Brassknuckle Sandwich Reviews

Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment (1985 Video)

This film sucks

[1/10 · 27 November 2001]

On the suck-o-meter, this movie pushes the limits even beyond the late 80's trashpile of American straight-to-video movies. Never before has a film so undeserving of ever being made been created simply for the sake of playing with a video-cam.

This was the *film* of notoriety on the alt.horror newsgroup, whose opinions, after recommending this type of crap, should seriously be called into question. That this vile bucket of putrescence made it beyond the nearest toilet that it deserved to have been flushed down, makes me think that fans of this film have issues that need to be dealt with by incarceration, shock treatment, and liberal doses of thorazine.

Fortunately, this was a rental -- Unfortunately, I can never reclaim the 30 minutes wasted watching this. Guinea Pig is followed by several sequels which will never see the light of day in my VCR or DVD player.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

Weird, wacky, and, well, weird

[8/10 · 27 November 2001]

Weird is a term used often in the user comments for Tetsuo, and for good reason: This film is WEIRD. Utterly surreal, with no grounding whatsoever in anything remotely conceived as reality, this disjointed, disturbing film jerkily gallops along at a madcap pace from start to finish. If the director had a message he was trying to get across, it is lost forever under piles of wires, bolts, screws, and scrap metal. Go figure...

Dracula's Last Rites (1980)

This Dracula should have been staked

[1/10 · 19 November 2001]

It's not often that you find a movie vigorously contending for the coveted, "Worst in it's own Genre" award, but if there is such an award, then that would have to go, hands down, to Dracula's Last Rites.

Low budget horror films are a staple of the genre, and films such as Dead Alive, Bad Taste, Evil Dead, and Halloween have proven that it can be done with style. Dracula's Last Rites, on the other hand, show that low budget horror films can also be done without style, taste, substance, and with actors more wooden than Pinocchio.

To summarize this film, vampires in a small Mid-Western town take up residence in the local mortuary where they stage "accidents" to cover up for their bloody thirsts. Some unintenionally funny moments arise when the mother of the hero is bitten and turned into a vampire - badly fitted vampire teeth and poor make-up gives her a startling resemblance to Roddy McDowall in a fright wig, and her acting "skills" only serve to egg on the fits of laughter.

As a camp film, Dracula's Last Rites cannot be rated any higher than 2.5 out of 5, while as a straight horror film, it drops off any measurable scale.

Revenge (1986 Video)

A yawn a minute

[1/10 · 18 November 2001]

Shot for $5 and some change in a dirt lot in someone's backyard, this straight to video film about a cult of somesuch or another has undeservedly made its way to DVD. "How", I ask? Did enough people actually watch this sub-mediocre production to warrant taking the time and energy to transfer it to a digital medium?

Count me among the guilty for having rented this back in the 80's, when straight to video had begun to glut the market with piles of these forgettable "horror" films. Count yourself among the fore-warned if you manage to read this in time to prevent renting the DVD, or worse, buying it.

Outside of the slick cover, there's nothing else in between, but if you won't take my word for, read some of the other user comments before proceeding with wasting your money.

Blood Suckers from Outer Space (1984)

Blood Suckers: Bad, in a fun way

[8/10 · 18 November 2001]

Blood Suckers from Outer Space was one of those films that you knew you shouldn't rent, but couldn't help yourself. "It can't be all bad", you say to yourself, "Can it?"

The answer is no. Is the dialogue wanting? Yes. Was this a dime budget Z-grade horror flick? Yes. Would anyone notice if the actors were replaced with cardboard cutouts? No.

The difference between this film, and say, some of the bigger budget stinkers, is that all involved were seriously trying to make a good horror movie, and it shows. Laughably, but it shows, and it makes this over the top, campy, zombie flick an immensely enjoyable party film that gets better the deeper you get into the 12 pack sitting in the cooler.

It's been some time since I've dusted off the cover of the video and popped it in the VCR, but perhaps tonight I'll give it a spin for old times sake.

Boogeymen: The Killer Compilation (2001 Video)

Leaping Leprechauns

[1/10 · 12 November 2001]

Wow! That's all I can say about the new Boogeymen DVD, roughly 50 something minutes of footage culled from various horror movies of the past, despite the "Over 3 hours of Entertainment" proudly displayed on the box.

Of course, 2 hrs. of this is comprised of a brain dead trivia game, which, when played on a DVD player not attached to your computer, is as much fun as a trip to Corbin Bersen's "Dentist".

A movie that had the potential to be an excellent documetary, along with the requisite footage, instead becomes a tacky, hour-long display of movie trailer material with a little gore thrown in to keep the viewer from slipping into a coma before the DVD runs out.

I found myself fast forwarding through a large number of the scenes, including the one with Warwick Davis on a pogo stick. I consider Leprechaun to be up there in pantheon of horror movie villians right alongside bad guys from the Scooby Doo cartoon series (which is infinitely more watchable). Of course, to keep it "hip", I get treated to a scene from a film that I avoided like Medieval peasants avoided the Black Plague, the Mrs. Gordon's fisherman from "I Know What you Did Last Summer."

If I could rate this com-pile-ation any lower than a 1, I would do so without hesitation, but will grant it a 1 on the basis that it will make a nice beer coaster while I'm kicking back to watch one of my Argento flicks.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)

Stop or Else there will Be a Sequel

[1/10 · 10 November 2001]

I'm a self-admitted lover of cheese films: in other words, I am a cinematic masochist with a threshold for celluloid pain that would give Ah-nold's Terminator a run for the money, but 'Stop, or my Mom will Shoot' is painful in a way that a shot of morphine, a handful of codeine, and a dozen shots of whiskey cannot overcome.

Speaking of the Terminator, there are very few stars whose careers could survive a beating like the one dished out by 'Stop, or my Mom will Shoot', but Stallone survived long enough to resurrect his career with Demolition Man and Cliffhanger. The rest of the cast was not so fortunate, and since then has only been seen on milk cartons under the caption, "Have you seen me?".

Imagine my disappointment in finding that this turkey managed, somehow, to escape the bottom 100 list, despite being widely acknowledged as one of the worst attempts at comedy since Police Academy 6. That this steaming pile rates a 3.1 makes me question whether or not the online voters have been subjected to lobotomies or their minds were so severely damaged by this film that they are no longer capable of making sound decisions.

The Astro-Zombies (1968)

A Bomb, not 'Tha Bomb'

[1/10 · 7 November 2001]

Astro-Zombies truly deserves it's ranking among the bottom 100 in movie history, but at #42, it surely can't be low enough.

Camp films draw me like iron filings to a magnet, so, naturally, I'll buy and enjoy films that give others acid indigestion at the mere mention of the title. Plan 9 from Outer Space has an honored space amongst my DVD collection, and is thoroughly watchable for the lamentable (un)special effects - If Laughter is good medicine, indeed, then Plan 9 must cure any number of ailments.

Astro-Zombies is the flipside to Plan 9. This is a bad film that is irredeemably bad, a bottom feeder in the lowest sense of the word, worthy of note only that others may avoid the mistake of purchasing the predecessor of the 'Straight to Video' crapola that flooded the American video rental market during the 80's.

The so-called plot, if there is one, has something to do with resurrecting corpses through use of a brain wave machine of some sort or another ... ah, hell, I couldn't stay interested long enough to give a damn, between the elderly Carradine's lame Frankenstein impersonation to the 'cheese grater on the ear drums' sound effects, I didn't last long enough, or care enough, to see the outcome.

That Astro-Zombies lives on as a cult film gives me pause to consider the mental state of those who give certain flicks their cult status.