Doomed Discussiethon: Zombie Death House

Zombie Death House

Directed by John Saxon

1987

90 minutes

Plot: Vietnam vet Derek Keillor (Dennis Cole) pays the bills by working as a driver for mob boss Vic Moretti (Anthony Franciosa). When Vic discovers that his driver has been sleeping with his wife, he kills her and frames Derek for the crime. The jail he is sent to houses Vic’s brother Franco (Michael Pataki) and which also happens to be the most corrupt prison in the world. Colonel Gordon Burgess (John Saxon) is using the inmates to test a mind control virus. He calls in scientist Tanya Karrington (Tane McClure) to confirm and report on the success of his research. But everything goes wrong, the inmates turn into zombies and it is up to Tanya and Derek to come up with a cure. When Burgess begins to fear that he can’t contain the virus, he sends in the military to blow up the joint. Will anyone survive? Will anyone notice that I just skipped over about 90% of the plot of this convoluted ass movie?

[Please note: There are spoilers in this article because the warden short-sheeted us.]

Nafa: Right from the get-go you know you are in for a treat when the title screen pops up with the words ‘Zombie Death House’ but you notice the word ‘Zombie’ was added at some point later, probably for DVD release . Rather than make a completely new title screen they just threw the word ‘Zombie’ in with a similar but not matching font. They could have used a scary font or a different font, or played it off as intentionally different, but no- the viewer won’t notice, they’ll be too busy marking out for John Saxon (which I always have, but only because his name in the ‘80s reminded me of the video game Zaxxon). But we’ll deal with the cast in a moment. The other 800-lb. gorilla in the room is the feeling that you’re watching a made-for-TV film. I’m thinking one episode of “Hardcastle & McCormick” probably had a bigger budget, not that that’s a bad thing. Herr Sliz?

Richard: Duder, are we connected at the butt or what? Oh sorry, this is a prison film after all. But I did notice the font change. I think it was intentional. The slightly different font just makes the inclusion of the word ‘Zombie’ all the more terrifying. The next thing that struck me (slightly more interesting than fonts anyway) is the music by Chuck Cirino. Check out this dude’s IMDB page and bear witness to the supremely awesome movies he has lent sassy keyboard skills to (Chopping Mall, Sorority House Massacre II, etc.). All we need to know about our main character Derek Keillor is that he’s a Vietnam vet. I freakin’ love that about 80s movies. Just show that the duder was in ‘Nam and you can flush all that unnecessary character exposition right down the shitter. Instant depth!

Nafa: I am soooooo not buying the intentional font change theory. It’s totally there to appeal to a bigger audience on DVD. But I digest. ‘Nam vets make the best -erm- everything. There wasn’t an ‘80s action flick or TV show that didn’t have at least one kick ass guy who served in ‘Nam-Rambo, the “A-Team”, the soldiers from the original Predator, Sloth from The Goonies. The formulaic thing about these HollywoodNam vets is that they always end up working for a bad Italianesque mobster. I don’t know if there is a hook-up book for these pairings but it seems like a thing with them all. Oh, and hot, if not dated (in the fashion sense), blondes.

Richard: The blond women of Zombie Death House are pretty amazing. First up is Genelle (Dana Lis Mason) who has this really odious make-out scene with her gangster boyfriend Vic Moretti (Anthony Franciosa). Of course, Genelle hooks up with Derek “I just drive” Keillor and the sparks fly. And by sparks I mean awful sex scenes. This affair leads to Genelle’s untimely drowning in the bathtub by Vic. And just like this movie, she’s a floater.

The most significant hottie in the film is Tanya Karrington or TK for short. Tanya is played by Tane McClure, who is the daughter of actor Doug McClure and the inspiration for Journey’s classic piece of shit “Faithfully”. Useless trivia? Not at all. I couldn’t figure out if TK was a scientist or a journalist. I guess she’s kind of both but whatever, the main thing is that TK has trust issues. You see, she got burned by Colonel Burgess (John Saxon) before when they were working together on the previous version of the mind control virus. You just can’t trust da gubment.

And finally, we have the soul-crushing, ball-busting, mega supreme power of Warden Hagen’s wife, Mary (June Chandler, who portrayed Barbara Walters in the Mike Tyson made-for-TV biography). She threatens to take away Christmas if Hagen doesn’t abandon his job for some family time. Okay, I’ve spent too much time talking about chicks. Nafa, would you care to enlighten us on some of the fabulous dudes in this film?

Nafa: The cast is a veritable who’s who of people you think you’ve seen in other roles but can’t quite place. There’s the head guard, Raker (Howard George, best known in recent years for his work as ‘Stripper Auditioner’ on “Roswell”), who brings new meaning to the word ‘corrupt’- if the new meaning meant the same as the old meaning. Then there’s the “guy you want to survive to the end but know won’t though he gets his revenge” Adams (Earl Johnson), a Rastafarian sage and the only thing with even a vague sense of a spiritual soul in this film. And then there’s Franco Moretti (Michael Pataki), flamboyant brother of Vic Moretti, who runs his brother’s business inside the big house. He proves that behind every good man is another man doing his hair. The rest of the cast is consists of people who you’d use other celebrities to reference- such as the gang duder in the red headband who looks like George Lopez, the soldier with one scene who looks like Michael Ian Black, or Colonel Burgess’ assistant who I swear is Andy Richter.

Richard: That guy is so Andy Richter. Awesome. Hey, is the phrase “tearing him a new asshole” code for something? Michael Pataki (of Sidehackers) is a god among other gods in this movie. Franco Moretti is such a fancy character. I have to agree with you about Adams. He’s my favorite character in the movie and he gets killed off way too soon. It’s actually pretty sad: “They stuck me!” The guy who looks like George Lopez is Rickey Pardon and he plays Hector, the kickass bastard who says “Hey mamacita, I’m you’re date for the prom!” Raker seemed pretty harmless and ineffectual until he RAPES Franco’s cellmate/life partner. His best line: “Save your spit, you’re gonna need it in Hell.”

Anthony Franciosa (of Tenebre) is the real catch here. The guy has the most fascinating voice ever to slide its way out of a human head (with awesome immovable hair). He is completely committed to this role and exudes evil in every scene. John Saxon (also of Tenebre) is in pretty amazing form here as well. The dude is in the director’s chair for this one and his character is the mastermind behind all this mind control zombie nuttiness. Of course, Saxon ensured that Colonel Burgess would get a monologue that is nothing short of breathtaking.

[The rest of this very Doomed Discussiethon is being written literally 3 and a half months later.]

Nafa: Have we watched this film yet?

Richard: Oops! Yeah, we totally watched this film already. I guess the holidays kind of put a screeching halt on this discussion. Let me refer to my notes and see what we haven’t talked about yet.

Nafa: Yeah, I’m sorry about that- I totally dropped the ball on this. I guess the terrorists win.

Richard: We need to talk about the chef. “Don’t touch my twinkies!”

Nafa: Ah yes, the chef. Probably one of the most expected-yet-unexpected scenes in the film and by far the best line in the film. The thing that creeped me out most about the chef is that I started to think that he wasn’t a zombie, just a Twinkie-lover (wow, that last word pairing was very close to another prison term, though not entirely divergent). The thought that he was cooking the food just as he is makes it all the better in my mind. Re-butt-al?

Richard: Yeah, I foolishly assumed that the chef duder was a zombie. But he could have just been a total dick with a skin condition. I wanted him to kill that fucking annoying Luke look-at-me-I-can-has-skateboard-kid. Did I mention that dream sequence yet? Oh my god. You think that we’re going to get some R rated lovin’ between hero Derek and TK the sexy scientist but oh no, that’s just a dream. Like the duder didn’t get enough action from his boss’s wife (which landed him in jail in the first dang place), now he has to have the hots for the heroine. What a pig! But he gets his when her face is all zombified which probably wouldn’t slow me down in a fantasy sequence.

Nafa: Which reminds me of another point. I sort of got confused with the blondes once they were thrown into the mix together. That happens sometimes, but I sort of lost track which was which. Maybe I’m thinking of another movie, but probably not. Probably both. That’s the thing about 1970s-1980s films like this, sometimes the characters aren’t all that indistinguishable. Just like having a cave in a mountain for a prison that’s located in the middle of the desert (smooth segue, no?).

Richard: Don’t worry. You’re just having a perfectly normal reaction to what some doctors refer to as TERRIBLE or CHILDLIKE screenwriting. Don’t get me wrong, I frickin’ love the cheese and the whole quasi-epic nature of Zombie Death House but I was perfectly satisfied and ready for this shit to be over. And then it goes on for another 19 minutes! The army gets called in and instead of just nuking the fucking prison off the map, they send in a squad to plant bombs. Timed bombs?!?! As if we weren’t bored enough; now we have to wait for a bunch of clocks?

Nafa: I was about to skip all the wait to the very end, but the bomb squad- and not the music producers for Public Enemy kind- what was that all about? Were they Special Forces? Spetsnaz? Tzahal? I mean, what was that? They weren’t very good, but they were awfully special. Urgh. OK, the end. We can assume that this prison in the middle of the desert was at least 12 miles away from any isolated caves or mountains. If not, then this was the worst protected prison ever. (And why did it remind me of the end of Silent Rage?) I think I was watching this ending and making up a different one in my head to go along with it. Bah, I’ve got no more to say. I’m thoroughly spent on this film. Can you put a bow and name tag on this for us, Sliz? Any thoughts on the ending?

Richard: It sucks and it takes forever? Hmm, I will admit to the overall awesomeness of the entirety of Zombie Death House but with the CAVEAT that the shit is just too friggin’ long. And then the weirdest non sequitur of all: they play Dead Kennedys over the end credits! Even that can’t help John Saxon recover. I can only hope that the duder will return to directing and give this gig another go. The writers shouldn’t ever write again though. I’m assuming that they are probably in their mid-20s by now. I guess what I really want to say is that Zombie Death House is what Missing in Action could have been or perhaps what that “Oz” show could have been. Sigh.

Goodnight, folks!

Say Uh… Phenomena!

[Reader beware. There are major spoilers coming up.]

Whenever the wind is in the trees, I think of Phenomena and nothing feels right or normal in the best way. Released in 1985, Dario Argento’s twisted fairy-tale masterpiece has always had a strange effect on me. It’s a ridiculous world of tangible impossibilities with an atmosphere of doom and insanity hanging around every corner. Imagine if your fantasy world got caught in the kitchen disposal and then you were able to film it; the end result would look a whole lot like Phenomena.

The film starts as Jennifer Corvino (played by Jennifer Connelly), the daughter of a famous actor, arrives at a Swiss boarding school. Jennifer has a sleepwalking problem and one night while she is wandering around the closed section of the school, she witnesses a girl being murdered by a psychotic killer. She meets wheelchair bound Professor John McGregor (Donald Pleasence), an entomologist living with his helper chimpanzee who’s been enlisted by the police to help track down the murderer. He seems to think that Jennifer’s sleepwalking is a symptom of burgeoning mental powers. McGregor’s hypothesis proves to be true as Jennifer soon realizes that she can communicate with insects. They decide to use her strange gift to catch the killer.

When the unlikely duo gets too close to discovering the truth, the killer comes after Professor McGregor. Now alone against a sadistic psychopath, Jennifer mistakenly takes shelter with Frau Brückner (Daria Nicolodi) who turns out to be the mother of the deformed creature that has been doing all the killing. With the help of a detective (Patrick Bauchau) and her insect helpers, Jennifer just barely escapes with her life. Frau Brückner kills the detective and comes looking for our young heroine. Jennifer’s ultimate rescue comes in the form of John McGregor’s chimpanzee that gets revenge for its slain master by taking a straight razor to the insane woman.

When I was 12 or 13 years old, I was intrigued by a segment on an MTV show called “Stephen King’s World of Horror” about Dario Argento. It talked about a film called Creepers and I sought it out. The cover of the VHS tape entitled Creepers really blew my mind. It features a painting of Jennifer Connelly (“The chick from Labyrinth!” I thought to myself) holding a handful of flies and other insects. These creepy crawlies were flying out of her half rotted face and I was completely mesmerized by the sickening beauty of this image. At this point in my young life, my parents were allowing me to rent whatever horror films I pleased. They had given me their old VCR to hook up in my room so I had absolutely no trouble getting this particular flick by them. There was a mix-up at the video store and the film Creeper (AKA In the Devil’s Garden AKA Assault from 1971) was in the Creepers case by mistake. Once that was resolved, I finally had the film in my hands.

Little did I know what awaited me on that tape. Creepers is actually Dario Argento’s giallo-fantastico masterpiece Phenomena, minus about 28 minutes of footage. A few very brief shots of gore had been trimmed but most of the cuts had to do with the plot and Jennifer Corvino’s character development. The most shocking moments in the film: the big reveal of Frau Brückner’s murderous and hideously deformed child and Jennifer falling into a pit of rotting corpses, remained intact on the rental copy I watched back in the day.

I love Dario Argento and Franco Ferrini’s childish plot. Everything that takes place in Phenomena, no matter how ludicrous, made perfect sense to my young mind. Even now, I’ll catch myself just nodding and smiling as the events unfold that would likely cause most rational folks to start throwing furniture at the screen. How is it that a girl with the ability to communicate telepathically with insects just happens to become best buds with a crippled entomologist who just happens to have been researching the psychic powers of insects throughout his career? I guess that is a small concession in a film that also features a dang chimpanzee armed with a straight razor that brutally savages his master’s murderer.

I especially love the film’s minimalist set design of the finale. The brilliantly lit monochromatic and sparsely decorated walls help focus the viewer’s attention on the action and give it a stark bleakness. Phenomena also has a hypnotic quality, a morbid melancholy (a little something which I call “The Vibe”) that I’ve rarely found in American horror films. Similarly, Joe D’Amato’s horror films often have little to no set design and I can’t help but feel this perfectly communicated sense of claustrophobia and horror in my bones. I’m sure one could assume these things were kept simple to keep production costs low but so be it, I’m already smitten.

The music of Phenomena ranges from spectacular to totally inappropriate. Simon Boswell and Goblin contribute the ethereal pieces and the horror stingers. And though they sound great where they are placed within the film, “Flash of the Blade” by Iron Maiden and “Locomotive” by Motörhead are disruptive to the flow of the rest of the soundtrack. Now don’t get me wrong, I was a metalhead during my early teens and the inclusion of these songs only made me love this movie all the more. But even as a youngster, I knew that “Flash of the Blade” has nothing lyrically that fits with what’s happening onscreen. Argento’s indiscriminate love of (often cheesy) heavy metal rears its ugly head again in his next film Opera but with less or more success depending entirely on your taste in metal.

A classic Italian horror film needs a great cast and Phenomena is certainly no slouch in that department. Leading the cast is a young Jennifer Connelly (who Argento spotted in Once Upon a Time in America and decided to cast her) and Donald Pleasence who was serving time in Italy between Halloween sequels. Daria Nicolodi is totally batshit crazy as Frau Brückner, one of my favorite villainesses ever captured on film. Belgian born actor Patrick Bauchau (of “Carnivale”) plays Inspector Geiger, the detective who almost saves the day but who dies horribly (off camera).

Sadly, Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly has since distanced herself from Phenomena and her time spent in Italy. In a 2004 interview with Vogue, she disses the film and her performance in it saying it was little more than an excuse to vacation in Europe. I can’t help but laugh at this because this is best thing Connelly has ever done or ever will do. No, I’m not kidding. As far as I’m concerned, Jennifer Connelly’s career tanked in 1986 with only a few minor points of interest since (Mulholland Falls, Dark City and the Dark Water remake). There’s still a chance for her to redeem herself but only if she returns to Italian horror.

One of the greatest character actors of all time, Donald Pleasence, delivers his performance of Professor John McGregor with his usual morbid sincerity. Pleasence is totally convincing as the renowned entomologist even while he is dishing up the corniest dialogue. He easily mesmerizes the viewer into believing his every word. In an interview in Profondo Argento, the actor mentions that Phenomena had one of the silliest scripts he’d ever read. I find this very curious. Perhaps he’d forgotten about Paganini Horror and Fatal Frames of hadn’t made them yet at the time of the interview. Those two totally wacko Italian horror films are easily sillier than Phenomena.

Near the end of the film, we have traveled with Jennifer through windswept Sweden, entered a girls’ school with almost no discernible curriculum, been knocked with her into a pit full of carrion and squirming larvae, and joined in her desperate psychic cry to her insect brethren to chew the face off her diminutive tormentor. Moments later, everything changes as Jennifer is swimming to shore thus washing away the horror (and filth from the corpse pit) and we’re led to believe that the horror is finally over. For me, this ethereal scene is the most resplendent of the film and is a transcendent landmark for Italian horror. This peaceful moment is interrupted when Jennifer’s father’s lawyer who shows up to take her home. No easy denouement here as Argento has one more showstopping setpiece tucked up his sleeve.

Phenomena is a feverish, outrageous, and gory maggot party that will always be at the top of the list of my favorite horror movies of all time. I cannot stress enough how badly you need to see this film or see it again if you’ve already taken the plunge. There’s a whole lot of ugly, a whole lot of weird, and a whole lot of beauty packed into Argento’s whacked out beast. This film stands very tall among the dozen or so horror flicks that had a huge impact on my young brain. Phenomena’s somnambulistic evil grows as the years go by and every time I am drawn back in, I get just a little closer to happily losing my mind.

Slashers in the Night II: The Death Kill

slashersinthenight2

It seemed like I had nothing but excuses for putting off this moviethon. The next thing I knew, several months had passed since I’d made my initial playlist and my annoyance with myself was too much to bear. “That’s it, we’re doing this!” I screamed into the night. The unseen rule of the first Slashers in the Night was off the table so this left me free to choose whatever the dang hell I wanted (though I prefer to pass on anything released after 1989 for this series). What transpired was easily one of my favorite moviethons of all time. Here we go!

Friday

I get off work and arrive at home to find my wife LeEtta –who had had the day off today- taking my advice and watching whatever she pleased since I would be hogging our primary visual entertainment device for the next 54 hours or so. As I bring the trashcans in from the street, I couldn’t help but notice that the weather is typically Florida as hell meaning sunny and muggy. There was an apocalyptic thunderstorm earlier this afternoon and it left everything hopelessly funky.

While LeEtta makes dinner, I fall asleep on the recliner while some random home design show on Netflix babbles on in the background. LeEtta wakes me up several minutes later to tell me that dinner is ready. One of her old standards, couscous, asparagus, and a fried egg awaited me. She’s way, way too good to me. Feeling refreshed and full, I pour myself an unsweet iced tea and pick the first movie.

nightscreams

“A really nice place? God, what a dickhead!”

6:17pm

Night Screams (1987)

This jumps right into things with a girl changing in a locker room. Her boobs are exposed before I even have time to process what is going on. This flashes between her friends scaring her and a couple watching TV on the couch. Are they watching a movie or are we? Oh wait, they’re watching the gory bits of Graduation Day! Spoilers much? Jeez. While the husband is outside cooking burgers on a grill -that isn’t even lit- someone takes a butcher knife and his kills his lady friend. Then he gets it. The killer plays chopsticks on the piano and we get the title screen.

LeEtta and I debate about how I’m collating the body count. I say that every murder that happens on screen gets counted and every corpse that is the result of an offscreen kill gets counted. Oh my goodness, this score is peppy and delightful. A bearded psychiatrist is talking into a tape recorder about releasing a patient and then we cut hard to a high school football game with some very passionate fans. Everything has just been confusing and fun so far. I already have high hopes for this film.

Some escaped lunatics kill a couple of cops and then destroy a diner with lots of squibs exploding willy-nilly. More importantly, we get not one but two locker room scenes. One with the guys where they talk about dicks and someone gets a wedgie. And another with the girls where they talk vaguely about sex. This movie is dripping with the 1980s. The music, the hair, the clothes, the dance sequence, etc. There’s also a bevy of characters played by utter cheeseballs spouting off droll dialogue that is making me giggle with delight. I’ve already forgotten this is supposed to be a slasher.

The whole gaggle of partying kids head out to a remote house for some sexy shenanigans, burgeoning alcoholism, and melodrama. The script is setting up some really obvious red herrings and there are still those two escaped convicts hiding in the basement. Uh oh, someone just cut the phone line! The most ridiculous thing in this movie is instead of having the actresses in the movie get naked, the producers keep cutting in scenes from a porno movie. That’s just wacky. Swimming pool at night? Yes. Huge body count? Yes. That’s it, I’m calling it, Night Screams is a new favorite. Wichita seems like a lovely place.

mountaintopmotelmassacre

“I’m so horny, I can’t stand it!”

8:02pm

Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986)

This has been on and off (mostly off) my radar for many years. The movie tells us about Evelyn, owner of the Mountaintop Motel, who was in an institution for three years. Now she’s out and having trouble coping with her daughter Lorri’s guinea pig and hobby of invoking the spirit of her dead father. With all the amazing lighting, piles of baby dolls, and broken strangeness, it’s immediately apparent that I should’ve watched this ages ago. Evelyn accidentally kills Lorri with a scythe during a violent rage but she convinces the cops it was an accident. Wait what?

This has a completely different vibe from Night Screams and that makes me very happy. The rundown look of the motel and all the countrified accents are simply to die for. Evelyn gingerly handling a rubber snake like it was going to come to life bite her is friggin’ genius. The random strangers heading to the motel are so hilarious in their quaint little introductory scenes. There’s a gentleman carpenter, a pair of sexy singing cousins, hillbilly newlyweds, a sleazy salesman, and a drunk preacher. The sound effects of the storm that traps the guests in the motel is making our cats, especially Crisco, very nervous

Anna Chappell is trying to chew the scenery a new one with her bizarre performance as Evelyn. She seems to think she’s an avenging angel for the Lord so she’s using snakes, rats, and roaches to annoy her guests. I feel really bad for the actor who has a roach crawling on his goddam face! Around the time that Evelyn starts dispatching mofos with her trusty scythe (at the behest of the disembodied voice of her dead daughter), I start scrounging through our Japanese candy stash. While I chew some orange-flavored gum, I decide that I waited way too long to check this charming and odd movie out.

Saturday

Okay, that wasn’t a great way to start a moviethon. The films were two unseens and two fantastic discoveries but by the time Mountaintop Motel Massacre was over, I felt like crap. I decided to call it a night with the intention of getting a goodnight’s sleep. That was an excellent plan! With the bonkers plot of Night Screams still doing impossible algebra in my head, I fell into a deep sleep with crazy dreams.

By morning, I felt refreshed and ready to tear into some movies! Well, after chores anyway. I made bagels and cream cheese for LeEtta and I. I also peeled an enormous orange for us to split while she made coffee. We realized that we had accidentally bought fat free coffee creamer and we both made faces at each other while drinking our caffeine down. Rookie mistake! All of this is taking place while my LP of The George Shearing Quintet’s Satin Affair plays smoothly on in the background. After I vacuum the house, I pour some more iced coffee for myself, and pick the first movie of the day.

bloodtracks

“If you fear God then you’ll want this madness to end.”

9:52am

Blood Tracks (1985)

I found a VHS copy of this film at a flea market, burned it to DVD, and then sold the tape on eBay for a nice profit! That’s why I’m independently wealthy these days. Oh and then I forgot to watch it! The moment this starts, I immediately realize that we are in dubbed country here. The director of this is Swedish and that’s all the trivia you’ll get from me today. A family squabble turns deadly when mommy gets stabby. The family is forced to flee and a helpful narrator tells us that they have been hiding out for the last forty years in “the middle of nowhere”. A rock band and film crew are heading into the snowy mountains to film a music video. I’m practically wringing my hands with excitement over this one.

The family is living in an old hazardous waste factory out in “the middle of nowhere” and they’ve gone practically feral. They’re monster makeup is pretty frickin’ cool. Me thinks they’re not going to get along with a bunch of shithead music and film industry types. Beautiful people and mutants go together like oil and grease. There’s an avalanche and everyone is stranded up on the mountain. Between the dubbing, the cave-people that look vaguely like George Eastman in Antropophagus (1980), a high body count, and the drug-addled antics of the band, this is a lot of fun so far.

Blood Tracks does something really inventive. In spite of the danger of getting lost or killed, people start splitting up into smaller and smaller groups. I think this might be one of the single most cleverest ways of moving the action along in a slasher film. You are a true original, Blood Tracks! One of the kills was so confusing that I have to assume that it was cut to heck. Ooh, I really like some of the tense synthesizer music in this one. This movie sets itself up for a sequel very nicely. I don’t think that ever happened. LeEtta has come and gone to the grocery store and the liquor store for our very important supplies like food and rum. I married very well.

mutilator

“I’m gonna set a new high score on the video machine.”

11:28am

The Mutilator (1984)

And the unseens just keep on rolling out. Special thanks to my pal Scott MacDonald for sending me this one. The Mutilator opens with a bang as a kid named Ed accidentally blows his mother away with his dad’s rifle. Woops! Gun help is help. Dad doesn’t take this birthday surprise very well. Years later, little Ed is all grown up and hanging out with his college buddies. The single most important thing is that they are trying to figure out what to do on their fall break. Matt Farley has spoken very highly of the “Fall Break” song that plays in this movie. It does not disappoint.

The characters are kooky as fuck and way likeable. Ed and these jokers are heading out to his dad’s isolated beach house to get it ready for the winter and get some serious partying done. This is what fall break is all about, bitches. Ed’s dad is a real weirdo. He’s got hunting trophies all over the house as well as a sacrificial mask AND a huge battle-axe that has gone missing. Uh oh. Dad is hiding in the house and having fantasies about killing Ed when he was a kid. Yikes!

I’m loving the beach location in this one and the weird percussion sound on the score. It sounds like someone throwing a basketball against a concrete wall. There’s some great atmosphere in the pool scene from some awesome lighting and slow motion camerawork. Wow! The Mutilator is really living up to its title. Sam has texted me to say that he and his lady friend Laura will meet us at Señor Tequila, a fine Mexican restaurant. I feel bad because they’re missing this. The hide and seek scene is one for the ages.

Lunch

Señor Tequila is fun times with Sam and Laura. LeEtta gets fish tacos, I get tacos al pastor, Sam gets a quesadilla, and Laura gets veggie fajitas. As I have found with this restaurant every time I’ve gone there, the food is excellent! Of course, the place is a madhouse and we’re there for nearly 2 hours but it was worth it. Afterwards, Sam and I jam. We run through about 6 GYROJETS songs and then it’s time for some movie watching!

evillaugh

“I’m not playing with your butt.”

Evil Laugh

3:45pm

We’re off to a great start! This DVD is tore up and ridiculous. In the film, there’s a house in the middle of nowhere and a killer just ripped some yuppy’s heart out. Three dorks are cruising in their convertible when it breaks down. Barney is reading a Fangoria. Johnny has gotta go “drain the lizard”. He pees on a couple taking a nap in the dunes. Almost-comedy ensues. The realtor is the best character ever. I think his name is Mr. Burns.

They play the boombox and a cleaning-the-house dance montage starts. So far, both the dialog and the plot are brilliant. All of the acting is extra brilliant. Mr. Burns almost rapes his wife for our amusement. Tina says, “Just give me some sandpaper and send me to the nursery.” How much of this is meant to be funny and how much of this is meant to be serious? I think the filmmakers probably thought they were being much funnier than they actually were. Barney needs to die. He represents everything I hate though I will concede that he is proto-Randy for all you Scream fans out there.

There’s another swimming pool at night scene. I almost forgot to note it. Those are my jam, yo. When Connie gets scared, she whips out a gun that is bigger than her head. She shoots into a room and screams even though no one’s in there. It’s fantastic and silly. The ending is utterly insane and I loved it. If only the entire movie had been that on point.

graduationday

“You know something, Mr. Guglione? You’re a real bastard!”

Graduation Day (1981)

5:26pm

Sam and Laura leave but I know that Evil Laugh has forever changed them as people. Graduation Day starts and I’m ready for some teen sports, y’all! Um, you guys. Laura (the movie one, not Sam’s Laura) doesn’t look so good. The opening song is saying that “everyone wants to be the winner” but Laura looks like she just wants to live until the end of the race. It’s important to note here that not everyone gets what they want.

Oh boy, that first murder was pretty weak. The knife was bleeding before it hit the blonde jogger chick’s throat. It splashed her to death. Christopher George is in this and honestly, that’s all you need to know about this film. His gravelly voice is just so sexy and he plays an utter dickbagel. Laura’s sister Anne comes home from the navy to see her family, collect her sister’s honorary trophy (I actually LOL’d while typing that), and- BEEGEES POSTER! Anne’s stepdad Ronald is a real fucking asshole. Anne herself is a badass but she’s also rather creepy like in a “Hi! I could be the killer” kind of a way.

Oh snap. Michael Pataki plays the principal in this and big surprise, the senior class collectively loathes him. Those fools! I love Michael Pataki. This stalking scene looks familiar. Could it be because Night Screams already showed it to me!? The editor likes to cause seizures in the audience. Linnea Quigley just showed up in a scene that was already nuts to begin with. Now she’s seducing the cornball music teacher.

The cop busts some teenagers for smoking dope and then he himself smokes some dope. That’s what they call simile in the screenwriting industry. After the quarterback is killed by a sword-football, the film cuts to Laura’s boyfriend playing harmonica and entertaining the girls while some joker plays “The Graduation Blues” on guitar. He looks forty. The band playing the graduation dance is outstanding. Nafa and Amanda stop by to drop off a Boogeyman and Friday the 13^th Part II CEDs (those are Capacitance Electronic Discs, by the way) that he picked up at a thrift store for me. I’m going to send the Friday the 13^th one to Brad. The killer in this movie gets two monologues. TWO. Classic.

girlsschoolscreamers

“Liz, you are one crazy lady and I think you oughta cool your jets!”

Girls School Screamers

8:02pm

Here’s another film I bought on tape and converted to DVD. After a pair of ridiculous Troma previews, this movie starts so nonchalantly that I couldn’t tell if it was actually happening or not. On a dare by his friends, young Billy goes snooping in a house and is confronted by a nasty ghost. He ends up in the hospital in shock. Now we jump to the reading of a will and we jump yet again to some Catholic school girls being silly. This gang of cuties gets called to the principal’s office. He wants them to catalog the art collection of the school’s greatest benefactor in the same house that nearly killed young Billy.

13 minutes in and they’ve already made fun of the “fat girl” Rosemary twice. Of course, she’s the hottest one. LeEtta has made me my first mojito of the night. This could be trouble. Rum says yes! Just like Blood Tracks, I never actually watched this one until now. I sure hope it’s a slasher movie! The girls are certainly catty enough for my standards. During a game of hide and seek, Jackie finds the diary of Jennifer Wells, one of the girls who used to live in the house. The nun gets really upset when Jackie asks her about it but they figure that Jennifer must have died mysteriously. Time to have a séance. The only thing I love more than nighttime swimming pool sequences is séances!

They find a portrait of Jennifer Wells and -gasp- it looks like Jackie! During an extended flashback to young Jennifer Wells, the dialog gets even more stilted. This is how old timey people talked! We finally get our first kill with a meat cleaver and damn it to hell, it’s “fat” Rosemary. I miss her already. A couple of the girls’ goofy boyfriends show up to mess with them. This is getting good. And my fingers are numb from the mojito. LeEtta strikes again. Supernatural slasher for the win! Son of a bitch. Troma just talked over the last shot of the movie. Fuck you, Troma. Fuck you.

toallagoodnight

“Tom, will you stop messing around and take me to bed like a real man?”

To All a Goodnight

9:36pm

A bunch of moronic girls chase their friend through the finishing school with knives and an axe. She falls to her death over the edge of a balcony during Christmas vacation. What the heck was gonna happen if they caught her? Unlikely prank fail! It’s 2 years later and a killer is getting ready to kill some girls at the same school. Man oh man, I needed another Christmas-themed slasher in my life and this will do nicely. Lots of bitchy chicks and a creepy groundskeeper. Hallelujah!

The goofy dude characters show up to party with the girls via plane and things get even sillier! Trisha the sassy Brit gets killed but her skirt already had blood all over it before the killer even got in the room. This movie is so fun. There’s an excellent double whammy kill scene that made me cheer. Then it’s the next day and everything just slows down while the cast goofs off. Even the detective is kind of off somehow but in a good way. Wow, David Hess could direct a frickin’ slasher! I’m not gonna lie but I’m pretty buzzed right now. If this movie was 9 hours long I’d be fine with that.

Sunday

In case you were wondering, I’m a lightweight when it comes to booze. I woke up in the middle of the night with an incredible hangover and had to trudge to the kitchen for some ibuprofen. Despite our cat Sparkles’ best efforts to wake me up before my alarm, I slept rather well. In the morning, I went out to Dunkin Donuts for some breakfast substance for us in the form of bacon, egg, and cheese croissants. LeEtta doesn’t like their coffee so she started brewing a pot while I was gone.

After breakfast, I put on the first movie. It’s called Attack of the Lawnmower starring LeEtta and Richard. Ah yes, yardwork. Now that we own a home and it’s Florida, we have yardwork every weekend between the months of April and November every damn year. Once that is done, we shower, and head out to lunch. The always reliable Burger 21 is a goodtime place, especially on Sunday before everyone gets out of church. I’m wearing my Camp Crystal Lake t-shirt so people know I’m not fucking around. I have a hotdog with bacon and an espresso milkshake while LeEtta gets a bean burger. We’re literally the best people in the world.

slumberpartymassacre3

“Did somebody mention hips? Here come the cookies!”

Slumber Party Massacre III (1990)

12:34pm

Son of a bitch! I’m breaking my 1989 rule. Woops. This eerie opening theme is so good that it puts my mind at ease. We’re on the beach for some volleyball fun but there’s a creepy Kurt Cobain Lookalike Dude watching this group of teens who are about to die horribly. Too cynical? Jeffrey Canino warned me about this movie. The first kill with the drill happens and some seriously noodly guitar solo plays over the top. I love it. We go right into some subpar Bananarama song as the girls cruise in a convertible. So far, so good.

LeEtta appreciates the checklist being marked off for things that you need in a Slumber Party Massacre sequel. 1. Teens. 2. A slumber party. 3. A drill. 4. A creepy neighbor. 5. Shower scene in the first 15 minutes. One of the girls looks like Peggy from “Married with Children” by way of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. She’s dating a 50 year old!? The freakazoid neighbor is some next level shit here. He’s stalking the house like a complete psycho, making creepy phone calls, and reading a book on human anatomy. Leather Jacket Frank is my new favorite character. He is way too cool for this movie.

The girls’ striptease action is interrupted when the boys sneak in and scare them. It’s pretty frickin’ great. Whoa, the killer is like a dang ninja. He dispatches our only black character with a realty sign. Two more items on the Slumber Party Massacre list: 6. Pizza delivery shenanigans. 7. Horny friend invites a boy over. The nerd character looks like Code Red Bill. Because Jackie left her address book at the beach, Kurt Cobain Lookalike Dude is snooping around now too. I just love teenagers so much.

Juliet tries to sleep with a dude but he was impotent so it’s inferred that he went down on her. Then she gets electrocuted in the bath by a plugin dildo. The list continues to grow. 8. Dead girl stuffed in a garment bag. 9. Useless boys go run for help. And this movie just got crazy. The only person who’s a bigger asshole than the killer is the cop who won’t send a damn patrol car around to the house. This movie has a really bleak edge to it. The killer in part III is crazy in a real-life serial killer kind of a way. Yikes! That’s what Jeffrey was warning me about. The faux Billy Idol song at the end is just disturbing enough to go along with the movie.

boogeyman

“I never seen a kiss this long!”

The Boogey Man (1980)

2:07pm

Now here’s another one that I’ve actually seen but not for many, many years. Wow, the Carpenter-esque score for this is kicking my ass! A typical scene from any American home in the 1950s starts when naughty mommy lets her skeevy boyfriend terrorize her children. Little sis helps her bro out by giving him a butcher knife and he makes them sandwiches for her with the crusts cut off. The end. Just kidding! Little Willy stabs the shithead duder to death and that makes me smile. I believe the children are our future.

Years later, Willy and his sister Lacey are all grown up and living in what looks like the Amityville Horror house! Willy is mute but he’s got nice overalls. Lacey has a kid and a loving husband but she’s been able to suppress her terrible sexual kinkiness that obviously runs in her family so I guess she’s kind of okay. Shit starts getting weird when their naughty mommy writes a letter to Lacey and Willy. Both kids are haunted by the memories of that night. I guess I would be too. I have always liked this one but man oh man, The Boogey Man is way better than I remember it. Fuck that lazy ass sequel.

Supernatural slasher! John Carradine! Exclamation points! Some horny chick is hitting on Willy and he nearly strangles her to death. What the pliggity plot is going on here? Plot? When Lacey and her husband visit her childhood home, she goes bananas after she sees that the man that Willy killed is staring at her from inside her mom’s old mirror. Her dumbass husband brings the offending reflective device home to help cure her and Willy of their trauma. Now a bunch of murders start happening when sharp and blunt objects start coming to life. Luckily, there’s some jerky teenagers lined up and ready to add to the body count. This is aggressively batshit crazy. I’ll say it again. Fuck that lazy ass sequel.

satansblade

“I just hope I have better luck with my first murder case than you had with yours.”

Satan’s Blade

3:37pm

Brad speaks very highly of this one so I’m pretty darn stoked. A knife flies into frame from nowhere and sticks into a tree and I ask, “Is that the Satan’s blade?” When it starts glowing red, I know that it’s not. The stilted acting kicks in almost immediately. Then a bank robbery ensues and a girl gets menaced with a blade that may be Satan’s blade but possibly not. Next, a girl gets shot and she milks her death scene for all it’s worth, taking several hours to fall down. This is friggin’ great so far! The bank robbers flee to their hideout and surprise, they’re all women. Grrl power! Oh wait, is the leader of their gang a man? Boo! That’s penis power. And there’s the double cross. Or is that a triple cross?

Oh my God, this is getting better and better as each new goofball character shows up to drop a ton of exposition on us. The old lady who owns the lodge where all these fools are staying is simply outstanding. Where’s her damn Oscar? There’s an old local legend that is just ridiculous. We pause the film for dinner and it doesn’t go very well. I’m sure LeEtta won’t want me recording a rare culinary failure here but it was pretty funny. Orangey-brown zesty slime and okra over mushy rice is a dish that will probably never come back to the Schmidt house.

All of the women in this are just phenomenal, especially Rita who may not be from Earth. While the guys are busy getting drunk, she has a nightmare of a deranged killer stabbing friends to death. A prank is pulled and everyone ends up in their nighties wrestling in the snow. This film is probably going to be the best thing I watch in my entire life. Even the cops are perfect. Much like To All a Goodnight, I really like these characters and don’t want anything bad to happen to them. Why so much killing? That final title screen is so boss.

Smoke Break

Even though I’m feeling the moviethon haze creeping in and I just want to finish this damn thing, it’s time for a smoke. I grab a pipe, a tin of tobacco, and some Gatorade I didn’t finish during yardwork today. While the wind is blowing and the clouds are flying, I’m melting away in the deliciousness of pipe smoke. I shoot some texts back and forth with Brad about future moviethons and just enjoy watching the world go by. Okay, it’s time to start up again and finish this thing before I’m cut into little tiny pieces.

terrorattenkiller

“I try to help Leslie out but sometimes I feel… she’s just a born victim.”

Terror at Tenkiller (1986)

6:30pm

I have heard this is a piece of crap but once that drum machine kicks in, I’m very confident in my choice. A girl named Denise gets her throat slit and then her body is dumped in the lake while the soundtrack plays a warbling lament. After that, a busty girl named Leslie is swimming in a pool and some jerk named Josh wants to talk things over with her. Guess what I’ve never used… a frickin’ public shower! Her friend Jana scares the living daylights out of her. Guess what I’ve never had… a friend! Leslie wants to break up with Josh and I wholeheartedly endorse this.

They head out to a place called “Tenkiller” for some lakeside fun and all kinds of jaunty music follows them there. The girls are going swimming and just sunning themselves while an air of lingering dread creeps in. Maybe I’m imagining that lingering dread. This movie excels in melodrama and lady talk. Just like Satan’s Blade, there’s a legend or some such that might be important later. We follow a girl who works at a diner while a mysterious figure is stalking around outside. He’s Mister Canadian Tuxedo and he just killed her. Oh diner girl, we hardly knew ye.

The girls rent a boat from a dirty old man named Preacher and a young guy named Tor -who just killed the diner girl- and head out to the middle of nowhere to stay in a cabin. Things take a turn for the classy when I see they’re sharing a can of Slice. During some real talk about Josh from Jana, Leslie looks absolutely shell-shocked. The plot gets really complicated when the girls talk about working at the diner. Major revelation! On the first night, Preacher invites himself in but Jana says no. Then he stalks around smoking and watching the cabin. Tor shows up and he and Preacher have a conversation that is un-fucking-believable. It doesn’t end well for Preacher.

Tor gives us an eyeful from his short shorts when he sits on the lanai. LeEtta is not impressed. In an unexpectedly atmospheric scene, Leslie has a dream where Josh is playing a harmonica and beckoning to her from the woods. She goes outside and everything is foggy and eerie. I loved it! I’m way past the hour mark with this one and I don’t understand this movie’s bad reputation. While working late at the diner, Leslie is reading The Stand and that made me giggle. Tor kills people because his harmonica commands him? Maybe. Now I’m not saying it’s a necessity or anything -and it should in a no way speak to the quality of this film- but I needed to drink iced coffee during Terror at Tenkiller. This is an awesome movie.

lastslumberparty

“Let’s go rustle up some menfolk.”

The Last Slumber Party

8:20pm

Even though my brain feels like an old milkshake, I start the final film of the moviethon. I have heard lots of great things about The Last Slumber Party and that’s why I saved it for last. This opens with some serious rock music while a deranged mental patient who’s dressed like a surgeon is running amok. We cut to a high school classroom and the movie opens up its wonders to LeEtta and me. At the mental hospital, some funny dialog about a violent lunatic is just outrageous and grand. Then I notice this seems to have been shot on both video AND on film which makes it feel like two movies stitched together.

The teen slumber party elements mixed with the hospital stuff is making for a very intriguing concoction. LeEtta noticed that the girls are having a slumber party while the girl’s parents are home. I suggest that this is The Last Chaperoned Slumber Party. All of the guy characters are real cockfaces except for the class nerd. They pick on him and call him “Science”. Back at the slumber party, the girls are goofing off and drinking booze while the psycho surgeon is creeping about. The worst character just got killed and I cheered. The movie just improved substantially!

That’s the second Beegees poster in this moviethon! And the first Sesame Street poster. I can’t even process what’s going on in this movie. The girls are watching Forever Evil, one of my childhood trauma films! Dear reader, you need to see The Last Slumber Party for yourself. If you open up your heart to it, you will live forever, I promise. Between the multiple film stocks and cameras and stupendously baffling bullshit of the screenplay, my mind has been dismantled and reassembled incorrectly. I hope there’s a 1-800 number at the end of the film to some kind of Last Slumber Party support network.

Conclusion

Slasher movies are just good melodramas with a couple of murders thrown in. For instance, Terror at Tenkiller felt exactly like a Me Generation leftover like Savage Weekend but way, way more sedate or possibly in a coma. I can’t believe so many unseen films ended up being so rewarding. That being said, The Boogey Man and Graduation Day have inspired me to make sure that next time the old favorites will be populating the playlist in a big way. Everything went perfectly this time around except for the sleaze factor of Slumber Party Massacre III. That one was just gross. See you next time, you dang murderers.

Final Stats

Boobies: 34

Butts: 5

Wieners: 0

Body Count: 120

Fauxrror

fauxrror-cover-small

Sometimes horror movies don’t exist. Who’s to say that those faux films can’t have their own soundtracks? Good news, my friends, they totally can! This is where FAUXRROR (Nafa Fa’alogo, Richard Glenn Schmidt, and Zac Tomlinson) swoops in and creates the sonic landscapes for all those nonexistent films. You can get FAUXRROR from Goblinhaus Records. With every order of Fauxrror, you get a link to download “Terror”, Richard of Doomed Moviethon’s synth-laden tribute to real horror movies! Once you do that, come back right here and read the plots and production histories for each film that never happened.

The FAUXsters and the FAUXnopses:

01-terrormexicanodeselva

Terror Mexicano de Selva
AKA Mexican Jungle Terror
Released: 1967, 1975 (re-release)
Country Of Origin: Mexico
Director: John Stanley (AKA Juan Stanzos)
Starring: Nob Jordan, Juan Masalientadas, Charlton Heston
Composer: Nafa Fa’alogo

This very hard-to-find cannibal/zombie/vampire film shot in the jungles and back roads near residential areas in Tijuana and Ensenada. Using shock stock footage of very real cannibal rituals, amateur theatre students, and very rough jump-cut editing, this is probably the greatest Mondo horror exploitation film of all time. Directed by Mexico’s own, Juan Stanzos (credited in the American version as John Stanley), you’ll be hard pressed to find a film that is as sickening and silly as this one. In the mid-70s, Mexican Jungle Terror was re-dubbed with narration by Charlton Heston and dialogue by Italian voice actors when it was released in Europe and the United States. This film hit the old drive-ins and grindhouse theaters with a vengeance only to disappear into near total obscurity.

02-nightofthecougarnurse

The Night Of The Cougar Nurse
(AKA La Notte Dell’Infermiera Del Cougar)
Released: 1974
Country Of Origin: Italy
Director: Gino T. Enzolianili
Starring: Feza Schaurzenhoof, Ivan Rassimov, Florinda Bolkan, Edwige Fenech, Joe Flaherty
Composer: Richard Glenn Schmidt

German sexpot Feza Schaurzenhoof plays Inga, a nurse working in a hospital in Rome, who is plagued by nightmares of a monstrous psychopathic nurse in a cougar mask that stalks the halls of the hospital making love to and mutilating the male patients. When the murders from her dreams turn out to be real, it is up to Inga to determine if she is having psychic visions of these crimes or something far more sinister. The hospital chief of staff, Dr. Dani (played by Ivan Rassimov), tries hypnotherapy on Inga in order to learn the truth before its too late.

This awful Giallo with supernatural (I guess) overtones must be seen to be believed. A deer in headlights, German “actress” Feza Schaurzenhoof is absolutely dreadful and only manages to maintain viewer interest by constantly disrobing and allowing her naked form to be splattered with gallons of fake blood. Not surprisingly, Gino T. Enzolianili, responsible for nearly 30 Spaghetti Westerns and a dozen Peplum (sword and sandal) flicks, retired from film-making immediately after this film was released.

03-nachtzombies

Die Nacht des Tageslichtes Zombies
AKA Night of the Daylight Zombies
Released: 1977
Country Of Origin: Germany
Director: Herman Menschenfresser
Writer: Adrien Biermann
Starring: Adalberto Russo, Placida De Luca, Elke Sommer, and Kazimierz Wojciechowski
Composer: Zac Tomlinson

Armin (Adalberto Russo) and Asta Michaelis (Placida De Luca) are newlyweds on their honeymoon in a remote area of southern Germany. Unknown to them, Dr. Franz Grossmann (Kazimierz Wojciechowski) has been performing horrifying necromantic experiments inside his nearby castle. Determined to exact his revenge on the nearby town for embarrassingly exiling him from the city, Dr. Grossmann has been stealing the recently dead bodies of the townspeople and turning them into zombies. One day while enjoying their peaceful honeymoon, Armin and Asta are attacked by zombies. They manage to fight them off â€“ but just barely. Soon they meet a local (a surprise cameo that you will never believe!) who knows of Dr. Grossmann’s infernal plans. With him, they soon formulate a plan to defeat the horde of daylight zombies.

Herman Menschenfresser’s first foray into the horror genre is a competent attempt, although a bit naive. There is plenty of suspense, but the very nature of the zombies (operating only during the day) makes the movie less frightening than it could have been. Adrien Biermann’s script is about as original as any zombie flick from the 1970s can be. The film was a huge success in Germany, but not critically acclaimed. It didn’t fare as well in foreign markets, so it is difficult to find in the States. Copies of it are worth big bucks on eBay. If you’re a fan of 1970s German horror, you shouldn’t pass this film up. But I would suggest passing up the next two movies in the series.

04-bewaretheflod

Beware The Flod
Released: 1971
Country Of Origin: US
Director: Tony Aristomash
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Mimsy Farmer, Ethel Merman
Composer: Nafa Fa’alogo

Ah, Flod, or as I like to call it: ‘The Flawed’. This snoozer has been bouncing around in the public domain for over 25 years and it just won’t stay down thanks to its small but loyal fan base. Due to some incredible mismanagement on the part of Glass Foot Productions and director Tony Aristomash no one actually owns the rights to this film. A year after its release and surprisingly successful drive-in run, Paramount Pictures sued over the similarities between Flod and The Blob. Once it was discovered that the film’s entire proceeds went to The Church of Latter Day Saints, the case was dismissed.

A science experiment gone horribly awry and left for dead in the Arizona desert terrorizes locals and tourists alike. Described in some of the dialogue as ‘the bloody burning blob’, the monster is little more than innards, teeth, and pulsing energy with the ability to burn and devour its victims. A university professor (played by Cameron Mitchell) discovers that Flod is allergic to Freon and can be neatly captured in ice cube trays. With the help of a high school math teacher (Mimsy Farmer), the professor develops a mathematical equation which determines the number of ice cube trays needed to defeat the monster. The government is (understandably) unwilling to use his formula and instead brings in the army and national guard who are both easily crushed by Flod. Ethel Merman plays Meredith Baxtermaker, the aging heir to an ice cube tray dynasty and the only hope for mankind.

05-insectrape

Bloody Insect Punk Rape Good Time
Released: 1981
Country Of Origin: Japan
Director: Splash Izumi
Starring: Unknown
Composer: Richard Glenn Schmidt

This experimental film is widely regarded as Splash Izumi’s lost masterpiece. In a bleak future time, gangs of mutated and horny insect-like punk rockers terrorize the urban landscape of Shinjuku. Not much else is known of this obscure film. Rumor has it that Izumi destroyed the original print after the explicit nature of the film caused a riot at the Kyoto film festival but most sources cannot confirm this story. Keen and very lucky bootleggers have been able to track down 4th and 5th generation VHS dubs (with no subtitles) but as of yet, this film has never had an official release.

06-elwombat

El Wombat Con El Asno Llameante
(AKA The Wombat with the Flaming Ass AKA The Stabbing Fire Killer)
Released: 1972
Country Of Origin: Spain, France, Italy
Director: Jess Franco (as Lyle Heat)
Starring: Jacinto Molina, Jeanine Coudoux, Klaus Kinski, and Perla Cristal
Composer: Richard Glenn Schmidt

A serial murderer is mutilating and setting fire to the bodies of high profile fashion models. The only clues are clumps of wombat hair left at the scene of each crime. Former police inspector and current alcoholic Alfonso Albanchez (played by Jacinto Molina) is reinstated into the police force and given the case because of his expertise in Australian mammals. The case takes a turn when it is discovered that Albanchez’s psychotic twin brother has escaped from an asylum.

I am astounded that horror legend Paul Naschy AKA Jacinto Molina agreed to star in this Spanish, French, and Italian giallo-esque monstrosity. His dual roles are well-played by the actor but the amateurish split screen effects are abysmal. When the brothers start juggling knives like their days in the Australian circus, the actor’s superimposed hands are clearly not his own. French pop singer Jeanine Coudoux makes her acting debut and swan song as the alcoholic inspector’s estranged fashion model wife and is often blamed for the film’s failure. I think it has more to do with the seven writers and the perpetually eccentric Franco that did his best to save this piece of shit. While I’m told this has its fans, I just don’t get it. Keep an eye out for Perla Cristal as the kindly nun. [Spoiler Alert] Klaus Kinski is terribly miscast here as the killer with unhealthy fascinations for both wombats and fashion models.

07-horrorcane

Horrorcane
AKA In The Eye of Hell
Released: 1993
Country Of Origin: US/Bermuda
Director: Abe Tubefeld
Starring: Richard Johnson, Lily Brostoburner, Fairuza Balk
Composer: Nafa Fa’alogo

It is pretty astounding that a movie as offensive as this could have been made. What isn’t so astounding is that it came from the mind of sleazeball producer/writer/director Abe Tubefeld. Tubefeld was a legend of the 70s exploitation boom and yet Horrorcane (a disaster of a disaster film) turned out to be the last hurrah. What should have been a quiet tax write-off for his investors, Tubefeld promoted this movie as the zombie genre’s Gone With The Wind (clever, I know) and released the film during hurricane season less than a year after the destruction of Hurricane Andrew. Not to mention the film’s awkward (and blatantly racist) handling of its Haitian characters (the zombies). The end result: a massive campaign against the film’s release which caused theaters around the country to instantly refuse to play it.

Haitian corpses are caught up in a hurricane which carries the bodies over a leaking nuclear reactor. The corpses become radioactive zombies and end up in a boarded up and powerless Miami at sundown, thus leaving the residents trapped inside their homes and without means of news or communication. It is up to meteorologist Shane Dartmouth (played by Richard Johnson) and plucky news correspondent Jane Duncan (played by adult film actress Lily Brostoburner), to try and warn the inhabitants of Miami of the danger as well as fight off the hordes of the radioactive undead.

Doll Parts
Released: 1986
Country Of Origin: Hong Kong/Singapore
Director: Pomson Leung
Starring: Anthony Wong, Anita Mui, Richard Harrison
Composer: Nafa Fa’alogo

Good luck finding this rare gem. Some legal issues over the release of the Thai DVD have made this film almost impossibly obscure. It’s a shame too since this very offbeat, gory, funny, and sexy flick is actually quite good. Though the film is mostly quite tame, scenes involving Anthony Wong’s character “making love” to some mannequins earned this a CAT III rating.

The story involves a small-time “British” fashion designer, Henry Lu (played by Anthony Wong), who shoots to super-stardom with his line of clothing that seems to fit perfectly. His secret: his mannequins are made from the plastic-encased corpses of high fashion models. Richard Harrison kung-fu chops his way through suspects as the embittered Interpol agent. When the designer falls in love with his next victim, a lesbian hand-model named Becky Jordan (played by Anita Mui), hilarity and horror ensues. Filmed on the streets of Jurong (doubling as the city of London).

09-aufmenschenjagdmachen

Auf Menschen Jagd Machen
AKA Preying Upon Humans
Released: 1984
Country Of Origin: Germany
Director: Herman Menschenfresser
Writer: Adrien Biermann
Starring: Adalberto Russo, Placida De Luca, Karin Dor, and Henry Frankson
Composer: Zac Tomlinson

Herman Menschenfresser and Adrien Biermann team up again for this sequel to the 1977 film “Die Nacht des Tageslichtes Zombies”. Unfortunately, this film is nowhere near the gem that its predecessor is. After many failed films from Menschenfresser and with Biermann unable to even give a script away, they decided it was time to make a sequel to their most successful movie. Adalberto Russo and Placida De Luca reprise their roles as Armin and Asta Michaelis. Henry Frankson plays the zombie son of Dr. Franz Grossmann, Helmut Grossmann. Determined to get revenge on the killers of his father, Helmut abducts local women to build a new zombie army through disgusting necrophillic rites. He hunts down Armin and Asta, and an uninspiring climax is the result.

Unlike “Die Nacht des Tageslichtes Zombies”, this film has no charm at all. The special effects are downright atrocious, the acting is elementary and painful to watch, and the writing and directing are absolutely uninspired. The soundtrack is the best part of the whole film. Auf Menschen Jagd Machen was a bomb both in Germany and abroad, making this film even harder to find than its predecessor. Maybe some DVD company will take pity on this poor film and bring it to the salivating hordes of zombie film aficionados.

10-alticinqueconildiavolo

Alti Cinque Con Il Davolo
(AKA High Five With The Devil)
Released: 1979
Country Of Origin: Italy, Spain
Director: Andrea Montiponinino
Starring: Maxine Bruche, Ray Lovelock, Tomas Milian, and Jesus DeAmistad
Composer: Richard Glenn Schmidt

Marie (played by Maxine Bruche) and her husband Paul (Ray Lovelock) are traveling through the Spanish countryside on their honeymoon when they get into a car accident with Mark Davis, a British aristocrat (Tomas Milian) visiting his summer vacation home in order to throw a party. Mark encourages the couple to stay at his villa for the night while their cars are being repaired by the local mechanic. His eccentric party guests (actually the members of a Satanic cult) begin a black magic ritualistic orgy of blood sacrifices and goat-cavorting. Paul and Marie must run for their lives after they discover that their young flesh plays a terrifyingly important role in the midnight black mass. Satan himself (Jesus DeAmistad in a bizarre cameo) shows up in the guise of a fish merchant to tempt the young couple into sampling the fresh devilfish.

A highly controversial and unusual horror film from Montiponinino. This film caused a major uproar in Spain upon its initial release. Apparently, the censors didn’t catch the fact that actor and political activist Jesus DeAmistad plays the devil AND a fish vendor. Threats upon his life from the Spanish fishing community caused DeAmistad to flee the country. Trouble also found director Montiponinino as he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for having directed this thing. In a recent interview, Tomas Milian seems to be the only one proud of the film (even if it’s only for his own performance).

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Death Number 4
Released: 1973
Country Of Origin: Hong Kong
Director: Franklin Bo
Starring: Francis Doujhe, Daoming Chen
Composer: Nafa Fa’alogo

Most viewers will notice just how far ahead of its time Death Number 4 truly was. Amazingly, the film never lays on any painful Chinese or Japanese stereotypes. At its worst, the film is both anti-American and anti-Communist propaganda. At its best, Death Number 4 is an incredibly thrilling (though highly improbable) proto-slasher film. The killings are especially bloody and there is a surprising amount of nudity in the “Go-Go-Go Sweet Dance Brothel” scene.

Armed with an array of swords and scimitars, an American mass murderer and rogue spy (played by Francis Doujhe) makes his way to Tokyo and performs a series of serial killings while donning a blue suit and a Mao Tse Tung mask. His mission is to stir up anti-Chinese sentiment in hopes of igniting a war with China. Much surprising political intrigue ensues.

Trivia: Look for an uncredited Jackie Chan as the errand boy in the pork-shop swordplay sequence.

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London Crawling
AKA Les Zombies avec Le Poisson et Ecaille et un Accent
Released: 1999
Country Of Origin: UK
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Vinnie Jones, Jewel, Rowan Atkinson
Composer: Nafa Fa’alogo

Post apocalyptic England gets zombified by Guy Ritchie. Think of this one as Dawn of the Dead from the British perspective. I really wasn’t too thrilled with this film. It’s sort of a zanier prototype for Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. The sped up chase sequences complete with Benny Hill music are just too outlandish to be scary. However, the Benny Hill zombie in the bellhop uniform is pretty great. Jewel is miscast in her role as Edwina the down-on-her-luck bartender and her British accent is as uneven as her performance. Vinnie Jones on the other hand makes for a perfect antihero as Jo-Jo. Obviously, the worst decision Guy Ritchie made is the “Mr. Bean” tie-in. In recent interviews, Ritchie claims this was studio interference but I find this highly unlikely since Rowan Atkinson is, in fact, godfather to he and Madonna’s first child: Goober Ritchie.

[Spoiler] This is my major contention with this film: After Jo-Jo is bitten and turns into a zombie, it pretty much goes against every rule in the zombie film book that he would not only retain his mental faculties but also get super human strength. WTF?

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Xenonecrodroids: After The Fall Of Chicago 1999
Released: 1982
Country Of Origin: Italy
Director: Guiseppe Peppini
Starring: Grace Jones, George Eastman, Paololo
Composer: Richard Glenn Schmidt

After a nuclear apocalypse leaves the United States and most of the modern world a shell of its former self, a group of heroes led by Stife Frank (played by George Eastman) rises up from the ashes to try and form a new and peaceful government. Unfortunately, a bloodthirsty warlord, known only as The Wrash (played by Italian folk guitar legend Paololo), has banded together all of America’s remaining biker gangs and is terrorizing the helpless citizens of what he calls his “New-clear Nation”. Just as Stife and The Wrash are about a face off, an even more deadly menace arrives by way of flying saucers and lands in the middle of Chicago. Manshee (Grace Jones) is the queen of a mysterious Dead Planet and she is here take what is left of Earth as her own. Her army of a million alien robot zombies (called Xenonecrodroids) begin to lay waste to the wasted land. It is up to Earth’s last hero and its cruelest tyrant to join forces and defeat the zombie queen.

You have to give Guiseppe Peppini his props for attempting to pull this one off. The imagination behind this film is staggering. The budget behind it however is… way, way less. After a barrage of war stock footage and Rod Steiger’s overwrought narration, the film finally begins. It is clear from the moment we see “Chicago” that is a hodgepodge of painted backdrops and what appears to be some abandoned Spaghetti Western ghost towns. The casting is a genre film fanatic’s dream with everyone going out of their way to bring their larger-than-life characters to life. Grace Jones has never been better.

The most unfortunate flaw with Xenonecrodroids is the use of stock footage from another horror movie during the alien robot zombie scenes. When Stife removes a helmet from one of the creatures and we finally see what we’ve waiting for, we get clips from Herman Menschenfresser’s German zombie opus Night Of The Daylight Zombies! This caused quite a stir in the European film community as an international lawsuit broke out causing the film to be pulled from theaters after a very successful opening. Available only on Japanese laserdisc, Xenonecrodroids is a lot of fun but still remains disappointing thanks to Peppini’s “talent” for cutting corners.

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Der Teich von der Zombiefroesche
AKA The Pond of the Zombie Frogs
Released: 1994
Country Of Origin: Germany
Director: Adalberto Russo
Writer: Adalberto Russo
Starring: Placida De Luca and Herman Menschenfresser
Composer: Zac Tomlinson

The third (and final) installment of the zombie horror trilogy started by Herman Menschenfresser and Adrien Biermann. As if the second film wasn’t horrible enough, this bomb was dropped on the public in the early 90s. After “Auf Menschen Jagd Machen” failed, it ruined the careers of all involved. Writer Adrien Biermann committed suicide after the premier of “Auf Menschen…” and Adalberto Russo, in a desperate bid to save his waning career, wrote a script for a third movie and managed to convince the remaining cast -those who hadn’t drank themselves to death by now- to try one more time for success. Herman Menschenfresser stars in this film, rather than directing it, and does about as good a job acting as he did directing the previous film.

The plot is laughable at best. At the end of the last film, Preying Upon Humans, the body of Helmut Grossmann, the zombie son of Dr. Franz Grossmann, was thrown into a remote pond. His corpse defiles the body of water, mutating the population of frogs into zombies. Henry Frankson, who played Helmut in the previous film, refused to sign on to this one. To get around this speed bump, the corrupted soul of Helmut is transferred into the largest of the frogs, where he tries once again to avenge the death of his father. Rather than being frightening, the film is comedic. If you want a good laugh and don’t mind losing a few brain cells in the process, pick this film up. Unlike the other two movies, there are many copies of the Mill Creek DVD of Zombiefroesche floating around (usually in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart under the title “The Haunted Frog Bog”).

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The Charnel House on Tickle Kitten Lake
Released: 1979
Country Of Origin: United States
Director: James Thistlestuffer
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Marilyn Chambers, and Udo Kier
Composer: Richard Glenn Schmidt

Maverick filmmaker James Thistlestuffer directed this semi-sequel to his massively popular independent horror film: Ghousthouseboat. Finally backed with the finances of a major studio, Thistlestuffer really comes into his own with this incredible (though at the time practically unmarketable) ghost tale. The shortsighted critics at the time deemed The Charnel House On Tickle Kitten Lake as too dense, too unentertaining, and too affected to be understood. Thankfully, time has been very kind to the film as it is now once of the most highly regarded art films of the last century.

What I love about Charnel House is that it constantly shifts perspectives once the Raper family moves into their new home. Something that most audiences didn’t understand at the time was the camera angles are jumping from each member of the family (including the pets), the ghosts, and a family of spiders inhabiting the corners. Thistlestuffer wanted to disorientate the viewer so that they would understand the paradox of the ghost mother’s grief for her dead ghost sons who, in fact, actually died back to life.

One unspoken notion of the film is that Striker Raper (Cameron Mitchell) has an eating disorder but pretends that it is just a stuttering problem so severe that it causes food to fly from his fingers. Udo Kier, in a career-defining role as Jessup, the Civil War lieutenant ghost, who has an affair with Mrs. Raper (played by Marilyn Chambers) subverts the fractals caused by the family’s sub-literal “raping” of the ghosts’ consciousness. However, the fact that the paradigm has already shifted is the most haunting aspect of The Charnel House On Tickle Kitten Lake. It’s just simply chilling and beautiful. I must also note that it’s well worth your time making it through the 4 and a half hour director’s cut.

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Vampire Ravers
Release: July, 1996
Country of Origin: The Netherlands, Germany
Director: Guy LePlur
Composer: Zac Tomlinson
Starring: Johannes Naaktgeboren, Nina Rotmensen, Adrian Zeldenthuis, Tomas Timmerman, and Franka Potente

An ancient evil is disturbed by the booming bass from a nearby nightclub. Count Van de Groot (Johannes Naaktgeboren) rises from his hidden sanctuary to find thousands of ravers high on Ecstasy. Since he has not fed in centuries, he takes advantage of their impaired state of mind and began feeding upon them. The fact that raves last all night means he can feed as he pleases. Nobody at the club notices anything wrong until it is time to go home.

When they find that some of their comrades in dance are missing, Fridja Piest (Nina Rotmensen) and Peter Poepjes (Adrian Zeldenthuis) suspect that the Count, the “old dude” with no rhythm and a fashion sense that is hundreds of years out of date, must be the culprit. After witnessing their friend, Sabre (played by Tomas Timmerman), vanish underneath the Count’s cape, their suspicions are confirmed: they’ve been glowsticking with a vampire!

Filmed at the height of the rave scene in the Netherlands, Vampire Ravers was director/writer Guy LePlur’s attempt at fusing rave culture and the horror genre. Unfortunately, Guy discovered the public wasn’t ready for such a match. The film tanked on release, grossing 15,000,000 guilder, a fraction of the 250,000,000 guilder budget. Vampire Ravers has had much better luck finding an audience since its arrival on DVD and there are rumors of a sequel. Keep an eye out for a young Franka Potente in the rave sequence. The story goes that she was on holiday attending a rave and wasn’t aware a film was being made.

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Moribund Summer
Released: 2007
Country Of Origin: United States
Director: Eldrich Necronomico
Starring: Gemini Staralert, Stormdrain Axecloud, Gore Vital, and John Lydon
Composer: Richard Glenn Schmidt

This is why you should never write and direct a horror film based on the songs of your death grind goth metal band. Well, I guess you could but just don’t do it this badly. Eldrich Necronomico is the mastermind behind this shit-festival starring his girlfriend, Gemini Staralert, and members of his Tampa-based band, Nyarlathotep Enema. Although this film has something to do with H.P. Lovecraft, I can’t quite find the connection. Moribund Summer is a SOV (shot-on-video) campground-themed Slasher that falls prey to all the usual indie horror technical mistakes: poor lighting, dreadful sound, etc.

To make matters worse, the film is overloaded with uninspired and repetitive digital postproduction effects. The writing is terrible as the film is basically plotless and the dialogue features characters speaking their thoughts out loud when it is pretty friggin’ obvious what they are thinking. The fact that the frequently nude Gemini Staralert (who can’t act to save her life) plays all four female roles (in different wigs) that all just happen to get disemboweled in the exact same manner is pretty annoying too. Recycling Final Cut Pro’s editing effects is one thing, but when you recycle your gore, I’m out. And how in the hell did they get John Lydon (credited as “Johnny Robbin”) to play a camp counselor?

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Zombie Hitler And His Irradiated Army Of The Dead
Released: 2005
Country Of Origin: US (made for TV)
Director: Alan Smithee
Starring: Ben Savage, Tony Danza, Treat Williams, Tina Yothers
Composer: Nafa Fa’alogo

Oh, Sci-Fi Channel, when are you going to get one right? This incompetent alternate history horror film is hampered by its awful performances from the washed up cast and reliance on substandard CGI sequences. The over-the-top quality of the plot will appeal to most horror movie folks but even the most promising of the elements, the Nazi zombies and the Mussolini Werewolf (Tony Danza), are so ineptly staged that it’s just pathetic. And speaking of miscast… Treat Williams makes the least convincing Albert Einstein of all time.

Hitler escapes the bunker and ends up in a secret underground fortress beneath the North Sea. There, his hordes have created a secret channel under the sea to the Netherlands where thousands of the strongest and most “racially pure” Nazi soldiers have been turned into irradiated uber-soldiers. Two years after World War 2 officially ended it all begins again.

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Betsy The Bloody Harlot Of The Brooklyn Morgue
(AKA Betsy Whore Van De Graven)
Released: 1983
Country Of Origin: Belgium
Director: Phillipe Oost
Starring: Phaedre Lepere, Barbara Bouchet, Adolfo Celli, Barry Bostwick
Composer: Richard Glenn Schmidt

Still banned in 59 countries, this nauseating nihilistic piece of gore-sleaze from Belgium’s own Phillipe Oost, still manages to shock and offend after the 25 years since its release. With at least a dozen different titles and a myriad of various cuts, a truly uncensored version of this film probably doesn’t exist. The scandal and subsequent criminal charges brought against Oost’s immoral fundraising for the film caused his production company to go bankrupt and probably have made this film even more famous than it should be. Known stars like Bouchet and Bostwick (poor Adolfo Celli just looks confused during his scenes) only add to this eye-opening mess’s infamy.

The story (if you can call it that) follows Betsy (played by Belgian porn star, Phaedre Lepere), an overworked and underpaid secretary who escapes the drudgery of her job by fantasizing about her nightly visitations to the morgue where she lets her necrophilia run wild. When her constant daydreaming gets her fired, Betsy goes on a rampage through the streets of “Brooklyn” (actually downtown Brussels) with a killing machine of her own design which is powered by her scissoring legs. How much of the plot is dream and how much is reality is anybody’s guess. One thing’s for sure, the maggot-laden nun-abortion finale will stay with the viewer long after the final credits roll.

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The Kill’O Byter
Released: 1982
Country Of Origin: United States, New Zealand
Director: J. Fortnight
Starring: Mack Cullin, Shanice Trevors, Bruno Lawrence, and Donald Pleasence
Composer: Richard Glenn Schmidt

After 12-year-old Sam Ramfan (played by Mack Cullin) testifies in court against the brutal serial killer Jack Boflue (played by New Zealand’s own Bruno Lawrence) who he witnessed killing his mother, he feels as though his troubles are over. Unfortunately for Sam, his older sister Mandy (played by the luscious 80s centerfold Shanice Trevors) is now his legal guardian and she wants nothing to do with him. At a wild party thrown on the night of Jack Boflue’s electrocution, one of Mandy’s college-aged boyfriends accidentally pours his beer on Sam’s Commodore 64. The computer malfunctions and becomes a doorway to the spirit world, giving the recently deceased Boflue an ideal opportunity to once again take up his murderous ways and get revenge against the kid who helped put him away.

The Kill’O Byter is perhaps one of the wildest New Zealand exports of all time. As to why director J. Fortnight decided to transport the entire cast and crew to Corpus Christi, Texas is anyone’s guess. Trying too hard to appeal to the American market, perhaps? My guess is that a certain production company owned by a certain savings and loan probably needed the tax break but you didn’t hear that from me.

To put it plainly: this film is completely bonkers. First of all, the creepy sexual tension between brother and sister is just plain wrong. Just how many times can a little brother ‘accidentally’ walk in on his older sister while she’s in the buff. I know it’s meant to be titillating but god-damn, for a 12-year-old, child star Mack Cullin sure does leer at the ladies like an old man. Then we have the superb character actor, Bruno Lawrence, who obviously never turned down a job offer in his life. The scene where the computer sprouts legs, arms, and Lawrence’s head, and starts chasing around the half-naked (and later completely naked) Shanice Trevors is pure camp genius. Though the film clocks in at just 84 minutes, it moves at a snail’s pace. Be sure to stick around for the RadioShack showdown at the climax and keep your eyes peeled for Donald Pleasence’s wasted cameo as the warden.

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The Twitchin’
Released: 1957
Country Of Origin: US
Director: Shill Chateau
Starring: Boris Karloff, Matt McDonough, Leslie Nielsen, and Andrea Lambshead
Composer: Nafa Fa’alogo

This is the ultimate greaser horror film! A mad scientist (Boris Karloff) sets traps and causes road accidents on a lonely stretch of road. Then by using a combination of science and sorcery, he resurrects the bodies to create the ultimate greaser terror gang. Their tell-tale sign: “The Twichin'”. Horror film gimmick pioneer Shill Chateau dreamed up this little scheme: he secretly rigged certain theater seats to ‘twitch’ in key moments during the film. This film was wildly successful and for good reason. Its campy plot, goofy dialogue, deadpan delivery, wild rock and roll, and gorgeous stark cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca make Twitchin’ a must see. Oh yeah, and fellas, you’re eyes will be riveted to the screen once you see the vivacious personality and gravity resistant VA-VA-VOOM of British actress and cult movie icon, Andrea Lambshead.

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Bushiro
AKA Bushiro: The Nasty Mutant Beast (Australian VHS title)
Released: 1993
Country Of Origin: Japan
Director: Masakaki Agumimumiriri
Starring: Sakura Daikogama, Ichi Aichihiru, and Chazz Palminteri
Composer: Richard Glenn Schmidt

It’s very odd to see Chazz Palminteri pop up in this giant monster flick. The poor bastard chose to be immortalized in one of the most half-assed and totally ridiculous monster flicks of all time. Director Agumimumiriri, more accustomed to his famous Yakuza Skydiver movies is at a total loss with this turkey. The guy can’t stage a giant monster action sequence for shit yet somehow this film has found its cult following. Idol singer Sakura Dikogama’s then burgeoning acting career has yet to recover from this one.

Mad scientist, Dr. Aaki (played by Aichihiru), accidentally creates the creature named Bushiro after dumping his failed experiments with growth hormones into a lake behind his laboratory already polluted by a nearby nuclear reactor. Dr. Aaki discovers his creation the next morning and adopts it as the son he never had. He even kidnaps a hapless schoolgirl (played by Sakura Daikogama) to be his son’s wife. For some reason, an American federal agent (played by Palminteri) is called in to search for the missing girl and is also kidnapped by the crazy doctor. The creature goes berserk after it accidentally kills Dr. Aaki and its rage causes it to grow (?) 500 feet tall and go rampaging through Osaka. After a ton of plot and endless dialogue about how the monster came to be (though it hardly explains anything), the final rampage and showdown are both over in less than 8 minutes.

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Claws: The Red Menace
AKA Robstaru
Released: 1953, 1966, 1978
Country Of Origin: Russia/Japan/US
Director: Frank Honer, Sho Masuketaki, Denjiro Masuketaki, Unknown
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Sonny Chiba, and Mayya Bulgakova
Composer: Nafa Fa’alogo

Claws: The Red Menace has one of the most twisted production histories of all time. In 1966, Kaiju director extraordinaire, Sho Masuketaki, began filming a film called Robstaru, a giant crab-like monster. After shooting for only two weeks, Masuketaki suffered a fatal heart attack and the project was shelved by Toho Studios. Thirteen years later, Masuketaki’s son, Denjiro, now a respectable director in his own right, took the charge (plus his father’s footage) and began to work on the film with Sonny Chiba playing the hero. Tragically, an explosion on the set took Denjiro’s life after only three weeks into shooting. Believing the film to be cursed, Toho Studio’s board of directors sold all of the footage and rights to American film producer (and horror hack) Frank Honer.

Honer took the Japanese footage, some scenes from an incomplete thriller starring Donald Sutherland, and mashed them together with a 1950s Russian military propaganda film. He even went so far as to rent a lobster-costume and film himself stomping on his son’s army men. From the fully-realized Japanese creature to a guy in a torn lobster suit, Robstaru appears in the film in three different forms! None of the film stock matches and none of the scenes make sense in the order in which they’re presented. All of the black and white Russian footage is tinted with various colored gels which make them stand out even more. What Honer created is one of the most disjointed and freaky monster movies of all time.

And now for the plot: At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union releases its most secret weapon on its enemy: a monster Alaskan King Crab Lobster which is hell-bent on destroying the United States. Raised in a lab in the high north of Siberia by a deranged female scientist (played by Mayya Bulgakova), Robstaru is set loose in downtown Pittsburgh. Now a team of Japanese scientists (led by Sonny Chiba) and a defected KGB detective (Donald Sutherland) must come to the aid of America to stop the Robstaru, The Red Menace.

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Kyojin Kirabiyaki Robotto
AKA Big Gay Robot
Released: 2019?
Country Of Origin: Japan
Director: Konichi Musomi
Starring: Riki Takeuchi
Composer: Zac Tomlinson

Kodokawa Pictures is still withholding information about their most recent giant robot horror musical, “Big Gay Robot”. Apparently, the initial test marketing way, way back in 2006 was disastrous and the film has been in the reshooting and reediting stage ever since. Director Konichi Musomi has said that the studio was never comfortable with his gay robot idea and they are having second thoughts. He has hinted in interviews that if the studio decides to drop the picture entirely, he will release the film at his own expense but this project has yet see the light of day.

The plot goes something like this… Gay Dr. Aki (played by Riki Takeuchi) has been in hiding over 50 years since his expulsion from the homophobic Japanese scientific community. The doctor has been very busy in the last half century as he has been building his giant gay robot. Equipped with a ray that turns straight people gay and gay people even gayer and a Gatling gun loaded with hetero-seekers, the robot rips through Tokyo in a rainbow rage. When it is discovered that bisexuals are immune to the ray, a bi-curious strikeforce is formed to combat Dr. Aki’s creation. Not a horror movie per se but the “exploding genital can of mace” takes this film to a very sick place from what I hear.

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Clown Syndrome
Released: 1983
Country Of Origin: United States
Director: Rainer Dupoit
Starring Lesley Anne Warren, Shrub G. House, Brigitte Lahaie, and Tom Atkins
Composer: Nafa Fa’alogo, Zac Tomlinson, Richard Glenn Schmidt

The films of French-born arthouse pioneer, Rainer Dupoit, have always been something of a challenge to horror movie fans and Clown Syndrome is no exception. What is different here is that his normally obtuse manner of storytelling is replaced by a deceivingly simple plotline. And instead of his usually implied violence, the camera lingers on every death scene almost comically long as if to imprint the bloody images on the viewer’s subconscious.

Dupoit really wanted to make a commercially successful horror film and he actually pulled it off (though the road to success wasn’t a smooth one). One point of contention with fans of this film is what exactly defines a “director’s cut” of this film. Rumor has it that Dupoit’s original 9 hour cut enraged the MGM studio execs who threatened to sue the director if he didn’t bring them something they could use. Ever the iconoclast, Dupoit returned with a 19 minute version of the film which is said to have been nothing more than an outtake of a clown using the toilet. After this, the director was banned from the studio lot. Dupoit’s assistant director supervised another cut of the film with the editor and the 90 minute version became the theatrical version.

Not wanting to lose on their investment (and obviously pleased by the financial success of the film), MGM invited Dupoit back to take unused portions of his 9 hour cut to create sequels to Clown Syndrome. The sequels (11 in total) were also well received by horror fans. Rumors that Clown Syndrome 3D: Demons in a Clown Car is going into production have been confirmed for sometime next year.

The plot: In the summer of 1948, a mysterious circus rolls into the quiet town of Salmonburg, Pennsylvania. Everything seems normal and the people of the town are quite pleased to finally have some wholesome entertainment. But late at night, after the Ferris wheel lights go out, the clown car takes to the streets and people start disappearing. It seems that Mr. Tooters, the largest and cruelest of all the clowns, was born in Salmonburg but ran away to join the circus. Now he’s back (and completely psychotic) and aims to settle the score with the grownup children that teased him so many years ago.

More Goblinhaus Records releases.

More cool and spooky stuff from Goblinhaus.

Tomie is Mine

tomie-article

[This article contains less than 65% spoilers.]

“I will show you the girl who cannot die.”

What is everyone’s problem with Tomie, anyway? She’s just a love demon! So maybe the love she inspires drives men to kill. Is that so wrong? We are not here to judge you, Tomie my dear. We are here to help us help you help yourself. Tomie is the creation of horror manga master Junji Ito and has made quite a mark for her evil self onscreen. Out of the 8 Tomie movies (so far), Tomie: Replay is easily my favorite. Instead of picking up from either the original 1999 film (directed by Ataru Oikawa) or the awful direct-to-video Tomie: Another Face, this film, released in February of 2000 (just in time for Valentine’s Day!), jumps right into the freaky end of the pool.

A little girl is rushed into surgery when a giant mysterious tumor growing on her stomach threatens to kill her. When Dr. Kenzô Morita (played by Shun Sugata) makes the first incision, the tumor moves and he accidentally slices his thumb with the scalpel. Suddenly, the tumor begins to turn inside the girl’s distended stomach revealing a human eyeball peering out from the incision. The doctors and nurses are aghast as a young woman’s head springs forth from the little girl and says “I am Tomie.” Damn, homegirl knows how to make an entrance!

After that, Dr. Morita disappears and his daughter Yumi (played by Sayaka Yamaguchi) shows up to try and find out just what happened. Yumi meets up with her father’s mistress and even reconnects with her estranged mother Yoko but neither of them can provide any answers. Dr. Tachibana (Kenichi Endo), one of Dr. Morita’s colleagues present the night that Tomie entered the hospital, hands Yumi her father’s journal detailing the events of Tomie’s discovery and then jumps off the roof of the building.

Next we meet Fumihito (played by Yôsuke Kubozuka), a hunky dude in the hospital for dialysis and his nerdy friend Takeshi (Masatoshi Matsuo). While Fumihito is taking a long pee (he should really NOT be drinking beer in his condition), Takeshi meets a naked Tomie (played by Mai Hosho) wandering around the hospital. He instantly falls in love with this mysterious girl and takes her home seemingly vanishing off the face of the earth.

As luck would have it, Yumi meets Fumihito while they are both searching for Tomie, the girl at the center of the disappearances of Dr. Morita and now Takeshi. As the mystery surrounding this monstrous being becomes darker and more horrifying, a romance begins to blossom between Yumi and Fumihito. Will this newfound love be able to withstand Tomie’s power or will these two young people be crushed as countless others have by her irresistible and deadly charms?

Full of outrageously ghoulish setpieces and some grisly violence, Tomie: Replay is a unique horror movie that refuses to behave itself. Director Tomijiro Mitsuishi kicks all kinds of ass in his first film (and only screen credit to date) and screenwriter Satoru Tamaki keeps things bizarre and very unpredictable. While all of the scenery and the sets are beautifully shot, the sequences in the hospital is where the film really shines in all of its sickening glory. The soundtrack by prolific composer Kôji Endô (One Missed Call, Gozu) is quite haunting and really adds to the somber tone of Tomie: Replay.

Everyone in the cast is quite good and there are a few familiar faces mixed in there as well. Most notably is Takashi Miike regular Kenichi Endo (of Visitor Q and Deadly Outlaw Rekka) as the mad Dr. Tachibana. Even though he doesn’t have a major role here, I have to mention this duder. Endo starred is one of my favorite Japanese because he looks so dang weird and always plays psychos, complete screw-ups or a combination of the two. Another complete freak is Moro Marooka of “The Great Horror Family” and Infection who plays the father of the little girl who was bursting at the seams with Tomie.

Speaking of our title character, Tomie is played by the lovely Mai Hosho (of Suicide Club) who is not afraid to get down and dirty and even gives the monster some complexity and pathos. Our two romantic leads (I still can’t believe there is a romance in this one), Yamaguchi and Kubozuka, are excellent actors and give their all to roles that could easily have been completely droll and expendable in less capable hands. Super creepy points go to Shun Sugata (Ichi the Killer, Organ, Marebito, etc.) for his portrayal of Dr. Morita, a man reduced to a quivering shell in the face of all that sexy evil.

So is constantly being killed and reborn getting Tomie down? Well yeah, with all her teasing, taunting and that maniacal freakin’ laugh, she’s kind of a complete bitch. Apparently, decades (or centuries?) of shallow graves has instilled in her a significant dislike of insects. Worse still is her opinion of human beings. It is easy for her to ensnare men with her charms but they always disappoint her. At first, her suitors are willing to kill for her but then she grows bored with them and their jealousy turns deadly. Women hate her for stealing their men away and the men eventually go insane and cut Tomie into little pieces. In Replay, Tomie complains that men “break so easily” and one gets a sense of her morbid disappointment with the human race.

Other disturbing aspects of Tomie’s character are thoroughly explored here such as her hatred of all her doppelgangers. If Tomie is constantly dying, being destroyed and then regenerating, then who is the original? The answer is simple: the one left standing. Our favorite unkillable demon reproduces like it’s nobody’s business. A stray hair or even a single drop of blood can sprout a brand new Tomie. I love how the Tomies react to each other with revulsion and always try to destroy one another. In Replay, the new incarnation finds the “original’s” still living head buried in a shallow grave in the forest (no surprise there) and sets it fire! So yes, Tomie has some self-hate issues but with everyone constantly calling her a monster (and just because she is one! WTF?), I’m not entirely surprised.

Guess what, kids? Junji Ito’s recurring theme of body horror (see Uzumaki (manga or film)) is alive and unwell in Tomie: Replay with all them Tomie molecules infecting people. The idea of a contagious evil that first invades the mind and then distorts the body is a joy to behold (if you’re a sick bastard). The human (and love demon) form is warped and twisted in truly sick ways. This film contains some truly nightmarish images which are brought to life by the film’s incredible special effects. Standout scenes include Tomie’s disembodied head growing a new body and the reverse: her headless corpse growing a new head. The nastiest scene however has to be the discovery of Dr. Morita’s rotting body stuffed in a tank of saline solution.

So why do I think this is the best of the Tomie franchise (Tomie: Re-birth is a close second)? For starters, this film still frightens me every time I watch it. There are some great scares, profoundly dark ideas, and a whole mess of freaky shit that just stays with me long after I’ve watched it. Take an unstoppable evil, combine it with hospital horror, and throw in some melodrama and well, you have something really, really special. Young lovers, Tomie: Replay is your date movie.

Doomed Discussiethon: Curse of the Headless Horseman

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Curse of the Headless Horseman
Directed by Leonard Kirtman
Released: 1974
Starring Marland Proctor, Claudia Reame, Don Carrara, Lydia Rosenbloom
Running Time: 78 minutes

The Plot:

Mark Callahan (played by Marland Proctor), a young physician, was just informed by his family’s attorney that his uncle died, leaving him a ranch. The stipulation of the will is that Mark has to get the ranch to turn a profit in six months or he loses the rights to the property. So Mark, his hippie friends, and his fiance Brenda (Claudia Reame) head out to the old place to check it out. It turns out that the old ranch is a historical shitpile, complete with gun-toting reenactors. But wait, there’s more! The ranch also comes with a creepy old caretaker and semi-professional doomsayer named Solomon (B.G. Fisher) who tells a creepy (yet totally vague) tale about a headless horseman.

One of the hippies (the fat one with huge (not acting) chops) gets an idea about how Mark can turn the old ranch into a tourist hotspot by having their talentless selves perform for the sad amusement and patronizing entertainment of tourists. No sooner is this super plan put into action that a headless horseman shows up terrorizing and bringing about the deaths of some hippies. Who is this mysterious headless messenger of death? Is he a supernatural being from Hades or does this joker just want to scare the Deadheads off the property for some other reason?

Richard: Since it was my idea to watch this fucking thing, I will start. I first found out about Curse of the Headless Horseman when I got the DVD for a dollar at the Big Top Flea Market. When I got it home, I noticed that I already owned the dang thing in one of my Mill Creek 50 horror movie packs. The whole experience was pretty far out, man. That is hippie talk for when something quasi-ironic happens. The movie sat on my shelf for a couple months, staring at me, challenging my pathetic 21st century masculinity. I knew I couldn’t do this alone, so I suggested to Brad that we watch it together but apart and then talk about it.

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The first thing about Curse is the absolutely atrocious shape the Mill Creek DVD is in. After a few minutes, I threw in my Alpha Video copy hoping to find something a little easier on the eyes. It worked but I felt guilty because I knew that Brad would probably go blind slogging through the Mill Creek one. The second thing about this film is the amazing narration. Before the film even truly starts you can hear some garbled reverb-heavy voice babbling about something. I was instantly intrigued. Once you can understand what the narrator is saying, he still isn’t very helpful with all of his heavy-handed ponderings. We are introduced to Mark his lovely lady Brenda for about two seconds before we end up at a bar where some terrible hippies are dancing to a bad version of “La Bamba”, eating pizza, and fighting over a chick. Wait a second! Since when do hippies fight over anything?

Brad: I thought at first my TV or DVD player was broken with the weird, blurry double image. Luckily this was just a stylish decision by our director to let us know we are in for a groovy time. And as far as the pizza goes, those hippies snatch it up like it was laced with LSD or at least patchouli flavored. When Mark explains about the will and it’s codicil, I thought, “This guy is a doctor AND has a working knowledge of the law? He is pretty together for a guy who hangs out with hippies.” It is as this point Mark invites all the hippies out to the ranch and as we arrive the narrator informs us that Mark is “living in the silence between ticks of a clock.” That’s when I knew we were in for a rollicking good time. My wife, at this point was not yet sold on it.

Richard: You see? That’s why you’re brave. I knew if I sprung this flick on my lady, we’d be headed for divorce, for reals. I can’t believe Mark said codicil instead of the English word condition when explaining to a bunch of illiterate mongrels about his inheritance. I think this is how he dominates their minds with those big words. You know what word I hate? Caveat. It also means condition. Why can’t people just speak American!?! Anyway, early on in the movie, I was bewitched by Mark’s fiance Brenda. She actually said the phrase: “Penny for your thoughts?” Be still my throbbing heart. I think more women in more movies about horseless headmen should only speak in asinine frivolities.

Brad: Oh, the divorce is pending. I chalk it up to the Curse of the Headless Horseman, the film and the actual curse. In Brenda’s first couple of scenes, I too thought she was a cutie. Anyway, can we talk about the rape scene? I thought hippies were all about peace and love, man. What is even worse is two hippie peeping toms are checking out the whole thing while some sub Carly Simon song about Genghis Khan is playing. My wife was forming a sure opinion at this point. And you are totally right about the transfer. Mill Creek spared no expense with the deluxe treatment. My copy looks like a 9th generation VHS dub that was stored in a working fishtank then tied, dangling off the back of the delivery truck, and drug to wherever they assemble these cheap sets that I love. So I apologize if I am at times as murky as the film is.

Richard: Duder, I was afraid to talk about the rape scene because it made me feel conflicted. First of all, we are dealing with some pretty half-assed hippies here. First with the brawling and then with the raping. Free love isn’t something you take, free love is something you have to buy with pot or ren fest admission fee. Secondly, the worst thing about the rape scene is that John The Rapist actually wins the heart of Lydia The Victim. Their entire relationship is built on unwanted advances and normally that works out for everyone involved but not this time. Jeez, I wasn’t going to talk about this now but I think this movie needs a new title. Instead of Curse of the Headless Horseman, it should be called The Ranch Where Innocence Died. I’ll go into more of this later. What did you think of Solomon, the caretaker?

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Brad: Oh Solomon the caretaker. What a multi-faceted character. When the hippies congregated in the auditorium for a little impromptu improv from the characters that thanks to horrible audio I will call Mickey Mouse and ZAP (I never caught their names but that is what is on their shirts) and the fat hippie declares that this is obviously THE plan to save the ranch, that is when Soloman and I became friends. He hates drama. And seeing him closer up while he relates the nonsensical curse which I didn’t understand I took a good look at him. His face is very dirty. I don’t know if it is actual dirt or makeup but that is when it hit me: This is a real life Scooby Doo episode. Hippies, ghosts, rape. It all fits. I figured at some point he would take off his mask and Solomon would be revealed as Old Man Johnson or Chuck Mangione. Before we get any further, what did you make of Lee Byers, wandering minstrel?

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Richard: I liked that Lee Byers played himself because that’s all any man can do, am I right? I was actually trying to follow along with the lyrics of his song but it was a fruitless venture. His song is better than any of the substandard acoustic hippie folk in the rest of the soundtrack. And Solomon’s face isn’t dirty, that’s method acting and he’s a walkin’ talkin’ foreshadowin’ machine. The guy in the “ZAP” shirt is Randy, my favorite character (next to Brenda, of course). He gets hassled a lot in this movie. Randy is the first to have blood thrown on him by the headless horseman. And his reaction is perfect: he gets annoyed and a little whiny. This headless horseman isn’t cutting people’s heads off, he’s just a prankster with a bad sense of humor.

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Speaking of Scooby Doo-esque red herrings, what is up with The Baroness (played by Ultra Violet)? She shows up with a Superman lunchbox and a vaguely European male companion pretending to be a tourist. And then just when you think she may be involved in this horseman conspiracy, she lets out a bloodcurdling scream when Solomon looks in the window, and that’s the last we see of her. Though the director wasted her talents, The Baroness made the most of her screen time. I did like the reenactors who stage those shootouts every day in honor of some vaguely historical event. I was trying to follow that flashback with all the bloody squibs and what the hell the horseman had to do with any of this shit but I don’t think the narrative was very strong. How about that first death though? The chick in the boots gets blood thrown on her, goes bonkers, and runs in front of a speeding RV or something. That was good stuff.

Brad: I am so relieved that you enjoyed Lee Byers awesome music. Expect a Lee Byers Greatest Hits CD come August. I also didn’t understand a word he sang. I like the fact that he put his name on the guitar as I can only imagine how many times Lee Majors ran off with the wrong guitar. Speaking of peripheral characters there are a couple I’d like to mention. One is the girl who says, “I’ll speak to the gods for you. I often speak to the gods for my friends.” I thought whoa, this is going in a new direction. But that’s all we see of her as far as I could tell. A rare missed opportunity for this film. The other is Yo-Yo, the girl who “ZAP” Randy goes to for laundry advice with his blood spattered shirt. She suggests pre-soaking and I wrote that down for my next bloodstained laundry issue.

Speaking of the story of the Curse of the Headless Horseman, I too had no idea what the jibberish was about. The narrator says at the first that 8 men killed the Horseman but then in the flashback the gunslingers break into 2 groups of 4 and have a shootout, killing each other. Not too far from where I live we have a Wild West town and amusement park called Guntown Mountain. I went when I was a kid and while I did see some shootouts, I do not remember if one of them got up and became The Headless Horseman. I can do some checking though. The hippies do not seem to be scared by this nonsensical story, I think all the drugs they were on may have been a contributing factor and Solomon seems a bit annoyed that they are not taking this bloodcurdling tale to heart.

The Baroness’ appearance is where this film raises itself from a cheapo film to a truly surreal cheapo film. One of the hippies goes running through the ranch screaming about rich tourists arriving and The Baroness strolls through with a Superman lunchbox. I know that lunchbox is full of gold. Her offer to buy the place seems totally outlandish but would be a good way for Mark to get out from under his burden of having to run the world’s first Hippie Cowboy Ranch. He declines her offer and only then does Brenda helpfully offer that The Baroness is the richest burlesque queen in the world, worth millions. That would have been good to know a minute ago Brenda since The Baroness looked like just your run of the mill crazy bag lady.

After suffering cruel humiliation and the degradation of his shirt by the hands of The Horseman, Randy actually gets shot while the resident gunslinger reenactor is goofing around. I found it hilarious that this accident is blamed on the spooky story and Solomon, while Solomon blames it on the tomahawk moon. Or the Tamal moon. I never did understand. But it’s about then that a character I called Harmonica shows up. I think his name was John. What are your thoughts on John?

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Richard: I actually wrote in my notes: “Ask yourself this: Where was I when Randy was shot?” When he talks Mark out of reporting the little shooting incident to the cops might have been my favorite scene involving Randy. And did you mean John The Rapist? Because I think he and John The Harmonicist are the same person. I like how he kept a joint in his harmonica case. Then the fucking guy finds a nugget of gold and tries to take the place off of Mark’s hands. Mark is all like, “I don’t even own the place yet, you tie dye wearin’ harmonica blowin’ rapist pile of hippie shit!” And this is what is so annoying about this movie, characters like Yo-Yo and The Baroness get introduced and then cast aside while total fuckwads like John get to move the storyline. Then his poor lady, Lydia The Victim, gets a dose of LSD from the horseman and dies. Well, I think she dies. The movie gets all trippy and then she just sort of falls over. I love this scene by the way.

If you do hook me up with a Best of Lee Byers mixtape, I need you to put the rest of the soundtrack on there for me. The musical score for Curse is so amazing with its rickety organ, ethereal guitar, and freaky old synthesizer bits. These tiny moments of brilliance go great with the color filters and lightning fast editing during the dreamy sequences which themselves are delivered so crassly and awkwardly they are undeniably charming. Just imagine, Brad, we are talking about the same film that features all of this good stuff and a narrator who says: “How innocently he chooses the silence of the moonlight.” Okay, there is all that boring hippie stuff but damn, aren’t you glad I picked this one? Huh huh, aren’t you?

Brad: First of all, above all else, I am very happy that you chose this for our discussiethon. I had always given it a good hard look in the Mill Creek pack, but it’s the kind of film that, without this assignment, I probably wouldn’t have made it through. And that would have been a shame. They get enough right, accidentally I presume, that the good and bad parts mesh very well with the ridiculously trippy vibe.

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I would say that John is the rapist and the harmonica player. Sorry, it’s hard to see. He plays the harmonica for a while and I liked the part when he smokes the joint and his actions suggest he’s trying to hide it. He is not very good with sharing. And Mark should be very suspicious of John’s offer to buy the place. Where is he going to find the cash to buy it? He’s a dirty hippie rapist harmonica player. I don’t see that in the help wanted section of the paper often.

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I had some difficulty following Lydia’s death scene. I didn’t catch where she took the drugs. John falls over and then she dances around for a while. In fact my notes say: “frolicking hippie has a drug dream(?) and is possibly killed” and then a line later I have: “frolicking hippie dead, acid confirmed.” Still the Horseman is not all that menacing at this point.

It’s here that a few of the menfolk hippies decide to ambush the Horseman. Although at first I thought they were talking about ambushing Solomon. Yes it is hard to follow. Anyway, they do ambush the Horseman and it is revealed to be…………….. Do we spoil it, Richard?

Richard: I think that the horseman was mixing LSD in with the fake blood he sprays on people but I can’t confirm this. This is hilarious because Randy doesn’t actually react at all when he gets covered in blood which means he is immune to LSD. Genius. But yeah, let’s spoil this thing. If you’re reading this and you actually want to avoid having the sort of terrible, sort of great ending ruined for you then skip the parts in italics.

After the hippies and reenactor’s capture the horseman, they take off his costume and it’s John The Rapist. Huh? Of course, he’s not the one. It turns out that there is no supernatural cause behind all this shiznit. Mark has been coveting this gold-laden land since he was a kid and has been dressing up like the headless horseman to chase off people which is weird because he fucking brought them there! Confronted with an insurmountable mountain of evidence that he is guilty as hell, Mark goes psycho and explains (again in very Scooby Doo fashion) about how he has been the villainous villain all along. He then steals a gun from Sandy the reenactor and goes on a wild shooting spree. Brenda is totally heartbroken since she just married the guy like minutes before all this shit rises to the surface. All the exposition in this scene is dang riot.

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Brad: I will be honest. I did not suspect Mark. I did not suspect anyone actually. I thought it was the real Headless Horseman. I’d like to back up and talk about the bits that led up to the big reveal. SPOILER: After the hippies discover John is the Horseman, John stabs Solomon and reveals that he found some gold. Then they have another hippie meeting and Zap Randy makes a very convincing argument that John could have only gotten a horse from the hills so he couldn’t be the Horseman. Mark is unimpressed by the gold but does decide that he and Brenda can get married now. And as they do my head spins around and pops off.

It is around this point after the wedding that you can actually see the drug haze start to lift and the hippies start to think something does not make sense. They all start to wonder where Mark was during all the killing and one lady hippie says, “who other than a doctor has access to so much blood?” Mark doesn’t take too kindly to this naturally and who can blame him? There were all kinds of hippies that weren’t around when the murders happened. Mark being the Horseman kind of comes out of nowhere from the story’s point of view. I also thought it was a terrible idea to bring the hippies along if you were trying to hide the gold from everyone. At the end of the film our trusty narrator tells us that this WAS the work of the curse of the Headless Horseman after all and it is only a matter of time before the curse will strike again, again, again, again…. So Mark being greedy for gold that was on his land was the work of the Headless Horseman’s curse? I’d love to hear what you made of that.

Richard: These questions will ring throughout the ages, my friend. You know the damn hippies behind the camera would try to make greed the cause behind this crap and not something supernatural and that pissed me off completely. However, the narrator does try to save the day by saying that the horseman was to blame all along, I do like that. How sad is it that I wanted to believe that he was real? I guess that the fact there was a narrator at all means that there is some omniscient presence watching over everything. A holy spirit of sorts keeping us informed (barely) of what was going on. Maybe that chick was talking to the gods after all.

Okay, spoilers over. I was pretty impressed with Curse of the Headless Horseman. I can’t friggin’ believe that it didn’t shake me with all of its boring scenes. But then again I also cheated and watched a better copy of it than you did. I guess that makes you more of a bad ass. Dang, I had it easy, yo. If only there had been more acid freakouts and more from the awesome supporting characters like The Baroness, Brenda, Yo-Yo, or that half-Native American chick who claims to speak to the gods. And, of course, I wanted more Randy. Any hippie that is immune to a headless horseman attack is essential to any story. And less rape! I wanted there to be less rape. Any final thoughts, Brad?

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Brad: My wife thought it was ridiculous. When it was over I told her it would grow in her mind. We had a very much postponed Christmas party to go to that day and when we got home she said it had indeed grown in her mind. It is not a film you watch, but one that sort of unfolds before you. Divorce averted.

The film takes several missteps, some of which you mentioned like neglecting The Baronesss, Yo-Yo, and Randy in favor of less likable characters like John The Harmonica Rapist. My wife thought she caught some dialogue that implied The Baroness had come back to see where one of the characters were killed and called the ranch “a macabre paradise.” I heard some dialogue but I am not sure. If so it was a wasted chance to get her onscreen again. I also wonder how much of the plot was hard to follow by design and/or my crappy disc. The Headless Horseman bit was an odd choice and at times it seemed shoehorned in. No one ever wonders why The Horseman, who is very much a New Englander in any version I’ve seen or read is haunting a ranch in southern California. I have to say as poor as the film was at times it did have its strange charms and I ultimately liked it. And I would have never finished it if it hadn’t been for the discussiethon. Thank you for asking me to participate, I really enjoyed it.

Richard: Nicely done, heezy. Discussiethon = over! Curse of the Headless Horseman = pwned. Squares should never mix with hippies and vice versa.

Doomed Discussiethon: Video Wars

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Video Wars

Directed by Mario Giampaolo

Released: 1983 (or 1984, who cares?)

Starring George Diamond, Dennis Warren, Maria Anna, Michael Harris

Running Time: 73 minutes

The Plot:

Prince Radolpho Reichmonger of Bastavia wants to become overseer of the world. He has the technology to “control the destiny of the people of any quarter of the world”. He is demanding a trillion dollars a year or else. The American government sends in super-spy Ignatius Maximillion Scattergood to a mountain resort in Bastavia so he can get into the palace and destroy Reichmonger’s mainframe. The Russians have also sent their best spies in to stop Reichmonger including an old flame of Scattergood’s, the lovely Natasha . Also attempting to stop this vaguely evil plot are two revolutionaries, Magda and Willy. Magda goes undercover as a model in a fashion show taking place at the resort. Meanwhile, there is a videogame competition where Reichmonger takes on Jimmy, the international video champion. This film also features payphones and snow mobiles.

Richard: Ladies and gents, welcome to our discussiethon of the ultra-obscure (for good reason) Video Wars. Hey Nafa, you want to start this one?

Nafa: Wow, from the get-go, you know this is going to be something special. Why, just transitioning out of the extended (yet minimal) opening credits you know where and when you are exactly. Everything about it exudes it’s time period: the sights, the sounds, the styles. To quote a line from the film, ‘It’s too everything.’ It reminds me of how arcade obsessed we were then. Man, I can smell the Showbiz pizza and feel the quarters sliding into the coin slots. And in this film even the dang President of the America is down with the whole video gameity of it all. Oh, and I’m gonna make up words for this discussion. Splash?

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R: Well, nothing says FUCK YOU to the viewer quite like a spy movie parody. After the ruinous, depressing electro-dung of the soundtrack and the first of many, many failed jokes, I found myself totally entranced by Video Wars. There is an important moment when the President of the United States is too busy playing videogames to be bothered by the threat of a Slavic terrorist. I couldn’t help but notice that one of the President’s aides is trying to grab his joystick. What has become of our great nation? It doesn’t matter because Scattergood is going to save the day. After being briefed about the mission to stop the evil Reichmonger, Scattergood is given his special weapons that he’ll need for his mission. Choice dialog (and an example of the film’s jokes):

“And last but not least, your acid pen.”

“I hope it doesn’t leak in my pocket.”

N: When the special weapons are being doled out, his only response after each introduction is ‘Of course… of course… of course…’ And did he ever use any of the gadgetry besides the gun that he brought with him? Also, let me step back a moment and address a few things.

I: The first four-out-of-seven minutes of the film are either opening credits or walking in snow. In fact, there’s quite a bit of walking in snow in this film. Quite a bit. And remember that, because walking in snow becomes important later.

II: Attentive eared viewers will notice that the sound of the President’s video game comes from the game Galaga.

III: When Scattergoo(d) is first called, we find him in his boudoir with a lady-friend (who utters the memorable, ‘But you promised more than 15 minutes!’) before he has to go to his mission. During the entire scene there is a crew member in a white t-shirt and jeans visible in the ornate mirror. Either that, or Scattergoo’ enjoys a bit of the old voyeurism during his 15 minutes. Also, this scene is followed up by nearly a full minute of snow-walking.

IV: The music… is… BRILLIANT.

R: He does use his special weapons later. They’re so special that you forgot all about them. Nice job spotting the crew member. I missed that. Everywhere Splattergoo goes, the ladies fall all over him. There is a sequence where all the ladies from the fashion show are chillaxin’ by the indoor pool and he’s just walking along them, just like surveying the spread. It’s pretty magnificent. I like Magda and Willy (though I think his name changes to Tommy), the revolutionaries of the subplot who plan to overthrow the evil Reichmonger. I’ll talk more about them later. More choice dialog (and another zinger) from the models at the fashion show:

“Men! What do they want? We have class, style, taste- we’re beautiful!”

“Maybe that’s not what they want.”

“What do they want?” [Camera zooms in on boobs.]

N: You do realize that just before that exchange was quoted the camera panned in on a woman adjusting her bra only to give a gratuitous shot of her armpit. Yeah, this film hates it’s viewers. As the models arrive in Bastavia they are watched by Reichmonger as they enter his palace/ski lodge, and I am still convinced his secret base is in the lobby, complete with nude women. Also, the door man addresses Natasha Molanava (who is the leader of the models and also the Russian agent) with what is probably my third favorite line in the entire film, ‘I can see that you are a woman who KNOOOWS what she wants!’ Natasha and her gals have some great Bob Fosse-esque choreography by the pool (ie: two moves), and later she gives expert direction to the models for their runway walk (ie: she tells each to spin). And I’m not sure who the backstage show manager in the white sequined suit, but I can almost bet that when this film was screened someone excited parent shrilled, ‘Finally, a speaking role for our theater major son! Thank you, Philadelphia Academy of Theatrical Arts!’ And, yes, that is the name of the acting group that gets a thank you in the end credits.

All I need to say about Willy and Magda, is her quote: ‘There is no room for love between soldiers!’ That’s all I really have to say about them.

And let’s not forget our hero’s entrance to Bastavia, and after briefly inspecting his surroundings succinctly and eloquently states: ‘Ell-uh-gant, opp-ya-lent, wit a touch-uh dekka-dense.’ That line alone is the best epitaph for this film.

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R: Shame on me for not noticing the armpit. I think that I’m just so over armpits, you know? They’re like everywhere nowadays. I too noticed that bedroom/lobby scene. Talk about shitty editing. I was like why are those people naked in the lobby? All they had to show was one shot of the CCTV and it all would have made sense. I really hate Splattergoo. As if he didn’t have enough ladies on his jock, the Russians send in the freaky Myrana to seduce him. She looks like a Rankin and Bass character in the flesh. Thanks to her, we get to see the aftermath of a little threesome between her, Splattergoo, and some other chick. Ugh, nauseating. Who will save this film? Will it be Jimmy, the international video champion?

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N: Personally speaking, the one who saved the film for me for a moment was the random dancer dancing to that typical early 80s Electro-Funk song. But alas, her performance (much like any action in this film) goes on way too long and then she goes with Spattergoo’ back to his room, falling for the old chicken line. As for Myrana, I love the scene where the Russian agents are working out and she has no rhythm whatsoever -she can barely stand up- which is probably why she’s lying down in the next two scenes. Oy.

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It’s at this point in my notes that I had the sudden realization that with the music, the acting, the dialogue, the story, and everything that this could very well be an 80s story-based porn film with all the explicit sex removed. Either that or some family’s really bad idea of a joke home movie.

R: That old chicken line goes like this:

“You like chicken, baby?”

“Yeah.”

“Then grab a wing.” [And then he offers her his arm and she takes it!]

If you hadn’t mentioned that Video Wars seemed like an old porno with the sex cut out I might not have thought of it. That is the kind of revelation usually reserved for the New Testament. I love it. What this film needs is more stock footage BS to entertain us. Oh wait, it does! If you like skiing then you’re dumb but you’ll love half of this movie.

So Reichmonger puts on the big fashion show for everyone and he’s in the front row. When Magda struts across the stage in an outfit that can be best described as a theater usher’s uniform, she whips out a gun to blow the guy away. For some reason, before she can even finish drawing her pistol, Reichmonger’s goons are all over her thus thwarting the assassination attempt. I love that scene. It is chilling in its realism. No amount of screenshots that I could take can do this scene justice. And that’s the last we see of Magda or her pal, Tommy or Willy or whatever his name is. I will miss her face that looked like she applied her makeup with a hand grenade.

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And then we are treated to more crap during the videogame contest between Reichmonger and Jimmy. Of course, Jimmy beats the guy in a game that is a series of blue and pink squares that seem to gyrate and flash for no reason whatsoever. This stuff goes on forever! How unwatchable can a film get? Video Wars is the answer.

N: It’s funny, but for the most part Magda and Wimmy barely even registered with me, they were just a kind of non-entity. It wasn’t until now when you mentioned it that I realized that she was the attempted fash-ssassin. Oh, and the fashion show contained some of the most unsexy and utilitarian dressing shots I’ve ever seen. If you want to equate them to something, go spy on your grandmother when she’s changing clothes and adjusting her truss- mmmmm, sexay! And don’t forget the literal polishing of a gun barrel for a cutaway scene. Careful, hon, it’s cocked, locked, loaded, and may go off in your hand- AND SPATTER YOUR MOTHERFUCKING FINGERS ACROSS A SNOW SCENE. *sigh* I can only wish that may happen in this film.

Oh, and the guards in front of the giant safe- ‘Cigarette break, fellas.’ Yeah. What? I’ve lost any sense of where this film is going. It feels like the Australian films of this time period, but without any of the charm. Even though this was filmed in Pennsylvania it’s gotta be done by a group of Canadians or something.

R: It is fascinating to me that this horrid little film has the balls to actually get boring. After all we’ve seen, NOW IT GETS BORING! After planning bombs and his super secret weapons all around the fortress or whatever, Scattergood goes up against Reichmonger in a fight scene that takes 5 seconds. The place blows up (off camera, of course) and then the film shifts into underdrive. We are treated to an interminable snow mobile chase that actually turned my hair gray. Where did all the goofy chicks go? I don’t know. I needed them and they all left me. Even the bad jokes, like concrete parachutes dropping from a blood red sky, are gone at this point. Video Wars is insultingly stupid and I think I’ve talked about everything I want to talk about. Nafa, you want to wrap this up?

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N: I’m not sure I’m quite ready to let this one go yet. It reminds me of The Pirate Movie but without any of the set, music, costumes, talent, story, cinematography, acting, or humor. But in a way, it’s almost as fun. When Reichmonger finally confronts Spattergoo’ in the vault, he greets him with a hardy, ‘We meet again at long last!’ Man, you can’t write that kind of script. Seriously, you can’t. Then there’s the not existent fight followed by the implied implosion. And the snowmobile chase- what was with the trouble getting the motors started? And the size of the snowmobiles? They were kid-sized, it seems. God, the actors must have been paid in beer or blow or something because all the money must have gone into snowmobile rental I reckon. By the way, this entire flick takes place in the snow (as you can tell by the long cut shots of panoramic… erm… snow), yet after the climactic ending Mr. Spattergoo’ slips twice during a simple walking shot. For reals. Oh, and why waste a good phonebooth shot, let’s use it again. The whole underlying story is… well, non-existent.

Man, I haven’t even gotten to the kid by the stairs (‘Where didja find it?’ ‘Right here.’ *points straight down*), the phallic face on the snowman, Reichmonger’s general voyeurism or the princess bed he sleeps in, the ‘I am.’ ‘You are?’ ‘I.M.’ joke, all the music by King Henry And His Showband and Philly Cream, or the fact that Spattergoo’ looks like Serge Gainsbourg, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert De Niro all had a potato baby. This film… this film…

It’s… It’s too everything.

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My Doomed Moviethon

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I first became hooked on horror movies watching Elvira’s “Movie Macabre” when I was a kid (around 9 or 10 years old). She was making fun of Flesh For Frankenstein and I was totally flipping out. I was laughing at her gags (and oggling her goodies) but I was also really enjoying the movie (despite the fact that it was cut to ribbons for television). After that night, I tuned in every weekend to catch her shtick and I always ended up enjoying whatever movie she hosted.

Soon after, my parents gave me their old TV and I started up staying up all night to watch whatever was on the local channels. Some of you who remember the 1980s may also remember that there used to be horror movies on ALL THE TIME on late night TV. I have this vague memory of catching the creepy mannequin-filled Tourist Trap just before dawn. Good or bad, damn it, they were always on.

There were two films which aired in the middle of the night that caused me to slip over the edge and become completely obsessed with horror movies. The first one was Zombie 6: Monster Hunter (AKA Joe D’Amato’s Absurd) and the second was Girls Nite Out (a dull yet atmospheric slasher flick with the killer wearing a bear costume circa. 1984). Granted, neither of these are the best examples of horror but these two movies totally blew me away. I can still hear the announcer’s voice saying “We now return to Zombie 6: Monster Hunter” in a laughably menacing voice. I know George Eastman is out there somewhere stuffing some babysitter’s head into an oven.

Although I’m sure she has no idea, my sister Lora also had a hand in altering my filmic fate forever. While she was babysitting me one night, her boyfriend came over with a copy of Nightmare On Elm Street. Before they started the tape my sister told me the story of their “friend” who still sleeps in the same bed with her mother after watching the film. That didn’t scare me and neither did the first Elm Street flick. Later, my sister and her boyfriend took me to the local drive-in for a weird triple feature: Hot Pursuit (John Cusack, huh?), Cut And Run (yep, the Ruggero Deodato flick), and Creepshow 2. “Thanks for the ride, lady!”

By this time, my parents and I were renting 4 movies every weekend. Well, that all changed when I caught the horror bug. When I was 11, my parents gave me my own VCR. They had just purchased a new VCR, so, once again, I got the hand-me-down. Lucky for me the old one was in terrific shape and soon the thing was running nearly every time I set foot in my room.

There, at the video store (a Video-X-Tron before Blockbuster bought them out) was something that thrilled me: the HORROR section. There is something devious and alluring about an entire set of shelves full of dead teenagers, dark places, unholy incantations, and severed heads. Oddly enough, my parents had no problem with allowing me to watch whatever I wanted (sure, blame the parents!) so I had no trouble getting started on my mission which was to rent every single horror movie in the store. Nowadays, this would be easy since it is rare to find a decent selection of horror titles anywhere.

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My family’s rental program changed one weekend. Two movies for my parents, one for the whole family, and four horror flicks for me. The ones I remember loving the most were Evil Dead 2, the Friday the 13th series, Halloween, The Masque Of The Red Death (1964), Rabid, Night Of the Creeps, Hellraiser (both 1 and 2), From Beyond, Critters (both 1 and 2), Night of the Demons, Dawn of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, Ghoulies, Warlock, Creepers (aka Dario Argento’s Phenomena), Munchies (terrible I know but I must have watched this one 4 or 5 times), Lamberto Bava’s Demons, Forever Evil (actually scared me!), April Fools Day, Dario Argento’s Trauma, Revenge Of The Dead (AKA Zeder) and many, many more.

Several years later, my buddy Scott (the original Moviethoner) and I started renting enough movies and buying enough junk food to get us through the night. Scott introduced me to Peter Medak’s The Changeling starring George C. Scott. We often tore through the entire Omen trilogy (yes, I still like to pretend Omen IV: The Awakening never happened) as well as Phantasm and Phantasm II before the night was through.

Then, I just stopped watching horror movies. I have no idea why I gave up on them. Perhaps films like Pulp Fiction and Clerks steered me into Indie land. Or maybe it was the sixth entry in the Halloween series or Hellraiser: Bloodline. I could just as easily blame the Leprechaun series or The Mangler for ruining horror movies for me.

I was still a film buff, watching tons and tons of artsy cinematic masterworks. I would sit through Last Tango In Paris, Rashômon, A Woman Under The Influence, Touch Of Evil, Amacord, etc. I was always searching for something with meaning and depth. Then one day (about three years ago) I was watching Fellini’s Satyricon and I just snapped. Sure, it’s a disturbing film filled with frightening characters and some gory moments but it (like Fellini’s other films) is half an hour too long. I didn’t want to endure the lofty and pretentious any longer. I wanted something fun and something gory that I could ingest in 90 minutes or less (preferably less).

One day, I was talking my friend Nafa about horror movies. He was a former moviethoner who had stopped watching horror flicks years ago but had been quite a connoisseur in his own time. Charged from the conversation, I decided to start renting horror movies again. My first surprise: I was appalled at how little horror Blockbuster Video actually carries nowadays. The company is reducing their VHS stock to make room for DVD but not restocking their shelves with the DVD versions. This corporate giant had bought out nearly all of the ma and pa video stores but it didn’t keep the one thing that gave them their strength in the first place:, their selection.

Frustrated, I went on the internet and started to poke around for horror facts and trivia. I suddenly noticed just how many of those old horror flicks I used to love had been censored long before I ever got a chance to watch them. As a child of the 80s, I absolutely despise censorship (thanks to the PMRC), so I decided to track the uncensored versions of these flicks down. No easy task, especially considering that I wasn’t into collecting. Yet.

Nafa told me about this horror/eurosleaze/porn video store across town and decided to check it out. Well, the situation looked grim. The place, Unique Video, as cool as it is was way out of my jurisdiction and had a 24 HOUR return policy. The duder wanted the movies back by closing time, THE NEXT DAY and I’m 20 or 30 minutes (of shitty Tampa traffic) away.

Figuring that I’d never see this type of selection again, I bit the bullet and rented four (only four! I was such an idiot) movies: Zombi 2, Phenomena, The Stendhal Syndrome, and Ms. 45, albeit not a horror movie but a classic piece of trash if ever there was one. This is one of the reasons why Doomed Moviethon extends its reach into the cult genre as well. So, I watched Ms.45 first to get it out of the way. That isn’t to say it wasn’t a perfect film to start my moviethon with. Next, I jumped into the horror with Zombi 2, Phenomena, and then finished everything off with The Stendhal Syndrome (not a fan favorite but one of my top 10).

So, I returned the tapes on time (barely) and made a decision not to return to the place. It was just too difficult to get across town every time I needed to return a tape. This decision was painful because none of the video stores I’d ever been to had this kind of selection. Hell, I had never even heard of Lucio Fulci before that night. The seedy looking covers of the Italian horror, German gorefests, and Giallo VHS tapes pulled the trigger in my brain. I was sold. I wanted my own horror movie library.

Of course, staying a horror purist is impossible with so many genre jumping directors and films (so yeah, Takashi Miike), one gets lead into other territory so easily. The yakuza film has ruined the American gangster movie for me forever. I even find myself craving the occasional spaghetti western, kung-fu flick, or even some trashy exploitation garbage. Also, I found that it takes a lot of fact checking and reading up to find the uncut versions of films and that it is easy to get bogged down in “Special Editions” and “Director’s Cuts”.

And that’s my horror story. My collection is now past the 500 mark and I’m loving every gore-soaked and scream-filled minute of it. I’ve almost located everything that inspired me to start this here website. However, I keep uncovering forgotten movies buried in the recesses of my brain. As more and more obscure as hell titles start coming to DVD, I’m sure I’ll be able to put all the pieces of my horror film geekhood together. Anyway, I’ve already spent too much time writing this and not watching something. Thanks for reading, moviethoners.

That Freudstein House!

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Let me go ahead and show my hand here. Lucio Fulci’s The House by the Cemetery (from 1981) is my favorite film of all time. It’s not just my favorite horror film. It’s my favorite film. Period. Exclamation mark. While The Beyond is a bigger spectacle and Don’t Torture a Duckling is a better film, the tale of Dr. Freudstein, for my money, represents the best of Fulci’s gory golden age. I’m also particularly attached to this film because it reminds me so much of autumn. You see, I live in Tampa and fall around here just means more summer so anything that can jumpstart my autumnal heart is essential. Think of this as Fulci’s It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown except the pumpkins are rotting corpses and Linus Van Pelt is Bob Doyle, the most irritatingly dubbed kid in the history of Italian horror cinema.

In the film, Dr. Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco of New York Ripper) is called to continue the work of Dr. Peterson, a colleague who killed himself while researching old houses in Boston. Norman, his wife Lucy (Catriona MacColl of City of the Living Dead) and their young son Bob (Giovanni Frezza) relocate to Boston for six months so that he can finish his work. Almost immediately, Bob meets and befriends a little ghost girl named Mae (Silvia Collatina) who warns him not to go into the house? What house? Why the Freudstein house, of course!

A crooked realtor named Laura Gittleson (Dagmar Lassander of The Frightened Woman) sets up the Boyle family for a whole mess of trouble by putting them in the former home of Dr. Freudstein, a place where people have been dying violently and/or disappearing. It turns out that Norman’s former colleague was so obsessed with Dr. Freudstein, a mad scientist who was exiled from the medical community 80 years prior, that he committed suicide. In walks Ann the babysitter (Ania Pieroni), apparently sent over by Laura to look after Bob. Lucy can’t help but notice Ann’s bizarre demeanor but Norman can’t be bothered.

Strange noises echo throughout the house and Lucy (who is already hopped up on mood stabilizers anyway) begins to lose her grip on her sanity. In order to help his wife keep her shit together, Norman agrees to go into the basement that has remain locked the entire time. While Lucy and he are down there, they are assaulted by a bat that looks like turds and fur with a pair of wings. The bat latches onto Norman’s hand; he then rushes upstairs and starts stabbing the thing with a kitchen knife. He appears to be taking great joy slaughtering the thing and flings blood all over the place including Bob (who looks just a tad shell-shocked by the spectacle).

That evening, while the Boyle fam is at the doctor, Laura the shitty realtor shows up when everyone is out and gets royally killed to death by an unseen Dr. Freudstein who drags her body down to the basement. The following morning, Ann is wiping up the blood but nobody notices because… um… the coffee is ready. As it starts to look like she may be in on the conspiracy of murders, Ann gets her friggin’ head chopped off which Bob sees rolling down the stairs. Of course, Lucy can’t find any evidence of the babysitter’s decapitation and convinces him it all just in his imagination.

To make sure that his college fund is a complete waste of time, Bob decides to head down to the basement that night and search for Ann (or at least her head). This time, Bob comes face to face with Dr. Freudstein and the charnel house that he has made of the basement. Norman, armed with proof that Freudstein is alive and using human remains to recharge his cells, and Lucy, armed with a mother’s love, rush to Bob’s rescue. But are they too late to save their irritating little boy? And more importantly, just who will save them?

Seems pretty straight forward, right? Well, it ain’t. There is so much more to this moody gorefest that every time I watch it, I have to wonder what planet it came from. Frequent Fulci collaborator, Sergio Salvati, is a fantastic cinematographer and doesn’t miss a beat here. The man knows how to pick up the minutest details and knows when to slap on the old fish eye lens to distort the truly terrifying sequences. Salvati is also complicit in feeding Fulci’s eye fetish and there are many, many close-ups of peepers. He also captures the amazing Freudstein house in all of its exterior Massachusetts glory (interiors filmed in Rome). It’s such an amazing house, I want to live there- oh fuck me, is that a tombstone built INSIDE the house? I still want to live there.

You’d think that child actors would get dubbed by child voice actors but no, that’s too expensive. Bob and Mae’s voices are provided by adults pretending to be children and they are both outrageously irritating. Bob wins out as the most annoying dubbing job in Italian horror history (his only rival is Marco in Mario Bava’s Shock). But screw the dubbing, all that matters is that Catriona MacColl’s trademark scream comes through loud and clear in this flick. Oh, I better mention the soundtrack by Walter Razatti. The House by the Cemetery has the quintessential early 80s horror score with a bevy of eerie synthesizer and piano pieces.

Lapses in logic and obtuse exchanges between characters make for a confounding viewing experience the first time around but after you let the magic set in, it all makes sense. Okay, maybe ‘sense’ is too strong of a word. The embodiment of incomprehensibility is Ann the babysitter. Ann is played by the captivating Ania Pieroni whom you may remember from Dario Argento’s Inferno where she played another weird role as the Mother of Tears. What the hell is the secret that Norman and Ann seem to share? Why does Norman deny that the Freudstein house looks exactly like the one in the photo hanging in his office? Why is Lucy on crazy pills? Can we trust her? Why doesn’t Bob get run over by a car in the first five minutes of the film and spare us the pain of listening to his ass-feather voice? The answer to all of these questions comes in the explanation of how Dr. Freudstein has stayed alive all these years: “He needs human victims to renew his cells.” Well, aren’t you satisfied?

As soon as we see down in that basement with all those chunks of people scattered all over the place, my eyes light up like it’s my 10th birthday forever. While I did pick this flick up in a bargain DVD bin for chump change back in 2003, the basement sequences feel so strangely familiar that I keep trying to convince myself I’ve seen this before. Some of my favorite childhood memories are fighting insomnia by catching horror movies in the small hours. Two of the most important were Joe D’Amato’s Rosso Sangue AKA Horrible and Girls Nite Out (the one where the killer wears a bear costume). Could it be that I tuned in just in time to see Bob and his mom desperately trying to evade the rotting grasp of Dr. Freudstein?

Well, if I first discovered this film when I was just a pup or not until my mid-20s makes very little difference. The House by the Cemetery has a zombified mad scientist, a grand old haunted house, a ghost with psychic abilities (is that special or do they all have them?), numerous gore setpieces, and a plethora of themes and hidden meanings to explore and dissect. Add all that up and you’ve got one seriously essential piece of Italian gore-art. The house awaits you; creaky doors, an inch of dust, cobwebs, intestines, and all. Come for the splatter but stay for the intangible horrors and the unmistakable Lucio Fulci-ness of it all. And I tell you, good people, that gory and bleak finale is one of the most satisfying in all of horror filmdom. If you call yourself a horror fan, then check this one out. Or else.

Vampire Cheese Board

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Cheesy: Trying too hard to be good, unsubtle, and inauthentic.

A vampire movie is like a cheese, I think. Processed, cheap, strong or stinky, it is almost impossible for a vampire movie to escape that wince inducing cheesy moment. Combine an obsessive fascination with these creatures who do not die, who live in the dark where we cannot see them, and who feed off of our life essences makes vampires one of the most enjoyable gambles Hollywood revisits through the ages.

I am always particularly interested in the ways our silver screen story tellers explain how vampires came to be in the first place. Did they start human and through sheer will power and meanness transcend our yoke of mortality to live forever and feed on what it once was, infecting others? Were they mutated by a horrible plague centuries ago? Are they descendant of Judas who was forever cursed to walk the earth? Are they Cain who was marked so that his human brethren would know him on sight? Or are they children of Lilith, Adam’s first wife, who gave birth to all the monsters of the world and would steal children by night and drink their blood? Actually, I’ve never seen a movie with Lilith as the explanation for vampirism, but wouldn’t it be pretty good?

There are as many options for how vampires look, how they live, can be killed, and what extra powers they may have as there are for how they were made. Movies wallow like little piggies in the infinite possibilities of something that is still automatically recognizable by people all over the world. To make this cheese board a little easier to digest, I will break the multitude of types into flavors:

Loud and Melodramatic

These are your sharp and salty cheeses, the ones that pair well with red wine, fish pastes, and olives. The vampires in these movies have been aged over centuries of artistic license. They are your cheddar, Fontina, Parmesan, and Fontinella. Bram Stoker’s Dracula story has inspired several adaptations and several character appearances in other movies. From Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi before him, to Gary Oldman, the Dracula story has been the cornerstone of vampire lore for celluloid ages. He is powerful, ancient, and deeply wronged. He is what humans wish they could be – strong enough to overcome any obstacle while still holding on to their broken, tragic, and terribly human past which somehow keeps them from becoming complete monsters. And yet, there something about Dracula, even as seen in Braum Stoker’s Dracula, that cannot avoid the cheese. Each of the male suitors is a caricature; the two female leads are complete opposites and almost entirely divisive. In fact, I will venture to say that the only really developed character in the whole thing is Dracula himself. And oh boy, that Dracula!

It is maybe the hardest thing in storytelling to capture a rage driven overflow of emotion without sounding kind of funny. We are prone to melodrama, speaking poetry aloud, bemoaning our fate, and cursing the heavens. We imagine these same traits in vampires because we recognize vampires came from us. Let’s face it, it’s funny – especially out of context, and it is cheesy. Even more so with an accent, see Van Helsing’s Dracula. Here we see Dracula almost as a caricature; a desperate polygamist husband seeking to appease his shrewish wives so they don’t bother him so much. The only powerful and mysterious card this Dracula is holding is more knowledge of Van Helsing than Van Helsing himself.

Speaking of rage driven overflow of emotion, how about some Interview with a Vampire and Queen of the Damned, though Interview… really does take the cake on bemoaning fate. Perhaps seeing the terrible monsters suffering is part of what allows us to think them sexy as well. I mean how cliche can a subplot get? 1.) girlfriend is afraid boyfriend is going to leave her 2.) girlfriend makes sure she gets pregnant so boyfriend will never leave her 3.) boyfriend stays for a while, but relationship gets more and more twisted. Only in this story, Lestat is the girlfriend, Loui the boyfriend. Get it? Queen… takes on a different cliche: I can save/change him romanticism. And after all that reminding the vampire monster that he was still attached to the gypsy violinist, who really changes at the end? Huh, Jesse?

Hissing and Sleazy

Vampires give us a whole spectrum of cheese, however, they are undead after all. Why shouldn’t they act like undead and slink around covered in cemetery fertilizer wearing their monster faces? Or haunt back-alleys and shadows, building their own criminal underworld? Vampires like Santanico Pandemonium, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Deacon Frost, Blade, are less sexy than they are porny and they’re the ones that are nice to look at – the velvita and canned cheese spray. As are Dracula’s ubiquitous mistresses in Dracula 2000, Kit from The Forsaken, and everyone in Vampire Circus.

Not so nice to look at, and a little stomach turning the closer they get to your mouth are your limburger, and royal blue Stilton vampires from Salem’s lot, John Carpenter’s Vampires, Blade II, and Nosferatu. These cheeses have been aging so long that they’ve lost their sexy. Oh they can try and dress it up a little, put on a nice parchment paper wrapping, but in the end they have a bouquet reminiscent of horse apples. Lest we forget Razor Charlie and Sex Machine in From Dusk Till Dawn. I must at least give props to Nosferatu for predating the all too common vampire phenomena of sexy blood play. Count Orlok was a scary walking corpse monster dude; he just got a little old. Jittering, skipping old black and white movies require a different type of suspension of disbelief than do any of our modern celluloid fair, and for most of us violence desensitized folk, are just not that scary anymore.

Sexy and Full-bodied

On balmy summer evenings when the thick warm air is filled with the tang of fresh cut grass, the breeze moves just enough to keep the bugs away but not enough to dispel the hazy blanket of moisture around every streetlight, you might be looking for something equally as sensual in your vampire movie. You are drinking heavy sweet wines and munching on brie, Gouda, and goat cheese. You are watching Vampyros Lesbos, The Hunger, Vampyres or Daughters of Darkness, movies that capture the elusive mystery of dark creatures and replace our natural fear of death with an unhealthy and obsessive fascination.

I might be tempted to say that this class of vampire movie is lacking in cheese, but then I’ve already mentioned the ridiculousness of sex and vampires. It makes them human, makes them understandable, brings them down to our level (or up to it). As beings who prey ruthlessly on humans, a vampire’s sexual allure is more akin to the rotting smell given off by a carnivorous plant in order to attract a victim with the promise of food.

Amid this group of cinema are also tales of temptation and darkness that conjure up fantasies of youth. While I wouldn’t say that the child protagonists in stories like The Moth Diaries and Let the Right One In are sexy, they have in them the nebulous and trembling odor of danger that suffocates us in youth and later gets smothered by puberty. Lost Boys starts this way as well, though carries with it a smattering of other flavors as the story unfolds.

A Battle in the Mouth

But sometimes you want some salsa in your cheese dip; you want jalepeno cheddar and pepper jack to dip your crackers in. Sometimes you want the vampire action movie. Movies like Underworld I, II, and III, as well as Blade I and all, take with them a little bit of the vampire cheese while reaching for some action cheese to mix it with. In the action movie, the vampire mystique is paused on like love scenes in between improbable leaps of physics and loud noises.

Vampires are perfect for action movies because they’re invulnerable and superhuman. Where other movies have vampires lurking in the dark, brimming with power but only ever wielding it in the pre-dinner struggle, vampire action movies turn the ever living bodies into catalysts for stone pulverizing, ceiling running acrobatics.

Mild and Romanticized

And finally, when the week is over and you are lounging on Sunday afternoon watching Golden Girls and pondering what you aren’t too lazy to make for lunch, you might have a cheese sandwich with American, provolone, mozzarella, and Swiss. You might watch the happy, unchallenging, teen movie variations on vampirism like Once Bitten, Love at first bite, and My best friends a Vampire. Vampires in these movies are only scary at all because of how the characters react to them. They never seem really dead and, as in My best friends a Vampire, aren’t necessarily dead at all. Here vampires are simply misunderstood and mistreated outcasts of society. They don’t even hunt! They buy at blood at the butcher, instead. They are the vegans of vampirism; for them, it is just another way to diet.

Among these teen movies you may end up with stories like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which hardly depicts vampires as the new worrying parental problem, but has a little bit too much bubble-gum to make them a threat.

I was recently thinking about the human tendency to put things in their power place, to make situations and relationships about dominance. You can see it everywhere. Perhaps the vampire myth exploded from a need to feel as though there is a predator out there for us. It’s almost as if we find it unbalancing being at the top of the food chain. We are uncomfortable in our place when we have only an anchor on one end.

But being the creator, we just couldn’t get beyond building a little of ourselves into the vampire. This is what makes them cheesy. We have imbued them with our own faults and shortcomings; we have given them an Achilles’ heel. We have basically undermined their ability to be really terrifying. If their dangerousness were genetalia, we have castrated them. They are geldings because even while we wanted to feel that something had power over us, we needed to build in a fail-safe so that we could still retain power. We are the cheese.

Doomed Moviethon

Horror and Cult Movie Reviews for the Casual Insomniac

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