You'll get my damn VCR's when you pry them from my cold, dead hands....

V/H/S

     Right from the start, this movie has 2 things going against it. First, it's an anthology of 6 different mini-movies. Second, they're all 'found footage' films featuring mostly Dude-Bros. I hate found footage films. They try to scare you by NOT showing you anything, and leave more questions than are ever answered. Oh, and sometimes they make me dizzy because THE FUCKING CAMERA NEVER STOPS SHAKING!!!....ahem, so naturally, I'm jaded from the start...

....creepy-assed humongus eye girl...

    Within the 6 tales, we have a demon bat girl that rips off a mans junk, a lesbian double cross complete with throat stabbing, a poltergeist, a bunch of blurry shapes of creatures/things killing people in the woods/house/where ever it's dark, and Skyping bewbs! Oh, and for some reason, there's more dude-bro ass than I prefer to see, but there's some cheesecake too, so all's fair.

     I find it hard to really review anthology style films because there's just too much ground to cover and I don't want to be too windy or give too much away. I will say it wasn't as bad as I expected, and the last story, 10/13/98, was pretty decent. If you're into this sort of thing, you might as well go for it. There's a sequel, but I'm not going into that. I'm really tired of sequels...however...

Sunday: One more from an old friend....

"Bring it, Frat Bitch!"

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil
(2010)
 

Leave it Canada to come up with this. A bunch of white college kids and their two token Oreo friends head to the woods to camp out. On the way, they cross paths with some stereotypical hillbillies - or so they think. They learn some hard, often pointy, lessons about being judgmental. Also, clearly their parents should have invested in vocational school since they are far too stupid for college.

How NOT to talk to the honeys:

Frist off, you're shown the "killer" in the opening scene, although most of the deaths are actually accidental. If you haven't identified the would-be psycho by the general store scene, there's no mistaking who it is during the out-of-nowhere "survivalist" speech.

Oh, fuck it! It's Chad. C'mon, anyone named Chad in a slasher flick is bound to be an ass-tool moron or self-aggrandizing frat-jock wanker - in this case, all of these and more. It was painful watching him bust those whack karate moves.

C'mon, he's wearing an aqua blue polo shirt with a popped collar - of course he's evil!

Dale and Tucker are just two good ole' boys who bought a fixer-upper "vacation home" - the cabin from every backwoods hillbilly horror flick ever made. They're up there for some "man time", which sounds really Brokeback Mountain even without the corresponding lap scene. All the madness starts because Dale & Tucker save the life of Allie, the psychology major (who couldn't tell Chad was a ticking time bomb). Of course being rubes, the collies assume they must be cannibalizing (or otherwise eating) Allie, and die gruesome deaths trying to "save" her.

Not scary but funny as hell. I laughed out loud 'til it hurt. This is kind of a buddy movie, too, so you get moments of tenderness between Tucker and Dale, like, "You're not as ugly as you think you are." Honestly, I thought Dale was adorable - like a big teddy bear.

Well, on to the next movie.

Ham-fisted Community Theater Rejects....

Puppet Master 9: Axis of Evil

     Some film franchises burn out early, some last forever. This year I chose one of the latter. I can remember when I was in my late teens discussing how horrible Full Moon Entertainment movies were with a huge fan of them. My argument was that Troma was so much better because Potato. It didn't really matter, we both had our own preferences and I respected his opinion even though I was clearly right. Puppet Master was the strongest example of how terrible they were. And I think the only reason I chose to watch this set is because I found a DVD at HellMart with all 9 movies for a mere $5. They've been mostly terrible and I can't say I've enjoyed the ride, but it does satisfy my curiosity. There are 2 more that I won't be watching this year, but I'm now compelled to seek them out. But for tonight...

     Oh Jebus H. Chrizatz, here we go back in time AGAIN, and naturally the first 10 minutes of the movie is ripped from the very first movie almost frame by frame. They actually do a decent job of threading the films together, but still...I've seen them do that waaay to much in this series. Thankfully the rest of the film is fresh. But even a turd is fresh at one point in time and this truly is a steaming pile of freshness. It takes place during WW2, and you will quickly tire of the lame and inaccurate references towards the war effort.

     It turns out that Nazi Germany wants the puppets but are also conspiring with some dippy Japanese with a terribly phony accent. Something about blowing up a room in a factory. It's a really weak plot and has little to do with puppets. A young man's mother and brother are killed and his girl is kidnapped in order to ransom her for the puppets. The puppets jump in, including a new/old ninja puppet, and clean house. A note about those puppets: The were all different. And by that I mean they were new models. I'm not sure what happened to the old props, but these were all new and really cheap looking. And the end? What the hell is with the abrupt endings? This series is now infamous for it! At least half of them had some small epilogues. Clearly, that wasn't in the budget.

     But the most distracting thing about this film? The acting. It's one of the absolute worst I've ever seen. Every actor in this film should be ashamed of what they did. They should have joined a missionary and repented for their sins. In fact, since I've never seen nor heard of any of these 'actors', maybe they did! I have 1200+ movies under my belt and within that list is a strong vein of low budget features from all eras. But few in there are comparable to this travesty. And lets be honest, it's well known that my expectations were pretty low, but this thing went subterranean on me right from the start!

And that's that. It's over. My self induced hell is over. NO MORE FUCKING PUPPETS!!!

Saturday: Some old school format..

We sip our whisky out of glass....jar.....

Tucker & Dale Vs Evil

      What we have here, is a couple of ne'er-do-well rednecks spending the weekend in their newly purchased 'weekend home'. At the same time, some lame-ass college kids are heading to the same area. Naturally, hijinks ensue!

     Dale and Tucker are the prototypical rednecks. Dale is fat,dumb (but has a photographic memory), and lacking in the 'talkn' to the wemins' department. The other, Tucker, is only slightly more intelligent. Oh, and thin. A gross series of unfortunate and hilarious events ensues and the college kids start dying off due to their ineptitude and rash assumptions. Weed whacker to the face, impaling yourself onto a branch, jumping into a shredder, shooting yourself in the head because you were looking down the barrel of a gun trying to figure out why it wouldn't shoot....Ya know, in hindsight, every one of these college kids is just dumber than a box of rocks. Hell, they couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel. In the end, we're treated to College Boy vs. Redneck: THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN!!!

"Oh, nothing officer. We're just taking our torso out for a walk"

   

     While it wasn't laugh-a-minute, it was really amusing and I recommend it. Most of the acting is great but maybe the costume design was a slightly overdone. There's a lot of small subtleties that aren't' too hard to catch so it's not too smart for you. It's just a good watch. So watch it.

Friday:  What a terrible burden I've put upon myself....

"We have a Turd in the Punchbowl. I repeat, we have a Turd in the Punchbowl"

Puppet Master: The Legacy (#8)

     This is one of the most infuriating movies I've ever seen. Not just because it's low budget, filled with bad acting, cheap special effects, and stars creepy-ass puppets. It's infuriating because all of the low budget, bad acting, cheap special effects, and creepy-ass puppets are shown from the 7 previous movies! That's right, this entire fucking movie is ONE LONG FLASHBACK EPISODE!!! I'm not kidding! 98% is recycled footage! This is the biggest cop-out I've ever seen! The only new footage is a side story setting up the flash backs that last in total, about 5 minutes. Since that's the only thing new in this film, here's the set up: Some ruthless bitch is trying to find out how to kill the puppets forever, thereby freeing the souls trapped in them (she calls them the 'immortals'). She fails, and is killed by the current Puppet Master. But here's the thing that pisses me off more than anything else: As she dies, the P-Master looks away, and then points the gun at something off screen and fires. The screen goes black, and then this appears:

“The producers would like to thank all the cast and crew that helped make the Puppet Master series a tremendous success over the years “

     So what the hell was he shooting at? Wiki says he sees one of the immortals...but so what? How would you know if it wasn't for Wiki? It could be a damn chihuahua in a leather jacket doing the moonwalk for all we know. But THAT doesn't even matter because if you use a little Horror Movie Logic, immortals can't be killed with guns...BECAUSE THEY'RE FREAKING IMMORTAL!!!!

     This movie is bullshit and the worst sequel of any movie I've ever seen. And this also marks the second time they've 'ended' the franchise. But guess what?! They made 3 more after this because you can't kill a franchise! Thankfully, I only have one more left to watch on Friday.

But tomorrow is Thursday, so that means we got ourselves a bona fide Redneck Halloween Adventure!

Hawt or Nawt?

Monster Maker

This little ditty is from 1944, and stars a bunch of people that died long before I was born. It's old and grainy, and just the kind of movie I love to fall asleep to. I didn't say it was great, just a way to help induce sleep.

So this jerk Dr. Igor Markoff makes a move towards this great pianists hot daughter. The 12” pianist isn't cool with that so he tells Markoff to bugger off. As with anyone named 'Igor', the evil Dr. is not happy about that and secretly infects him with a substance that makes him become horribly disfigured. Like Elephant Man disfigured.

"Tell me the truth: do I look like a callus or a bunion?"

Theres a lot of terribly boring drama that fills in the weak story and it all ends with a gunshot. Despite all that filler, the film is only 62 minutes. 62 minutes! That's not a movie, that's an episode. I didn't hate this by any means, but it is rather droll and as I hinted at before, best watched while falling asleep. Don't sweat it if you don't see the end because you passed out. You're really not missing much.

Wednesday: This isn't a movie franchise, it's an endless loop of origin stories!

The Future is the Past and the Past is Yesterday, which is the day after Tomorrow. I think. Not really sure anymore....

Retro Puppet Master (aka #7)

     You know? For someone that started out this series dead, Toulon sure seems to be showing up an awful lot. He's in every movie so far. I get it with Freddy, Jason, and that stupid Leprechaun. But this guy is getting a lot of mileage out of the deal and there's no end in sight. Sooo.....

     This entire film is a flash back. Toulon tells the puppets a story from his youth and the only thing missing is the wavy lines signaling the transition. But, the title clearly says “RETRO Puppet Master”, so I was properly warned.

By 'Retro', I mean 'Make everything look olde'

     Simply put, this is another origin story for Andre Toulon, the maker of the puppets. This time, we go much farther back as he meets a 3000 year old Egyptian wizard or Jedi that passes on his knowledge of things and stuff. The Egyptian is also on the run from three humble mummified servants of Sutekh (Mr. Nipples). Along the way, Toulon meets his future wife, defeats the servants (whom ALL look like Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit), and everyone lives happily ever after...until Nazi's kill his wife and he eats his gun. But all that violence happens in the future past forward backwards thingy...I don't know, it's all messed up. Out of the 7 I've watched so far, 4 of the movies seem to take place within a month of the prior sequel. This was no different, as Toulon starts to tell his olde story while he's still trying to flee the Nazis. This takes place just after the events in #3, and as I established before, 4 & 5 were the same movie. My head is spinning, but there's light at the end of the tunnel as we only have 2 left.

     OH, and on a side noted? Dear GOD, the acting is horrid! When they were putting on a puppet show, even the voice acting was stiff and awkward! They read it like it was rehearsed twice and then it was go-time. And why does young Toulon speak with an accent? Up until now, he's played by an old man that has NO accent. Suddenly, he's a young French lad wearing silly dinner jackets and mispronouncing every other word. So it's official, we've hit our downward spiral after peaking with #5. Not bad, really. Some started with the first sequel.

Tuesday: Well, the title seems simple enough..

No 40's were harmed in the making of this film...

Tales From The HOOOOOOOOD!!!

     To me, the '90s were the last decade of experimental films. Indie films were all the craze and a lot of them were good. Movies like S.F.W. and Bottle Rocket are great examples. Today, there's no filter and you have mainstream movies like Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Zombieland. Now this film doesn't seamlessly fit as an example of the '90s indie undertaking, but it does echo a bit of it. OR, it could just be a '90s version of Blaxploytation. Either way, it's on!

     Naturally, these types of movies are anthologies, but I'm thankful for that because none of the stories could stand alone in a full length feature. In fact, they shoe-horned 5 stories into 95 minutes! So, none of them are really deep, as you would expect. But maybe they're too quick? . The sad thing is, I can't really give it a proper review because they just aren't that good OR bad. At least if they were bad I could make fun of them, but this is just bla. Much like Hood of Horror, this had its own set of stereotypical stores like 'racist white cops beat up innocent black man' and 'racist white former KKK senator tries to get the black vote and is mulled to death by dolls (ug...just as bad as puppets)'. The cast was pretty good, but seeing David Allen Grier as an abusive father is a bit of stretch. It's just hard to take him serious after Boomerang, Blankman, In Living Color, etc... 

Why does Clarence always look like this?

     There's not much else to say. I can't recommend this movie for any reason. Maybe this was cooler in 1995 like Clerks was. But I can't stand that movie now, so that may be a huge reason this fell flat with me. Oh, and one odd omission? Not one scene or utterance of a 40oz bottle of tasty malt liquor. I don't think I'm out of place by thinking that was strange, given the context of the movie.

Superstar Roundup:

Clarence Williams the 3^rd!

Joe Torry!

David Allen Grier!

Rosalind Cash!

Corbin...Bernsen...?

...Oh holy shit, WINGS HOUSER!?!?!

Monday: Guess...go ahead and guess.....