Oh, how we missed you all...

 The Addams Family (2019)

     The Addams Family returns in an animated feature after so many missteps since Raul Julia's death. John Astin aside, nobody could play a live action Gomez like Raul and I personally think that's why nobody's made a decent attempt until now. Granted, this is animated and not live action, but prior to this, nobody's put any real money or talent behind a decent production. 

     After being persecuted by villagers during Morticia & Gomez's wedding, they decide to relocate to where entire villages don't mob up to burn them at the stake. Apparently, such a place exists and it's in New Jersey. 

      For the next 13 years, they live in (mostly) family bliss, completely ignorant to the new housing development being built down the hill from their mansion. The developer is also the host of a remolding show and basically owns the town since she built it. Once the two parties meet, it's like cats and water: Fur flies, claws come out, and there's a lot of resentment. It's a battle of ideals featuring conformity vs deviation. That being the biggest battle in the movie, there are several smaller sub-plots as well with both Pugsly & Wednesday coming of age. They both desire their own path and there's great reluctance in both Gomez & Morticia to let them do so. We've seen that story what seems like hundreds of times, yet for some reason films like this feel the need to brow-beat us about it every chance they get. There are a lot of subtle touches that you miss if you blink, but 2 standouts would be the return of Aristotle the octopus (only featured in the original comic) and the end title sequence is a faithful recreation of the original TV series opening. That gave me feels

   There is also a sequel, that will have to wait a year because this was my final movie for the month. 31 days, 31 movies. All I've learned is I hate werewolf movies and most shark movies are disappointing. Now it's time for me to go read a book or something....

Sympathy for the Devil

Lucifer

Season 6, 10 episodes

2021

I binged all of season six over a couple of days. Honestly, it was kind of lame. I don't expect Lucifer to be scary - it's more of a dramedy with demons - but there is the occasional gruesome death. I guess the drag queen who took a stiletto to the eye might qualify as gruesome but most of the final season was fraught with family drama.

Namely, a woman shows up claiming to be Lucifer's daughter, saying he abandoned her. He has no idea who she is and spends at least one episode tracking down attendees of a masked orgy he once participated in around the time this young lady was likely to be conceived. It doesn't pan out.

The rest of the season is kind of jumbled. Dan is dead and has become a roaming ghost that only the celestials can see. Chloe gets addicted to celestial power and starts picking fights with people. Ella has formulated a conspiracy theory about Luci and the gang, while dodging Dan's smitten friend - a nice guy named Carol. Maze & Eve get engaged and have started planning their wedding when Eve's ex, Adam shows up. The first man is a total self-absorbed troll, really impressed with that fact that he "named all the animals". That tracks.

I'm kind of sad that this is the last season but if this is the quality of material they're going to offer, so be it. At least I got to see Tom Ellis' ass. Again.

When silly is done right....

Slay Belles

First let me gif my feelings on Christmas

     I'm not a Christmas person. Not since I started putting books on my wish list instead of toys and video games. That being said, it's always been strange to me how people have more fun during Halloween compared to Christmas, but put so much more emphasis on Dec 25th instead Oct 31...the cool holiday. It's like how you gravitate towards the cool aunt or uncle that doesn't really have their shit together, but still way more fun to be around than the stoic patriarch. This film mixes them together in an absurd mash that makes fun of modern society and it's need for external validation via social media and still mixes in boobs and blood for a silly horror movie that reminds you not to take everything so serious.

Not really. You are kind of dumb.

     The story is simple: 3 vapid thrill-seeking urban explorers find a Christmas themed amusement park to explore, film the experience and upload it to the interwebs for likes, hits, and smashes. Things go awry when Krampus starts hunting them. They stumble upon a white-trash bearded fellow that just happens to be St. Nick. Together, they conquer Krampus and mock him:

Nobody likes a tease, ma'am.

     Unfortunately for them, they find out that Mrs. Claus is behind the Krampus shenanigans and they have to stop her...and by stop her, I mean KILL her. Where's your Christmas feels now, eh? Anyhoo, narcissism triumphs over Lady Claus's revenge plot and happy is had by all. I didn't say it was a deep plot, but it's still stupid fun.

Sunday: Finale 

Somehow I don't think Spielberg is attached to this project...

Shark Encounters Of The Third Kind

Stop teasing me with cool posters for shit movies!!!

     So the movie starts with a voice-over of a guy scuba diving, a lady is eaten by a shark, aliens show up, then a woman buries a dead cat in a cardboard box and then urinates on it....more aliens...I guess the aliens possessed the shark....there's some sort of sunken treasure sub-plot....Hell if I know, I don't even know why there was a shark in this movie at all considering they're basically a footnote. This turd floating in the proverbial punch bowl is all over the place but it does have a sense of humor. I'm glad somebody did. Most of the F/X was made with shit that people throw on the curb during a city-wide cleanup day. Even the worst Godzilla movie is miles above this groaner, but it's still not the worst: That honor goes to Virus Shark.

Saturday: Sometimes Christmas horror films confuse me....

This should have been the theatre release.

 Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge

2020

Leave it to the cartoon to be so much more violent than the live action films. This movie is gory as fuck. It opens in feudal Japan, where Hanzo - the man who would become Scorpion -  returns home to find his entire village slaughtered. Later, he is manipulated into entering the Mortal Kombat tournament as the champion of a hellish realm. He doesn't care about the contest. He just wants  revenge on the man he believes murdered his people. 

He's not the only one there for revenge. Sonia Blade also enters to get her pound of flesh from contestant Kano, a mercenary who captured her partner. Others are there seeking fortune, fame, out of a sense of duty, or for duplicitous reasons. The tournament is basically a lawless killing spree with the existence of the losing realms at stake. Johnny Cage, a fading action star, seems to be the only one who is truly clueless to what is really going on (which Raiden finds amusing). Even watching a guy get his arms ripped up does not awaken him to the truth of his situation.

Anywho..there's a lot of grisly action and a subplot is revealed. Scorpion gets his revenge and the champion saved earth realm. Worth a watch.

Over-simplified Dune reference....

 Sand Sharks

     So basically, it's Jaws, but instead of sharks in the water, they're in the sand. So it's Beach Jaws? Do I really need to go in depth? The plot is pretty weak, but the acting is better that anything I've seen all week. However, that's still not saying much. You're still forced to sit through Brook Hogan's second cinematic attempt and what a treat that is. At least Parker Lewis plays an over-the-top jackass that says "I know what this film is about and I'm going to have some fun with it".  

Oh, and he dies in the end. Everyone should have, but his was the best.

Friday: Nobody knows how to make a proper shark alien movie these days...

Bats, Cats & Gats. Oh my!

The Long Halloween, Parts One & Two

2021

This is the second (and third) Batman entry for this year's Horrorfest. This movie takes place early in Bats' vigilante career, when he was just beating up thugs and not doing detective work. It centers around a character nicknamed "Holiday" who is systematically eliminating all those close to mobster Carmine Falcone. The killer strikes on a holiday using a pistol - with a baby bottle nipple as a silencer - and leaves a gift related to the day. The first killing happens on October 31st and goes on all year,  so Falcone's henchmen have dubbed it "The Long Halloween."

There are plenty of suspects, not the least of which is troubled DA, Harvey Dent. The foreshadowing of Dent's unraveling is so well done, that alone makes watching the movie worth it. It's full of side shots and innuendo, and outright mentions of his questionable - sometimes volatile - mental state. All the usual crazies are there as well, alongside character we haven't yet met in other DC animated fare, like Commissioner Gordon's wife and son.

The theme of sacrificing family and romantic relationships plays a huge role in driving the story arc and creating an undertone for the movie. It wasn't a horror movie per sé, but there were some grizzly scenes and the undercurrent of emotional emptiness, abandonment and lack of fulfillment conjured up a feeling of dread. That said, I don't think it was hard to figure out who the killer was before the first movie was halfway through.

How To Build A Better Mousetrap...With Urine

"Linda"

Hoarders, S10

First, apologies for the extreme lateness. I've been watching the movies but unable to type due to an ongoing injury. Trying this on my phone. Probably will need to edit A LOT later.

Okay, so I had been binging Hoarders for months. I've taken a break because...it can literally be worse than the goriest slasher flicks. Anywho, let's get to the first episode I watched for this year's Horrorfest: Linda.

Linda is an approximately 60ish woman who lives alone in her own home. She's a hoarder. At one point, Linda had custody of her two grandchildren due to their mother being in prison for drug dealing. Social services were called to the house and the conditions were so bad that the SW went to visit mom in prison about the situation. We learn this from the mom, who came into her addictions as a way to escape the home. Getting pinched triggered her worse nightmare: her own kids having to live with Linda. (She ends up becoming a neat freak herself.) She works to get out of prison ASAP (2 yrs?), to get the kids out of her mom's house.

Fast forward several years, Linda is staying with her daughter and grandchildren, in the daughter's home, due to health issues. BUT she still exhibits concerning behavior and the family has decided she has to go back to her own house. And by "concerning behavior" I mean peeing and pooping in their drinking cups.

Yes, you read that right.

The daughter gets the professionals of the Hoarders show involved and cleanup starts. Linda does not even seem present in the moment. She has a lot of excuses. The house is like 3-4 feet deep in just trash. The trash is covered in pet and rodent waste. It's discovered that the kids used to sleep on a soiled mattress and had to store their clothes and food in plastic bins to protect them from the mice. Linda also used to chain up dogs in the house, and they were forced to live in their own waste. Her daughter rescued the dogs, nursing them back to health. Consequently, Linda cites the dogs as the reason she pees in cups. Literally, "If the dogs can pee and poop on the floor, why can't I?"

You may be scratching your head - or gagging - at that logic, right now. Like why would someone want to emulate dogs and where do the cups come in? Or just, you know, what the fuck? Well, Dorothy the organizer and her crew are hard at work chiseling - yes, chiseling - through the hoard on the floor in the house. The first layer had a lot of pet and rodent waste. The second layer of trash was wet with what they assumed was animal urine. When they get to the third layer, Dorothy realizes it's all human feces and urine - like a thick sludge soiling, binding and contaminating everything - on the floor and likely has been in every layer.

I'll give you a moment because I needed one.

It comes out that Linda had actually been shitting on the bathroom floor of the daughter's house. In her own home, she frequently urinated and defecated in cups that then sat around. She semi-denies some of this, but the granddaughter, Shawntae, outs her. Shawntae says Linda used to pee in cups and make Shawntae throw them out by the neighbor's yard. (Actually, at the beginning of the show, the therapist said she could smell the house from down the street. Imagine living next to that.) Shawntae also reveals that Linda would just defecate in cups in front of the children. She also sais she would sometimes find mice drowned in cups of Linda's urine. Boy, this was a lot. It took me three days to watch this episode, no lie.

I'm just going to wrap this up here. The house gets boarded up because the hoard and contamination caused structural damages that would be too expensive to fix. Linda ends up returning to the home anyway.

I throw up my hands.

Next time, try conjuring up a plot, k?

 Ouija Shark

False. Advertising.

     Yeah, you read that right. Sharks and Ouija boards. And some damn fools made a movie out of it. But first let's talk about the movie poster: Nothing, and I mean NOTHING in that picture happened in the film. First, that was not the shark in the film. Below is a picture of the shark.

The realism is just astounding...if you're blind.

     Second, that was not the Ouija board used in the film. Third, there was never a lighthouse at any point in the film, and finally, nobody was as aesthetically hawt as what's presented in that picture. Nobody's wasitline was that of a boney waif that sniffs food for nourishment, and I don't want to insult anybody, but they were more 'realistic' builds and I'll just leave it at that.

     The baseline story is lady goes for a swim, finds a really cheaply made Ouija board and then meets other girlfriends to smash food and drink. She talks them into a séance, and that conjures the shark and people die, but not in a bloody way. Probably because there was no blood budget. Who the hell makes a horror film without a blood budget? Anyhoo, the woman that found the board has to go hunting, but not before putting on black leather to look like a total badass that got the entire wardrobe from Goodwill. Considering she's the one that started this whole mess....yeah, I'd say your ass better get out there and kicks some Ouija shark tail fin...dumbass...

Thursday: It's as plausible as, say, a movie about sharks in a winter ski resort....

Since when are sharks NOT the star?

 Virus Shark

     A virus infects sharks. Sharks bite people, now the world teetering on the brink of blablablanobodycares. Now that a deadly pandemic has had it's merciless grip on society for nearly 2 years IN REAL LIFE, this isn't shocking. It's laughable. It's another fake plastic shark, another thin and runny plot, and 0 actors. There are no actors in this because NOBODY IN THIS FILM CAN ACT. Oh Jeebus, stop acting. YOU CAN'T DO IT, JUST QUIT!!! Quit the community theater and volunteer at a mission or an animal rescue league or a food bank or just ANYTHING useful to society other than these terrible ham-fisted attempts at thespianism. This wouldn't annoy me so much if they didn't take it so serious. I can over look the scene with a trio walking down well lit hallway while one of the gang is USING a lit flashlight. I can over look the use of Duke Nukem sound effects from 1996, but put it all together and it's just too much. They couldn't even do a proper voice over. THAT'S NOT EVEN IN FRONT OF CAMERA! THERE'S NO PRESSURE THERE! Sharkenstein was a fucking masterpiece compared to this suck-job of a movie.

The mercy finally kicks in at the 74 minute mark...when the film ends. But for fucks sake, it's ONLY TUESDAY and I have a whole week of shark movies planned. I must be out of my mind....

Wednesday: The pain continues with a board game based on communicating with the dead...and sharks!...

Why did they even bother making a movie poster for this?!?

 Post Apocalyptic Commando Shark

     Grown in a lab, a Soviet anthropomorphized bipedal shark attacks 'Merica. And 'Merica fights back with props bought from the local Dollar General. Consequently, that appears to be where most of the cast was recruited as well. I guess there was some sort of nuclear exchange, most of  'Merica is fragmented, bla bla bla....

The intimidation factor was oversold on the movie poster.

    83 minutes of WTF is going on, and I have no real answers.  I mean, look at this

!!!

    I don't do drugs. This movie made me feel like I do, but only experiencing the regret part. Not the numbing, peaceful euphoria that should come with it. I don't really think this qualifies as a shark movie  but I'm not fighting it because my brain is all hurty after watching this.

Tuesday: Pandemically relevant and dumb as hell....

Eat More People!!!

 Swamp Sharks

     Some corrupt dumb-ass pays another dumb-ass to get some big dumb-ass shark. Big dumb-ass shark escapes (duh) into a swamp and starts eating dumb-ass people. Do you really need any more details on this dumb-ass movie? No. It's another in a long line of killer animal movies that we've seen countless times....yet my dumb-ass keeps watching them for reasons I just don't understand. But one thing is always for sure: I'm rooting for the shark. And after seeing this cast, you'll see things my way:

Wade Boggs?

Christy Swanson?

DB Sweeny?

Yep...dinner is served!

Monday: Only the 2nd worst title this year...

Clearly, under the radar

 Gravy

     So a trio of pretentious community college idiot cannibals hijack a restaurant and informs them they will be eaten as part of their annual...people eating event thing. Whatever, it's a horror movie with a decent cast that thankfully didn't over-act. Whacky hijinks ensue, but keep in mind, sometimes this is a great film, sometimes it's annoying. It's a strange phenomena and best try not to over think it. It's like watching a really long episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but with a LOT of black humor and probably a little more annoying. 

Sunday: Shark week begins!!!...it's going to be terrible...

Doctor of what, exactly?

Doctor Sleep

   What if I told you that someone was ballsy enough to make a sequel to the film The Shining? The Kurbic film? You might say "impossible".  And you're right, it's damn near impossible. However, what if I told you that someone did it anyway, but didn't try to emulate Kubric like a hack film student and made it their own? And also make a 2 and a half hour film that was never boring?

     Meet the film Doctor Sleep, a spiritual, yet solid successor to The Shining. The vast majority of this film (yes, based on a book) pays very little homage to the original early on, but continues the story as best as it possibly could and only hitting the nostalgia button in the last 3/4 of the movie. It's only at that 3/4 point are we served a near Deep Fake of 1980 Jack Nicholson's face as the new bartender at the Overlook. It's just damn good make-up. The biggest contrast in the two films would be details: The Shining was ambiguous in details while Doctor Sleep is mired in them. Not overly intricate, but very useful. When's the last time you said that about a sequel?

     I don't want to give you details. It's not because it's so amazing, it's just good. 2 completely different films, yet the same in kinship. And the only spoiler you need to know is that Rose the Hat NEVER had the upper hand.

Saturday: Time for some barrel-scraping silliness....

Not The Kind Of Boobs You Were Hoping For....

 Slumber Party Massacre II

    Like a proper sequel, a carryover from the first film starts us out with nightmares and premonitions supplied by a slightly older Courtney. Her older sister, the hero from the first movie, is now in a mental institute and rather than go see her for the weekend, Courtney opts to hang with her rock band mates in a condo. Despite a very clear warning from her sister in a dream, they all head out to the condo for some girl-power time.

Submitted without comment for your safety and mine.

     However, the premonitions and dreams become worse and a guitar playing dork dressed in leather presents himself as the slasher from the first film, nearly re-incarnated

...fucking dork....

     Shortly after that, Courtney is trying to get some play from her love interest when the guitar dork becomes completely real and starts drilling people with his drill...guitar. Drilltar? Whatever, it's all just stupid and he's the worst bad guy I've seen this October.

HE DOES A MUSICAL NUMBER!!!
 How the FUCK am I supposed to take this serious? 

     Billed as a black comedy slasher, it's more silly than anything. Much like the first film, it's only 75 minutes long and if you came for the boobs, I have some bad news for you. It's VERY limited and I had that figured the minute I saw Crystal Bernard as the main character. 

Friday: Can you really make this sequel?

"Shirts Vs Skins" or "How To Properly Water-Proof a Power Drill"

 Slumber Party Massacre

     First of all, let me clear the air about something. This movie and it's 2 sequels were written and directed by women. Maybe that doesn't make much difference but I thought it very interesting. This movie is also the epitome of boob slasher flicks and quite possibly the progenitor. Originally written as a spoof movie, it was transformed into a 'serious' film and that's why you get to see boobs in the first 2 minutes.  

     An escaped mass-murder has escaped and killed a really hawt phone repair woman and steals her drill and van. After killing another high school for reasons I can't understand (hey, he's a mass murder. That's just his thing) he stalks the rest of the high school girls to a home where they're having a slumber party with weed and booze! I bet they talk about boys and girl stuff...

     Things start out great as beer is drank, weed is smoked, and pizza is ordered. However, when the pizza guy shows up, he's blind...and dead. His eyes have been drilled out. Turns out this plucky DIYer is pretty handy with a drill and just goes to town on damn near everyone! Eventually girl-power prevails and he's opened up with a machete. Some people just KNOW how to host a party.

Our kill count as follows:

Death by Drill

Death by Drill

Death by Drill

Death by Drill

Death by Drill

Death by Drill

Death by Drill

Death by Drill

Death by Drill

Death by Drill

Death by Machete

It's a short watch at 1 hour, 16 minutes! They couldn't even push it out to a more traditional 90 minutes but it's still longer than those stupid damn Evil Bong movies

Thursday: The drill has an upgrade...

Not as Pretty....

 Hell Night

     I remember this VHS jacket at my local rental store in the late '80s/early '90s and I've always been curious. It's got Linda Blair grasping the wrought iron bars, making a desperate attempt to flee the house in the background, only to be pulled back in by hands reaching from below while she screams in horror. Terrifying stuff, really...However, the movie is not so much terrifying as it is a great early '80s horror film. 

     It's pledge week and some college whose name is never mentioned. I figured it was either University State or State University. It's definitely one of those two. Anyhoo, pledges are dumped off at a spoooky house and all they have to do is survive the night. However, there is a really fugly guy wandering around the place choppin' heads, stabbin' with sharp rusty things, and strangling the shit out people that really didn't completely deserve it. For once, I don't hate each and every one of these college students. But as you know, rules are rules and they all have to die, mostly mid-coitally. Mr. Fugly, as I will refer to him, is the last remaining family member of a heartless murder suicide perpetrated by his Father, Mr. Fugly Sr. Apparently, he's working with an accomplice and manages to kill everyone but Linda Blair, so....mission accomplished? 

     Giant gaping plot-holes aside, this is a fun watch. Yes, it's dated. Everyone in this movie is now pushing 60s-70s or dead. And the F/X are hack, but still a nice horror film to watch if you're missing the '80s and need a nostalgia fix. And the best part is? No stupid pointless sequels. Yay!

Wednesday: Bewbs and power drills.....

Get used to Pink and Purple...

 Color Out Of Space (2019)

     Nick Cage lives with his movie family in the sticks raising alpaca's. One night, while trying to get some play with his wife, a loud bang disrupts mommy & daddy time. Mostly because a meteorite landed in the the front yard. It's big and purple and just plain pretty. By morning it's cooled off, and then disappears overnight. And that begins our long chain of events that are just plain weird. The ground water changes color, seemingly alien purple insects come out of the well, Little Billy (I don't know or care what his movie name is. He's the youngest of the family) starts talking to the well, electronic devices act haunted, ect... Long story short, everyone dies in the end. But it was so pretty when it happened! Seriously, if you like purple and pink, this film is your bag.

Creepy but pretty

NEVER crawl into a well for ANYTHING.

It's sooooo pretty!!!!

     This is very reminiscent of Annihilation staring Natalie Portman. Both give a story of alien meteorites that try to assimilate into the environment by changing it to suit it's will and both have a somewhat ambiguous ending. Color Out Of Space is loosely based on an H.P. Lovecraft story of the same title from 1927, so I guess we know who came first.

Oh, one last thing: Tommy Chong is also in this film playing a squatter that, you guessed it, smokes a lot of weed.

Tuesday: Ragan MacNeil vs. Matthew Star...

Because Tales From the Hood wasn't enough...

 Tales From The Crib: American Nightmares

     Our second anthology film begins with hackers being hacked by...um....a story telling Danny Trejo and Nichelle Nichols(?!?) Yeah, she had lines but I'm not sure if she even knew she was acting in a movie. Form the producers (or something like that) of Tales From The 'Hood, we have a selection of short stories that are....boring to say the least. Not even the kills are interesting. Please observe:

Death by sword in the anus

Death Zap Gun

Death by Robot

Death by Electrocution

Death by Torch to the Face

Death by Healing

Death by Demon.

     Total 'meh' vibe. I could go into detail of every story, but they're just boring and I don't even remember them. They seemed hastily written and very predictable. Tales of Halloween is a far better choice. See that instead.

Monday: Wiccans and Purple rocks from Space!...

Most doctors would diagnose it as schizophrenia...

 Ghost Squad 

     Rika has a problem. She sees ghosts, she has an abusive father, and she just broke up with her 'man-turd' of a boyfriend. However, one of the ghosts realize that she can see them and calls some friends to help her out when she's attacked by her former man-turd boyfriend at work. Because she became closer to death, the ghost friends help out by making him partially commit seppuku, filling a mug with his blood, and then making him drink it. At first, I was worried that this was going to be too cutesy-cutesy, and it is. It's like Sailor Moon had a child with Michael Meyers.

     Part of the reason the ghosts are helping out is because they can't ascend until revenge is complete. Lucky for everyone, this extends the story a little but it also is dragged out at the half way point. All we know for sure is that a yakuza group needs to be exterminated because they're responsible for most of the ghosts deaths. 

     With a comically over the top violent scene to start the movie, it lames out quickly. And just like that, the schtick is over and I'm bored. Even with the gratuitous cheesecake scene. Needless to say, a total let-down and it's time to move on to a horror movie with actual horror.

Sunday: Danny Trejo never says no....

In Name Only....

The Howling VI: Freaks    

     Really, I just wanted to phone this one in. 5 prior movies ranging from terrible to mediocre, hardly any of them cannon, F/X mostly cheap and dry....what was I supposed to feel? Fulfilled? Curiosity sated? Nope....just sleepy. How did this franchise survive this long? Sure, there's 2 more sequels, but who fucking cares?!? Just like the last 3, this is The Howling in name only.  Because of this, the franchise really has no identity and this is mostly why it fails. And this entry?....

    Let me just make this quick. British wanderer wanders into a small, dying town in USofA. He barters help for food/shelter, and a preacher abides and they fix up his church. Then some lame circus freak-show rolls into town and basically kidnaps our wandering Brit...because he's apparently a werewolf. Mean ol' Circus owner turns him into the main act and the show bombs. Then the local cop investigates and it's revealed that the circus owner is vampire? Right. So vampire kills the cop and mayor, and in turn,  werewolf boy turns him in to dust. The end.

     This is like one really long episode Friday The 13th: The Series. And there are parallels to that: boring, weak writing, has nothing to do with the original movie...sound familiar? 

 

     It's time to toss this one in the trash and get the better half of October rolling. I'm at the half way point and there's some cooler/dumber things on the way.

Saturday: 

If at first you don't succeed...

 ....just try 4 or 5 more times...

The Howling V: The Rebirth

     We start the film in ancient times because we are forced into thinking that we need deeper roots for a stupid series of werewolf movies. Some medieval jackasses slaughter a family and then add suicide to their homicide. All's fair, I guess. However, a baby starts crying as the impale themselves and they realize they failed. Fast forward to 1989, and a bunch of random wankers are invited to some castle. The guests include a tennis player, an actress, a bimbo, the Professor, a baker, a candlestick maker, and Dave.

     It takes about 27 minutes before the first body drops, but after that, it's pretty regular and becomes a typical cat & mouse stalking game. They were all brought to the castle because they're all decedents of the slaughtered...and I guess that family was wolf-people. It was all ruse by some secret order called The Martyrs to expose and kill the werewolf.  None of this really matters, however, because the werewolf wins and everyone is dreadfully boring. There's no cool actors, no great scenes...hell, the coolest kill was an accidental beheading....oh, that poor poor maid. This film was direct-to-video and it's a damn good thing. I can't imagine sitting in a theater watching all of these idiots walk around a badly lit castle while getting picked off one by one.

Friday: One more damn dog-people movie to go..

Do-over...

 The Howling IV, The Original Nightmare

     Let's call this a more faithful adaptation of the source material: books. Yes, those things with letters arranged in a formulaic manner that convey information provided you know how to decipher. The movies were based on a series of books, and this is basically a reboot. 

     Much like the first movie, our main protagonist heads to a remote town to dry out. Marie, one of our mains, is having visions of nuns and werewolves. Much of the story is the same, but there's several differences:

     There's no commune, just a half abandoned town

     There's no stalking serial killer

     Nobody is a TV anchor

     However, the biggest difference is this is WAY more boring than the first film. This boring-ass turd would be perfect for USA's Groovy Movies. You just sit there on a Saturday afternoon, watching this trash and napping half an hour in, only to wake up right at the climax and subsequent credit roll. Perfect timing!!!  I used to read a lot of horror novels when I was young. Only 1 of those books was a werewolf story. Turns out I like werewolf novels even less than werewolf movies. 

"SHUT UP!!!"

"...and this is what I think of your stupid book!!!"

Thursday: Nobody asks for the origin story of a turd....

When you just need a soft werewolf story....

 The Marsupials, The Howling III

Nothing in this movie look this good. NOTHING.

     Wow, where to start. This is a huge departure from the first 2 films. Jerboa is a poor country girl living in a family commune in a small Australian town called Flow (wolF). Her father is a incestual rapist and she's had enough so she runs away to Sydney. While in Sydney she meets a man that wants to put her in a movie...the surprising part, he DID in fact put her in a movie and it wasn't porn! At the film wrap party, camera flashes or strobing lights set off her transformation, so she runs away and is hit by a car. While in the hospital, we learn she's pregnant and has a bun in the oven...or rather a 'roo in the pouch. Turns out she's not really a canine, but a marsupial. But...wolves aren't marsupials so I have no idea what she is. They're all bipedal, live birth and nurture in a pouch, and wolf-out. So it's either Kangawolf or Wolfaroo. I'm going with Wolfaroo.

I skipped over this scene because it was just stupid. 

     In what appears at first to be unrelated, a ballerina senses a new mate and it turns out to be that bumpkin rapist dad of Jerboa's. Quickly she succumbs to the mating heat and wolfs-out during a ballet rehearsal. After some interrogation, her trail leads them to Flow and all the wolfaroo's are rounded up and examined while Jerboa and her new offspring and new baby-daddy wander the countryside while being hunted. This is where the film really slows down and examines semantics and fills in a lot of back story in relation to origin. Well, that's just fucking exciting. Jebus Hizzy Chrizzy, move on with it and do some damn wolfaroo stuff!

     Long story short, the hunting parties fail, rapist incest dad is killed by a bazooka, and the pack starts over in new land with a scientist hooking up with the wolfaroo ballerina. Does any of this constitute beastiality? Yes. Yes it does. In one of the longest epilogues I've ever witnessed, we learn that over a 20+ year period, the remaining wolfaroo's reintegrate into more society after being granted amnesty by, get this, the Pope! That's one hell of an endorsement. It's sort of a happily ever after ending till Jerboa wolfs-out at an awards ceremony.

This movie was dull, and slow moving. It was like 'werewolf-lite'. Feel free to skip it. I would rather have watched this instead:

Wednesday: Can we get back to bloody murders? Please?

So much hair....so gross....

 The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf

     At the start of the film, we catch up with Karen's corpse, recently suffering from a silver bullet infection. As with most funerals, family shows up. Her brother and close friend are in attendance and so is a werewolf hunter (wouldn't that make him a 'wherewolf' hunter?), played by an O.G. named Christopher Lee. Maybe you've heard of him? 

He blends in seamlessly in any situation.

     Anyhoo, he drops a bomb informing both of them that his sister was a werewolf, and being shot and killed on live TV was planned. Turns out she wasn't into the eating people and being hairy. After convincing them of his sisters newly acquired DNA, they pledge to help him hunt down every dog person they can. Now to me, that sounds like a murder spree! Quick, to the Balkins!!!

    Once in some sort of east European country, no doubt under a Soviet puppet government, we're introduced to the main baddie and newly re-incarnated Stirba. Played by Sybil Danning, she assumes control, starts barking orders and showing her boobs. She also has a 3-some, strictly for procreative purposes, I'm sure.

Since when do werewolves have hand-powers?

     What was to be murder spree turned into a rescue mission as one of the trio is kidnapped and held in a really cool catacomb cell, complete with walls made of skulls! In the end, Christopher Lee kills the werewolf lady while the two are embraced in...em...glowy stuff?

Too much glowy stuff for a proper werewolf movie

     Maybe not the best ending, but far from the worst. At least the theme was the same throughout the film. Oh and the money shot was the end credits: The faux punk band named Babel we're treated to at the beginning also ends the film accompanied by a montage of scenes we JUST saw and they put Sybil's boobs in every 3-5 seconds, over and over. That's a lot of boobs and I think I was being trolled. 

Tuesday: We're going down!...under......

Time for a marathon...

 The Howling 

     I've put this one off for years because I have to be honest....I don't really like werewolf movies. However, The Howling has a long list of entries and this is the year to hammer them out. If I can watch all of the Puppet Master movies, I can suffer through this....

     Poor Karen White is a news anchor with a problem: She has a stalker that also happens to be a serial killer. She confronts him in a police sting operation, but it went bad and the stalker is shot and killed (allegedly) . Actually, that's a good thing. Anyhoo, Karen instantly has amnesia and is sent to a mountain retreat to dry out with her husband. 

     The colony is filled with mostly rednecks and country folk and they all have their little eccentricities. But naturally, not all is as it seems. After a 'wolf' attack, Karen's husband becomes an werewolf and hooks up with the local  werewolf nymphomaniac for some dirty werewolf sexing. It's gross and oddly not doggie-style. Turns out, the entire colony is a refuge for werewolves. After realizing that her husband is doing dirty with someone else, things all start to fall apart and she calls her friend to come hang out. Little did she know this was a death sentence for her friend who is kill by, you guessed it, a werewolf. 

    As the climax starts creeping to it's peak, we find out that the stalker was a werewolf the whole time and is damn near invincible...even surviving acid to the face. However, the dead girls friend brought a gun with silver bullets and lays down the law. He also burns them alive in a barn. Not THAT invincible after all. As they bug out, she's bitten by another werewolf and I think we all know what that means.

    When Karen returns to her TV job, she is determined to alert the world of the existence of werewolves by wolfing out on live TV and then quickly shot by the very guy that helped her escape. I'm getting mixed signals from that guy....

Monday: More hairy dog people go woof....

There's ALWAYS a director's cut...

Directors Cut

     I'm not sure what to make of this. It's one part cops vs killer movie, one part mocumentary, one part parody. First of all, it's a movie, but it's voiced over and narrated by a disgruntled 'director'.  The director, as it turns out, isn't really the director, just a crowd funder. And obsessive stalking kind of crowd funder played by Penn Jillette (and yes, Teller makes an appearance and even speaks! Actually, he has a no-touch orgasm!) As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that he's disturbed and very much a stalker and kidnaps his obsession, Missy Pyle.

     True, there's some funny scenes, but it somehow glosses over the darkness that's hidden just under the surface of what became a decent 'watch once' movie. It really is reminiscent of an earlier film Penn & Teller did called Penn & Teller Get Killed. Neither is worth obsessing about, but kinda fun to watch.

Sunday: Things are going to get hairy....

Damn it...zombie strippers....

 Stripperland

     First, let me just clarify that this is a blatant rip-off of Zombieland and they even go so far as to note that in the first 10 minutes of the film. However, once you get over that hump?....it becomes a Troma film...but it's not made or produced by Troma...but Lloyd Kaufman is in it....this is all very confusing. It's just a damn zombie road trip film and it really goes off the rails at the 50 minute mark. Suddenly I'm just watching this crap-fest to get any sort of amusement I can out of it. I never really did...

     Does anyone really care about the cast? No, they're all a parody of the Zombieland cast. The stripper zombies? Is there a way it won't be considered sexist if I say the 'stripper cast' was pulled from some very low-rent clubs? Like the Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday shift? Quite frankly, I don't think some of those zombie strippers were strippers at all! I mean...who lies about being a stripper?!? Sure, Linnea Quigley shows up as Granbo, but I'm confused by Daniel Baldwin's appearance. It's like he forgot that 2003 came and went and he just...stayed there. Refusing to leave and evolve past his frosted tips.

Saturday: When Penn makes a movie, it's probably screwing with you....

Dad vibes and thigh meat...

 Parents

     Poor Michael thinks his creepy fucking parents are cannibals. He's right. They eat people. They steal cadavers from work and eat them. They ate the counselor he was sent to when he was acting strange because he was thinking his parents were eating people...which they were. Then they tried to make him eat her fleshy goodness when they cooked her up. They are not what you call a positive influence on good mental health.

"The mind is a terrible thing to taste....when you forget the proper sauce pairing"

     After a slow start and a slow middle, we're treated to one of the most anti-climatic ends to a film wherein he basically contributes to the death of his parents and burns there bodies in their house and is sent to his grandparents...who also might be cannibals. Eh...everyone has their kink.

I cannot possibly convey how creepy Randy Quaid is in this movie. I mean BEFORE he lost his mind.

     This was filmed in the late '80s and takes place in the late '50s...for some reason. There's a lot of period kitsch and for the life of me, I can't figure why. It's a strange movie and I'm glad I don't have to watch it ever again. 

Friday: Somehow, I let a Baldwin in this year....

....this doesn't have hippies in it.....

 Deadheads

     Really....I guess no matter what I do, I'm going to end up with at least 1 zombie in the list. Most are just...lame. Occasionally I find a good one and I guess that's why I keep putting them on the list. So maybe this one...?

     We first meet a very confused Mike, who sadly looks a hell of a lot like Subway Jared, escaping some sort of lab, not quite sure what happened. As he makes his way around, he starts to notice people that are clearly zombies and is clearly not cognizant that he is also a zombie. Eventually he meets Brent, his polar opposite. As Mike's memory starts to come back to him, he realizes he's been dead for 3 years and left behind a girlfriend that he was going to propose to and desperately wants to track her down.....can you smell the rotting carcass of a zombie buddy road trip!!!!

     Along the way, we find out  the outbreak was caused by a company and they're trying to clean up their mess...quietly and violently by sending a couple of half-whit over zealous henchmen that will have you routing for their death.

     I liked this a lot but it did fall flat half way through and became a predictable film. It's like they got bored while writing the screen play and phoned it in and the ending...probably too happy and sunshiny for me, but the outakes during the credits made up for it. Go ahead and watch this decent fun film...and remember....Dairy Cow

Thursday: Who the hell let Randy Quaid around children?!?!?.....