Diary Of A Genre Addict

REVISITING THE FIFTH ELEMENT

2018-04-21T12:38:00.004-07:00

I've found myself in one of those REVISIT ALL THE THINGS moods of late, so naturally my default for the that is the period of genre cinema that covered my teenage years – the nineties. There was a lot of junk released then, but there are a few classic that have really stood the test of time. I span The Fifth Element again last night and was astounded how well it holds up.

Visually it doesn't feel far removed from the current level of CGI and film making, the script it still wonderfully inventive, the cast are still uniformly excellent (even the squealing monstrosity of Chris Tucker's Ruby Rhod), and Luc Besson's direction helps it to look like absolutely nothing else that was being made at the time. The Fifth Element is a thing of beauty.

There's so much going on visually and plot-wise throughout its two hour running time that it's easy to forgive some of the less believable elements (as it were) of the script, such as Bruce Willis' Korben Dallas falling in love with Milla Jovovich's Leeloo seemingly over a period of hours. That aside, the script moves along at quite a pace, and remains engaging throughout.

One of the most incredible things about The Fifth Element isn't the groundbreaking effects, the costume design from Jean-Paul Gaultier or Gary Oldman's bizarre accent (which, in my opinion,wasn't bettered for weirdness until Tom Hardy played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises).

It's the innocence and wide-eyed naivety of Leoloo – and her subsequent transformation in the third act into the godlike weapon that saves humanity – which is captivating. Milla Jovovich managed to put across a truly alien quality to her, mixed with a childlike wonder and a nervous curiosity that was just electric to watch.

Bruce Willis gets his action scenes, Gary Oldman and Ian Holm out-act everyone and there are stunning set-pieces, but it's Milla that still stuns. The iconic opera scene, inter-cut with action scenes and exposition, remains beautiful even with the clear limitations of the practical make-up for the diva being so obvious during the close-ups. The practical effects on the Mangalores (the big alien mercenaries) look iffy here and there, but heck, modern effects still often look ropey.

Did revisiting The Fifth Element have the desired nostalgia effect? Pretty much, but I also found myself engrossed in it all over again. Luc Besson tried a big sci-fi concept piece again recently with the critical and commercial punching bag known as Valerian (everyone seems to say it looks amazing but the cast stink), but I don't think we'll ever see something so aesthetically gorgeous and strange as this again. I'm enjoying the nostalgia again.

Amazon.co.uk Widgets

DCU: HOW THE DC CINEMATIC UNIVERSE COULD BE SAVED

2018-04-15T08:37:00.001-07:00

The DC Cinematic universe has had a bumpy ride since its inception, with some odd choices made and directions taken that didn't entirely work in its favour. Look at Suicide Squad as a major release prior to the big names getting together, Batman Vs Superman's of the Doomsday concept and story, Justice League winding up looking like a video game cut scene in places, for example. Each of the DC movies has had its elements that worked really well, but the output thus far has seen critics and fans less than impressed with most releases. The exception to this is Wonder Woman, the gigantic hit that turned Gal Gadot's Diana brought to the forefront of the DCU as its star, way in front of both Superman and Batman.

This is quite understandable, as Gal, Patty Jenkins, Chris Pine and everyone involved in the Wonder Woman movie brought us a film which adhered more to traditional adventure elements instead of grim brooding and shots which look great in trailers but out of place in films. The Wonder Woman movie gave audiences what they wanted from a DC film – an engaging story, real heroism and genuinely charismatic main character. It looked fantastic and felt complete, unlike movies such as Batman V Superman or Justice League which could certainly have benefited from being shorter and more to the point.

All of which has lead the shared comic book movie universe throne occupied by Marvel alone. They built the MCU over the space of a decade, adding layers, ongoing storylines and embellishing it all with new characters and quite a direct style of film-making which managed to ground the fantasy elements in, if not reality, at least an internally consistent and believable context. Even in the case of movies like Doctor Strange or Thor: Ragnarok.

So how can the DCU be saved from the uneven start it has had? Rebooting it? That seems like the most sensible option, but how about taking a sidestep for a couple of years – or maybe even two sidesteps which have never been done before? What I'd suggest is offering two DC animated movies on the big screen – in current DCU canon – as a palate cleanser, and a DCU themed TV series running alongside them.

The TV series and animated movies could weave in and out of each other, creating the shared universe feel that Marvel spent so long building but within a far more condensed period. I feel it was a bit of a misstep for the DCU to ignore the DC television properties already ongoing, as including elements like Grant Gustin's Flash or Melissa Benoist's Supergirl would have given the DCU a shared universe straight away.

Hell, Flashpoint could have been a story idea to mix the universes, which could then be unified in a Crisis on Infinite Earths style project. Between DCU movies the Arrowverse characters could continue on their adventures, saving the big stuff like Darkseid for the big screen instead. But why animated movies? My reasoning for that would be that the Trinity of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman (until Gal Gadot, of course) have worked best on the small screen in their cartoon counterparts.

The development of the characters throughout things like Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League: Action, Batman The Brave and the Bold and even DC Superhero Girls have been far more attuned to the foundations of the characters than the films. Following in their footsteps – voiced by their Justice League movie star incarnations, perhaps – may add another dimension to the DCU and bring a unified tone that could then be replicated in future live action films.

It may not work, but I'd say it's worth a shot and would offer some DCU entertainment that the whole family – and thus larger audiences – could enjoy. Take out the swearing. Be true to the characters that have been icons for seventy years, and be true to the audience that bought into those characters for so long as well as audiences who are just now discovering them. Heroes are for everyone, after all, and I'd love to see my heroes save themselves just as much as I want them to save the world.

Amazon.co.uk Widgets

READY PLAYER ONE – NOSTALGIA IS HERE TO STAY

2018-04-04T03:00:00.000-07:00

Ready Player One was a glorious book. In fact, it was so wonderful that I was truly upset when I got to the end of it. I was commuting at the time and as the last page ended I felt a void open up. I wanted more. I wanted to be in the Oasis with Parzival, Art3mis, Aech and the rest. I wanted to be in there, helping to kick IOI's ass on an epic level. I wanted to be piloting Voltron or a Megazord or SpectreMan or the Enterprise D, joining in with the gigantic sea of pop culture references that came together to storm Halliday's castle.

When the movie was announced, I couldn't help but wonder how the hell it could be brought to the big screen. Here was a story about a videogame universe packed with so much in the way of licensed pop culture gold that it had to be impossible to make it work out for everything to show up in the film. Actually, more than that I was probably concerned that the version of Ready Player One I had in my head wouldn't be the one that I'd see at the cinema.

The name of a certain Steven Spielberg was attached, which vanquished a lot of my worries. I mean, the man was responsible for bringing so much of the pop culture that we know and love into being that him directing Ready Player One was something of a no-brainer. The trailers came and I was cautiously optimistic, then this week I saw the movie and despite it leaving out a lot of stuff (including one major plot element that was teased in the trailers), it wound up being a ton of fun.

It took a little while for me to warm to the film, maybe 25 minutes into its running time, but it won me over and raised a huge pop-culture-nerd grin. The visuals will have me picking references out for years to come, and there was the right level of Spielberg sentimentality and adventure to give the CGI universe a human edge, even when all we see of the characters are their game avatars.

The big thing that the Ready Player One movie has working in its favour is the pull of nostalgia. Not just nostalgia for those who lived through the times that spawned the pop culture giants that are referenced. But also an odd modern nostalgia for simpler, more fun times perhaps. The enormous love for the eighties and nineties at present seems to be the same sort of thing those of us who lived the eighties and nineties experienced from our own predecessors and how they felt about the sixties and seventies.

Life is incredibly complicated and nuanced now, and while I fully acknowledge that life was strange and uncertain back then (I was born in the very late seventies, remember much of the eighties and came of age in the nineties), the pull of other eras is incredibly attractive. Retro games and media remain fun now because they were fun then, too.

The pervasiveness of the internet and how it has shaped us culturally and socially seems to have resulted in some kind of cultural impasse where everything is happening all at once, all content is current, everything has its audience and its place. Pop culture is fragmented to an incredible level now, but when a project like Ready Player One – in both incarnations of it – brings a ton of familiar and fun things together, the best thing to do is just bask in its glow.

The Ready Player One movie isn't a perfect translation of the book (that wasn't possible after all), but it does give us what we wanted in terms of visuals and pop culture nostalgia along with a fun adventure story worthy of the classics it pays homage to.

DIARY OF A GENRE ADDICT - ARISE FROM YOUR TOMB!!!

2018-04-03T06:22:00.002-07:00

BRAAAAAIIINNNSSS!!!

Yes indeed. The diary has dug itself out of its final resting place and will soon be returning in a new and improved form so I can spew my guts out about geek life, genre films, TV, comics, books and the like in a safe place that doesn't require the jacket with the straps up the back, as they do tend to chafe.

BRB.

You can also follow Diary of a Genre Addict on Twitter as @genreaddict

Hey there.

2016-08-17T13:28:00.003-07:00

I really miss this place.

TRICK OR TREAT (1986)

2014-04-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

Note: here it is, the final review to be posted on DIARY OF A GENRE ADDICT, and it's the perfect film to sum up the whole site. TRICK OR TREAT. Read on, and thanks for years of addiction alongside me!

This film brought my appreciation of genre cinema to a whole new level when I first saw it as an impressionable kid way back in the mists of time. Mixing together 80s horror tropes with 80s hard rock and metal, a misfit outsider kid and cameos from Ozzy and Gene Simmons, Trick Or Treat blew my mind. It comes in for some flack from some people due to some script inconsistencies and a fair few cliches, but I love it so damn much I don't care about what the naysayers may think of it.

Very much in the vein of a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, Trick Or Treat feels very much like the makers were trying to set off a franchise, but that didn't pan out. However, the mix of comedy, horror and rock music works perfectly for me and still to this day provides me with a huge amount of entertainment value. From the second the film starts and we hear the opening notes of Fastway's awesome soundtrack, Trick Or Treat drags me in and makes me its own for the duration.

The plot was the perfect concept for my young mind at the time - a young metalhead invokes the demonic version of his recently-deceased musical idol via subliminal messages on an album, and chaos ensues while the demonic form of Sammi Curr (Tony Fields) wreaks havoc on all and sundry.

It starts out as Sammi giving our hero Eddie Weinbauer (Marc Price) what he wants, in the form of entertaining revenge against high school bullies, but things soon take a much more sinister turn and people start to die. eddie ends up waging war against Sammi, resulting in a climactic showdown at a radio station studio after a Carrie-esque massacre at the high school.

There are so many things about the film that I connected with as a kid, and those things still resonate with me now. Eddie Weinbauer is an unpopular metalhead, a bit of a geek, and thoroughly despised by the cool kids at school. That was me in a nutshell back in the day. As soon as I saw Eddie's bedroom (an awesome attic room stuffed with metal albums, metal posters and believable clutter) I could relate to Eddie, and I could also relate to the esteem in which he holds the rock star Sammi Curr.

Like many young and impressionable rock fans, I believed that rock and metal would never die (a thought I maintain and am constantly justified in), and often dreamed of getting caught up in some supernatural battle for survival (don't we all have days like that?). Plus I always also wanted to meet a girl like Leslie (Lisa Orgolini) because she's actually a pretty nice character, and I was a sucker for 80s teen movies in my own teens during the bland and annoying 1990s. For me, Trick Or Treat has everything – horror, comedy, metal, a geek as the main character, comeuppance for the jocks, lightning effects, cameos from rock legends and a tale of the underdog overcoming the odds.

Of course, the film is absolute fluff of the highest order and in no way a masterpiece of cinematic artistry, but dammit, I love this bloody film so much I have a shrine to it in our house. Seriously. I have the vinyl soundtrack framed, the VHS release poster framed, the original big-box rental VHS and the soundtrack on CD, as well as clippings and posters from horror magazines of the era.

The film has some weak parts, such as the tacked-on scene in the second act where a girl listens to Sammi's possessed tape and somehow her clothes vanish, followed by the appearance of a demon flicking its tongue over her. This wasn't just needless- it wasn't even in the script! It suffers from a few plot inconsistencies and the fact that Sammi, as awesome as he is, just isn't scary in the slightest. You just kinda see him and think he's cool.

Trick Or Treat is the perfect film for my addiction, and remains a firm favourite of the VHS era and the 80s metal scene that I have always loved so much. Trick or Treat is mostly a treat, and I will always love it for what it is – fun. Now you must go and watch it and appreciate it for the piece of perfect trashy art that it is. As I bid farewell at last to Diary Of A Genre Addict, I shall go and do the same in celebration of the film, the Diary, you brilliant people reading this and everyone like us.

Andrew Hawnt, 2014

TRICK OR TREAT - TRAILER

FASTWAY - "TRICK OR TREAT" with clips of the film

FASTWAY - "AFTER MIDNIGHT" From the soundtrack - Starring Sammi Curr!
===
Thank you all so much for joining me on this journey. Thank you for fuelling my addiction to genre cinema. Thank you all for being just as screwed-up as me. Thank you for reading. I hope we meet again.

Andrew Hawnt

SCANNERS (1981)

2014-04-03T12:03:00.001-07:00

Scanners is one of the most perfect examples of how science fiction and horror can mix to great effect. Written and directed by David Cronenberg, the film features one of the most memorable (and still one of the most shocking) moments in genre cinema - the notorious exploding head. That scene happens quite early in the movie, but from that second onwards, the film grips you to the very end.

A masterpiece of low-key sci-fi and horror in both the physical and psychological sense, Scanners is a bleak and atmospheric thriller with big ideas (and a wonderful score from Howard Shore) which are strong enough to overcome the budget limitations.

With a solid cast featuring Michael Ironside and Patrick McGoohan, the film follows the emergence of a new breed of human, the Scanners, people with potentially dangerous psychic powers. A shady company, ConSec, is seeking out Scanners in order to weaponize them. A Scanner named Revok (Michael Ironside) is waging war against the company, who send another Scanner named Cameron Vale to fight back.

The film had some productions issues (it started shooting before the script was finished, for starters), but the final outcome of the crew's endeavours is excellent, thanks to some creative cinematography throughout and the show-stopping Scanner battle at the film's climax.

While imperfect, Scanners grabbed me straight away thanks to its stunning poster artwork and THAT exploding head scene (how can you not love an exploding head in a movie?), but the film's unsettling story of a hidden war and underlying feeling of unease held me from start to finish. It's a beautiful example of science fiction ideas mixed with an everyday city setting, and the outcome is just wonderful.

There were two direct sequels plus two spin-off movies, and a TV series is still apparently in development, but nothing will match the power, the grime or the impact of that first movie. One of my favourite genre films of all time.

EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN (1987)

2014-03-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

It's impossible to deny that Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2 is an absolute masterpiece of genre cinema. While the first Evil Dead was brilliant and groundbreaking, its first sequel is by far a better film. The director and crew had developed their craft hugely by the time this second film came around, and while it is basically a remake of the first, it is totally fresh and remains a powerful and entertaining viewing experience to this day.

You know the drill - a bunch of people visit a cabin in the woods to see a girl's parents, only to discover the cabin is seemingly empty. Upon discovering a chilling recording and the skin-bound Book Of The Dead, a demonic force is unleashed and all Hell breaks loose, leaving the characters to fight for their lives.

At the centre of all of the mayhem is our hero Ash, played by the godlike chin and persona that is Bruce Campbell, returning from the first movie. I'd imagine it's no longer a spoiler if I told you he chops off his own possessed hand and replaces it with a chainsaw. I mean, how can something like that not turn out to be brilliant onscreen?

The inventiveness of Evil Dead 2 doesn't let up from start to finish, and while a few effects may look a little dated now, keep in mind that every single damn thing in the film is a practical effect. No CG. Very little in the way of camera tricks. The effects were all practical, models, prosthetics and the like along with a ton of awesomely creepy stop-motion animation.

The chaos and comedy are both heightened in this film, with some shots during Ashe's descent into madness both hilarious and terrifying. Take the scene in which the lights and deer head and books and furniture come to life in the cabin and start laughing. That's demented, and depending on how you look at it the scene is either really funny or really unsettling. Maybe both. Actually, more likely both.

It's a horror movie in every sense of the word, but Evil Dead 2 is also definitely a comedy, the two genres mixing together into something which wouldn't have been out of place in the old EC horror comics of the 1950s.

Evil Dead 2 is a badge of honour and a rite of passage - you really need to have seen it several times and own at least one copy if you're going to call yourself any kind of genre movie fan. It's funny, scary, fast-paced and a marvel to watch every single time. A great deal has been written and said about the film by a great many people, so I'll wrap things up by saying you need it, and if you already have it, you need to watch it again and bask in its glory. I think that's tonight's viewing sorted for me!

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985)

2014-03-02T05:20:00.003-08:00

Return of the Living Dead is responsible for a lot of young men (and I would imagine a fair few ladies too) developing something of a crush on b-movie legend Linnea Quigley thanks to her uproarious portrayal of the punk kid called Trash in this frankly brilliant piece of 1980s horror-comedy perfection. Trash is just one element of the film which was carried off perfectly, as ROTLD is one of the most fun horror movies of the era, and remains a massively entertaining experience tot his day.

John Russo of Night of the Living Dead fame (aka the guy that isn't George A. Romero) developed the story from a novel he wrote, and although Dan O'Bannon changed a lot of it, the film retains some of Russo's influence.

Thus Return Of The Living Dead was sort of intended as an alternate sequel to Night Of The Living Dead. George Romero, of course, had already followed it up with his own sequels DAWN OF THE DEAD and DAY OF THE DEAD. The tone of ROTLD is far lighter than Romero's apocalyptic entries, with an anarchic feel to it in keeping with the screwball comedies and outrageous horrors of the time.

The story is simple and satisfying: A military chemical called Trioxin is accidentally unleashed by two bumbling medical supplies workers, and it quickly starts reanimating corpses and body parts. The chemical's vapours are carried into the air and infect a rain cloud, which batters a nearby cemetery with polluted water. Immediately bodies are clawing their way out of the ground to feast on the living.

In the middle of this is a gang of punk layabouts ( including the aforementioned Linnea Quigley) who become our unwitting heroes in the fight against the undead. Some, of course, end up as zombies themselves.You can't help but feel Quigley must have been freezing during filming, considering how much of her screen time is spent without her costume on.

ROTLD also brought the horror world the joy that is TARMAN, a gooey, droopy, skull-faced zombie with the iconic war cry of "Braaaaaiiiinnsss!" TARMAN is an amazing piece of special effects joy, both funny and freaky at the same time. The joy of the film is the tongue in cheek sense of sick fun which permeates every frame. Even the scenes of violence and gore seem cartoony and lighthearted in a weird way.

A punk rock atmosphere helps things stay on the right side of edgy, and the visuals are somewhat comic-book style to go with that atmosphere. With a top soundtrack, a punchy edit and so much going on throughout it, Return Of The Living Dead is a firm favourite with genre addicts all over the world.

VHS? FOR FREE? WHY YES, I THINK I WILL!

2014-02-18T14:04:00.004-08:00

A good friend of mine, Natalie, got in touch recently to tell me her dad was moving house and wanted to get rid of his old boxes of VHS. She told me he asked if she knew anyone who would want them, and yes indeed, she certainly did. My friend dropped me a line and I was astounded that the gent didn't want anything for them. I promised a large homemade lunch at the very least, and a date was set for my dear friend to visit.

The day came this past weekend, when she arrived with her boyfriend David and brought three huge – and heavy – boxes out of their car. She warned me there might not be much I wanted, but when I opened the boxes up my eyes almost popped out of my head. This was the VHS haul that VHS dreams are made of.

Video Nasties... Rare NTSC horror... a stack of horror movies on home-made tapes and a plethora of retail releases. There was even a selection of hilarious 80s Electric Blue porn tapes, including a couple of Betas! I couldn't stop laughing or going “Ooooh!” as more horror classics and rarities came out of the boxes.

Actually, my favourite moment was in-between pulling out The New York Ripper and Last House on Dead End Street, when I found a copy of... The Tigger movie! I'm almost tempted to keep that and shelve it alongside some extreme horror. Some might say that I'm easily pleased if you stick three boxes of dusty videos in front of me, but these tapes are absolute gold to cult film addicts.

Hell, I just finished writing a book about VHS horror and the VHS hobby, and thus these tapes felt like a reward for finishing the long slog of writing a book which has been delayed an entire year due to changing day job commitments and childcare. These boxes of videos are a message. A reminder that I still need to make time for the things that I love while maintaining the lifestyle I must now lead.

For a long while it has seemed that my VHS collecting and cult film fandom have been drawing to a close due to time and money issues, but these boxes reawakened the dying embers of my fandom in a big way. I was pretty much done. It felt like that chapter of my life was drawing to a close and I was supposed to move on, but here with this huge haul of new (new to me anyway) treats to enjoy, my love for the format and the delightfully mad things it brought us once again.

So far I have enjoyed uncut versions of Bloodsucking Freaks, Splatter University, Absurd and a Sisters Of Mercy live tape. But there are some seriously surprising finds amongst those tapes. Nekromantik 2. Faces of Death. An original InterVision Creepshow. And hidden amongst them, a tape labelled up as containing notoriously unsettling Video Nasty Fight For Your Life. Yeah. I never saw THAT one coming, I can tell you.

Hell, a lot of the tapes might not work any more, but it's going to be a lot of fun finding out. Slipping off those cases, enjoying the chunky sound of them going into the machine, and then the thrill as the static clears and the film can begin.

It may all just be the last hurrah, the last big explosion of VHS love before my hobby fades into the mists of time and I am swallowed forever by Suburbia and my mortgage. Whatever it is, I have masses of videos to explore, and who knows what delights they will yield? Dear friends, amazing hauls are still out there. Somewhere.

DIARY OF A GENRE ADDICT VOLUME TWO - FINAL COVER

2013-10-09T00:21:00.001-07:00

Hot on the heels of the release of VHS ATE MY BRAIN next month will be DIARY OF A GENRE ADDICT VOLUME TWO, which completes the project and will be the final output from the DOAGA site for the foreseeable future. It includes all of the remaining reviews and diary entries plus additional diary entries and an original essay on the cult film lifestyle.

VHS ATE MY BRAIN - THE NEW COVER!

2013-10-09T00:16:00.001-07:00

VHS ATE MY BRAIN, my 7th book, has a brand new cover design from the awesome Lunchmeat VHS fanzine. Check it out! The book will be out next month. More new soon!

THE TOXIC AVENGER (1984)

2013-09-14T15:37:00.000-07:00

Troma means a lot of different things to a lot of people. To some, the studio is nothing but a purveyor of cheap, nonsensical films full of bad special effects and gratuitous boobs. Well, actually that's not that far from the truth, but there's more to Troma than just that. I think.

I've been reading Troma mainman Lloyd Kaufman's books MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE and EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FILMMAKING I LEARNED FROM THE TOXIC AVENGER, both of which are hilariously entertaining and well worth a purchase.

The latter charts the inception and subsequent rise (well, they did rise a bit) of the world's longest running independent movie company and is told in Lloyd's inimitable style, i.e. endless jokes about masturbation, boobs, farting, urinating and countless other bodily functions. They're great books, and made me want to revisit the film that started them on the road to semi-stardom. THE TOXIC AVENGER.

This film wasn't the first from Kaufman and co (Look up Squeeze Play, The First Turn on and others. Just avoid Big Gus, What's the Fuss?), but it was the first to feature their signature character, the lovable mutated maniac, Toxie. THE TOXIC AVENGER follows the misfortunes of Melvin, a much-harangued geek who ends up jumping out of a window to avoid being bullied any more.

He lands in a vat of toxic waste and is soon transformed into THE TOXIC AVENGER, a huge, deformed and muscular hero who brutally murders bad guys and can sense evil lurking nearby. He sets about righting wrongs, with gory, ridiculous and hilariously cheesy results. The film showcased the anarchic spirit that Troma became known for, as well as their cheap special effects and (some may say obsessive) fondness for the female form. It's that spirit, that gung-ho attitude, which helps suspend disbelief throughout this beautifully demented film.

The production values are about as low as it gets, but that didn't stop Kaufman and his merry gang of assorted lunatics from delivering a film which is in a class (and indeed genre) all of its own. Mix horror, comedy, a bit of sci-fi, a lot of slapstick and plenty of dirty jokes, then pour it directly into the brain of someone having a surreal fever dream, and you'll be close to what the film is like. Toxie is lovable, even when he's squashing skulls or tearing people to pieces. He's very clearly the good guy, but his methods would sometimes suggest otherwise.

The film is a hell of a lot of fun, as are the sequels, but none of them match the lunacy and feel of this first one. At times inept, it is nevertheless a testament to the genius of Kaufman and Troma that this cheap and tacky genre comedy still remains much loved – and much watched – today.

THE END IS NIGH...

2013-08-04T13:28:00.002-07:00

Diary of a Genre Addict has been my dream project, my solace, my place to indulge since I began the site in 2009. In that time I have been able to write about some truly weird films and stuff, and have loved it very much. But all good things must come to an end, and as such, Diary of a Genre Addict will soon be complete. A few more important reviews will be published, and then the climactic final post will come.

The second volume of the collected Diary of a Genre Addict pieces will thus be the final release from this incarnation of the site.

I am not ruling out a return someday once the project has ended, but for the time being there are other things which I must devote my energies to, including life as a father and husband and a slate of projects which are becoming too major to turn away from. I would like to thank you all for visiting and reading my little corner of geekdom, and I hope you'll stick around for the grand finale of reviews and the final diary entry.

The end may be nigh, but the addiction lives on.

And who knows what the future will bring?

CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (1973)

2013-07-22T15:38:00.003-07:00

This was always one of those films I told myself I'd get around to watching someday. I'm sure we've all got extensive lists of those, and this was fairly high on mine. I love the premise, namely a hippy theatre troupe dig up a corpse, have a high old time screwing around with it, perform some satanic rituals and then the undead rise to take revenge upon them. End credits. Simple enough.

Actually there's more going on there but to be honest if I hadn't been flicking through my copy of the BOOK OF THE DEAD history of zombie cinema I would have completely missed the whole thing about the film being an attack on the hypocrisy and rotten core of the hippy culture at the end of the 1960s and start of the 1970s.

I just thought it was a cheap zombie movie with some comedy elements. However, upon watching it following on from reading about it, I appreciated it much more than I would have done otherwise. It's a lot of fun, if slow starting, but once the festivities kick in with an army of corpses attacking the vile main characters, the film all falls into place.

Directed by Bob Clark, the film opens with pranks being played in a graveyard, where we are introduced to the uniformly unlikeable cast of characters, led by a dude with a bloody awful collection of facial hair. Within five seconds you want to punch everyone in sight, such is their collective level of annoyance.

As soon as the gang digs up the aforementioned cadaver, things take a macabre turn and the tone of the film starts to shift from comedy to something more uneasy, before the final act turns it into a full-on horror movie. The zombie effects are cheap but pretty effective, but it's the exemplary score which adds a demented quality to the film – cold, jarring synths and effects warring for supremacy as hippies are massacred.

The film feels a little padded out, even at its brief 82 minutes (about ten minutes of which are just credits), but the idea works well and there's enough going on to hold the interest until the rather sudden ending (an ending which Lucio Fulci would inadvertently echo with ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS). CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS is a nice little Grindhouse flick, cheap, atmospheric and often straddling the lines between good and bad as well as comedy and horror.

Hmm...

2013-07-22T14:55:00.001-07:00

Right, where was I?

TRAILER TREASURES: THE BOOGEYMAN (1980)

2013-07-20T15:07:00.003-07:00

Aka THE BOGEY MAN here in the UK. The film is nowhere near as great as the trailer makes it out to be. Definitely worth seeing, but the trailer is tons better. And no, it's nothing to do with those 'Boogeyman' flicks from a few years ago. This is Video Nasties era stuff ;)

TRAILER TREASURES: SAVAGE STREETS (1984)

2013-07-18T15:22:00.000-07:00

Linda Blair. Ass-kicking. 1984. What more do you need to sell this movie to you?

Btw... apologies for the radio silence of late. Stuff going on. The Addict will be back at full strength soon!

CONTINUUM – I think I've found my show

2013-05-30T12:58:00.001-07:00

It's been a long time since I've really enjoyed a current TV show. Of late it's even been tough to sit through my beloved Doctor Who, and after finding stuff I kinda like (Warehouse 13) and stuff that promised so much but turned out to be painful to watch (Defiance), I was feeling a bit left out.

Everyone seems to have so much stuff they love, and I remember being just the same a few years ago, but now there seems to be so little that appeals to me. This is down to not having the time or patience to dedicate to stuff for long now, and though new content needs to grab me from the get-go.

One such show which I have latched onto properly is the rather wonderful (if somewhat underrated, from what I can see) CONTINUUM. Blending science fiction, action and drama in a story of time travel and assorted intrigue, it has a great concept and a strong cast, as well as a beautiful balance of SF concepts and contemporary TV.

I've been getting through the first season and enjoying it greatly, and the start of season 2 is sat on our TiVo waiting for me to indulge. The writing is strong, and while the cast are all far too immaculate, they carry off their parts very well. The only thing that I can't get past is that the chunk of the time machine looks very much like a piece of a Terry's Chocolate Orange. I'm glad I've been able to find something cool again. Long may it continuum. Erm. You know what I mean.

NINJA HUNT (1986)

2013-05-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

This was the first Joseph Lai film I ever saw, and I just got a vintage copy on VHS (finally at a decent price) and revisited one of the most profoundly odd cinematic experiences of my life. Quick refresher: Joseph Lai and his company IFD bought up a bunch of failed East Asian action movies, retitled them and cut them together with new footage of white guys in ninja costumes having ludicrous battles, then gave each atrocious film a frankly hilarious dubbing job.

Ninja Hunt was my introduction to these films and the concept of recycled movies, and as a teenager I watched it again and again, just astounded at something so mad and awful could get made. Plus, I wanted to be a dayglo ninja like the guys in these mental films. Yeah, for some reason at the time I thought they were the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

I guess the attraction is that these films felt alien to me. Those glimpses of other cultures mixed with comic-book style ninja fighting were wildly appealing, giving the films a weird, dreamlike quality with their own odd internal logic and shoddily spliced footage. I loved them to bits.

Ninja Hunt concerns a gang who have stolen a top secret formula, DAK10, which switches on a desire to kill in anyone it comes into contact with. A ninja overlord wants it, as does a government agency in the US, who (naturally) send out a ninja master (the awesomely wooden Richard Harrison) to deal with the case.

And thus, with nonsensical scene after nonsensical scene, including lots of sex, club nights, talking around smoky tables and multicoloured ninja gymnastics, the film plays out to a sudden and baffling climax. It makes no sense at all, it looks and sounds awful, is cheap and tacky and woefully made, but it's brilliant. Well, brilliant in a way that only lovers of the Joseph Lai ninja movies can understand, anyway. A weird little gem.

DEFIANCE – PILOT (2013)

2013-04-19T16:23:00.002-07:00

SyFy is producing actual science fiction again, and I am a very happy bunny about that fact. I saw the trailer for this new transmedia franchise, which offers both a TV series and a video game, a while back and thought it looked superb, but hey, the trailer for The Phantom Menace made that look brilliant too, so I was wary.

It takes a lot to impress me, or indeed engage me at all, with new TV shows, and thus it was with a little trepidation that I watched this. Was I going to be wasting my time? Was it going to be a great show? Would it last more than five minutes on our TV? No, almost and no.

I did manage to watch the whole thing, but there were a couple of points I almost gave up on it. Earth has been transformed into a post-apocalyptic wasteland following a war and some failed terraforming from a race known as the Votans. Since then, an uneasy alliance between humans and Votans has created a new kind of society, in which typical science fiction intrigue tends to go on. And on. And on. And on.

Y'see, this opening shot for Defiance is almost agonisingly slow, to the point where I caught my hand creeping towards the remote control lest my brain atrophy from the dull, cheap tediousness on the screen. Then, as if by magic, the third act kicks into gear and it all makes sense. An epic third act brings a real element of danger to the lives of main characters Jeb (Grant Bowler) and Irisa (the gloriously talented Stephanie Leonidas under some understated character makeup).

With a cast also featuring Julie Benz and Mia Kirshner, Defiance starts slow but builds to an ass-kicking climax, well, this first episode does anyway. While it does blatantly show influences from Firefly, Deadwood, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and more, it does have its own charms and merits.

It helps greatly that the cast know what they're doing, and while a lot of the script is cringeworthy, dialogue is delivered with conviction and the effects are at times brilliant. Yeah, a lot of it looks cheap and chock-full of hackneyed old sci-fi cliches, but it's entertaining enough once the pace picks up. Whether the pace and growth of the story can be maintained over the rest of the season is yet to be seen, but I'm up for sticking with it for now.

TEN OF THE GREATEST CARTOON THEMES OF THE 80S

2013-04-12T13:06:00.003-07:00

I am a bitter old geek. The sort of person who likes to tell the young 'uns that cult entertainment was much cooler when I was a kid. However, rather than just nostalgia making me sound like an angry old fart, I'm actually right. Here are ten of the greatest cartoon intros of the 1980s as proof. You're welcome.

BEHOLD... JAYACE AND THE WHEELED WARRIORS, GALAXY RANGERS, DUCK TALES, HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, SHE RA - PRINCESS OF POWER, TRANSFORMERS, THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, VISIONARIES, BRAVESTARR and THUNDERCATS.

More may follow soon, as it's impossible to watch these without going on a massive cartoon intro binge. Watch them and find out for yourself!

CARRIE REMAKE TEASER - I actually kinda like it

2013-04-12T12:43:00.000-07:00

I hate remakes. I loathe them. However, this teaser actually has my interest piqued. I love the original version of the Carrie movie, even though it changed Carrie from an overweight, curly haired girl into the waif-like Sissy Spacek. Sissy's performance was so powerful that it's now hard to think of anyone else tackling it.

Chloe Moretz (aka Hit Girl from KICK-ASS) is Carrie this time out, and if it had been anyone else cast I'd have ignored it. Moretz is an excellent talent, and the teaser actually does what it's supposed to and TEASES a film rather than giving it all away. I may have to actually go and see a remake. Yikes.

THE MUTILATOR (1985)

2013-02-03T12:08:00.001-08:00

I wish I'd seen this film years ago, rather than now when I'm jaded by thousands of slasher movies full of attitude-laden teenagers. The Mutilator (with it's frankly awesome tagline 'BY SWORD, BY PICK, BY AXE, BYE BYE!') is a cult favourite amongst slasher fans, and it's easy to see why.

The trashy atmosphere of the film is further helped by a campy script, hammy performances and some gloriously tacky death scenes. In fact, one particular death scene really sticks out as the pinnacle of the film's trashiness, when a guy is attacked with a saw and takes an overly long time to finally fall to the ground, instead hanging desperately onto every morsel of screen time he can get before collapsing into a bloodied heap.

The premise is that of a bunch of the film follows a group of teens staying at a beach house being picked off one by one by the demented father of one character, who we see murder their mother in the opening flashback sequence.

Once the concept is established, then logic and characterisation fly straight out of the window in favour of grisly 80s horror fun. The Mutilator has a lot going for it if you're a fan of this calibre of trash cinema, and delivers the goods when it comes to the kill scenes.

If you're not one for formulaic (yet good fun) 80s horror movies with kinda faceless casts (yet decent quality direction from Buddy Cooper), then this really won't be for you, but if you fancy a slasher marathon, you could do a lot worse than lining this little gem from the VHS era up alongside flicks like SLEEPAWAY CAMP and SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE.

Very much a product of the era, it's nevertheless a fun flick with some decent scares and some marvellously bloody kills.

CRASH AND BURN (1990)

2013-01-27T03:50:00.000-08:00

A Charles Band b-movie about robot warfare in a post-apocalyptic wasteland? I'm in. Or, I would be if the film was anything like what the packaging would have you believe. The cover makes CRASH AND BURN look like a pseudo-sequel to ROBOT JOX, thanks to the prominence of a giant robot on the cover art. In fact, it was actually released in some territories as ROBOT JOX 2: CRASH AND BURN, despite being nothing to do with Robot Jox at all!

Well, there's a robot in it, but for 99% of the running time it lies inert in the dust, then wakes up for one solitary scene. The rest of the film is essentially a bleak, depressing story of humanity's struggle to continue once everything goes wrong.

Computer and robot use by civilians has been outlawed, and the world is run by the Unicom corporation after a global economic collapse, and when a remote TV station is infiltrated by a humanoid robot intent on tracking down insurgents against the corporation, a lowly delivery man must help the employees of the station stay alive.

And then there's a robot for a bit.

Crash and Burn is a film where all the big stuff happens elsewhere and is included in the script as a backdrop rather than much to do with the plot. This is basically a siege movie with a mad cyborg character picking off humans one by one in a variety of ways.

It's cheap and takes a long time to really pick up any pace, but when it does it's entertaining enough, just not as great as the artwork makes it out to be. Starring a young Megan Ward, it's an interesting flick for fans of the era of cheapie post-apocalyptic actioners, but don't be fooled by the cover art's robot action.