Damn, even the vampires in Canada are polite....

Blood And Donuts

     Call it a quaint vampire movie from Canada, simply because it its.  In 1969, during the moon landing, Boya, a Canadian vampire, decides to sleep...for 25 years. Some dork with the worst slice in golf is whacking balls around and conks him on the head, waking him. After scrounging for some rats blood to snack on, he decides to rejoin society. Once he finds a crappy apartment and a donut shop, he starts to slowly gain some life back in his undead ass.

     After befriending a cabbie and donut shop maiden, it somehow becomes a Canadian Mob story-line involving David Cronenberg. Man, even the mob is super nice. It's hard to take them serious despite the baseball bats and dinky little gun.

     Sadly, the story line isn't really that interesting. We've seen this before. The action is low, the horror is very mild, and there's a defibrillator scene that is unrealistic as hell, and the characters are as deep as a wading pool. It's billed as a 'comedy horror', but even the laughs are light. But strangely, I liked it. It's hard not to like anything Canadian.

Sunday: 4 more to go?!? Man....still better than puppets....

Urban Farming is a great way to start cults...

Children of The Corn III: Urban Harvest

     The next chapter in a strangely LONG franchise (7 movies in total) that few knew went past 2 films, brings us to the near half way point with a move to a more 'urban' theater. 2 young lads Eli and Joshua (from Gatlin, naturally) are relocated from Nebraska to Chicago after the father of one of them is 'venge-killed' by demon corn. Only the dumbest social worker in the world would relocate some young rual hayseeds to inner city Chicago. Really....dumb as hell. But if she hadn't, we wouldn't have a movie.  It's OK, her face is melted later in the movie.

     Once they're in the third largest city in the America, the two become polar opposites: Joshua assimilates, and Eli starts a Corn Cult that teaches how evil adults are. He also starts a corn field in the middle of a densely populated city.  As the cult grows, so does the body count. Same as aways, only adults. Parents are killed, Priests are crucified, corn is grown. It's a real ball of excitement with a Midwest flavor to it.

     The climax is the same as the first 2. It takes place during a Corn Mass in the middle of a corn field, that's in the middle of Chicago. Joshua decides that after seeing his new friend become decapitated and turned into Mekaneck, it's time to stop the shenanigans.

"No, He-Man. I can't see into Teela's bedroom window. Stop asking."

     While Eli is quickly dispatched, that crazy dirt shark that we've been teased with during the first 2 movies makes a full-bodied appearance and it's revealed to be a plant monster. So...yeah. Kinda like Little Shop Of Horrors, but less cool.

Special Guest Star: Charliez Theron...and nobody else.

Saturday: The Sleeper has awoken...and brought donuts....

No One Brags About 6 Inches. No One.

Zombeavers
2014


Toxic medical waste that fell off a truck mutates a bunch of beavers into the walking scurrying dead. It should be noted that the waste canister (which looked like a beer keg) traveled all the way downstream of a river filled with rocks, but sprung a leak when it hit a twig on a beaver dam.

Dun dun daaaa. Cue noxious college students.

Three Heathers are getting away from it all at a cabin in the woods, when their dude-bro BFs crash the party. Commence over-the-top sex scenes complete with one dude screaming, "I feel like a Power Ranger!" What does that even mean? Who says that? Also, I'm pretty sure this was said by the dude who's girlfriend was bragging that he had a 6" penis - a scene truly written by no woman ever. Have a seat, Green Ranger.

Seriously, the best thing about this was the end credits track. Otherwise, it was expected: whack-a-beaver, beaver/vagina jokes, felled trees, people werezombeavering, marginally good looking dudes with hot girls, sequel setups. Although, I will say this: there's not a whole lot of places you can hide from a zombie rodent. We're truly fucked if that ever happened.

On to the next...

A Troma joint

Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town

Roaming band of biker girls named the Cycle Sluts invade small western town just in time to fight off a zombie infestation. This story line has everything I could ever want!  Zombies! Violence! Chopper Chicks! The perfect late night movie....but...

Damn it. For a Troma movie, I had high hopes. It's probably because I'm grown up now, but t his was dull as hell. There were a couple of funny scenes, but man was this a snooze. And it wasn't the acting. That was more than acceptable for this caliber of movie and though unpolished, it wasn't unbearable. I was really looking forward to this movie, but I just couldn't get into it. I've wanted to see this for years, but blaaaaa...Scratch that one off my movie bucket list.

BTW, that's Billy Bob Thorton.

Friday: Well, if Jason can go to Manhattan......

A movie for people that hate kids and need to justify that hate....

Children Of The Corn II: The Final Sacrafice

Ah, 1992. We had Eddie Bauer edition Ford Explorers, but no Photoshop.

     We return to Gatlin to find all the kids have already killed every adult and hid them in basements, cornfields. Really, they could have buried them, burned the bodies, crushed the bones, buried bones...you get the idea. Nope, just stick them down in the basement next to all the Christmas decorations and VHS tapes you will never use again because your VCR died 8 years ago and you never replaced it. Once the bodies are discovered (first scene, actually), the news crews descend upon the sleepy little crap-burg and start to wet themselves over all the carnage. That's when we meet our dysfunctional Father/Son team on the away to the scene. Father is a discredited reporter, and Son is just a shit-headed teen that hates his dad. There's a divorce and a crap-ton of other baggage there, but thankfully it doesn't take up much of the movie. As they start asking questions, they run into the owner of a B&B that has just taken on one of the murdering children as a foster. Um...if they knew the kids did it, why did they disperse them amongst the innocent population? With out any sort of investigation? Maybe interrogate some of kids? Nope, dump them into foster care and hope they don't get molested.

     As the story progresses, we also meet the new child-leader and he's just as preachy as Isaac was, but with a lot more goth to his attire. He rounds up the remaining kids, and sends them out to do his bidding. Which involved killing a lot of adults by locking them in a building during a town meeting and burning it down, and dropping a house on an old lady. But I shit you not, her last words were "Oh, what a world, what a world" while showing her legs sticking out from under the house. To clarify that, they included a scene from The Wizard of Oz in a horror movie about corn cult kids killing parents. Nice touch.

     The climax happens in the same way the first movie, with a mass in the middle of a corn field and some last minute thinking that leads a kid to getting chewed up in a combine. Poetic maybe? Whatever, the mouthy little goth-tard is dead and everyone drives off in a convertible Mustang.

Two scenes that annoy me: (1) 2 other reporters in a van get lost in a corn field and are killed by cornstalks and a wind storm. Nobody ever looks for them, nobody ever finds them, their corpses and van are still sitting there. What was the point of that scene? Why didn't anyone come looking for them? (2) What was all that crap about the moldy corn causing dementia? That plot line when nowhere, and was blown to pieces when we see this:

That's not moldy corn. That's...really bad rosacea.

Thursday: "Variety called it "a surprisingly funny B-movie spoof with a feminist edge." Uh-huh....

William Hurt Vs. Gorilla Boy

Altered States

     Wikipedia bills it as a Science Fiction Horror film staring a very young William Hurt. I think it's a long but fascinating trip. and when I mean trip, I mean a Lysergic Acid Diethylamide trip down WTF Lane. Filled with imagery that's wide open for interpretation, it might test your patience. Because like many psychological thrillers (be honest, that's what this movie is), you're conventional thinking is on constant guard as you're bombarded with visuals and the constant question: is it really happening or is is a hallucination?

     John Hurt plays a college professor that likes to tinker with sensory deprivation tanks and hallucinations. He goes as far as Mexico to get hooked up with some trippy acid made by some half-assed Incan tribe. So knowing that you can have a natural hallucination under normal conditions in a sensory deprivation tank, you know what sounds  like a great idea? Add lots of acid!!! Nothing could possibly go wrong, right? Actually, it does, and he starts physically regressing to a primitive caveman and eats a goat after breaking into a zoo. He finally passes out and is found returned to normal by a security guard. Once bailed out of prison, what's the next best thing to do after an experiment like that? That's right! Up the dosage and do it again!!!

     This time, things get a little to regressive and he goes primordial. Though to be honest, I had to read up on that because that wasn't my interpretation. My actual interpretation was a much less imaginative "W.T.F.?!?" Nonetheless, he's saved and taken home.
The final scene, while not anti-climatic, was a little more obvious but equally weird and we're treated to a 'love conquers all'  with naked people.

     I first saw this around 10 while sitting in a hotel room in Ottumwa IA, and I remember being weirded out by it for weeks. This was like going back to a very old memory and I'm surprised at how much I recognized from that night 30-something years ago. No, not much of a horror movie, but still a good watch.

Wednesday: I love it when a sequel has "Final" in the title. It's usually a lie....

His name is Baal. There I've said it.

The Rite
2011

Michael joins seminary school to get out of his small town life as a mortuary assistant to his father. His plan is to resign just before taking his vows, but it seems there's a snag. Apparently, if you fail to take your vow after seminary school, your scholarship will be converted into student loans - to the tune of $100,000. Guess he really is a vindictive god.

He end up going to take a special course in exorcism in Rome. Since he's still a skeptic, he's sent to observe a practicing exorcist named Father Lucas. Lucas' antics test his faith, even when evidence points to supernatural possession versus psychiatric disorders.

It wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't really suspenseful or scary or a thriller. The possessions were mundane and it really just felt like religious propaganda to me. Honestly, Michael's turn to the cloth wasn't even moving for me. This film was stylistically better than the others but I've seen way better films about wavering faith. Hell, one 40 minute episodes of Penny Dreadful would be more passionate on the subject than film. On the other hand, no one there doubted the existence of evil so maybe it's not the best analogy. Anywho, I hope the next flicks are better.

Yet Another Craigslist Ad Gone Bad

Creep
2014

Mild-mannered and cash-strapped videographer, Aaron, takes a gig paying $1,000 for a 1-day filming and "discretion." The ad was placed by "Josef", who claims its for his unborn child, whom he'll never meet due to inoperable brain tumor. Josef is totally off kilter, blaming it on the tumor and his mere months to live. The problem is...Peachfuzz.

Uncomfortably weird and touchy-feely as he is, Josef's story might've been believable if it wasn't for Peachfuzz. It's a wolf mask he claims was created by his father to help kids get past their fear. I'll let you decide if believe him:

because this is the mask I'd use to help little kids

 Yeeeeah...

So after the Peachfuzz song and dance - and I mean that literally - Josef gets progressively stranger. There's a psuedo-pagan water ritual and a few times where Aaron suspects Josef is lying. Eventually, he confesses to a crime and then goes right back to making his daddy movie like it's nothing.

Why Aaron doesn't just beat the shit out of him and cart him off to the police is beyond me. The guy stalks him right up the end, which is just frustratingly mind-boggling. Having dealt with stalkers both online and off, I can sympathize with how hard it can be to get justice as a victim, but ignoring the obvious red flags is just stupid.

I wouldn't say this movie is scary in the conventional sense of horror movies. Also, it basically has a two person cast. However, it's worth a watch because there are points when the creep-factor are off the charts: invasion of privacy, realizing you have no real information, loss of control, etc. Plus, Peachfuzz. I mean come on. I would've been out the door before he even finished the first verse.

O'er the Moors and Into the Woods

The Beast of Xmoor
2014

A scantily clad chick running through the woods is a generic opener for like 60% of all low budget horror and slasher flicks. Guess we know what caliber this will be...plus is stars no one you'd give a shit about. This season's off to a good start.

So basically our female lead Georgia is a wannabe krypto-investigative journalist, looking to bust open the beastie case of the century. She's dragged along her cameraman boyfriend to the middle of fuckall nowhere in England. Ireland? Who cares! They're looking for a panther that's supposedly loose on the moors, killing stuff. Fox, her possible sleazebag contact, lures them all the way out across the moor and into the woods - on the authority of meth head no less - where they discover the hunting ground of a different animal altogether.

Maybe I'm just jaded but I really wanted them all to just die. Georgia's boyfriend was an annoying bitch who whined and freaked out for most of his camera time - as did Georgia. Fox was the only one I liked, even though he totally tricked them into a serial rapist/killer's den, and then went limp-wristed when it was time to nut up.

The whole second half of the movie is them stumbling around in a dark FOREST trying to avoid the killer - who is inexplicably dressed like a beekeeper or fencer. Amazingly, they seems to keep circling back to the same areas even though aerial shots show the place is fucking massive. Somehow they manage to stay within rage of the 40-something camera they've set up to film the "cat" roaming.

There was some other weird stuff in this flick - like psycho ginger twins and a one-eyed girl - but mostly it just kind of sucked. I'm actually sorry that there was a survivor.

Never stop in small towns, and NEVER stop to help...

Children of the Corn

     Another classic from the '80s, based on a short story by Stephen King. This movie is what ruined peoples perceptions of the Great Plains, and unfairly condemned gingers. Or at least one by the name of Courtney Gains aka Malachi.

Serious. You will want to punch him. In the face, really hard.

     I'm not really worried about giving too much away since the movie is over 30 years old. If you haven't seen it yet, you probably won't. Unless you're me, who tracks this crap down. It's a compulsion of mine, in case you haven't figured that out by now.

     In a small Nebraska town named Gatlin, there's a crap ton of creepy kids that murder for blood. In the opening scene, they annihilate everyone in a small diner with poison, axes, and knives. We jump ahead 3 years, and it appears they extended that greeting to the entire town. There doesn't appear to be any adults left and the town has basically dropped off the face of the Earth. Our two protagonist, Burt and Vicky, are strolling down the highway on a road trip to someplace called California.  Suddenly, they hit a small child and think they killed him. Upon further investigation, it's revealed the kid died of stab wounds for trying to escape the creepy corn kids cult. From there, we're treated to a really boring 40 minute run up that very slowly tells the back story of what happened to all the adults. Seriously, that part is brutally boring. None of the back story really matters so skip ahead if you're trying to stay awake

     Eventually, we meet Isaac, and his enforcer, Malachi. They don't like adults, they don't like outsiders, and Burt and Vicky are gonna be sacrifices  for some sort of corn demon. Towards the end, said corn demon 'kinda' shows his face as he's dying in a fire. I always thought demons were somewhat immune that sort of thing since they were from Hell. Isn't that Hell's trademark? Fire and brimstone?

     Aside from the movie being dull, it's biggest crime was the terrible 3rd rate F/X when the demon shows up. They basically Ralph Bakshi'd it with rotoscoping and color filters. Hack job, even for a 1984 budget.

Exhibit A: Crap.

Exhibit B: YOU DIDN'T EVEN TRY!!!

     Remember, Star Wars was released in '77, and the F/X were miles ahead of this film
Though not a terrible movie, it's dull partially because it LOOKS dull. The setting is all in Earth-tones like brown, light brown and medium brown. Brown...oh, there was a dull yellow car. When that's your atmosphere, it's guaranteed to be a bland experience.

Tuesday: Sensory Deprivation is soooooo '80s cliche.....

"Mensa splooge is very valuable on the black market"

Evil Bong 3

     Now there's an alien bong. It's weed is out of this word.  So once more down the stupid rabbit hole we go. Everyone takes a hit off the bong so they can go inside of it and save the day or something. There's some white-guy kung fu bro-dawg fighting, testicle milking, and naked women painted up for black light. Who cares. This thing was filmed in 2 rooms, and one outdoor scene. Yet somehow, it still has its own Wikipedia page that I will quote: "Evil Bong was shot in 3D and utilized scratch and sniff cards that film viewers could smell at certain times during the film."

     There's still 2 MORE films in the crappy franchise, but the good news is, I'm not covering any of those for the rest of the month. 

Gentlemen, you've captured my feelings about these movies. All of them.

Monday: I'm half way through this month, and things are about to get really corny....