No.

Psychomania

     Dear gawwd, what a dull and slow movie. The premise seems decent: Biker gang dabbling in the occult lean to die and be reborn....ya know, now that I've re-read that, I see the problem.

     A spoiled British biker gang leader figures out a way to come back from the dead and become immortal. So after proving this is possible, the rest of the biker game says "Fuck yeah, let's all go commit suicide!!!" I'm not making that up, and it's damn near verbatim.  And...man...that's really all it's about. 1/3rd of the movie is showing the various ways they commit suicide. And none of them were interesting. Drowning, falling off bridges, jumping out of windows and planes, driving into traffic.  In the end, the mother of the gang leader realizes her son is out of  control and gives up her ghost so the gang loses out on their immortality bid and become stone pillars.

     This film has reached cult status, but as I've said before, if it's only worth sitting through once, then it's really not a cult film. More of a cult experience. But even if you sit through it once, you'll never do it twice. I would sooner sit through a Puppet Master movie than slog through this bore-fest again. It's really too bad, because it's one of the coolest movie posters I've ever seen.

Sunday: I know, I know...but I have to finish this. Look on the bright side, there's only 3 left...

Almost 20 years ago, they tried to fix this franchise...

Halloween: H2O

Wait...is that LL Cool J?!?

...and it kinda worked.

     Technically, this is the 2nd attempt at an escape from sequel hell. The Halloween story line has veered off the tracks several times, but this bid to put some professionalism back in is a nice change of pace. But here's the thing that bugs me a bit: This film disregards the last 4 sequels, and attempts to clean up the series. That's fine, but earlier this year (2017), it was announced that the next Halloween film will also include Jamie Lee Curtis, while wiping all but the first 2 films off the books. So sadly, that negates this film. Make up your mind, guys!

 Anyhoo, the story is Laurie Strode faked her death and restarted her life in So-Cal at a private school. She has a son, and shit-ton of baggage. While she and her son try to make the best of things while dealing with her issues, her brother stops by to relive old times. But...he forgot to bring a bottle of wine and the rest of the movie they're at each others throats. Well, he's at everyone else's, rather. Right up to the hilt. Heh.

However, you know the drill. Running, chasing, hacking, slashing, stabbing, and the ever present Quaalude march of Michael. And damn it, if you smack a bad guy in the head with a rock and he goes down, KEEP HITTING TILL THE HEAD'S GONE!!!

     But the last scene...that very final scene made this entire film worth the watch.

Once again, Laurie shows us how you take care of business!

Cast notes:
Yes, that really is LL Cool J!.

Adam Arkin?...actually, I get that. Nobody cared much for him 20 years ago, and he's pretty forgettable now.

And Joseph Gordon-Levitt, though he's killed in the first 5 minutes, face stabbed by an ice skate. He goes on to make a movie about a guy with a porn addiction that nearly destroys his love life.

Saturday: Can the British make a decent horror film?

Do rednecks make great horror movies?

Bubba, the Redneck Werewolf

Yes. Yes they do

     In the small backwoods town of Broken Taint, there's a ne'er-do-well named Bubba. He's a kind young man that loves dogs and works in a dog pound. He's got a great repertoire with the canines and he seems happy. But, he's also a dumb redneck that's just looking for a little love in his po-dunk white trash town. Sadly, the towns people know he's simple and treats him as such. That's disappointing considering he's the most likable guy in town

    After being jilted by his flame, he makes a deal with the Devil and somehow becomes a werewolf. With this new found full body rug and some bitchin' fangs, he's also found physical strength and some wicked confidence which really mixes well with his redneckatude. After doing some hell-raising and getting his wolf on, he realizes the Devil has been ravaging the town with terrible soul contracts that don't deliver or were misleading. What's a wolf to do?

     Well, I'll tell you what a wolf does. He gets off his little crybaby ass and challenges that there Devil to a drinking contest. Something about bouncing quarters in a glass...I really don't know, I hate drinking games. You wanna get drunk? Then drink. Anyhoo, the Devil looses on a technicality, and the townspeople are saved. Even the guy with a bat stuck in his head because he said he wanted to be 'Batman'.

     Overall, it's a silly movie, but likable. Based on a comic book by the same name, there's lots of typical redneck jokes, but you won't feel like  you're at a Jeff Foxworthy show. And for once, you won't be rooting for the bad guy.

Friday: Down to the final 4....

Same 'ol Same 'ol

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers

Shatner got a face-lift?

Haddonfield, Michael Myers, Chop, Slash, Hack...you get the idea. Nothing much has changed much.

     The last movie ended with as strange dark figure shooting up a cop shop and freeing Mr. Myers. Who was that man? Why did he free him? It reeks of a secret project or secret society. It also appears that the same man has kidnapped Jamie in the process and bred her (at an appropriate age, I assume). Her child is taken from her as she's giving birth in some strange occult ceremony. That right there, was when the wheels came off this movie, and it was only the first 10 minutes. Regardless, with help she manages to escape with her child, and runs like hell. But by now, we know how these things go, and Michael shows up in pursuit and just starts wasting people left and right. Including Jaime! But before Michael impales her on some sort of hedge trimmer, she manages to hide her baby. And that's all Michael really wants.

Family love, Myers-style

     We jump to Haddonfield, and the town still talks about Myers like it was their best friend. An old friend stops by a retired Dr. Loomis's house to chat and offer him a job trying to find Myers.  He agrees and soon we meet the next 5-8 new victims, and one strange and creepy Paul Rudd. He finds the hidden baby, and somehow knows exactly who the child is, and the relevance of it. More chopping, slashing, hacking and our climax brings us to hospital where the tall dark stranger is revealed to be a friend of Dr. Loomis. I'm not sure what his cult was doing, but it was 'something something pure evil' and honestly I couldn't care less. Before the weird occult was to begin some sort of surgery on the child, Michael walks in there and just tears the room to pieces with what appears to be a surgical machete. I guess Doctors need those. More running victims, more Quaalude-induced chasing by Myers, and we end with baby, Rudd, and forgettable female character escaping and Dr. Loomis heading back into the building to meet his fate. Why? It makes no sense, and we're left with screams of what we assume is Dr. Loomis. Rookie mistake, Loomis! You NEVER go back into the house/building!  What of his fate? He appears to be gone, and we'll never see him again.........or will we?

Seriously, no sense of urgency from this man. Ever.

NO, no, no. He's dead in real life. Donald Pleseance died shortly after filming this, so he's gone.
However, one petty annoyance I had was the sound track. It was full of echo, and some sound effects had an odd reverb.  It's strange that all of the other prior films had a better soundscape than this turd. Meh.

Thursday: Werewolves, rednecks....there better be some damn moonshine in this here movie..

Well, I guess SOMEBODY had to milk the zombie trend to death...

Zoombies

...and much like the walking dead, the trend just won't die.

     So you want to open a for-profit zoo, but still want to treat the animals right.  For reasons we never learn, a spider monkey dies of cardiac arrest while on the exam table. Then it wakes up and just claws the shit out of everything it can. Turns out, it's got some zombie disease and it's highly contagious. That's some damn strong writing, low budget zombie movie author! Anyhoo, the monkeys get loose, and suddenly EVERY damn animal in that zoo is infected with whatever stupid virus that dreadful monkey was sporting.

    For the most part, this is a 'kill-feature' movie, meaning they wrote the script around some kill scenes envisioned by the author. This movie finally answers questions I never had. Questions like "what would a zombified giraffe look and sound like?" or  "how would a warthog eat a young, bratty teen?" But the most important question "what would it take to get a 7 year old to beat a zombified Kuala bear in HALF with a baseball bat?" Well, wonder no more! All those stupid questions are answered by this stupid movie. I told people I was going to watch this movie, and they laughed at me. They were right to do so.

It's low budget, the CGI came from 2001, and it's very distracting

Sooooooo life-like!!!

Dear gawd, just make this stop. How did they manage to pull this off for 97 minutes? Roger Corman would be proud.

Wednesday: Wouldn't the property values in Haddonfield be nose-diving by now?

The horror is having to sit through these unnecessary sequels...

Halloween 5 : The Revenge of Michael Myers

....but there I am, every year, camping out in front of the TV, watching bad films made for a quick buck.

     So as I was mentioned before, a supernatural element has been creeping into the series, and now one year after the events of #4, we learn that Jamie has a psychic link to the still living and breathing Michael Myers. In fact, it was Michael that took over Jamie's mind when she stabbed the hell out of her foster mother. Because of that, Jamie was put in a children's hospital because the trauma had nearly blitzed her mind. And one year later, Michael lumbers into town in anticipation of the most awkward family reunions we've seen in a while.

     Naturally, Dr. Loomis is nearby, watching and realizing the psychic link is taking over Jamie's mind as we see her go through what appears to be seizures. Dr. Loomis is also starting to become the old crazy coot warning about Myers still being alive. He might as well be wandering the streets with a sandwich board with a picture of Michael and text that says "He Lives!' while yelling out incoherent nonsense.

     As usual, there's a lot of running, screaming, dying...nothing new here. But there is something new: At the very end, after Dr. Loomis incapacitates and imprisons Michael by beating him over the head with a plank of wood,  a dark figure appears at the police station, shoots the place up, and releases Michael. We have no explanation, and you never see a face. Is he a G-man, military, or maybe even part of some secret experiment? It's the most original thing we've seen since the first movie....but still kind of weak. However, I'm now slightly interested in the explanation of that, and I'll get to it on Wednesday.

Tuesday: Obligatory zombie film, despite how I loathe them...

Charlie Sheen AND Randy Quaid?!? That's too much crazy for one film...

The Wraith

    ...but then again, this was BEFORE they went crazy in their own separate and unique ways.
   
     A long time ago, they used to make horror movies about killer cars. Literally,  cars that would hunt you down and kill you. Christine, The Car, and the better half of the Maximum Overdrive cast. And if you dig deep enough into the '80s,  you'll find this gem.

     I guess in the '80s, there were roaming bands of 'race for pink slips' bandits. They force you into a race for the title of your car. I don't know how that actually works, because nobody drives around with the title to their car in the glove compartment. Somehow, this dime-store cowboy wannabe tool is the ring leader of this merry band of idiots. From the first time you see him, you know he's going to be the final boss. And trust me, you want him and everyone that hangs around him to die in the most violent way possible. Despite his best Eraserhead impression, even poor Clint Howard. The good news? You pretty much get that.

In case you're wondering, yes, that's a wing.

      Shortly after learning who you're supposed to hate, a shirtless, yet denim jacket-clad Charlie Sheen wanders into the scene to show everyone his knife scars. And finally, the real star shows up in the form of this car:

And there's also some dude dressed like an emo space pirate murder machine.

     The majority of this film is about dying in road races, and clearly this is a revenge film. Every time someone dies in a race, a metal brace disappears from the emo spaceman's..uh...space suit? There is clearly a supernatural element to this story, and I guess it works. We really weren't worried about realism in the '80s. Anyhoo, there's lots of death and explosions and one ironic scene where the emo space dude takes a fancy shotgun to a garage and shoots the hell out of everything BUT the bad guys that were in it. I guess he'd much rather plow his car into them instead.

Shotguns are for stripping paint, not shaping body panels, dummy!

     There's a lot of '80s cheese in this movie, but it's still not bad.  They also do everything they can to make you hate Nick Cassavetes's character to the point of being let down when he finally dies in a ball of fire and car parts. I'm not really worried about ruining this film for you by revealing spoilers. It was made in 1986. You had over 30 years to see it.

Monday: Over the hump in Sequel Hell...