Frogs

You'll probably find this movie in the horror section of your local video store, but that doesn't mean you're gonna get any screams out of it. Made in 1972 with a very young Sam Elliot (almost unrecognizable without his handle bar mustache) and an equally young (pre-cosmetic surgery disaster) Joan Van Ark, playing her normal bitchy self. The movie starts out with a very ominous feel, with young photographer Pickett Smith (Sam Elliot) taking pictures of the tremendous amount of toxic waste that's being dumped into the nearby swamp. Due to a boating accident where Smith's canoe is almost run over by a speedboat, Smith is taken aboard the other boat. Apologies all around for nearly killing him, the people in the speedboat invite Smith to their island mansion where their cantankerous grandfather is having a (very dull) birthday party. Grandpa hates everything, especially frogs. Therefore he poisons the whole swamp, hoping to rid himself of their endless croaking. The theme of toxic waste turning frogs into killers never really happens, instead people are bitten by poisonous snakes, eaten by crabs, etc. There's even a scorpion or two (technically a goof, because scorpions don't like aquatic environments like swamps). It's strange, I never thought of frogs being all that scary or malevolent. They don't bite, they don't sting, and if you pick one up, the worst that could happen is it would pee on you. Anyway, as the story goes, Grandpa's bratty kids and dingbat wife are killed off by something in the swamps (always snakes, leeches, spiders, etc, never the frogs). Despite the death count, Grandpa is determined to have his birthday celebration, even with the frogs jumping in and out of his birthday cake, which is by the way, the only gross or disturbing scene in the film. Smith, a few kids, and a blonde hottie manage to make their way out of the swamp and to the road. A lady motorist with her kid stops to give them a ride, even though Smith is carrying a huge rifle (smart move, Mom). Aside from common sense blunders, there's also enough movie goofs to qualify as an Ed Wood production. Day turns to night and back again many times in one scene as it switches from the cheap stock footage of swamp critters to the actors reaction to the cheap stock footage of swamp critters. Many of the frogs that "jump" into the scene land on their backs, letting us know that the frogs were actually thrown into the scene. Supposedly dead bodies are clearly shown to be breathing, etc, etc. In the end, Gramps is "attacked" by frogs that manage to get into the house. His death isn't shown and I suppose he has a heart attack, since frogs are harmless. No scares, no chills, just lots of unintentional humor. A funny side note to this movie is that most of the 500 frogs used in the film escaped during production. It also has a great tagline, "Today the pond, tomorrow the world!!".

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a true cult "classic". It was made in 1956 and much like Night of the Living Dead, had a great idea but no money to back it up. Also like Night of the Living Dead, it wasn't expected to be the monstrous success that it was. With no real budget for special effects leading to a rather simplified movie (at least for it's genre) actually helped both of these films. Sometimes a great idea is so good that it doesn't really need any real reinforcement like special effects in order to be very effective. Anyway, the movie begins with Dr. Miles Bennell returning to his hometown after a vacation and coming across many patients complaining that someone they know is not really that person anymore, but some kind of impostor that only looks and sounds like the person they knew. Miles starts to rekindle an old flame with former sweetheart Becky Driscoll. They are drawn together again through many strange events. Her uncle Ira has been acting strangely and Becky herself feels that something is terribly wrong. Even though he looks and sounds like her uncle, he somehow now has a lack of emotion. Even stranger, after a few days, the panicky people complaining about impostors are now completely calm and are admitting to feeling silly at the thought of such nonsense. Well, they may seem to be better, but they are still acting strange. They start toting around weird giant seed pods and are also showing a lack of emotion. Miles and Becky team up with friends Jack and wife Teddy (Carolyn Jones-Morticia Addams) when jack calls Miles and complains about a dead body in his house. They rush right over and find a body that is completely devoid of character, has no fingerprints and is not breathing. Over a small amount of time, the body starts looking more and more like Jack, starts breathing and then disappears. All are stunned and mystified. They decide that it's better to stick together rather than run, as the whole town is quickly becoming impostors. Meanwhile four pods are out in the greenhouse just waiting for these people to fall asleep, as that seems to be when the transformation occurs. Miles, Becky, Jack and Teddy discover imitations of themselves forming from some kind of huge seed pod producing plant and naturally freak out. Jack and Teddy make a break for it while Miles and Becky are desperately trapped in his office with the whole town after them. They observe the towns people distributing seed pods to different trucks to be transported to different cities. Faking emotion, Miles and Becky fool everyone for a while but when Becky shows emotion towards a dog almost getting run over, they catch on and chase them out of town. Eventually Becky takes a nap and is "changed". Miles makes it to the highway, trying desperately to convince people about what's happening, hence the infamous line... "They're coming! They're here already! You're next!! You're next!!!". Of course no one wants to take him seriously because he's acting like a raging lunatic. Finally, at the police station he explains his story. Naturally they lock him up until it's reported to the station that a truck hauling abnormally huge seed pods has been in an accident. The story ends here, leading you to use your imagination as to whether the world gets overrun with alien plants from outer space or if the problem is caught in time before it takes over the world. Originally a book by Jack Finney simply called "The Body Snatchers", it was turned into film in 1956. A remake of the original movie was made in 1978 starring Donald Sutherland and Veronica Cartwright that was actually pretty good. It was much scarier and took place on a much larger scale. The original takes place in a small town called Santa Mira and the remake takes over all of San Francisco. Yet another remake was released in 2007 starring Nicole Kidman called The Invasion, which tried to be as subtle and creepy as the original and not go over the top as in the 1978 remake, but failed miserably at the box office. In this day and age, we like "in your face" movies that both shock and intrigue. Well, we already had both, so why make a third? It's a great story, but it's becoming a little overcooked. If you can't get your hands on the book (the very best version of the story) then stick with the original 1956 version. It's a true cult classic.

The Stuff

Up from the ground comes a bubbling white creamy substance. Some guy stumbles upon it, tastes it and since it's so delicious, decides to market it. The world loves it, but some people, a Texan detective and a kid in particular are highly suspicious. The detective is hired to find out what The Stuff is made of and a kid who sees this yummy dessert moving about his fridge. People start showing clear signs of dependency on The Stuff and are turning into yogurt zombies called "Stuffies", encouraging everyone to eat The Stuff, because it's so tasty and good for you too. They discover that there is no mixing or processing of The Stuff, it's just being mined out of the ground without even being tested. The Stuff is pretty aggressive in large quantities and can attack at will. The detective sneaks into the factory where The Stuff is being distributed from and plants a few land mines and blows up the geyser that the Stuff is bubbling out from. The Stuff is outed as a mind altering bacterial substance and the people vow to get rid of all of it. At the end, when all seems right with the world, you see what looks like some kind of drug deal, and you learn it's a couple of Stuffies getting their fix and transporting it like a drug cartel. This has been a great cult favorite and a great time capsule from the early 80's too.

Bride of the Monster

Another one of Ed Wood's classics in the can. This is officially Bela Lugosi's last movie. He is credited and seen briefly in one of Ed's later films Plan 9 From Outer Space, but this is only because Ed happened to have some home movies of Bela and wove them (not so gracefully) into the plot. Anyway, this movie is an attempt at a Sci-Fi thriller, but like all of Ed's other work, turned out to be crap. Dr. Eric Vornoff (Bela) has been run out of his native country and bought an old house out in the woods called the " Old Willow's Place". Armed with his muscleman slave Lobo (wrestler Tor Johnson) he plans to use nuclear technology to create his own army of "super beings". A nosy newspaper reporter named Janet Lawton is investigating the legend of the monster at the Old Willows Place (technically we're never really told what the monster was... was it Lobo, the octopus or what Dr. Vornoff becomes after being zapped with his own raygun). Probably because the original title of this film was Bride of the Atom, but was changed so as to have a scarier sounding title. She gets too close, gets kidnapped, forced to dress like a bride and is strapped to a table, apparently to be one of the first people that Dr. Vornoff plans to turn into a super being. Lobo saves her at the last minute and straps the doctor onto the table in her place. Dr. Vornoff gets zapped by his own machine and turns into something, not sure if it's a super being or if it went terribly wrong and made him into a monster. The only noticeable differences is that he looks kinda burnt, with messed up hair and is wearing huge black 6 inch pump shoes. All through the movie, Ed tries desperately to match the stock footage to his own footage. He fails miserably. The doctor has a pet octopus, which at the end of the movie ends up eating the good doctor for dinner, but nevertheless looks faker than fake when compared to the stock footage of a real octopus. The same with a snake in a tree... a shot of a real snake and then the rubber one in the tree that doesn't move. And as a final flaw in the movie, Dr. Vornoff's residence/laboratory explodes at the end for no reason and the explosion is stock footage of an atomic bomb that would have destroyed half the globe, yet everyone near the house isn't even blinded as they look upon what's become of a mad geniuses work. True crap, and is therefore strongly recommended for cult fans.

Village of the Damned

This movie is particularly creepy, mostly because the evil villain in this film takes the form of innocent looking children. The movie begins when the small town of Midwich (I love the title of the book this movie was made from... "The Midwich Cuckoos") falls under some sort of blackout. People as well as animals are all in a mysterious coma. Anyone that goes in, instantly falls down unconscious. Scientist and military surround the town. After a few hours, the coma lifts and is never explained. Shortly afterwards, the women of Midwich are all discovering that they are pregnant and that the date of conception goes back to the day of the mysterious blackout. From the beginning, the pregnancies are strange. For one thing, one of the women was a virgin when she got pregnant. Since this phenomenon hasn't gone unnoticed my the military, they set up shop in town to monitor these bizarre events. The babies are all born on the same day (fully developed after only 5 months) and all have very similar characteristics, almost as if they were siblings from the same set of parents. They have white hair (some really cheap looking wigs), elongated fingers and strange eyes. They also grow very quickly and are extraordinarily smart. They also seem to be telepathic amongst each other and if one child learns something, the others immediately know it as well. By the age of three, they have the appearance of children about ten years old and have strong enough minds to read anyones thoughts and can force people to do their will. The military eventually learns that other "blackout children" have been born in other locations around the world. Determined to discover the source behind this phenomenon, military and scientists disregard the children's growing powers. A cheap but effective camera trick is used when the children stare and control other people. The film negative was flipped over just the eyes of the children, making them appear to glow a bright white (or bright blue, if you like the colorized version). When it's learned that the other cities with "blackout children" have been destroyed the children want to disperse and likely "grow" others like themselves. They must be stopped!! It's gonna take a suicide bomber for this job!! Very creepy mindfreak of a movie. "We know what you're thinking." This movie spawned a weak sequel called "Children of the Damned" and was remade in the early 90's and was coincidentally Christopher Reeves last film before his accident.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

This particular art film has an incredible idea. It's in Japanese (hopefully with subtitles) and is very cleverly edited. This movie jumps around in time and the plot isn't shot in order. There's a lot of fast forward video and stop motion animation with what looks like several different types of mediums (people, wires, coils, and lots and lots of tin foil). The basic story (as best I can make out) revolves around two men. One is a cleancut business man and the other is a professional runner. The runner has inserted a rusty pipe into his leg, a reason is not given. Anyway, the runner screams in pain and runs into the street where he is hit by a car driven by the business man. Business man and his girlfriend dump their automotive victim into a nearby ditch and proceed to make love while the dying runner lies in the ditch watching them. Business man begins to have real troubles though when a transister looking zit appears on his face due to a small cut from a clean new razor. When touched, it pops and gets worse. He begins to change. He begins to develop a metal rash that is spreading over his body and he's become strangely magnetic. Meanwhile, the runner is morphing into a supernatural being bent on destroying Mr. Business man. It becomes a strange game of good vs. evil. Clean metal good, rusty metal bad. Eventually since neither one can manage to win, they decide to unite and turn the entire world into metal... then rust it all just for the hell of it. A truly fascinating movie to watch.

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Plan 9 from Outer Space is ironically considered to be Ed Wood's greatest cinematic acheivement, while at the same time it has outright won the award for the worst movie ever made. Filmed with more goofs than one can count, it never ceases to make me laugh out loud. In addition to the cardboard tombstones that occasionally tip over and the rapid incontinuity that results from the scene changing back and forth from day and night like 6 times in a two minute span. Eddie wasn't interested in the "small details", only the big picture. This thinking led him to make some pretty cheesy flicks, to say the least. Ed Wood as usual would gather up all his friends and set out to make a really bad movie. Plan 9 is an alien (who look exactly like humans, even down to the current hairstyles of the time) plot to take over the world by reanimating the recently dead. They succeed somewhat, by raising only three "zombies". These consist of an old man (half played posthumously by Bela Lugosi using Eds home movies and half played by Eds chiropractor who kept his face hidden with his Dracula cape so that no one would notice that they were two different people) his wife (played by the recently unemployed Vampira) and a 500 lb cop (played by Tor Johnson, the gentle giant wrestler turned B-movie actor). Cheap sets, wooden dialogue, flying saucers that look mysteriously like paper plates painted silver (which wobble uncontrollably throughout the movie) and the most stock footage that Ed could get his hands on (and Ed sure did love his precious stock footage). All this amounted to an amazing cinematic experience (well, at least in Ed Woods mind).

Liquid Sky

Liquid Sky is a colorful movie to say the least. Besides being shot in psychedeliscope, it also cashed in on the whole luridly multicolored non-gender specific 1980's. Margaret is a fashion model, she lives in a penthouse in Manhattan. She also lives with Adrian, her lesbian heroin pushing girlfriend. One day, an alien spacecraft the size of a dinner plate lands on the penthouse roof searching for heroin and finds something better. That something is a chemical reaction in the brain produced during orgasm. Unfortunately it kills it's victims when it shoots out of their heads in the form of glasslike arrows. It's chosen Margaret as it's tool to obtain this chemical, (well, one would naturally expect a sexy fashion model would have many orgasms, right?) Since everyone she has sex with dies she decides to have sex with her biggest fashion rival Jimmy, who seems oddly feminine (even for the eighties). This is probably because actress Anne Carlisle plays the roles of both Margaret and Jimmy. This film is so bizarrely colored that one must assume that it was meant to be watched on drugs. From the unbelievable makeup (even for the eighties, really!) to the rainbow vision that results from seeing things from the aliens perspective. Take more color than most televisions can handle and an electronic soundtrack that could literally drive someone insane and you get one of the most notorious movies of the whole cult film phenomena. In fact, the director Slava Tsukerman was reportedly exiled from Russia for making weird movies.