Shmegalamonga: October 2015

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Halloween Part 5: Back In Orange!

We did it, gang!
The fifth orbit around the sun back to this celestial spot in the cosmos.
And we managed not to croak.
If you're seeing this, you're alive!

I don't know about you, but it feels like 5 years.
So here they are.

Happy Halloween!!!! (Hell yeah, ya fuckin boogins!!!!)
Halloween Part 2: All the drugs in me, all the bugs in me!
Halloween Part 3: Hi-jinks Ensue!!
Halloween Part 4: Under the wire, and through a loophole!
Halloween Part 4.5: Delayed gratification!

And, here's this year's compilation...

Y'know....I think this has been my favorite one of these yet.
It just might be the best.
*Gets misty*

ANYWAY!
Song time!

And, as always...

Merry Deathmas!
And a happy new candy! :-D

Next year, Witch's Brew.

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Friday, October 30, 2015

Obituaries, 2015.

Yeah, I feel like an asshole, we had a lot of famous deaths this year, and I didn't keep up on them as good as I should have.

I did Christopher Lee, and Wes Craven, and put them into "Masters Of Horror 2".

And, I did Leonard Nimoy, and Harve Bennett.

But, I didn't do a shitload of others, including Rowdy Roddy Piper, and that's the one that really bugs me for some reason.
'Bout all I had was this quickie "They Live", review (13th one down).

But, thankfully, Hyla did a much better job on his, and he's given me permission to link.

TGND's HALLOWEEN BLOGATHON - 2015 (3) : The HALL Of The HONORED DEAD

And also...

The QUEST FOR HORRAH - 2015 (1) : "THEY LIVE"

...for Roddy Piper, and...

The QUEST FOR HORRAH - 2015 (2) : "DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE"

...for Christopher Lee.

So, there, read those.
I second all of that.

Thanks, Hyla. :-)

Tomorrow, Halloween.

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Livin' In A Time Machine!

I got thinking, if I could open up a micro wormhole, and get a weak modem signal through it so I could only text my past self (at about 13-14) on a crappy Apple computer, what would I send myself?

Setting aside warnings of 9/11, and shit like like that, the topic would eventually roll towards movies.
Cuz I know myself.
Now, remember, I can only text, I can't download things to myself, and the crappy 1988-1989 tech wouldn't be able to handle it anyway.
So no future movies.

So, it's got to be recommending movies of the time that I missed out on, or could have seen a lot sooner.

It would have to be these.
And I would tell myself "come on, you like Garbage Pail Kids, and Madballs. Flicks like these are the next step, you'll love 'em. Same sense of humor. Go for it. Don't be a pussy".

(Course, really, it's just an elaborate excuse to get these films together where they belong)

Evil Dead 2 (1987)

Natch.
See here.

The Toxic Avenger (1984)

Hell yeah.
See here, and here.

Class Of Nuke 'Em High (1986)

See here.

Blood Diner (1987)

See here.

Street Trash (1987)

See here.

Redneck Zombies (1989)

See here.

Return Of The Living Dead (1985)

See here, and here.

Freddy 1-4 (1984-1988)

And then keep up on the series for....ever.

See here, and here.

Romero Dead 1-3 (1968-1985)

And keep up on these forever.

See here.

Yeah, that'd do the trick to get me started.

Here's the song that I got the title from.

"Time Machine"- Black Sabbath.

And, that's that weird little category out of my head.

Up next, one more thing.

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Candy Dish (Fun Sized Compilation)

King Sized Movie Glut.

Honorable Mentions (part 3)

Yep, here's the full sized bar that ruins your supper.

These are ones I wanted to do in "Fun Sized Movie Treats", but I couldn't get them to fit into my pattern of 31 days.

So, I decided to moosh 'em all into one thing, and make it a threequel to the original "honorable mentions", because those were the original leftovers.
To make it a proper continuation, here's the link to those...

...and here we go.

Sssssss (1973)

A scientist with the same ethics as the ones in "The Kindred", turns Dirk Benedict into a snake man.
Because, y'know, science.

Before we got cable, both sets of grandparents had it before us, and I dunno if my dad thought it was a fad that was going to go away, or what, but he really dragged his feet hard in getting it for us.

I think "Fraggle Rock", on HBO made him give in.
Like, if Jim Henson was making original shows for it, it must be a real thing.
I think that was the logic.
I could be wrong.

Anyway, USA played this over one of my grandparent's houses, and I think it was my first actual horror movie.
That's why it stands out.
Safe to say it would be schlock to me now.
But, it was a good one to get me started, no real gore or nothin.

Caligula (1979)

Wonderful.
Just wonderful.
If only all movies were this full-tilt.
Jesus, I get so bored.

You can see the high powered talent involved on the poster there.
It's the classiest porn ever about the greatest villain ever.

Yep, Caligula was a real guy from history, Google it, kids.
You'll become a fan.

"Salo", pathetically wishes it were "Caligula".

"Cannibal Holocaust", cries into its pillow every night that it isn't "Caligula".

And "Annabelle"?
Caligula fists Annabelle, and makes Loraine Warren watch
Fuck you, lame modern horror.
Fuck you!

Heartbreakingly, a movie like this will probably never be made again.
Savor this one.
Its gotta get you through a whole lifetime.

Prom Night (1980)

Jamie Lee Curtis's followup to "Halloween".

Ehhh, it's not so hot.
Pretty formulaic.
And the big twist is sorta "meh".

But, at least after seeing it on video store shelves for ages, I finally saw the damned thing.

Motel Hell (1980)

Another one I saw on shelves, and always chickened out, and got something else.
Yes, that's a repeating story, and yes, I nailed them all this year.
I ground Google's gears to powder, and made goddamned sure of it.

Pretty much the same basic premise as "Texas Chainsaw Massacre".
Cannibal rednecks.
This time, they run a hotel, and sell their meats as packaged products.
The Sawyer family wishes they were the Smiths.

This was supposed to be a goof on flicks like TCM1, but then Tobe Hooper made TCM2, and took dark humor out a whole new door.

Anyhoo, it's got Rory Calhoun, Wolfman Jack, Nancy Parsons (Balbricker from "Porky's"), and John Ratzenberger (Cliff from "Cheers").

As implied above, it's no TCM2, but, it's a fun little flick, and the whole thing ends with a punchline delivered by Calhoun that's fucking priceless.
Worth checking out.

The Burning (1981)

Okay, so "The Final Girls", actually parodies two movies.
"Friday The 13th", of course, and "The Burning".

But, "The Burning", is essentially a store-brand knockoff of "Friday The 13th", anyway.

You've got humping campers vs. a psychopath, and characters drop off one by one.

The titular burning refers to the villain, Cropsy, getting burnt all over his body in a prank gone wrong.
This motivates him into homicidal revenge...on kids that didn't do it.

Well, it's not like real psychopathic assholes don't take their problems out on innocents.
Pretty much every rampage shooter ever.
Assholes.

Cropsy's trademark weapon is hedge clippers.
Eh...
Like I said with "The Kindred", I bet there was a kid out there who drew Cropsy pics, and hyped up Cropsy like he was the new Jason.
You just know there had to have been.
And you know he got picked on.
I hope he didn't end up on a clock tower.
Poor bastid.

Anyway, it's mostly notable for Tom Savini doing the effects right after "Friday The 13th".
So, they not only stole its structure, they stole its effects wizard.
Total clone, top to bottom.

Is it any good?
Ehhhhhhhhhhh.....*wavey hand*
You could miss it, and not have a deficit in your life.

I only researched it to enhance my enjoyment of "The Final Girls".

The Pit (1981)

I just stumbled onto this looking for 80's ones I'd missed out on.
What a pleasant surprise!
What a lost gem!

An evil little boy finds a pit in the woods full of flesh eating Wookies, and lures all his tormentors into said pit to get munched one by one.

His Teddy bear talks him into all this shit.
We're mostly to assume the bear's voice is all in his head, but they toss in a scene where the bear's head turns when another character's back is turned, so I dunno anymore.

I like to pretend this is a lost prequel to "Ted", and this shit went down in between Mark Wahlberg being a really little kid, and the story we did see.

Makes it a whole lot more fucking interesting.
Muuaahahhaa!
}B-)

Zodiac (2007)

These next two were recommended by Billdude in Comments.
Thanks, Billdude.
Your efforts weren't in vain.
Here you go.

Based on the book written by the guy played by Jake Gyllenhaal, and based off real events.

The Zodiac is right up there with Manson and Dahmer for famous killers that scared the shit out of everyone. Wish I'd done this along with those.
But, here it is anyway.

Really good, but really long.
Good performances by everyone.
And "based on a true story", isn't a lie.
So that's always a plus.

Robert Downey just before he became "Iron Man".
And Mark Ruffalo 5 years before becoming Banner/Hulk.

Highly recommended.

Nightcrawler (2014)

And "Nightcrawler", for the fucking WIN!

Best of this batch, IMHO.

Jake Gyllenhaal (him again) plays a directionless guy who sees cameramen swarming around a car accident, and is inspired to become one of these independent cameramen (nicknamed nightcrawlers) who get footage (usually bloody and exploitative) for news outfits.

Gyllenhaal's character is a functioning psychopath, so things escalate.
Hi-jinks and shenanigans ensue.

I found it an indictment on the media more than anything else.

Excellent.
Deserves way more awards than it got.
Shoulda got Oscars.

And, that's the real end.

Up next, compilation time.

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Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 31)

Part four of four.

The End!

Here we are!

I plotted this whole list out on the first fucking night!

Its been a long fucking road, but the plan has finally come together.

And, now you can see, part of that plan was, to have one of these for every single day of October.

But, since I used up the first 6 days, I had to do all those two-parters to even it out.

Here we are.

And our flick is....

Horror Express (1974)

From here and here.

(Re: The Projectionist)

Found it buried under several boxes at Shady Dave's.

Kept threatening to subject Hyla and Spencer to a double feature of this, and "Bloody Mama", if they didn't behave.

I didn't actually have "Bloody Mama", but...I knew where to get it.

"Horror Express", would have made an adequate substitute, I suppose.

I can reveal now, the threats were empty.

They probably knew that though.

I wouldn't even subject an Al-Queda operative to that.

Well, I did actually watch "Horror Express", with Hyla and Spencer.

I had forgotten when I wrote that.

I can't remember what they thought of it.

Hyla will have to chime in on that.

I've since re-watched it...and it's actually pretty good!

I totally recommend it!

As you can see on the poster, it's got Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas.

Even though it's an Italian co-production, it feels like a Hammer movie.

All right, let's get down to the plot.

Archaeologists find a frozen caveman, and long story short on this plot point, it turns out to be possessed by a body-swapping entity from outer space that's been on Earth since before the time of the dinosaurs, quite possibly during the primordial ooze ages.

It can body swap, and does so, but also can suck a person's memory dry with its death ray eyes, but you have to make eye contact, and its eyes have to be glowing in the dark, so it doesn't work in a lit room.

Okay, so the frozen caveman is brought on a train by Christopher Lee, he meets and befriends Peter Cushing, caveman thaws out, rouses to life, jumps into another body, sucks brains, mayhem ensues.

The rest plays out like an Agatha Christie mystery, trying to solve who the killer is, even when the killer can change into someone else.

So, it's kind of "Murder On The Orient Express", meets "Who Goes There?".

It's a neat little movie.

Check it out.

Right here!

Next up, a very special episode.

Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 30)

Part three of the final four!
We're closing in!

The Kindred (1987)

First off, fucking schlock, but I'll get to that.
More important is the backstory.

The VHS was on shelves at the exact same time as "Evil Dead 2", and stores were pushing it just as hard.

My parents finally eased up on the age restrictions on R rated horror, and ED2 and this were my rental firsts in a 2 for 1 night batch.

Both were splatterfests, but I hadn't developed a discriminating palette yet, and convinced myself they were equally entertaining.

I also had it in my damned fool head that Anthony was a worthy next big monster to stand alongside Freddy, Jason, Michael, Brundelfly, etc, etc, and drew him in my notebooks, and referenced him amongst my friends like they were supposed to know what I was talking about.

Hey, you know some young nerd out there is doing exactly this with the fucking Bababdook right now.
Not saying "The Babadook", stinks, but I'm wagering we won't still be talking about it in 30 years.
So, give that poor kid a break, is all I'm saying.

Now, to the flick....

A crazy lady clones her son's cells, and mixes it with an octopus, and makes a deadly Lovecraftian horror, for....no discernible reason,
I see no medical gain from making this thing, it's just horrible, and probably envied the dead as soon as it was born.

Despite this, the protagonists keep respecting her research like it was properly done science, and not unethical madness, and keep blindly respecting her like she was 100% rational.

This is what stupid people who post anti-vax or creationist shit on your Facebook feed think scientists are all like.
Just skinning puppies, jotting its anguished noises down on a clipboard with a dead look on their faces, and growing squid men in jars.

Anyway, crazy lady dies, and the dumb son of crazy lady, and his even dumber college buddies go to her house to clean out stuff, and run into Anthony, and he starts picking people off slasher movie style.

One of the knuckleheads in tow is Amanda Pays from "The Flash".
She's secretly working for a guy that skins cats (seriously!), and wants the formula to make more Anthonys, cuz science.

Anthony is ultimately defeated, much slime is sprayed around, literally drenching the set, and we're all stupider for having seen this.

I think deep down, I knew ED2 was the better film.
There's no way I didn't know.

I've re-watched this, and...wow, pee-yoo.

This is only worth seeing if you're historically curious to see Amanda Pays turn into a fish.

Otherwise, take a wide path around it.

Next up, the DOOM-choo train!!!

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Thursday, October 29, 2015

Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 29)

Part two of the final four!
Tomorrow, the last two!

Near Dark (1987)

There ya go, Billdude, I finally threw this one in for ya. ;-)

Like I said at the end of the last one, I should have put this into Dracula-thon.
Specifically, part 10.
BUT, I was so overwhelmed with all the other stuff, and I didn't feel confident to comment on this, cuz I hadn't seen it, then other shit kept making me forget, and well...finally saw it this summer.

I think a deep subliminal part of me knew the summer binge was in preparation for this Halloween.
My subliminal mind is a fucking genius.
Wish it communicated more often.

Anyway, to put it in timeline sequence, first came "Fright Night", then a year later came "Vamp", then a year later came this, and "Lost Boys", at about the same time.

This was the better movie, but "Lost Boys", got all the hype, and MTV play of its soundtrack single.
So, "Lost Boys", won the box-office battle.

This still has a big cult behind it though.

Lance Henriksen in multiple podcast interviews says this is one of his favorite movies he ever did.
Quite possibly his favorite.
He loved the character, he loved the story, and he had the biggest blast making it.
If you ever interview him, just bring up "Near Dark", and get out the popcorn.

At a basic skeleton level, it's kind of "Fright Night 2", on the road, and filmed Wild West style.

A girl vampire infects the protagonist, and he's pulled into their little family tribe, and they go from town to town as these wandering gypsies finding victims while the hero struggles not to lose his soul (for lack of a better descriptor).

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who'd go on to do "Point Break", "Strange Days", "The Hurt Locker", and "Zero Dark Thirty".

I love the look, feel, and tone of it.
I dig Lance's character, I dig young Bill Paxton being all Bill Paxton-y, I like certain scenes, like the bar scene.
...but it kinda gets stupid in the third act.
I think the studio wanted their "good guys win", ending, so something was pulled out of a writer's ass.

I think that held it back from perfection, and beating "Lost Boys", more than anything.
I won't give it away, just watch it, and decide for yourself.

Thing is....I don't know how else you could have ended it.
I think it needed no ending.
It needs to be a TV series that goes on forever like "Supernatural", has.

It definitely needs to be in your vampire collection if you have such a thing.
If you do, you probably already have this, but it couldn't hurt for me to give it a shout out anyway.

Definitely yet another antidote to "Twilight".

So...yep, that's that one.

Next up, gene splicing, and body swapping.

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Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 28)

The countdown begins.
Part one of the final four!

Liquid Sky (1982)

Yeah, I know, '82 instead of '83 for a change.
Wild, huh?

Ehhh, it's not quiiite horror, but it's got sci-fi elements, and death, and the people are horrible, so...close enough for me.

It's....*struggles to describe this thing*....it's Anne Carlisle the movie.
She stars, co-wrote the script, and wrote the novelization, it's her baby.
And WHAT a baby!
Oh, baby!

Anne Carlisle plays Margaret, a bisexual punk junkie model who fashions her look after David Bowie in his Ziggy days, and pretty much says so in one scene towards the end of the film.
Her girlfriend is a miserable little twat who makes horrible music.
Her other "friends", are a bunch of New York phonies, and hangers on, leeching off of Margaret's coolness, and acting like they're the cool ones, and treating her like shit.
And that's even before the rapey shit starts.
You're gonna want to kill all these people.

Meanwhile, a miniature flying saucer has parked itself on a rooftop across the street from Margaret's apartment, and is killing people at the height of either orgasm or heroin rush, to take their brain juices for....fuel? Drugs? Both? Doesn't matter.

A scientist is studying and tracking the saucer.
He has a whole subplot, but meh.

Margaret, being a clever and plucky little heroin-heroine, figures this shit out on her own, and starts helping the saucer in a symbiotic relationship to get rid of the assholes in her life.

Then, the fun really begins!

Carlisle also plays a dual role, that of Jimmy, a male model who competes with, and despises Margaret.
The double-acting and filming in the scenes where they meet is better than most big Hollywood movies with twins.

Very weird movie, very hard to get into at first, but once you do, it's worth it.
The biggest hurdle to warming up to this flick is the damned score.
Progressive Euro synth stuff that sounds like a monkey beating up a Casio.
But....it grows on you.

I would have preferred some actual punk rock, or if they'd licensed some actual Bowie tracks, or..something.
But, again, this soundtrack grows on you.
Takes awhile though.
Damn.

I really dig it.
I don't know yet if I love it, but it's gaining position on my mental list of quintessentially 80's flavored weird 80's flicks.

The original director is trying to get together both a Kickstarer anniversary documentary, and a sequel where Margaret returns.

You've got me!
I'm there!

Anyhoo..

Trailer.

"Me And My Rhythm box".
(Guy in audience from "Family Guy") "I didn't like any of that!".

So, yeah, if you were alive in the 80's, or just fascinated by them, check this one out.

Next up, something I left out of Dracula-thon.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 27)

One last one-parter, then it's all two-parters until Halloween.

Shock Treatment (1981)

It's "Rocky Horror Picture Show 2".

There are people that object to calling it a sequel for continuity reasons.
Too bad, and I'll dismantle why.

There are people that object to calling it a sequel for aesthetic reasons.
Too bad.
If I have to live with Star Trek 5, and 9, and 10, and the SW prequels, you Rocky Horror fans have to buck up, and accept "Shock Treatment".

Now, to continuity.
It's got Brad and Janet, and continues their story.
End of.
Done.

It's got all the other Rocky Horror people except Tim Curry, and Brad and Janet are recast, but it's a continuation.
And the rest of the Rocky Horror cast play new roles, but they have to, cuz everyone's characters either died, or went into outer space.
They had to re-incarnate to be in the thing.

If Brad and Janet weren't there, you could say it was an alterni-verse thematic sequel like The Cornetto Trilogy, but Brad and Janet are there, so, tough nuts.

New-Janet is Jessica Harper who played Phoenix in "Phantom Of The Paradise".

So, there you go, it happened, a "Rocky Horror", "Phantom", crossover! :-D

"Rocky Horror", fans washed their hands and feet of this, as did Richard O'Brien, but it's getting re-discovered, and gaining in appreciation.

So, basic plot is, Brad & Janet are having marital troubles since their "Rocky Horror", experiences, so Janet drags Brad to a show that's a reality soap, "The Newlywed Game", "Family Feud", "Dr. Phil", "Ellen", and "America's Got Talent", all rolled into one.
But before any of those ever existed.

And that's where this movie really shines, is predicting the state of 21st century television 34 fucking years ago.

Anyhoo, it's decided that Brad is riddled with insecurities, and is sent to the studio Loony Bin.

But, the real reason Brad is disposed of, is they see star quality in Janet, and don't need a husband getting in the way of her rise.
She's brainwashed into a celebrity, given a fashion makeover, and essentially becomes a Kardashian.

The host of the multi-headed hydra of a show is the guy who plays Dame Edna.

The boss of the studio is Richard O'Brien as a bald mad scientist who plots to grow the show until it conquers the planet.
Same dude from the poster, BTW.
And he bangs his sister like in "Rocky Horror", and it's the same chick in a new role.
So, even the personalities re-incarnate.

Tim Curry was supposed to be in this, but he bowed out, so his songs are given to Janet.

...the bad guys kinda win in this.
I won't give it ALL away, but..the good guys survive, and seem happy, but...the world outside is essentially doomed.
The show wins.

Kinda like NOW!

So, how are the songs?
It really comes down to the songs.

Um...I think they're pretty good.
There's a couple ones that are duds just for being repetitive, but overall, not bad.

BUT...they're not catchy like "Rocky Horror".
So, that prevented people from turning it into a cult participation thing.

I think O'Brien made it about reality TV, so that when the audience participation thing happened, it would be a layer within a layer.
Cuz there's an audience sing along IN the fucking movie in the studio audience of the show.
There's two or three of them.

And, I think that soured "Rocky Horror", fans that he was trying to force that.
I can see that, you can't make a phenomenon like that, it just has to happen.

Richard O'Brien hates his performance in this, which is the chief reason he's down on it, but I think he's the best thing in it.

My overall thoughts on the movie-
I liked it.
I liked it a lot.
I didn't love it, there's no way you could equal the original, but not equaling or topping originals doesn't make a movie suck.

But, y'know, I don't LOVE the original.
I'm not a fan-y-fan-fan, I just kinda dig it.

I think this is a worthy successor, and because of time, and it predicting reality TV, it needs a second look from everybody.

In fact...

Boom, Amazon link.

Do eeet.

Next up, sensitive 80's portrayals of addiction, and vampirism.

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Big Summer Movies Part 3. (Part 3.75)

Big Winter Movies (Part 0).

Previously...
The big summer movie recap. Part 3.

And it's...

The Human Centipede 3
[Final Sequence] (2015)

On Blu-Ray/DVD!!
(Two-pack of both formats)

Took forever to get here.
I would've thought an August release would have been far enough out from the theatrical run, but, what do I know?

For the flick itself, here's the previous two parts.

So, now the Blu-Ray.
We get a commentary, we get a behind the scenes documentary, we get an alternate ending, we get deleted scenes, and we get stills.

So, let's run down those.

Commentary-

Probably my favorite thing.
As it was with the first two films.
It wasn't listed on the box for bonus features, and I was worried we wouldn't get one.
It's one of those ones that's in "setup", but not "bonus features".

Anyhoo, Tom Six spends most of it ranting about critics, and mediocre filmmakers, and mediocre screenwriters, and how he hates the human race, and I never know how much of his shtick is genuine, and how much is persona trolling.
But, it's entertaining either way.
Along the way, he remembers to point out Easter eggs, and cameos from the other films, and such.
I already knew pretty much all of those.

Behind the scenes-

A bit more fun, and less grouchy than the commentary, but we don't get nearly enough of it.
It's a quick twenty-something minutes.

People that hate horror movies should watch these, it's not a bunch of gloomy Satanists from Pat Robertson's fevered fantasies filming real snuff, it's just movies, and people are joking and having fun doing their job.
You just get to see people goofing around, and being people.
Lighten the fuck up, sourpusses.

Alternate ending-

Remember when I said in the first review...

Solves the mysterious endings of 1 & 2? Um....not really.
Unless there's something I have to decode....maybe the commentary will crack this for me...

...'member that?

The alternate ending does this.
I...don't want to spoil it, but...it casts the trilogy in a different light in one short scene that cracks it all wide open. I don't know why they didn't use it. I can think of a couple reasons, but even that would spoil it.

Deleted scenes-

We just get get two of them.
One is some exposition we didn't need, and deserved to be cut.
One...is a thing that was improvised on the set in the "behind the scenes", and put in here (I think) as a joke.

Stills-

Blah. always my least favorite thing.
Once in awhile, like for the bonus disk of the original Star Wars trilogy, you get behind the scenes deleted continuity you can't get anywhere else.
Little treasures hiding in there.
Here, just a bunch of frame grabs from the flick.
I could've done that with my fuckin' pause button.

I think Six did "deleted scenes", and "stills", in the same cranky mood he did the commentary in.

As for the DVD, its exactly the same.
Even the menu is a synthesis of the Blu-Ray menu.
Same bonuses, just everything is in lower picture quality.
My crappy little TV barely notices the difference, really.
I do notice the colors pop more in Blu-ray.

There's a "complete sequence", trilogy set out, and everything is exactly the same for all three films, except part 2 has a color version of the film along with the original black & white.
Eh, I'll pass on that.
But, if you haven't bought the films yet, go right for that set.

All right, now that REALLY closes the Centipede saga for me.

I'll be back today with another Fun Sized review.
I wanted to keep this separate from that.

Read More......

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 26)

And, the other one for today.
Sorry it's late, had some bullcrap to do.

Shriek Of The Mutilated (1974)

Same origin story as "Screamers", it was at Morrison's on the same spinner rack.

Now both of these make you think they're soul scarring gore movies, right?

Yeah, nope.

This one's about a bunch of nerds trying to photo or capture a fuckin' Yeti.
In the woods of America during...I guess autumn.
Yeah, fuck waiting for winter, and pretending it's the North Pole.
We gotta shoot this fucking thing for release next month.
Anycrap, as can be expected, the Yeti bumps them off like Jason.
Then, there's a big Scooby-Doo-ish Twilight Zone-y twist at the very end.
I won't spoil it.

Is there any mutilation?
Eh....
If there is, it's always out of sight, and pretty much PG rated for what you get to see.

Is there a SHRIEK of the mutilated?
Eh....
Yelps, whines, eeks, arghs, but shrieks?
Eh...

Does the Yeti look as good as implied by the painting?
Fuck no.
Oh, FUCK no.
Holy SHIT no.
The Mugatu from classic Star Trek is Oscar-worthy compared to this thing.

This flick looks like it was done for the budget of "Moron Movies".
Youtube nerds do better.
James Rolfe (Angry Video Game Nerd) made better crappy home movies in his single digit ages.

The ONLY reason to watch this, is the redheaded nerdy girl with the giant glasses.
Seriously, King-Kong could use those suckers as contacts.
Her character has the most personality of anyone in this.
Everyone else is a fuckin' trout.
Lyn Kelly is the character's name.
Remember it.

Sadly, she's not the survivor girl, but dammit, she should have been.
Far as I'm concerned, she's the star.
In my alternate time version, she pulls through, and is found sleeping in the Yeti's hide.

And the less said about the fake-mute pretending to be some kind of Native American, the better.
Blechh.
Curse you, America's cultural insensitivity.

Anyway, back in the day, the title struck me funny, and the fake sequel popped into my head of "Gurgle Of The Beheaded".

I tried to get a story-game using that title going on a board in the old AO-Hell days, but, that whole deal caved in on me, and I never got to see the results.
Regular ass Google-internet can't hack into AO-Hell content, and its probably been oblivion-ized anyway.
Lost to history.

Maybe I'll re-constitute it as a Quantum Dissolve chapter someday...

Anycrap, if you wanna see this thing, Youtube has it.

Linky-winky!!

Next up, let's do the time warp again...okay, let's not.

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Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 25)

Two today, and these are the ones I kinda sorta built this whole thing around....dunno why they took so long to get to...

Screamers (1979)

Not to be confused with the 1995 film of the same name.

See that tagline?

"They're men turned inside out! And worse...they're still alive!".

A lie.
That's not in the movie at all.
Not even a little bit.
Deliberate exploitation hype.

Okay, like with "Slumber Party Massacre", backstory time.

From here.

Ah, yeah, around some corners, and up some streets, is this place that used to be Morrison's Gun Shop.

Been gone for ages, but lotta memories there.
Used to ride up there on my bike as a kid, and buy comics, and candy, and Garbage Pail Kids, and old paperback compilations of Mad Magazine.

Okay, so here's one of those memories.

Like County Road, they experimented with having a video rental spinner rack.
I think it was just flea market junk the family owned.
Exploitation schlock, old cowboy movies, the kinda junk early HBO & USA pawned off.

"Screamers", was one of the flicks.

I was aaaaalways deathly curious to see how they pulled off the effect of the turning inside out.
That box burnt into my soul.

Then, I recently saw it, and PPPPPTT!!

So, now to the flick itself.
Its original title was "Island of the Fishmen", and that's what it is.
It's about fishmen.
Sort of cannibalistic versions of "The Creature From The Black Lagoon".

Barbara Bach is the most famous person in it I recognize.

Cheap Italian drive-in shit.

What do fishmen have to do with inside-out guys?
Jack and shit.
Totally pulled out of a marketing creep's assholio.
Seriously, I've dug into it as far as Google will go.

The movie that the box evokes does not exist.
No one ever made it.
It's a thing of legend.
It's a fucking vapor.

All right, so here's the real plot.
A millionaire scumbag forces a scientist to turn indentured workers into mer-men to dive for treasures in the lost city of Atlantis which they've found.
The mer-men also double as guards, murdering and devouring any intruders.
The scientist is in bad health, so the protagonists are lured in to take care of him to keep the scumbag's scheme going.

So, it's "Island Of Dr. Moreau", meets "Creature From The Black Lagoon", meets "20 Thousand Leagues Under The Sea".

...no inside-out men.
I promise you.
Seriously, forget it.

"Do the mer-men at least scream?".
Nope.

"So NOTHING on the box...".
(Cuts you off) Nope.

No, wait.
The name in that exact font is slapped onto the opening of the flick.
They bothered with that much.

That's it, keeds.

Is it worth watching?
Um.....it was for me to solve this mystery, and slay this ghost, but....nah, give it a miss.
It's like a million other weak-sauce Italian co-production pieces of cheese you would have seen in the 80's on some basic cable creature feature.

It'd be good MST3K/Rifftrax fodder though.

Next up, another deceptive box, but this skids by on being as vague as possible.

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Monday, October 26, 2015

Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 24)

Another one-parter breather.

4-D Man (1959)

About a guy who can pass through walls.

This, I'm pretty sure, was my family's first Nicely's rental.

Doing the math here, I've already nailed down that we had HBO from 1983 to 1987.
Dad quit HBO, because renting tapes was cheaper, and we didn't have so many repeats of crap movies.
BUT, we didn't have Nicely's yet, but even driving out to fucking Gorham was apparently cheaper than an HBO subscription.

The first flick we rented at Gorham was "The Fly". That came out to theaters in 1986, so it would indeed have been a new tape in '87.

One of the first new movies to come to early Nicely's was "Toxic Avenger Part II".
That was 1989.

So...somewhere between '87 and '89 Nicely's pops up.

I'm thinking 88.
And...I remember "Evil Dead 2", being brand BRAND new up on their shelves, and that came out theatrically in '87.

Now, I remember Ma grabbing "4-D Man", because even though it was old, it was the only thing they had there at the time that we hadn't seen.

Now, any other time, we would have gone home empty handed rather than go classic, so this had to have been a SPECIAL purchase, it had to be the christening of the new store.

And I WOULD have talked her into "Evil Dead 2", or "Toxie 2".
So, that means they weren't out yet.
So, this is pre "Evil Dead 2", post "The Fly".
It's a narrow window Nicely's birth squeezed into.

Yeah, I'm going with that this was the first.

This was the first, and "The Incredibles", on DVD was the last.
...or was it "The Aviator"?
One of those.

Anyway, the flick....

From just memory....
Okay, so a dude discovers a lump of gold that's allegedly melded with the rock next to it by just being next to it for a jillion years.
So, he makes a force-field to accelerate this process so not only matter can meld, but phase all the way through.
Then, his force projector doohicky explodes, and permanently charges his body, so that he can phase.

BUT, because time is somehow the factor being atomically accelerated, he ages when he phases, BUT, by phase-touching living beings, he can suck out their life-force like an energy vampire, and recharge, and keep going, which makes him a killer, and then a psycho, so mayhem ensues.

*Checks it against Wikipedia*
Yep!

Y'know, Buckaroo Banzai's Oscillation Overthruster never had these drawbacks.
Just saying.

4-D Man is played by Robert Lansing who was also Gary Seven on "Star Trek".
Patty Duke's in it too.
She was also in "Amityville 4".

The flick left it open for a sequel.
Hey, what if he came out of that wall in the "Days Of Future Past", future, and met his granddaughter, Kitty Pryde?

There's your sequel!

Next up, a deceptive packaging double feature.

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Sunday, October 25, 2015

Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 23)

And part two of today's two-parter.
Lickety split.

Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
and
Slumber Party Massacre II (1987)

Slumber Party 1, I first saw at County Road (now 1st Stop (scroll to the very end of that post)) on a spinner rack as a kid.

They were yet another store that experimented with video rental.
Grocery stores, drug stores, hardware stores, they all did it.

That cover burnt into my head.
I've seen the movie now, and...eh.

Pretty standard formula slasher fare.
Happens in the suburbs like "Halloween".
Killer uses a drill, but only towards the end.
A decent bit of T&A, but Friday 5 has more and better.
The girls aren't totally retarded, but they're not Nancy from Nightmare 1 level smart either.

Although, and this stood out, one of the girls was obsessed with her Playgirl mag.
Holy shit, sex-positive feminism, I remember those days! What ever happened to that?

Nowadays, it's all these stuffy, uptight, miserable, sour-pussed, spoiled, first-world millenial SJWs.
(See "Green Inferno", for my rant on that fuckin' mess)

Anyway, back to County Road/1st Stop.
Here's Thanksgiving 2 where I talk about all the candy and pastries I got out of the place.
And I got a lot of Garbage Pail Kids out of there, so here's the 30th anniversary post.

Good times, good times...

Now, Slumber Party 2 is where it gets fuckin' weird.

The Andrew Dice Clay looking dude with the drill guitar?
Yeah, that's in the flick.
As is the guy.
Although, none of those girls are.
Models fill in for the actresses for the poster.
Odd, but whatever.

Now, where it's weird, is one of the girls is supposedly a survivor from the first movie, but she flashes back to the break-dancing Elvis with the drill-tar from this movie.
The first movie didn't have break-dancing Elvis with the drill-tar.

So....are we to believe there's a missing "Slumber Party 1.5", that explains the origin of break-dancing drill-tar Elvis?
Because they heavily imply some previous adventures of this character, but he comes out of nowhere.
He's not the guy from part 1, cuz he's fucking dead.
And he was boring, and used a regular drill.
So you can't even claim it's his ghost.

What the physical fuck??

Anyway, the movie is fucking miserable.
I mean, on one level, the drill-tar Elvis is a weird and fun villain, and it's fun to watch him ham it up.
Almost as fun as Freddy in the funnier sequels.
And the heroines are a girl band, and it's fun 80's cheese to hear them sing.
But...it keeps being a fucking dream.
The survivor bitch keeps having PTSD dreams, and all these great kills he does keep not being real, so literally nothing happens in the first hour of this fuckin' movie.
You're literally watching nothing happen.
Then, out of nowhere, he's real, and everyone else can see him, and they have to try to survive his assault.

Then....fuck it, I'll spoil it.
Then, all THAT was a dream.
So, you just watched an hour and a half of nothing.

What a waste of a great villain.
What a great franchise they could have had.
Lemme look up the further sequels...
*Googles*
Yeah, it's a string of different drill-killers, but drill-tar Elvis never comes back.
Blah.
Phooey.

Total waste of a franchise.
If I had control, I'd make "Slumber Party 1.5", and "Slumber Party 2.5", and make them a sequel and prequel to drill-tar Elvis.
He needs a trilogy of his own.
That would fix everything.

Anyway, has to be mentioned, Nicely's had this one back in the day.
And, I'm glad I finally saw those.
I think I've watched the whole damned store now.

Next up, Kitty Pryde's grandpa.

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Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 22)

Back to the two-parters...

Tusk (2014)

From Kevin Smith.
The origin of this one fascinates me more than the actual flick.

He brainstormed this one on his podcast.
Here's the link to that episode.
Link.
If you listen to it all the way through, the whole movie is pretty much there.
There are some little weensy changes, but otherwise, they nailed it in the episode.

If you don't wanna sit through that, the plot is, a guy who has a podcast answers a classified ad to be a lodger for this eccentric former sea captain, and the sea captain captures the dude, and surgically transforms him into a walrus, and names him "Mister Tusk".

It's kind of a spoof on "Human Centipede".

It's entertaining, you'll enjoy it, but it's a one-watcher.

But that's cool that you can turn anything, even a podcast episode, into a movie.
They spend a lot of fucking time in that same episode talking about The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies In The World.

Hell, I think an equally entertaining movie could be made about the prequel story to Bart from Bart's Bakery.

Anyhoo, this is going to be part of a trilogy.
The next two aren't going to be "Tusk 2", and "Tusk 3", but different movies connected by continuing characters Marvel style.
*Has to Google*
Yeah, "Yoga Hosers", and "Moose Jaws".

I haven't heard anything about those happening, if anything, Smith is more concerned with "Mallrats 2", and "Clerks 3".

I'm tellin' ya Kevin, ditch those, and do Bart's Bakery The Movie.

Up next, DIY home repair, but with chicks.

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Saturday, October 24, 2015

Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 21)

One more one-parter....

Street Trash (1987)

Gorgeous.
Just gorgeous.

This rightfully ought to be a Troma movie, yet for some odd reason isn't.
C'mon, Lloyd, you bought up stupid "Bloodsucking Freaks".

Features the fat dude that played the mayor in "The Toxic Avenger", and the manager of the nuclear plant in "Class Of Nuke 'Em High".

About a centuries old case of rot-gut that a liquor store owner finds buried behind the walls, and sells to winos, and that causes everyone who drinks it to dissolve in a hilariously gruesome fashion.

Our protagonists are two homeless brothers, and our villains are a gang of violent junkyard dwellers causing trouble, and led by a Bluto type.

Our heroes salvation is Tenafly Viper, the aforementioned rot-gut.
Y'know, like how the Necronomicon is evil, but Ash can still use it.

Includes a famous scene of hobos playing a raucous game of keep-away with a guy's severed pecker.

Fun for the whole family.

Very highly recommended.

Unlike the lie that was both the title and the poster of "Bloodsucking Freaks", that toilet meltdown does indeed happen in the film.
We also see a lot of genuine street trash, both euphemistically and literally.
This flick delivers the goods on all levels.

So, go check it out.
Seriously, get up off your ass, and seek it out right now.
Dooo eeet!!

Next up, a double header, featuring trans-species-ism, followed by extreme co-ed renovation

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