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Super Detention (2016)

⭐⭐⭐ 84min TV movie that tries to resemble Sky High

Recap

So there are these super kids who go to super school and end up in super detention. At the very same day there is this super hero coming to super school to pick his super successor. Only that he doesn’t feel like retiring, so he’s

The official slogan is It’s X-Men Meet The Breakfast Club, and that of course is a lot. The Uncanny X-Men are one of Stan Lee’s finest inventions, and in the 90s there has been a time when it was commercial suicide to publish a comic book without the letter X in the title. And The Breakfast Club sure was one of the 80s’ most iconic movies and even today is still THE teenage movie. So in one review someone said it was more like the TV movie version of Sky High, and that’s so much more like it. So if you are a super nerd who just has to watch everything super, things are a bit complicated. First thing is that you must lower your expectations. Forget about X-Men and The Breakfast Club, this movie is NOTHING like them, it’s not even like Sky High. Only after you stop expecting anything great you can start to enjoy the movie. I’m not even talking about the limited fights and special effects, one of my favorite superhero movies is The Specials, and that one has some really crappy FX near the end and a single fight scene that is much shorter than its dance scene. However, The Specials was written by James Gunn, and this one was not. So this one is basically working through a list of tropes and clichés, and only after you lowered your expectations you can start to try and enjoy the story and sympathize with the characters. So, this movie is barely okay, only slightly better than mediocre.

If however, you are not a super nerd eager to watch everything super, then it’s easy: just skip this movie unless you want a nice little TV movie without anything special to it.

Oh, and talking about The Specials: that one happens to have the best dance scene in a superhero movie ever. In the audio commentary they emphasize that it could have been so much better with more time and more money and actual dancers as extras. Yet this dance scene as it is is much better than the whole Super Detention movie: https://youtu.be/v-zK1TKajlo. The green alien by the way is played by Sean Gunn who currently works as Rocket Raccoon for the MCU.

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Johnny Cash In Saint Quentin (1969)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 60min One of the most legendary concerts ever.

Recap

One of the most legendary concerts ever happened when the original Man In Black went to prison. Of course you could say that everybody can play a concert in jail as a PR stunt. But who does? Johnny Cash, that’s who. You don’t even have to be into Country & Western because he rocked, and he has had an attitude.

Of course, concert videos were not quite the fashion back then, but at least they were smart enough to record a documentary and a live album. The video of course is the original TV show and playlist 2 the live album. Playlist 1 merges the high quality album audio with the TV footage video.

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The Little Shop Of Horrors (1960)

⭐⭐⭐ 72min Classic horror comedy directed by Roger Corman with an early appearance of Jack Nicholson

Recap

Seymour is the hapless employee of a flower shop who is nursing a beautiful plant that he calls Audrey Junior after the colleague he is simping for. The shop isn’t doing so well until Audrey Junior becomes its attraction. Trouble is that that she is a carnivorous and dominant plant, bullying Seymour into being her butcher.

This is one of those horror movies that use comedy to make up for their lack of skill, budget and effort. This is not bad in itself, many okay and even good movies do this, and as usual the comedy indeed improves the quality of this one. However I watched the 1986 remake first, which had been diligently crafted by the man who had put his hand in the colon of Luke Skywalker’s jedi instructor. This remake today is a classic of timeless elegance, one of the 100 best movies ever made, so in comparison it makes the original look old, not vintage old, but geriatric.

So apart from being remade by Frank Oz, this has only two things going for it:

There is a legend that Roger Corman made this to win a bet. He had claimed that he could make a movie within only two days, and indeed it was made within two days in the studio plus some nightly outdoor shooting.

Also, in this one there is a very early appearance of a ridiculously young Jack Nicholson.

So I must say that this movie is barely okay. Especially for its historical value it is quite fit for nerds, but it just really didn’t age well.

A good way to quickly compare both movies is to compare the dentist scenes of the original with Jack Nicholson (Bonus 1) and the remake with Steve Martin and Bill Murray (Bonus 2)

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Swamp Thing (1982)

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 91min Wes Craven’s adaptation of the DC superhero

Recap

Alec Holland works at a laboratory in the swamps and is bitten by a plant-based explosive that turns him into the Swamp Thing. He now must protect government agent Alice and gas station attendant Jude from Arcane, the villain who is after the the secret research results.

This one is shot as arather conventional action movie, filmed with moderate effort. Even though it’s about a swamp thing, there is no horror in it, the thing in fact is more of a (tragic) superhero, which makes sense since it’s property of DC. It is true that Wes Craven has made better movies with smaller budgets, but it’s untrue to say this campy little stinker is not a whole lot of fun to watch.

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Power Pack (1991)

⭐⭐ 26min Pilot for Marvel’s Power Pack show that never materialized.

Recap

The Power family comes to town. Unlike in the comic book, the parents are aware of their kids’ superpowers, so the father reminds the kids to keep their powers a secret. So Jack is really cautious when he helps his new friends to sneak into a dead magician’s house. However, he brings from this trip a magical amulet that the wizard wants back.

Well, I guess that this is good enough for children: there are four kids with superpowers and nice parents, there is a spooky abandoned house, there is a bit of haunted house horror, but not too much, and after 26min everything is alright again. For grown people however there is just not much there. It is no surprise that this pilot never lead into an actual series, and it’s not a pity, either. So here is your chance to watch a complete Marvel franchise in its entirety in only 26min.

Power Pack was created by Louise Simonson, premiered in 1984 and lasted for 62 issues, which makes it one of Marvel’s not so successful titles. Of course you cannot force comic nerds to like a series about brats, but I guess that Marvel would have liked to. The customers sure can never be too young to brand their brains with your products, just like Lego has Duplo or Camel has Camel Joe. Anyway, Power Pack occasionally came back with guest appearances and several miniseries. And only today I read that in 2017 Mickey Mouse has had plans to make Power Pack part of the MCU. I have no idea whether these plans are still an item, but I know that if Mickey can make a buck with them, then he will.

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Shock (1946)

⭐⭐⭐ 70min A woman in shock is sent to the madhouse of Vincent Price

Recap

So there is this woman who is in shock because she has witnessed a murder. She is sent to a madhouse where the murderer now is her shrink.

Now this one didn’t age well, and while it’s not bad ittoday is mostly for those who really are into old movies. For the rest of us the most interesting thing in it is that Vincent Price looked actually good before he grew a beard.

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Making Of (2007)

⭐⭐⭐ 63min Mockumentary about a bunch of deluded college boys and their ambitious movie project.

Recap

So there are these deluded college boys who want to make a movie. They don’t have skills or experience, they don’t have actual costumes or actual sets, but they have an artsy script and they even have somebody who follows them around to shoot a making of. Reality is not gentle with them, at one point, for the duration of a lunchbreak, the director even ditches the project.

Yes, this is a valid way to deal with the fact that you cannot make an actual movie: you just make fun of yourself. In The Claire Wizard Thesis they made a parody of a found footage films, and it was okay, a little lukewarm and cowardish maybe. In How Not To Make A Horror Film they had wasted all that they had without a result, and now they were trying to make the most of this, which was a legit approach (even though in the end it felt like they were just plugging their upcoming t&a exploitation flick).

In this mockumentary, however, they are (sometimes painfully) honest when they are making fun of themselves, and also these people are extremely skilled compared to most indie filmers. Small wonder that this one is so much better than all those indie abonimations that are made and marketed for profit. Seven years later the makers of this one went on to make one of my favorite indie movies, The Paranormals.

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Blessed Are The Children (2016)

⭐⭐ 98min Indie movie that introduces the abortion topic to the slasher genre

Recap

***Spoiler Warning. No wait, is it a spoiler when I say that Jason and Michael are the slashers in Friday The 13th and Halloween? ***

⭐⭐ 79min Aliens use Plan 9 to scare mankind. Written and directed by Ed Wood. With Tor Johnson and (in a way) Bela Lugosi.

Recap

So there are these sightings of flying saucers from outer space. As we find out, the aliens have been trying to warn mankind for months now, but to no avail. So the aliens try plan 9, which means that they raise zombies from their graves.

In the year 1980, the Medved Brothers published the book The Golden Turkey Awards to celebrate trash cinema. The most important trophy, The Worst Film Of All Time, was awarded to Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Ed Wood was awarded worst director. Oh how I wish that they had been right, but I have seen so many movies that were so much worse. Sure, the story is brainless, the acting is bad, and Wood himself didn’t even know just how unskilled he was. But maybe that is what makes him special. People like Bret Kelly or companies like Asylum are just brazen when they make trash movies for profit, while everybody seems to love Ed Wood for being the pure fool.

While this is far from being the worst movie ever, it sure is pretty bad, and it sure is fun to watch for those who love so-bad-that-it’s-good movies. And while it is bad I give it a mediocre rating including a bonus for being a historical document.

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Phantasm (1979)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 89min Classic teenie horror with flying spheres and Angus Scrimm

Recap

So there is this young orphan who lives with his adult brother, and when they bury his uncle, yes, the family seems not to be too lucky, he observes how the undertaker steals the whole coffin with the uncle inside.

Of course, the boy pays the funeral home a nightly visit, and he even encounters some Jawas straight from Tatooine. Yes, in a way this is a horror movie for young teenagers. The hero, Mike, is a youngster who rides a motorbike and drives really hot car and even plays with a big knife and guns. And when his brother Jody locks him in, he uses a pump gun round to macgyver a mini explosive. The undertaker, known as Tall Man, is an extremely corny boogeyman and was a highlight in actor Angus Scrimm’s otherwise not so overwhelming career, much like Freddy Krueger was for Robert Englund. There is a little gore in the movie, but it is a quite unreal scene involving a (by now legendary) flying metal ball, other scares are more appropriate for a younger audience, like having an insect in one’s 70s mane or a disappearing ice-cream vendor.

This one is not a masterpiece, at one point Jody’s friend Reggie has to tie up several loose plot threads in a half dozen lines of dialog. But yet, the movie was made with inspiration and diligence, and even though it is lowbudget, there are some very nice sets and special effects. The atmosphere in some scenes is quite dreamlike, and the plot even includes some kind of interdimensional space travel.

I think they sure made the most out of the budget, and I guess for 1979 the movie even was a little bit avantgarde. So while it was not an instant success it gained some well deserved popularity and became the first part of a small franchise.

Definitely recommended.

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Tourist Trap (1979)

Pleasant slasher about young tourists trapped with a bunch of mannequins. 90min imdb

Recap:

So there are these young people who are stuck in a tourist trap full of mannequins, and there is this man who likes to wear a mask that makes him look and feel like a doll, and this is the beginning of a wonderful slasher movie. Oh, and we learn very soon that he has telekinetic powers.

Yes, the budget is low and it shows. There are some major logic bugs. This is not considered one of the best slashers ever for a reason. However they make the most of their budget and their skills, this one is very decent and well worth a watch.

Sure, it borrows some ideas from films like Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but it is also interesting to see which movies it inspired. At least for me, that is. I read that this one is about mannequins, and I thought: well, that’s neat. A movie about scary dolls. This may be nice for starters, because I soon want to take a closer look at the Full Moon Extended Universe with all the Puppetmaster and doll stuff anyway. Well, guess what, this one is produced by Charles Band, this is the inofficial start of the Bandiverse.

Movie 90min

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Count Dracula’s Great Love (1973)

Young women at the mercy of Dracula. With boob, blood and Paul Naschy. 75min imdb

Recap:

So there are these young women who have a broken carriage wheel and thus have two stay in a castle where they find a book in which they read that there will always be a Dracula until he finds true love. Conveniently one girl falls in love with Dracula while the other girls are turned into vampires. Now it’s time to revive Dracula’s daughter, the countess. Eventually the girl has to decide whether she wants to become a vampire or not.

Now this may sound stupid, but only because it is. I guess the plan was to a) make a movie with an incredibly long and dull exposition, b) show a lot of boobs, blood and violence and c) eventually come up with a plot that makes sense. Well, two out of three ain’t bad, and this is not the first time I noticed that a mediterranean movie neglected the plot.

On the upside, this movie is not dumber than most current micro-budget movies, but it looks much better, and it has Paul Naschy in it, which is a good thing for the fans of Paul Naschy. But it by no means is a good movie. Mediocre I would say.

Movie 73min

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Marx Brothers 3: Monkey Business (1931)

The Marx Brothers as stoways on an ocean steamer. 77min imdb

Recap:

In this movie the Marx Brothers are stoways on an ocean steamer, always on the run from the ship’s crew and always chasing the girls. Then Zeppo and Groucho are hired as the henchmen of a criminal while Harpo and Chico become the bodyguards of the criminal’s designated victim. Eventually the four of them pretend to be Maurice Chevalier to immigrate into the USA, and then the criminal abducts Zeppo’s love interest.

Well, yes. In some of the best movies the plot is just the shortest path between two punchlines. And while working for MGM sure was a smart move careerwise, this old Paramount movie has more gags in it than several of the later films together. So what can I say? They just don’t make old movies like they used to, so if you haven’t seen it, watch it now. And if you know it already you will want to re-watch it soon anyway.

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The VelociPastor (2018)

He is on a mission from god. At least that’s what he says. 75min imdb

Recap:

Velocipastor is like the child of love of Bruce Banner and Frank Castle: after his parents are murdered, pastor Doug Jones goes to mourn in China where he is bitten by a radioactive artifact. From now on he HULKS into a Velocipastor who PUNISHES the evildoers. And that’s only the first 15 minutes of the movie. He kills the murderer of his parents in the confessional, a hooker that he has saved persuades him to become a freelance vigilante, his pastor friend wants him exorcised, a bunch of (chinese?) ninjas have an evil plan to drive people into the arms of the clergy, and Doug’s brother shows up.

I like to say that when you have neither the budget nor the skills to make an actual movie, you can still go for a silly comedy. Of course, many filmmakers do just that, and of course the results often are, well, a little underwhelming. Still I say that this is the right thing to do, because a failed movie helps nobody, while a substandard trash comedy can still be loved by stoners and/or nerds. This is why I was confident when I watched this movie, because how bad could it get?

Actually this one is very good! Yes, this one is cheap, literally. One minute into the movie they substitute the VFX of a car on fire with the words “VFX: Car on fire”, and that of course is a bold move. From this point it could go down quite rapidly, but it doesn’t. The movie keeps its level quite steadily, the filmmakers know what they’re doing, taking all these movie tropes over the top without ruining them. I am not going to praise this as the best movie ever, those who do this are obviously either stoners or hipsters, but full of postmodern irony in any case. What I do say however that this is a very good movie and definitely worth watching.

(What I would like to know, though: why is the hero called Doug Jones? In real life Doug Jones is an actor/mime who often works for Guillermo del Toro, like in the Hellboy movies or in El laberinto Del Fauno/Pan’s Labyrinth.)

(Even more important: according to imdb this is a 75min movie. So why is the YouTube edit both 70min AND age restricted?)

Short film 2011

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Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)

6 yankees are the guests of honor at a southerner celebration. Directed by godfather of gore Herschell Gordon Lewis. 83min imdb

Recap:

So there are these hillbillies who use fake detour signs to lure a half dozen yankees into their town to be the guests of honor at their celebration. They are celebrating the war crimes the yankees committed 100 years ago, and the guests of honor are urged to play games like “horse race” or “barrel roll”.

Herschell Gordon Lewis was the godfather of gore because he was the businessman who had the idea that a cheaply made color movie with loads of blood would make a decent profit. This makes his first gore movie Blood Feast a historical document, but not much of a good movie. This one, however, is different. It is a cheerful celebration of violence, there is not one slasher running around, earnestly doing his chores, these are 2000 maniacs gleefully enjoying refreshments, snacks and sadism. It is this glee that in some scenes makes the violence even harder to bear while in other scenes it provides a bit of comic relief. I am glad that this trope hasn’t been overdone by now and that this movie is still fresh and enjoyable.

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The Brood (1979)

Family drama and psychoplasmic therapy, directed by David Cronenberg 92min imdb

Recap:

As a child, Nola has been abused by her mother, and her father didn’t help. Now she is a patient of Dr Raglan who is a shrink at the “Somafree Institute Of Psychoplasmics”. Her husband Frank notices marks of abuse on their daughter Candice. He decides to keep her away from her mother, talks to Raglan, has Nola’s parents involved…

It’s not a spoiler to say that Raglan, while not exactly competent, is not completely inapt, either. He has taken all the psychobabble about giving your emotions Gestalt to the next level. Patient Mike gets a physiological rash when psychologically (or psychoplasmically) interacting wit Raglan, expatient Jona even has developed lymphoma, and Nola, well, let’s just say that she has ways to externalize her bad vibes.

So what we have here is a cheap and nasty family drama, a psycho therapy from Cronenberg World (and, I guess, a look at the shards of Cronenberg’s shattered marriage). People are not getting tired of pointing out that this is not Cronenberg’s best movie, but nobody denies that the ending will be a classic forever.

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Lo (2009)

A demon has taken Justin’s love away, and he wants her back. 80min imdb

Recap:

Justin’s girlfriend Alice has been abducted by a demon, so he prepares a magic circle, uses his book of spells and spills his blood to summon the demon Lo and command him to bring Alice back to him. Lo claims that he can’t and instead gets Justin involved in a conversation. He, supported by demon Jeez, convinces Justin that April really is a demon who has been returned to hell.

The first thing I noticed was the astonishingly good body make-up of Lo. Now this is a lowbudget flick with a promising start, I thought. It took me a while to realize what I was watching: few actors, hardly any action, only one location, the cheapest backdrops in the flashbacks, the overacting with the big gestures and the tons of dialogue: I was watching a bloody stage play. But then, why not? It was nice for a change, it was entertaining, it wasn’t even too predictable (I was one hour into the movie when I found out what the surprise ending would be).

Sure, it’s flawed in many ways: sometimes it’s too silly or too artsy or too pretentious, but I can live with that. I like it because it’s UNIQUE!

On IMDb this is listed as horror and comedy and fantasy and lovestory, but I feel uneasy about this: yes, it is fun, but it surely isn’t funny enough to call it a comedy. And horror, well, would you file Goethe’s (or in this case: Marlowe’s) Faust as horror?

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Faust (2000)

Love Of The Damned

Forget about Gretchen! This Faust sells his soul for a set of Wolverine claws and the silliest cape in the history of superhero capes. Directed by Brian Yuzna with Jeffrey Combs in a supporting role. 98min imdb

Recap:

John Jaspers sells his soul to M(ephisto) to take revenge for the murder of his girlfriend. Of course he later regrets it, so M buries him alive but is dumb enough to toss Jaspers’ Wolverine claws into the open grave. In hell, Jaspers uses these to slay a demon and returns to earth. He now is Faust, some kind of “deconstructed” superhero much like the Dark Knight or Spawn, wearing an extremely silly cape that resembles bat wings, probably because proper demon wings were too expensive.

M wants to use Jade de Kamp, a shrink and Faust’s love interest, in a ritual at Walpurgisnacht to summon a Homunkulus. However he is too full of himself to realize that with Faust he has created his nemesis.

Okay, so usually a Homunkulus is a small, manmade human, but in this one he is a boss monster posing as a cosmic horror, but why not? This movie is based on a comic book that as I hear was popular in the late 80s. It borrows a few ideas like Faust’s deal with the devil and turns them into, well yes, into what? This movie is chocolate for the eyes with nudity and sex and violence and blood and special effects. When you watch something like this you just lean back and enjoy. If you start asking for rhymes and reasons you are so totally done for. This movie is dumb. It’s intellectual value equals the nutritional value of a Big Mac, and it tastes similar: it’s not a thrilling sensation, not a beneficial experience, but it’s yummy. I don’t know about you, but I like Big Mac.

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Rubber’s Lover (1996)

In this japanese cyberpunk, two “scientists” use drugs and torture for “scientific” reasons. 91min imdb

Recap:

So there are two scientists (one mad, one evil) and a depraved nurse who use a mix of drugs and torture to either give their victims psychic powers or kill them. Because of their incompetence their funder sends his assistant to tell them that they’re fired. So the scientists go all in and drug and torture both their last surviving human guinea pig and the assistant. Trouble is that they now succeed and can not stand up to the powers that they unleashed.

Well, since japanese cyberpunk seems to be mostly about body horror and fear of technology, shot in b&w and with an artsy attitude, I shall say that this movie is pretty well done. It is very impressive and a morbid fun to watch. Much unlike the first two movies of this kind that I watched, this time I was quite able to follow the plot. I don’t know if others will say that this means that the movie is not artsy enough, but speaking strictly for me, I very much like to understand the story. However this movie does not have theoverwhelming look that Tetsuo has, so I guess I recommend to watch this one first for the story and then Tetsuo for the visuals.

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Nick Fury:Agent Of SHIELD (1998)

The Organization With A Cool Acronym reactivates agent David Hasselhoff because they need his cool oneliners in their fight against HYDRA. 120min(?) imdb

Recap:

Andrea “Viper” von Strucker steals the shock frosted body of her father Wolfgang and recreates the Totenkopf or Death Head Virus to blackmail the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate (since 1991,formerly known as Strategic Headquarters, International Espionage and Law-enforcement Division, currently known as Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division). Also she gives Nicholas Fury the kiss of death using a frogtoxine which is a quite supervillainous thing to do, because not only does Fury not actually die for 48 hours, but since the froxine obviously was genetically altered with her DNA to make her immune, he now is also quite motivated to take a sample of her blood.

HYDRA is not only one of the few terrorist organizations that call themselves “terrorist”, it is also very dangerous because for each head that you cut off, it grows a new buttock. So to fight it you need an extremely tough, old fashioned agent, one who solves technical difficulties by shooting a round into the control panels. Have you seen what it looks like when Mickey Mouse is trying to make a superhero movie? I guess that some of his movies are quite decent, but looking at Black Panther or Fantastic Four #3 (2015) I’d say that Mickey should leave his paws off Marvel and stick to my childhood hero Phantomias (aka Paperinik, created 1969 in Italy as a Disney original). This movie is fun. Yes, it’s cheap and it’s cheesy, but I’m cool with that because I just love superheroes. They are just like pizza: they come in all styles and sizes and i never want them without extra cheese.

Interesting is the choice of actor for this one: if you are used to Samuel L. Jackson playing the role you will hardly recognize Fury in this one: much like in the comic book and much unlike Jackson, this one smokes! Cigars! In the elevator of the Helicarrier! And much unlike Jackson this one can be replaced with a LMD or Life Model Decoy. So when they had to hire an actor that could be replaced with a robot with a rubber mask, they chose David Hasselhoff. You may not have heard of him, but in the 80s and early 90s of the last century he was well known as a swimsuit model who was dumber than his car. Does it work? Well, what do I know! Nick Fury has never been my favorite comic book hero, and except for him and Wolfgang von Strucker I recognized none of the characters in this movie. But I can very well imagine that dyed in the wool fans were upset by this corny, exaggerated Fury spitting the oneliners. In my opinion however Hasselhoff nails the trope of the hard-boiled spy BECAUSE he delivers such an over the top parody. So while I never was a fan of Baywatch or Knight Rider, the Hoff has earned my sympathy with this one, and I shall never hassle him again.

(By the way, most sources including imdb say this is 120min long. However, one source says 90min, and the 90min version I watched did not look like a butchered version at all. What would they edit out anyway? This being a TV movie, there never was any sex or violence that they could censor.)

The Last House On Dead End Street (1973)

A former prison inmate hates society, and his plot for revenge includes making a horror movie. 78min imdb

Recap:

Terry Hawkins is a small time crook who has just spent a year in jail. He blames hates the world instead of himself and is longing for revenge. He has experience with stag films and has connections to the pornography scene which has the problem that everything has been shown and seen already. Now he gathers a crew and makes himself a name by shooting a movie in which he chokes a man. Then he and his crew gather a group of designated victims.

The Cuckoo Clocks Of Hell was a movie of about 180min that was shown in 1973 on the Cannes and Berlin festivals and for a short time in some american cinemas. However an actress sued producer/writer/director/actor Roger Watkins because of her nude scenes. A 78min butchered version was released as Fun House in 1977 and as The Last House On Dead End Street in 1979. The original version however remained lost and became the center of all kinds of legends.

But we still can watch the butchered version, and that is an intense and dark and sometimes even surreal experience. There is nothing normal in it, just hatred and violence. It is a movie about movie making that can be watched on a meta level. Also, it is a porn that replaces the act of reproduction with violence, so it’s a good thing that google/youtube is an american company, because violence is not much of a problem for americans, so we can watch it there because Terry Hawkins is just a harmless murderer instead of an evil pornographer.

This movie is definitely very interesting to watch. It’s said that it had a budget of $3000, but the director claims that he had spent 2200 of it on amphetamines. There are not many nobudget movies as impressive as this one. Sure it doesn’t leave a nice impression, but as a disturbing movie it has really passed the test of time. Even though it’s just a butchered movie I say it’s very, very good.

Movie 77min

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The House On Cuckoo Lane (2014)

The hunt for a mysterious video destroys the life of a horror nerd. 82min imdb

Recap:

So there is this dude with a huge collection of horror VHSs and DVDs, and since he has a small bedroom in a big house we assume that he lives with his parents. Having seen about everything, he now wants to watch The House On Cuckoo Lane, a movie that may well be extremely bad, but who cares since it is extremely rare. He talks to a lot of people to get a copy, but that’s just runtime padding because it’s a dream that leads him to a copy hidden in an abandoned farmhouse. From now on on he is addicted to this movie, his life goes down the drain and his girlfriend leaves him. So he returns to the Hawk, one of the video dealers who did not sell him a copy.

The movie looks promising until you take a closer look. The hunt for an obscure video sounds interesting, just as a movie which is so disturbing that it takes control of your mind. Oh, and there are people with animal masks in it. I like that.

I think that this could have become a dirty, disturbing trip into the depths of madness and addiction, even with its low budget. However the director/star/coauthor of the movie refuses to go to where it hurts. It may be a lack of either inspiration or dedication, but it’s probably both.

The best thing I can say about this is that it made me want to watch The Last House On Dead End Street (1973) which is the 78min edit of The Cuckoo Clocks Of Hell, an obscure 180min horror movie that may well be extremely bad, but it was shown on one festival and then never released, so of course everybody wants to watch it.

In Muerto County there is an especially vile case of grave robbery, so the siblings Sally and Franklin go there to look after their grandfather’s grave, along with three friends. On their way back they decide to stop the grandfather’s house, and Pam and Kirk want to swim.

In the past I have only watched a family friendly edit of this. Now for the first time I saw the full 83min and I must say that I am most impressed. This is one of best horror movies ever. There is almost no runtime padding except for some dialog among the main characters which really helps no one. The rest of the movie strictly serves the story, with the parts summing up to a whole so perfectly as they usually don’t, especially not in slasher movies. And Hooper himself, surely not the worst in the industry, never managed to do something quite like this ever again. Which of course is cool. With this one masterpiece he is ahead of most writers and directors, including many blockbuster makers.

Reminder

In the comment section they say that this doesn’t work in USA and Canada, so in case of doubt please pick a german server for your VPN.

Movie 83min

Trailer

and then some extra footage

Not Hooper’s best work, but the song is a timeless classic.

Rabid (1977)

Movie 91min

Trailer

On Cronenberg World, vampirism is a disease much like the rabies. 91min imdb

Recap:

Rose has a motorcycle accident and is picked up by the ambulance of the nearest hospital, which happens to be an institute for plastic surgery where she is given some kind of stem cell treatment. You can imagine that stem cells were rather experimental back in 1977, so from now on she can no longer digest conventional food. Instead she starts hugging people to death, sucking their blood with a proboscis that she keeps in an additional vagina hidden in her armpit. But you know what mosquitoes are like, they spread diseases, in this case: the Vampirabies which turn people into rabid bloodbingers. This disease is quite deadly, especially when you shoot the infected as part of the containment strategy (the other part is handing out vaccination certificates). I would like to file this as a holiday movie because when fighting this epidemic, shooting Santa is just a collateral damage (but then I won’t because only one Santa slayed just isn’t enough).

I guess it’s quite obvious that I like this movie, and why not? People say that this is far from being one of Cronenberg’s better movies, and I don’t disagree. The narrative is a bit choppy, it feels a bit as if they have had a script for a much longer movie and then removed every scene that wasn’t indispensable. Well whatever. I liked it. It is a good movie, it is well done and contains a lot of good ideas. I sure would love to re-watch Videodrome and watch those other Cronenberg movies which are considered better, but there’s nothing wrong (and much right) with this movie.

Death Powder (1986)

Movie 63min

Movie 60min subtitled

No trailer

Surreal japanese cyberpunk 63min imdb

Recap:

A man and a woman enter an old factory. Inside they meet a man who attacks them and a woman that emits Death Powder, which seems to be a hallucinogen, because things now get pretty trippy. After that a man claims that the Mu are only 20km away. Three people claim that they want to deliver a parcel, but they can’t be regular mail men because they remove a lock to get inside, but the inside of the building has transmogrified into a monster.

Well, obviously I didn’t quite understand the plot. It seemed to be about things like life and death or mind and body or heaven and hell, who knows. But from all that I read this is the birth of japanese cyberpunk and thus about fear of technology. Well, why not. What I am not gonna do: I am not going to spend endless hours of reading theories and explanations trying to understand an 1h movie. I am not going to call this a turd just because I don’t understand it. And I am not going to glorify it as high end art just because I don’t understand it. This is arthouse alright, but unlike conventional arthouse this isn’t dumb and boring and pretentious. It looks cool and is impressive and, yes, it’s surreal. Surrealism was good enough for Bunuel, and everybody loved Bunuel, including me. And I guess I like this even better because it looks better, dirtier, more stylish.

So instead of judging this movie I just say I’m glad that I watched it, because it was something unseen. Also, I eventually will watch more of the same, because this is just the first of japanese cyberpunk. They other movies may be just rip-offs or maybe they will evolve the genre, or whatever. Maybe some of them will even tell a story that I can actually follow.

How Not To Make A Horror Film (2015)

Docu 60min

Trailer

Mathew J. Wilkinson’s documentary about the failure that his first feature film was. 61min imdb

Recap:

Now this is one promising title, isn’t it? I expected an hour of footage from abysmal movies, making fun of them, explaining why they don’t work and maybe how they could be done be better.

However, what we get is a rather sad film about a man who goes to the desert with A$ 30k, tries to shoot a movie, loses his lead actor, has both makeup girls involved in a car crash and spends a total of not 30k but 57k to finally come home with film footage that indeed in a way resembles the movie that he wanted to make. Too bad though that the camera did not react well to the weather, and ruined much of the film stock.

At this point of the docu, the lesson that I had learned was: when you don’t got the knowledge nor the experience nor the funding, then you better don’t make a feature film, especially not in the outbacks. What’s wrong with shooting in your neighborhood? What’s wrong with making short films? Sure, few people watch short films, and yet they are shown on festivals, so they can bring you not only experience but also reputation. And after showing them on festivals you can upload them on YouTube where you reach all the people who actually watch short films. Also I will never forget just how much Following (1998) has impressed me. It’s not a great movie, not at all, but it works. It was done without a budget, carefully scripted around the locations and props they had access to, and in the end they had a movie that really worked and didn’t even look cheap. Because they knew what they were doing. And that’s why Christopher Nolan is doing big budget stuff today.

Mathew J. Wilkinson, however, was positively destroyed and in debt after his first attempt as a movie maker. And then there is this plot twist: Wilkinson keeps saying things like that he’d rather be a failure at what he loves than a success at what he hates, the success of indie film makers is not money, it’s the next gig, and the film is the filmmaker’s baby that he wants to show to the world, no matter how many people will call this baby ugly. Which proves that Wilkinson is a clever man indeed, because now we all sympathize with him, and we are eager to watch The Nullarbor Nymph (2012) which he shills as his first actually published movie… Which doesn’t even seem to be true, because there’s also Don’t Show Mother (2010),but that’s about domestic violence and probably too depressing to fit the narrative, while everybody is ready to watch a T&A exploitation flick to show some sympathy for him (well, I am anyway).

All in all it was an interesting look into the world of independent film making, and it makes reviewing indie flicks even harder. I guess I have mentioned once or twice my admiration for people who make movies because of their love for the cinema and not for the money. Also there are quite a few nobudget flicks that I watched but not reviewed because I admired the filmmakers but disliked their films. I will have to learn how to emphasize the good things about indie films without lying about the bad aspects.

Horror House (2012)

Recap:

Since he no longer produces movies, Lloyd Kaufman is a real estate agent now, and he tries to sell the Horror House to you by telling five stories that have happened there. Of course, being a former movie producer does not automatically qualify you for a movie cast, but I did like his performance. It may well be that they were very careful about not asking too much of him, but I still say that he’s the highlight of the movie. And when I say that Kaufman is the highlight of a movie, maybe you get a hunch that this one is not so super special.

Each of the five stories starts either more or less interesting, some build up a bit of suspense and some don’t, but none of them really convinces in the end. By the way: the most predictable of the endings includes a practical effect that was quite decent. And that’s about it. No violence, no gore, no nudity and few special effects. Of course a movie can be great without all of these, but this one isn’t. Not that it’s bad, it’s just the most average movie I can think of right now. No, wait, that’s not strong enough. Let me try this: it’s the averagest movie ever. Or how about this one: this is the Mount Average of movies. imdb

Sleepaway Camp 2 (1988)

Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers

Careless fun summer slasher. 80min imdb

Movie 80min

Trailer

Recap:

The movie starts with some campers telling horror stories. We get a recap of part one, plus we are told that the slasher a) has spent some years at the madhouse and b) has undergone plastic surgery and c) has been set free recently. Then we are shown that the slasher d) is working at this camp as a counselor and e) continues slashing.

So they don’t waste time and get the movie going right away. What follows is routine slashing, and it’s performed quite casually. One might say that slashing is more enjoyable when the slasher does his job with earnest dedication, but this more tongue-in-cheek approach works, in my opinion, quite well, too. The murders themselves are partly routine stuff, but mostly fun and original, and there is a decent amount of gratuitous nudity and sex. So as long as you don’t ask how the victims’ disappearances could be covered up with lies without someone actually missing them for such a long time, you have a very decent fun slasher. By no means it’s special, but it very okay and watchable.

Killer Condom (1996)

They wait until you wear them, and then they BITE! By Ralf König (co-author and original graphic novel), special effects Jörg Buttgereit, creative consultant HR Giger

Movie 107min with subtitles age restricted

Trailer

Recap:

At the Hotel Quickie several men have their snorkels bitten off. When detective Luigi Mackeroni “investigates” the crime scene with the handsome rent boy Billy, the hard-boiled cop loses one hard-boiled egg to a Killer Condom. Of course, nobody believes him, until he and his stalker Bob or Babette manage to inflate and burst the nasty little bugger. But then it goes to show that that there is not just one Killer Condom, there are more, so many more.

Ralf König used to be one of germany’s biggest creators of comic books. Even though he and his comics were (are) gay as ten flamingos, everybody, no matter how straight we were, had to read them. After all, isn’t a comic book about gay sex not so much hotter than no comic book about sex at all? His graphic novel Der Bewegte Mann even became a smash hit in german movie theaters (international title Maybe… Maybe Not), starring some of germany’s best and/or most popular actors. Of course, Der Bewegte Mann had a woman and a straight man it, it was an extremely conventional romcom with a whole lot of gay comic relief going on in the background, so it was just right for an extremely conventional audience. But with Ralf König now officially being a cash cow, the time was right to bring König’s opus magnum to the big screen: Das Kondom Des Grauens. The cast consists of solid TV actors and TV comedians, for the special effects they got Jörg Buttgereit, notorious creator of independent movies, and they even hired HR Giger, whose work did a whole lot for Alien and Species, but of course not for this one. I guess they never really had the budget and just wanted to brag with his name.

The movie was a flop, and unsurprisingly so: it is so totally not Der Bewegte Mann, it is all gay, tasteless, trashy, grim and maybe even a little gross. It is a trash movie. How many trash movies have ever been hits at the box office? This one is made for people who kindly ignore the shortcomings of a movie if only we get to see something that’s really good and funny.

By the way: before rewatching this on YouTube I read a review that compared Mackeroni to Phil Collins. Of course I cannot unsee that, and I think it adds an extra dose of fun to the movie.

Nosferatu In Venice (1988)

Italian attempt to cash in on Nosferatu The Vampyre (1979),starring Donald Pleasance, Christopher Plummer, Klaus Kinski and Venice. 97min imdb

Movie 93min

Trailer (German)

Recap:

So there is Donald Pleasance, looking a little lost when worrying about somebody else than Michael Myers. He’s basically a catholic priest, very catholic, drinking the blood of Christ (wine) and eating his body (sammich) while the adults are discussing the important stuff. Then there is Christopher Plummer as the ghostbuster. He vanhelsings across Venice where Nosferatu last was seen. Plummer is always good, especially when he doesn’t sing Edelweiß, and yet he makes me feel the void that Peter Cushing has left behind. Then there is Kinski with a Johnny Winter wig (that’s what you get for not shaving your head, I guess). Most of the time he is just standing there, being himself, getting the chicks. Oh, and then of course there is the star of the movie, Venice, also just standing there and being herself, being just as worn down and ugly as Kinski, but at the same time even more beautiful and enchanting than him.

The 1979 Nosferatu by Kinski and Herzog was such a success that it’s a small surprise that the Italians wanted a piece of the cake. What’s surprising however is how slow this movie is, and not slow in a let’s-pad-the-runtime-with-redundant-dialogue way, it’s more like a we-paid-for-Venice-now-let’s-make-the-most-of-it way. Maybe it’s just because that when they had spent the budget they were far from having finished the script, so they just had to make the most of what they had. So of course the movie was a quirky little flop. But I’m cool with that. I have no idea what I have missed with all that stuff that never was shot. I can only judge what I was actually shown, and that sure was good enough for me. The exterior shots were made in Venice, so you will hardly ever see a movie with more chocolate for the eyes. There’s Kinski in it, and even when he doesn’t even try to deliver a decent performance he is still Kinski, dominating the screen (except for a few occasions when his co-star Venice steals the scene). So, yes, the movie is trash, and it’s stylish, and I like it!

Lethal Nightmare (1991)

No budget Super8 movie by the Polonia Brothers about three young men and their hallucinations. 63min imdb

Movie ca 63min

Trailer

Recap:

So there are three young adults home alone, and they start having nightmares and hallucinations, and right at the beginning the cat goes missing,so these nightmares in a way may well be real.

Yeah, and that’s about all, storywise. The acting is terrible. The sound is, well, it’s a good thing that they re-recorded the sound, but still the no-talent voice acting adds to the no-talent acting. Speaking strictly for me: occasionally the movie becomes a bit eerie because I just cannot predict where the nightmares are heading, and in these precious and rare moments the filming on Super8 actually contributes a bit of surrealism. But all in all it’s an ultra cheap and ungifted amaturd. It must have been so much fun to make it, and it was neither the first nor the last release of the Polonia Brothers (who make the Shaw Brothers look like the Warner Brothers). However, people who actually pay for this will most certainly want their money back… unless of course they are raiders of hidden or lost treasures. For me it is okay to watch this kind of stuff, off the mainstream, made for fun and not for money, but to be honest: this is not a good movie, really not. If you don’t feel some love for nerdy outsider stuff you are just going to hate it.

Chokeslam (2016)

At high school he was a loser and totally messed it up when he wanted to get out of his crush’s friend zone. Today she is a pro wrestler, and he is still a loser. With Mick Foley in a supporting role. 102min imdb

Movie 102min

Trailer

Recap

The movie starts with a delicatessen holdup, and Curtis, the guy behind the counter, treats the robber just like a customer, even though he recognizes his old highschool bully Luke. Then there is Sheena, Curtis’ old highschool crush who ditched him when he really, totally, unbelievably and unbearably messed up. She has become a prowrestling badass, but now that she’s coming back for the 10 year highschool reunion she is not doing too great careerwise.

So looking at the first few minutes this one looks like one of the best and most underrated comedies ever. Pity that that they can’t keep up the quality and it looks like they didn’t even want to. There are so many interesting supporting characters, each of them deserving more screen time and character development, and yet they decided to make a romcom. However it still is a very good movie, so much better than every romcom except of course Shaun Of The Dead.

A few words on the casting. The cast includes Harry (son of Davey Boy) Smith and God. Yes, Mick Foley is God. Period. Also, they had Chelsea Green, a pro wrestler, and you know that you can’t become a pro wrestler without being an at least decent actor. So I wonder why Sheena is played by an actress who obviously had some wrestling tutorials and then had to leave the actual chokeslamming to a stunt woman. Dumb with a capital d.

Mars Men (1976)

A Thai terracotta superhero and a Japanese transformer Cessna team up against evil Martians. 82min. imdb

Movie 80min

Trailer (French)

Recap:

So there are these Martians who need a magic stone to conquer the universe. For a few minutes we see Martian Queen and Martian King wreck a city in Thailand searching for the stone, but most of the first half is just exposition and yadda yadda. In the second half, however, we have Jumborg Ace, who is a Cessna that transforms into a Japanese superhero and Hanumanji who is basically a Thai terracotta superhero. Of course, when superheroes meet, the international code of conduct requires that they battle each other first, but eventually they team up against the Martians.

Now this is what I call a superhero movie! I think that many people who make superhero movies should watch this, especially Micky Mouse who recently purchased Marvel and now has no idea what to do with it. The Japanese always were aware that superheroes primarily are for children (and, of course, secondarily for nerds) and this movie proves that the Thai know it too.

What bothers me, though: what became of the humans that were abducted to be ritually crucified? Do you remember when the Green Lanterns built a yellow lantern, because, well, Hal Jordan didn’t need a yellow lantern to kick this supervillain into the sun, but they left it in anyway because it looked cool. Same here: the crucified people looked quite swell in front of the fiery background, but nobody ever cared to save them. At least not in the version that I watched. But I’m not complaining. I take what I can get, and this version even is dubbed… sort of. I hope that this is an inofficial fan dub because a professional dub just shouldn’t sound like this. One of the children at the beginning of the movie sounds a lot like Cartman. And the translator obviously was under the influence at least part of the time. “Mine is longer than yours” is my personal highlight of the movie, but it’s just one of many.

All in all this is not the best superhero movie ever, but it is very, very good.

The Hideous Sun Demon (1958)

Old-fashioned lowbudget monster action about a guy who turns into a lizard man when exposed to sunlight. 74min imdb

Movie 74min

Trailer

Recap:

So there is this scientist who is bitten by a new radioactive isotope. From now on the sunlight temporarily reevolves him into an incredible and green lizard man. Thus he avoids the sunlight as good as he can but turns out to be quite incompetent. He kills a mobster in self defense, and what’s worse: while on the run from the police he hits a person with his car, a person who is a copper, so the homicidal monster is hunted down by coppers hungry for revenge.

What I think is interesting about this movie: four years later, in 1962, another scientist was bitten by a radioactive isotope, and from then on anger was the catalyst that temporarily turned him into an incredible and green hulk. So I like to imagine that Stan Lee has watched this movie before he invented the Incredible Hulk. This, of course, is not really probable since the Hulk was all grey in the first issues until a coloring error looked even better. Yet I cherish the thought.

Apart from that, the movie is, well, okay. I like monster horror, I like vintage movies, and if you like the same this is just right for your regular fix.

Tombs Of The Blind Dead (1972)

Satanist temple knights who were excommunicated and whose eyes were eaten by the birds rely on their ears when zombieing around. 101min imdb

Movie 100min age restricted

Movie family fun edit ca. 93min

Trailer

Recap:

So there is this love triangle: Virginia wants Roger, but Roger is after Bella, so Virginia jumps off the train and wants to sleep in the old abandoned abbey. At this point we’re almost half an hour into the movie and so far absolutely nothing has happened. But then, while reading a book, at timestamp 27:50, she flips to the last page to see how the story ends, and you know know that in catholic horror movies no sin goes unpunished. So the graves open up and undead satanist templers emerge, complete with live and healthy horses. The next day, the police asks Roger and Bella for an identification of Virginia’s body, but the attendant at the morgue has had a clown for breakfast and, trying to be funny, presents the wrong corpse. So Virginia later has to rise from the dead and kill him.

All in all this movie is unnecessarily long, and the amount of gore is unnecessarily small, but it has its moments and these temple knights are extremely cool, and the last plot twist is Fun with a capital f. So I say yes to the blind dead. I like it, it is a good movie and it doesn’t even bother me when the dialogue permanently switches between English and Portuguese (or is it Spanish?). I like to believe that the movie was mutilated for the international release and that this is a restored version.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Foster siblings Angela and Ricky go to summer camp. And summer camp just wouldn’t be the same without some decent slasher shenanigans. 84min imdb

Movie 84min

Trailer

Recap

So the movie starts with a freak motorboat accident, killing a family except for one child, which now is sent to grow up at the aunt’s place.

Years later, cousins and now foster siblings Angela and Ricky go to summer camp. There, people who interact with Angela have not much of a life expectancy. The first victim indeed is a pedo rapist, but then the reasons for the killings become more and more arbitrary.

In the end there is a plot twist, maybe to explain why the killer is insane and/or maybe to gross out the audience and/or to add a detail to make this movie stand out, to make it “different” and “special”. To me, this twist seemed rather forced and there is nothing really “special” about this movie. But it’s really a well done and above average slasher that deserved its success both when it comes to the profit it made and to the sequels which I will sure give a try.

Gatlin, Nebraska, is a God-fearing, all American smalltown, so when the young local prophet Isaac commands the murder of all adults, the kids of course obey. He speaks the words of God after all. In the beginning of the movie there is this young apostate who is trying to run away, but it’s really mostly about the adult couple that is stranded there.

I guess the horror of this movie originally came from the children, lost in their blood frenzy. And that’s not eve wrong, creepy children are an important movie trope for good reasons, and this movie really delivers. However, I could not fully immerse into this movie the way I was supposed to. I was just too distracted by the recent reality that has a whole army of adult Isaacs spreading lies and hatred in the name of the lord. Of course, reality often copies art, and you cannot really blame
a 1984 movie for not being as horrible as the 2021 reality. Maybe one can see this movie as a time capsule from different, more innocent days long gone.

Of course the Stephen King fans used to complain about how it’s not close enough to the original short story, and that may even be true. However, they also used to complain about The Shining, and this movie is undisputed today. Children Of The Corn may be not as good as The Shining, but it is good, maybe even very good.

Santo Contra Los Zombies (1962)

Santo battles an evil scientist and his zombie henchmen. With small parts played by Black Shadow and Gory Guerrero (father of Eddie). 85min imdb

Movie 80min with captions

Recap:

So at first there is this alien crash landing on earth, but we don’t see its face because it wears an incredibly cheap halloween mask. Then there is some kind of a Québec James stealing an alien gazonga from a tribe of, well, I guess they are supposed to be Amazonas Amazons, or something like that. A scientist extracts a substance called KTNT from the gazonga and injects it into a plush gorilla who escapes and makes friends with two annoying brats, until he transmogrifies into a skyskrapersized man in a Halloween gorilla costume.

Well, when I found this movie I expected a new but old fashioned Kaiju movie, probably with a man in a gorilla suit. A few minutes into the movie I realized that it was a comedy, and I thought “good thing, too. Old-fashioned Kaiju movies are notorious for being unvoluntarily funny, so you may just as well be deliberately funny. And if you keep on going all the way over the top all the time then maybe nobody will notice that you are not skilled movie makers.”

Boy, was I wrong! Sure they went all over the top all of the time, but it just was more cringy than funny. Now, considering that this movie is so overwhelmingly bad and most it consists of stock footage and green screen action and considering that the actors playing the annoying brats share the director’s last name and considering when the movie was produced I really thought that this was one of the sweetest and dandiest things a father could do to keep his family busy while in quarantine, and I wondered how this ever got a proper release and, given the miniscule budget, whether there even was a chance that this labor of love could make a profit of a Canadian Dollar or two, which would be quite deserved.

What people want: the artist Dexter wants that very special escort lady, the cultist wants the very same escort lady for a ritual to bring Cthulhu to earth, and the professor wants Dexter to forge a nameless tome (the Necronomicon?) to prevent the ritual from working.

So much for the plot. The first review I read was quite salty, claiming that the movie was not true to the spirit of Lovecraft. This is true in so far that it doesn’t show the undepictable, it doesn’t give you a glimpse of the sheer size and emptiness of space and the futility of human existence, it doesn’t even show things so beyond the capacity of the human brain that the beholder will inevitably go insane (good thing, too).

Instead, it’s a parody, it’s loud and fast and trashy. However, this parody was clearly made by people who have read and love their Lovecraft. It wasn’t made with much of a budget and it wasn’t made by the most skilled movie makers, but it was made with diligence and with so much love for the spoofed that I even call it a hommage. Just look at the details: two important characters in this movie are Erica Zann (a musician) and Richard “Rick the dick” Pickman, the condom brand is “Deep Ones”, the febreeze is “Cool Air” and the viagra is “Celephais”.

This is a perfect example for a very good movie. It may not be great, but it’s so much better than just good. What bothers me is that the version I watched is shorter than the official length according to imdb. It may very well be that some of the funnier and/or grosser takes were edited. That would be a shame. But even this version is very good.

The Incredibly Strange Creatures (1964)

Adventures of Power (2008)

Underdog comedy about air drumming as a metaphor for life. With a guest appearance by Neil Peart (1952-2020) as himself. 89min imdb

For starters:

For laughs:

Movie, 89min (VPN:USA)

Trailer

Recap:

On the day they buried his mother, Power had a date with his fate: he turned on the radio, and they were playing Tom Sawyer.

Roughly 20 years later he is a hapless air drummer, and moments before the important strike in the copper mine starts, he loses his job, disappointing his father again. Now that nothing holds him back anymore, he goes to Mexico and competes with the toughest of illegal underground air drummers. Since he is an autodidact, he has never seen anybody anybody play air drum before (very much like Jeff Healey never saw anyone play the guitar), so he doesn’t know about the importance of the stool, and yet he manages manages to stand his ground, drawing the attention of Carlos who leads the best air drum group of New Jersey. So Power goes to Newark, where he falls in love with the deaf daughter of a once-rocknroll-slut-now-religious-nutcase woman. And together with Carlos and his team he prepares for an air drumming contest in New York with a cash prize of $2000.

Did you know that Phil Collins actually once did something right? I didn’t. For me he always was just the ugly little dwarf from the bubblegum pop music charts. So I was wrong. I ignored a song of his which is the soundtrack for one of the most important and most impressive sequences in this movie, and it works. Oh yes it does.

Personally I didn’t expect much of this movie. Of course I’ve spent a fair share of my life with playing air guitar, bass, drums and vocals. But when I heard many years back that there is an annual air guitar world championship I was not amused. My thought was that this kind of competition was something for losers like athletes or chart musicians, but surely not for those who rock. But this movie simply is too good to nag about that kind of thing. As a matter of fact, air drumming here is some metaphorical hyperbole analogy or however they call it. This movie is about the important things in life, and it rocks. If you don’t love it, if you maybe don’t even understand it, well that means that you just don’t rock.

Doomed (2015)

Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s the Fantastic Four (2015)

A documentary that tells the history of The Fantastic Four (1994), which was executive produced by Roger Corman.

Contains footage of Roger Corman, Lloyd Kaufman an Stan Lee as themselves. 85min imdb

Documentary 85min

Trailer

Recap:

In 1994 they finished the movie of the Fantastic Four, and while the cast and crew tried their best concerning promo and stuff, the producers Roger Corman and Bernd Eichinger made no move to release it. In fact, the release eventually was canceled. But why? The official story says that Bernd Eichinger made this movie only because his contract on the F4 movie rights was running out and he had to do something for ha renewal of this contract. This docu suggests that maybe the Fox intervened because they wanted the F4 as a toy for their new Wunderkind Chris. Columbus, and then there is Avi Arrad who claimed that he bought the movie to get it out of the way to make room for his own, bigger Marvel projects.

This documentary does ask some interesting questions, but it answers not too many. Still, it’s quite interesting to watch.

Related movie:

The Fantastic Four (1994)

First movie of the F4, done in a rush and without a budget, never released, long lost. 90min imdb

Movie 90min

Trailer

Recap:

The movie starts with Reed and Victor trying to capture the energy of the Colossus comet. Though Ben tries to save him, Victor dies in an accident. Only that he doesn’t die but is saved by his latverian henchmen. Ten years later Reed wants to use a giant diamond to repeat the experiment, but the diamond is replaced by the Jeweler (who resembles the Mole Man a little) with a replica to impress Alicia, so it all goes awry again.

This movie was done on an abysmal budget and never released. The official explanation is that Bernd Eichinger had to shoot it to keep a hold on the movie rights and never planned to show it in the first place. In the documentary linked below we learn about two alternative stories: maybe Fox bought the Fantastic Four as a toy for their new Wunderkind Chris Columbus, or maybe Avi Arrad is the megalomanic supervillain who made this movie vanish to make room for his own big movie plans.

Who knows? Who cares? The second movie and first reboot is clearly my favorite because it has what a superhero movie needs: action, comedy, romance, drama, a budget and special effects. But everybody knows what happened then. The third movie was so incredibly bad that the fourth one had to be the the second reboot, carefully throwing every story element in the trash can except for the characters names and superpowers, which of course didn’t work so that the fifth movie will be the third reboot. And seeing how incompently Micky Mouse treats his purchases, I have very little hope for the future of the F4.

So I’ll say that this #1 is much better than #3 and #4. It’s also better than, say, Daredevil or Elektra or Spiderman 5 (Rise Of Electro). What it’s not: it’s not the magic supermovie that many nostalgics claim it to be. It’s nice, it’s entertaining, and it’s charming because this lowbudget underdog is better than so many blockbuster wannabes. Oh, and since it’s no longer a lost medium it has its fanbase simply because we are suckers for lost treasures.

Related movie:

King Of The Zombies (1941)

Silly caribbean adventure with zombies, voodoo, hypnosis and what have you. With Mantan Moreland and Madame Sul-Te-Wan 67min imdb

Recap:

So there is a storm, and a plane lands on a mysterious island. The pilot and his two passengers find first a graveyard and then a manor where they can spend the night. Then, a whole lot happens, because the house is full of secret passages, undead zombies, a hypnotised woman, a love interest, a voodoo priestess and an american admiral who was imprisoned by the master of the house who claims to be austrian but really is a german spy.

Well, all in all the movie is rather so-so. It’s creepier and zombier than, say, Revolt Of The Zombies, but that doesn’t say much. And it’s not so much a semicreepy horror movie but rather a semifunny comedy. The one who keeps the story going is Mantan Moreland, a skilled comedian who plays the ungrateful part of the superstitious black coward as a comic relief for the white 1940s moviegoers, but the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that he is the most sympathetic zombie that I’ve seen so far. But I don’t know whether that’s reason enough to watch this movie.

Related movie:

Revolt Of The Zombies (1936)

Second zombie movie of the Halperin Brothers about a man who stops at nothing to get the girl he wants. 65min imdb

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Recap:

Boy meets girl. They get engaged. But when he finds out that she really loves another, he withdraws. Then he discovers how to zombiefy people and decides to be a ruthless man who takes what he wants, using all the people who he has zombiefied.

Well, yes, that’s the story. The Halperin Brothers have had moderate success with White Zombie, the story of a lovelorn man who uses voodoo to get what he wants and fails, and so they tried this recipe again and, well, did not really succeed. I can live well with Halperin voodoo zombies not being Romero flesh eating zombies, but this movie starts playing with the idea of using an army of zombies to wage a horrible war but then turns out to be a lukewarm love triangle with an bare minimum of creepiness. Some people (like me) will watch it because there are zombies in it, but few will not be disappointed.

Zombie 90: Extreme Pestilence (1991)

Classic gore movie by Andreas Schnaas. 75min imdb

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The Dark Star has been scouting space for many years now, and the crew has become quite weary. Boiler and Doolittle are still doing their job, though Doolittle misses his surfboard. Talbot has retreated to the observation dome, meditating all day. Pinback is not even an astronaut, he is on board only by accident. Talking bout accidents: commander Powell is cryogenic hibernation, they have lost their complete supply of toilet paper, and the AI of one of the bombs is getting stubborn.

This was a college movie in the first place, probably one of the best college movies ever made. It caught the attention of a movie producer who ordered additional footage to pad the runtime for a theatrical release, and the rest is history. Now it’s not only a top notch comedy but also an artifact of historic value because it started the career of Dan O’Bannon and John Carpenter.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

House By The Lake (2017)

House by the Lake (2017)

A struggling married couple try to reconnect at an idyllic lake house, but their relationship is tested when their young daughter begins to fixate on an imaginary friend that may or may not be real. 77min imdb

(VPN:D)

Recap:

So there is this family that (temporarily) moves into the house by the lake. The parents are in the last phase of their marriage, they don’t even care to stop bitching when the child can hear them. The child, by the way, is somewhere “on the spectrum”. Being “on the spectrum” means not only that you’re an autist, it also means that the people around you believe that “autist” is a bad word. Then there is the nanny, who is a double threat to the mother: she is younger and hotter than her, and she is a trained professional with a natural empathy and establishes contact with the kid in no time. And then there is the old perv who totally ignores the mother and goes for the child immediately. All in all the situation is pretty dreadful, and nobody worries too much when the kid is having a new “imaginary” friend, the Fish Man. Not until the girl is missing, that is.

Well yes, sounds very interesting. Trouble is: it isn’t. Not really. The story unfolds, occasionally I wonder, if the kid is autistic, shouldn’t it have a tantrum in this situation?, but then I’m not an expert, and then the story unfolds some more, and I start to realize that this is not a horror movie, it’s a mystery thriller with more mystery and less thriller, and then there is a final plot twist that is not really surprising, and that’s all folks. Of course they could have added more suspense, a little creepier, maybe cut away a bit of the long winding drama stuff or make the movie longer. But maybe they just hadn’t the skills or the imagination.

Yes, you can watch it. It’s not bad, not at all. I have seen crap that was so much worse. Trouble is: it just isn’t good. Not a bit.

⭐⭐⭐

Terror Toons (2001)

Two cartoon slashers invade the real world. 79min imdb

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Recap:

The parents have gone to a wedding and leave the twenty somethings home alone. The one with the huge production values watches a DVD called Terror Toons, the other is having a full blown orgy, complete with wine cooler and strip ouija.

Wonder why? There is nudity or sex in this movie, and its title gives away that the slashers come not from the ouija board but from the DVD.

Well, if you haven’t got a budget you can still use your skills, work with what you’ve got and create a a small but precious gem. Or, especially if you’re not so skilled, you can go all over the top and create something new, never seen before, that finds its audience because it stands out by standing alone. That’s what they were going for here, and I really wanted them to succeed. But alas, some filmmakers seem to use the lack of budget as an excuse for not even trying. WTF! When you ain’t got real actors it’s twice as important to work with your cast, when you waste big portions of the budget on a porn star it’s important to have nudity and sex in the movie, and if you want to make a comedy by no means you should ever even consider to start filming before you have funny script.

The one thing that speaks for this movie are the slashers Doctor Carnage and Max Assassin. They are new and never seen before, and I like the way they go over the top. They are the reason why I give generous 3*, but don’t let your hopes get too high, because in the end the film is really not good.

⭐⭐⭐

Nightmare City (1980)

Fast zombies that use weapons and drink blood. Directed by Umberto Lenzi. 91min imdb

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Recap:

An airplane is contaminated with radiation, and after the touchdown a horde of zombies unboards. A journalist witnesses this and tries to warn the people with a newsbreak, but his boss takes him off the air because the military wants to keep the whole thing covered. So they switch back to the daytime schedule which soon is interrupted by a live broadcast of zombies feeding on a bunch of dancers.

Sounds promising, doesn’t it? I really thought wow, this is one splendid satire. File it as comedy, no wait, don’t. For a comedy it’s got a little too much gore. However, this movie starts with an incredible velocity, and the zombies are guano crazy. They are strong, they are fast, they use weapons.

Q: how can this movie keep up its speed?

A: it doesn’t. The movie introduces a bunch of supporting characters and then forgets about them and then returns to them to kill them. Then the girlfriend or wife of the journalist says all the pseudo intellectual blahblah that they apparently wanted to have in the script, then he slaps her in the face, which makes the feminist bitch horny as hell…. Wut? Well, yes, to tell the truth, the movie industry is dominated by morons. They wanted to make cash with just another zombie movie, so they made a list of tropes they could use and created something that resembled a story. I bet when they found out that one third of the film was brilliant they said “way cool! One third is so much more than we could ever have hoped for!” and the sad thing is: they were right. The One-eyed is king among the blind. So I guess when I give 3* for brainless braineater movies because they are good enough to fix our zombie cravings, then I must give this one 4*. I do so reluctantly, though.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Panic (1982)

Bloodthirsty monster in the sewers of a British city. 95min imdb

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Recap:

After the opening credits there is one of the fastest monster origins ever: there is an alarm in a laboratory, we get a short glimpse of the monster, and then there is a CEO who wants to cover the accident up. In the sixth minute of the movie we see a couple that wants to take a joyride in a parked car, and you know what happens next.

I watched this movie because I have read that it was published as Zombi IV in Australia and as Zombie IV in Greece. However, there is one (admittedly quite ugly) bloodsucking monster that carries a virus which might be contagious if it didn’t kill its victims, and it’s occasionally shown to remind you that you are watching a horror movie. And before you ask: there aren’t too many murders, and they happen mostly off screen. Really the story is more about assistant scientist Jane who wants to develop an antidote, the army that wants to bomb the whole city and Kirk, who is a captain and wants to see the monster dead. All in all this movie movie is so incredibly dumb that I do not even want to count in how many ways it is disappointing. What bothers me most is that this film, miserable as it is, is far from being the worst movie I ever watched.

⭐⭐

City Of The Living Dead (1980)

1980 horror classic by Lucio Fulci 93min imdb

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Review:

In Dunwich, a priest commits suicide, and this sin is serious enough to open the gates of hell. A psychic woman in New York sees this and dies, well, sort of. A journalist saves her from being buried alive, and together they travel to Dunwich, where a whole lot of strange things are happening, like people who see the ghost of the priest start crying blood, etc…

Yes, a lot of things are happening, involving not just astonishing amounts of blood, but also brains, intestines, rats and maggots. What puzzles me, though, is that all these elements don’t really make a story. Let’s make this and we can do that and then there is something we could also do, and then we have a finale and then a surprise twist that doesn’t even have to make sense, we have a runtime of like 90min and enough shock effects and that’s good enough for us.

Also, the story takes place in Dunwich, which is a Lovecraft town name, but I cannot find how hell and catholic sins are related to Lovecraft.

What can I say? Many call this a masterpiece, and yes, in a way it is a masterpiece of the horror genre, but only if you don’t too much storywise.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Pastor Shepherd (2010)

Heartwarming comedy about a loser who deserves some luck. With Danny Trejo. 91min imdb

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Review:

Shepherd looks like the child of love of Jason Bateman and Norman Bates, a shockingly normal face with a grin that hurts to even look at, one cannot even start to imagine just how much it must hurt to display it while walking from door to door telling people that you want to freeze dry their pets and then returning home to a mom whose vital functions are reduced to donating money to TV scammers. Since he is too shy to talk to Danny Trejo’s beautiful daughter, the only thing that gives meaning to his life is what he does alone in the shed, often using a chainsaw.

It’s nice every now and then to discover a movie that just tells a story that’s worth watching. I don’t know what the official definition of the term “feelgood movie” is, but I use the term for comedies that do not pile jokes upon jokes, it may be that you don’t laugh out loud too often, but in the end, well, you just feel good. Pastor Shepherd is a good example.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Trick Or Treat (1986)

Halloween teenie movie about a high school boy whose favorite metal singer talks to him from beyond the grave. 98min imdb

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Review:

So there is Eddie, a high school boy whose favorite metal singer has died. A radio DJ gives him the only vinyl copy of Sammi Curr’s final album and tells him that he will broadcast a tape recording of the album on Halloween. Eddie starts experimenting with playing records backwards and indeed makes contact with Sammi. This seems like a good thing because now Eddie can stand his ground against his bullies. But while Eddie is a true metalhead and thus a truly gentle man, Sammi is up to no good and plans to return from the grave .

Yes, those were the eighties. Technology has improved since then, high school bullies and lying pastors are basically the same today, and to be honest, things have gone a little downhill for fashion, music and movies. This is an 80s movie. Sure, it’s not Back To The Future, and when they tried to get a sitcom star they had to go with Marc Price instead of Michael J. Fox. But still this movie is a carefree piece of fun. Imdb lists it as horror and comedy and music movie. The latter is not entirely correct. There is not that much music in it, for a big part of the movie the music is played backwards, and the soundtrack was provided mostly by Fastway. While it is true that Fast Eddie Clarke has been the first guitarist of Motörhead, getting rid of him was a giant leap in the right direction for Lemmy.

By the way way, small parts in this movie are played by Gene Simmons and Ozzy Ozbourne. Not everybody will remember, but Ozzy has not always been an obnoxious TV celeb like Donald Trump or Bruce Jenner. Back in his days he was a legend, in a way even bigger than Gene Simmons, and I guess for many people he still is today.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Humanoid (1979)

Italian attempt to cash in on Star Wars, with Richard Kiel in the title role and music by Ennio Morricone. 99min imdb

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Review:

So there is this evil brother who wants to rule the galaxy with the help of Humanoids, which are hulkish supersoldiers. But first he wants to kill the good brother who happens to be the ruler of the galaxy right now using the Humanoid prototype who looks just like Jaws (the Jaws from the James Bond movies, of course). But then there is that annoying little brat with the bathrobe of Luke Skywalker who befriends the Humanoid.

A big part of the budget was spent on introducing the designers of this movie to the look of star wars, and then the story was reduced to what they could do with the rest of the money. It is nice and entertaining, especially for fans of so-bad-that-it’s-good. And that’s the only reason why I watched it in the first place: they featured it on SchleFaZ , which is the poor (or german) man’s MST3K. So unless you are a trash nerd you may want to skip it.

⭐⭐⭐

Bunni (2013)

Entertaining slasher for the Halloween season. 71min imdb

(VPN:D) this is the 71min version. The 73min version cannot be embedded, so there is a direct link in the picture to the left.

Review:

It’s Helloween, and two couples of twenty somethings are loitering in front of the old, abandoned novelty shop. An old man warns them that this place is haunted, so they burgle it right away. The first jumpscare, of course, is just a joke, the slashing doesn’t start before a few minutes later.

The first half our is dedicated to the exposition, the shorter part is about the slasher’s origin, the longer part is about the characterisation of Rick The Prick. Why? Because! He definitely is not the center of the movie, but his part is played by the writer/editor/director of the movie who obviously enjoyed being the dude with the infinite amount of girlfriends. I think that with half an hour this is a pretty long exposition, especially since the movie has according to imdb and filmstarts.de an official runtime of 60min. Which makes me wonder because the youtube edit has a lengthy mid credit scene.

Anyway, is it good or not so? I’ll say it’s okay. It’s got no surprising plot twists, and it’s not new or special or anything, but it’s very decent holiday related binge material.

⭐⭐⭐

All Superheroes Must Die (2011)

Lowbudget attempt to one-up superhero movies 78min imdb

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Review:

Four superheroes awake from unconsciousness and find out that their powers are taken away. Via TV a supervillain explains that they must play by his rules or civilians will die. So the heroes play along and soon find out that the civilians will die anyway, no matter how much they follow his orders. That’s why the green ranger whose power is superedginess, starts murdering civilians himself.

Well, yes, there are spandex people in this, makes me wonder why. Obviously the writer, director and star of this movie wanted to do a dark and gritty hatemovie that proves what petty losers superheroes are, except for the Marty Stu of course, who is a true edgelord and badder than the baddest supervillain. Well, it’s got drama, tragedy and a bit of action and also Havoc from XMen 4. So you can watch it if you want, but as a superhero movie it fails miserably.

⭐⭐

Shock Waves (1976)

Peter Cushing and John Carradine in a movie about underwater nazi zombies. 84min imdb

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So there is this professor wo suffers serious brain damage in an accident. His best friend, a doctor, performs a brain transplantation, using a criminal as organ donor. Indeed, the professor recovers, and it takes a while until the criminal’s personality takes over more and more often. Good thing too, the doctor thinks, because he wants to get the gangster’s lost money.

Makes you wonder: why is the doctor surprised when the man with the criminal’s brain starts acting like the criminal? Everybody who watches the movie must be surprised that the professor remained pretty much himself at first. Another thing that I don’t understand is the casting. In the first place it was planned that Karloff would be the professor and Lugosi the doctor. But then Karloff was the doctor and Lugosi played a gangster with precious little screen time.

Pity. While I do appreciate the old-fashioned b&w screen gems I must say that this is not one of them. It’s a wasted chance.

⭐⭐

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