As a grey matter of fact...

The Brain Machine

     Sometimes I'm too hard on these films, other times I like them too much. This is one of the best examples of a '70s era low budget 'horror' film. Filled with mundane direction, no believable F/X, and bad lighting graced over cheap film. It belonged on the dusty shelves of a VHS rental store or in the .99c DVD bin at Dollar General. Which is pretty much where I found this film.

     This whole film boils down to a super-duper mind reading computer and a group of people that are being experimented on. The volunteers (or 'contestants as I like to call them) are put through a series of test that make no sense. Tempers flair, faith is tested, and mental stability is questioned. And then things go to hell and everyone dies. Naturally the Government is involved and has nefarious plans for this stupid computer and washes the whole thing over in a cover-up.

Super Wicked Bad-Ass DVD cover!!

     The pacing of this film is dreadful and all over the place. I saw the boom mic at least twice, and to be honest I can always forgive mistakes like that and bad F/X. But could you have the actors have more than 2 modes? It was either full on over-acting or dull and monotonous line reading. Truth be told, I'm not that surprised. The 2 biggest names attached to the film are James Best and Gerald McRaney: 2 actors best known for a TV career of slightly over-the-top characters.

Still wicked and way cooler than the actual film.

     Keep something in mind, while I was watching this piece of crap there was a Godzilla marathon on ThiS TV network. Can you imagine the discipline it takes to sit all the way through this film when the Big G is on network TV?!?.......NO! No, I don't think you can.

Sunday Funday: She's hairy in all the wrong places.

Hell Yeah!

I, Frankenstein


Whoa.

Frankly, I was expecting to sit through angsty grunting and ridiculous gargoyle smash fights. Not so. This movie took itself seriously and delivered on stylish, high-quality special effects - well, the demons did look BTVS-ish - and pretty good script. Aaron Eckhart was awesome as the aggrieved and hunted creature.

Dear Dr. Frankenstein, Can you make me one, too?

This has an Underworld feel to it, which is not surprising since the same person (Kevin Grevioux) wrote the original concept. I remember the first time that I saw Underworld, I was like, "What the hell is this? Vampires with guns?" But the action and power dynamics hooked me and suddenly a whole genre was re-imagined as a race/class war. I felt the same way watching this. Suddenly your caught in the middle of someone's religious war, with no backup or direction. Do you choose a side or run? How long can you run? What is the "right" side seems isolated and desperate?

Pros: This movie had me at the first gargoyle transformation. Also, it stars Bill Nighy, who played Viktor in Underworld. I love his elocution. Kevin Grevioux has a part, too, and you have to love his voice. I think it set a good stage for sequels...the kind one actually wants.

Cons: A couple of elements seem rushed (possibly to set the stage for sequels). I would've liked to see a little more development between Adam (creature) and Terra (a scientist he meets). Clearly there is some barrier between home command and the Gargoyle Order. That could've been expanded on a little.

Overall: Totally buying this for my collection. I hope they have an expanded edition.

History Prefers Legends To Men

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
2012

Having just read some not so favorable political history in which Lincoln tried to have the slaves deported (among other things), the Black Buddy-having, abolitionist characterization in this sweeping fantasy biopic is a might hard to swallow.

Coached by Henry Sturges (who I had pegged in the first few seconds), Lincoln becomes nemesis to bloodsuckers, with his trusty ax.

One of Henry's many vices.

This tale spans his boyhood (marked by the mysterious death of his mother) to the fateful night at the theatre. This is more of an action-adventure movie than a horror flick. The gore is minimal and there is more planning and dialogue.

I want to like this film, I really do, but the more I find out about the real man, the harder it is to love these farces built on the legend. At least the film got it right that the emancipation was a war tactic that gave the North a stronger foothold and bigger army. However, the brutality that was slavery explained as vampires who were apart from - and not an allegory for - the south was a bit gauche.

That ax, though.

The movie does it's best to neatly tie-in events from Lincoln's life with its fantastical elements. I won't lie, it delivers the good as far as action is concerned (that trains sequence!). It does slow down in pockets as Lincoln takes a wife, trades his ax for a podium, and then exchanges political blows with Adam, the chief vamp.This is a horror-action-drama hybrid, and stylistically, it does what it does well. If  you can overlook the burning flag of the Black Buddy-loving man-that-never-was, you can sink your teeth into this one.

Nazi Zombies....it's always Nazi Zombies

Zombie Lake

I don't care what it says, it's a damn cool movie poster

     Awww, our first foreign film. Isn't that cute? It turns out that Europe makes shitty movies just like us! And with all things European, being progressive is just one of their normal traits. For example, full frontal nudity in the first 1.5 minutes! I'm not kidding about that. It was during the opening credits!

     So there's zombie Nazi soldiers (like in Shock Waves), and they're hanging round a lake (like in Shock Waves) killing some of the locals dumb enough to swim there (like in Shock Waves). The back story is the villagers killed a whole mess of Nazis and tossed their bodies into said lake. So naturally they haunt the area. Some nosy people start digging around, and that prompts the zombies to start hitting the town, killing some of the villagers. That's when the mayor steps in and realizes he's a terrible mayor for ignoring the zombie murders and rounds up the townspeople to help get rid of the Nazi zombies....the same Nazis they “got rid of'” 10 years before. The moral is, bury your dead Nazis. Or burn their bodies. That's what it took in the end.

Why so paranoid, guy?

     It really amazes me that no matter how terrible the director is, they still manage stretch out a crap-fest like this to an hour and a half. Like all zombie movies of this caliber, the F/X is just abysmal. The acting....well, it's not really acting so let's not get into name calling. After a while, I didn't even bother reading the subtitles. One other thing that made no sense was the way the zombies killed. They just bit necks and walked on. Maybe they drained the blood, but that really wasn't implied. Since when are Zombies vampiric?

     The only cool thing about this movie is the original poster. Shock Waves was a better movie. Watch that piece of crap instead.

Saturday: Bwaaaaaaaainss.....it's not a zombie movie, I swear.

Sake is for Bitches

FDR: American Badass

What a terrible movie...I must write a stern letter to Netflix about their suggestions. At the very least I was expecting to watch a black comedy. Instead I got the nocturnal emission of some tool frat boy with a history boner.

The opening sequence is a monologue with FDR prattling on about "badassery". After a hunting trip ends in him contracting polio from the bite of a werewolf, he quickly becomes a jackass, confined to a wheelchair and worried about his cock. I should mention that said werewolf looked like a cross between a Tamarind monkey and a Pomeranian.

Soon FDR - who starts calling himself "The Delano" and quoting hip-hop lyrics - embarks on a presidential campaign that takes him through the south, where he encounters your stereotypical Tennessee Williams/Faulkner-esque couple. The husband is a semi-suave drunkard, who's "free" with his tart-ish cousin-wife. They jump on the bandwagon and turn up several more times during the flick. Somewhere there's also and unfortunate "Living On A Prayer" skit, too.

Hilter, Hirohito, and Mussolini

Rifle with homophobic innuendo, fellatio references, tasteless polio jokes, people defecating in vases and international werewolves with bad perms, this was a headache-inducing exercise in futility. I'll admit that there were some funny moments but overall it's probably more enjoyable to the drunken, testosterone-fueled crowd.

Oh, and apparently sake is for bitches. Disrespect of of rice wine forces Japan to side with Germany and wage war. Like I said, terrible movie.

All I really remember is the tan-lines....

Return To Horror High

     Billed as a horror comedy and non-sequel to a movie that never happened (but actually did, it's just completely unrelated), it starts out with a back story about some horrifyingly murderous event that took place in a high school. Years later, a movie crew invades and starts to film a horror flick there. Then people start dropping like flies. The bloody and violent death scenes are mostly implied because this isn't a real slasher flick. Since it's a movie about filming a movie filled with flashbacks, it becomes really annoying after the 4^th time. There really isn't much more to this story than that, though they tried their best to make it intriguing.

Even the movie poster is lifeless.

     Well, most everyone has to start at the bottom, and this is one of George Clooney's first films. Sadly (or thankfully), he's killed off in the first 15 minutes. And who's that standing over there in the police uniform? Maureen McCormick...better known as Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA!!! That's right. One of the Bradys stopped by to boost this movie. She may be the only blonde to not show her boobs and the only really entertaining character.

This is horror movie that isn't scary, a comedy that isn't funny, but it is ALL '80s. Best viewed on the USA network in 1989.

Friday:  The first of only 2(!) zombie flicks.

Another Year On The Spit

I'd like to start this year's Horrorfest off with a movie of exceptional equality:

Leprechaun 6: Back 2 Tha Hood

2003

 

This was totally shitty. Once again the movie mythos got a reboot. Now the backstory is that Leps was a wayward guardian of some nameless king's gold - which inexplicably found its way to the hood. There is no tie-in from the previous moive, Leprechaun: In The Hood. Boo. Hiss. Boo.

Anyway, this was such a dismal effort. Even Leprechaun seemed to be going through the motions. He actually attempts to negotiate with his would-be victims before the (minimal) gore starts. It's evident from the first few scenes that the two Blacks with Irish names will be the survivors, so suffering through their fractured loved story was unnecessarily painful.

Rory & Emily...in the hood. Enough said.

 
This had the typical fanfare directors think every movie about "tha hood" should have: poor grammar, misunderstood words adopted as slang, marijuana (and accompanying munchies), booze (sorry, no 40s), drug-dealing, gangs, house parties, thwarted attempts at enrolling in college, and gold-digging skanks,.

I just melted down a antique coin worth $5K to make a gold tooth.

I found it odd that they chose to have people smoking glass bongs, since I don't think I've ever saw anyone in the hood with a bong. I'm sure someone has one somewhere but that's not the usual method of choice associated with smoking weed (which was also uncharacteristically referred to as "bud"). The bongs they showed were actually pretty nice, too...well over what the owner could have afforded pre-gold.

Lep takes a hit.

This was miss-able and the plot was totally not even worth writing about. Where the first Lep in the hood movie surprisingly delivered the goods, this one took a burning piss on the franchise. Yawn.

Tomorrow: Werewolf bites cause polio?

...in my pants.....

     Halloween means many things, but most important to me is 'Horror'. And what is horror? Monsters, Evil, Death, Satan, Fangs, Claws, Psychos, and the ever difficult to explain association between sex and violence. We gather all of these ingredients together to tell a story in a visual form called film or movies for the entertainment of others. We also like to exploit this need of ours by shoving out a crap-load of cheaply made abominations for a quick buck....and honestly I couldn't be more thankful. So 31 days of horror films begins with:

Lair Of The White Worm

     I know what you're thinking: PORNO!!! Well, it does include some red-hot leg-wound sucking so maybe this is a British porno. Decidedly British. Everything about this 1988 feature is from the Queen Mum's bum, from top to bottom (heh).  If you couldn't tell, the indicators showed up right from the start. For example, did you know everyone in Britain lives in a castle and drives a phallic sports car like a Jaguar or a Morgan? They do, honest!

Spitting White Worm? Get it?!?...penis.

    The film is based on a Bram Stoker novel that was based on the Lambton worm legend. That's a fancy way of saying this is a film featuring a boney British tart who just happens to be an immortal snake-lady. Her mission is to find a sacrifice for her big worm friend that lives in the caverns under her house. That's pretty much it. The rest of it is Hugh Grant and his mussed-up hair running round being rich, aristocratic, and typically dull. Then again, this whole film is dull. There's some very strange cut scenes involving a Roman gang rape and lots of phallic cod pieces. It reminded me of a crappy Altered States. The climax was....wormy and predictable.

Some people are just naturally glad to see you. Others are odontophiliacs

     This is a movie I've wanted to see for a long time and I had hopes of it being a top end production. And maybe in broke-ass 1988 England, it was. But it looks cheap despite most of the acting being  of decent quality. But Sammi Davis? Have you ever seen a Brit fake a Brit accent? Now I have. It's gross.

Thursday: Highschool, cheerleaders, probably gonna be some bewbs.