Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Sex Madness

     This is another one of those over-the-top, ill-informed, propaganda films released in the late 1930s that attempted to inform citizens and save lives, mostly about the dreaded Marijuana!! Reefer Madness is the most popular and well-known of these films and was one of at least three different films made on the topic of the evils of pot smoking. Ironically, if it weren't for potheads, these films would have died out seconds after their release. Reefer Madness has been restored, colorized, and even remade as a musical. The same care should be taken with Reefer Madness's fellow films, as they are just as bad if not worse. 

      This particular film is called Sex Madness and deals with the very real dangers of syphilis. Though not as "out there" with its story as Reefer Madness, which obviously tries to explain something that it in actuality knows nothing about, Sex Madness is somewhat more informed. Only in the bare sense though really. We know it is transmitted sexually, affects vision, and is damn hard to get rid of (at least in the '30s). Like the others, this movie has a really lame plot and some of the worst acting imaginable. It isn't quite as choppy as one of its companion films "Cocaine Fiends", the editing here is slightly better, but not by much. 

      Made in 1938, Sex Madness was pretty racy, for not only did it deal with syphilis, but it also had a lesbian subplot that didn't have anything to do with transmitting venereal diseases. A secretary hits on her coworker and convinces her to go see some showgirls together. While at the theater, the secretary actually pulls the old "yawn, stretch my arms, and end up with my arm around her shoulder" routine. It works, but the story isn't continued. What this had to do with syphilis is anyone's guess, but what a great touch!

      The real hunk of the story revolves around two showgirls named Millicent and Sheila. Sheila already has syphilis and Millicent contracts syphilis at a beach party when she gets drunk and boinks a guy in a Zorro costume. Apparently, it was illegal in 1938 (could be illegal today, I dunno) to marry someone if you know you have syphilis. You could only wed once you got a clean bill of health from a doctor, which back then could take years. Millicent is treated by a quack doctor that promises her she will be syphilis-free in a mere 30 days, and even though it's presented as an absolute impossibility in the movie, I believe that's pretty close to what it really is today. She falls for it and gets married the second the doctor says she's cured. She then proceeds to have a child. Soon, the husband is having vision problems and the baby is displaying weird symptoms. They all go to a doctor where all three are diagnosed as having syphilis. Millicent breaks down and admits it's her fault.  

     Feeling lower than the rent on a burning building, Millicent nurses her ailing husband who is sick in bed. She finally reaches her emotional limit and laces two drinks with poison and plans to end both their suffering when she gets a call from Sheila. Sheila says that she has gone to a "real" doctor and got the news that she will be syphilis-free in a year. She's actually quite elated with this news (a whole year? I personally wouldn't feel that much better) and says that she also plans to get married and have children. Millicent laughs hysterically and hangs up the phone. While embracing her deathly ill husband, she exclaims "If there's hope for Sheila, then there's hope for us!!!". Good ol' syphilitic showgirl Sheila shall lead the way! The end. 

      This is probably one of, if not the cheapest movies ever made. There's a hilarious goof in it that completely boggles my mind. During a speech from Millicent to her landlady, a window set slams shut and makes the actress playing Millicent totally mess up her lines... and they left it in! I think even Ed Wood would have trashed that botched-up of a scene. Its topic is a bit more dismal than its other fellow public message companion films, but it's still filled with all the hilarity of a cheap pile of vintage propaganda crap.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The Cocaine Fiends

     The Cocaine Fiends AKA The Pace That Kills is a little less propaganda-ish than its companion films like Reefer Madness and The Marijuana Menace. Nonetheless, it still has those same preachy written opening credits. Although I did find it particularly funny when at the bottom, it was signed "The Management". 

      This is a terribly boring film that drags on forever even at a mere length of 68 minutes. And I have to say that following this film's plot was rather difficult. It was 1935 and all unknown actresses looked alike because they were trying to emulate the looks of big Hollywood stars at the time. There's a character here that is an obvious fan of Jean Harlow's and a few Joan Crawfords as well. 

      Anyway, most of the story revolves around Nick and Jane. Nick gets Jane hooked on cocaine by telling her it's "headache powder". Only after becoming a full-blown addict does she learn that it's dope. By now, the drugs drive her every action. Like all the other anti-drug propaganda movies released in the late 1930s, this film completely mischaracterizes the actions of certain drugs. The anti-marijuana movies try to convince you that smoking pot will cause irreversible insanity and violent behavior, while the anti-cocaine movies make coke seem like a date rape downer, rendering someone 100% controllable. 

      Under this cocaine-induced completely agreeable attitude, Jane allows Nick to talk her into marrying him and moving to the city. Two things she would never normally do, but it's the only way to get her fix. They get a crappy apartment in a New York slum that is too gross even for the rats and roaches. Nick really enjoys the control that he has over Jane since he is the one that supplies her with her precious dope. He sadistically taunts her with it unmercifully. Now that he's in the big city, Nick has become a major dealer. One who even waits outside schools to sell his dope to children, sorta like a narcotics ice cream man. Nick and Jane get evicted from the apartment and Jane finally turns to prostitution to support both of their habits. I love the name of the place she solicits customers... "The Dead Rat Cafe"! Nick figures he can do better and dumps Jane. Jane is now a full-time coked-out whore just trying to survive. Eventually, Jane overdoses and dies in the street. 

      There's a tiny subplot about one employee giving another employee some "headache powder" at their place of work and both get fired from their jobs. Where, oh where will they go now to get the money for their precious "headache powder"? One guess. There's also the Jean Harlow wannabe that gives money to drug addicts here and there like some sort of glamourous charity worker. 

      There are only two more things worth mentioning about this pathetic film. No coke is ever shown and no one is ever seen actually snorting it. I'm not sure if that's because they weren't allowed to show that in a movie yet or if they just didn't want to give anybody any ideas. The other thing worth mentioning is a scene that has kept me laughing every time I think about it. It's a scene that doesn't have much to do with the film where some singers are performing at a nightclub. The funny part is the night clubs decor. It's nothing but upside-down falling cats. I'm not even freaking kidding. There are falling cats all over the wallpaper, upside-down cats on the mirror behind the bar, and even more falling cats on the stage set. I guess when you only have the finances for a cheap film like this, a good designer is really hard to find.  Either that or real actual drugs were being consumed while making the film.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Assassin of Youth

     This movie is one of a group of about five or six drug-related propaganda films released between 1932 and 1938. The most commonly known of this group is the classic "Reefer Madness", which has been restored, colorized, and re-released on its own special edition DVD, and even made into a musical with some rather big stars in it. Few people know about the other companion films, such as "Cocaine Fiends", "The Marijuana Menace AKA Assassin of Youth", "Sex Madness" and "Marihuana". In fact, most of these films have many of the same actors. This particular group of movies isn't hard to find anymore, most of them can now be found on YouTube. We'll get to all of them, but today we are gonna discuss Assassin of Youth AKA The Marijuana Menace. 

      Much like Reefer Madness, this cheap-ass film was made with honest intentions about warning kids about "the dreaded devil weed call Marijuana!". Also like Reefer Madness, its "true facts" of marijuana consumption are completely absent and are replaced with unbelievable scenarios including total insanity and extremely violent behavior. Anyone who has ever smoked pot or knows someone who smokes pot can agree that it doesn't cause violent behavior, with the exception of being mugged and robbed of your Visine and cookie dough. 

      Anyway, like Reefer Madness, this movie begins with a written message against that terrible scourge that is annihilating America's youth... the dreaded Marijuana!!! A young girl named Joan Barry stands to inherit the family fortune, much to the dismay of her cousin Linda and younger sister Marjorie. This inheritance has an unfortunate clause in it. Joan must prove herself to be a proper respectable person in order to receive her inheritance. Linda is a reefer dealer and supplies almost everyone in town. Marjorie is a regular customer of Linda's. Linda and her accomplice Jack decide that they are gonna make Joan look like shit so that the inheritance will go to Linda instead of Joan. Their plan begins at an innocent beach party where everyone but Joan is getting stoned and going swimming. Linda pushes Joan into the water and tries to dry her clothes over a fire and ends up burning them, leaving poor Joan with no clothes. This doesn't settle well when she arrives home in just an overcoat.  

     Rumors begin to fly and all sorts of stories are spread all over town. My favorite was that she got naked and danced the hula!" YOU FILTHY WHORE!! It was 1937, I guess today's equivalent of that would have to be if she screwed the entire attendance of the party in front of small children while blowing fart bubbles or something. 

      A funny side note is that whenever you see any of these people driving, it's beyond crazy. The worst of drunks would be considered outstanding drivers in comparison. A new bartender named Art shows up in town and becomes employed at an after-school hangout. He's also a reporter, doing research on dope dealing and the insanity that follows. It's soon made obvious that Linda and Jack are conspiring to make Joan look as scandalous as possible so that Linda can have the inheritance. When trying to get her to smoke some reefer fails, they eventually just drug her drink. She passes out in the bedroom and some weirdo from the party crawls in bed with her. Nothing happened, but the incident has made Joan look like an absolute slut. Scandalous rumors are now all over town about how despicable Joan is and how inheriting money would be like giving money to a total delinquent to be free to act out completely despicable acts, just with a much larger budget. 

      Meanwhile, Joan's younger sister Marjorie has become a total dope fiend as well and has to be treated by a doctor who gives a diagnosis of insanity by self-intoxication. It's so funny, she's just coming down off being a little stoned and they make her look like she's dying of The Plague! The doctor actually requests putting her in a mental hospital for the criminally insane. Linda tries again to drug Joan and finally succeeds. Once doped up, Joan acts totally spaced. Acid heads aren't this damn spacey. Jack decides to take advantage of Joan in her drunken state and whisks her off to the nearest motel. Linda sees this and follows with a less-than-happy look on her face. From the motel lounge, Linda calls the police and pretends to be Joan's mother and requests that they come and pick up her daughter at the motel. Jack and Joan are henceforth arrested on a morals charge (!!!). Linda bails Jack out of jail but leaves Joan there. 

      By now it's all over town that Joan Barry is in jail, this pretty much finishes off the goody-two-shoes image that she had before all of this inheritance crap came about. At her trial, Joan is painted as a dirty floozie with the morals of an alley cat. And even though her mother stands up for her daughter in the most heartfelt way, the court still thinks she's disgraceful and is about to award the inheritance to Linda.  

     Soon, the bartender/reporter bursts into the courtroom with today's newspaper (featuring his article on reefer delinquents) declaring that Joan was only helping him in uncovering this scourge of the menacing marijuana. He also exposes Linda as a dope dealer, she is henceforth taken away in handcuffs.  

     The next and thankfully final scene is of a very rich Joan sharing ice cream with Art (the reporter/bartender). An announcement of their engagement can be heard outside by the old town gossip queen who has been totally enjoying making Joan look like a complete tramp but is now joyfully on her side now that she's rich.

Frightmare

     This little gem of a movie is quite thought-provoking for a cheap piece of crap made circa 1974. 

      It starts out in London, in 1957, a man is found with half his head missing. Edmund and his wife Dorothy are arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 25 years in a mental hospital for the crime. Edmund and Dorothy have two daughters, Jackie and Debbie. Jackie is the older sister and remembers her parents and what they did. Debbie on the other hand was too young to remember them and grew up with foster parents. Jackie and Debbie now live together as adults, yet they have quite a tumultuous relationship.  

     It's been 25 years and Edmund and Dorothy are released. Debbie is not yet aware of her parent's true history, but Jackie visits them at night, bringing them supplies and suspiciously bloody packages. Edmund seems rather normal, but Dorothy still obviously has some issues. Dorothy gives Tarot readings on the side, even though Edmund highly disapproves. I dunno, maybe it's because Dorothy has a nasty habit of sometimes killing her clients. If someone doesn't quite like what Dorothy's Tarot cards say, Dorothy shuts 'em up with a hot fireplace poker to the gut... sssssssss. 

      By now they have a few corpses piling up, and coincidentally they happen to be a little hungry. What better way to cover up a crime and also have a nice little feast... eat the evidence. Through cannibalism, they devour all the people Dorothy has flipped out on and killed. Edmund confesses that Dorothy was the actual killer 25 years ago (duh) and that he pleaded insanity just so that they could stay together (now that's love).

      Debbie eventually learns of her homicidal cannibalistic parents and confronts them. Debbie also has her boyfriend with her, which Dorothy soon kills while Debbie watches. They hide the body in the hay baler with the remains of the other victims. Obviously, Debbie gets her homicidal attitude from her mother and they begin to kill together and bond as mother and daughter (can you feel the love?). Jackie eventually notices that her mother is killing again and realizes that her suspicious bloody packages are not accomplishing what she had intended for them to do. You see, Jackie has been pretending to be killing people to satisfy her mother's craving for murder. The mysterious bloody packages are supposed to be guts from the murder victim, proving that a murder did actually take place... and to give Mom a little something to snack on. But the guts are actually butcher's leftovers that she has been getting from the local supermarket (what a weirdo they must think she is). 

      Jackie's bizarre form of therapy has obviously been a total failure, therefore she contacts a real doctor to come and evaluate Dorothy. He disguises himself as a person wanting a Tarot card reading. Dorothy can see by way of the cards that he is not who he seems to be and realizes that he's a doctor that's come to take her back to the mental hospital. She kills him of course. It's odd though, rather than being shocked that her mom just killed someone, she's more upset with the fact that Dorothy has bonded with Debbie. 

      Edmund confesses that he's finally sick and tired of covering up Dorothy's crimes. The job is then turned over to Debbie, who is more than willing to take over in her dad's place. And with Edmund out of the way, Dorothy decides that she prefers Debbie as her daughter much more than Jackie, so they corner Jackie and kill her. The end. 

      Not terribly original, I must admit. But this film has an air of comedy that is always barely out of reach. There are many situations in this movie where you're really not sure whether you're supposed to laugh or not. I'm not even sure if the filmmakers meant for there to be any comedy intentions in the film at all, it just sort of happened accidentally. Nonetheless, it's a good effort and well worth wasting 90 minutes of your life on.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

The Return of the Living Dead

     This is one of my favorite zombie movies ever! Its rotting arms came crawling out of the grave in the late 80s with intensity and surprising originality. This film has absolutely no affiliation with George Romero or his legacy of zombie films (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and Land of the Dead). George Romero was informed about it, and asked to be a part of it, but declined, telling its makers that they could use his original movie Night of the Living Dead as a storyline springboard but that was all they were given permission to do, so some major things needed to be changed, but how?  To keep from stepping on George Romero's toes, the idea and the execution of such were radically changed and some view this new interpretation to be much more sinister and scary. To name just a few of the changes: unlike Romero's films, which explained that the brain of the ghoul must be destroyed in order to kill it. In Return of the Living Dead, there is absolutely no way to kill the zombies, only reducing the body to complete ashes proved successful in getting rid of it. In other words, you could chop up a zombie into several pieces, but the pieces will still come after you!  No brain destruction was gonna work here. Also, Romero's zombies were very slow and unsteady. In contrast, these new zombies can actually run and are strong! So add almost complete indestructibility and not being capable of outrunning them, and the result becomes far more frightening!

     The story starts with two employees named Frank and Freddie who work at a medical supply warehouse. Freddie (the trainee) asks Frank what was the weirdest thing he ever saw at the warehouse. Frank explains that in the '60s, several canisters that were intended for a military destination were accidentally sent to the warehouse by mistake and are now residing in the warehouse basement. As Frank explains, the army was developing a chemical substance called Trioxin to spray on marijuana fields or something, and the substance accidentally leaked down into the morgue and made the corpses move around as though they were alive. The army put the corpses in airtight canisters and then accidentally sent them to the wrong place. Why the army wasn't notified of this mistake is anyone's guess, and therefore the canisters have remained at the warehouse ever since. Frank tells Freddie that this is what the original Night of the Living Dead movie was based on, but that its maker (George Romero) was threatened that if he told the actual story of what happened that he would be sued, so he changed all the facts around. Frank and Freddie go down to the basement to check them out, but after bumping into a canister, it cracks and spews chemical gas right into their faces, knocking them unconscious. While unconscious, the gas slips into the ventilation system and brings many dead biological samples back to life, including everything from butterfly displays to ballistics cadavers. 

      Not knowing what else to do after such an intense fuckup, they decide to call Burt, the owner of the warehouse. After some serious bitching about them doing something so completely stupid, he decides that they must destroy all the evidence around the warehouse and keep their traps shut. Burt's friend Ernie (they were named Burt and Ernie on purpose) runs the crematorium across the street. They convince Ernie to let them use his crematorium to get rid of the evidence. He reluctantly agrees. When the smoke from the burning bodies rises up from the chimney, it carries the chemical with it, mixes with a bad storm coming, and produces acid rain that drenches the local cemetery making hundreds of corpses come alive and slither forth from their graves with only one thing on their decaying minds... live brains. 

      A punk rock group of Freddie's friends that are waiting for him to get off work are hanging out in the cemetery across the street from the warehouse to pass the time and are therefore at ground zero when the shit hits the fan. They freak out and try to find Freddie at the warehouse, but have no luck since he's at the crematorium. Instead, they come face to face with a slimy corpse that has obviously just recently emerged from the canister that Frank and Freddie accidentally cracked open. It grabs one of the punks and bites a hole in his head, exclaiming with glee and joy..."BRAINS!" Another freakout ensues and they flee for their lives.

     Eventually, most of them end up boarding themselves into the embalming room where Frank and Freddie are getting really sick, as well as a very stressed-out Burt and Ernie. Swarms of zombies start gathering outside and every attempt by the police and EMTs to help out ends up failing due to being attacked and eaten by zombies before even being able to make it into the building.

      After realizing that Frank and Freddie are not breathing and have no pulse, yet are still very much functional and conscious, it's assumed that they are slowly becoming one of the zombies that are now roaming outside in search of some tasty fresh brains and so the group decides that it's best that they be locked in the chapel for safekeeping. 

      Wanting desperately to figure out what the hell is going on, they capture a zombie (well, the upper half of a zombie) and are surprised to find out that they can hear and also speak. When asked why they eat brains, the zombie explains that it hurts to be dead and that they can feel themselves rotting, and for some unexplained reason eating live brains are the only thing that relieves the pain. 

      After several unsuccessful attempts to escape and the police blockades being overrun, the remaining few survivors see a phone number stenciled on the side of the canister that housed the original Mr. Green and Slimy from the cracked canister. They call the number, and it turns out to be the military who explain that they have been waiting for this call for some time and have a plan devised to deal with it. Unfortunately, the plan is to nuke the entire area (in this case, the entire city of Louisville, Kentucky) thus leaving no margin for the survival of anything. Just before the nuke, we see Frank, who is now among the living dead but has not yet been overcome with a taste for human brain consumption. He commits suicide by throwing himself into the crematorium. This again releases the Trioxin into the atmosphere, turning storm clouds into acid rain and thus starting the cycle all over again. 

    A really great zombie flick with just the right amount of shock, gore, and even some rather unexpected comical scenes. A must-see for any zombie fan that needed something new added to the genre to make it even more scary than any previous zombie flick that came before it.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Children of the Corn

     Children of the Corn was originally a short story in Stephen King's book Night Shift. Many movies have been based on King's novels and short stories, some were really good but many of them completely sucked. This one I hold as an exception. It's very well made. It has a great idea, a good plot, decent acting, and a really creepy religious atmosphere that Stephen King has often employed in many of his books and films. Plus, the idea of killer children always adds an extra unsettling layer of horror to any story.  

     Anyway, the story starts off with a hell of a massacre in a little coffee shop in the rinky-dink town of Gatlin, Nebraska. As a creepy child preacher watches through the window all of the children suddenly employ everything from knives to poison in killing all the adults in the whole place. A young boy named Jobe witnesses the massacre, yet is left alive. This happened everywhere in Gatlin that day. All the adults have been slaughtered by the town children under the commandment of the boy preacher named Issac. Isaac has been given what he believes to be direct orders from God himself, by name referred to here as "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". A sentence from the Bible that reads "And a child shall lead them" is one of the supporting ideas for convincing all of the children that adults should not be allowed to live. 

     After all the adults are killed off, the children form their own society complete with hierarchy and often gather in the cornfield with pitchforks and scythes (chanting "Kill Kill Kill") as they listen to Isaac's preaching and obey every word he says. On the day of the slaughter, Jobe's sister Sarah suddenly acquires a talent for precognition (she sees the future) and often draws pictures that are basically scenes that are soon to happen. 

      Three years later, Burt and Vicky, a couple traveling through Nebraska get lost amongst its bland back roads that are flanked by nothing but cornfields as far as the eye can see. Suddenly a child stumbles into the middle of the road, and because Vicky and Burt are looking at a map trying to figure out where they are, they don't see him. They hit him at full speed and his bloody mangled body tumbles under the car and comes to rest in the middle of the road. Burt is a doctor and while examining the boy's body, he notices that his throat has been deliberately slit and was probably already dead when he stumbled out onto the road. They put his body in the trunk and go in search of help. By the way, the boy presumably killed on the road (Joseph) was actually murdered shortly before by Malachai, who is sort of the enforcer among the child cult, answering directly to Isaac. Joseph was murdered because he didn't agree with Isaacs's rules and teachings and tried to flee and get help. After Joseph's death, Isaac preaches that "Joseph has fled this happy place because the worship of me is no more upon him, so take you his life and spill his blood, but let not the flesh pollute the corn. Cast him instead upon the road. And so it was done, Joseph the betrayer was cast out". 

      While trying desperately to find a town, so that they can report Joseph's murder, Burt and Vicky get lost and end up in the barren town of Gatlin, Nebraska. They soon realize that it's a ghost town with the exception of a few mysterious children running around. Because Sarah has the "gift of sight" she is coveted and protected by Isaac, even though she and her brother Jobe are often caught playing which is evidently a big no-no among satanic child cults. "God" has given Isaac the vision that outlanders are to come soon and that these outlanders will be unbelievers and profaners of the holy and must be sacrificed as an offering to please "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". Isaac's vision is confirmed by Sarah's drawing of a car on the road headed toward town. 

      Burt and Vicky start realizing that this town is definitely strange, but do not yet realize how much danger they're really in. Burt goes to the town hall to look around. He notices biblical graffiti everywhere as well as some disturbingly vandalized religious pictures. While Burt is checking out the town hall, Vicky is accosted by the children, dragged to the cornfield, and tied to a cross in a crucified position. 

      Since no adults are to be allowed to live, they must offer themselves to "The Lord" on the first day of their 19th year. When a child named Amos turns 19 and has to "leave", Isaac is told that this is the opportune time to offer the blood of the unbelievers (Burt and Vicky). Malachai eventually gets sick of worshipping Isaac and decides that he can deal with the god of hell all on his own. He demands that the children remove Vicky from the cross and put Isaac in her place, then using Vicky as bait, they lure Burt into the cornfield. He fights with Malachai and frees Vicky from the children's grasp as He Who Walks Behind the Rows comes forth as a thundering red cloud presumably to take Amos. Isaac is then taken instead and comes back possessed, and kills Malachai by breaking his neck with his bare hands. 

      Burt, Vicky, Sarah, and Jobe (who have all sorta bonded by this time because Sarah and Jobe hate having to worship a prick like Isaac) hide in a nearby barn. The rest of the children follow. I guess after seeing so much death and how Isaac was so easily betrayed, they figure that this whole murderous cult thing is no longer for them. The wind rises and billows of flaming clouds fill the sky, "The Lord" is evidently coming forth to take everyone because he's pissed that the sacrifice of the outlanders didn't occur and that the children have seen the truth in that they were deceived by a false god feeding his appetite on the blood of sacrifice. 

      Before his slaughter, an adult policeman tried to defeat the monster but was killed before he could execute his plan. Jobe tells of a passage from the Bible that the policeman was reading shortly before his murder... "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone and shall be tormented there day and night forever and ever". Jobe also tells that the officer was working with the gasohol still when he was killed by Malachai. Burt makes the connection between the Bible passage and the gasohol... fire! The police officer was gonna burn the field. Burt then painstakingly hooks the gasohol tank to the cornfield sprinkler system which drenches the field in the highly flammable substance. A bottle with a burning rag is thrown into the field and quickly burns it down. Eventually, the fire makes it to where the demon is, and a dazzling performance of his demise is seen, done with rather cheap yet effective practical special effects. 

      Burt, Vicky, Sarah, and Jobe, make it back to their car which has been vandalized with corn, much like everything else in this creepy little town. Mangled, exhausted, and downright pooped, they have no choice but to try and walk to the nearest town, one that's not so dramatic and hopefully has fewer children. Since Jobe (who was at the coffee shop during the sermon that foretold that every adult was to be killed) and Sarah (who was home in bed with a fever drawing precognitive images) didn't witness the occasion when He Who Walks Behind the Rows made himself known, they, therefore, have no violent tendencies and are seemingly the only children left, Burt and Vicky decide to take them along when escaping the town. We never learn what happened to all the other children, but Sarah and Jobe are somewhat adopted by Burt and Vicky. The End.

      I've had to leave many interesting topics and situations out, which are very intricate to the film's many facets and subplots, but I can only divulge so much information, making it possible to keep some surprises when/if you ever get to view this masterpiece. I must mention though that a few things did differ between the short story and the film adaptation. The short story follows the same basic structure as the beginning of the movie but doesn't have such a happy ending. In the short story, Vicky is crucified and has her eyes cut out and Burt is sliced to ribbons by the children shortly after he figures out what has happened with the boy preacher and the blood sacrifices, and suffers a Vietnam flashback experience making him easily caught and then both Burt and Vicky are presented as offerings to the God of Hell. The children then continue to inhabit the town and surrounding cornfield awaiting the next set of outlanders that will be offered to the devil as bloody sacrifices.  Stephen King REALLY did not like the change in his original storyline and has since denounced the film entirely.  He seemed to hate it mostly because it had a happy ending (of sorts), even though it's widely seen as one of the best adaptations of one of his stories. A remake was made many years later that kept to the original story, but it was universally hated by pretty much everyone.  It had truly terrible acting on the part of the children and listening to them recite their lines with such a wooden presentation made the film practically unwatchable. The actors who played Burt and Vicky weren't bad but they bicker endlessly which gets old really fast, even though that's how they really were in the original short story.  I think by then the audiences were so used to the movie where Burt and Vicky resolve any differences they may have had in order to survive a terrifying ordeal by working together, just turned people off entirely.  I have to mention that in between the original movie and the remake, there exists I think at least 8-10 sequels, each one more horrible than the previous one.  But the original will always stand out as a landmark film in how religion can be used to create a very disturbing scenario and the atmosphere of this film is so ominous that you really absorb the emotions of the characters and the dread they feel when the coming of the devil is at hand, brought forth by the hands of children.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Street Trash

     This gory little 80's flick has finally gained some notoriety as a cult classic, primarily due to a recent DVD release making it much more accessible. 

      It's a simple story really, mostly made to show off some new, impressive, and downright gruesome special effects by a production company known for its NOT so impressive special effects. The basic storyline is this: A liquor store owner finds a case of some kind of weird booze called Viper that seems to have been hidden in the wall of the basement of the liquor store some 60 years ago. He plops the case of Viper on the shelf and sells it for a dollar a bottle, thus attracting every homeless bum and wino in the neighborhood. 

     It loosely follows the life of Fred, a dirty, nasty, stinky bum who other than possessing those delicious qualities is actually a pretty decent guy. Much like most homeless people actually. Fred lives in a junkyard with his kid brother. The junkyard is ruled by some homeless freak named Bronson, who thinks he's some kind of garbage overlord who holds power over all the other bums in the junkyard. In reality, he's a brutish, sociopathic, schizophrenic, lunatic that thinks he's still in Vietnam. 

      Anyway, Fred buys a bottle of Viper and before he can drink it, it gets stolen by another bum. The other bum drinks the Viper and melts into a psychedelic pile of goo. It's pretty gory, yet has an air of silliness to it because it isn't just blood and guts. It's bright blue, green, and purple... a complete acid head's dream come true. Throughout the movie, poor Fred keeps trying to get a bottle of Viper for himself without it getting stolen. Fortunately for him, he notices that all the people who have drunk the Viper turn into slimy rainbow-colored puddles. 

      He hatches a plan to kill Bronson the evil junkyard overlord by offering him a bottle of Viper as an offering. Bronson's bitch grabs it from him and takes a sip and soon her boobs are melting all over the place. Bronson obviously sees the plot against him and goes after Fred. Fred throws a bottle of Viper at Bronson like some kind of Molotov cocktail and melts half his face. Still undaunted, Bronson pursues, only to be severely decapitated by Fred's younger brother who uses an oxygen tank as a torpedo-like projectile. 

      There are numerous subplots going on as well that are useless to the main story and also have no relevance or even any interaction between themselves. Among them are a mafia restaurant, a game of "keep away" with a severed penis, the hard-up junkyard manager fucks a body that washes ashore, and a cop who gets absolutely nowhere with his investigations into the deaths of random homeless people. 

      It ain't the best effort I've ever seen and regardless of the events described, the story is actually quite dull. But it's worth watching at least once for the special effects which are a delightful combination of gore and comedy. 

      A funny side note to this movie is that it actually tried to achieve some product endorsements and the only company that would have anything to do with this production was a little franchise called Drake's Cakes. Because of its endorsements and affiliations with the film, Drake's Cakes would send complimentary snacks to the cast and crew every week. After three months, everyone was really burned out on eating nothing but cakes so they decided to save some money and use the cakes in some of the special effects. In one scene, a man grows large and explodes after drinking the Viper and all of his innards are nothing but leftover cakes and red food coloring.  Pretty smart use of whatever was on hand for the purpose of achieving special effects, but honestly, I'm not sure I could ever get tired of eating cake.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

The Satanic Rites of Dracula

     This cheesy 70's throwaway isn't really that great of a movie (and that means a lot coming from a cult classic fan like me, who thrives on crap), but still manages to hold up over time. Mostly because of the minor details, such as the title which makes the movie sound as though it could potentially be scary... Vampires and Satanism. 

      It has veteran horror actors such as Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, the heir to the family that has destroyed Dracula what seems like numerous times by now, depending on how many sequels you've seen. Christopher Lee reprises one of his more famous roles as the very non-threatening version of Dracula. We also get to see Joanna Lumley as Jessica Van Helsing, the great-great-granddaughter, in one of her first movie roles (The world mostly knows Joanna Lumley as Patsy Stone on the super successful British comedy "Absolutely Fabulous") 

      Instead of a big spooky castle, this film mostly takes place in a house with an office setting. Desks, phones, chairs, secretaries... like it's cheap CIA headquarters or something. The "office house" is suspected to be a secret center for espionage, but instead, there is something a bit more sinister at work. Satanic rituals are taking place in the basement. Evidently, a satanic date of world destruction is only a few days away and there's work to be done in order to carry out the prophecies of Satan.  Among the guests at the ritual are many well-known, well-respected individuals, a Nobel prize-winning doctor, a senator, and a strange Chinese woman presiding over the ritual, sacrificing chickens and the occasional small-breasted virgin. 

      Van Helsing pays a visit to his old friend Dr. Kelley (the Satanic doctor) and soon learns that he's been up to no good. He's perfected a devastatingly strong form of bubonic plague (obviously eluding to the source of the world destruction to come according to Satan's prophecies and is to be carried out by his stupid followers). During the visit, Van Helsing is non-fatally shot and the doctor has been killed, hung by his neck from the ceiling rafters. Also, the Petri dishes of disease the doctor was working on have been stolen. There are four regular attendees at this satanic ritual and are regarded by Dracula as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Apparently, Dracula is still pissed off about what the Van Helsing family has done to him over the years, so he decides that not only will he kill Van Helsing but he's gonna take the whole damn world along with him. Dracula also sees the destruction of the human race to be his own grand suicide to finally escape the wrath of the Van Helsing family (and living a rather laborious existence)... you kill the world, who've you got left to feed on? Taking the human race down with him gives him that last piece of satisfaction, delightful revenge, and a last act of power over all that is evil. 

      The ending is rather simple and boring. Since it was obviously one of Dracula's henchmen (a motorcycling crew of guys in fur vests) that stole the virus, Dracula now holds the power and chooses his four favorite followers to be the spreaders of the plague. Jessica Van Helsing is chosen to be his consort (why he would need one with the end of the world only days away is anyone's guess). She escapes and makes it to the basement where a minion of female vamps accosts her. She kills them by turning on the sprinklers, thus melting them (I thought that only happened to wicked witches). Another odd side note is that Van Helsing is creating a silver bullet to kill Dracula this time (I thought that was for werewolves). Obviously, he got his horror characters confused, therefore Van Helsing's silver bullet doesn't do anything to Dracula. Instead, he burns the house down, effectively killing off the Petri dishes of disease and all of Dracula's disciples. 

      While chasing Van Helsing through the woods, Dracula gets tangled in a thorn bush. This scene is totally hilarious, you'd think that someone who's lived as long as Dracula would be able to avoid such a dumb mistake. While hopelessly caught in the bramble's grasp, Van Helsing uses this opportunity to grab a stake from a nearby wooden fence and stab Dracula in the heart... again. I'll be honest, the plot idea had potential but the execution of it really sucks. This is about the blandest, most boring, completely predictable piece of shit that I've seen in a while. Proving, if anything, that even when you have well-established actors in the type of roles that they are very familiar with, it still won't earn any Oscars, or even make for a decently watchable movie.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Carrie

     This is Brian DePalma's movie adaptation of the #1 best-selling novel by renowned author Stephen King. In fact, Carrie is the first book that King ever wrote. Actually, we have his beloved wife Tabitha to thank for saving this masterpiece. You see, during the course of writing his first novel, King had no confidence in his abilities as a writer. Believing that it was a badly failed attempt, he threw the manuscript into the fireplace. His wife on the other hand (probably because the novel's subject matter is very empathetic among women in general) saved it from total destruction, sent it in, and a deal was made to publish it and henceforth we have the fantastic future works of Stephen King. Proving that behind every successful man there often lies an intelligent woman. I've read a lifetime of King's books and seen a lot of terrible screen adaptations of them, but the first film version of Carrie was pretty close to the book. A miniseries remake was later made under Stephen King's "strictly by the book" direction.  And even though the miniseries remake of Carrie was very well made and adheres to the book even more faithfully than the original film version, it still doesn't really compare to this masterpiece. 

      Even though the actors at the time were generally unknown, most of them have all since gone on to make many more successful movies. Of these is Sissy Spacek, whose portrayal of the lonely misfit Carrie White was truly exceptional. And even though she's gone on to have a truly extraordinary resume of films to her credit, I believe that most people will think of Carrie when they hear the name.  Piper Laurie, who was a veteran actress who'd already made many wonderful films was practically drawn out of retirement to play Margaret White, Carrie's maniacally religious and abusive mother who occasionally locks Carrie in a "praying closet". Nancy Davis plays the evil bully Christine Hargenson and John Travolta, in his very first major movie role after leaving the television show "Welcome Back Kotta" plays Christine's boyfriend and willing stooge Billy. Amy Irving plays Sue Snell, the only girl in school who feels terrible after participating in humiliating poor Carrie in the shower. And let's not forget William Katt who plays Sue Snell's boyfriend, the school's top jock with a sympathetic heart. 

      The plot is very simple and most people know the story by now and anyone (most of us) who was ever picked on in school and made to feel terrible for being different, all for the amusement of other students can closely relate to it. The story begins when after being picked on all day in gym class, during an otherwise relaxing shower, Carrie White gets her first period. Since her mother never told her about menstruation, she naturally assumes that she is actually somehow bleeding to death. Terribly frightened she asks for help from the other girls in the class, who end up humiliating her by cornering her in the shower and throwing tampons at her. The girls who assaulted her are all punished, which doesn't sit well with Christine (school hottie/total bitch) who thinks that Carrie White deserves to be picked on because she's just so damned weird. 

      The Prom is quickly approaching and it's all anyone can talk about. Feeling horrible about participating in the tampon assault, Sue asks her boyfriend Tommy to take Carrie to the Prom. At first, he refuses, but after some coaxing from his girlfriend, he reluctantly agrees. Apparently, he's gotten more agreeable since they started having sex. 

      Another issue that should be brought up is that Carrie is also telekinetic, and at first, strange things seem to happen whenever Carrie is scared or upset. During the shower assault, the gym teacher slaps her because she's hysterical and an overhead light bursts into sparks. While walking down the street, a young boy on a bike peddles by screaming "Creepy Carrie, Creepy Carrie". She glances at him and he instantly crashes to the ground. As the intensity of her mother's overly religious cruelty increases, Carrie has noticed that the objects around her are beginning to react according to her emotions. 

      Tommy does finally ask Carrie to the Prom. At first, she refuses, but after some sweet talk, she agrees. Christine still has it in for Carrie, so along with her boyfriend Billy and his minion of teen followers, they concoct the ultimate practical joke, a prank to purposely humiliate Carrie to the extent that will satisfy Christine's hatred for her. A prank that she thinks will appropriately fit the ridicule of having your first period in front of everyone and being subsequently degraded in the worst way. 

      They decide that it would be really fun to rig the vote for Prom Queen and King so that Carrie and Tommy win. Once Carrie is on stage, they will dump pig blood all over her in front of everybody. The plan goes off without a hitch. She is voted Prom Queen and poor Carrie thinks that a truly nice thing may have actually happened in her miserable life.  Once she takes the stage, with tears of joy streaming down her face, suddenly a bucket of pig blood falls from the ceiling and completely drenches her. Carrie is once again totally humiliated in front of everyone and all the rage that had been inside her since the shower room incident is unleashed. Her humility is soon taken over by pure anger and an act of telekinetic revenge unparalleled in human history begins to take place. 

     With her powers increased tenfold by this heinous prank, she uses her telekinesis in ways that make sure no one at the Prom survives. With the high school burning to the ground with everyone in it, Carrie calmly walks out of the Prom in a daze. While walking home, Christine and Billy attempt to run her over, only to feel the wrath of Carrie's glance. Their car swerves around Carrie goes tumbling down the street and soon explodes. 

      When she gets home, she takes a bath and washes off all the blood, and even though her mother is a tortuous individual, Carrie seeks out her motherly embrace, but instead of love, she is stabbed in the back by her mother, all because her mother believes that Carrie has gone so far astray and "obviously" has the devil's powers and that she is a witch, and after all, the Bible does say "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".  

     She tumbles down the stairs, bleeding from her mother's stab wound, while her mother slowly lurches toward her with the knife to finish her off, creepily using the knife to make the sign of the cross.  In defense, Carrie telekinetically starts causing knives to be thrown at her mother, who is eventually pinned to a door frame in a likeness that's basically an appropriate replica of Christ on the Cross. 

     With her mother now dead, the devastating events of the Prom, and probably an entire life consisting of school bullying and religious onslaught by her maniacal mother, Carrie's mind is now irreparable and her surroundings act according to her diminished mental condition causing the entire house to crumble and collapse, killing her in the process.

     There are several versions of this story. The book, the original movie discussed here, a miniseries remake according to the book, and another major motion picture remake with all the expensive special effects not afforded in the first film. All versions are wonderful, and as always I recommend the book first. But if you haven't got time to read it, even though it's not that thick of a novel, but still want a version that adheres to the book "almost religiously", I suggest you watch the miniseries remake.  Only the last ten minutes stray from Stephen King's original written word. Angela Bettis plays Carrie with amazing genuineness, You may remember Angela as "May", if not you can look it up here on Cultarama, a great movie, a stellar actress. Or you can just sit back and enjoy the first movie in a mere hour and a half and witness one of the best stories ever written, told by some of the world's foremost actors and actresses before anyone knew who the hell they were.


Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Food of the Gods

     Once again, a brilliant H.G. Wells novel (The Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, The Time Machine) has been turned into an extraordinarily cheap film. Some of his film adaptations like "War of the Worlds" did indeed turn out well, even though it varied quite a lot from the novel. I can safely say that "The Food of the Gods" was an excellent novel, that was turned into a really laughable movie. It's funny for all the wrong reasons. I believe that the special effects department meant well, but just really made the movie look rather ridiculous. 

      This film was made at a time when science fiction was actually making a comeback. Giant creatures of some kind or another, mostly created by modern means and mistakes like bombs, radiation, pollution, and nuclear waste, once again dominated mainstream cinema. The giant villains this time are mostly rats. Anyway, the story follows a famous football player who needs a little vacation before an important game. He takes along a few friends, his coach, and some teammates to an island getaway. 

      A narrative theme begins with a man talking about how nature will someday rebel for all the shitty things we do to it, unfortunately, the victims are innocent people who only suffer the wrath of the actual polluters. They arrive on an island only to be met with giant wasps. The crappy special effects begin here... the wasps are transparent, you can see right through them. There's one close-up of the attack which shows a most obvious big plastic bug. One fatality... more to come. 

      The group comes across a chicken coop that looks like it's been partially torn apart. Our main protagonist peeks inside only to be met with a giant chicken (well, a big plastic chicken head that someone is thrusting toward the actor). This scene is sidesplittingly funny. The plastic head doesn't move its mouth or blink or anything, pretty pathetic. The owner of the chicken coop is located in the nearby farmhouse. It's an old lady that explains how some weird chemical started bubbling up in her backyard. She feeds it to the chickens (Yeah, that would've been my first choice too). The chickens grow and Grandma thinks she's got the solution to hunger. The problem is, other creatures are grubbing on this chemical that Granny has now spread all over the place, resulting in large bugs, large worms, and mostly large rats. 

      The pests reign supreme and kill most of what's left of a forgettable cast. The big plastic rat heads are as funny as the big plastic chicken heads, so obviously fake and totally laughable. When a giant rat is shot with a gun, the special effect used for this was simply shooting real rats with a paintball gun. The problem is, those things shoot really hard, maybe not much for people, but these poor rats were looking mighty stunned and rendered completely unconscious upon impact. Really cruel treatment for an animal just for the sake of making a movie when you think of it.  

     One of the last people left alive theorizes that even though rats are really good swimmers, the fact that they have been enlarged, the same rules of gravity do not apply, and that if the rats are submerged in water they will sink and drown. This is absolutely not true by the way. Does anyone know what a hippopotamus is? Four tons of rats then float along the water like a swimming pool of floaties. Anyway, these two guys plant pipe bombs on a nearby dam (on an island?). The damn blows and the rats drown.  

     You would think or hope that it would end here, but it doesn't. Creepy aftermath is hinted at. Some of the growth chemicals make it into a nearby stream and out into freshwater areas where cows drink from. You then see a cow on a milk machine, then some schoolchildren enjoying their afternoon milk and cookies. I guess it's hinting that we can soon expect large ravenous children, not to mention larger-than-life cows (now maybe a good steak won't cost so damn much) and whatever other life that the chemical will now come in contact with while in the water. I predict a much scarier sequel with giant crabs and crawfish.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Don't Look in the Basement!



     This movie is cheaper than cheap. It was shot in a mere 12 days at a cost of about $10,000. But even with the odds against them, I believe this movie is actually quite well made. It has a very ominous atmosphere, an asylum in the middle of nowhere, where the patients are free to move about the property.  The head doctor at this facility has hired a new nurse to replace one who is leaving because she can't take the potential danger of being harmed by one of the inmates. 

      First, let's meet the patients: There's Jennifer, who is, for the most part, catatonic, but now and then enjoys attacking people with knives. An army sergeant who stays glued to the window with binoculars because he's convinced that the beastly hun is just around the bend. Sam, is a sweet guy, probably the most stable of the bunch, yet is a bit mentally challenged in that he has the mind of a child. A judge who still thinks he's in front of a jury. Harriet is a sad woman who lost her baby and is now seriously overprotective of a baby doll. Let's not forget Allison, who for the most part seems very sane, but actually has a love obsession with EVERYBODY, constantly repeating "I know you love me". 

      On with the story. The movie begins with the head of the asylum Dr. Stephens teaching the judge how to release aggression by chopping wood. Giving an ax to an asylum patient just spells disaster, and the judge eventually turns on the good doctor and whacks him in the head with the ax. An apparent head nurse tells everyone to calm down, that she knows just what to do. This apparent head nurse takes control of the asylum in the doctors' absence. She seems to be next in line and is in complete charge now. 

      A newly hired nurse named Charlotte arrives and is informed of the doctor's untimely passing and the nurse who's now in charge introduces herself as Dr. Masters, Dr. Stephens's assistant. Dr. Masters isn't particularly thrilled about having a new nurse around and tries to send her away. Desperate for a job though, she pleads with Dr. Masters and is eventually allowed to stay. 

      Many of the patients forewarn Nurse Charlotte that danger lurks around every corner, but who can tell if an insane person is telling the truth or just being, well...insane.  An old lady that has been warning Charlotte from day one apparently has cut her own tongue out. Dr. Masters doesn't seem too bothered by it and writes it off as the mere act of a lunatic. Someone has apparently cut the phone lines as well, making the isolation all that much more ominous. Dr. Masters is beyond aggravated that a telephone repairman shows up and gives him a thorough bitching and tells him never to return. He explains that he's just doing his job and is reluctantly shown the phone lines by Dr. Masters. Soon we see that the repairman has been killed, throat slit wide open. All the while Dr. Masters is starting to get weirder and definitely crankier. 

      Sam tells Charlotte that he actually talks to Dr. Stephens and that the doctor is very concerned about Nurse Charlotte, which doesn't make sense since we previously saw the good doctor take an ax to the head and is presumed dead. Sam is also carrying Dr. Stephen's watch. Again she doesn't know what to believe because, after all, these are asylum patients. Before his demise, the telephone repairman encounters Allison who is convinced that the repairman loves her. Upon finding him dead, she tells Charlotte that Dr. Masters killed her eternal love (the repairman). She also tells Charlotte that Dr. Masters is a patient as well who likes to pretend to be a doctor. Again, Charlotte can't believe it could be true. The old lady can't exactly tell Charlotte anything because she no longer has a tongue, but when asked if Dr, Masters was the one who cut out her tongue, she nods yes... obviously because she was trying to warn Charlotte from the beginning that all is not what it seems. 

      Sam gives Charlotte a note saying that the doctor is alive and very worried. Nurse Charlotte has decided that it's definitely time to go, and begins what seems like an endless search for a way out. What's wrong with the front door is anyone's guess. She goes down to the basement and finds Dr. Stephens barely alive. Of course, since she's never met him, she doesn't know it's the doctor and smashes his head in, finishing him off. Sam saves Charlotte while the other inmates attack and kill Dr. Masters with various sharp objects. 

      While Charlotte runs her ass off getting out of there, Sam goes back and kills the rest of the inmates. Covered in their blood, he sits and enjoys his favorite treat, grape popsicles. The acting really isn't all that bad and a creepy little flick where the inmates are running the asylum while an unknowing nurse is just trying her best to keep it all together is a scary enough idea to keep you on the edge of your seat and totally makes up for the overall cheapness of the film.  

Sunday, September 28, 2008

The Thing From Another World

     Typically, I'm not a science fiction fan. Though, of course, I can certainly be persuaded when the film is really good and enjoyable to watch, or just really campy, crappy, and stupid. The Thing From Another World is a much more suspenseful film with an incredible atmosphere that is usually nonexistent in most sci-fi flicks. Its remake, even though concentrated mostly on special effects, also has this same foreboding atmosphere captured rarely in science fiction. 

      The beginning of both movies starts out the same... an arctic research station discovers a strange object buried in the ice. Upon inspection, it appears to be a flying saucer. They use explosives to try and uncover the ice to see exactly what they're dealing with here, and in doing so, they accidentally blow the whole spaceship up. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on one's optimism at this point), a "spaceman" is seen frozen in the ice as well. The spaceship may have been blown to bits, but the spaceman seems unharmed, having crawled out of the downed spacecraft upon it crashing into the snow. They unearth it and bring it back to their camp in a frozen block of ice for study. Some putz who is supposed to be watching over the damn thing puts a blanket over it so he doesn't have to look at its creepy eyes. But what the idiot doesn't realize is that it's an electric blanket that is turned on and it melts the spaceman to freedom in about 20 minutes. 

      This is where the original and the remake split as far as story-wise. The original is funny and somewhat tongue in cheek (while retaining its sullen and effective atmosphere) and the remake becomes the story of a shape-shifting alien that could easily destroy the world if it ever reaches civilization, directed by the ingenious John Carpenter. I do believe that the remake is considered #174 in the top #250 best movies ever made (source: IMDB.COM). 

      Though it may not be the thriller that its remake became, the original has that special something that makes it an instant classic. It takes place in a creepy cold atmosphere placed near the North Pole with some really strange happenings going on. After Mr. Moron melted the creature that was frozen in ice and it escapes into the blizzard outside which doesn't seem to affect it much, a search engages. While tearing apart some sled dogs, "The Thing" loses an arm (that grows back) which is taken back to the laboratory. Upon scientific inspection, it is deduced that the arm is comprised of plant tissue. The scientists in the group explain that in another world, plant life may have evolved in the same way that mammals evolved here on Earth. 

      It feeds on blood though, in fact, blood from the dogs on the severed hand brings it back to life. Much like a plant, severed pieces that break off of "the Thing" begin their own growth. One of the weirdo scientists is actually growing some baby Things that creepily appear to be breathing. The group starts to remember their botany rules and realize that ice-cold temperatures do not always kill a plant which is why the Thing creeps around outside. But, extensive heat will definitely wilt a plant beyond saving. I know this to be true because I've killed many many many houseplants. After a while, you just start blaming it on botanical suicide, and the plant won't know you're lying. 

      They decide that electrocution is the way to go and set him ablaze, which succeeds in destroying him. Not many fatalities in this movie and I can definitely say that the remake is totally superior. But in 1951 they didn't have all the razzle-dazzle of great computer and makeup effects that we have now. Granted, the villain in this movie is basically an intelligent carrot, and I can't say how effectively that could be accomplished even with today's special effects. Watch the remake if you want a really suspenseful alien flick with a very foreboding atmosphere, but if you just want a generally comical story being taken totally seriously with hilarious puns sprinkled here and there... watch this gem of an original, it's a decently well thought out cult flick...a true classic!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Blue Sunshine

     Blue Sunshine came out in 1977 and has all the earmarks of a seventies film. Polyester, disco, and bad hair. Speaking of bad hair... this movie not only has a lot of it, but it's also MISSING a lot of it, henceforth the creepy movie poster and the topic of missing hair is one of the main elements of the story.  

     OK, here goes... A few certain people start noticing unnatural hair loss and displaying very erratic mood swings which are starting to become extremely violent.  Their violent behavior quickly evolves into homicidal actions. I won't go into each one, but there is incredible character buildup which makes the action toward the end of the film much more exciting because by now you feel like you actually know these people. An element that most mainstream horror/sci-fi movies often neglect. 

      Before any of them can be cured of their hair loss or violent tendencies, it's realized that all the balding lunatics went to the same college university ten years ago. It turns out that some asshole sold them all a bad batch of acid called "Blue Sunshine". For those of us old enough to remember, LSD always had colorful names... Blue Sunshine, Black Dragon, Red Mercury, etc. 

      The most suspenseful portion of the movie is figuring out who took the Blue Sunshine and who didn't. You see, a lot of the lunatics are wearing wigs so it's hard to tell that they're about to become homicidal because the hair loss comes before the violent tendencies occur.  A side note that must be acknowledged is the ever-present full moon with a slightly bluish tint, obviously foreshadowing the bald lunatics who took the Blue Sunshine. 

      The climactic ending to this movie is full of humor, which changes the mood of the story tenfold. Three different puppets with the likenesses of Barbara Streisand, Frank Sinatra, and Tom Jones, introduce the opening of a new disco (which was just making its big splash around the time of filming). I guess the techno-pop that disco had, really pushed the bald acid heads (who are more like crazed zombies now) over the top and they start freaking out and killing everyone. The moral of the story... avoid bad drugs (good drugs are OK) and if you freak out from bad acid, you should probably avoid disco techs. A really great period piece and very effective for an independent film from Jeff Lieberman who also brought us the cheap but effective horror film "Squirm" which most of us have only seen on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Alice Sweet Alice

     This is a very dramatic movie, and unlike most cult films, the acting is really good, it looks like it had a decent budget, and it has a great story.  This was billed as Brooke Shield's first movie (I think maybe age 8 or 9), but I'm almost sure that she starred in a film called Pretty Baby just prior to this, but because she appears naked in Pretty Baby, it was considered highly controversial and was labeled as child porn and quickly swept under the rug and this movie was instead chosen to be her first official movie role.  Anyway, this was also Paula Sheppard's first (and only other) film. Paula's other movie "Liquid Sky" can also be found here on Cultarama, so by all means give it a look-see. Paula plays the title role of Alice in this film, and in both movies, she plays such an incredible bitch, but ironically from what information I've managed to obtain about her, everyone says that she's actually a very sweet and generous woman, who after making only two films, retired from show business to become a mother. Oh well, not to be rude but if she had chosen to continue acting instead of motherhood, I'm sure that she would have given us many more wonderful performances. 

      Brooke Shields's character of Karen, younger sister to the demented and violent older sister Alice (Paula) is the main center of the story even though she gets killed off relatively early in the movie. Karen is a sweetheart, but Alice could easily pass for a sociopathic serial killer. She's a prankster (and an evil one too), and she detests everyone, most especially her sister Karen. 

      The movie begins with Alice stealing her sister's favorite doll with the promise of smashing it. Their mom Catherine is convinced that Alice was just up to her usual tomfoolery and soothes Karen by letting her try on her new dress to be worn at her upcoming Communion. The day before Communion, their Priest Father Tom gives Karen a very special present (a beautiful gold cross necklace that belonged to his grandmother). Since Alice didn't get shit, and already has many hostilities towards her sister, this just adds to her hatred of Karen. Mrs. Tredoni (Father Tom's housekeeper/cook/answering service/maid/friend of the family, etc) also seems a little miffed about Father Tom giving Karen such a wonderful gift. 

      Midway through this story, we are introduced to many odd and somewhat annoying characters, such as Mr. Alfonso, the 600 lb apartment landlord with piss stains on his pants who eats cat food right along with his 328 feline friends in an apartment the size of a broom closet. Another is Aunt Annie, Catherine's older sister who adores Karen and despises Alice.

      At the actual Communion, Karen goes missing. We see her being attacked by someone who looks like Alice because it's a small-built individual (probably a woman), wearing the same kind of raincoat that Alice always wears, and donning a specific mask that we know Alice has stashed in her secret trunk in the basement. One of those creepy-ass masks that were mostly clear but had exaggerated makeup on them (typical nightmare fuel). Karen is subdued and thrown into a large wooden box and set aflame. A nun finds her charred body after smelling the smoke. She screams and everyone panics. Catherine is very bluntly told by her bitch sister Annie that Karen is dead. Pandemonium erupts, and everyone starts screaming and crying... meanwhile we see Alice slipping Karen's veil under her raincoat to conceal it. Alice is the perfect suspect in the murder because not only did she like to dress just like the killer was dressed, but she also has very sociopathic tendencies, and is hateful and jealous towards her younger sister for many reasons. 

      The estranged father of Karen and Alice arrives in town for his daughter's funeral, to comfort his ex-wife and to get to the bottom of who killed his daughter. All the clues acquired point directly at Alice. As she's leaving the apartment, Aunt Annie (who is in a constant battle of wills with Alice) is violently attacked.  Again, "someone" dressed in the raincoat and mask that Alice often wears, assaults Annie in the stairwell and stabs her. Once Annie is taken to the hospital, she is convinced that Alice is the person who stabbed her. Alice is then taken to a psych ward and questioned about the stabbing of her aunt. She is given a polygraph test which establishes that she knows who stabbed her aunt, but she tells the truth when she says that it was her dead sister Karen. So either Alice is nuts or she really saw Karen (or someone who looks like Karen, possibly wearing the same yellow raincoat) stab her aunt. Alice's parents think maybe it could have been Angela (Annie's daughter/Karen and Alice's cousin) who also has a yellow raincoat and just happened to be missing when Karen was killed. One problem, Angela is quite a plump young lady and doesn't resemble Karen or Alice in any way. Angela then calls Alice's father (her uncle) and says that she has run away, has Karen's gold cross (which was given to Karen shortly before she died and was then taken by the killer), and asks her uncle if he could possibly meet her at some abandoned building. He follows Angela into the building where she stabs him, he chases after her and they struggle. During the struggle, the mask slips off revealing that it's actually Mrs. Tredoni and not Angela. The cross is hanging around her neck (which identifies her as Karen's killer). The father manages to bite the dangling cross from her neck before she pushes him off a ledge, landing on a pile of concrete, killing him. 

      Mrs. Tredoni hates Catherine and her family. She killed Karen because she was jealous that Father Tom gave Karen his grandmother's gold cross. She also attempted to kill Catherine but misidentified her and stabbed Annie instead. Also being very religious (fuel for the best crimes imaginable), she thinks Catherine is a total whore because she is not only divorced but that she gave birth to Alice out of wedlock. Catherine goes to Father Tom's house, but only Mrs. Tredoni is home. She starts telling Catherine about how she herself had a little girl at one time, who also died during her first Communion. She feels that her little girl was killed in order to pay for the sins of her parents. Afterward, she came to care for Father Tom (she points a knife at Catherine) not YOU! 

      During the autopsy of Alice's father, they find the cross lodged in his throat. The cops make the connection that it's the same cross that was stolen from Karen and figure out that Mrs.Tredoni is the actual killer, not Alice. Mrs.Tredoni goes to the church (where police are waiting to apprehend her) and gets in line for Communion. Since Father Tom knows what she's done, he won't give it to her. She then points to Catherine and screams out "But you gave it to that whore!!". At this time she then stabs Father Tom in the neck. As she holds his lifeless body, the cops rush in. 

      The last scene is the creepiest... as the cops are rushing around, we see Alice pick up Mrs. Tredoni's shopping bag that contains the knife used as the main murder weapon. She looks at it, slowly hides it back in the bag, and gives the camera a really evil look. The look of an accused and innocent young girl who now has the capacity and desire to kill.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Terror Toons

     This is a totally screwed-up film... on many levels. Wow, where does one start? First of all this movie looks like it was filmed with a home camcorder, the characters are beyond unreallistic and completely unbelievable, the concept is really weird, and the acting is some of the worst ever caught on celluloid.  And yet, you get the feeling that all of it, even the bad stuff, is all on purpose.  

     Anyway, the story is about how Satan discovers the amazing qualities of a popular modern item (well, not anymore) we all know as a DVD. He creates a monstrous cartoon character (mostly played by a guy in a costume) called Dr. Carnage and his sidekick, a ravenous monkey named Max Assassin, and places them on DVDs and drops one in everyone's mailbox (I guess since AOL did that, he thought he could too). 

      Some weird chick with breasts big enough to be classified as weapons of mass destruction, who also looks 35 years old but acts like a 6-year-old, finds one in her mailbox and decides to play it out of childish boredom. 

      Meanwhile, her parents (consisting of an obvious man in drag with a voice like John Wayne) are going out of town for the weekend and put her older sister in charge. Somehow as if planned, the "older" sister looks much much younger than the "younger" sister. 

    Anyway, the older sister invites some friends over, some boys who bring liquor, what have you, and throws a party. Little sister with boobs so big they have different zip codes, is watching what looks like a stupid cartoon about a mad doctor and his rabid pet monkey. Suddenly, Dr. Carnage and Max Assassin leap from the TV and extract very cartoonish (and strikingly gruesome) ways of killing everyone. All the cartoon cliches are used... safe dropped on the head, being sawed in half, spine ripped out, TNT explosives, etc. Live-action is mixed with cheap cartoon overlay and computer effects, some of which are truly hilarious and deserve really good drugs. 

      As expected this movie is extremely colorful, being about cartoons and all, but this is as gory as can be expected when a safe falls on your head. In a real cartoon, their head came out flat, they blew on their thumbs and everything pops out into place. But here, when a safe falls on you, you're squashed beyond recognition, your guts are coming out and brain matter is staining the wall. All through the night, everyone gets it in a different way. 

      Monday when "Mom" and Dad return, they find the house a mess and body parts everywhere. The drag queen mom goes into a totally hilarious spastic fit that was so side-splittingly funny that it was almost worth sitting through this entire cheap piece of crap for an hour and a half! And, I seriously stretch the word "almost".  As bizarre as it was, I can't say that I didn't enjoy it.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

The Short Films of David Lynch

     David Lynch was married to a girl named Peggy at the time, who was an exceptional painter and he used her talents to make most of these short films. There are about 8-10 total, and most can be found on Youtube, but there was a DVD release that contained all of them.  These short films were the precursor to David Lynch's first full-length feature film Eraserhead.  We'll discuss a few of them here.

     The Alphabet:  Lynch got the inspiration for this film one night when Peggy's niece woke up from a nightmare where she was frantically repeating the alphabet. Filmed half live action and half animated, letters appear (a capital A even gives birth to a bunch of little lowercase a's). A girl (played by Peggy Lynch) writhes around in bloody sheets, reciting the alphabet, blood-red flows from her mouth and eyes in an otherwise completely monochromatic atmosphere. The soundtrack is mainly a male opera singer and wind sounds. Approximately 4 minutes long. Very gothic, very nightmarish. After completing "The Alphabet", David Lynch had been "bitten by the movie-making bug" and immediately started putting together another project titled "The Grandmother". 

     The Grandmother:  The script is very dense and very short, a trait that we soon learned came with most of David Lynch's movie scripts. Lynch was already in the process of making Eraserhead (almost a hobby, taking over five years to complete) for over a year at the time and the money had run out. So Lynch applied for a grant from the American Film Institute, not at all expecting to get it. The scripts for both movies were submitted and surprisingly, he got the grant which was eventually used for the shorter of the two films (Eraserhead was over 90 minutes and The Grandmother was only 23 minutes). The Grandmother was finished in 1970 and quickly gained notoriety and very much displayed what was to be known as David Lynch's gothic personal style. It begins with some stop-motion animation using photo cutouts. A man, woman, and child are "born" from the earth, and the man attacks the child, which is the opening to the film's theme in live-action. The story is told through imagery and has maybe a total of six words said throughout the entire film. Basically, a young boy that has very neglectful and abusive parents yearns for love and affection. After getting his ass whipped for peeing in his bed, the young boy pours dirt on his bed and plants a seed of some kind. He "waters" it daily and grows a disgusting-looking plant that "gives birth" to an old lady. She turns out to be a grandmother figure to the child. All is well, apparently, the grandmother has no problem with the kid wetting his bed (we see it colored yellow against a mostly monochromatic background). One day the grandmother starts to "malfunction" and goes flipping out all around the room. The kid goes to his parents for help but is met with abuse. The grandmother disappears. Next, we see the kid strolling through a cemetery and he runs into the grandmother there, they both scream, and the kid goes home... The End. What does it all mean? I don't even think David Lynch knows for sure. 

      The Amputee: Filmed in 1973, The Amputee exists in two takes on two different types of film. The American Film Institute was looking into buying a large quantity of a particular kind of film tape and since there were two major brands being made at the time, both were tested using the exact same scene to see which looked better. Lynch asked if he could film whatever he wanted and was given permission to do so as long as both scenes were exactly the same. With the freedom to do what he wanted, he scripted a scene where a male nurse (played by Lynch) is cleaning and dressing the wounds of a woman who has recently had both of her legs amputated. The woman (played by Catherine Coulson which we all grew to love as "The Log Lady" from Twin Peaks) is busy writing a letter or novel of some kind and pays absolutely no attention to the nurse who is about to puke because oozy crap is flowing out of her wounds. The first take had better quality, but the second take is much funnier. Much more ooz than in the first one and the actress is clearly on the verge of laughing. Catherine Coulson plays the amputee and was married to Jack Nance at the time. We know Jack Nance mostly from his portrayal of Henry in Eraserhead. They were reunited several years later when both had major roles in the hit series Twin Peaks.  Coulson played the Log Lady and Nance played the part of Pete Martell. 

      The Cowboy and the Frenchman: After Blue Velvet was released, David Lynch took a vacation in Paris. While there, he was approached by an associate about a TV series about how Americans see the French. David originally declined because he didn't feel that it was something that could be done in what was becoming an ever-evolving personal film style of his, which was very artful, abstract, and gothic (everything this film wasn't supposed to be). Six different directors were chosen to make a short film that could possibly end up being the pilot of a new TV series. David Lynch went home and did some thinking about the offer and thought that maybe he could make a film with this theme. He should have stuck with his gut instinct because this film really sucks and is my least favorite of the entire collection. Basically, the story goes as such... Four ranch hands are sitting around chewin' "Tabaccee" and out of nowhere, a Frenchman comes staggering out of the forest carrying a suitcase with all the French essentials, such as wine, cheese, snails, perfume, etc. Eventually, the group is joined by three women, who only dance around and have no apparent purpose for being there. Also, a choir of three other women breaks in every now and then to sing only one verse and then back to the "story". When David Lynch presented his version of the pilot, he was greeted with the insult "Great, two cliches for the price of one". Needless to say, his version wasn't chosen. Can't say that I blame them, it really was bad and had a theme that I don't think Lynch could lower himself enough to even attempt to turn this kind of crap into a full TV series. I think he felt a need for a more artful kind of work and a little more freedom when it came to his artistic integrity. But hey, it was worth a try. 

      Lumiere: In the late '90s, Lumiere Brothers Incorporated., a large producer of TV and movie cameras, was doing an experiment with an antique camera. The camera was made of wood and had a crank. This camera was passed around to a few different directors. Each individual director was to produce 55 seconds of footage with the camera. Also, there were some restrictions enforced: you could have no more than three takes, and once you got the crank turning, it couldn't be stopped until the film was over. In the short 55 seconds that David Lynch had, we see quick flashes of events such as... cops finding a dead body on the lawn, people crying, etc.

      Six Figures Getting Sick Six Times:  This is basically just a cut-and-paste sort of animation style where the background of six different faces remains motionless while different styles of vomit appear to come from each face.  This happens six times with only the sound of a siren playing in the background.  Out of all of them, this one is the simplest and for some reason is my favorite, probably because it's the most artistic overall.

     There are several other short films on the DVD release, some are good, some are bad, most make no sense at all, some are just miscellaneous attempts to create other projects that never made it off the ground, etc.  Even though it was an expensive collection to buy on DVD, the price wasn't worth it and many people regretted purchasing it.  It's really only for the hardcore David Lynch collectors out there who must have everything that he ever made, even when he was young and didn't have much of a clue as to what he was doing.  Some of the short films do give you a good glimpse into what David Lynch was to become when he finally became a well-known filmmaker.