FTP: The Velvet Vampire (1971)

AUGUST 17, 2022

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

At our monthly(ish, damn you Covid!) horror trivia game, we always have a charity to donate the entry fee to, and while it varies from month to month, several bounties have gone to the Stephanie Rothman Fellowship, which helps women filmmakers with their projects. Which is a worthy enough cause for me to never actually look into who Stephanie Rothman was by checking out one of her films, until now, when I found one in my own collection. Indeed, I am certain I won this copy of The Velvet Vampire at one such trivia event, so it's a fitting way to finally get a taste of what she was up to during her relatively brief career.

Well I must admit the movie didn't do much for me, but it's clear that she was marching to the beat of her own drum, at a time where women were given even fewer opportunities to make films than they are now. I wasn't even surprised to see that Roger Corman produced, as he's always seemingly had little interest in following the path of his peers and letting men call the shots all the time. This was the fourth of Rothman's seven films as a director, not all of which were horror but fit comfortably in the exploitation/drive-in market of the '60s and '70s, and I can't help but wonder what she might have accomplished had her career not been effectively cut short by her own desire to make bigger/better films and the industry's hesitation to allow women to make anything more substantial. Feeling stuck in between, she quit the business, and I can't say I blame her.

But she (along with other genre trailblazers like Debra Hill and Amy Holden Jones) inspires filmmakers today, which is all that ultimately matters. And it's not that Velvet Vampire is bad, it's just a "not for me" type, which wasn't too surprising - I've never quite been taken by the vampire genre as a whole. The plot concerns a married couple who is visiting a new friend named Diane (Celeste Yarnall) who loves raw meat and occasionally does vampire-y things, though is fine to go out during the day (provided she wears a giant hat) and doesn't seem to have any powers beyond seducing both of our heroes (though she unsurprisingly has more success with the male). There's some stuff in here I enjoyed, like when Diane sucks the poison out of the heroine's snakebite, noticeably taking longer and being more graceful with the last suck, and seeing the idiot husband get what's coming, but it never stops feeling padded out to meet a runtime. Every now and then the heroes realize "something's not right here..." and decide to leave only to discover that their car still isn't fixed, and it's like they both have mental resets on why they wanted to leave in the first place, making the film feel a bit too stagnant for me. A subplot about a girlfriend of one of Diane's victims also does little to break things up, clearly just added in to make sure it hits 80 minutes. Also, the climax, while fun on its own, feels weirdly disconnected, as it takes place in the middle of Los Angeles instead of in the desert location we've spent the past hour or so in.

And yes, this vampire movie mostly takes place in the desert, and in the daytime to boot. Whether it was a budgetary constriction or Rothman's design from the start, I don't know, but either way it was the right call, because the DVD is of remarkably poor quality (full frame and seemingly taken from a VHS), so if it was mostly at night like you'd expect, I'd probably have trouble making out the images more often than not. It took me back to the Chilling Classics days, and it made me kind of nostalgic for such releases. Yes, obviously I'd love to have 4K UHD transfers of everything, but we all know that isn't going to happen, and it gets easier and easier to overlook the older formats when the new ones come in, and in turn that means closing yourself off to countless movies, as each new format only carries over a percentage of the films that made it to the format before it, and not a favorable one at that. Long story short, if I was someone just starting to dig deeper into horror history, and saw that beloved Chilling Classics set on the shelf, my eyes would pass right over it in favor of Blu-rays or 4Ks.

I've been told Terminal Island is the real gem of Rothman's output, and it certainly sounds up my alley (the plot synopsis gave me a whiff of No Escape, the 1994 action movie that - ironically given my last paragraph - is finally coming to disc after being available only on a non-anamorphic DVD for the past 20 years), so maybe I'll give that a look. As for Velvet, you don't need a DVD - it's on Shudder and Tubi and such (no surprise given the disc's poor quality, it seems to be in the public domain), so give it a look if it sounds up your alley. It's one of those movies I can see myself enjoying more at a different time in my life (or even just in a different mood, today), and at 80 minutes it's hardly going to consume too much of your day to see for yourself. I just can't get into most vampire movies!

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Eaten Alive

AUGUST 31, 2012

GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

I have a buddy who claims that Tobe Hooper has never made a bad film, which is contrary to what most sane people think (which would be that he's only made a couple that were any good). As of this writing, he has yet to reply to my Facebook wall post asking him to explain how Eaten Alive (aka Death Trap, and pretty much every combination of two English words you can imagine - it has more titles than an Italian zombie flick) could be considered good by any reasonable measure.

I mean, sure, it has a certain batshit charm that would probably make it a hoot to watch with a crowd, but that's also how I'd describe The Room, and fuck anyone who claims that's not a bad movie. To be fair, Hooper says he was at odds with his producers throughout production on this one, and as legend has it, walked off before filming was completed (and thus presumably had no presence in post-production), so you can't chalk all of this film's faults up to him. The fact that it was his followup to Texas Chainsaw Massacre also probably put some unfair expectations on this one, not unlike Carpenter's Halloween followup, The Fog, which has only started getting the respect it deserves in the past 5-6 years.

But even factoring that in, this is just a mess. Horribly disjointed and populated exclusively with assholes and degenerates (William Finley is one of the more normal characters - let that sink in), there is precious little to enjoy here. Most of my amusement was generated by realizations, such as the fact that the movie turns into a Manos remake during its second act. Not even joking - a bickering couple with a quiet girl gets lost and stops at the main locale, where the girl's dog is killed almost instantly and the family is terrorized by the owner of the place. Sound familiar? That the production value and professionalism on display here is only slightly above that of Manos just makes the similarities even more apparent.

I also chuckled at the irony, as I was watching this to wash away the stink of Texas Chainsaw 4, which I covered for my Badass Digest column this week - I figured an old-school Hooper flick would even things out. Not only did this not help (it's better, of course, but barely), but I got an unexpected reminder of the flick, as both of them were apparently an influence on Rob Zombie when he made House of 1000 Corpses. There's a subplot here about a dad coming to the place looking for his daughter that was killed earlier, and it plays out almost exactly like it does in Zombie's film. Plus the main location is the sort of backwoods "tourist trap" that the characters in Corpses would have visited, so the similarities can't be coincidence.

But I could forgive all (OK, some) of that if the movie ever generated any suspense at all, and that's where it fails most miserably. The opening kill is a decent enough surprise if you're expecting the girl to be the hero (yeah, it's not only a reprise of Chainsaw and Manos, but Psycho as well), but too much of the back half revolves around the little girl, who is trapped under the house and under threat of the crocodile that the owner keeps in a swamp. Sorry, but even though the girl is Kyle Richards, whose sister Kim played the ill-fated vanilla twist enthusiast in the previous year's Assault on Precinct 13, there's no way in hell I believe that she's going to get chomped, rendering all of this stuff a waste of time. And since everyone else is kind of despicable or just plain weird, there isn't any real concern when they're in the vicinity of the croc's jaws, either. Go ahead and kill them all so we can get home early.

It's also poorly made, so even if Hooper didn't shoot all of it, it's not really much of an excuse since all of it kind of looks like ass. Despite having something like 7x the money at his disposal, it actually looks cheaper than Chainsaw. The production design is lousy, the lighting often murky, etc. There are some scenes that are tinted red, which looks cool but means nothing, and just sort of adds to the film's erratic feel instead of sticking out as an actual stylistic choice. It's also gory, which is a shame in a weird way as Chainsaw was so effective and scary without any real gore at all, but here we get blood spurting out of necks and such, adding to the movie's overall crudeness and further making me wonder if Steven Spielberg didn't actually direct Chainsaw as well (OK that's a cheap shot, but come on, it's a FUNNY cheap shot). I was charmed to later learn that the movie was shot at the Raleigh Studios on Melrose - not only was I right across the street from it earlier today (it's across the street from Greendale Community College, where I wish I could enroll for night classes), but it's also where the Shriekfest Film Festival occurs every year. Having seen a lot of similarly shoddy, inept movies there, it was sort of endearing to think that one was actually made on the premises.

Despite all of that, it's not even his worst movie. I'd take it over Spontaneous Combustion or The Mangler, and his Masters of Horror episode Dance of the Dead (which also had Robert Englund, who plays an asshole hick here) is still one of the absolute worst things I've ever seen in my life. I'd even entertain watching it at the New Beverly or something, where its many, many lapses in logic and amateurish production would provide a lot of entertainment thanks to the infectious energy of a bewildered crowd. But by myself on a computer monitor? Yikes.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Maniac (1980)

FEBRUARY 20, 2011

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, SLASHER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (ONLINE RENTAL)

One of the several thousand bonus features on the two disc blu-ray for Maniac is the full Q&A session from a screening at the New Beverly, conducted in March of 2008. For the life of me I can’t remember why I didn’t go, but I assume I was stuck at work – same as I was a few months ago when it played at the Nuart (both times with director Bill Lustig in person). As for why I hadn’t already seen it before those screenings happened anyway, well I have no excuse. It’s just one of those movies that I never put my foot down and finally saw. Until now!

Unfortunately, I HAD seen the trailer a couple times, and that shows pretty much every kill in the movie, which would be fine for something like Scream, because there’s still a lot of story and plot twists to enjoy. But Maniac? There’s really not a lot to it beyond the death scenes. The story is thinner than even Halloween’s, the heroine doesn’t really enter the movie until the 3rd act, and worse, it’s cripplingly repetitive at times. Perhaps if Caroline Munro’s character was introduced earlier, there could be some fun at the idea of him trying to have a normal relationship with her in between scenes of him killing folks, but that isn’t the case. Instead, her scenes come so late, and their friendship so out of nowhere, it just seems like you’re watching a different movie all of a sudden. Even Joe Spinell’s performance changes; throughout the movie we have seen that he doesn’t really have the ability to converse normally with anyone (especially women), but all of a sudden he’s a charmer, making self-deprecating jokes, buying stuffed animals... it’s just really jarring.

But it’s also the best part of the movie. Until she arrives, it’s just an endless series of scenes where he kills someone, and then talks to himself/their “corpse” (a mannequin with their clothes and, in at least one case, their scalp) for a while, before heading out to kill again. He doesn’t seem to have any sort of job, no clueless friends, nothing. And it’s padded as all hell; at one point he chases a girl into a bathroom, and there’s a full THREE minutes of her just sitting in the stall hoping he will give up. There’s a difference between stretching out the tension and simply stalling, and this movie’s scare scenes often fall into the latter category. And, like I’ve said a million times, when you introduce a character right before they are killed, there’s not a lot of suspense there for me (even without the trailer having ruined it anyway), and with the exception of Munro, I don’t think a single character in this movie besides Spinell appears in two non-consecutive scenes. But unlike say, Friday the 13th Part V, the murders are too cold and gruesome for any of it to be any fun, so they don’t have that going for them either.

The craftsmanship seen on the kills is great, obviously, thanks to the efforts of Tom Savini in his prime. He recycled a lot of stuff from his other shows (look for Mrs. Voorhees’ bloody stump in the finale), but so what? They were great FX, why not reuse them? I particularly loved the opening kill with the guy on the beach, with loads of blood splashing over the sand (plus a nice throat garroting), and Savini’s head being blown apart is terrific as well. On that note, I won’t get into it too much, but it’s kind of ironic that all these women’s group protested the movie saying Maniac’s existence was simply an excuse to kill women, but the most iconic kill in the movie is that of a man.

I also dug the old-school New York vibe, as I did with Basket Case and some other indie horror films of the period. It’s not as prominent as in some of those other films, more or less confined to the first few scenes, when Maniac picks up a hooker, but it still makes me wish I had a time machine so I could go visit the city when it wasn’t as overrun with hipsters. The rest of my enjoyment largely stemmed from things that probably weren’t meant to be funny, like when Spinell tells Munro that she’s the most beautiful woman he has seen since his mother. The two cops at the end of the movie killed me too; they rush in, see him lying in a pool of blood on his bed, and simply shrug and leave without checking the body, looking around for any potential victims, or even calling it in.

Whether you love or hate the movie (or just think it’s OK and a bit overrated, like me), you have to be impressed with the supplemental package that Blue Underground put together here. Even the first disc is pretty impressive; the 2nd disc is just icing on the cake (and maybe a bit of overkill). The main draw on disc 1 is probably the pair of commentaries, one recorded in 1995, another recorded last year. Lustig appears on both, he’s joined by Savini and some others on the 1995 track but the other two guys don’t say much, and one of the co-producers on the new track. He repeats a lot of the same information, so overall I’d say the older track is more essential since Savini’s comments are far more valuable than the producer’s on the newer track. However, on the newer track, he points out that the end credits style was stolen (font, layout, even crew order) from Halloween! Other than the sting-heavy score, this is one of the few post-Halloween slasher films that doesn’t really seem influenced by that film in any way, so it’s kind of funny that they copied the credits instead of the structure or setting or whatever.

Then there are four new featurettes; one with Munro (who doesn’t think much of the film, but loves Spinell), one with Savini (where he tells a pretty funny story about two young kids asking him to watch some footage from the movie they were working on – the kids were Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert; the movie was The Evil Dead), one with the composer (where even HE chimes in about the film’s controversy with women’s groups), and a goofy little piece where Lustig goes to talk to the songwriters behind the song “Maniac” (from Flashdance) and gets the real story on the myth that their song was based on the film. All told, this stuff, plus a promo reel for Maniac 2 (which, as far as I know, was an in-name only sequel, with Spinell playing another guy), totals about an hour. Add in the commentaries, plus the usual trailers and TV spots, and you’re looking at nearly five hours of bonus material on the disc.

And then there’s disc 2! The big draw is “The Joe Spinell Story”, a 50 minute doc about Joe’s life, featuring anecdotes from a ton of folks – his sister, Lustig, Robert Forster, Exorcist star Jason Miller, etc. Don’t look for a lot of “dirt” here, because everyone seems to have the same opinion of Joe – he was a great, extremely loyal guy. At least three times on the set we hear how the “set” for Maniac’s apartment was built by a Russian guy that Joe was trying to help out, and there’s also a story about how he turned down a well paying role in one movie because he promised Stallone he’d do Rocky (for free). Then there’s about two hour’s worth of archive material from the film’s release, including Lustig’s appearance on something called Movie Madness (48 minutes), a cable call-in show (inexplicably in black & white) that is prone to feedback noise and other technical glitches, not to mention some morons calling in that proves that “talkbacking” always attracted trolls. I was most entertained by a selection of news broadcasts from the time of the film’s release, with footage of protesters and even Gene Siskel weighing in, claiming that all slasher movies are intended to tell women to “stay in their place, don’t go outside or a man will kill you”, and also ponders whether or not showing scenes from the movie can be considered disturbing the peace. There’s also an Easter Egg of Spinell doing standup, which... well, Joe sure was a nice guy, huh? Anyway, all in, disc 2 will take you about another 3-4 hours to go through. Again, some of it is overkill (the news broadcasts are all pretty much the same; the trailers don’t really differ much), but you gotta respect the effort here, and with the exception of maybe deleted footage or makeup tests (if any exist), there really isn’t anything else you could want from this package.

Ultimately, I appreciate the movie more than I enjoy it. Grats to everyone involved for putting something so extreme (and yet relatively well made) into mainstream theaters, when many films of this extreme nature (i.e. Henry) more or less went straight to video, but it’s hardly a great film. If anything, I enjoyed the bonus material more than the movie, which is kind of ironic – the movie’s only worth a rental but the wealth of bonus material makes it worth a purchase.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Don't Look In The Basement (1973)

JANUARY 11, 2010

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, PSYCHOLOGICAL (literally!)
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

It’s at least once a month that I have the “You REALLY watch a horror movie a day?” conversation with someone, but it’s rare that I am having it while in danger of blowing my streak (which is at around 1050 days right now). But that’s what happened last night, as a friend was grilling me as I was nervously checking my watch, having not yet watched a movie and seeing no tell-tale signs of the gathering being brought to a natural end. So I had to duck out early in order to get home and pop in Don’t Look In The Basement before the dreaded 11:59 PM deadline. I hope you folks appreciate this!

Luckily it’s a pretty good movie. Made on the cheap (and quite quickly) to cash in on Last House On The Left, it’s sort of like a better Dr Tarr’s Torture Dungeon, with an “inmates running the asylum” scenario, except without all the boredom (and Shakespearean nonsense). Christ, this movie offers up two deaths before the opening credits! And one of them was clearly seen by someone involved with Friday the 13th Part V and then copied for Joey’s murder at the hands of Vic, so I appreciated seeing that scene’s cinematic father.

They don’t do a very good job hiding the twist though. I called it early on, and then spent half the movie wondering if it was even supposed to be a twist and I had simply missed the scene where this plot point was clarified. On that note, I think Jack Sholder’s Alone In The Dark was influenced by this film as well, with the colorful inmates and the place being run by someone just as batshit.

I particularly liked how, even though it was a Last House cash-in, the film wasn’t particularly unpleasant. When the sweet and slightly naïve young nurse shows up to work there early on, I expected the worst (i.e. a rape) but the folks there are legitimately insane, not cold-blooded criminal psychopaths. One guy is a simple giant with an affinity for popsicles, one’s a batshit old lady who speaks in babble, one’s an older guy convinced he is still working as a judge, etc. No Krugs or Weasels here.

The film’s quickie production carries some problems, but nothing too damaging. There’s a subplot about broken phones that is way too padded (to the point where its not even remotely plausible), and the twist only works if you accept that our heroine is a complete idiot and horrible job researcher. There are also some bits of dialogue that only exist to explain what is happening in the scene due to primitive special effects, such as when the girl stumbles upon a woman whose tongue had been cut out and helpfully shrieks “Your tongue’s been cut out!”

The ending is a knockout though. The twist is revealed, the patients get their revenge, and then the “hero” patient gets his own revenge on the “villainous” patients. And then: bliss, as the end credits put the actor/character names over shots of their corpses when applicable. What a wonderfully mean-spirited and awesome thing to do. Also, if I were to fall asleep watching the film at the Bev, this particular set up would spare me from having to ask friends if/how certain characters died. I could totally fake staying awake!

The DVD is a horrid relic from the early days of DVD (1999), with nonsense being thrown on it to make up for the fact that it really had no effort whatsoever. “Movie Trivia” is simply a few filmographies for the primary crew members, and the “Preview reel” is as random as they get (Bird With the Crystal Plumage and Gorgo?) without having a trailer for THIS film. And the transfer is a full frame offering from a VHS source. Luckily (?), the film is being potentially remade, so if that comes to pass, I’m sure we can expect a new release. (or should I say, a BETTER release - there are multiple releases already, since the film is apparently in the public domain, but they all seem to be the same bad transfer). Director S.F. Brownrigg has unfortunately passed away (at a fairly young age - anyone know what happened?) but the film was written by Tim and Thomas Pope, who went on to direct The Crow 2 and write The Manitou, respectively. Love to hear those guys talk about it.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Last Horror Film (1982)

AUGUST 26, 2009

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

There are still a few “You’ve never seen that?” holes in my horror watching, and one is Bill Lustig’s Maniac. I remember trying to rent it once and finding it rented out, and that pretty much ended my quest. I should fix that. But anyway, The Last Horror Film (aka Fanatic) seems to be a sort of thematic sequel to that film, as it is also a sleazy slasher movie with Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro. As it’s the more (in?)famous of the two, I assume it’s also better, but Last Horror Film is not without merit.

The most interesting thing about it is the setting. Few films are set at film festivals, and I am pretty sure this is the only one set entirely at Cannes. And it’s not faked - they really shot the movie there. They filmed guerilla style during the 1981 festival, apparently taking liberal use of those “By entering this area you agree to have your likeness filmed....” signs. And it’s great, because all of the movies you see being touted are real (For Your Eyes Only! Excalibur!), and the occasional celebrity sighting also adds a unique authenticity that no other “movie about movies” has offered, as far as I know.

The actual movie isn’t quite as unique, but it’s still entertaining. The slasher scenes are a bit ridiculous (especially the guy who decides to play pranks on his girlfriend in the middle of an isolated park late at night - AFTER two of his colleagues have been murdered) but they are wonderfully sleazy at times too, so it evens out. And (spoiler) it’s not as cut and dry of a plot as you might think; there’s actually a cool twist that I didn’t see coming.

Unfortunately it’s also a bit repetitive. Spinell sees Munro somewhere, tries to get to her, is thwarted, and then he freaks out. Then someone gets killed. This cycle repeats over and over, and the stakes are never really raised - you can take any one of these cycles and place it in a different spot of the movie and it wouldn’t make any difference. And while the backdrop may be unique, it never really factors into the kill scenes (likely due to the complete lack of permission to be shooting there at all), which is kind of a bummer. I would have liked a big chase/kill around a theater or during a press conference or something.

Also there’s a lot of nonsense that just seems to be there to fill up time (or break up the repetition, so for that I thank them). Dream sequences where Spinell sees himself winning a chocolate Oscar, or dancing around in drag, also start to get monotonous, and hammer home a point that had been made before he even gets to Cannes (i.e. he’s a weirdo and wants to be a filmmaker).

The soundtrack, on the other hand, is fantastic. The original songs by Jesse Frederick and Jeff Koz sound like ELO, which is perfectly fine by me. Someone put this soundtrack out, and then send me one.

Troma’s DVD release (this is one of their distribution deals - they were not involved with the film’s production as far as I know) is packed with the sort of stuff you’d expect: a bunch of trailers, some recollections of Spinell (from co-star Luke Walker and Maniac director Bill Lustig), and some Troma nonsense. Walker and Troma’s Evan Husney provide a wonderfully blunt commentary that kicks off with Walker telling an anecdote about the woman in the opening scene’s fake breasts. He talks a lot about sneaking around Cannes to get footage (paraphrase: “See, there’s Kris Kristofferson. He doesn’t know he’s in this movie, I’m sure.”) and has the mouth of a sailor, so it’s definitely worth a listen.

This is the type of movie I would love to watch at the New Bev or whatever, because sitting at home alone just doesn’t do it justice. It’s not quite Pieces, but it’s in the same neighborhood. Someone book this movie so I can see it properly, dammit!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Julie Darling (1983)

APRIL 16, 2009

GENRE: KILLER KID, WEIRD
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

Whenever I need to explain what the New Bev is to someone who has sadly never heard of it, I usually say "It's our version of the Alamo Drafthouse" (if they don't know what the Alamo is, they probably won't care about the New Bev and thus I wouldn't be bothering to explain it to them). So it's quite fitting that they chose the Bev as the Los Angeles stop for their "Alamo Roadshow", which finds the famed Texan duo that runs the Drafthouse taking their unique programming to independent theaters on the West Coast. And they kicked things off with Julie Darling, a wonderfully sleaze-lite thriller with Sybil Danning (who was in attendance).

To describe the movie briefly, one would probably say "It's about a girl who kills anyone who comes between her and her father, whom she wants to fuck." But that would be doing a disservice to the film, which has a far above average number of cheer-inducing moments (like when a man tries to resuscitate a suffocated child by pinching his nose shut), a beautifully executed ending, a 15 year old girl with a gun rack, and lots and lots of "product placement".

I'm sure none of the companies paid to have their products in the film (given the taboo subject matter, it would probably be the opposite), but it's striking how often a well known product figures into a scene. Julie has a borderline addiction to Nestle Quik, her mother rambles about the virtues of Diet Coke, and at one point, a guy walks out of a Burger King and then past a McDonalds! And for whatever reason, Julie has a Pan Am poster in her bedroom. Teenage girls love defunct air travel, I guess.

Back to the BK/McD's guy, he is truly an inspired creation. As the Alamo guys correctly pointed out, he clearly just wandered in from a 70s porno movie. It's not that he merely LOOKS like a 70s porno actor (sans mustache), but in a span of about 90 seconds he manages to run through every bad porn cliche known to man: asking the housewife if he can assist her with anything, commenting about her being alone in the house, etc. And writer/director Paul Nicholas knew he had a good thing going, because after a tragedy, the movie follows him for a while. I momentarily thought the movie was pulling a Psycho and that the rest of the movie would be about him, but it's just to help set up his importance later in the film.

Some might be reading all of this and wondering if this is even a horror movie. Well, had I known nothing about it beforehand, I wouldn't have considered it one. It does have some elements of a Killer Kid movie, obviously, but it's not played for scares or even thrills, really. It's just a weird little movie. But, it played the festival under the "Psychosexual Maniacs" banner, and IMDb lists it as horror, so it qualifies for my purposes. I wouldn't have minded a bit more bloodshed (they set up Julie killing her little stepbrother, but they pussy out and save the kid before writing him out of the movie all together), but the lack of violence pays off with the surprising and somewhat mean-spirited ending.

Oh, in case anyone was wondering about the whole "daddy-daughter" thing, it never gets into Taboo 2 territory, but Julie does fantasize about being in Danning's place while she watches them make love (Hey-O!!!), and the dad is way too touchy-feely with her at times. Not a movie to watch with your family, at any rate. Oddly (or confusingly), I won a movie called Daddy Darling during the traditional pre-show raffle, which sounds like a softcore version of the same movie, except with lots of lesbian sex. Whether I will actually watch it anytime soon is a question mark, but considering that the only other thing I ever won in the raffle was a wrestling T-shirt, I consider it a damn good win all the same. Thanks, Brian and Eric!

Anyway, if you live in any of the big West Coast cities (San Fran, Seattle, and Portland), check out the Alamo roadshow if you can. Full schedule is at their website HERE. San Fransiscans should note that Raw Force is on the bill there - do NOT miss an opportunity to see this film with a crowd!!!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Eyes Of A Stranger (1980)

DECEMBER 2, 2008

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I wonder how much smaller my DVD collection would be if I didn’t have so many movies like Eyes Of A Stranger, which I certainly had no desire to own, but came in a box set with Dr. Giggles, Deadly Friend, and The Hand, movies I DID want to own. I actually forgot that I had the movie entirely, and came across it for no reason other than the fact that I managed to watch all my Blockbuster/Netflix movies and haven’t gotten any new ones in the mail yet.

Another movie in that set was John Carpenter’s underwhelming TV movie Someone’s Watching Me!, which Eyes resembles in more than a couple ways. Both involve creepy phone calls, the heroine is a newscaster, and their cat and mouse situation is intensified by the fact that they live across from one another. And I can’t recall for sure, but I’m pretty sure the killer’s identity was known from like the halfway point, with no other suspects to choose from in that movie as well.

The biggest difference is that this one WASN’T a TV movie, and thus it has a lot of swearing, some gore, and unabashed nudity (including a young Jennifer Jason Leigh). It’s actually kind of glorious to see such an anti-PC movie of this type; the Ashley Judds and Uma Thurmans of the world have dulled the “Woman stalked by Serial Killer” genre into nothingness, so to see the killer cause genuinely upsetting trauma to his victims (he’s also a rapist, so he fondles Leigh all over and shoves his tongue down her throat) is actually sort of novel.

But it doesn’t matter, because it’s still a dull movie. The lack of any sort of suspense regarding the killer’s identity really hurts it, because it was all the movie had going for it (like Feardotcom, the killer is inexplicably hidden from view for a while only to be casually and un-climactically revealed in a non-surprise way). Could it be our heroine’s boyfriend? Her fellow newscaster? Or the repairman guy who she keeps manipulating so she can snoop? Nope, it’s... the guy she thinks it is right from the start. Nail-biting suspense! To be fair, the finale is kind of creepy, since Leigh’s character is blind and the guy is just sort of walking around the apartment with her. Still, you knew she wouldn’t get killed, so it’s sort of dull too.

Back to the boyfriend, this movie has the most annoying conversation in movie history. He’s a lawyer, so naturally he only speaks in law-based double entendres. So she’s about to leave his bed to go to work, and he says “I can always serve you a restraining order.” (she leaves) “Hey, I was just about to start my closing argument!” (she tells him they can talk later) “You know I’m at the end of my probationary period!” Objection! Shut the fuck up! He’s also the most ignorant dick in the world, expressing complete astonishment that Leigh is able to swim despite her handicap.

Hilariously, on the back of the DVD, it boasts that it’s from the “Production company behind the original Friday the 13th”. I had to look up exactly who they meant (Georgetown Productions Inc), and in the process discovered that the writer of this movie was actually F13 writer Ron Kurz, using the odd pseudonym of Mark Jackson (must be his production company). But I love that that was the best thing they could come up with to try to entice viewers. Like, “From the director of” or even “the producer of” is one thing, but “The Production Company”? Who the fuck would care? That reminds me of when the Onion made a joke that a movie was being touted as “From the studio that brought you Remember the Titans”, which became prophetic when studios actually DID begin using such non-connective claims on their films (mostly Sony, proudly pointing out that Daddy Day Camp was from the studio that brought you Daddy Day Care, because the 6 year old intended audience hates it when a franchise switches studios!). I can only hope that someday, a movie is sold on the fact that it has the composer of Con Air attached.

Oh, the occasional gore effect in the movie is courtesy of Tom Savini (so the production company AND the makeup effects artist of F13!), which means it’s pretty great stuff. There’s a de-capped head in a fishtank early on that’s pretty much the highlight of the movie.

To bring the review full circle, I looked up what the tradein value was for this movie, since I’d rather have shelf space than continue to own it. I would get 5 cents, which is the lowest I’ve ever seen for a tradein (to compare, they’d at least give me a buck for Dark Ride). So I’ll probably end up keeping it, in case I ever want to trade the entire box set back someday. For the record, that would net me a cool 11 bucks, probably on the strength of Dr Giggles alone.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Impulse (1974)

AUGUST 12, 2008

GENRE: HERO KILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

Along with Stanley, director William Grefe was also on hand to discuss the 2nd film of tonight’s double feature: Impulse, which stars the inimitable William Shatner. Apparently, much effort was made to get Shat down for the screening, but he was stuck on the set of Boston Public. Fine, do your Emmy-winning work instead of coming to talk to drunks at 1 in the morning about a gloriously awful movie you made 35 years ago, jerk!

I actually liked Impulse more than Stanley. Not only is Shatner simply more entertaining than the former’s Chris Robinson, but it’s also a more “action-packed” movie. Shatner goes apeshit and attacks someone every 15 minutes or so, and the whole movie is pretty much about whether or not he will murder a little girl who saw him kill someone else. At one point, he even says “She deserves to die!” because she lied about something. Harsh dude.

There are so many hilarious bits in this movie, and I was so half drunk, that I couldn’t possibly remember them all. But some include Shatner kicking Harold “Oddjob” Sakata in the face (Sakata seems sort of confused by the whole thing), a drunken man trying to teach a young boy how to make love to a woman (the kid’s mother being the intended target), Shatner picking up a little girl without any real concern that such behavior is an arrestable offense, a character simply named Moy, etc. I don’t think I went more than 2 minutes without laughing out loud at SOMETHING.

Like Tim/Stanley, he’s also a pretty ineffective killer. At the end he stabs a woman, then chases the little girl until she falls down the stairs and seemingly breaks her neck, and then he attempts to drown another. But while he’s drowning her, the stabbed woman suddenly grabs his leg, impeding his process. And then the little girl comes back and stabs him! 3 women, and Shat couldn’t kill a single one of them properly. However, this results in a truly amazing moment; the little girl and the mother are walking out of the house, crying hysterically. Then the girl sees Shatner, dead, and points as she cries even louder, as if she just noticed that he was dead. It’s fucking bliss.

One bummer about both movies for tonight was that the film prints were devoid of all color for the most part. I am used to the pink/red tint for older films, but I can’t recall any this bad. They seriously had no color left in them for a lot of the time (both prints seemed to be assembled from a few different prints, so every now and then a reel would actually look pretty good). But you sort of get used to it after a while.

I’ve never even heard of Grefe before tonight, but now I am a fan. I plan to check out some of his other movies (if I can find them) and certainly buy this one on DVD when it’s out (they said a special edition is in the works). Like Scream Bloody Murder, Impulse is the type of wretchedly hilarious 70s “hero killer” movie that I could never get enough of, and wish would have a permanent place on the bi-weekly Grindhouse roster. Please, if you know of any other movies in which the star is sort of the hero but he freaks out and kills people for no real reason, list them in the suggestion thread.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Torso (1973)

FEBRUARY 17, 2008

GENRE: GIALLO, ITALIAN
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

One of the more common complaints about Grindhouse was that the double feature may have worked better had Planet Terror come AFTER Death Proof instead of before. Since Planet was such an adrenaline rush, it made DP seem "slow" in comparison. So it was a good thing Eli Roth was wise enough to show Torso before Pieces, since Torso IS indeed a slow film and building up to the incredibility that is Pieces was the right thing to do.

Torso is similar to Pieces, in that it's kind of a terrible movie made incredibly good by the sheer batshittedness of it all. But whereas Pieces almost never slows down (when there's a lull in the killings they simply have an attack by the college's "Kung Fu professor"), Torso takes its time, offering very little action in the first hour before a rousing and even somewhat shocking final 20 minutes.

I'm not sure if this was a cut print or not (it was certainly in bad shape), but if not, Torso must be the least violent/gory Giallo film ever. Many of the kills are off-screen entirely, and even the on-screen ones are fairly tame compared to the other films of the era (even ones older than this, such as Bava's Kill Baby Kill). I meant to ask Eli Roth, but I opted to make Mother's Day references instead (I am SO EXCITED for Wednesday's screening of that film).

In fact, most of the movie is simply people leering at each other. Literally every 30 seconds there is a shot of someone looking at someone who is looking at them with a sinister face. Some are reasonable, but at one point a woman somehow senses a guy watching her from down a hill, seemingly a mile away. If you cut all of the looking out, the movie would be about 12 minutes long.

So what's good? Well, the batshit dialogue, as always. One scene begins with a bunch of guys sitting around talking about our heroines; one says "They don't seem to be very politically aware." His friend responds "So what, I'd like to get with all three of them!" Charming. The plot also relies on continual confusion between a scarf that is either red over black or black over red, and this difference is explained at least three times. There's also a guy who looks like David Copperfield, and a brief lesbian scene that comes and goes out of nowhere.

As mentioned, the finale pretty much makes up for a lot of the film's shortcomings. After killing three of the female leads in one swoop (offscreen again, though at least this is used for shock reveal to the surviving girl), the Final Girl does the old "slide a newspaper under the door to catch the key" trick. But she misses, the key falls to the floor. Then, the killer reaches into frame and puts the key on the newspaper for her! It's so delightfully painful to watch it go from hope to despair to false hope... genius scene.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the "can scene". For reasons never explained, one scene is shot from the point of view of a tin can on the ground. We see the can, and hold on it, as a group of locals walk around talking about the girls. One guy kicks the can, and it rolls over near the killer. The killer walks off with his new information about the girls, and we stay with the can. It's hilarious.

Like I said, this was part of the Eli Roth festival, and I am pretty sure that if I watched this one by myself I would be bored even by the stuff I mentioned as good. It's amazing how much the crowd's spirit can add to the enjoyment of a film, and I would strongly urge anyone who thinks that they can replicate the theater experience in their home by spending thousands of dollars on a system to first fuck themselves and then head on over to their local revival house on a night that is showing a cheesy film like this (or even a genuine crowd-pleaser like SLither) and see how much they are missing. Plus, in addition to a sort of "Movie Internet Site Powerhouse" (my row included delegates from CHUD, Aintitcool, JoBlo, ShockTillYouDrop, and, obviously, Bloody-Disgusting), the crowd included John Gulager, Edgar Wright, Sage Stallone, and even the guy who plays Superman on Hollywood Boulevard. No special seating, no VIP treatment, everyone there just has a good time together. Pieces is too good to never watch again, but Torso? Watching it anywhere but a theater full of appreciative fans would just be pointless.

In short, the sound system and maybe even the size of the screen may be "better" at your home, but those things are nowhere near as important as the crowd factor of a real movie theater. Please support your independent theaters, because when it comes to these types of screenings, there is nothing in the world that is as stupid as saying "Why go see a movie I have at home?"

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Pieces (1982)

FEBRUARY 3, 2008

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

This week will make one year of daily horror movie watching. Imagine if, after going 364 days without missing a single day, I just sat on my ass and did absolutely nothing to ensure that magic 365-0 mark would come to pass? Then I’d fit in with my New England brethren!

Anyway, after that heartbreaking, ballstomping clusterfuck of a disappointment, I needed to watch something VIOLENT. I needed release, dammit, and what better way to get it (from the couch anyway) than with a splatter movie about a guy chainsawing some girls up and making a jigsaw puzzle out of their body parts? Thank you, Pieces, for helping to keep my mind off the depressing “it was all for nothing” events of the day.

However, in an ironic coincidence that I had to laugh at, the film begins with a title saying Boston, 1947. Now, no slasher movies are set in Boston, ever, so this was a bit of an eye-opener. But then, they cut to the interior of a house, and on the kid’s wall is a New England Patriots banner!!! The fact that there WERE no Patriots for another 13 years (and they were the Boston Patriots until the 70s) did not escape me, it seemed like it was Lucased into the film just to spite me. Fuck you, anachronistic movie!

But then the chainsawing began and all was well.

While not as violent as I expected (only 4 or 5 deaths), the movie was a blast, and I for one cannot WAIT to see it again in a few weeks at the New Beverly, where it’s showing as part of Eli Roth’s film festival (full lineup HERE). You never want to watch a movie for the first time with that crowd; it’s designed for appreciative fans who will likely be talking and laughing over most of it. And more than any other film I’ve seen there (or plan to), this one is seemingly filmed with that sort of experience in mind. Scenes like the one where a guy comes out of nowhere and begins kung-fuing the heroine for no reason, then complaining about eating bad chop suey, seemingly have no purpose other than to provide a crowd full of slightly drunken horror fans a reason to laugh as soon as the scene begins.

There are plenty of moments like that in the film, from odd dialogue (“The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a waterbed.”), killings that don’t make a lick of sense (the killer grabs a guy’s crotch and manages to tear off his genitalia with his bare hand – thru a pair of jeans no less!), and of course, atrocious overdubbing (they seem to be speaking English, but it’s often clearly not the same actor saying the lines). I also like how blasé the police department is about what has to be the most violent campus in the world – at one point a reporter’s question about the possibility of a serial killer is dismissed by the chief, who says “There are maniac rumors at that school every couple of months!”. How many people have died there, exactly???

Is this why so many of my jeans get a hole there?

The gore is also pretty fantastic (read: ridiculous and over the top). Given the nature of the film, there is a lot of dismemberment on hand, but the fact that we actually see a lot of it is pretty impressive. My favorite was when the killer steps into a small elevator, hiding a giant chainsaw behind his back. The victim doesn’t notice, somehow, but then he whips it out and relieves her of her right arm. A+!

One thing that was kind of a bummer was how they automatically remove one of the primary suspects (it’s a whodunit) early on. We see the killer’s legs as he walks around a library, and he’s got blue pants on. Then the guy they want us to think is the killer walks by, and his pants are brown. Granted, if he WAS the killer it could be chalked up to continuity error, but still, I never once suspected him through the rest of the film. Oh well.

The film has a good pedigree – one of the writers was the infamous Joe D’Amato (if you haven’t seen his film Antropophagus, you’re just not living life), and another writer, Dick Randall, was a producer on Slaughter High (Marty!). I don’t recognize any of the actors, but the music is a Goblin ripoff, so there’s something. My DVD is sadly not the special edition, but a cheapo budget pack version on a set called Blood Bath. Kill Baby Kill is also on the set, and I have the special edition of that via the Bava box set. So if the other 2 movies suck I’ll give away Blood Bath on a future contest. Deal?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Wizard Of Gore (1970)

JANUARY 22, 2008

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, MAGICIAN
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

Last summer I went to see the remake of The Wizard Of Gore, and wasn’t exactly thrilled by it. I hated the main character, the sound design made me want to punch someone in the face, and it was just plain boring for the most part. I was assured the original was better in all respects, but I didn’t go out of my way to see it until tonight, when it played at my beloved New Beverly Cinema as part of their monthly “Grindhouse” festival. I should also note that for the first time ever, I won one of the raffle prizes; I am now the proud owner of a Triple H shirt.

Anyway, whoever told me that the original was better was right on 2/3 of the problems. The sound was fine, and the lead character was certainly more likable. But again, the movie is just damn boring. The kill scenes are delightfully gory, but even those are way too drawn out. At one point, Montag kills two girls by shoving swords down their throat. The crowd is hypnotized to believe that everything is fine. After he finishes, he slowly takes the sword out of the girl’s mouth, then undoes the rope around her left hand, then her right, then does a little bow while the crowd cheers. All of this takes like two minutes of screentime. And then he does the entire thing again with the other girl, taking another couple of minutes with him.

And ALL of the kill scenes are like this! It’s like a moebius strip of a movie: the magic show begins, Montag brings up a volunteer from the audience to verify whatever he’s going to use is real, then he kills a girl on stage while the hypnotized crowd watches, then the girl walks off stage, the show is over, the girl dies, the scene is investigated, our hero and his girl talk about it, sleep together, talk to some cops, and then the whole cycle starts again. You could edit out one “cycle” of the film and no one would ever know. Finally, it breaks the mold a bit for a finale, but that is botched as well since we get the ‘it was all a dream’ bullshit.

Now, to be fair, I still had fun watching the film, because roughly half the crowd thought they were as funny as Mike Nelson, and spent the entire time talking back to the screen. See, on MST3k, it’s scripted, and there’s three guys following the script, so it all works. But in a theater with 300 people, you end up getting off timed comments, people talking over one another, everyone scrambling for dominance. And then of course, some folks don’t want to hear anyone but the people in the movie, so they start yelling “shut up!” and the like. Well, for someone like me, who is relatively quiet, this provides just as much, if not more, of the enjoyment. Some of the comments were funny (during the scene where Montag removed the sword from the girl’s throat, someone yelled “she’s a quart low”, which killed me), but everyone mocking a particularly unfunny comment (or simply yelling at the other people to shut up) was even funnier to me. I really should record the ‘commentary’ the next time I attend a movie there; it really does add a lot to the proceedings. Because honestly, without a group of appreciative folks, there’s no way in hell this one would have retained my interest. Thanks fellas!

Also, the gore scenes ARE pretty great, mainly because they're so ridiculous. The final one, Montag doesn't even seem to be using a weapon, and is simply tearing the girl apart with his bare hands. Splatter at its finest. And I sort of like the "who cares" cheapness of it all: the not-even-trying-to-fool-you fake heads, the near empty sets, the television studio that apparently has NASA connections, etc. I also like how the credit sequence, which is mainly blood and other red things, has red titles as well, so most of them are wholly unreadable. Marvelous.

It’s not reviewed, but 2000 Maniacs was one of the first movies I watched when I began watching one every day. I didn’t care too much for that either (though it was certainly better than this), so maybe I just don’t like Herschell Gordon Lewis much. I’ll give Blood Feast a try at some point, but if that one doesn’t get me, I’m afraid I’ll have to give up trying.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Cannibal Apocalypse (aka Apocalypse Domani)

SEPTEMBER 26, 2007

GENRE: CANNIBAL, EXPLOITATION, ITALIAN
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

One of the great perks of watching a Horror Movie A Day is discovering a movie I knew nothing about (OK, it’s the only perk. This has severely cut into my video game time!). Such is the case with Cannibal Apocalypse. Like many of the movies I watch, it was simply queued on Netflix or Blockbuster because it came up as a recommendation for another movie. So when I began to watch the film, I had no preconceived notions about it. Hell, I didn’t even know what it was about or who was in it. I assumed there would be cannibals, and that there would be some sort of apocalypse.

The film began in the jungle. So I thought “OK, another Ferox/Holocaust ripoff. Fine.” But then they reveal the jungle scene was just a nightmare of John Saxon’s character. A few minutes later, John Morghen (!!!) goes to a movie and bites a female patron, then holes up inside a flea market, killing anyone who tries to capture him. So now I am thinking, “OK, it’s a siege movie with cannibals, sweet!” But no, Saxon comes along and talks Morghen down, and Morghen is taken back to a mental institution. And so on. Usually when I see a movie as old as this, not only do I know the general structure of the plot, but have half the kills spoiled from seeing the trailer, know who survives because they are in the sequel, etc. But here, every time I thought I knew how the rest of the movie would play out, it went off in a new direction (but not in a confusing or crippling way). Needless to say, I had more fun watching this movie than most of the others all month.

The best surprise was how much Morghen was in the film. Usually the poor sod is killed instantly after being introduced, but here he’s got more screentime than anyone save Saxon. A film can never have too much John Morghen, so this was fantastic. His eventual death (I’m not spoiling anything. Come on, the guy NEVER lives) was amazingly well done, considering the time period. I honestly can’t really figure out how it was accomplished, though I have a theory (body suspension - notice you never see the top of his head or an angled view).

Being an Italian film, there is also a hefty dose of ridiculous dialogue. My favorite came early on, as a man says “I always said you should have married me instead. But anyway, speaking professionally...” and then goes on to tell a woman that her husband is nuts. The line is ridiculous enough, but the guy doing the dubbing says it with such lazy nonchalance it becomes a minor treasure in the annals of horrible Italian horror movie lines. Then there’s the usual complete dismissal of any female character (“come here, bitch!” is said more than once, often unprovoked), a hateful old woman, cops who threaten everyone they encounter, etc. All filmed in Georgia for some goddamn reason.

The only downer is the soundtrack. The DVD is in horrendous mono sound, which not only leaves a few lines up to your imagination, but also betrays the great, Goblin-esque soundtrack by Alexander Blonksteiner, who also did House by the Cemetery. Some of his cues are sort of porn-ish (especially the first one, which is totally inappropriate to the scene involving the massacre of a Vietnamese village), but the rest is reminiscent of Dawn of the Dead without being a total ripoff. The lack of remastered sound is all the more baffling when you consider that the film is actually presented anamorphic despite having the rightfully rare ratio of 1.66:1, and there’s also a nice collection of extras, including an hour long recollection from Saxon, Morghen, and director Anthony Dawson (aka Antonio Margheriti). My favorite though, was a text description of all the different cuts made to the film (as well as a few of the dozen or so titles the film has gone by).

I hope the Grindhouse Festival (a monthly double feature in LA that has introduced me to many a Morghen film) shows this one sometime soon; I’d love to watch it again with a crowd. Till then, definitely check this one out, it’s the most accessible of the “Cannibal _____” films of the era.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Driller Killer

SEPTEMBER 2, 2007

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK!!!)

This review should be read LOUD!

How can a movie called Driller Killer be so goddamn boring? Come on! This one reminded me of Naked Massacre for some reason, but at least that film, itself no masterpiece, moved along fairly nicely. This one took FOREVER to get to the driller killering and then it moved so fast I couldn’t even understand what was happening at times.

The ending, however, is pretty sweet, and rescued this one out of the crap label. Like yesterday’s Alone With Her, it’s a downer ending. It’s also given one of the strangest cinematic presentations I can recall. The film fades to red and we simply listen to the climax. More ideas like that that could have made this film worthwhile.

The rest though is as generic as they come. There’s the usual padding, awful acting, nonsensical asides (why is Reno on the roof watching a guy get randomly stabbed?), kills that make little to no anatomical sense, etc. There IS a brief lesbian scene though, so there’s something. We are also given the world’s most over-populated band (there’s a scene where a couple of their back up singers fight some of their OTHER back up singers!!).

This one’s being remade. I am all for it. Remaking films that were good ideas done badly should be a lot more common than it is. I just hope that someone, someday, can make a decent movie out of Vampire$.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

New Year's Evil

JUNE 28, 2007

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

In my spare time (so, never) I write a cartoon called Fright Reviews. There is a link to my right, your… right, too, I guess, for more information about it. But the gist of it is: these guys host a horror movie review show and every week find themselves in a plot that mirrors one of the movies they are reviewing. Usually, I watch a movie and then figure out how to make it into a serviceable plot. Only once did I come up with an episode idea first (the show premieres and things go wrong) and then look for a movie that would “work” in that context. The movie I found is New Year’s Evil.

In the episode, it is the night the show premieres, and a killer tells them that each time the show premieres in the four time zones; he will kill someone from the show. In this movie, it’s New Year’s Eve, and he is killing someone every time the ball drops. Course, I bought it almost a year ago and just got around to watching it now (this may be even more surprising to anyone who recognizes the Horror Movie A Day “poster”). Who says I need instant gratification?

I thought the film would be a pretty standard slasher movie, but it’s really closer to exploitation than slasher. For starters, we spend more time with the killer than the radio station chick he is taunting. Nor does he wear a mask. Instead, he dresses like a hospital orderly, a swinger, a cop, a... gymnast (?), etc., coming off more like a sort of murderous Fletch than a movie slasher. And our victims (who he says are people ‘close to her’ but as it turns out he means geographically close, not personally) are barely introduced before he does them in. It starts off kind of creepy, but then we meet the girls for his Central Time Zone kill. They are really annoying, and he gets all irritated, turning the film into borderline comedy for a while.

And for a slasher, the kills are pretty bland and gore-less. He just knifes everyone, usually off-screen. Instead of interesting kills, the film gives us endless scenes of New Wave clubbers bobbing their heads to a band called Shadow, who apparently only has one song (called “Midnight”, a song that, including the DVD menu, we will hear 3x before the 10 minute mark). Between that, the fact that the guy picks up two girls by name dropping Erik Estrada, and the very notion that anyone would be listening to a radio on New Year’s Eve, this is the most dated slasher film ever.

I should mention that I watched the film via bootleg, as the film has never been officially released on DVD. I do not condone buying a film that doesn’t net the filmmakers any money, but it’s not my goddamn fault that Columbia has forgotten all about it. I think it would be less fair for their weirdo slasher movie to go forever forgotten by a modern audience who won’t be able to relate to a single goddamn thing in it! As such things go, the quality isn’t too bad, though there is a strange section where the aspect ratio changes from full frame to 1.85:1. Whatever. The DVD mastering is otherwise better than “legit” DVDs like yesterday’s Dark Fields.

Adding to the movie's strange charm is the inherently creepy nature of the relationship between the DJ chick and her son, played by Killer Klowns’ Grant Cramer (!!!). He acts more like a lover than a son, and at one point sniffs, cuts, and then wears one of her stockings on his head for a while. His character doesn’t make the least bit of sense either, he attempts suicide, makes repeated phone calls to his father’s place in Palm Springs even though he knows perfectly well that he’s in LA, and at the end puts on a clown mask and sets himself up to be the killer in New Year’s Evil 2, a surely great film that has thankfully never been made.

It’s also movies like this that make me wish I didn’t live in LA. At one point the killer offs two blondes in a quiet location at “Ventura and Laurel Canyon”. That intersection is in fact one of the busiest in North Hollywood. You wouldn’t be able to get away with killing someone in the open at 3 am, let alone 10 o'clock, especially on a holiday night. Come on man, everyone knows that Moorpark and Hazeltine is the best place to go stabbing!!!

But still, if you always felt that not enough movies featured random (and irrelevant) quotes from Hamlet before the killer falls to his death, this movie is the one for you!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...