two conjoined Siamese twins wearing a black suit and a grey suit, representing...I can't remember. The "right wing" and "capitalism" ? Anyway, they only get two scenes, but they are creepy as fuck and the score to these two scenes is eerie (unfortunately, the second one ends with the beautiful black New Wave girl saying something cheesy after slicing them apart). Next in command, I guess, is Colonel Jennings aka. Pig-Nose (played by Troma regular Rick Collins, who makes angry speeches while snorting like a pig through his massive pig nose), but, then again, he also takes orders from someone who claims to be affiliated with the Cuban army (but has a Russian accent). There's a blonde terrorist leader, who is so fucking over the top, it drives even ME crazy. Can't stand her. There's a blond haired, blue eyed German who seems to be a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger (Schwarzenegger as a symbol of oppresive right-wing power...how presicent) who's performance is deadpan and frequently hilarious (especially the scene where he repeatedly refers to the clerical-collar-wearing Catholic priest, to his face, as a "jew"). There are hundreds of snarling extras in black-face (I think...might just be intended as dirt) playing terrorists, many of whom are played by Pericles Lewnes who's face shows up four or five times (reminds me of all the times you see Tom Savini doing stunts in "Dawn of the Dead") and I think you can see a couple of the other guys from "Redneck Zombies" playing terrorists here. They seem to have a universal manner, so it's consistant if not exactly compellingly menacing. Senor Sida is a creepy fucking character and the AIDS Brigade are nasty looking guys who snarl and are covered in sores and marks. One of the survivors who becomes a bad guy by selling the other's out is a memorable shithead. He's introduced as an insensitive yuppie, proceeds to the point where he is the only survivor not to fight back in the first fight with the terrorists (at all), then sells out the group to the terrorists. His arc is similar to (and possibly inspired by) a similar character played by the immortal Hart Bochner in "Die Hard". There's even a comparable scene where the villain contacts the heroes via villain radio with the sellout present. I know Lloyd and Michael watched "Die Hard" as a guide to how violent an R-rated film could be for this film, so it may have been influencial in this capacity.

In terms of memorable scenes or set pieces, this film carries it's fair share. There's three major confrontations with the terrorists and all of them are pretty spectacular. With a huge depth of field we see all of the money spent on this film - guns firing, extras exploding in squib effects - into the horizon.

The most disturbing scenes in the film occur during the second major offensive with the terrorists. First off are the scenes with the creepy siamese twin leading the operation, and the others, vastly eclipsing those siamese scenes, feature the blind girl and the cute blonde from the New Wave band being raped by Senor Sida and his AIDS brigade. I'm not sure what combination of grotesque special effects, disgusting concept or inappropriately titilating nudity makes these scenes so disturbing and offensive, but I know it hits a peak when, during a stirring instrumental version of the song "Storm is Rising" (which you hear later with vocals) accompanying a heroic battle between the heroes and the terrorists, the cute blonde shoots up in bed, tits bouncing around, and breaks the fourth-wall and informs us via wail "I have Aids! I have Aids!". Combination of cheesy heroic music + heroic battle where heroes stand up to terrorists + rape joke + aids joke + gratuitous nudity. After the blind girl is saved by the fat Jewish guy (Cooney), she and he enter into a relationship. The film never touches on the fact that their sexual contact may communicate the AIDS virus, let alone the offensive idea that his saving her from AIDS rape makes him her lover.

On the whole the film is deliberately paced, having time for humour, suspense and plot development between the action set pieces. This makes rather difficult choosing isolated scenes out as highlights for the respectable merits of being funny or effective, compared to the action set pieces which, while limited in quantity, are long and well done.

I love the bit where two characters says this:
Taylor: I like Parker, but I don't know if he's crazy or if he's just a psycho.
Old Guy with Cancer: He might be a psycho, but he's not crazy.

There's also a great bit where the snooty Brit is reloading a weapon and this bizarrely painted terrorist backflips for an eternity to get to him. The music cuts out and we hear a lengthy, heavily processed and delayed scream as he approaches. It holds the film for a whole moment before the Brit punches him out (and says "all show and no blow, my friend, I'm afraid,") and it's pretty compelling.

There's a good bit where the 'Nam vet, after reconsidering cutting off an (admittedly busty) blonde terrorists's breasts to add to his ear necklace, tells her "With a pair like that, I'll let you keep 'em,".

There's some violence where that classic Troma reuse of a sound effect occurs - here, for example, the same 'punch' sound effect is used three or four times in a row. This is a small nitpick - the action on the whole is very well staged, only one or two hits look like they didn't genuinely make contact, and the effects are pretty solid all throughout.

Troma had a deal with a hovercraft manufacturer/seller around this time (I'm not making this up), so there's two hovercraft scenes in this and there's also a hovercraft chase in "The Toxic Avenger Part II".

This was the first Kaufman/Herz conceived Troma film since "Toxic Avenger" made the studio so well known. In the interim, Troma had all but accidentally birthed the second 'true' Troma classic with a film they took over production of halfway through, "Class of Nuke 'Em High" which originally Richard W Haines was to direct. Unlike the previous two films which used familiar and recognisable trash premises, "Troma's War" plotwise seems to resemble the disaster film more than the typical action film plot. It's an interesting thought if Troma, this time out, hadn't simply rewritten existing material in an effort to have a genuinely novel plot out in the action workplace. Having read Mr Kaufman's books, I doubt Mr Kaufman would see precisely where his vision differs from the mainstream world - he might think it was possible this would be the next "Die Hard", while still acknowledging it contains an old jewish lady comparing her automatic machine gun to a vacuum cleaner, Senor Sida and some pretty graphic violence. It's for this kind of thing I love Kaufman's films - there's always about four or five psychological triggers being pushed at once. Unlike a porno, which seeks to titilate, or a horror film to make you scared, Troma made exploitation an artform. They took the hallmarks and requistes of exploitation, violence and sex, and packaged them unlike anyone else on the planet, with scenes in their movies that provoke in different ways, often with several complex layers of violence and sexuality, at once. It's an overwhelming experience, which would be no fun at all if these films weren't comedies.

"The Toxic Avenger" had a unique superhero/comedy/horror tonal mix, "Class of Nuke 'Em High" felt like a "Reefer Madness" type propaganda film gone wrong but "Troma's War" seems to go with it's premise 100% straight. Don't get me wrong - there's still jokes you're expected to laugh at throughout the film and comedy is clearly a priority. It's just all the actors (with very few exceptions) are playing the film totally deadpan. Rick Collins and some of his lesser cronies are hamming it up for all it's camp value, but the heroes and most of the extras playing terrorists play the material like it's a straight film about real people in a real war.

It contains Troma's best in-house special effects (with "Toxic Avenger"'s being pretty good, but more stylised) with the AIDS brigade and a rotting corpse early in the film as particular highlights. This was the first film Troma produced after the great Pericles Lewnes of "Redneck Zombies" joined the Troma team. Strange that a detail as minute as the injury on Taylor's shoulder looks so flat I thought it was a tattoo on first viewing, but on all the set pieces the effects are great. The stunts are pretty good - when a car rigged with explosives is driven off a dock to collide with and destroy a boat, what doesn't matter to me as a viewer is that the boat actually blows up before the car connects. What matters is that, as it approaches the dock, the car drives through a huge puddle that has the golden sun reflected in it in a cheesy eighties way.

This film is the epitome of cheese. I know precisely what I mean when I say, it's definetely campy, but nowhere near as campy as "Toxic Avenger" and "Class of Nuke 'Em High", but it is every bit as corny and, on top of that, has possibly the cheesiest music in history. I estimate 60% of the soundtrack's length is filled with gunfire and that cheesy synth music. Seriously, this is state-of-the-art cheesy music - it overwhelms the gunfire in most of the film (despite being mixed lower) and definetely adds significant mood to the film. The music playing in an early sequence where Parker mows down row after row of terrorists was a slower, more pounding piece of the score than what usually plays throughout and is very effective. Two full-on songs (with vocals) are contributed by Christopher De Marco (who also wrote the score) and are blared out over montages, which function as kinds of music videos for the songs. They are titled "Storm is Rising" and "Alive", and both play several times throughout the film without vocals. Other parts of the score are sincerely effective - the slow, sinister airy push of the score to the scenes where the beautiful black girl saw the siamese twin dictator then later sliced them in half with a samaurai sword was a highlight.

The whole film comes off as a deeply sincere, firing on all cylinders, attempt at making a unique Troma cocktail as a mainstream film. It could never work, but somewhere out there, there is an alternate universe where this is a blockbuster classic and that world's probably a lot happier. If you like other Troma films, you will like this. It all depends on your tolerance for 1980s cheese, if you can handle that, you'll definetely enjoy it. It's not worth anything unless it's the uncut version available on DVD from Troma Team Video. From the opening audio skit to the end of the end credits (where Kaufman, via megaphone, tells all the extras playing corpses to get up and wave to the camera), this is a uniquely sincere exploitation vision.

It probably is their masterpiece, though it isn't generally indicative of their output.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, Wes Craven)

2009-10-13T13:21:00.000-07:00

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, directed by Wes Craven)

Version reviewed: The excellent Region 1 DVD inside the boxset.

I'm not a huge fan of Wes Cravens films prior to "A Nightmare on Elm Street". I think "Last House on the Left" is only on paper an exercise in sadism - in practise it's an exercise in jarring tonal shifts that don't work. "The Hills Have Eyes" is a classic for what it is, but I don't get a huge urge to watch it ever, "Summer of Fear" was a minorly interesting TV movie, "Deadly Blessing" was an interesting retread of "Hills Have Eyes" and "Swamp Thing" was a bizarre, but not unenjoyable, comic book adaptation.

So I really have no idea where this came from. Craven's previous films had some interesting ideas in them - decay of personal civilisation, role of family, religious-influenced imagery - but nothing hugely conceptual. "A Nightmare on Elm Street" changed all that. Being both of and immensely superior to the slasher movement, it's inspiration seems obvious at first, then conceptually perfect in practise. Twenty-five years after this film, none of it's seven sequels have come close to anything resembling this films' power - and a 2010 remake looks unlikely to either.

The story is...available on Wikipedia for you to look at. The characters aren't drawn in any significant detail throughout the film. I'm not sure of the intent of this, but in practice it feels like the assumed-familiarity of a dream and the film is a lot better for it. All of the young characters are portrayed as just normal kids (as opposed to the two-dimensional stereotypes that would appear in the sequels), with Heather Langencamp's Nancy ultimately arising as a heroine that is both unlikely and perfectly plausable in retrospect. In other words, she's not the most immediately engaging character, but her strength of conviction is on display right from the beginning. Freddy Krueger (here just "Fred") is kept bathed in shadows, only slim facets of the profile of his face ever on significant display. His voice is very different to how it would appear in subsequent films - he says around twenty words in the entire film, all deep and sleezily mumbled. He doesn't joke around in this film - his taunts seem cruel as opposed to the sub-Cryptkeeper punning of later films.

The idea of a supremely evil force, tied to both the physical (slasher) and metaphysical (supernatural) modes of horror, returning from the past to torment the children of sin in suburbia is a simple but brilliant premise for a horror film.

I must single out for praise Charles Bernstein's score. It isn't fantastic all the way through (the track labelled "Run Nancy" on the soundtrack that plays, unsurprisingly, whenever Nancy seems to run in the film is dreadful), but is frequently timeless and brilliant. Compare the score here, which incorperates a signiture melody along with dreamlike synth groans, with the template Harry Manfredini score for "Friday the 13th".

The big acheivement here, what pushes it into the realm of "greatest horror films America has ever produced", is to marry the fast American narrative style with strong dream inspired imagery and a palpable feeling of dread. I tell you, when the American narrative drive is tied to something compelling, it's unstoppable.

Deadbeat at Dawn (1988, Jim Van Bebber)

2009-10-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Deadbeat at Dawn (1988, directed by Jim Van Bebber)

Version reviewed: Uncut DVD from Dark Sky (part of the "Visions of Hell: The Films of Jim Van Bebber" collection). I also own the Synapse DVD, which featured a different transfer and an audio commentary from Jim and guests.

This is one of my favourite indie exploitation releases. How to describe it? It's a low budget, 16mm gritty, rock & roll, horror-flavoured, kung-fu, action fantasy. That's the best I can do. It's one of the most straightforward things Jim has ever directed and one of the best.

Van Bebber manages to make a film that's pretty serious but all in good fun at the same time. There's definetely some intense stuff in here, but it is pretty over the top and a little comic book-y at times, which makes it all more digestable.

Director Jim Van Bebber as Goose

Goose, leader of the Ravens, often takes part in gang-rucks with the Spiders which always end with violence, until his girlfriend begs him to leave it behind. Agreeing, they leave it behind and are happy, until Goose's lack of affiliance lets his girlfriend get killed. Beaten down, Goose grows facial hair as he ceases to care about the world. His father is now a massive junkie and his old gang have joined forces with the enemy to pull off a huge job. Recruited to help, Goose finds himself in a unique position to exact revenge and pull off some semblance of justice.

The story is engaging enough but it's the style of the piece you'll remember. The tone of the whole film is nihlist, but fun. Good company for it would include films like "Combat Shock", "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", "Street Trash" and "Hardware". Films (for the most part) shot on 16mm, pretty much devoid of hope. "Deadbeat..." is probably a more lightweight film than any of the others I've offered, with the possible exception of "Street Trash". The mood of the film will change at any given moment - some of the film is intended as giddy action setpieces, other as bizarre and arty nihlism (such as the infamous scene where Goose 'buries' his girlfriend using a mechanical rubbish compactor). While inconsistant in this regard, it really does not matter. The big discovery in all of this is director Jim Van Bebber, who does such a fantastic job pacing and decorating his grim story, it's striking to think he also does a fairly good job as lead character Goose.

Looking at this movie, you might be expecting something as downbeat and gruelling as "Combat Shock" or even Van Bebber's own later "Manson Family". While there's a lot of nasty stuff here, it's nowhere near as depressing as those two films. Sure, Deadbeat's world is a bleak one, but it's no-message, hard-trash aestethic always has the audience's entertainment at heart.

It's also very funny in parts ("Give me your gun, grandma!").

As far as I know, this movie is still (ridiculously) banned in the UK. I think this is for two reasons - one, lots of gory nunchuck violence in this one, and we all know how the BBFC hates nunchucks for no good reason, and two, it involves (and doesn't condescend to the audience so much as to denounce) gang-violence, something the BBFC and Mediawatch are terrified for people to imitate. This is true especially of Deadbeat at Dawn, who's stunts are not sophisticated - usually the person is actually doing the things you see in the film - the hero jumping off buildings, getting dragged down and alley by a car as a wall wears away his leather jacket. It's a great looking indie release.

Basket Case (1982, Frank Henenlotter)

2009-10-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

Basket Case (1982, directed by Frank Henenlotter)

Ask anyone who knows me if I love Frank Henenlotter and they all know the answer is yes. "Who's Frank Henenlotter?", they say. "Stop going on about Frank Henenlotter," I'll hear. "No, I don't want my wedding video in the style of Frank Henenlotter."

Frank Henenlotter is a very modest b-movie auteur from New York City who, since being warped by the theatres on 42nd Street as a young man, sought to create glorious trash with his own name on it. Unlike most of the films that influenced Frank, his films attempt (and succeed) at being funny intentionally. Almost all of his films take place in New York City ("Basket Case 3" is the exception) and Henenlotter's vision of New York ranks up there with Scorcese, Abel Ferrara and Woody Allen in terms of unique interpretation of the Big Apple.

In Henenlotter's New York, the most interesting people in the city only come out at night, to ride the subway cars, to drink in late night weirdo bars, to dance in surreal rock clubs with ominous and symbolic names like "Hell", the 'straights' are boring and the inmates rule the asylum. In Henenlotter's New York, small rubber monsters torment psycho-sexually confused men and weird coloured fluid pretty much drips from the walls.

Stylistically, what makes this work is that in Henenlotter's films (especially "Basket Case") the films are explicitly gritty as well as ludicrous. The combination of a recognisable reality coupled with the truly ludicrous creates a unique comic mood.

The plot can be read elsewhere and...do you really care? If you're reading this, trust me - the plot to "Basket Case" does not matter. The characters basically amount to around TWO that matter - Duane, the more "normal" of our two lead brother, and Casey, the local prostitute.

Frank only recently got back in the directing game so his total output since 1982 is still only six cult splatter comedy masterpieces.

As a 16mm gritty grindhouse debut, ranks pretty high. It doesn't have great special effects like "The Deadly Spawn", or a genuinely horrifying atmosphere like "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" or "Maniac", but it does have a totally ludicrous and goofy sense of humour.

It's all very rough around the edges, but the "Something Weird" DVD release makes the film look a lot better.

Frank would make better films, for sure, but "Basket Case" is where he got his start.

Mother's Day (1980, Charles Kaufman)

2009-10-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

"Mother's Day" (1980, directed by Charles Kaufman)

Version reviewed: "Uncut Director's Cut" on Troma Team Video DVD (Region 1).

Let me state straight away that now in 2009, it is very hard for me to believe that this great movie is being remade by the director of some of the Saw films and Brett Ratner. This is a pretty repulsive movie and it's unlikely the remake will be at all related.

At cursory glance Mother's Day, filmed in 1979 and released in 1980, looks like a fairly standard slasher outing. It was filmed at the same New Jersey location at Friday the 13th, on an overlapping schedule, but on the other side of the lake. But aside from the obvious gimmick title, that's pretty much all this has to do with the slasher boom. Tonally, the film is kind of like a warped Troma take on a "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" or "Last House on the Left" type of gritty seventies horror rather than the (considerably) more clinical "Halloween" knock-offs of the 1980s. The heroines' characters are in their late 20s rather than late teens and some of the film is incredibly mean spirited.

Apart from a rather effective twist opener, establishing the title character not as a sweet, traditionally caring mother but as a demented and over-protective sadist who delights as her sons Addley and Ike torture, rape and murder...well, anyone...the movie's first half hour is quite lighthearted and sweet. We meet the three heroines and are successfully introduced to their backstory and arrangement to meet up even as they grower and more disparate. Eventually the heroines leave their lives behind and go out into the Deep Barrons where the psycho family resides. In a particularly effective scene, the girls are attacked mid-sentence by the two brothers - this could have failed miserably, but because I was actually listening to what the characters said, it worked.

From then on the plot goes SOMETHING like this....girls are kidnapped, tortured, degraded, one is killed, the other two escape and plot a revenge. End on TWIST.

What do you talk about with a film like this? It's likely to always be gathered up among slashers and that's not really fair to what the film wants to accomplish.

Stylistically, this is an above average horror film. The blood at times is a bit too bright a shade of red (think of the original "Dawn of the Dead"), but on the whole the gore was pretty well done and the sheer amount of violence is striking - but it is definetely not a case of a film solely comprising of torture (like "Hostel", "Bloodsucking Freaks" or the last half of the original "Texas Chain Saw Massacre"). The villains more than anything resemble the Hitchhiker in the original Tobe Hooper "Chain Saw", being overly-talkative but not verbose. Their arguments, perversions and constant disagreements about music (one loves punk, the other disco) serve as part of the satirical black-comedy that runs through the film. Make no mistake, this is a fairly bleak and unremitting film; the comedy is pitch black and warped to shit, and serves to make the film more disturbing than it would have been with just the violence.

(For the record - just including a self-help seminar at the beginning of the story doesn't immediately make the film a satire of the 1970s self-help movement, as other reviews have claimed.)

Released independantly in 1980, the film is today distributed and maintained by Troma Inc. It was directed by Charles Kaufman, who is the brother of Troma President Lloyd Kaufman. Despite not truly being a Troma production, there is a similar feel here to the early 1980s films of the other Kaufman. The first half, with it's silly and racy jokes but pro-women feel, is very similar to Troma's pre-Toxic Avenger sex comedies, like "Squeeze Play!" and "Waitress!". The warped sense of humour is definetely in keeping with in-house Troma projects. But unlike other Troma films, the violence definetely feels malicious and nasty (I'm of the opinion that since violence is malicious and nasty, it's ok for a film to portray violence the same way). It's up to you whether you think it's a good thing that women are established as credible characters before they are tortured, though. You kind of get both sides of a coin in one movie - women are established as the main characters, tortured and hurt, then take charge again in third act. I didn't think it was especially gratuitous.

It's impossible not to compare this film to Friday the 13th. While both films were in production at the same time, I do wonder if this film was at all inspired by the buzz around Friday the 13th - there are lots of similarities. Here are some I noticed:

- Both films feature a sweet old lady as a sinister mother figure.
- In both films, a long lost relative is presumed dead by everyone, but isn't. The sinister mother still speaks highly of them.
- Said lost relative appears in the twist ending.

Might seem like small fish - but how many slasher films were there when this was made? "Halloween" and "Black Christmas" are all that spring to mind.

In any case, I stand by this film as a classic horror film, deserving of it's cult status. It's engrossing, appropriately eighties and fairly nasty. It's more in the "Texas Chain Saw" mode than the "true" slasher canon, but in my opinion that's definetely a good thing. Take a look at the scene where "Mother" trains Addley and Ike in the morining ("our exercise!") after the girls are first captured. The music, definetely of it's time, is a time-delayed synth score masterpiece, following the "heroics" of the villains as they stab, torture and abuse items standing in for victims. An excellent scene in and of itself, but also vaguely prophetic of the eventual "heroic" centre stage role of villains in the later "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th" films. Which reminds me, in 2005, Roger Ebert (who hated, hated, hated this film as per his original review) defended his high rating of Rob Zombie's "Devil's Rejects" with the point that the killers were "people with personalities not just motives". In addition to illustrating how wildly inconsistant Roger Ebert can be, it begs the question why he hated this film so much. Every character is drawn in quite a lot of detail - victims and killers alike, both have their moments in this film. He gave a better review to "Friday the 13th", which was definetely less ambiguous about who it's heroes and villains were (like we need to be told these things), but did not draw any of it's characters in significant detail. It's probably a better film than "Friday the 13th", but it wasn't quite as expensive and the DVD presentation isn't quite as show-off. Troma give a good, strong full-screen transfer that looks great. The soundtrack (stereo) is presented well, along with a commentery from director Charles Kaufman and some interviews too.

Highly recommended for horror fans and Troma fans alike.