Not sure if that's 'Zilla or Barney

Creature

I guess it was cooler in 1986

     This is a video rental shelf teaser. We didn't get our first VHS player till 1989. So prior to that we rented from various stores, one in particular was called Sounds Easy at the local mall (circa '85-'86). I'd always walk through the horror section just to see the VHS sleeves. They always looked bloody, scary, and I wanted to watch them. My parents, however, weren't having any of that so I usually ended up with Godzilla 1985 or something similar. Before the internet, it was difficult to find these. Movies like TerrorVision, Chopping Mall, and Slumber Party Massacre were some I remember clearly and if you were lucky, you'd find them in the dustiest back shelves of the dying video rental store. Thanks to the internet, these are much easier to find but some are getting a premium for a DVD copy. Sometimes you have to dig real deep into the El Cheapo DVD bin to find a 5-10-20 movie set filled with crappy films like this that fell into public domain. Or, sometimes you just find them on Netflix. Go figure. So tonight features is Creature, based solely on the VHS sleeve I once saw in the mid-late '80s.

     What we've got is an alien that was stuck in a hibernation pod for countless years. In the future, people don't watch horror movies so they have no idea that YOU DON'T OPEN THINGS LIKE THAT. But they did, monster is released, and now it's time for some good 'ol crew butchering. This is a bit of an Alien rip-off, but there's some differences. For one, the Creature uses symbionts to control it's victims (post mortem, of course) and hunt other tasty humans. Or something like that. All that is really clear is it liked to kill, and then desecrate the corpse. Sadly, there really isn't much more meat on the bones than that. The dialog is lean, dull, but oddly technical. The F/X are decent for an upper echelon low budget film of this caliber though every time you hear the automatic doors open, you hear a re-purposed phaser sound effect which causes a little confusion as it sounds like a laser fight going on the other side of the door. Talent was on par with the budget and two actors of note are Wendy Schaal, and that dirty pedophile Klaus Kinski, father of Natasha Kinski. He's been a dead pedophile for decades and we're all thankful for that.

This is the Creature. Remind you of anyone? Anyone at all?

Over all, kinda dull but not horrid. However, I'd pick Life Force over this any day of the week.

Saturday: Ribbit.ribbit......

Cop-out Movie of the Month

Leprechaun 4 : In Spaaaaaaaaace

Right...forgot about the .gifs

     How the hell did we get here? In space? This was a strange byproduct of '90s horror franchises that ran out of ideas. Jason did it, Hellraiser did it, so this film fell in line with the others and suited up for interplanetary travel.

     Sooo...some idiotic Space Marines or some such head to planet to save some dim-witted daughter of some VIP from the gnarly clutches of The Lep. Meh...nobody really cares at this point. Nobody could POSSIBLY give two tinkers damn about what or why. During the lame ass firefight with Lep, for reasons unknown, Lep jumps on a grenade in order to protect his bride to be. Odd, because he's not known to be selfless. After it explodes, one of the soldiers urinates on the dismembered body parts and somehow Lep's essence is transferred to the soldiers....wiener? Well, later on, a reincarnated Lep just shot out of some poor guys crotch. So, yeah. That happened and I got to see it.

<sigh>.........yes, this really happens

     Wacky Leprechaun hijinks follow the rest of the movie until the end when we're treated to a heavily mutated Dr. Mittenhand (gwaa, that name!) going on a rampage. He's been infused with DNA from scorpions, spiders, lions, tigers, oh my. More fighting, more running, and we end with Lep exploding in space because that what people believe happens when you're put in a pressure-less environment. That's not what really happens in space, but why worry about realism this late in the game.

This is Dr. Mittenhand. He's a super freak.

     Idiotic over the top military commander, Super smart and super hawt molecular biologist, these characters are jerk-ass-tacular. This is the only film (so far) of the franchise that wasn't released in a consecutive year...It's also where I sign off of this franchise for the season. There are 3 more films, and with time I'll find those in the same $5 bin I found this set.

Fitting way to end this mini-marathon. I hate you, Lep.

Friday: Such a literal title...

When Elvis Met Leprechaun

Leprechaun 3

Somehow, Vegas is supposed to impress me.

        So, the unluckiest man walks into a pawnshop in Vegas to hock a statue. He warns the shop-keep to 'NEVER REMOVE THE MEDALLION”. That was strictly implied from a man missing one eye, one leg, and one hand. Clearly ignoring all of the markers for a horror movie plot, the shop-keep tosses 'Mr. Lucky' a $20, and proceeds to take the medallion right off. You'll never guess who's the stat....oh hell, you know where this is going. It's that damn Lep doing his lamest Han Solo in Carbonite impression. Immediately, Lep attacks the shop keeper and we've got ourselves a movie, I guess. I'm not even going to ask WHY or HOW he got frozen into a statue, or how the bloomin' hell it ended up in Vegas. But one thing is for sure, one of the coins in his pot of gold is missing and EVERYONE will pay till he has it back in his stash.

Did I mention he had 'Lucky' tattooed on his other wrist?

      While he's torturing the shopkeeper, some dunder-head wanders in to try and pawn a watch since he blasted through $23k playing roulette in about 45 minutes. Since he's an idiot, he stole the missing gold coin and heads back to the casino to and starts cleaning house. Apparently, the coin has some lucky properties and the rest of the movie becomes a cat and mouse game filled with kill scenes that were similar to Nightmare on Elm Street, but even more cut-rate. I should also mention that he starts becoming a leprechaun after that little green dork bit him. So Leprechaun bites turn you into a Wereprechaun? God, this franchise is idiotic. Puppet Master makes more sense and nobody's more surprised that I just typed that than me.

     In the end, Lep is nothing but a smoking pile and our heros walk away, tossing away that flippin' ever-important gold coin. This, of course, is the tell-tale sign of the inevitable sequel. One thing I'd like to note is there hasn't been a backstory as to why he ended up inside a tree in LA, or how he was frozen into a statue. Given this randomness, I can only make an educated guess about where he'll be next...

A couple of laughable things:

Internet in '95 was kick ass.

“When Lep met Elvis”

Literal dwarf tossing...out a 6^th floor window.

Thursday: Wait, SERIOUSLY?!? That's where we're going next???

Honestly, Leprechauns are my new clowns. To hell with both of them.

Leprechaun 2

     Well, that ugly little green shithead is back and here we go with the flashbacks. Turns out a thousand years ago, he cursed some tool because he tried to steal his gold AND because he cock-blocked Lep by keeping a potential bride from sneezing a third time. The curse is simple: Lep will marry his decedents daughter in 1000 years. Soooo....not much planned in between that?

     The last time we saw Lep, he was in a burning well. This time, he pops out of a tree in LA. So, yeah, the transition was flawless. Anyhoo, when he captures his bride to be, he bundles her up and starts slathering gold all over her. Lep likes it a little freaky. He realizes he's lost a piece of his fortune and goes ape-shit and hunts down Cody, our protagonist. Cody, by the way, is a poor mans Cory Haim.

One thing I noticed is the quality of F/X and set design. Believe it or not, it actually increased from the first. I'm sure this is in part because the budget was twice as high. According to Wiki, the first film's budget was $900k, while the second was over $2mil.

     Are we really just doing this to keep Warwick employed? Is this what the 90s were for him? I'm almost sorry for him.

Highlights include:

Dude-bro making out with a running lawnmower with expected results.

Clint Howard!!!

Wednesday: What the hell is it about that damn coin?

“Movie sadomasochism” or “How I spent $5 to punish myself”

Leprechaun

Back in 1993, I thought this was a retarded idea for a horror movie and refused to watch it or even give it a chance. 21 years later, and I'm still right.

     Warwick Davis, who you may remember from Willow and countless other high profile films, stars in this along side Jennifer Aniston with a collection of other After School Special rejects. Our film starts out with the O'Grady's having the first encounter with the Leprechaun after Mr. O'Grady stole his gold. The Lep isn't too happy about is and tosses Mr. O's wife down the stairs. Taking exception to this is, Mr. O throws him in a crate, and intends to burn Lep to death. Unfortunately, Mr. O has a stroke and sent to an old folks home, leaving Lep sitting in the crate for 10 years. And that's when Ms. Aniston moves into the scene and things get dumb real fast. The rest of the movie is Warwick running around searching for his gold and trying to kill pretty much everyone he meets. 

     I don't get it...he's the least intimidating horror monster I've ever seen and people run from him like it was a cenobite. A four leaf clover is SUPPOSED to kill him and they tried their best by shooting one into his mouth and causing him to fall into a well. Yes, he's to be undone by a damn flower. But alas, clearly nobody has ever watched a horror movie before and it merely slows him down. So as he's crawling out of the well, they push him back down and pour some gas on top of it and 'boom' goes the well. Yeah, because that's ALWAYS going to work.

How in the hell could you ever be afraid of this?!?

Highlights include:

Death by Pogo stick

Best Line- “Fuck you, Lucky Charms!”

THERE ARE NO TARANTULAS IN EITHER DAKOTA!!!

Tuesday: Enjoying another $1.25 of movie magic. Prolly going to need some booze.

What did I just watch?

Thankskilling 3

Well, it starts off with a close up of some medium built women's boobs. Yup.

In space, something something bewbs.

    So in essence, this is a sequel about a sequel that never happened. And I can't describe it other than it's just one fucked up mess. Half the cast is puppets, and the other half are human but a little on the outrageous side. The story is simple: Turkie finds out his movie Thankskilling 2 has been crap-canned and there's only one copy left in the world. His mission is to find that film at any cost. And that involved a lot of violent, over the top killings.

Looks like I missed one hell of a party.

     When I said this movie was messed up, I also meant its all over the place. The plot itself only takes about 30 minutes to tell. The rest of it is just puppets and vulgar weirdness. Look...I just watch these goofy damn movies and  co-workers think I'M the messed up one for doing so. But someone spent YEARS and a crapload of money putting this together. What does that make them?

What is this? I don't do drugs so none of this makes sense.

     What's even more strange? It was actually easy to sit through, the direction was decent, and the F/X (while cheap) was spot on. None of it made ANY sense but it wasn't a talentless hack-job like I've seen several times just in the last week. True, the others were trying to be serious, while this one clearly knew it's place in the universe. But under all the layers of crap, there's actual quality hidden deep within. I know at this point you might be questioning my sanity, but I can assure you that throughout this movie I uttered 'WTF? repeatedly. See? I still have the ability to reason and can tell right from wrong. Still though:

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS DOING IN THIS MOVIE?!?

Monday: I warned of this earlier, and it's time to get this series out of the way.