FURIOUS!!!!

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Furious~ 1984, Tim Everitt, Tom Sartori, USA

8110SuZuYrL._SL1500_

DAMN. Furious has got to be one the most extreme WTF films I’ve ever seen. I have no idea what sort of trama the human brain would need to have endured in order for it to properly process this film’s plot, if it even has one. This this is madly, wildly incoherent.

THE PLOT~ Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. The caption on the DVD case reads: “KARATE HEROES FIGHT ALIENS FOR CONTROL OF THE ASTRAL PLANE.” Really? Alright. I really didn’t get that out of this, but okay. That’s what it’s about, I guess. Not sure when that happens, but there ya have it.

It’s horribly made, of course, but we have bigger fish to fry. The real story here is that Furious presents you with the most abstract form of narrative ever, and it’s not deliberate. Don’t confuse whatever the fuck is going on here with the intentional surrealism seen in films like El Topo or Eraserhead, Furious is just straight nonsense, and it happened because some people just aren’t cut out for film making. The truth hurts.

Furious_Poster No one really acts in this movie. They’re just on camera sometimes. There’s a lot of karate, but the story operates on its own internal system of logic, which no living human can decode. There’s almost no dialogue at all, and when there is, it’s often a short phrases, which are then repeated over and over, about a thousand times. For instance, at one point, Master Chan whispers the words “Simon…. Go home.”… For like, an hour. Once would have been enough, but no… In a movie where almost nothing is said, we get “Simon… Go home.” about one hundred and fifty times. And what is happening while Master Chan repeats the shit out of his line, you ask? Well, Simon stands silent on a beach, looking out to sea, while Master Chan slowly gets further and further away from him, even though he doesn’t actually move. Yeah! Furious is FULL of stuff just like that. This film had to have been directed by people uniquely incapable of understanding just when exactly they had effectively communicated an idea to their audience. The result is that 97% of the movie is so under-explained that there’s literally no logic holding the plot together at all, and the remaining 3% is just relentlessly hammered into your head without mercy. It’s like absolutely nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Want another example? Happy to oblige! Later on in the film, Simon decides to scope out the bad guy’s base of operations, which appears to be an office building located in the middle of nowhere. Upon arrival, he finds a hiding spot near the main entrance, and proceeds to case the joint (some of this is speculation). As he watches the front door, which is flanked by two completely motionless guards, Simon witnesses a man slowly sneak out, walk in a straight line away from the building, and disappear off screen, all the while holding a, white, clucking chicken underneath his right arm…

Okay?

Then, this exact thing happens again, less than a minute later. Exactly the same thing. And then again. It happens AGAIN, SEVERAL TIMES. Why!?!? What the fuck is going on!?!? Are we supposed to understand this?!?! Is this a glitch in the Matrix?!? Is it a glitch in my own brain!?! Is Furious even a real movie!??!

Untitled-3 Fuzzy, because the entire movie is.

So, having just Deja Vu’ed his ass off with the broad-daylight chicken bandit for a solid five minutes, Simon then proceeds to grappling hook his way into the building, where he witnesses even more chicken-related madness. Apparently, the bad guys in Furious are turning people into chickens. Why, I don’t know, but that’s what they’re doing, and in order to accomplish this, they have a wizard with a rad mustache blast their prisoners with fireballs, which, seemingly, transform his victims into chickens. I guess we’re supposed to see this and somehow connect it with the chicken related insanity we saw moments earlier, but please excuse me if I feel like this whole thing could warrant further explanation.

Furious62

A few scenes later, Simon ends up locked in a mystical Kung Fu battle with this mustachioed wizard man, and we learn that actually, he can just shoot chickens out of his fingertips, too. That’s just part of his fighting style, blasting chickens at people. So, then we’re forced to rethink the earlier scene; was he really turning people into chickens, or was he just shooting them with chickens, and when the chickens hit you, you disappear? Or maybe can he turn you into a chicken AND shoot chickens out of his fingers? Could be both? It’s unclear! Everything is unclear! What the hell is happening?!?! Seconds later, the wizard has one of this fireballs ricocheted at him, and he’s transformed into… a pig! Why a pig? Why not a chicken? Why anything?! And these are the types of questions that Furious forces to you ask yourself, and if you want any kind of explanation, well… You can just fucking forget about it.

This is the experience that Furious provides, and these are but a few examples. The whole damn movie offers a most bountiful supply of nonsense, and how that makes you feel is really sort of up to you. I found myself more frustrated than anything else, but if you’re looking for a unique experience, then I submit Furious for your consideration. I hope it’s understood that this is in no way meant as an endorsement. Furious49

D-

KRAMPUS!!!

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Krampus~ 2015, Michael Dougherty, USA

krampus-2015-movie-poster

UGH.

Oh boy. Everybody is just SO excited for Krampus. Krampus this, Krampus that, for years, this has been going on. I had my reservations with this one, but Krampus actually starts off on the right track, and that temporarily eased my concerns, and had me thinking, “hey, maybe this is going to be a good movie after all.” What I found, however, was that while all of my initial gripes with the film quietly began to fade into the background, a new list of unexpected, yet equally fatal flaws began to form, and these left Krampus dead on arrival anyway. I swear I have never seen a movie that so expertly lined up the nail, raised the hammer, took aim, and then just all-out refused to drive it home in all my days. Krampus has absolutely no guts, it’s all set up and no execution. This movie is a spineless insult to its Alpine Bogeyman source material, and to movie-goers alike.

Anyway…

Krampus is the newest Holiday themed horror jam from director Michael Dougherty, the same dude who brought us Trick R Treat back in 2007. This time around Doughtery, goes after Christmas, and gives us a film based on America’s new-found love affair with a Centuries old folk custom from Bavaria and Austria, which the Internet culture of 2015 has mangled and debased, so that it could better fit the role that America requires of it, not unlike an impatient child, forcing a puzzle piece into a spot where it doesn’t belong. It completely sucks as hard as anything possibly could, which is neither here for there. At this point, Krampus isn’t even the first of these movies to have been made, and it won’t be the last. This trend will continue for years. This is my private Hell.

Screen Shot 2015-09-12 at 22.58.31 This kid knows what I’m talkin’ about.

THE PLOT~ As said above, Krampus starts strong, real strong. The first act of the film is centered around exploring just what a despicable, irredeemable race of shit heads human beings really are. Doughtery wisely makes use of the now all too infamous annual Black Friday shopping Massacres, which showcases many of humanity’s worst qualities, and which, ironically, also heralds the start of a Holiday season which is meant to stand forever as a testament to the inherent goodness inside all of us. Let’s give Dougherty credit; this is a fantastic place to open on for a film about a an ancient, Yuletide Demon who punishes the wicked for their crimes. He’s made his point loud and clear, we all deserve a Krampus. So far so good.

From there, though, we lose quite a bit of traction, and the film quickly devolves into a more cookie cutter horror scenario. We’ve got a family full of selfish, hideous troglodytes, who find themselves barricaded inside their home, fighting to survive as a fierce and unexpected blizzard turns their once peaceful neighborhood into an innavigable hell-scape of darkness and frost. Of course, we all know that this blizzard is actually Krampus’ doing, he’s here with his army of Christmas helpers (the hell?) to slowly murder each member of this family, one by one, just like the real Krampus does (no he doesn’t.). From there, it’s all formula. They get picked off one by one, all the while learning to appreciate one another more, which is a major theme of the film: when time gets tough, you understand how important family really is. Which is fine.

The acting is actually really great across the board, and the movie is well made, the practical effects especially. This isn’t a movie that didn’t do anything right, and that’s actually what’s so frustrating about the whole ordeal, It was well within Krampus’ power to be really, really good. There are a lot of Christmas themed horror movies out there, but not all of them are all that great. Krampus could have done it, this could have been one of the best of the batch, even taking into account how foolishly mishandled the source material was, but they just won’t cross the threshold. Krampus makes it all the way to the finish line, stops dead in its tracks, and just stares blankly into space. “This is as far as I go, audience,” the movie says. And it’s not far enough!

MV5BOTY1OTE5NTAxMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjY3Njc3NjE@._V1_SX640_SY720_ See how cool that looks? How did this manage to suck!?

The biggest drawback, as I mentioned above, is just how spineless this movie really is. There are moments throughout the picture when Krampus is briefly very awesome, the introduction of The Krampster himself, for instance, stands out as being pretty excellent, but these moments come and go, and they’re never as potent as they ought to be. Krampus displays an offputtingly blatant hesitancy to go “full-horror,” and there are added measures taken throughout to soften the blow each and every time the film get’s a little bit too scary. A great example of that would be the introduction of the Jack In The Box monster, which is actually terrifying as all fuck, except that when they hit us with the big reveal; the movie plays it for laughs, which totally ruins the moment. That’s one example, but the entire movie works that way, each and every time things get awesome, Krampus defeats itself with a flimsy joke, and that might have been just fine, except that this movie isn’t at all funny. So, what we have is a film that is neither fish nor fowl, Krampus is forever caught between two polar opposites and unable to satisfy the requirements of either. It totally sucks!

Here’s maybe the best way to say it: In this movie, Krampus has been made more similar to Santa Claus than he actually is in Germanic lore, and this is because these added similarities draw attention to the startling ways in which these two characters differ, and it’s that off-kilter familiarity which makes him scary. This is a fitting metaphor for the film as a whole. Krampus stings extra hard, because as much as it sucks, it frequently reminds us of the awesome film it could and should be, but isn’t.

Bear-1 That thing looks like it was purchased at a damn Hot Topic… And by now, it probably can be.

And the ending is easily the most maddening part. As strong as the first act is, things fall apart super fast as we reach act three, and Doughtery concludes the film by Freddy Krugering us as hard as we’ve ever been Freddy Krugered before. It’s a cop-out, plain and simple, and it’s profoundly, appallingly lame. Really and truly, you guys, this is the weakest shit I’ve seen in a VERY long time. I walked out of Krampus bitter and dissatisfied… Although, to be fair, that’s also how I walked in.

All things considered, the real tragedy of Krampus is that this film absolutely reeks of “cash grab.” I know we all want to have fun, but let’s face the facts, this movie is a clear and transparent attempt by a director who saw an opportunity to advance his career, and took it. By any and all logic, this should have been a wildly different product; but instead of the horror movie we wanted, what we got a studio friendly attempt at crafting a commercial product, which would capitalize on America’s love affair with Big Papa Kramp, and elevate Dougherty’s career out off the slums he’s been stuck in ever since Superman Returns valiantly shit the bed. And it worked, lo and behold, as I did my rounds on the internet this morning, I see that Krampus is, in fact, the number one movie in America as of today. Certainly, the reptilian brain of the Producers to whom Dougherty is indebted must be pleased; and now he won’t have nearly such hard a time financing Trick R Treat 2. Can we blame him? Hell no, but we also don’t have to like the neutered, humiliated mess of a movie he crammed down our throats.

As it stands, I’d recommend that you avoid this one, for it is ever so ho-hum. Instead, check out Rare Exports; a movie which is thematically similar enough, but which is also indescribably superior to this mess in every conceivable way.

635769092264401744-5714-TP-00003R

C-

RAMBO!!!!!!!

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Rambo ~ 2008, Sylvester Stallone, USA

Never before in all my days have I been as excited for a movie as I was after seeing the red-band trailer for Rambo. If a trailer is meant to generate interest and excitement, then this was, for me, probably the most effective any trailer has ever been. If I had to pick the second most effective, it’d probably be Massacre Mafia Style, but that’s a distant second place. Honest to goodness, folks, the low rez, red-band trailer for Rambo that I downloaded from whatever news site I found it on had me hyped up and chomping at the bit to see a roid-ravaged, 61 year old Sylvester Stallone mutilate wave after wave of hopeless Burmese militia men in a way that I had never before experienced. I was super into it.

So, what was it that got me so pumped? Well, the trailer was incredibly violent. Off to a good start. Secondly, it looked like a damn horror movie, only John Rambo was the monster. When it finally came out, I made it out to the theater on opening day, and lo and behold, this film 100% delivered. Rambo is a war movie that has more in common with Friday the 13th Part 2 than it does The Deer Hunter. I’m a big fan.

THE PLOT~ Having killed more humans than you’ve probably ever even met in his long, battle-hardened lifespan, John Rambo, one man army, has now retired, and has taken up residence to the balmy jungles of Asia, where he lives a life of seclusion working as a ferry boat operator. Having left the both the battlefield and the big city far behind him, Rambo now lives a peaceful life, with nothing but the roar of the surging river, the slither of poisonous snakes, and the endless screams of his countless victims ringing through his ears eternity, to keep him company.

rambo Rambo attempts to murder water.

Until, that is, some naïve, do-gooder, Christian missionaries turn up and twist his arm for a boat ride up river. These bozos want to go into Burma, currently “a warzone”, to provide aid to the horribly oppressed natives in the region. Psh! What a bunch of dummies! Who are they to suggest to Rambo that compassion has any place in this world? For him, compassion is leaving your body intact enough that it can be identified as human! But, just as we knew he would, Rambo soon agrees to take them, and that’s the end of that chapter… At least, for a few weeks. Turns out that Rambo’s missionary friends wound up in some hot water, and now our man finds his doorway darkened by a band of mercenaries who have been hired to retrieve the would-be Christian soldiers from the jungles of Burma. Rambo figures “what the hell?”, and decides to tag along as well. What follows is a blood spattered jungle rampage that leaves 99% of slasher films looking like something Kindergarten classrooms would play during nap time.

hqdefault This is how Rambo shows affection.

Firstly, damn, Stallone is freaking enormous. Go rewatch First Blood, he’s super ripped in that one, but compared to 2008 Stallone, the John Rambo of 1982 is straight up scrawny. Seriously, when did Stallone’s iconic dead eyes and big, rubbery trout lips become afxied to this lumbering juggernaut!? And he’s freaking 61 years old! He looks like a monster that ate the real Stallone and absorbed his powers. His voice is even scarier than it used to be, also, Sly’s always rested deep down in the nearly incomprehensible baritone burble we all remember from such classics as Rocky, Tango and Cash, or Cliffhanger, but in Rambo his voice is an even bassier, garbled croak than it has ever been before. Now it sounds like a bass guitar made out of rubber took the P90X challenge and decided it wants to kill you. Toss a hockey mask on this hombre and people would say “geez, Jason Voorhees needs a haircut.”

2008_john_rambo_008 Just another day at the office.

Something about Rambo that is interesting, the film manages to both glorify, and demonize violence simultaneously, by presenting a clear “line in the sand” between the justified, and unjustifiable. When the baddies massacre our poor vilagers, Stallone pulls no punches. We see the gruesome, brutal wages of war with stark, shocking clarity. Children are stabbed to death, people are dismembered and burned alive, and none of this meant to feel “cool,” or “fun.” These portions of the film hope to make you feel angry, or even sick to your stomach, but it’s also setting you up to both appreciate, and condone Rambo turning the tables on the bad guys later. It is at that point that the violence is meant to feel satisfying and awesome, which, it really, really is. This attitude is likely an extension of Stallone’s Conservative mindset, and it’s not something that you get a lot of in major studio motion pictures in this day and age. It also explains why the film feels so much like a late 80’s teen pop slasher film; Rambo basically frames Stallone’s character in the same light that the later Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street films did with their respective monsters, these are the guys we go to when we want to root for the person committing violent atrocities. As crazy as it sounds, with very minimal rewrites, this movie could have been made into a Friday the 13th film where the government captures Jason and drops him into Burma. And actually, let’s find a way to get THAT movie made.

From a technical perspective, Rambo is both impressive, and embarrassing. Stallone has managed to step into the sleek, digital aesthetic of today’s genre film with surprising ease, and for the most part, the movie is very well done. We only run into trouble when the film tries to use digital effects, which it does in great abundance, and at that point Rambo suffers from the all too common “excellent practical effects in tandem with utterly unforgivable digital fumbles” pitfall. Probably the worst example of the digital dogshit heaped into the picture comes from the film’s single most crucial kill, when our hero slices open the belly of the film’s main bad guy at the end of the movie. We get a shot of his intestines spilling out as Rambo kicks his corpse down a hill, but the all gore is added in digitally in post, and it looks awful. It’s on par with the friggin’ Playstation, and when I say that, I mean the original Playstation, from 1994. This is supposed to be the film’s ultimate pay off, and honestly, it’s so bad it shouldn’t even have made it into the final cut.

600px-Rambo08MiniMachete-3 Get it?! Final CUT?!! Harharhar (many, many people die in this movie.)

But really, who cares? Rambo is damn near perfect. If they had stuck to all practical effects and cut out the shameful digital clownsmanship that bogs the picture down, then what we’d have here would be the best possible Rambo movie 2008 could produce. As it is, it’s the second greatest Rambo movie ever, leaving Parts 2 and 3 in the dust. It’s also a must for fans of action cinema, and for gore aficionados as well. I own this shit on DVD and Blu-Ray, and when they come out with the next stupid home video format (assuming we don’t all just jump to streaming, knock on wood), I’ll be rebuying it immediately. I feel a lot better knowing I have immediate access to the picture at literally anytime.

1786023

A+

BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL!!!!!

Posted on November 19, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Black Devil Doll From Hell ~ 1984, Chester Novell Turner, USA

BlackDevilDollFromHellVHSscan Not to be confused with Black Devil Doll (2007), nor even Devil Doll (1964), Black Devil Doll From Hell is a humble, shot-on-video, exploitation fable directed by Chester Novell Turner and released in 1984. If the statements “I can handle no budget VHS exploitation” and “I don’t mind puppet rape” both apply to you, then there’s really no reason why you haven’t already seen this movie. For the rest of you, you can probably just go about your business and pass on this one.

THE PLOT~ When prudish, virginal, Christian woman Helen finds an ugly ventriloquist doll in an antique store, she finds herself transfixed by it, which is weird. Seeing this, the cashier hits Helen with her standard sales pitch; “That doll is cursed, it is not to be trifled with. If purchased it, it will grant you your heart’s true desire, but beware.” Sounds on the level. So, in a direct contradiction to her firebrand religious convictions, Helen buys the damn thing for reasons no human will ever understand, ever, and takes it home, where she proceeds to just go to sleep like she DOESN’T have a cursed ventriloquist dummy in her fucking house. Predictably, the dummy drops the act once she’s out, and begins to walk about the house freely, just like all ventriloquist dummies do. Here’s where things go all “monkey’s paw” on us; The doll grants your hearts true desire, right? Well, what does every God fearing woman truly want, beneath her well fortified façade of Christian values? Why, some red hot puppet sex, that’s what! So, our Black Devil Doll breaks her off a piece of sweet, hot, puppet lovin’ that she isn’t likely to forget anytime soon, which, initially, is just him raping her. Yep. Pretty bad. And it get’s worse, next, in an uncomfortable and blatantly sexist twist, Helen does a 180 on the whole “consent” biz and decides that she really, really loves sex with ventriloquist dummies after all. It’s like, her favorite. Hold up, though, cuz there’s another drawback waiting in the wings; Turns out the first times always free, but after that, the generosity dries up. Try as she might, Black Devil Doll just doesn’t like her that way anymore, and he soon abandons her altogether. Now irreparably damaged by puppet sex (who hasn’t been there, right?) Helen abandons her religious convictions and embarks on an ever more self-destructive quest to satiable her unquenchable lust for dong. Things don’t end well, and that’s the movie.

Horrendously offensive content aside (for now), Black Devil Doll From Hell is basically a morality play about addiction, but it also deals with the unavoidable folly of repressing your feelings and denying yourself your true desires. It’s sort of insightful, actually; Helen spent her entire life denying herself what she really wanted because of how society told her she was supposed to live, and then she got to be true to herself exactly once, and it basically destroyed her life, because she was so unprepared for it. That’s kinda heavy. Additionally, this movie addresses the many dangers of owning sexy puppets, so there’s a while lot to learn here.

It’s sort of hard to know how to feel about Black Devil Doll From Hell... This is one that has some very positive qualities, as well as some pretty glaringly negative ones. One thing is totally certain, though; as you now know, this movie is dammed offensive. We’ll touch on that more extensively in a little bit, but first, let’s briefly focus on the positive;

Every frame of Black Devil Doll From Hell basically permeates “triumph over adversity.” This is a film that was made with essentially no resources beyond the sheer dedication of Chester Novell Turner and lead actress Shirley L. Jones. It was shot on video, the music all sounds like it was composed using a Casio found in the trunk of an abandoned car, and it’s clear from start to finish that Turner was getting this done essentially on his own. From that angle, there’s a tendency to want to cheer him on, he made a movie with absolutely nothing, and back then, that was a lot harder to do than it is today. It’s also not even that terrible, all things considered, so this accomplishment certainly does deserves some credit. Black Devil Doll From Hell is a movie that exists because sometimes passion and ambition have their way over resources and adversity… We all want to believe in that message.

But here comes the hammer… Black Devil Doll From Hell is basically the one ingredient you would need if you wanted to have the average Millennial frothing at the mouth with complete and inconsolable fury. This thing exists in direct contradiction with the overly P.C. ideals that dominate the zeitgeist here in 2015, and usually, I’m all for that. In this case, however, I feel that I may have to side with the angry mob; Black Devil Doll From Hell is painfully, unforgivably sexist. It’s meant to be taken as a joke, but deep down in it’s bones, Black Devil Doll From Hell is predicated on ideas and beliefs that are damaging, and out of step with modern society

Our doll gives Helen what she truly desires, right? Well, the implication here isn’t JUST that human beings crave physical intimacy. The film also seems to imply that women crave subjugation and abuse as well, that they need a domineering male to control and belittle them. Maybe that’s not what Mr. Turner wanted to say, but that’s the message that comes across, and it’s more than a little damaging for Black Devil Doll From Hell. We can’t really rave about the movie as a technical achievement, and really, likability is the one thing this movie has going for it… So, you could see how not being very likable would be a major problem. The fact is, the strong, sexist content throughout the film essentially nullifies all or most of the goodwill Mr. Turner has earned just by getting the damn thing finished in the first place, and that leaves the film is a pretty sorry position indeed.

Unfortunately, this one is hard to recommend.

D+

STREET TRASH!

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Street Trash – 1987, James Muro, USA

Street_trash_poster

Street Trash rules so hard. Why hasn’t this been remade like, eight times by now? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad, but sheesh… This movie really is the quintessential example of the “underrated gem.” It’s beloved by almost everyone who has made the effort to track it down and give it a watch, and yet somehow, it remains relatively obscure compared to other comparable films of the era. Street Trash is the real diamond in the rough, so suck it, Aladdin.

THE PLOT~ Life on the streets becomes even more dangerous after bottles of a mysterious drink called “Viper” begin to circulate amongst the city’s already badly imperiled homeless community. Viper is first discovered inside an old crate, hidden in the basement of the local liquor store, and we all know what you do when you find mysterious booze in your basement; you sell that shit immediately. So, that’s what happens. Unfortunately however, drinking Viper comes with a steep price; Turns out that anyone who so much as takes a sip of the stuff begins to melt into a vibrantly colored, highly acidic slime within seconds.

Street Trash Meltdown Edition 11

street trash shit is melting Street_trash_2 street-trash-1987 It’s the coolest thing ever.

To make matters worse, the local police department has it out for Bronson, a badly shell-shocked Vietnam War Vet who has used his brute strength and zest for murder to instate himself as some sort of junkyard tribal chieftan for all of the local hobos. This conflict doesn’t exactly help Bronson to remain calm and passive, basically, he’s on the warpath. If you’re not reduced to a puddle of gunk from Viper or stabbed in the back by your peers, there’s a good chance that Bronson will lose his marbles and club you to death for no reason anyway. This is the world of Street Trash…

And what a world it is! Probably the best thing director Jim Muro does is that he effectively creates a universe which has some serious depth to it. Street Trash is so gritty that it feels borderline post apocalyptic much of the time, but Muro doesn’t take it too far, we’re frequently reminded that this is all happening concurrently with regular civilization, as if there was some slime drenched, hobo civil war going on all around us, just outside of view… Which rules!

01_STREET_TRASH_PROMOSTILLS

There’s also a lot going on in Street Trash’s dirty, violent little universe. In fact, this is a real contributor to one of the film’s few legitimate flaws; its so busy that it ends up feeling somewhat unfocused. We don’t even really know who our central protagonist is until the end of the film, and we never feel as anchored to them as we should. The movie actually feels more like a few days as a member of the Street Trash homeless community than it does a single, traditional narrative, which is kind of cool in its own right, but more reason to care about our protagonist would have been nice. With this level of investment, we’d almost rather just watch him melt to death, just because it’s cool looking.

viper

One thing you’re going to notice; This movie has a lot of steady cam shots… Like, A LOT. So many, in fact, that Muro sorta made a name for himself as a titan of the Steady-Cam, and later wound up serving as Steady-Cam operator for significantly better known Hollywood movies. What movies, you ask? WELL, homeboy was the Steady-Cam Operator for movies like Clueless, Titanic, and X-Men 2. How’dya like them apples? Knowing that information, it should come as no surprised that for a low budget film from 1987, Street Trash treats us to a metric shitload of steady cam shots, and that gives our movie a surprisingly dynamic aesthetic; we’re seldom confined to a single angle on a tripod. Instead, we roam about our environments freely, which makes the space our story occupies feel even more real and familiar.

It also features history’s greatest tank top:

Untitled-7

Look at that majestic bastard.

Worth noting: Our old friend James Lorinz, star of Frank Hennenlotter’s epic masterpiece Frankenhooker, has a small, but memorable role here as a smart assed door man who works for a mobster. Lorinz’s part has several tell tale signs of being largely improvised, and we get the impression that Muro must have really, really liked him. He even gets an extra scene at the end of the film that was almost definitely tacked on to further showcase his wisecracking, and in this scene, an additional character takes a swig of Viper and immediately melts to death entirely off camera. Why would Muro possibly include an additional Viper death, and then not even show it? Well, probably because he didn’t have the money or resources to stage another complicated special effect, but he didn’t want to send Lorinz home without milking him for just a little more comedy. My guess is that that’s what happened, and I think it was a good choice, it really says a lot that in a movie where homeless people literally liquefy and explode on camera several times, a freaking doorman with only a few scenes is gonna stick in your memory as being particularly entertaining.

street-trash-10 I love this guy.

But I digress…

Street Trash is the kind of movie that I love so much, I want to say it’s not a recommendation, but a requirement. Equal parts gross, humorous and imaginative, this is a gritty, grindhouse oddity that feels well paired alongside other offbeat, street level flicks like Basket Case, or Slime City, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like a rehash of either. Street Trash is ruthlessly original, fantastically unique, and wicked entertaining. For reals, check it out.

A+

RAD!!!!!

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Rad~ 1986, Hal Needham, USA

rad-movie-poster-1986-1020194391

Rad is, unquestionably, the single most clichéd movie I have ever had the privilege of suffering through. If Rad wasn’t shot in color, I would have assumed this was, in fact, the very first movie ever made. It isn’t, though, Rad is just the most derivative film anyone could possibly make.

THE PLOT~ When a secret cabal of old, wealthy, white men (oh no!) get together to launch a BMX track based money making scheme, they find their “sure thing” investment dashed by a determined local boy named Cru, who will stop at nothing to enter the race, even though he is horribly, nightmarishly deformed.

hideous 12

He’s hideous…

The bad guys bring with them a whole team of cronies, including the current BMX world champion (some blonde uber-douche called “Bart,”) and two twin brothers who dress like G.I. Joe villains.

twins

There they are.

Also a member of Team Mongoose (the bad guys) is the implausibly pretty Christian (Played by Lori Loughlin), who has become disenchanted with her team’s off the charts douchebaggary, and wastes no time defecting to Team Rad (the good guys). For some reason, she immediately develops a romantic interest in the hellishly disfigured Cru, suggesting that she herself is somehow mentally ill.

That’s exactly what Freddy Kruger would look like after a bunch of botox.

From there it’s just neat bike tricks and old people trying to keep the youth down. Except for all the old people who are really nice. So really, it’s only like, a handful of old people that suck in Rad. Otherwise, most people are cool.

Rad isn’t well done no matter what angle you look at it from. Anytime you’re flying high on the wings of nostalgia and really need a reality check, pop RAD into your VCR and prepare to be reminded of just what an intellectual gas chamber the 1980’s really were. This turkey bumbles and sucks to and fro, back and forth, all the live long day. And that kid they cast as the lead…

hideous 11

It’s like one of those Team America Marionettes made a wish to be a real boy…

Still, it is probably the best movie about BMX bikes ever made, for whatever that’s worth. It certainly beats BMX Bandits, in my opinion, and is likely the closest thing the bike world ever got to their very own Thrashin’. If you were a BMX kid in the 80’s, you probably loved this film, and that was not wrong of you.

hideous 7

He looks like a trout after a fatal overdose of sleeping pills.

It’s not even necessarily wrong to love Rad now. It sucks, you need to admit that, but nearly everything we love about the 80’s sucked at least a little bit. Somewhere amongst all the stupid, this thing winds up being somewhat lovable, and even a little bit fun.

hideous 6

That’s exactly what Earthworm Jim would look like if he were real.

Of course, Rad also features a sequence in which the bad guys hog the dance floor of the local high school with an elaborately choreographed dance routine, which is so staggeringly awful that I was embarrassed to actually see it with my own eyes.

twincest Plus, where was the Vatican on this one? Are they just not condemning anything anymore? Someone needed to do something about this.

Then things go from unthinkably bad to immeasurably worse when Cru and Christian retaliate against Team Mongoose by wowing students and faculty alike with an impromptu freestyle tandem bike dancing routine of their very own.

bike dance 1 bike dance 2 bike dance 3

I included these pictures because who would believe me otherwise?

Nothing could be more damming in a film review than photographic evidence of a tandem bike dancing routine, so clearly, we have proven beyond dispute that Rad is 90 minutes of utter humiliation and gonzo dog shit that the human race really didn’t need to add to our rap sheet, but as bad as all that is, here’s where I get real with you for a second… We have to remember that no matter what, at the end of the day, this is a film from the 1980’s… It’s about BMX racing, and it’s called RAD. Rad for fuck’s sake! Let’s just face the facts… There will always be an audience for this film. It has irony locked in a full nelson for all eternity, and the many heinous shortcomings I’ve outlined in the above text will actually keep Rad alive for decades to come.

hideous 9

…For better or for worse…

BLOOD FEAST!

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Blood Feast ~ 1963, Herschell Gordon Lewis, USA

Blood_feast_poster_01

Clocking in at just over an hour, and with a reported budget of only $24,500, Blood Feast is the achievement that would forever enshrine Herschell Gordon Lewis as a name revered amongst horror aficionados the world over. While on first inspection, the lion’s share of this film sucks like friggin’ crazy, it actually can’t be overstated how ahead of it’s time Blood Feast really was. Often cited as the first ever legitimate gore film, this movie began a period of Lewis’ professional life where he would pioneer a new level of blood and guts based exploitation, and would eventually earn the honorary title “The Godfather of Gore.” Today, Blood Feast is over 50 years old, and is still far gnarlier and more explicit than most modern horror films. Time to step up your game, Hollywood.

THE PLOT~ Fuad Ramses, caterer, religious fanatic and serial teenage girl dismemberer, opens up a highly regarded catering business in what appears to be a sexless episode of Mad Men. Knowing that America is the land of religious freedom, he takes advantage of his newly acquired civil liberties and beings to horribly mutilate the shit out of young women- you know- for Ishtar. Can the police stop him before he finishes doing whatever the hell it is he’s trying to achieve? Hell yeah, but first a bunch of girls get the shit murdered out of them, and we watch it all in off-puttingly drawn out sequences of next-level motion picture violence.

How violent and bloody is Blood Feast? Well, today, the vilest, more despicable low budget splat merchants still use this as a benchmark, and I imagine John Waters probably thought it was the best thing ever when he was 16. So, it’s pretty bad.

f1367_blood_feast

Lewis often said that he considered himself a business man, not an artist, so he viewed his motion picture work as an entirely commercial endevour. Kudos for honesty, but this attitude is reflected in every aspect of Blood Feast’s production, this is an artless, by the numbers motion picture that put very little energy into appeasing film theorists. Start to finish, Blood Feast is plagued with boring compositions, “just enough to get it done” dialog, horrendous acting, and thick, red acrylic paint substituting for blood. All of this juxtaposed against the disturbingly retro quaintness of the early 1960’s makes this film feel like some form of Satanic kitch, like a 1950’s themed burger joint operated by Jason Voorhees. The weird thing is that I wouldn’t want it any other way, if the acting were actually good, it would probably be really, really disturbing. Blood Feast is definitely a “bad” film if you hold it up to any artistic scrutiny, but it just feels so right. This is the humble birth of gore cinema, if it didn’t sort of suck, wouldn’t that just feel inappropriate somehow?

Additionally, time has been very kind to Blood Feast. The novelty of an early 1960’s gore film existing at all is tremendous, but its clumsy production, lousy story, and prehistoric tropes make the film markedly more fun today than it has ever been before, by all accounts, this is a movie that will continue to gain entertaining value as it becomes more and more antiquated. There’s just so much to laugh at! In the movie, one of our would-be mutilation victims is dating a policeman, who appears to be in his late 40’s- and that’s weird, because I think she’s in high school. Also, at the end of the picture, our bad guy dies in exactly the same way that The Shredder does in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, so I really want to believe that Eastman and Laird owned a battered VHS copy of Blood Feast back in the 80’s. Really, I want that to be true.

bloodfeast2big

There’s really no argument to be had for Blood Feast’s artistic merit. It wasn’t better than other gore films, it was just “first,” but that’s still important. At the end of the day, people don’t like Lewis’ output for its artistic merit anyway, and Blood Feast is a fun movie that deserves the worship it receives.

FeastFeat B-

NO HOLDS BARRED!!!!

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

No Holds Barred ~ 1989, Thomas J. Wright, USA

no-holds-barred-movie-poster-1989-1020216118

The world of No Holds Barred is the sort of universe that professional wrestling really wants you to believe exists just outside the ring. It’s a place where everything is simple, no one is intelligent, and wrestling is really, really important. How can we ever hope to understand No Holds Barred? Who was this thing even made for? It feels far too sexual to be a kid’s movie (Even by hornball ’89 standards,), yet at the same time, what adult could enjoy something so juvenile? How seriously are we even supposed to take this damn thing? I just can’t say. Frankly, I don’t *get* wrestling. If you’re a fan, be advised… This review may peeve you.

001

“Uh, Slam into a slim jim, man. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

The Plot~ Hulk Hogan plays Rip, the most captivating and popular professional wrestler in the known world, which is a much bigger deal in this movie than it would be in real life. Not only does Rip dominate timeslots when he enters the arena, he’s also a swell guy, widely known for his honesty, reliability, appreciation of fine cuisine, and unwavering moral compass. He even speaks French! Nietzsche’s Ubermensch has arrived, and he wears short shorts and a spandex bandana on the regular.

maxresdefault (1) That’s his trademark hand gesture thing he does all the time.

However, there’s trouble looming just out of view for poor Rip and his loved ones- shady rival television executive Brell is looking to topple Rip in the ratings by any means necessary. In order to do so, our villain founds an ultra-violent, unregulated television brawl fest eloquently named “The Battle of the Tough Guys,” in order to find a champion capable of taking Rip down. His champion comes in the form of a homicidal nightmare named Zeus, played by Tommy Lister, a cross-eyed freak show who will stop at nothing to beat people up, probably because he had a bad childhood. That’s just me speculating. Something’s wrong with him for sure, though. So, then some more nonsense happens, until the movie is finally over and you can go do something else, like walk the dog, or make dinner, or whatever. Your time is yours to do with as you please, really.

Hogan_and_Thug_in_No_Holds_Barred

I once heard Michael Caine make the comparison that acting on stage is like surgery with a scalpel, but acting on film is like surgery with a laser. The point being, of course, that when you’re doing live theater, you have to convey your message all the way to the back of the room. On film, you’re free to be much more precise- less is more! You can emote with even the slightest flutter of an eyelid while in close up, and the impact you have on the audience is greatly amplified. I would wager, if we follow this metaphor through to completion, that acting in a professional wrestling ring would then be more like performing surgery with a friggin’ battle axe, or perhaps some sort of cartoon chainsaw. Hulk Hogan clearly did very well for himself winning the hearts of his audience from inside the ring, but “over the top clown” is all he knows, and it’s just not suitable for film. The Hulkster is about as subtle as a Technicolor clown riding a motorcycle through a frame of Schindler’s List, and watching him for 90 minutes is a chore. 85% of his dialogue is just strained grunting, and somehow the scene where he cries by his little brother’s hospital bed comes off as being less believable than the scene where he takes down two armed robbers by throwing pies at them. Oh, to live in the world of No Holds Barred…

Tiny_Lister_as_Zeus_in_No_Holds_Barred

Most of the other actors are fine, though, Tommy Lister especially is perfect as the stumbling, murderous Zeus. It’s not a demanding role, but he does it well- Lister would later go on to have small, but memorable roles in everything from Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight! Not too shabby. Hulk Hogan, on the other hand, would go on to land a starring role in an ethnic slur laden sex tape that would end his career and utterly demolish his legacy forever, but he still probably has more money than all of us, because there is no justice in the universe.

maxresdefault

No Holds Barred is a bad movie. I’ve learned that fans of professional wrestling do hold a certain reverence and affection for the film, and that is to be expected, but for the rest of us, I calls ’em likes I sees ’em. This movie is a horrifyingly chauvinistic, embarrassingly simple string of clichés, festooned with sweaty men, and slapped together sloppily. You absolutely have to meet it more than half way in order for the narrative to hold together, because it under the slightest level of scrutiny it collapses like France in a fistfight, and the movie’s many attempts to foster some sort of emotional reaction out of the audience are handled with all the slyness and cunning of a North Korean propaganda minister.

But…

it does have two things going for it: It has the single most terrifying public restroom I’ve ever seen on film, and also, it has the now famous “Dookie Sequence,” which I’ve included here:

That was worth watching.

D-

JAWS: THE REVENGE!!!!

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Jaws: The Revenge ~ 1987, Joseph Sargent, USA

Jaws-the-revenge-movie-poster-1987-1020200890

In 1975, Universal Studios unleashed Jaws, a film which is almost universally regarded by historians to be the first ever legitimate Hollywood Blockbuster. To call this movie a success would be an understatement, Jaws was a phenomenon. It broke records, made Steven Spielberg a household name, and forever changed the nature of the Motion Picture Industry (arguably for the worse). Today, even the most obstinate of film snobs will likely concede that Jaws is, indeed, a true American classic.

Really, that would have been an excellent place to stop…

But, of course… They kept going. By 1987, we were four movies deep, and so far down the rabbit hole that even plain old common sense was a long forgotten relic of a better time. Jaws: The Revenge is such a terrible sequel that is ended the franchise dead in it’s tracks and remains an embarrassment to this day. This thing freaking sucks.

THE PLOT~ Lorraine Gary returns as ELLEN BRODY; the wife of Roy Scheider’s character from Jaws 1 & 2. In Jaws: THE REVENGE, Ellen becomes convinced that a great white shark has targeted her family for revenge, AND SHE’S FREAKING RIGHT. We learn early on that Mr. Brody is, at this point, long deceased, having died of a shark related heart attack sometime after Jaws 2. Next in line was their youngest son, who is murderously gobbled to death in an inadvertently hilarious sequence early on in the film. This is enough to seriously bum the Mother Brody out, and so her eldest son convinces her to come and visit his family in the Bahamas, where he is studying marine biology. She flips out, and tells him “ain’t no way no son of mine is going into the ocean, because Jaws Jr. is comin’, and he wants all of us Brodys dead!” So then, her son is all “listen, mom, sharks don’t go to the Bahamas, ever, because it’s too warm. They don’t like it.” This calms her down, and for a while she even manages to put her crippling shark phobia aside, partially because she’s super distracted by Michael Caine, who plays a charming English pilot/compulsive gambler who is also bumming around the Bahamas. Things seems dandy, for a time, but Ellen was wrong to let her guard down- because check it out, Jaws Jr. shows up after all, and he’s eager to munch down some Brodys. Literally, that’s the story… So, it’s like a multi-generational family fued at this point, kinda like the Hatfields and the McCoys… Only… it’s the Brodys, and a bunch of freaking sharks.

Obviously, these are all just horrible, horrible ideas.

The production itself isn’t really an issue in Jaws: the Revenge, that aspect of the film is competent (although if you thought the shark looked fake back in the original, holy shit, buckle up, folks), it’s the film’s premise that kills it. This movie is a collection of ideas so blatantly, obviously, obnoxiously terrible that it’s kind of amazing it even exists at all. How mindlessly, voraciously hungry for money could Universal have possibly been?!?

The following is a list of jaw dropping bullshit you will see if you ever make the tragically poor decision to give Jaws: The Revenge 90 minutes of your life:

1. Firstly, yes, this shark has a personal vendetta against the Brody family, it follows them from Amity to the Bahamas, and strategically seeks them out, for the purpose of murdering them… Presumably for vengeance. How does it know where they are? Magic. For real.

2. On a boat? Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re any more protected from Shark-Death. That’s like a plate for Jaws Jr. Actually, you might be LESS safe than if you were just in the water, more than a few people manage to just flat out swim away from this damn fish, but he plucks folks off of boats like they were freaking snack platters.

3. Ellen Brody develops a psychic mind link to Jaws Jr., and can predict when he is going to strike, and also when he is near. I shit you not, that’s actually in the movie. If they had made a fifth Jaws film, and continued along this trajectory, it would be focused on Jaws Jr. being forced to join forces with Robo-Brody on an adventure back in time to stop aliens from stealing a giant crystal from the center of the Earth, but it also would be rendered unwatchable after the producers accidently destroyed the negatives by doing lines of cocaine off of them.

4. This shark screams like a dragon when it’s in pain. I’m no marine biologist, but I’m pretty sure sharks can’t roar. Am I wrong? It feels stupid when it happens, I do know that.

5. Michael Caine, who is the only good thing in this movie, plays a character CALLED HOAGIE! And he survives. Yes, the character who is actually named after a sandwhich DOESN’T get eaten. So, what’s the deal with the name, is that like, a red herring or something?

6. At the end of the film, Ellen steers the boat directly into Jaws Jr., who, for some reason, fucking explodes- and not like a person would explode when hit by a train, he explodes like a damn grenade.

And much, much more.

Jaws: The Revenge defies basic logic at every turn, and it’s such an enormous jump from the tone of the original that I can’t believe it’s real. Based on the evidence available to me, I’m forced to conclude that this movie enterered production at the nexus of insatiable greed, and crippling mental illness. In this dark cauldron, the worst Jaws movie ever was forged, and it feels like the horrifying fever dream of a psychopath who grew up in a virtual reality environment, and who therefore never actually had to contend with the laws of the natural world. Unsurprisingly, it’s this same illogical, rambling mess of a narrative that makes this tragedy somehow more entertaining than Jaws 2 and 3, so in some sick, perverse way, I recommend this one over those two snooze-fests. Even so, this thing is flat out dangerous dangerous, and is not to be watched at all, unless you really have nothing left to live for. Jaws: The Revenge doesn’t just need to be forgotten, it needs to be quarantined.

SOCIETY!

Posted on July 30, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Society– 1989, Brian Yuzna, USA

Yowza!

In the psychotronic community, Brian Yuzna is mostly known for three things; One; his long, fruitful working relationship with horror film icon Stuart Gordon. Two; he directed the two Reanimator seq uels because Stuart apparently had better things to do, and three; he’s the dude behind The Dentist, parts one and two. Those are probably the best known highlight’s of Yuzna’s long, active career, but he’s done all kinds of other shit throughout the years, too, and of all the projects he’s ever laid his grubby little mitts on, Society, his first directorial effort, is far and away the finest accomplishment that he can rightfully claim to be his own. He really set that bar pretty high with this one, and never, ever came close to shining this bright ever again.

Seriously, this masterpiece came from the same dude who farted out Return of the Living Dead 3? Don’t get me wrong, I liked Riverman, but that movie… Damn…

Society is the story of a young man from a well-to-do family who becomes suspicious of the superficial class system into which he was born. Bill (Played by some bozo called Billy Warlock) feels alienated from his peers, and soon, he starts to see a darker, more perverse side of wealth, privilege, and social status, which casts his family, friends, and society as a whole, in a terrifying new light. As things become more and more bizarre, Billy quickly begins to suspect that there is more going on in his upper class community than appearances would suggest, and as he attempts to get to the bottom of it, the bodies begin to pile up.

Society touches on a lot of ideas regarding nepotism, class warfare, and even regular-ass teenage angst, but regardless of how specific, or universal, the message in this film feels to you, one thing is for damn sure; it’s spattered some seriously creepy sequences, and the pay off in the third act is tremendous. The special effects (All practical, mind you, this was ’89, after all) really steal the show, and give Society one set in stone reason why all horror fans should count this film as required viewing at least once in their lives. It’s much, much more over the top and silly than what you’d see in early Cronenberg films, but I’d still say that Society is a classic of the body-horror sub genre, so it does occasionally draw comparisons to David’s many forays into that territory. Even more importantly, it’s a pretty good time, and the “frustrated 80’s teen who can’t get the adults to listen to him” trope keeps the film feeling fun, and light, regardless of it’s somewhat subversive, anti-establishment message.

But it isn’t perfect. Society has a few bothersome flaws that hold it back from living that fly Criterion life. For one, the score is cheesy and obnoxious. Additionally, The lighting is bland for 98% of the runtime, and the cinematography is flat and lifeless throughout. If you’re familiar with Yunza’s catalog, then you already know that this is typical of his style, but in the case of Society, you could almost assume that it’s deliberate, like some sort of bizarre, self aware, Paul Verhoeven stlye attack the American social class system wrapped up in the trappings of a twisted, Hallmark Channel movie of the week. If you look at the film’s aesthetic in this way, it becomes an easier pill to swallow, but it still nags at the back of my mind as a legitimate drawback, because he clearly didn’t do this shit on purpose. I can pardon all of that, however, and if you’re anything like me, you can too, because Society is also a movie where THIS happens:

No caption needed!

A-

Recommended Double Feature: Society and Brain Damage, OR Society and Flesh For Frankenstein!

Fantastic Crap Comics

by Christopher Ochs

Tag Archives: USA