TREMENDO TIME

DANCE OF THE DEAD (2008)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

ZOMBIE MOVIE SURVIAL TIP: Better make friends with that loud gun-obsessed former Army assassin crazy-as-a-shithouse-rat high school P.E. Coach down the block. You know, just in case.

THE CARD:

Undead growing pains; saved by the death bell; Zombie Kermit’s revenge; punk’s not undead; someone spiked the punch with corpse reanimation; Final Exam of the Living Dead; salvation by shitty music; and thank Sweet Zombie Jesus it’s not Twilight.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Cosa High School is filled with teenagers sharing the distressing experiences of the wondrous and traumatic time called adolescence. They are average high school types, from the beauty queens and cheerleaders, to the heavy metal guys and the chess geeks, to the poor kids and children of the privileged. You know – sarcastic assholes. Jimmy (Jared Kusnitz) is a geeky cool dork who’s just been dumped by his do-gooder girlfriend Lindsey (Greyson Chadwick) the day before Prom Night. Jimmy’s being forced to work his crappy pizza delivery job while Lindsey makes a date with Jimmy’s rival. Meanwhile, Jimmy’s nerdy pal Steven (Chandler Darby) pops a tent for cheerleader Gwen (Carissa Capobianco) who’s crushing for obnoxiously named rocker Nash Rambler (Blair Redford). Throw in Jimmy’s other poindexter pals trying to get laid; a lecherous science teacher; a jaded cemetery worker; an alcoholic principal, a badass gun-toting gym Coach (Mark Oliver), and half-the town’s cemetery inhabitants reawakened as voracious zombies after being contaminated by radioactive sludge from the nearby nuclear power plant and you have the makings of an epic set in a Sweet Valley in the Shadow of Death High. And no one will fucking sparkle.

THE FINISHER:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: hormone and sugar-filled teenagers make great killers. And we have ten years of tragic headlines to attest to that. So they make natural candidates to fend off the impending starved multitudes of the living dead that are waiting to pounce upon us. Friends, when the shit goes down, don’t run to the local police station or armory. Learn the fastest route to your local high, middle, and elementary schools. When you get there, make sure the little rugrats are armed and ready to start bulls-eying zombie skulls. Goddamn Playstation better have prepared them for this! Anyway, Dance of the Dead is a nifty little teen horror-comedy that borrows much of the spirit of its 80s ancestors while tossing together some modern gore effects, teen angst, and high school wackiness. Most of the blood y effects looked practical with little to no evidence of CGI which was a heartwarming welcome back. Also the zombie types referred to the classic Return of the Living Dead where reanimated corpses crawled, dug and oozed their way out of graves to ravage the living. The film delivers a lot of action and fast-paced chuckles while obviously operating on a low budget. But fortunately, the makers are not skimpy on the gore and the laughs are expertly delivered without being excessively campy. And it’s not without nice touches of characterization, specifically the fate of Steven and his unrequited love Gwen. That was a very nice scene and worthy of a wormy tear down a decaying cheekbone. Also worthy of note is Oliver as the hyperactive commando Coach Keel who kicks in his share of laughs and zombie destroying action. The movie is yet another example of how zombie movies are now fully relegated to the category of comedy, further diluting the former ferocious fear of zombies that's now replaced by playing upon viewers' insatiable lust of desecrating human bodies for guffaws. Fortunately, Dance of the Dead is harmless hilarious fun which beckons the days when you used fantasize about mowing down your classmates only so that they could reanimate so that you could mow them again.

Or was that just me?

ZOMBIELAND (2009)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:22:00 +0000

ZOMBIE MOVIE SURVIVAL TIP: No sarcastic zombie survival tips from a masked film geek can top the sarcastic zombie survival tips of a virgin WoW-playing nerd.

THE CARD:

The Dead People vs. Larry Flynt; Deceased Roger Dodger; Little Miss Dawn of the Dead; Superbad Zombie Killstress; the disappointing absence of George Wendt; and possibly the greatest zombie movie cameo since the deaf Amish guy.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Geeky teen Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has managed to survive the apocalypse of the undead that has laid waste to the world. Creating a valuable list of survival tips gleaned from video games, internet searches, and Mountain Dew-fueled common sense, Columbus ventures out in the world he’s only viewed from the window of his loser loner apartment, a world now infested with the ravenous undead. But despite his plucky lucky streak avoiding becoming a zombie’s stringy morsel, Columbus is desperately lonely. After a series of encounters with zombies that demonstrate his helpful list, he runs into Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a fearless and irritating yahoo with a vicious and multi-faceted talent of dispatching zombies. The pair hit the road, Columbus in search of his parents and Tallahassee in search of an elusive Twinkie. They eventually run into trouble-making sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and youngster Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) who steal their truck and weapons, laughing their way towards the West Coast where they believe lies a zombie-free haven on the grounds of amusement park Pacific Playland. The guys and the gals then play a cat-and-mouse game on the eerily deserted highways of the Undead States of America, but despite their trust issues the sisters allow Columbus and Tallahassee to ride along with them in search of elusive safety. Along the way Columbus’ survival tips are tested, zombies are wildly and gorily trounced by Tallahassee, Columbus and Wichita get sweet on one another, Little Rock learns to cope in a Hannah Montana-less land, and this small band of survivors learns to bond and rely on each other. When they finally make it to California, they share an encounter that will not be spoiled here because of its complete HILARITY, but suffice to say that more than just salvation, make-out sessions, and 80s movies await them on the rollercoasters, thrill rides, and spookhouses of Zombieland.

THE FINISHER:

Film historian Thomas Schatz formulated a series of stages that film genres undergo over time, practice, and distribution. Although Schatz’s theory has rigorously been analyzed and deconstructed over the years, I use them to illustrate a point about where we are in terms of the evolution of the zombie movie. The first stage is the “classical period” where the groundwork and “rules” are laid out for the genre (Night of the Living Dead). The next stage is “refinement” where the rules are test and often broken to allow the genre to evolve (Return of the Living Dead). And lastly there is the “baroque” or “generic hybridization” period in which genre practitioners self-consciously parody the genre or combine it with elements of other genres. With the zombie-comedy-parody Zombieland, I firmly believe we are now in the late stages of the zombie baroque period which I predict the genre will be unable to recover for a long time. Zombies are now funny-scary, like the dopey horror clown or a ridiculous SyFy Original CGI monster, and are no longer scary-scary. For me, the essence of horror at the heart of the zombie genre – like the apocalyptic thriller – is the breakdown of civilization, the loss of common rationality and sense of community (which often feels like it’s hanging by thread anyway), and the idea that the living are far more terrifying than anything the undead can conjure. The other source of pure horror is the conceit of the dead have coming back to life, a concept that strikes at the very core of Judeo-Christian beliefs that threaten to unravel thousands of years of indoctrination. That said, Zombieland, a hysterical comedy that tears the horror away from the genre like a rampaging zombie, may very well mark the end of zombie horror, but not zombie comedy. Taking its cue from 2004’s Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland revels in frenzied and gory slapstick against a backdrop of a romantic comedy with a sensitive theme of family and trust at its center. The movie amiably balances gore and slapstick with a fast-pace and hilarious turn by Woody Harrelson who could easily shape up to become the next Bruce Campbell if such a thing could even be conceived. Fortunately, the movie does not get complicated by the generic traps of the genre and tempting homages and references to prior works. Here, the focus is on the characters and their adventure together to an imaginary freedom from a globe of goopy ghouls. Zombieland is quality popcorn-munching entertainment, another landmark in the zombie genre which I can only hope will be scary again.

DEAD SNOW (2009)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:05:00 +0000

ZOMBIE MOVIE SURVIAL TIP: During a zombie attack, do not hide in the outdoor shitter, for the undead are not persnickety.

THE CARD:

Wacky Norwegians and their wacky land of Norwegia; good ol’ fashioned outhouse humping; the most creative use of a snowmobile and slimy intestines, snow thrills and snow kills; and Nazi zombies not hired by Newscorp.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Eight young Norwegian medical students head out to the mountains for a weekend of ice-fishing, mullet-wine chugging, sitting around looking sad, and death metal listening. Or whatever the hell they do for fun up there. And of course, their remote cabin is located in bucolic icy splendor in the middle of nowhere with few amenities and no cell phone reception. You know, Norway. Our gang is comprised of Martin (Vegar Hoel) who ironically gets sickened by the sight of blood, his claustrophobic girlfriend Hanna (Charlotte Frogner), handsome adrenaline junkie Vegard (Lasse Valdal), horny fjord fucker Roy (Stig Frode Henriksen), movie nerd and mandatory fat guy Erlend (Jeppe Laursen), hot for fatty Chris (Jenny Skavlan), and the only looker in the bunch Liv (Evy Kasseth Røsten). They party it up and frolic in the snow while waiting for Vegard’s girlfriend Sara (Ane Dahl Torp) who has decided to hike to the cabin rather than drive. Big mistake as she becomes Nazi zombie fodder. Said SS of the Undead are the remnants of a troop of vicious Nazis that once controlled an outpost in this section of Norway in the last days of World War II. We learn this from Creepy Old Guy (Bjorn Sundquist) who shows up at the cabin to warum up and to rile the nerves of the rowdy kids. The Nazis were led by the uber-sadistic Colonel Herzog (Orjan Gamst) who pillaged and tortured the residents before pissing off into the woods after an uprising at the close of the war. For some unknown reason, Herzog and his men have been re-animated by some unexplained force and attack anyone who ventures into the mountain. So Creepy Old Guy gets disemboweled like der weinerschnitzel and our friends are faced with an unstoppable menace that require more than Simon Weisenthal, Captain America, and a box of Star of David ninja stars to stop.

THE FINISHER:

Loving or hating Norwegian horror pic Dead Snow doesn’t require a whole lot of energy. If you do not like gore, comedy, the trappings of zombie plots, and high-spirited horror references, then don’t bother. If you love the above plus you don’t give a crap about your mental health, then Dead Snow comes wholeheartedly recommended. Finally, someone took the initiative to come up with a Nazi zombie movie, a villainous concept that’s been referred to in earlier attempts such as The Keep (yeah, I know they weren’t zombies) but never fully fleshed out in zombie movie format as we know it today*. Although not a new hallmark in the zombie genre, the movie is nonetheless hysterical, blood-drenched, and a twisted homage to American horror films that have obviously shaped writer/director Tommy Wirkola. It’s also a lot of fun, so take that for what it’s worth. There are a couple of things that came up in the movie that irk me, but not just about this film. Irksome things come up in every new zombie movie I see, whether it’s a big-budget extravaganza or low-budget homemade fare. Be warned that these are probably nerdy nitpicks. One thing in particular is the strength of zombies. Horror fans argue about fast rampaging zombies over the slow stumbling zombies. This is an argument that I've gotten over. If the story, acting, scares, and gore are good, then I’m up for anything. What concerns me more is how powerful the zombies are portrayed. In Dead Snow, they crush a guy’s head like it’s a freshly boiled egg, yet they are unable to smash through a simple wooden building or a barely hinged outhouse. Dumb. Thing number two is how quickly “normal” characters transform into chainsaw-wielding deadshot warriors after only a few tangles with the hungry undead. This instantaneous character turn is actually a problem with most horror and action movies, but it’s most prevalent in zombie movies. I like to call this “Ash Disease”, a nod to Bruce Campbell’s character in the Evil Dead movies, whose instant-badass turn was actually a novel turn of genius, but overused since. Thing number three isn’t really a problem but a realization that 99% of zombie movies, with very few exceptions, are actually comedies. What other horror sub-genre allows you to completely enjoy the desecration of a human body with unfettered glee? In slashers, we cringe and scream. In torture films, we shudder and look away. In monster movies, we howl and gasp. But in zombie movies we laugh our bloodthirsty asses off. It’ll take more than a review of Dead Snow, a pleasurable, clever and frenzied zombie movie, to fully analyze this fantasy phenomenon that I’m sure other academicians of horror have already covered.

*If I’m wrong, please send me some titles!

BONE SICKNESS (2004)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:56:00 +0000

ZOMBIE MOVIE SURVIVAL TIP: When cleaning up the goopy gore of the undead, better call the Shamwow Guy.

THE CARD:

One man’s video camera, plus a pleasing amount of nudity, a generous helping of bloody mayhem, a copious amount of gooey do-it-yourself gore, and a complete lack of plot, story, or coherence.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Dude, I picked up this DVD with this sick cover over at Video Hut that looks like this dude shot in his backyard and so it starts when this real ugly dude is like sick and stuff - something to do with his bones, I think - and his totally hot wife wants to help him, you know, but like he gets totally worse and then starts puking nasty shit like his whole body, his whole fucking skeleton, but like this other dude, some buddy of the sick dude who’s a mortician or whatever gets this green junk that’s supposed to, like, fix the bone disease of the puking dude but instead he turns into a zombie or something, and there’s more puking, then all these other zombies start coming out of the ground and start killing people in this old house where this SWAT team gets totally fucked by the zombies and then ..oh yeah…there’s some boobies, actually some really nice ones, dude, Beaver Hunt quality my friend…and so …what was I talking about…oh yeah…there’s like this lame-oh scene where another bone sick dude takes a bath and I’m like, dude I don’t wanna see your wang, you sick zombie fuck…so then there like all this gore and guts and shit and guys or demons in Halloween costumes like totally ruling over the alive people who are not zombies and then well… some other stuff happens, and then well I forget…man, it’s due tomorrow.

Boobs.

THE FINISHER:

Similar in budget and scoop to previously reviewed Night of the Dead, Bone Sickness is another example of the output by aspiring moviemakers grabbing their DV cameras and glutting the zombie movie market with micro budget gushers. Although this movie has the feel of a labor of love, its patchwork structure disjoints any sense of coherency and the story jumps around from one-room gross out, to zombie apocalypse, to a supernatural demonic war of epic proportions and may induce migraines for those who may have high expectations. But why would you? The acting is just plain hideous and woefully amateurish and the movie can’t exceed its home video feel. But you know what? I liked it. As an occasional lover of mindless gore this movie was a treat, so long as you don’t think too hard about the specifics of the undead goings-on. The makers of Bone Sickness are obvious fans of horror and their enthusiasm is at times infectious. If you can easily forgive such fare for lacking the basics of cinematic storytelling in exchange for high-octane homemade gore, then Bone Sickness is your best bet for bad movie night.

Dude.

PANDORUM (2009)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:59:00 +0000

ZOMBIE MOVIE SURVIAL TIP: If left with a member of the Quaid family as your leader in the apocalypse of the undead, please make sure it’s not Randy.

THE CARD:

A Sleepy-Head General Hawk; Salvation By Glowstick; Divining Ridley Scott; A Peek Into A Space-Pooper; Space Zombies that aren’t Space Zombies; The Real Paul Anderson; and Al Gore’s Outer Space-Horror Told Ya So.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

In the not-too-distant future, many, many Sundays A.D., there was a guy named Bower (Ben Foster), not too different from you or me. Well, except that he’s an astronaut who’s been in hyper-sleep aboard a gigantic spacecraft which is headed towards a distant planet that can be inhabited by the members of the crew. Said crew is the last remnants of a dying Earth which has been destroyed by war, disease, and global smarm. Bower is awakened by an unknown force and possesses no recollection of his role or destination, and he discovers he has lost contact with his fellow crew members. He finds who he recognizes as his commanding officer Payton (Dennis Quaid) who’s equally suffering the effects of amnesia. Unable to contact anyone aboard the ship, Payton sends Bower to find his way through a dark claustrophobic labyrinth of vents to get to the central power core of the ship in the hopes of restarting it. Unfortunately, Bower stumbles upon empty halls and rooms, half-eaten corpses, and nightmarish fast-moving flesh-eating creatures which have infested the ship. He meets up with a cute survivor space-mutant killer Nadia (Antje Traue) who has been awake for a while and is fighting for her life against these seemingly undead monsters. As they make their way to the ship’s generator, they fight off the zombie-like creatures who may be the reanimated corpses of the crew who did not survive the hyper-sleep. Alongside the pair are Mayan-speaking badass Manh (Cung Le) and slimly motor oil chef Leland (Eddie Rouse). Meanwhile, Payton encounters another survivor (Cam Gigandet) who might be suffering the effects of “Pandorum,” the deep space equivalent of cabin fever that turns astronauts into violent psychopaths who may or may not crap in their Depends. As Bower heads towards the generator and Payton deals with a potentially dangerous passenger, the pair peel off layers of the awful truth that lies at the core of the ship, its purpose, and its true destination which may be an empty hellish void from which nothing, not even a Quaid, can escape.

THE FINISHER:

Though not a traditional zombie movie, space horror movie Pandorum does possess elements of the genre that make it a somewhat effective scarefest: rampaging flesh-hungry creatures (provided by Stan Winston Studio), a survivalist-fueled plotline, and your typical “folly of man” subtext. Although some reviews has aligned the film with the space horror of 1997’s Event Horizon (directed by Paul W.S. Anderson who produced this pic) which explored space madness and the extra-supernatural terror of the cosmos, Pandorum has more in common with space chiller Dead Space: Downfall (even though it’s animated) with respect to abundance of gore, the ferocity of the creatures, and the production design. But it’s not without its problems. Director Christian Alvart displays a capable style and aesthetic, especially in regards to the near-choking claustrophobic atmosphere he’s able to convey, but it’s in the area of character development that the film falters to maintain interest throughout. This is also a problem with Anderson’s films as a director as well, but his frenetic pace and action set pieces make up for most of that lack. But then again I’m a Paul W.S. Anderson defender and apologist. Alvart deftly crafts a very uncomfortable settings and sense of tension, but without caring for the characters (although Foster, a superb and weighty performer who should be bigger than he is, does the best with what he’s given) all this work is for nothing. Also worthy of note is Gigandet who is intense as the psychotic crew member who serves as the twist at the end of the film. Unfortunately, the movie starts to crumble in the third act when the secret of the origin of the creatures is sort of cast aside for a predictable ending lost in a jumble of fast-cut action sequences. Pandorum would require more effort to argue as qualifying as a zombie movie, but as a piece of sci-fi horror with its share of twists, turns, and atmosphere it’s probably worth a watch in a field of very few effective, although not fully realized, outer-space horror films.

TREMENDO WILL RETURN SHORTLY...NO, REALLY

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:47:00 +0000

Been slacking on the 80s movies, but I swear I'll return with a whole bunch of crappy wackiness. Stay tuned.

SWORD OF THE VALIANT (1984)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:08:00 +0000

800S ARTIFACTS UNCOVERED BY MOVIE: Forehead gems, gigantic poofy shirts; mink necker-chefs; Cliff's Notes epic poems; medieval salad bowl hats; chivalric mooching; and Peter Cushing.

THE CARD:

Non-metric Keefe; OO7 meets Swamp Thing meets an X-mas Tree; Bunny-stuffed Pig’s Head for Dinner; Ghost of X-mas Resentment; a Hurricane of Halitosis; Friar John Milius; mini-wizards; the anti-Kermit; Graduates of the School of Acting Through Shouting; Armored but Still Wussy Toht; and Gimli the Lambchop Abuser.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

It’s X-mas time in Camelot and old man King Arthur (Trevor Howard) holds the usual celebratory orgy of pig-feasting, harlequin-abusing, and regal belching. But this year, something’s different. Dissatisfied by the opulent consumption of his court and the expanding waistlines of his knights, the King bitterly declares that chivalry and honor is dead. Suddenly, a mystical being who calls himself the Green Knight (Sean Connery) interrupts the proceedings, swings an axe around and challenges any man in the room with enough cajones to chop off his head.

Only Connery can make X-mas Wreath headgear look good.

His call goes out unanswered by the wimpy knights but when the Green Knight stirs up some hairy chest-heaving boasting to boil the blood of the King’s young nephew and squire, Gawain (Miles O’Keefe).

The Golem haircut was all the rage in the 800s.

Gawain successfully completes his challenge and we discover that the Green Knight can double as both an X-mas AND Halloween decoration.

“I knew I should’ve taken that Star Trek V gig.”

But it was all a ruse! G.K. quickly picks up his head and mocks young Gawain’s impudence. He lays out another challenge that in exactly twelve months they are to meet again so that G.K. can have a swipe at Gawain’s neck. But first, Gawain has to explore the world in search of a clue to G.K.’s riddle that will somehow involve…

Sexy but scary witches!

Evil but clumsy knights!

Cute but spooky babes!

And powerful but tiny sorcerers!

So faster than you can say “Joseph Campbell’s erection”, Gawain sets out with his humble servant Humphrey (Leigh Lawson) on a quest to find virtue, honor, and courtly love and maybe kill and violate a unicorn or tow. Along the way, he is conned by the treacherous Morgan La Fay (Emma Sutton), coerced into battle by the Black Knight (Douglas Wilmer), and courts mysterious and beautiful Linet (Cyrielle Clair) who may or may not be a pigeon. Midway through his adventure, the story comes to a full stop when Gawain is imprisoned by a crazy family of knights headed by Baron Fortinbras (John Rhys-Davies, doing his Brian Blessed impression), his weasel son Oswald (Ronald Lacey) and his weirdo spiritual advisor Seneschal (Peter Cushing). Following some ham-fisted swordplay, interactions with rowdy Friar Vosper (Brian Coburn), dull as a Classics lecture battle scenes, and dreary dialogue with miniscule wizard Sage (David Rappaport), goofy Gawain once again meets with the Green Knight to fulfill his agreement and get his head chopped off, not that anyone will notice.

THE FINISHER:

The 80s were a prosperous time for the fantasy/barbarian genre with offerings such as Conan the Barbarian, Dragonslayer, Krull, Hawk the Slayer, and many others which reeled in cinemagoers starved for swordplay, heaving bosoms, and dragon battles. But for the most part 80s fantasy films sorta sucked and never really delivered what their trailers promised (I know, the same can be said for any movie). Sword of the Valiant presents the very same disappointing suckage of the worst of 80s fantasy with an added ambition to resemble in form, language, and theme the far superior and serious King Arthur telling Excalibur with spectacularly failing results. Based on the 14th century epic poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, the movie strives to be a larger than life and self-important re-imagining of the ancient tale but without a modern context or any intent beyond bloody action and fumbling fight scenes. Muscle man O’Keefe of Tarzan the Ape Man fame does his best Prince Valiant impression with poofy shirts and confused look to match while Connery bellows out his lines, sucks in his hairy gut, and just hopes the glitter make-up won’t sweat off. The swordplay and fight choreography were especially bad, like those weirdos who meet in public parks and do that role-playing stuff. You know the ones, he said as if masked movie bloggers were any better. Produced by Cannon and the producer team of Golan-Globus, the movie has a slapped-together low-budget kind of feel, a hallmark of G-G’s output which can sometimes either be endearing or outright awful. Unfortunately, Sword of the Valiant falls into the latter category if you are expecting a fast-paced fantasy tale sent in the gilded age of chivalry and brave nights, but rather ripe for mockery and watchable with enough ale, wenches, and medieval Tylenol.

MAD FOXES (1982)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

80S ARTIFACTS UNCOVERED BY MOVIE: Vinyl crew jackets; the Parker Stevenson haircut; a white guy in an American flag keikogi; a white guy with nunchucks; and a white guy with the pastiest ass this side of Michael Douglas.

THE CARD:

Himmler’s Hooligans; Mama Celeste doing the Hoochie-Coochie; Fishin’ for Girl Ketchup; full frontal hilarity; 80s Corvette 1, Dirty Punks 0; humping in pee water; castration by grenade; Nazi chic; and lesson learned from movie: gardening shears are not a snack!

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Hal Martin (Robert O'Neil) makes out with his virginal babe in his fancy racing-striped Stingray. A biker gang pulls up aside and starts harassing the couple. As he’s trying to pull away from the gang, he accidentally causes one of their members to rollover and die. Hal and his girl then dance the night away at a nightclub, but outside the vengeful bikers, led by balding scuzbag Stiletto (Eric Falk), are waiting for him. When Hal and his chick stumble drunkenly back to the Stingray, the gang jumps Hal and then rapes his girlfriend. Well, if by rape you mean flailing on top of the poor girl like a choking trout. Later, the bikers hold an impromptu funeral for their fallen scumbag.

After this movie, they might as well bury their careers too.

Stiletto toasts the dead unaware of the horror that awaits him.

After receiving treatment at the hospital, Hal, doing what any decent man would do after being forced to watch his girlfriend get raped, goes home and listens to some jazz records. And maybe later he’ll call his friend who owns a martial arts school – a bad ass named “Linus” - to form a posse to go after the bloodthirsty punks.

So they catch up with Stiletto and his gang at a Greek theater.

And they do something unspeakable to him. Think of the worst thing this picture suggests than multiply it by a billion.

Seemingly over the violation of his innocent girlfriend, his near-death experience, and his responsibility of a man’s mutilation (which is illegal by the way), Hal heads for the countryside to relax at his folks’ place. Along the way he picks up a tramp named Lily and they hump awkwardly in a bathtub of dirty water, besides a dying tree, and in a stable of horse poo. Yup. So Stiletto and his men catch on to Hal’s baffling behavior, show up at his parents’ house and summarily wipe out his family, throat-stab the gardener, and impale the household staff. You know, they’re Mad Foxes, not Nice Foxes. So Hal finally grows a pair (which can’t be said for Stiletto, poor sap), grabs a shotgun, and starts Fox hunting season early. After his blood-drenched odyssey, Hal finally meets face-to-face with Stiletto in his apartment, but the newly soprano biker’s got a big surprise for him, which results in one of the most bizarre and unforgettable endings in sleazeball biker shotgun-revenge ass-boobie cinema history.

THE FINISHER:

Even as filmmaking became more technologically advanced, major studios died or were bought out, and the Hollywood movie machine churned out blockbuster after blockbuster, there was still a place for low-budget exploitation cinema in the 80s. Case in point is 1982’s Mad Foxes (aka Stingray 2) which rises from the murky depths of sleaze cinema like a greased-up googly-eyed orgy-guy Kraken. This vile biker-revenge movie shot in Spain and horribly dubbed features near X-rated nude scenes, extremely violent torture sequences, and more wieners than happy hour at Pink’s. I dare anyone to watch this thing the whole way through without an intense desire to want to boil the seediness clean from their pricked-up skin. The movie is sick, sadistic, immoral, and completely void of any redeeming value with an empty, soulless lack of competence or purpose. In other words, oh so wonderful. But it’s indeed icky, and sadly to admit, I’ve seen worse. Jeez, way worse. The movie’s quality and production values are piss-poor, but it is what it is and never strives to be more than sordid piece of dunder-headed exploitation. And you got to give it some credit for its self-aware sense of squalid integrity. Recommended to me by a bad cinema connoisseur of the highest order, Mad Foxes was everything I had hoped for - a dreary, inept, and depraved tale featuring insane bikers, crotchety old folks, Italian stereotypes, Nazi S&M hookers, and hysterical (and maybe intentional?) dubbed dialogue such as:

“Those bullets are tickling him to death.”

“You’ll like my family, though my Mother is an invalid. She fell from a horse and became paralytic.”

“What are your hobbies?” “Collecting pretty girls like you, but today I want to kill a bird.”

“Be careful my little rabbit!”

Words to live by.

STRYKER (1983)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:16:00 +0000

80S ARTIFACTS UNCOVERED BY MOVIE: Hot, leggy motorcycle-riding aerobic-instructor post-apocalyptic chicks with football shoulder pads and crossbows. Sigh, I miss the 80s.

THE CARD:

A nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-lear war; Slightly Peeved Max; a discount Randall “Tex” Cobb; The Evian Warrior; Philippine Jawas, needless but hilarious little person torture; Beyond Blunderdome; a script by Marcel Marceau; punches that echo like tin in flashbacks; a braless post-apocalypse; Richard Moll only not Richard Moll; Syd Haig only not Syd Haig; and Steve Sandor only not – oh, wait.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Hey kids, it’s the post-apocalypse! And as explained in the ponderous opening narration, "The nuclear holocaust wiped out any semblance of rhyme and reason," which sets us up for an utter lack of popping and break dancing in the desolate radiated wastelands. But there is a big-haired chick in distress being chased by leather-clad goons in a weapons-grade Impala. But despite being clad as Skid Row sex maniacs, the goons are really after hotty’s water which is as scarce as an un-pinched penny at a Scotsman convention. Pfft, the Scots! But the goons are also aware that the girl may be hiding the secret location of a long-lost spring and endless supply of fresh water. So just as the goons pin her down, a mysterious stranger in a Mustang pulls up and offs the baddies with the help of another stranger who pulls up in a motorcycle. Mustang guy is Stryker (Steve Sandor), a man of few words (seriously, there’s about 7 pages of dialogue max in the movie), and motorcycle guy is Bandit (mike Ostrander), a man of fewer less coherent, possibly dubbed words. The three discover they have a common enemy, an Anton LaVey-ish thug named Kardis (Mike Lane) who along with his tubby Master-Blaster wannabe control the last known town in the entire nuked county. Kardish killed Stryker’s best gal, ousted the girl’s (sorry, didn’t catch her name) father into the wasteland, and cock-blocked Bandit in flashback they didn’t bother to include. So some confusing stuff follows. After the shootout with the goons, the girl steals Stryker’s car but is captured by Kardis’ men and imprisoned. In the very next scene, Strkyer is seen driving his car. Huh? He then very slowly hijacks a tanker of God-knows-what with his new pal Bandit who he’s known for about ten minutes. And then they meet some little desert people (think Death Valley Ewoks), mix it up with these Amazonian ladies who impale heads with their arrows, rescue the girl from the worst maintained prison in the apocalypse, and meet up with the girl’s Dad who has found the fabled spring that Kardis seeks. Our story kinda stops here and rests for a moment, basks in over-dramatic speeches, and takes a time-killing whiz. OK, so Kardis’ men attack the spring’s hideout and all-out war ensues. Again. When it’s all done, our heroes enjoy a dance in the rain, a gift from the Big Guy Upstairs who OK’d the apocalypse, because you see evil was defeated and the prize is a baptism of mediocrity.

THE FINISHER:

No look back at 80s cinema would be complete without including a post-apocalyptic saga, most of which are extensively reviewed and analyzed by our friends at their amazing one-stop post-apoc shop Quiet Earth. Stryker (aka Survival Zone) is a relatively minor and mostly forgotten post-apoc, directed by the late Filipino legend Cirio H. Santiago, creator of such titles as Wheels of Fire, Final Mission, and the unforgettable Vampire Hookers. For the most part, the movie is standard Road Warrior-esque offering with a flair for the confusing. Characters seem to change appearance and morph from scene to scene, leading me to believe that the film may be have been two films spliced together or shot at different times. Or eras. But what really struck me about Stryker was the lack of dialogue, and what little dialogue there was consisted of awkward exposition and pompous “author’s message” filler. Wait, that shouldn’t surprise me at all. But what’s supposed to make post-apocalyptic movies work on a visceral level is the action - the gunfights and car chases and unfortunately there is very little of either in Stryker. The vehicles looks like anything you’d see parked on cinder blocks in your neighborhood, the explosions consist of lame green smoke bombs, and the borrowed tanks look like loaners from the Filipino army. Oh, wait again. On the upside, there are a few chuckle-worth moments in the film like when the tubby Master-Blaster gets doggy piled by the angry Filipino Jawas, when the leggy Amazon archers do blood-drenched yoga in the desert, and when Stryker himself finds a catchphrase, “Everyone's got their own highway to hell." And boy is he right. Mine will be paved with a thousand discarded VHS covers of every single movie I’ve seen leading me to a Movie Hell that I cannot run from nor hide. I look forward to it!

FRATERNITY VACATION (1985)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

80S ARTIFACTS UNCOVERED BY MOVIE: Zombie Bananarama; racing team jumpers; suitcase-sized boomboxes; pastel-plaid Oxfords; open-collared shirt with loose tie; painters hats with sheik flaps; stores named Dance Centre; and horny 35-year old college students.

THE CARD:

A pre-headshot Charles Rocket, a pre-Sarandonshot Bob Roberts; Britt “What the hell am I doing here?” Ekland; A-Hole Dean Wormer, a virginal Marcy D’Arcy vs. Nerdy Evil Ed; the return of Barbara Crampton’s magnificent knockers; Alf-less Willy; kid; Frat Todd Gack; and a Fright Night reunion drenched in teen sex goo. Ewww.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

College students Joe (Cameron Dye), Mother Tucker (Tim Robbins), and nerdy Wendel (Stephen Geoffreys) depart their cold and featureless Iowa and travel for hot and featureless Palm Springs for the annual ritual of booze swimming, cooze seeking, aand Jews-annoying ritual known as Spring Break. They spend their break in Wendel’s cousin’s condo where Joe and Mother find that they are not above humping on children’s bunk beds. Also in town are a couple of rival frat guys who play a nasty prank involving a foursome, women’s underwear, and herpes. Yup. Previously, Wendel’s Dad (Max Wright) bribed Joe and Mother to get Wendel laid, and they take him on a wonderful fashion makeover montage to turn this guy …

NEEERRRRDDDD!!!

Into this leather guy…

Or this kung fu disco dancer …

Or a wacky race car driver. (Makes you wonder why Geoffreys later became a gay porn star. It’s true!)

Fully expecting Wendel to bomb, the guys take him to a bar where he quickly meets meek Nicole (Amanda Bearse) and the two nerds hit it off. So the rival frat guys and Joe and Tucker meet again, this time to make a bet over who will be the first to get into shy girl Ashley’s (Sheree J. Wilson) pants. Joe tries the pathetic approach where he pretends to be suicidal while the other guy poses as a yoga guru to get all Namaste with her nether region. Both efforts at depravity fail so they guys decide to cheat. Meanwhile, Wendel is getting serious with Nicole, who turns out to be a little rich girl with overprotective Dad. He’s got to impress her family if she’s to ever gain her hand, but in a wacky misunderstanding, he gets arrested for attempted rape and then humiliates the local nearly-insane Sheriff (John Vernon) with comments about his butt. Yup. So Joe cheats by doctoring some photos he took of Ashley naked and the other guy cheats by recording an out of context but suggestive exercise session with her. Scumbags! So Ashley catches on and I fully expected an I Spit On Your Grave level of vengeance to follow, but it doesn’t. She just pouts and walks away in a huff. Meanwhile, Wendel is shocked to discover that Nicole’s Dad is the Sheriff and when he kicks the nerdy crap out of him while Nicole cruelly smiles and looks on, Wendel decides it’s time to cut his losses and leave town. But his bad luck isn’t over yet as he car breaks down in the middle of the desert. Also leaving town is Ashley and she just happens to pass Wendel on the same road. So, you can pretty much guess what happens next with 101% accuracy. Yes, the nerd gets the girl. Yes, the frat guys get drunk and laid. Yes, John Vernon has a coronary. But no, I did not have enough soap to wash away the ick after watching this crude nudie flick.

THE FINISHER:

The 80s were a productive and profitable time for teen sexploitation films and Fraternity Vacation is perhaps a forgotten example of the dirty, empty, soul-befouling seediness these movies proudly espoused. How can someone like a movie in which the plot involves rival frat guys competing to bed a lonely woman with a $1000 and schlong bragging rights at stake? Well, the answer is out there and maybe staring me in the face because films like this are still being made. The movie is pathologically sleazy, vehemently misogynist and void of any sense of morality with none of the narcissistic, shallow, and boner-obsessed characters receiving comeuppance in any form. Hell, in fact even the antagonists are rewarded at the movie with a simple wink and a hug. Now, I’m not gonna get all high and mighty on you. I did laugh at some of the hope-to-get-laid type moments in the movie and giggled at the stupid teen sex clichés that unfortunately are still in wide practice today. But fortunately, there’s much to point and laugh at in the movie including a pre-political Robbins doing sleazy shtick, moments of really, really gay male bonding, and shameless, devolved, and kinda hilarious teen sex obsession. Oh, and boobies. Lots and lots of boobies. And a weird Britt Ekland cameo. Head scratcher, that one. But really, Fraternity Vacation isn’t the worst one of these out there, even though the jokes fall flat, visual gags are few and far between, and John Vernon plays only a minor role. And it was also seeing Bearse and Geoffreys work together again either just before or after their team-up in the underrated vampire flick Fright Night. So please do not misunderstand, Tremendo loves me some stupid sex comedies, but this one was so sleazy and exploitative of women that I barely had the energy to vidcap the nude scenes for later use and make charcoal drawings of Barbara Crampton’s cleavage.

Ahem.

STARCHASER: THE LEGEND OF ORIN (1985)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:23:00 +0000

80S ARTIFACTS UNCOVERED IN MOVIE: Puffy jacket vests; Tempest and Battlezone references; He-Manimation; and a Star Wars rip-off that's actually watchable.

THE CARD:
Filmation’s Space King Arthur; robo-booty repair; Sea Monkey hookers; obligatory cartoon strip club scene; sometimes a bladeless sword is just a bladeless sword, Hanna-Barbera's Moses and the Mystery Machine; more fey robots than C3PO's family reunion; Deux Ex Spermy; and Don Bluth’s Jesus: The Animated Series.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

On the planet Trinia, human slaves toil in an underground mine extracting crystals from the planet’s core under the cruel laser-whips of their robot masters. The overlord Zygon (Anthony De Longis) keeps them under his purple thumb by forcing them to believe that nothing else besides the mine exists and that they are better off toiling for him than to suffer a hellish life on the surface. But plucky young Orin (Joe Colligan) believes in a world beyond his cruddy digger life and dreams of freedom for his Grandpa, blind brother Calli, and best girl Elan. One day he discovers a mysterious helm embedded in the rock, and in typical old coot fashion, Gramps proclaims it the stuff of legend, the object that will free the humans from their subterranean prison. But Gramps gets unceremoniously snuffed by the sado-bots which enables Orin and Elan to escape to the surface. Above the cave, they discover a hideous world of cold technology where they are cornered by Zygon and his robot legions. With the aid of the mystical helm, Orin is able to escape Zygon’s grip, but at the cost of Elan’s life. Believing Orin is dead, Zygon goes about his evil day but the determined youngster makes it to the surface and instead of a hellish wasteland promised by Zygon, he finds a nightmarish hellish wasteland. After being tortured by body-part starved mandroids and licked by hungry hungry killer plants, he teams up with roguish Dagg (Carmen Argenziano), a dashing smuggler with a penchant for curvy fembots and nervy wisecracking computer systems. Believing that the missing blade of the helm is the key to freeing his people, Orin tries to persuade the reluctant Dagg to join him in his quest. Eventually Dagg gives in, being the raffish softy that he is, and helps to bring Zygon down. A few adventures and robot killings later, they meet Princess Aviana (Noelle North) who falls in love with Orin after 15 minutes (that bladeless helm is chick bait!) and takes them down the path to fight Zygon face-to-face. Zygon reveals himself to be a robot who’s about to start a galactic war that will mean the end of all humans. So it’s up to Christ-like Orin and the inglorious dastard Dagg to take down the robot nation and reclaim the universe for humans to fuck up.

THE FINISHER:

The 80s were sort of a waning period for the feature length animated film. Most of the major releases were extended commercials for toys or TV shows (Care Bears Movie, My Little Pony) and Disney was churning out mediocre stuff until its animated rebirth with 1989’s Little Mermaid while Don Bluth scored some hits with Secret of Nimh and the unstoppable Land Before Time franchise. Of course, some hidden gems can be found that more adult in nature released by smaller outfits, titles such as Plague Dogs, Rock & Rule, and the cult fave Heavy Metal. Produced by 80s craptacular distributor Atlantic Releasing (Teen Wolf, Modern Girls, Garbage Pail Kids Movie), Starchaser: The Legend of Orin completely passed me by, and while this animated space opera doesn’t really offer anything new besides a mish-mash of Star Wars, Black Hole, Lord of the Rings and possibly six or seven other works, it’s mostly harmless, at times charming, and rarely dull. Although it doesn’t have frenetic pace and seizure-inducing action of today’s cartoon epics, I can see a 21st century kid digging this flick. I mean, you got all the elements of a little boy fantasy:

Horrific techno-cannibals!

Kid-licking plant monsters!

Kick-ass space ships!

Robot armies!

Hot babes!

Boo-hiss villains!

Space Molesters!

Um, might want to scratch that last one. Might.

Yeah, so what if the animation isn’t up to contemporary par? Who cares if the characters are cookie cutter space fantasy clichés and the narrative a thinly veiled Biblical tale? Who gives a mandroid turd if the colors are flat, the synth soundtrack cheesy, and the space ship’s computer system more Paul Lynde than Paul Lynde on St. Patrick’s Day? Starchaser: The Legend of Orin is a mild, breezy, and sorta fun time killer that’ll make you yearn for your long-gone Saturday mornings when you were whipped by a fembot tantalizing you with Captain Crunch and a ball gag.

Oh wait, those were my Saturday mornings…

THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE (1987)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:20:00 +0000

80S ARTIFACTS UNCOVERED BY MOVIE: Coke mirror necklaces, netted tank tops, terry cloth muscle shirts, shoulder frills, Old Pepsi, and a motion picture based on a product for children. Pfft, imagine that!

THE CARD:

The most horrifying things to appear on a trading card since Mike Piazza’s sideburns; sewer pipe satire; costumed midget pedophilic voyeurism; coprophiliac comedy; the TOUGHEST BAR IN THE WORLD where they serve BEER; long-lost art of 80s traffic sign fashion, non-Canadian green slime, Mumblin’ MacKenzie; Sorry Spanish Soap Star; Anguished Anthony; and Traumatized Tremendo.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Grumpy old weirdo Manzini (Anthony Newly) operates an antique store of bizarre oddities where he employs spunky teen Dodger (MacKenzie Astin) who’s getting harassed by bullies and bored by his boss’ pithy, whining about the mundane modern world. They are blissfully unaware that down in the basement of the store, a mysterious old garbage can rumbles, whispers, and occasionally farts. Meanwhile, Dodger is in love with John Boy-thin Tangerine (Katie Barberi), who’s at least ten years older, two feet taller, and twelve grades dumber. Unfortunately for Dodger, she hangs out with slickster Juice (Ron MacLachlan) who torments him while she laughs hysterically at his misery. What’s not to love? While trying to woo the big-haired Tangerine in the store, Dodger accidently knocks over the garbage can releasing a flurry of bodily function -related hilarity unequaled until Adam Sandler’s career. So unleashed are the Garbage Pail Kids, an unholy collection of other-worldly punny miniature alliterative horrors including …

Ali-Gator. GAH!

Valerie Vomit. “I will devour your soooouuuulllll!!!”

Windy Winston. GAAAAHHH!!! Kill it, kill it with fire!!!

And also too nauseating to vid-cap are pants-wetter Nat Nerd, bad-breathed Foul Phil, booger-eater Messy Tessy, and 50s juvenile delinquent Greaser Greg. Anyway, despite the presence of his friendly tiny nightmares, Dodger continues to be tortured by Juice and his heavy metal-pantsed crew. By merely looking in Tangerine’s direction, he is subjected to drowning by raw sewage. Yup. Fortunately, the GBK step in and rescue him from a poopy end. So while Manzini tries to conjure a musical spell to return them back to their canned hell, the GBK watch Dodger take a bath and then try to eat his toes. Yup. Dodger takes advantage of the GBK’s unique skills designing crappy 80s fashions and uses them to get closer to Tangerine who has dreams of being a famous designer. But Tangerine is still evil, double-crosses horny little Dodger, and hatches a plan to make the GBK her personal sweatshop and then send them to the “State Home for the Ugly” where old guys net ugly, fat, and clownish undesirables and then apparently kill them in a trash compacter. But through the power of teamwork sing-alongs, moral musings on beauty fixation, and toxic farts, the GBK lay the smackdown on Tangerine, Juice, and other citrus-related villains in a showdown of little-person fury slightly less exciting than a stale stick of gum.

THE FINISHER:

To paraphrase film critic André Bazin, the captured cinematic image can be viewed as an embalming of a moment in time rescued from relative corruption, revealing the representation of God manifesting creation. If indeed Bazin lived long enough to see The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, he would have changed the word “God” to “Angry Retarded Satan” and “manifesting” to “butt-pumping”. And in the boot camp for trashy movie fans, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie is the nearly impossible wall hurdle. You’ll just have to do it or you won’t become one of us. And unlike closet-hanger Sid Worley, I made it through shitty movie flight school nauseated, exhausted, and perhaps a little triumphant. Based on series of trading cards popular in the 80s, the movie features the Alfred E. Neuman-esque title characters in live action display of puke-inducing terror. The cards were intended to be a gross-out parody of the popular Cabbage Patch Kids, immensely popular dolls that came complete with their own unique name and birth certificate. I used to collect the sticker form of the cards and then covered my sock drawer with them. Ma Tremendo was not pleased. Anyway, the movie is beyond miserable and misguided, but remains a powerful example for a movie producer to express “This is where we went wrong”. Music composer and Joan Collins’ ex Newly is embarrassed, confused, and out of place in this bizarre and twisted thing. Astin is an admirable workman who just clocks it in and tries to escape unscathed before he can make it to the Facts of Life audition. The creature effects are indeed hallmark of the disturbed, provided by John Carl Buechler who also created the terrifying soul-scarring psyche-raping critters of Troll released the year before. The movie also tries to inject some sermonizing about corporate America and the culture’s superfluous fixation on physical beauty while trying to make us root for some of the most revolting, grossed-out and hateful little beings on two gimpy legs. But when the day is done, the movie retains its dubious distinction as an 80s oddity embalmed in time, a “kid’s” film filled with references to voyeurism, finger-banging, urine, cannibalism, shit-eating, gang violence, kidnapping, betrayal, exploitation, racism, attempted murder, and genocide - you know, stuff that every growing cherubic child needs to learn about eventually. But I think my reaction to The Garbage Pail Kids Movie is best summed up by ol’ V.V. herself:

SAMURAI COP (1989)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:35:00 +0000

80S ARTIFACTS UNCOVERED BY MOVIE: Chevy Van spoilers, a rural car chase, a pissed-off pre-cardiac arrest Police Captain; a rare Nagel print, and sheet metal dork humping.

THE CARD:

Chunk Brickstump; an 80s Dean Lerner as Police Lieutenant Boom Boom Washington; Buff Dropkick; the Paintgun of Death; Dirk Stonefist; Don Imus, Henchman; Rico Cockcrunch; Budget line for Costco-sized Chest Grease; Grisly Atom; Japanese height + Mexican accent + 80s Mullet x Acting Talent of a Bag of Chips = Our Bad Guy; and Jammer Rockhard.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Right off the bat, we are informed that undercover cop Joe Marshall (Matt Hannon) is a total martial arts badass who speaks fluent Japanese and practices the art of the Bushido. We are told this, mind you. We never actually see these claims in action, although there is one shot where he even bothers to look the part of hence-the-title.

Yeah, doing samurai stuff really works your delts.

Anyway, Joe’s been hired by the Los Angeles Police department to help quell a violent rivalry between the Japanese Yakuza and the local Chinese mob. Apparently, it takes a samurai to perform basic policing. Aided in his mission is bumbling, mumbling, and stumbling partner Frank (Mark Frazer), the only black cop in the world with zero coordination, a bare grasp on the English language, and a hambone routine away from Stepin Fetchit.

Dey be ninjas heah!

When not confusing the fuck out of the viewer with poorly edited car chases and men’s bathroom wall innuendo, Joe and Frank attempt to take down the gang of merciless and mulleted Fujiyama (Joselito Recober) and his elite chin-fisted assassin Yamashita (Robert Z’Dar).

Not in the chin!

So when he’s not lifting sofas, getting warm and ready, brushing his Miss Clairol wig, and banging every skank in town, Joe is harassed by Fujiyama’s Skid Row minions, scattered with machine gun fire by zombie Yamashita, and pursued by redheaded killer slut Cameron (Krista Lane). After some goofy car chases and nausea-inducing sex scenes with Joe’s banana warmer in full view, our heroes catch up with the gang’s hangout at the evil Red Lobster where he confronts the baddies, ducks a bunch of fat guys, and hits on Fujiyama’s squeeze (Jannis Farley). And so follows a gratuitous helping of boobie and crotch-shots, stirred in a mélange of complete narrative incoherence, peppered with hints of “We wrote the script as we shot this thing”, topped off with crew-coke-snorting for continuity, a dentist’s office for a police station, and random shouting for dialogue. This concoction somehow leads us to the final showdown between musclehead Joe and musclechin Yamashita in a demonstration of the true way of the Bushido, which apparently means “We have no idea what’s going on”.

THE FINISHER:

Amazingly, I never watched much Joe Bob Briggs back when he had his bad movie shows Drive-In Theater and MonsterVision in the 80s and 90s, probably because it was on too late or I was in my hoity toity black-clad cinemaphile Hollywood-hating phase. Oh, to be young and elitist again. So I guess I missed out on a lot of Briggs-approved fare at time, but like to think that I’m relatively caught up. An exception is the kung-fu flick that Joe Bob introduces as Samurai Cop, a spectacularly bungled and incoherent thudding turkey of a 80s action movie. If movie knock-off factory Asylum were around in the 80s (for all I know, they were), this movie would be their Lethal Weapon clone. But not even the bottom-line driven filmmaking thrift of Asylum approaches the level of depraved incompetence that this movie wallows in. But to call this movie bad and then make fun of it is way too easy, and many before me have torn it apart better than I can. So, I’ll let my good friend Joe V. from Provo, Utah* extrapolate the good stuff gleaned from Samurai Cop:

…

…

…

Thanks, Joe. The movie, which looks like one of those cheap Turkish rip-offs of Hollywood movies, was actually directed by an Iranian, Armir Shervan, who apparently chose to express his hatred of America by making films and releasing them here. Actually, there are a lot of unintentionally hysterical moments from a sword fight shot by Benny Hill to a decapitation in a dental chair to the “script” that featured lines such as “I will bring you his head and place it on your piano!”, “Shoot! Shoot him! Shoot!” and “Have you been circumcised?” In this respect, Samurai Cop is like a golden cheese-drenched gift from the Lord of Awful above, spreading a warm glowing layer of crap on damned souls who crave this miserable shit.

Hey, I didn't say stop!

*Apologies to everyone save one who will not get this reference.

MAC AND ME (1988)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:49:00 +0000

80S ARTIFACTS UNCOVERED BY MOVIE: Snorks, Otter Pops, Tonka dump trucks, double ruffle skirts, Laura Scudders chips, a VW Rabbit, and jobs at Sears

THE CARD:

Not a Steve Jobs biography; Charles' charge; the love theme from Joggin’ With Mom; shameless Skittles, Coke, McDonalds and Chicago Cub whoring; self destructive strip malls; You Been Served, and Super-Sized; sweet nourishing soda pop; They Came From Planet Mummenchance; skinned cat aliens who like to whistle the theme to the NBC Sunday Night Mystery Movie; and E.T.: The Extra Terrible.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

On the abandoned set of Enemy Mine, a family of creatures are basking in the reflected radiation of Saturn and sucking planet juice from a silly straw. The aliens are rail-thin, have weird bug-eyes, look like they’ve got balls in their mouths, sport a permanent “O” face, and apparently are covered in bumpy sores. Yes, these are the cute loveable critters we’re supposed to love and not vomit violently over. Suddenly, an unmanned NASA space vehicle equipped with water jugs and a vacuum hose lands and accidently sucks up our little family up the rover’s pooper. The lander returns to Earth where the little family causes all kinds of wacky ruckus, sets off electrical fields, and escapes from Area 26, Area 51’s lesser-budgeted sister base. Meanwhile, the Cruise family consisting of Mom (Christine Ebersole), Michael (Jonathan Ward), and wheelchair-bound Eric (Jade Calegory) travel along the highway adjacent to the base on their way to a new home in California. Unbeknownst to them, a member of the family, the creepy-as-shit little baby, hops aboard the Cruise’s car while the rest of his family has gotten lost in the vast desert. The exhausted and thirsty little alien steals Eric’s drink and gets his first hit of Coke (first one’s free), restoring his horrific self to a slightly less horrific state. The next day, Eric experiences weird happenings in his new rad house with wood paneling. Trees are planted in the living room, toys move by themselves, and an eerie little shit alien is doing a Jack Torrance on his front door. After befriending Debbie (Lauren Stanley), the odd little girl next door, and her hot Kelly Bundy wannabe sister Courtney (Tina Caspary), Eric and Michael chase down the little alien and call him M.A.C., for Mysterious Alien Creature. (Hey, the writer’s no D.A.R.Y.L.). They learn that Mac needs to reunite with his family, has a genetic disposition to break dance, and that soda pop is like crack to these things. With government agents breathing down their necks, the little alien family sweating it near Barstow, and the fast food dance party/two-all-beef patty orgy in full swing, Eric and his friends race against time to unite Mac with his family in order for the McDonald’s empire to consume colons across the solar system. Eventually, with the grace of a stoned God and a few hits of pop, the family reunite are made full-fledged U.S. consumers. And like a Quarter Pounder with cheese and a New Coke gurgling in your gut, the Macs promise to return. Uuuuurp.

THE FINISHER:

Back in the 80s, I practically lived at my local movie theater, a slapped-together joint called The Alco, which had a fairly nice screen, awful sound, outdated video games, and stale popcorn. I watched many 80s blockbusters in that wonderful place with images of Flynn, Lone Wolf McQuade, Ator, and Emmy Hesire coming to mind. Unfortunately, The Alco closed as our little town’s economy went down the shitter after the local copper smelter shut down. (Thank you, Ronald Reagan – Union Buster!). The nearest multiplex was over two hours away, so suffice to say I missed out on a lot of late 80s kiddy fare, most of which will reviewed right ‘chere. Thankfully, Mac And Me, one of many non-human foundling rescued by a cute kid or weird adult on the run from the government/evil corporation/Renaissance Faire Enthusiast stories, was one that I completely missed. (See D.A.R.Y.L., Short Circuit, Pod People). This kiddy movie features not a loveable alien but a horrific nightmare from a hospital burn ward. But even more repulsive than the skin-grafted alien design is the fact that the movie is less a very late E.T. rip-off (released six years later) and more an extended commercial for McDonalds and Coca Cola. The aliens look like famine victims with mega jowls blowing out birthday candles frozen in time - not very pleasing to watch and definitely not cute or remotely sympathetic. Besides the terrible effects, commercial-driven storyline, disabled-person exploitation, and derivative-of-himself Alan Silvestri score, there’s very little else to talk about in this awful flick unless you want to examine the symbolism of fast food restaurant dance numbers, alien furry cosplay, and Ronald McDonald’s taint, in which case may have to ask you to leave.

JOHNNY HANDSOME (1989)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:34:00 +0000

80’S ARTIFACTS UNCOVERED BY MOVIE: Mickey Rourke before he was wrasslin’ Ernest “The Cat” Miller, whipping Robert Downey Jr., and calling me a fatboy.

THE CARD:

Robo-Rourke; Bad, Bad Bishop; Sheriff Easy Reader; Lt. Kavanaugh, Chin Butcher; Roy Biggins, Money Launderer; She’s Having an Ugly Guy; pre-Kanye West New Orleans; Rocky Dennis out for Revenge; and the burning grandfather clock hotness of Ellen Barkins. Grrrrr.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

The black-souled city of New Orleans is home to Johnny “Handsome” Sedley (Mickey Rourke), a horribly disfigured crook whose best friend comes to him for help putting together a robbery to raise money to fund his path to legitimacy. The friend has enlisted steely hood Rafe (Lance Hendrickson) and his trashy moll Sunny (Ellen Barkin) despite Johnny’s reservations. They pull off the daytime stick-up of a jewelry store expertly up until Johnny and his friend are double-crossed by the unnatural born killers. The friend is killed but Johnny survives, is sent to prison, and refuses to rat out his treacherous compatriots, still clinging to some hopeless underworld code. He’s then hounded by obsessive police Lt. Drones (Morgan Freeman) who tries to wear Johnny down in order to nab the rest of the gang. But the paranoid Rafe takes out a contract on Johnny and he’s subsequently stabbed in the prison yard. While in the infirmary, he is befriended by kind plastic surgeon Dr. Fisher (Forest Whitaker) who recruits him in a radical rehabilitation program that will give him a new face and lease on life. Johnny agrees and over time, the surgery is a complete success. With Fisher’s help, Johnny gets an early parole, a job, and an opportunity to go straight. But the burning urge to exact revenge on Rafe and Sunny leads him back to a dark path, and not even new love Donna (Elizabeth McGovern) is enough to hamper his dark impulses. He quickly puts together a plan to rob his employer’s payroll, and seeks out Rafe and Sunny who have no idea who their new partner really is. And after so many years feeling ugly and unloved, Johnny is finally able to see something worth loving within him, a self-revelation that is soon extinguished as his grotesque criminal world drags him back to leave Donna a short-lived memory, to carry out his revenge, and to claim his doomed soul that briefly saw light.

THE FINISHER:

Okay, so I’m only going to mention this once and be done with it. It’s a chapter of El T’s life that everyone I know is piss-pot sick of hearing. Mickey Rourke once called me “fat-boy”. It was back in the early 90s during the filming of Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man in which I worked on as a college intern. A mere craft services monkey, I inadvertently interrupted his train of thought on set (because, as you know, the part of Harley Davidson requires intense method-motorcycle meditation). I laughed it off at first, but have to admit, I was kinda butt-hurt later, especially since several crew members teased me for days. Now, nearly twenty years later and having witnessed his ring prowess, I formally challenge Mr. Rourke to a no-holds-barred barbwire cage match on fire. I await a semi-coherent reply.

Let’s see if you can handle a fat MAN, Mickey!

Anyway, director Walter Hill is arguably one of the last of the maverick filmmakers, a man who in his prime largely shunned flashy blockbusters and Hollywood fluff and created seedy, sparse, and effective thrillers, actioners, and westerns such as Hard Times, The Getaway, and The Long Riders. A protégé of the great Sam Peckinpah, Hill and his works have been fueled by a masculine ferocity, a desire to explore dark territories, and an ardent interest in the immoral, twisted, and deviate world of crime. Although his later works are mostly commercial in nature and lack the intensity of his early films, he returned to form in the late 80s with the angry, brutish, and bleak crime story Johnny Handsome. Hill’s crafting of violent heist scenes is second-to-none and there are two sequences in the movie that are outstanding and should be made models of close quarters action. As the deformed then reformed title character, Rourke is quietly intense and soft-spoken, a calculating criminal concealing a lifetime of rage and headed towards damnation. Hendrickson and Barkins are spectacularly over-the-top as Rafe and Sunny - shadowy, insane, and dangerous all at once. While the movie looks and plays out like a seminal example of neo-noir, Hill frames the story like a western with Johnny reminiscent of Shane only with a bloodlust that will not allow him to ride off into the sunset, but instead opens a pit of a self-made hell. Johnny Handsome’s morals are about as miserable and gloomy as crime film gets, but Hill keeps things engaging through masterful storytelling, creating a fervent and dark tragedy as ugly as Johnny’s face and his decision to forsake normalcy for evening the score.

CHOPPING MALL (1986)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:32:00 +0000

80S ARTIFACTS FOUND IN MOVIE: Izod polo shirts, Playboy panties, sweater scarves, and evil lightning.

THE CARD:

ED 209's slow cousins, discount Willie Aames, non-Austrian accented killbots, Johnny 666, the curious absence of Ken Foree, Woody Allen, and Paul Blart, khaki camel toe, Crampton’s glorious boobs, and a glimpse back to the gilded Age of Orange Julius.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

We open to a demo inside an enormous mall of the new Protector 101 electronic security guards which will be deployed nightly to patrol and protect the J.C. Penney’s, Sam Goody, Miller’s Outpost, Merry Go-Round, Video Star, Florsheim’s, Hickory Farms, and that creepy organ and piano place that no one visits. These robo-mallcops are equipped with visual sensors, deadly tasers, and the charisma of a homeless Dalek, but as luck would have it, they are prone to lightning storms which inexplicably turn them evil. So one night, several teenaged mall workers decide to hold an awkward teen orgy after hours in a furniture store. Among the participants are good girl Alison (Kelli Maroney), nerd Ferdy (Tony O’Dell), slutty Suzie (Barbara Crampton), and insta-Rambo Rick (Russell Todd), amongst others. While the rest of the gang humps, Alison and Ferdy watch a terrible Roger Corman movie on the tube which at this point looked a trillion times more interesting. And because nerds can’t boink, they are the first to realize that they’re trapped inside the mall with killer robots on the prowl. After a few minutes fumbling around looking for the little man in the boat, fellow party-goer Greg (Nick Segal) leaves his soon-to-die girlfriend Linda (Suzee Slater) in bed and wanders the closed mall in search of cigarettes. Here we have victim number one of our kooky kill-bots, who somehow have attained deadly laser weapons. From here on out, the body count slowly mounts as our wacky teen gang arms itself to the braced-teeth and battle the robots around the mall. And so, teens die, robots blow up, paint is spilled, and pants are worn so tight I can see wart removal scars.

THE FINISHER:

The indoor shopping mall has been around since the 1950s but mall culture didn’t flourish until the 1980s, when the mall-boom was in full effect and the damn things were popping up everywhere, eventually shaping our way of life, buying patterns, and how we wasted our day after Thanksgiving. It was during the 80s that malls grew into teenager-infested consumerist-cliqued city-states where the height of cuisine was a Hot Sam pretzel, the height of culture was a Max Baer Jr. signing, and the height of fashion was watching your high school jock-cocks buy a new pastel Polo at Chess King. Personally, I owe a great debt to the shopping mall as I discovered my sexuality ogling the dirty greeting cards and boobie beer mugs at Spencer’s. Since then, the mall has been central to the American way of life, from the suburbs to the cities to fading small towns, and has become a sacred place of consumer worship, a disposable income drain, and a great place to pick up a big-haired chick. Taking advantage of the mall phenomenon, director Jim Wynorski dreamed up the idea of a slasher flick set inside a mall, albeit with very little slashing, gore, or scary stuff. Initially titled Killbots, the movie was later changed to Chopping Mall and works better if you approach it as a goofy horror comedy where there’s a complete lack of anything getting chopped. Our teen victims are instead electrocuted, laser-blasted, and lightly knocked over. Self-conscious and silly, Chopping Mall is a wacky but all too brief look back at mall life in the 80s, which truthfully hasn’t changed much. There are a lot of funny moments in the film both intentional and otherwise from the weird Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov cameos to Dick Miller’s vomit mopping to robots flailing in hardware stores. Chopping Mall, despite its misleading title and poster art, is unfortunately not a slasher movie; it’s yet another evil-lightning-killer-robot -teen-choking- boobie-sex comedy-marketing-survey in slasher movie’s clothing.

But it’s still better than T4.

JOHN HUGHES GONE

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:22:00 +0000

John Hughes, producer-director of some of the most iconic films of the 80s, dies of a heart attack at age 59. When I look back, I can't believe how much Hughes was a part of my cinema-going upbringing. And so I officially dedicate this month's Tremendo Time theme to the man who brought us the tear-drenching classics Class Reunion, She's Having a Baby, and Nate and Hayes. Good night, funny billionaire man.

What's your favorite John Hughes movie? Leave a comment below!

YES, I GUESS I LOVE THE 80s

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:30:00 +0000

The Eighties. Ten years of bad clothes, worse politics, and some of the worst music ever. The general consensus among my compatriots is the quality of the pop culture from this era pretty much sucked. But were the movies of this glorious decade of my adolescence really so bad? Did the 80s really mark the beginning of the end for cinema ushering an age of commercialized, cross-marketed, brain-dead Hollywood fluff?

Did this period really denigrate the the heights of filmmaking achievement like so many film snobs like to argue?

Did a dearth of film as art really kill the progress attained from the prior decade where we witnessed the rise of the American auteur, the flourishing of Third World Cinema, and the emergence of a Silver Age of Movie Magic?

Yeah, pretty much would say said high-collared pastel-shirted film snob. But I will attempt to prove them wrong and dig up some movie gems from the pastel-pants-wearing Reagan Era.

This month, Tremendo Time features a trip back to the era of Golden Age Michael Jackson, absent-minded actor-presidents, sweater-based sitcoms, bearable Madonna, pre-conspiratorial Oliver Stone, comic book conventions centered on actual comic books, and my long-lost innocence. Yes, August is 80s movies on Tremendo Time. I'll be catching up with some of the very few movies I missed in the 80s including horror, sci-fi, thrillers, dramas, comedies, chick-flicks, and maybe an Oscar winner or two. Stay tuned!

P.S. Although it totally feels like an 80s movie, I couldn't actually include Stay Tuned (1991).

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACEMONSTER (1965)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:58:00 +0000

WHAT THE MONSTERS TAUGHT ME: Modern cinema has lost the thespian tradition of emoting through cheap skull caps.

THE CARD:

Jon Lovitz meets Uncle Fester; Zsa Zsa Gabor meets Capt. Janeway; Two-Face meets J.D. Cannon; Mary Tyler Moore meets Maebe Funke; James Karen meets Golden Age James Karen; Bigfoot meets his Kmart Halloween Costume Equivalent; Sexy Ladies meet Cosmic Doilies; and El Tremendo meets his Psychiatrist.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Radiation, pollution, and the fact that all their men look like Bat Boy have turned all the women on Mars sterile. So in order to save their dying race, a Martian spaceship travels to Earth to pick up some rumored easy girls. Um yeah, good luck, pals. Leading the expedition are the icy Princess Marcuzan (Marylin Hanold) and the eerie Nosferatu-ish Dr. Nadir (Lou Cutell) who are clearly superior to humans as they have mastered the art of glancing and nodding in approval. Meanwhile, NASA is preparing its own trip to Mars to search for signs of intelligent life and not to get some hot tail. They hold a press conference which attracts all the world’s reporters (all four of them) and present astronaut Frank Saunders (Robert Reilly) who will make the journey solo. Unbeknownst to the world is the fact that Frank is actually a half human/half robot cyborg designed to survive the harsh conditions of space and Mars. He accidently malfunctions during the press conference (by freeze-framing) and is whisked away by his creator Dr. Steele (James Karen), his assistant Karen (Nancy Marshall), and tubby General Bowers (David Kerman). After a quick rebooting, Frank is launched into space, but things go horribly wrong. The Martians shoot Frank’s rocket down near Puerto Rico where the horny aliens have already started their hotty harvesting. Ok, things kind of get sketchy from here on out. Steel and Karen travel to P.R. and toodle around in a scooter getting comfy presumably searching for the severely facially burnt Frank who’s wandering the countryside in search of Noxzema.

The epic confrontation you've been waiting for?

On board the Martian ship, Marcuzan’s minions drape the kidnapped girls in frilly lace and send them down a conveyer belt for some arcane reason. Dr. Nadir glances and nods in approval. Frank is going nuts in the wilderness and starts offing Puerto Ricans like Saturday night in the Bronx. So eventually, Steele finds Frank and fixes him, but now Karen has been kidnapped by the aliens and jailed in their Pith-helmet saucer. Frank is sent on a suicide mission to save her and the other bikini babes and it is here where the arena is set for the cinematic icon confrontation since King Kong bounced Godzilla: Half-Charred Astro-Bot meets Randy Melty-Zombie in Ape Costume! Hence the title…

THE FINISHER:

If there was something lower than Grade-Z, Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster would have to strive to reach it. But that fact, like most of the films I’ve watched on this blog, doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun. Well, fun if you like movie filled with mostly stock footage, bizarre non-verbal exchanges between characters, 60 Mod-rock scooter riding montages, and the vibrant storytelling of one of those comic books that Jehovah’s Witnesses like to hand out. In terms of badness and ineptitude, the movie is constantly mentioned in the same breath as Plan Nine from Outer Space, and its skimpy budget, meager production values, and weird atmosphere are reminiscent of MST3K gems like The Creeping Terror and Monster A-Go-Go. The creature design and makeup are pretty poor, and the Spacemonster himself appears to be a mixture of whatever they could find in the bargain bin at the costume shop, although it doesn’t matter because it’s only in the picture for less than ten minutes. The acting is stilted, creepy, and beyond unnatural, approaching avant-garde (hell, that’s pretty bad). But there seems to be something more than just a drive-in aesthetic going in this movie, something rivetingly absurd and perhaps charming. After watching it, I had a feeling like when child gives you a crayon drawing of a squiggly dragon racing over a disfigured moon with the words “2 Unca Tremedo” scratched beneath it. Or as if like my nine-year-old ADD nephew made a full-length feature with a Fisher Price Pixelvision camera, a few street people, and a discarded colander for a spaceship. Or as if Michael Bay made a movie worth a damn. You can’t help but feel proud for the effort given the extraordinary triumph over shortcomings. Keep in mind that Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster is bloody awful, but it is also a spectacle of tacky magic, an unsettling vision of incompetence, and a bizarre experience from an era of gloriously bad cinema that the SyFy Network and Asylum has apparently inherited. But I for one will weep for the passing of the classic creature feature knowing full well that as long as I keep doing this dumb blog, nothing bad will ever die.

INFRAMAN (1975)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0000

WHAT THE MONSTERS TAUGHT ME: Baggy Monster Costumes + Sexy Evil Ladies + Dopey Kung Fu Robots x Lucky Charms = Saturday Morning Crack.

THE CARD:

PDMILF (Princess Dragon Mom-ILF); uniforms by Reynolds Wrap; a mutated Zoidberg; the most powerful thunderball fists outside a German porn; the George Jefferson monster walk; the Red vs. Yellow Special Effect Conundrum; and Inframan gives you wiiiiings!

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Dormant for eons beneath the wretched terrain of wherever this takes place, the evil Princess Dragon Mom (Terry Liu) is awakened with renewed verve to destroy the Earth alongside her La Parka minions and some out of work rubber monsters including Horn Laser Guy, Squirmy King Fire Mouth, Boastful Atomic Crab, Monsturd’s Chinese Cousin, and the Mace-Fisted Slinky Bot Twins.

Hey, what about me, Ineffectual Plant Beast?

Meanwhile at Science Headquarters, Professor Chang (Wang Hsieh) answers Mom’s threat by altering the DNA of one of his soldiers, Rayma (a young Danny Lee), and transforming him into the monster-fighting warrior Inframan. He accomplishes this by enhancing Rayma’s body structure with radio parts and cheap video effects – (brilliant!) – and equipping him with lasers in his arms, mini-missiles on his chest, and an out-of-tune song on his lips. Several battles ensue and Inframan totally levels Boastful Atomic Crab, owns Monsturd’s Chinese Cousin, and explodes dozens of La Parka minion stomachs. But Princess Dragon Mom plays dirty and is not above going after the families of her enemies. So when Prof. Chang’s daughter is kidnapped, Inframan unleashes his full fury, power, and wire-fighting balance to take down Dragon Mom, make a monster and minion shitpile, and kill about 40 minutes with non-stop fighting until I go into an epilleptic fit.

THE FINISHER:

Inframan was the Shaw Brothers’, a highly prolific Hong Kong studio of the 70s and 80s, answer to Ultraman and many other tokusatsu action programs of the time. The movie is a bizarre mixture of cosplay kung-fu, outrageous monsters, goofy overacting, and some of the most colorful mishmash of sci-fi action, head-shaking confusion and hysterical cinematic incompetence. Inframan almost looks like it was meant to be TV series that was instead crafted hodgepodge-style into a ninety-minute movie, with hilariously illogical results. Now, the movie is available on DVD in which the original widescreen format is preserved, but I saw this movie on videotape from the Cursed Box of VHS Tapes, which was a horrible full screen pan-and-scan version, only without the scan. The frame is fully centered and never moves, hence there are many scenes were stuff is happening off-screen causing unintentional laughter. Seriously, I may have witnessed 75% of the movie and that may be a good thing because if it has made more sense, it would have not been so fun. Inframan is harmless fun and was part of the movement that spawned the popular behemoth Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, so love it or hate it, watch with someone with an equal appreciation for the quirky, wacky, and strange.

Pointy kung fu bras not included.

THE DARK (1979)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0000

WHAT THE MONSTERS TAUGHT ME: No zombie walks in L.A.

THE CARD:

That's not-so incredible; a beau chapeau-ed Col. Bat Guano; a foot-grounded reaching for constellations Quincy; the last whore-humper Vernon Washington; pre-cokehead Tubbs; an attempted Santa-cide; a proto-Tammy Faye; A DWPBA - Driving While Possessed by Alien; and stumbling mumbling incoherent horror. No, not the monster – William Devane.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

A string of grisly murders is keeping L.A. police detective Mooney (Richard Jaeckel) busy with his captain and the mayor breathing down his neck. And residents are getting worried about their safety while gangs led by Corn Rows (Philip Michael Thomas) take to the street to protest. But it’s a career boom for TV reporter Zoe Owens (Cathy Lee Crosby) who’s assigned the story by boss Sherman Moss (Keenan Wynn) who wants to exploit the tragedy for all it’s worth. Meanwhile, reclusive author Roy Warner (William Devane) takes the terror personally when the murderer kills his only daughter, and he urges the police to move faster before he puts the law into his own hands. And lastly kooky psychic De Renzy (Jacqueline Hyde – Really, that’s her name? Who is this broad?) sees visions of an unearthly creature killing innocents and realizes she’s next. As the investigation unfolds, the city’s criminal pathologist (Casey Kasem) determines through careful and scientific analysis that the killer is a zombie AND an alien, a revelation both he and I react to with “Zoicks!” So the press dubs the killer the “Mangler”, the cops become increasingly frustrated as the body count piles up, and the characters stand around, say stuff, and pretty much non-chalantly accept the fact that a unstoppable demon is wiping out multiple Angelos. After forty to fifty minutes of confusing time-filling crap, Zoe and Warner team up to help the cops find the creature with psychical assistance from the goofy De Renzy. They corner the laser-eyed monster, who is indeed a zombie alien (thanks, CSI), in some warehouse and the rousing action of the final “showdown” is so exciting I’ll guarantee that afterward you’ll go soak in a tub with a gallon of gin and search for a couple of veins to slit. Just be sure to leave the lights on.

THE FINISHER:

Recently, I received several boxes of horror VHS tapes from a defunct video store thanks to a very generous and dear reader of Tremendo Time. The boxes contained mostly long-forgotten oddities from the 80s and 90s, most of which will be reviewed here at some point in time. So, to wrap up this month’s Monster Movie theme, I thought I’d dip my hand into this Cursed Box and select the first three monster movies as we head into the final stretch. The first one is today’s movie – The Dark. I'd never heard of it, and a quick internet research uncovered the following tidbits of information:

- The film was originally intended to be directed by Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), but he either quit or was fired on the first day of shooting.

- The movie was supposed to be a straight zombie story but test audiences didn’t react positively (shocking!) so the film was retooled into a monster/alien angle.

- The monster was at first supposed to be a slow adult with murderous tendencies, later made a zombie, then an undead alien with laser eyes.

-The Dark is also known as The Mutilator, even though the creature was called The Mangler in the script.

- William Devane was completely fried out of his gourd in this thing, but looks smart in a polka dot bathrobe.

But I didn’t need to research to come to the conclusion that this movie is horrendously dull, often incoherent at times, and crawls at the pace of a slow-motion snail who’s really pooped. Devane is the hero of the flick, but I honestly don’t know what he was going after with his stilted and just plain weird performance as the intense author too hip to chase monsters. The supporting cast is rather stellar including Latitude Zero’s Richard Jaeckel is that-guy fine as is old coot Wynn. But Cathy Lee’s acting talents are like a private joke. In every scene, she looks like she's on the verge of cracking herself up. The effects are virtually non-existent and the action scenes are far and few in between. This is all appalling in a breathtaking way. And thanks to dying VHS stores everywhere, new horrors of soul-wrenching ineptitude can be discovered, quipped, and ripped allowing plenty of time to weep in The Dark later.

ALIEN 3000 (2004)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0000

WHAT THE MONSTERS TAUGHT ME: Confirmed - Lorenzo Lamas is both the savior and antichrist of bad cinema.

THE CARD:

God’s vengeance upon a Peeper; Agent Zabadoo Zap; a Pic ‘N Save Predator; the Legend of Curly’s Alien-possessed Gold; jerk Mercs; Marlee Matlin and Juliette Lewis’ love child; the world’s yummiest pencil; hot monster on chopper action; a script co-written by Sweet Mistress Cocaine; and the only thing worth watching about this thing – a Flick cameo!

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Some stupid teens hiking around a mysterious cave are slaughtered by a mysterious shadow creature that isn’t Dennis Rodman when they stumble across golden treasure. We then cut to a mental hospital where Kate (Megan Molloy) is dreaming these occurrences, which may or may not be happening. This attracts the attention of the Office of Paranormal Investigations, a government agency headed by Sheila (Priscilla Barnes), enforced by military guy Biggs (Lorenzo Lamas), and comprised of about $40 worth of office furniture. Sheila dispatches agents Burke (Shilo May) and Lyle (David Kalamus) to investigate Kate’s dreams and discover that something may be actually be happening in that spooky cave. So they bust Kate out of the wacko house to join a rag-tag team of mercenaries to confront the horror. The team is comprised of psycho Burke (Matt Emery), natural born killers Straker (John Fava) and the hot, crazy, and oversexed Phoebe (Phoebe Dollar) under the command of goody two-shoes Sgt. McCool (um, yeah). McCool (Christopher Irwin) falls for nutty Kate, Burke and Lyle bicker over protocols, and Phoebe and Burke discover the gold and the invisible monster that protects it. Meanwhile, another alien monster awakens in OPI headquarters, possesses Sheila, and almost kills Biggs just before the toy building blows up. Biggs takes a chopper out to the woods to save the crew and utters nonsense like “Where there’s weapons, there’ll be water.” So the greedy inviso-monster starts eliminating cast members, the director starts pointing and shooting at things at random, and somehow this thing was completed resulting in my inevitable helicopter ride to the nuthouse where Lamas will mock me holding a bloody monster head and dangling a copy of Alien 4000 over my screaming head.

Aye, aye, aye…

THE FINISHER:

With few exceptions (MST3K), nothing subtitled “3000” is worth a damn*. Cases in point include Dracula 3000 (putrid), Mr. 3000 (poor Bernie Mac), and the quite poopy early 90s post-apocalyptic headache Warlords 3000. So it should come as no surprise that Alien 3000 is an agonizing cheapo sci-fi torture session. Where to begin to describe the execrable badness of this turkey? Well firstly, you could train a film school of ten dozen dopey directors with the textbook ineptitude and low budget awfulness that is Alien 3000, and the movie often appears to be proud of this fact. Second, the acting is appalling. “Stars” Lamas is his usual ungodly self pulling prickitude to a full hilt and Barnes can barely stand up and looks embarrassed (really?) when she has to do the scary alien voice when the creature possesses her. The rest of the cast is forgettable, with the exception of the sexy and wild Dollar who injects a lightning rod of irritating, screechy, evil energy in her small role. I very much enjoyed seeing her die and in the unlikely event she is reading this, I hope she takes that as a compliment. Third, the non-rubber monster effects are kinda bloody, and while there’s a fair amount of gore, but it’s mostly silly and slapped-together, much like the story itself which often feels like several movies were partly made and then sewn together like a post alien autopsy. And lastly the sub-cheapo values of the film adversely affect its premise and there are stupid holes like: Why would the government hire mercenaries to do a simple field investigation? Why would aliens be interested in golden swords leftover from the Renaissance Festival? And why is Lorenzo Lamas allowed to pilot a toy helicopter? Careless dreamweaving. Alien 3000, probably the only movie where the title reflects its budget, is also known as Unseen Evil. Well, Christ, let’s hope so.

*Yes, I'm fully aware of the URL of this blog.

QUEEN KONG (1976)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0000

WHAT THE MONSTERS TAUGHT ME: Giant monkey chain mail bras are soooo 1975.

THE CARD:

Un Film de Benny Hill; ironic umbrellas; the Isle of the Living Carmen Mirandas; revenge of the Cream of Wheat Dude; toy boat, boy toy, goy butt; some really weird gigantic cosplay; (INSERT GORILLA MY DREAMS JOKE APOLOGY HERE); Elton John and a gay salamander’s lovechild; a serious lack of muted trombone; Erica Von Stroheim; and an ape queen, a fake queen, and a fey queen.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Obsessive film director Luce Habit (Rula Lenska) searches the streets of London for the next big movie star to feature in her latest jungle epic. After draining the bowery, slums, and flophouses dry, she stumbles across “adorable” Ray Fay (Robin Askwith).

The fate of (wo)mankind rests with this goofy bloke.

Ray is a wisecracking ragamuffin who runs cheapo street scams to feed his movie poster addiction (I can totally relate). After a long foot-chase with accompanying Benny Hill music (seriously), Luce catches up with Ray, convinces him he’s the next Shaun Cassidy and talks him into hitting the high seas to search for the perfect movie location. They hop aboard the subtly-named ship Liberated Lady and after a few irritating dance numbers, ten dozen stupid jokes, and thirty minutes of colorful cross-dressers chanting “Kong” repeatedly, they arrive at the island of Lazanga Where They Do the Conga. After several hours of roaming the rubber jungle, doing pratfalls, and spitting out more stupid jokes, they run into the local natives who greet them dressed in bikinis and Kmart jewelry worshipping a giant female ape named Queen Kong:

Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just glad to see me, little boy?

So the natives automatically take a shine on Ray and stuff him into a big birthday cake and offer him as a sacrifice to their furry queen. Following a few dozen then-current Jaws, Exorcist, and Airport references and Ray screaming like an impaled doof, Queen Kong uses her huge feminine wilds to woo her minuscule suitor. Ray eventually takes the bait and we are only left to assume that this tiny Englishman banged the banana peels out of Queenie. But the evil Luce has other plans for this huge hirsute harlot. She carpet-bombs Queen Kong with knock-out drugs, straps her to a barge, and ships her to London where’s she’s put on display.

This year’s Ren Fest was even weirder than usual.

Ray, meanwhile, experiences a revelation of sorts (monkey fever?) and transforms Queen’s exploitation into a protest for women’s rights. So gals from all over, from Al Capp’s wife, to a Playboy Bunny, to the human Queen herself (seriously) drop their ironing boards and march in protest while monkey Queen kidnaps Ray, rampages around toy London, and scales Big Ben (um, so to speak). The protest is so successful and awesome and energetic that the military withdraws from their attack on Queen Kong and she is then shipped back to her island where presumably she will now nearly earn the same as her male monkey boss and get six weeks for maternity leave. All’s well on the island of Lazanga Where They Do the Conga and everyone dances with flowers in their hair and float off into space.

And then I handed the bong off to the bad movie watcher next to me.

THE FINISHER:

I’m not sure there’s much else I can say about a movie whose title song features the line, “She’s a genie that pulls my weenie – QUEEN KONG!” (seriously). No, not much at all, I say. Well, I guess I can say that this British comedy really feels like an overly extended Benny Hill sketch, complete with silly music, aching jokes, and plenty of human and non-human cheesecake. It was just missing a fast-motion Fred Scuttle slapping the shit out of that bald old man. But the movie also has an interesting and storied history behind its making, and was almost lost to obscurity. Not sure if that’s a bad thing or not. Just before the release of the 1976 remake of King Kong, producer Dino de Laurentiis sued to block the release of Queen Kong, even though its clearly a spoof (and probably better than his remake) and in no way a remake of the classic monster movie. Therefore, the movie was never fully released in the U.S. and only in the last few years has it surfaced on DVD. Bawdy, lewd, and just plain goofy, the movie is often painful to watch, but not painful enough not to enjoy with its striving production values that you can’t quite pull off without a tongue-firmly-in-cheek. What I particularly enjoyed was the self-conscious attempt at political satire (Queen Kong as the ultimate feminist and women’s right enforcer) which at times made sitting through this wacky, cheeky, and yuk-yuk filled chucklefest bearable. And, sadly, we may never see the next in the series:

LINK (1986)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:38:00 +0000

WHAT THE MONSTERS TAUGHT ME: You can’t woo with poo-flinging.

THE CARD:

A simian Psycho; Adventures in Monkey-sitting; kneel before Terrence Stamp's phone bill; the originator of the hairy fist bump; the worst link since Icravehandlebarmustaches.com; Mr. Smith goes to Crystal Lake; the wild gone wild; microwavable telephones; the curious absence of Philo Beddoe, Harvey Keitel, and Dr. Zaius; and Conquest of the Cottage of the Apes.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Jane Chase (Elizabeth Shue) is an American student studying zoology in the U.K. and she’s fascinated with Dr. Phillip (Terrence Stamp) and his work communicating with chimps, apes, and orangutans. She becomes doubly-fascinated when she takes a job cooking breakfast and shoveling monkey poop for the Doc at his costal cottage. Here, he conducts ground-breaking experiments with three precocious monkeys including:

The mischievous Imp

The surly Voodoo

And the deeply troubled orangutan servant hence-the-title Link.

Phillip obsesses with developing the ability to communicate with his monkey friends but realizes that working too closely with them may be more dangerous than it sounds. Especially since Link, a refugee from the circus who’s been completely domesticated and performs butler tasks around the house, is apparently sneaking out at night and killing birds, dogs, and what not. He decides it’s time to put ol’ Link down, a decision that doesn’t sit well with the sympathetic Jane. But Jane slowly realizes that Link may be sniffing too much of his own poop when she catches him peeping at her in the shower, overturning trucks, and laughing at inappropriate jokes at the dinner table. But it appears that Jane’s boobies took Link over the edge and suddenly Phillip disappears, Imp panics, and Voodoo is found dead in a closet. And despite these eerie occurrences, Jane stubbornly sticks around the creepy cottage, reads Imp stories, and hears Link creeping around the property outside.

TOP OF THE WORLD, MA-NKEY!

So what was at first a dull remake of Going Ape, suddenly turns into Night of the Bloody Apes as Link emerges as a monkey Michael Myers and turns a lovely weekend in the countryside into a hellish nightmare in which Dunston won't be the only one checking out.

THE FINISHER:

Link, one of the most peculiar movies I’ve ever seen, was one of three very strange and quite bad monkey movies, along with King Kong Lives and Monkey Shines, I remember avoiding back in the late 80s. I never really liked movies about regular-sized killer monkeys. To me, they are very depressing and I almost always root for the homicidal apes whose human-killing sprees almost always prove fruitless. It’s kind of like rooting for the slow kid to win the county Spelling Bee – you wish he could do it, but despite all your training and bull-whipping, there ain’t no way it’s happening. And it’s probably a good decision that I didn’t watch this thing way back when, for I would not have enjoyed it as much in my usual ironic sense. The movie has a lot of old fashioned horror movie value – the demented scientist, the unstoppable creature, the spooky house in the middle of nowhere, the damsel in distress, and even the obligatory Hammer Films house burning at the end. But what it really lacks is any sense of impending doom or terror. These are cute monkeys for crying out loud! Link is like a killer Clyde, mugs for the camera, wears a charming butler outfit, and cracks me up every time he’s on screen with his kooky antics and decidedly non-scary behavior. Not a good recipe for a new horror icon. Shue and Stamp sleepwalk through the picture although they did seem to handle their animal costars with apparent ease. Unfortunately, Link, with its slow pace, terrible dialogue, really bad Jerry Goldsmith-doing-Danny Elfman score, and lack of frights can’t be recommended as a scary monkey movie, but can be recommended as another 80s oddity, a movie that can’t decide whether it wants to be a wacky send-up or a terrifying trip into the mind of a tortured ancestor of humanity, one banana short of a bunch.

KING KONG ESCAPES (1968)

el.tremendo3000@gmail.com (The Internet's El Tremendo) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0000

WHAT THE MONSTERS TAUGHT ME: King Kong came here to eat bananas and get some tail, and he’s all out of bananas.

THE CARD:

The Discount Stewart Granger; Island of My Mexican Car Mechanic; a Doctor Who degeneration and his RE-TARDIS; Herr Burgermeister Voiceer Acterr; submarine humping; a Maybelline cell phone; the Emancipation Kongification; the killing of a Chinese cookie; a way-too easily impressed Japanese general; the United Nations Monster Squad; and a totally baked Bong Kong with atomic jungle fever, dude.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

One of the most influential creations spawned by Hollywood, the creature that terrorized millions, scorched the box office, and was crafted into the greatest monster of all time is the all-mighty King Kong. And after decades away from our cinematic nightmares, he’s returned with a vengeance and new role that may mean the end of the world as we know it - as a ditch digger. After the evil Dr. Who’s (Eisei Amamoto) robot duplicate of King Kong…

Robo-Kong Power!

…short-circuits while searching for the elusive Element X deep in the icy canyons of the Arctic Circle, Kong is kidnapped from his island and is duped into digging for rare material that could be used to make a devastating bomb. Who's nefarious efforts are closely watched by evil representative Madame Piranha (Mie Hama) and her evil unnamed country *KOFF*-SO OBVIOUS IT’S CHINA-*KOFF* who desperately want their commie hands on Element X. Kong puts up a good fight but is unable to resist the evildoers as Robo-Kong hypnotizes him with pretty colors with some giant-sized ganja for good measure:

Banana trails. Beautiful banana trails.

Meanwhile, brick-chinned Nelson (Rhodes Reason), his buddy Nomura (Akira Takarada), and cute nurse Susan (Linda Miller) are tooling around in their atomic submarine conducting experiments when they stumble across Kong’s island and unravel Who’s plot. The fey and Tony The Tiger-voiced Who, who by the way may be the greatest Toho villain since scenery-chewing Dr. Malic or the Devo aliens from Monster Zero, will stop at nothing to get Element X, even it it means killing innocent villagers, destroying Tokyo in a fit of rage, or not getting a haircut.

This lord ain’t got time to breed.

But help is on the way. Just before he got shipped to Who’s sweatshop, Kong got the hots for the miniscule Susan who makes Bridget the Midget look like Uma Thurman. Susie's all-American spunk and leggy-ness helps our heroes persuade Kong to defeat Who’s forces, bring down the luchador-esque prowess and egotism of Robo-Kong, and fight for our freedom. But if Kong is going to fight for a word, his word’s poontang.

THE FINISHER:

Although a more detailed history of Kong after the original 1933 King Kong can be viewed here, I will try to sum up the events that led to the making of King Kong Escapes as best I can. Creator Willis O’Brien always wanted to continue Kong’s adventures following the original film and the sequel Son of Kong but studios scoffed at his ideas, in particular his King Kong vs. Frankenstein in which Kong would square-off against the equally legendary monster. Decades passed and O’Brien eventually licensed Kong to Japanese studio Toho who made 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla, a rework of O’Brien’s prior story. This Kong/Godzilla meeting is perhaps one of the worst of the Godzilla movies, stilted and exceedingly silly even for a 'Zilla flick. That movie’s success led to King Kong Escapes, where Kong goes it alone against his robot double, a cute chick, and toy tanks. The movie is like the proverbial shaggy dog: laughable, inept, and hard not to love. With colorful fighting sequences on the island, groovy late 60s fashions and horrendous acting, Paul Frees’ distinctive dubbing work, visible zippers, unrelenting sexism, and an unforgettable battle atop the Tokyo Tower, the movie has a nostalgic appeal like a forgotten childhood cartoon restored and rediscovered with wonders still as fresh as the day you first experienced them. And it was Toho’s monster movies in general that marked the better moments of my childhood where I faithfully watched monster and sci-fi fest World Beyond on KPHO every Saturday morning. Good sugary times. King Kong Escapes is an escape of its own, taking me far from the current crop of soulless summer fare, dimwitted robot porn, Nic Cage’s dead eyes and wrinkled forehead as reminders of my own mortality, and a serious lack of contemporary cinematic monkey-on-sexy-lady action.