Insight (2012)

(aka 90 Minutes of Natalie Zea)
Release Date: On DVD Now.
Written by: Aaron Ginsburg and Wade McIntyre.
Directed by: Richard Gabai.
Starring: Natalie Zea, Sean Patrick Flannery, Adam Baldwin, Christopher Lloyd and Angeline-Rose Troy.

As huge fans of the FX Southern Cop drama masterpiece, Justified, we here at THC are duty bound to watch anything starring any of the shows stars. So when we found this little movie starring Natalie Zea, we were all like "Oooo." The we watched it and we were all like "Oh..."

Still, she's truly a saucy little ticket that made this movie at least palatable.

I'm pretty sure she could make most anything palatable.

Insight (or In/Sight as the poster would have you believe) is the story of Kaitlyn (Zea), a sassy, sexy, dirty little ER nurse who may just be a slut. Of course, that's just our take on her character, we could be wrong.

While trying to save the life of a young girl who got stabbed the eff up, she is knock for a loop by the defibrillator. She apparently did not listen when someone yelled "Clear!" It's not long before she begins to "see" the stabbed girls memories, which include snippets of he life and murder.

Even dead, she's still sexy enough to do.

No one believes her crazy rantings of course, everyone thinking her just "off" because she rode the lightning to the tune of around 1000 volts. So, it's a race against time, and possibly her sanity, to make sense of these crazy head movies she's experiencing, and to try to solve the crime. At least she has the help of a suave detective, whose "lighting" she also rides. See, we knew she was a slut!

Insight is a decent little movie that was better than we expected it to be, and certainly better than most direct to DVD movies. Natalie Zea does a great job carrying the film, and her supporting cast does a great job helping her along. It's a well paced, clever little movie that despite using the obligatory OMG! type of twist at the end, works fairly well.

The movie's hook lies in whether Kaitlyn really can see these creepy visions or is she's just gone bat shit crazy. No matter how it turns out in the end, being electrocuted kinda made her wonky in the brain either way, didn't it? Good wonky vs. bad wonky, that's really the crux of the issue.

"Go back to the future, they said. Trust Michael J. Fox, they said. Well, I've seen things, bitch! Things that would curl your sexy little toes!" Don't ask.

Oh, it's this movie again. These "Is it really happening or is it all in her head?" types of movies really need to be their own sub-genre, because they seem to happen way to frequently. We're all for a good Mystery/Thriller around these parts, but the formula just gets old and bland after a while. There's as much to be said for playing it straight as there is for keeping your audience guessing... I guess we're just tired of getting the old switcheroo at the end of every movie we see lately. In all fairness, the ending to this movie was pretty decent, but still, the "twist" thing is done far too much these days.

This is not necessarily a spoiler for the aforementioned "twist." Then again, it's not necessarily not one either...

There's not too much of the bloody business to be had here. It's really more of a thinker than a visual stunner, in almost a TV movie of the week sort of way.

There's a sex scene with implied nakedness, but no true naughty bits. Natalie Zea might be a prude. Then again, she was no prude in Californication...

Naked in Californication. David Duchovny gets all the chicks!

When someone yells "Clear!" You best damn well get clear! Also, hot chicks always end up crazy in the end. Even if they really aren't.

C+ 3 out of 5 Pleased Masters. Insight is an above average Mystery/Thriller which manages to maintain some decent suspense throughout. It's a slow mover, focusing more on performances than set or action pieces, but it was a nice change of pace. If you like your movies of the thinker side of the fence, you'll like this one.

Natalie Zea is a sexy sass-box and a pretty good actress to boot. We love her delicious acting skills, and admire her body. Of work, of course.

The Terror Experiment (2010)

MARCH 31, 2012

GENRE: ZOMBIE

SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

There are a handful of movies that I can’t conceive of someone disliking. Not my favorites, per se (I know perfectly well how/why people can and DO hate my 3 favorite movies), but movies that are just too damn good and culturally important to dismiss. One of them is Die Hard, and thus I’m actually kind of surprised that The Terror Experiment is one of very few horror films that combine the “Die Hard scenario” with a genre tradition, in this case zombies. Seems like a pretty obvious thing to do, but fear not – it’s not too late to do it right, because this movie’s a waste of time that will be forgotten by the time it actually hits disc on Tuesday.

At least it starts off well enough. A dirty bomb has been set off inside a Federal Building in Louisiana, turning everyone from a certain floor down into rampaging zombies (or, fine, “infected” – p.s. fuck you, they’re zombies), while the folks on the floors above the gas are OK but obviously can’t just head downstairs and get outside to safety. We’re given the usual ragtag group of random folks who don’t all get along, led by our most recognizable actor (Jason London), and the movie more or less follows their attempts to escape while being besieged by zombies at every turn.

That stuff covers about half of the movie or so, anyway. There’s also a hefty outside element, as the FBI, a group of firemen, a scientist, etc all gather outside and argue about jurisdiction and whether they should attempt rescue or blow the building to smithereens to ensure that the virus is contained. All of this stuff is wholly generic, but since the interior segments aren’t much better thanks to poorly shot (and overly CGI’d) action and far too much repetition, it’s not exactly doing any harm. It’d be like complaining that your broken down car also had an ugly paint job. Plus, with the exception of London, all of the actors you’d recognize (Judd Nelson, C Thomas Howell, Lochlyn Munro, Robert Carradine) are part of this outside team, so if anything these scenes offer slightly better acting and the semblance of a real movie.

On the other hand, these bits don’t have as much cribbing from Die Hard, something that gets pretty comical inside. The locked down building and personal agenda (London is trying to rescue his ex-wife! Bonus: their daughter as well) were more than enough to give me that Nakatomi vibe (as did the opening scenes showing how the terrorist was able to access the building and initiate phase one of his plan), but they go overboard with it. By the time London has tied a fire house around his waist and dove to safety, you’ll be wondering if you shouldn’t just be watching Sudden Death instead, since that one ripped off Die Hard just as much but at least offered some decent action sequences and a fun villain. Plus Van Damme fights a penguin at one point.

Sadly, that’s the most entertainment the movie offers. When it’s NOT stealing directly from a classic film, it’s just dull as dirt. The action scenes are all indifferent, including the climax in which some random guys in body armor take out a couple of zombies and London more or less waltzes out the door with barely a scratch on him. There’s also a ridiculously implemented “countdown” in which the building will self-destruct, which would be fine if there was any sense of urgency to it. But no, they have like six hours or something, and every time they check in with the count there’s still plenty of time, rendering it a wholly useless diversion that adds not one iota of suspense to the proceedings. You know, they love Die Hard so much – did they not check out part 2, where McClane had two hours to stop the terrorists before his wife’s plane ran out of fuel? Now THAT’S a countdown! Six hours, fuck – McClane would have went back and schmoozed with that hot customer service girl for a bit to kill some time.

But that’s just another example of the movie’s abundance of padding, which literally starts as soon as the film does as it opens with zombies attacking folks at random while others flee in several directions – general chaos, in other words. So you’re thinking, OK this is the end and the movie will depict how it got that bad, right? Nope – we see all of this stuff again, no lie, 15 minutes later. It pays off in no way at all, and we don’t learn anything but the obvious (“there was a zombie outbreak”) once the scene has context. Also, they cut repeatedly to a cop driving to the building, which would be fine if he was going to be a major character or if his police radio was providing us with new information, but no, it’s just a bunch of random shots of an equally random character, adding nothing to the film but 2-3 minutes of screentime to make its 82 minute length (which includes duplicate full credit sequences).

Thankfully, Anchor Bay has spared us any visual extras – not even the trailer is present here (though it has a few for other releases). The sole supplement related to the film is a commentary by executive producer/director George Mendeluk, who falls silent for the first time (of many) in the film’s first 30 seconds. I’m sorry, if you can’t talk for a few minutes straight at the very beginning of a commentary track for your own film, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing one. Then again, based on the rest of the track, maybe Mendeluk shouldn’t be directing films at all, as he has almost nothing to say about the actual process of making the film, merely offering things like “This is a CGI shot of this vent” or “We shot in two locations”. He’s also fond of pointing out the other, usually better movies that his actors were in before they slummed it here. “You might recognize her from National Treasure”, he tells us about the lovely Alicia Leigh Willis. But I didn’t recognize her, because she was actually in the 2nd film, where she played “Lady Customer”. One might wonder why he didn’t point out her more substantial roles, but he continually opts to point out their most high profile films, because he mistakenly assumes this will impress whoever is stupid enough to listen to him. He also claims C Thomas Howell played *the* boy in ET (no, he played *a* boy; Henry Thomas played THE boy, you twit) and boasts about another actor’s role in the Twilight films. Again, the role he mentions is insignificant (“Frat Boy”), but hilariously – the actor in question is his own son! You’d think he’d lead with that. Long story short – he comes off like one of those schmucks that think of filmmaking solely as a business investment, with zero affinity for anything on the screen; the most animated he gets during the entire track is when he (erroneously) explains Campbell’s hero’s journey, even adding that Campbell lived on Skywalker Ranch (he did not). If Campbell were alive today, he’d probably get about 10 minutes into this movie before deciding being dead was preferable.

What say you?

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Getting acquainted with ... Jerry Lewis

This is the latest in my monthly series Getting Acquainted, in which I catch up with three movies by renowned film personalities whose work is generally unfamiliar to me.

Everyone knows who Jerry Lewis is.

If you didn't know him from his movies, you'd know him from his telethons.

Turns out, though, I know him more from his telethons than from his movies.

Turns out, in fact, that I had not seen a single movie in which Jerry Lewis appeared. And as it turns out, that's a lot of movies. IMDB says he's appeared as an actor in 71 different titles, though some of those are TV shows, and some of them are as himself. Still, I should have gotten over my bias that he's a no-talent goofball, and watched at least one thing he was in, before now.

In fact, I'd say I know Lewis from two primary things about him: 1) His eye-crossing, goofball form of comedy is looked down upon by serious people, and 2) The French love him. The French loving Jerry Lewis is almost as famous as people hating anchovies on their pizza. Maybe that seems like a strange comparison, but consider the thing you know most about anchovies. It's that people don't want them on their pizza, right? I'd say the French loving Jerry Lewis, and being considered suspect because of it, has almost risen to become the primary thing people know about him -- at least among young people discovering him after his prime. It has far exceeded its status as trivia and become a defining part of what we know about Lewis. Here is what his wikipedia entry has to say about it:

"Lewis has long remained popular in Europe: he was consistently praised by some French critics in the influential magazine Cahiers du Cinema for his absurd comedy, in part because he had gained respect as an auteur who had total control over all aspects of his films, comparable to Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock. In March 2006, the French Minister of Culture awarded Lewis the Legion d'honneur, calling him the 'French people's favorite clown.' Liking Lewis has long been a common stereotype about the French in the minds of many English-speakers, and is often the object of jokes in Anglosphere pop culture."

Since I'm not the type of guy to kneejerk bash the French -- in fact, quite the opposite -- I decided to see if they were on to something.

At War With the Army (1950, Hal Walker)
Watched: Wednesday, March 7th
One sentence plot synopsis: A pair of old friends find themselves at odds and involved in a series of military base shenanigans when they enlist in the army and one is promoted above the other.
My thoughts on the film: It's no coincidence that I synopsized this as "a series of shenanigans." At War With the Army is so episodic in nature that I found it to be like a hurried season of a television show. And not a very good television show. This is one of the first Martin & Lewis movies, following only the two Irma movies (My Friend Irma and Irma Goes West), and it's considered to be their first starring vehicle. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised they were still trying to work out the kinks, or that the production design, photography, and everything else about this was so cheap, it seems like it should have been made at least ten years and probably more like 20 years earlier than it actually was. On the other hand, you could say it was the success of At War With the Army that allowed the pair to become box office stars (before Lewis eventually eclipsed the soused crooner in popularity and went off on his own). Still, this is Lewis at his most Lewis-like -- that awful, grating, high-pitched voice, those crossed eyes, those silly pratfalls. I'm glad Lewis matured, because I really hated this version of him. In fact, my favorite parts of the film involved the velvet-voiced Martin singing a couple of his beautiful standards from the time. Indeed, the film seems to exist primarily as a platform for his singing and takes on the structure of a variety hour for most of its 75-minute running time, before a bunch of loose threads abruptly coalesce in the third act. (Or perhaps I just wasn't paying close enough attention.) It was appropriate that I saw one Martin & Lewis movie for my Jerry Lewis month, but I'm glad I didn't choose to sit through another.

The Bellboy (1960, Jerry Lewis)
Watched: Sunday, March 11th
One sentence plot synopsis: Plot? What plot? A studio executive tells the viewer at the start that there is no plot, that this is just a series of silly happenings at a Miami hotel over the course of two weeks. (Sorry, that was three sentences, or four if you include this parenthetical statement.)
My thoughts on the film: Not unlike At War With the Army, this is also a highly episodic film that could also be described as Lewis at his most Lewis-like. However, this one I liked a lot better, in part because it indulges in a charming self-awareness that narrowly avoids being too cute for its own good. Ten years on from the first film I watched, Lewis has forged out on his own and become such a star that they are compelled to have some fun with his stardom in this movie. That's right, in addition to being a goofy bellboy named Stanley who never says anything (also a blessing), he also plays himself as a guest in the hotel, followed by a ridiculous team of handlers -- some 30 or 40 -- who all pile into the same elevator. (There are so many that Lewis gets to be first in as himself, and then last in as Stanley.) The scenes making fun of Lewis' stardom are hilarious, and there's also a guest appearance by Milton Berle playing himself -- and also playing a bellboy, which leads to a lot of nudging and winking. For the most part, though, the movie plays like a Hanna Barbera cartoon, with Stanley involved in a bunch of physical, dialogue-free shenanigans (there's that word again), some of which work and some of which don't. You can see where all those old cartoons got their ideas and vice versa -- one bit I'm thinking of in particular has Stanley being practical joked by a couple other bellboys, asked to go set up a massive room full of chairs for movie night, and improbably completing the task in about five minutes. You could totally see Bugs Bunny or The Road Runner doing that very same thing. Oh, and the hotel where it was shot -- the Fountainbleu on Miami Beach -- is wonderfully opulent and grandiose, making me feel nostalgic for an era of fancy hotels that I never got to experience myself. (Oh, and sorry to screw those of you who may have been watching along -- I said last month that I was going to watch The Nutty Professor, but had to switch it up to this when I saw Nutty Professor listed as "very long wait" on Netflix.)

The King of Comedy (1983, Martin Scorsese)
Watched: Saturday, March 24th
One sentence plot synopsis: An unhinged struggling comedian (Robert DeNiro) tries to gain his big break by kidnapping a popular host of a nighttime talk show (Jerry Lewis) and demanding an appearance on the show in exchange for the host's safe return.
My thoughts on the film: I'm surprised I haven't encountered The King of Comedy before, if only because Martin Scorsese directed it. (Then again, looking at Scorsese's resume, I see I've missed more of his features than I would have thought.) This film completes kind of the perfect career arc for a person in this series: While At War displayed his early work, and Bellboy was at his mid-career height, Comedy shows him in late career, when he's graduated to the phase of stunt casting. However, this is the Lewis I like best. As a Johnny Carson-type host, he's caustic and acerbic -- yet one can't blame him for his responses to these unusual set of stimuli, because DeNiro's Rupert Pupkin is essentially the jester version of Travis Bickle. Seriously, for a movie that has the word "comedy" in the title and is generally categorized as a comedy-drama, The King of Comedy is disarmingly disturbing from time to time -- Pupkin is pretty much as insane as Bickle, and you could say this film helped solidify the sense we have that DeNiro might actually be more scary when he's smiling. (Never mind that there's also a truly weird performance from Sandra Bernhardt as his conspirator.) Overall I find the film uneven, and there would be little doubt that it qualifies as "lesser Scorsese." Still, there are some great moments that really make it a sharp satire. Lewis in particular is a great strength of the film, totally underplaying every scene (which was a relief given the previous films I'd seen) and demonstrating a real knack for genuine dramatic acting. Maybe I need to seek out more late-career Lewis, when he only wanted to play against type.

Conclusion: Jerry Lewis is alright by me. In addition to being a really good person, he's had a dynamic career that includes both funny and not-so funny moments.

Favorite of the three: The King of Comedy

Okay, on to April. If you've thought my previous two Getting Aquainted subjects -- Preston Sturges before Lewis -- were a tad frivolous, I'll be getting back to some pretty serious territory next month, watching the films of Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. I'll start with The Passion of Joan of Arc and then expect to watch Day of Wrath and Ordet. It's tough to exclude Vampyr, but that comes only three years after The Passion of Joan of Arc, while the others are spread out later in his career. Besides, I feel like I've watched a lot of vampire movies during this series, especially last fall when I watched Horror of Dracula and The Vampire Lovers.

Maybe if I really love him I'll go back and watch Vampyr later. Hey, there's nothing to say I can't eventually watch a fourth movie by these folks.

A disproportionate amount of wrath

"Wrath" is not a word that comes up all that much in everyday conversation.

In movie titles? That's a different story.

The word "wrath" has a long history of appearing in movie titles, the most recent of which is Wrath of the Titans, which hits theaters today. At least, it appears in titles a lot more than its synonyms listed on thesaurus.com, some of which, granted, are too ungainly for the multiplex:

acrimony, asperity, boiling point, conniption, dander, displeasure, exasperation, flare-up, fury, hate, hatefulness, huff, indignation, ire, irritation, mad, madness, offense, passion, rage, resentment, rise, stew, storm, temper, vengeance.

This may not be the greatest list of synonyms -- in fact, "mad" is not even the same part of speech -- but it does help us identify a couple of the things that are so great about the word "wrath":

1) It's only a single syllable;
2) It's really fun to say.

Just say it out loud: "Wrath. Wrath." It's kind of cathartic just to say it, isn't it?

Filmmakers implicitly think so. Here's a list of other titles with the word "wrath" in them, by approximate order of my familiarity/affection for them:

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982, Nicholas Meyer)
Certainly my first introduction to the word "wrath," and boy did Ricardo Montalban sure personify it well. In fact, I remember when I first saw the title, I didn't know if "wrath" was a made-up word, just like "Khan." (A made-up word, a name, same difference.)

Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972, Werner Herzog)
If you lead a band of conquistadors through Peru in search of El Dorado, without an ounce of deference toward nature, your army or the locals, it will make God very, very angry at you. And you will be left dying on a raft overrun by monkeys.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940, John Ford)
Adapted from a John Steinbeck novel, so we can't really credit the word to studio execs. Probably the most famous instance of the word "wrath" to those people who don't describe themselves as Trekkies.

Day of Wrath (1943, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Don't know anything about this film, but I expect to soon, as my Getting Acquainted series will focus on Dreyer in April. A movie about witchcraft in 17th century Denmark. Sounds interesting.

Day of Wrath (2005, Adrian Rudomin)
Does not appear to be a remake of Dreyer's movie, though it's almost the same time period, taking place in the 16th century rather than the 17th. Set in Spain instead of Denmark. Stars Christopher Lambert. That last is probably all you need to know.

Wrath (1917, Theodore Marsten)
Is Theodore Marsten related to Carl Theodor Dreyer? Wait, that doesn't even make any sense.

The Wrath (2007, Julian Higgins)
It's a horror movie. That's all I can tell from Allmovie.com.

And here are some others in list form:

The Wrath of the Gods (1914, Reginald Barker)
Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (2006, Gerry Lively)
Days of Wrath (2008, Celia Fox)
Wrath of the Ninja: The Yotoden Movie (1989, Osamu Yamazaki)
Evil Bong 3: The Wrath of Bong! (Charles Band, 2011)
Wrath of Jealousy (1936, Alex Bryce and Campbell Gullan)
Apes of Wrath (1959, Friz Freleng)

And it goes on like this.

One thing this tells us is that there have been a lot of movies made, and that there are probably many words that have appeared in a higher number of titles than seems statistically likely.

But perhaps I notice the word "wrath" not so much because it appears more frequently than other colorful synonyms for more common words, but because it is such a good, such a fun word. And probably because I really, really love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Will that bring me out to the theaters this weekend to see Wrath of the Titans? Doubtful. I haven't even seen the original Clash of the Titans remake.

At least this one was shot in 3D. Because 2010's Clash of the Titans remake could have been titled Wrath of the Critics, given how much hatred was directed toward its hasty and ineffecutal 3D conversion.

Live Evil (2009)

MARCH 30, 2012

GENRE: VAMPIRE

SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Well, if you’re going to crib a bit from Near Dark, I guess it’s OK if you have one of the movie’s stars along for the ride, right? Tim Thomerson plays the hero in Live Evil, an upgrade from his supporting turn in that classic, but that won’t be the only time you’re reminded of it. It’s also (partially) set in the southwest, giving the film a Western vibe (Carpenter’s Vampires may also come to mind), and our primary group of villainous vampires are a similarly punk-ish group of immortals that are kind of a family unit who are also prone to bickering. There’s even a big car chase – not the sort of thing you usually see in a vampire movie.

But it’s got enough of its own ideas to give the familiarity a pass. The coolest idea is that the vampires are dying off because human blood is too polluted thanks to our lifestyles; the film opens with a typical massacre as a crazed vamp chick devours everyone in a diner, only to puke it all up because their blood is too tainted to digest. They then set off to find a blood dealer (Ken Foree) who has pure plasma. Thomerson is on their trail, aided by a girl he saves from an attack, which allows for the veteran actor to have some fun and have a few scattered fights throughout the movie as he closes in on the main group.

The pacing is a definite asset – there’s a lot going on and plenty of action to enjoy, and it’s all done practically (sigh of relief); beheadings are common and there’s even a vampire baby (“They’re the worst,” explains Thomerson), plus some bonus nudity and lots and lots of fake blood being tossed around. And Foree’s role may be too brief compared to Thomerson (they’re given equal billing on the poster), but he’s having a grand old time and makes the most of his 10 minutes or so. In fact most of the actors seem to be enjoying themselves; Thomerson’s female partner was the only weak link, saddled with some of the movie’s dumbest dialogue and an inane twist near the end.

Unfortunately, the movie has a pretty major flaw – it resembles a 12 dollar student production from start to finish. The locations are clearly just the homes of producers and such (never knew vampires had such great DVD collections!), they drive boring everyday cars (the vamps roll in a Chevy Cavalier!), etc. The movie was shot over a six month period (mostly on weekends, from what I understand), and it definitely shows – there’s a disjointed feel to the movie throughout, and a lot of “Fake Shemping” that is pretty obvious. Lot of film school level mistakes too – you can hear the camera whirring more often than not.

And yes, whirring – that means film! Super 16 to be exact, which was a wonderful surprise. Unfortunately it looks like shit on this piss-poor DVD transfer, which is non-anamorphic and as lo-res as they come. The image often resembled a quickly compressed output from an Avid that was made before the film was actually finished, which is a shame as it will likely be mistaken for consumer grade video by some viewers – you can only really tell/appreciate that it’s film on still exterior shots during the day, which are unsurprisingly not too common. Hopefully they will go back and output the movie properly for a re-release someday; it’s bad enough there are so few movies being shot on film nowadays – it’s PAINFUL to see one of them get such a shoddy presentation.

The DVD is pretty jam-packed, which probably didn’t help the disc's “bit budget” much either. There’s footage from the film’s presence at a Fangoria convention in 2009 (I was at that one!), a handful of deleted scenes, some behind the scenes on the stunt scenes, a short film (and an intro to said short film), and the trailer, all totaling around 40 minutes or so. None of it is particularly essential, though the short is a surprisingly solid dramatic piece about Vietnam, and the deleted scenes are worth a look with director Jay Woelfel’s commentary, as he has plenty to say about their creation as well as the reasons for their removal (as opposed to some directors who only offer the latter). Woelfel is joined on the feature commentary (buried in the setup menu) by two of the actors, and it’s a pretty lively track as they go into great detail about various production problems (all of that obvious doubling is explained, not always flatteringly), point out a few continuity issues, how they pulled off some of the stunts and FX, etc. They come off a bit crass at times (discussing “titties” at one point), but it never goes silent, and anyone hoping to pull off an ambitious horror feature of their own with limited funds might learn a thing or two.

With so many movies out there that have not a single original idea in their head, it’s always nice to see one that brings something fresh to the table. It’s a shame that the movie often resembles something that I’d find on the Decrepit Crypt budget pack – with some actual money behind it this could have been a really kickass little movie. Instead it’s just something that may require an overdose of total shit to appreciate what it does offer; those who rarely dip into the indie/DTV horror landscape will likely just write it off as a waste of time. A shame really; everyone should appreciate Thomerson kicking a little ass regardless of the production value. Definitely worth a look for indie/vamp enthusiasts, but the crudeness may be a bit hard to ignore.

What say you?

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Worth Mentioning - Teacher, Leave Them Kids Alone

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.

Cody speaks out of school after digging for treasure.


Last week, I was a man on a mission. A post by Oh-the-Horror's Brett Gallman on the F13 Community board brought to my attention the existence of this:

Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College, Chopping Mall, Slaughter High, C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D., 976-Evil 2, Class of 1999, The Unholy, and Waxwork, all in one collection. 8 movies for $5 at WalMart.

Recently, I've really lost my passion for collecting movies. Except for very special new releases that I have to get the day they come out, I don't buy much anymore. I've always been frugal, lately I've become downright cheap, handing over money causes me actual physical discomfort. So after realizing that I hardly ever watch most of the movies in my collection, I'm not in a hurry to add much to it. Most movies that I want, I figure I'll just get them eventually, when they're as cheap as possible. But when I saw this collection, it reignited the old collecting passion. I had to have this immediately. I already owned Waxwork, in a double feature release with its sequel, but seven out of eight is enough.

I searched a WalMart, digging through the $5 movie bins for nearly hour, but had no success. The next day, I drove around to two other WalMarts and dug through more bins. Again, no luck. I ended up spending a lot of time and gas, and almost $100 on other random DVDs I encountered in my search, but the set with the matriculating Ghoulies eluded me.

So I took to eBay, and at first the only copy on there was being offered by someone who wanted $70 for it. That wasn't going to happen. But then a copy went up for $27, shipping included. This was $22 more than it would've been if I had found it in a store, but I was willing to pay that much extra to save myself from spending any more time desperately digging through WalMart bins.

To complete franchises, through eBay and Amazon I also bought the first 976-Evil, a double feature of Ghoulies/Ghoulies II, and a double feature of Prom Night/Ghoulies IV... that one's a very odd, unexpected pairing, and that makes me all the happier to own it. Here's the full Ghoulies collection in the new home that I've given them:

Several of the movies in the set of 8 will end up being mentioned on the blog at some point in the future, but since my search for the set was over by Friday and I found myself in the presence of Pam Grier at the Horrorhound Weekend convention in Columbus, OH on Sunday, I figured the first one that I would write about would be -

CLASS OF 1999 (1990)

This film from Mark L. Lester gives us a look into the frightening future, the year 1999. American high schools were overrun by violent youth gangs over the course of the '90s, the gangs branching out and taking over large sections of several cities around the country. Many schools within gang territories were shut down, and the areas controlled by the gangs became known as Free-Fire Zones, where no law dare enter. Now "the Department of Educational Defense has been formed to re-open the schools and control the gangs."

Kennedy High in Seattle is taking an experimental approach. Imprisoned gang members are being paroled to go to school, so in addition to the armed guards stationed around the premises, Kennedy High's Principal (Malcolm McDowell) has turned to the robotics specialists at Megatech - represented by a silver eyed, white rattail sporting Stacy Keach - to provide them with three one million megabyte cyborgs to place in the classrooms. These cyborgs will teach, but are also programmed to discipline students if they get out of hand. Physically discipline with their enhanced strength, if necessary. The most problematic students will be assigned to their classes. As the cyborg teachers we have Patrick Kilpatrick (history and phys ed), who I always remember as the villain in Scanner Cop II; John P. Ryan (history) of It's Alive; and badass blaxploitation beauty Pam Grier (chemistry).

One of the parolees being released into the student body is Cody Culp (a hero named Cody!), played by Bradley Gregg (Stand by Me and Nightmare on Elm Street 3.) Cody's home life is no great shakes, he's caught up in tussles between his former gang the Blackhearts and their rivals the Razorheads, his family is strung out on a new drug called Edge, and his friend and younger brother (Darren E. Burrows of Northern Exposure and Joshua Miller of Near Dark) are also caught up in gang life. He has no intention of returning to prison, he just wants to play by the rules, stay out of trouble, and hopefully save his loved ones from themselves. Life gets even more complicated than he imagined when the cyborg teachers escalate their disciplinary measures to beating the hell out of students and then even killing troublemakers. Something's wrong here, and it's up to Cody and his love interest/the Principal's daughter Christie (Traci Lin) to stop it.

Soon the teachers fully switch over to military mode (they were originally designed as BattleDroids), and even replace their limbs with claws, rocket launchers and flamethrowers as they wage war on the Blackhearts and Razorheads.

This is an entertaining platter of cheese with a good cast and some awesome lines of dialogue: "A mind is a precious thing to waste, Cody, don't make me waste yours!" - "You trust him?" "Yeah, like a vampire giving me a blowjob." - "Inside this school are three inhuman teaching monsters" - the teachers are referred to as a "George Jetson nightmare." It's not a standout like those, but something about the way Joshua Miller, always a unique screen presence, asks "Wanna shoot some hoops?" had a friend and I asking each other that for days after a mid-'90s viewing on cable.

Class of 1999 is sort of a spiritual follow-up to director Lester's 1982 movie Class of 1984, but there is no direct connection, they just both deal with gangs in school. The screenplay for '99, based on Lester's story, was written by C. Courtney Joyner, a Full Moon regular who I'm a fan of from his work on Puppet Master III and Trancers III.

Looking at Mark L. Lester's IMDb page, seeing his directorial credits, which also include Firestarter and three movies that I watched repeatedly throughout childhood - Commando, Armed and Dangerous, Showdown in Little Tokyo - and the fact that he's a fellow Ohio boy, I'm starting to think that this guy should be one of my heroes.

Since the collection that Class of 1999 is in also provides me with a DVD copy of the April Fool's Day slasher Slaughter High, I will be watching that this Sunday, in a double feature with the film that I consider to be required viewing on April 1st, April Fool's Day (1986), starring awesome Valley Girl Deborah Foreman.

Guilty Pleasure- The Mad (2007)

Every now and then we come across a movie that we really shouldn't like, but end up loving. Alright, maybe not loving, but liking. Such is the case with the 2007 Canadian Virus/Infected flick, The Mad.

These days, anything starring Billy Zane gives us pause; the guy used to star in some great movies, but seems to have gone the route of starring in any b-movie script that comes his way. We're cool with that. He should work as often as possible and make as much $$$ as he can. He's earned a lifetime of credit with us for his work in Demon Knight alone. If we're being honest though, some of this movies like Leprechaun's Revenge or The Kill Hole don't exactly scream quality to us, you know? The Kill Hole... based on title alone that movie is begging to be reviewed by us.

The Mad is the story of a Father and Daughter being attacked by some infected style zombies, and some evil, organic hamburger patties. You see, the local grown beef is tainted with some crazy virus that makes people go Mad when they eat it. Also, the beef, when in patty form, will latch onto someones face and try to kill them. Sound crazy? Well, it's Canadian, so that goes without saying.

When good hamburger goes bad.

This is a cheesy, goofy, ridiculous horror comedy that spoofs the whole Virus/Infected Zombie genre. It's saved from completely sucking by some good production values, and some fun acting by the cast. Chief amongst them is of course Billy Zane, who turned what should have been an embarrassing role, into one that was fun as all hell. In all fairness, it may still be embarrassing, but you know what, it was still fun.

The hot as Canadian-sin Maggie Castle plays his daughter, and not only is she nice to look at, but she's pretty funny herself. You can catch her on the Canadian TV show Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, which is playing on Fearnet right now! Like right this minute, we think. The equally hot Jordan Madely is in this too, and we've loved her ever since seeing her in 5ive Girls, which oddly enough was another of our guilty pleasures.Maybe it's Canada that is the true guilty pleasure.

We should probably mention Shauna MacDonald next, but instead we're going to give some love to a guy named Rothaford Gray.If you look at his name, it looks as if his parents could have been trend setters and not even known it. These days, you get all kinds of guys running around calling each other Broham or Broseph... a practice which makes us wish that Frat Boys would be banned from society and deemed a danger to society. Well, if you add a "B" to Rothaford's name, you get Brothaford. Saying "What's up, Brothaford?" seems a lot less ginky than the other "Bro" greetings. Why? Because white people suck at sounding cool and making up good slang. You know I'm right. Aside from the cool name, Rothaford was pretty fun in this flick too. Still, it's the name that puts him over the top.

Don't ever call him Brothaford in person. He doesn't like it.

Of course if you don't like cheesy, tongue-in-cheek Canadian humor, then this movie will do nothing for you. It really is all crazy stupid, whether in a fun way or not. So I guess, just beware.

There's plenty of blood and gore all throughout this one; blood sprays, people are bitten, heads are severed, the infected are shot, stabbed and otherwise messily dispatched. It's a humorous flick, but it doesn't go lightly on the messy business.

It's Goreific!

Aside from some implied oral hi-jinks and an older man caught romancing a blow up doll, there's no dirty stuff to be found here. It's a shame, really, because the movie definitely had some potential for hot chick nakedness. At least we got to see Maggie Castle all sweaty and scantily clad... and in pigtails.

She is a sassy misbehaver!

The one with the crazy bouncing head, or, the whole hamburger patty attack sequence. For our money, both are equally rewarding.

That's exactly the reaction we had.

When the mood strikes and we find ourselves in desperate need for some wacky, zany, crazy horror comedy that will make us smile and forget how horrible most other cheap horror flicks are, The Mad is just the type of flick we seek out. Good horror comedies are a true rarity, and this one pretty much delivers the goods. We're not saying it's LOL funny, but it is amusing and goofy enough to earn out affection. Plus, hot Canadian chicks.

As it turns out, Canadian chicks are quite pleasant to look at. Also, the Shauna MacDonald in this movie is not the Shauna MacDonald from The Descent. Who knew there were two of them?