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Reviews
Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988)
Fun with Frogs
Just saw this one last night. Very goofy. After nuclear war, most people are either dead or sterile. Roddy Piper (Sam Hell) is Shanghai'd by the new govt to go around impregnating those women who are still fertile. They slap a male chastity belt on him and tell him "it's government equipment now." There's also some psycho army guy who's really cheesed that women are in charge of so many things now. (This was made in 1987. I checked, because this guy seemed to belong in 1887.) The army women drive around in cars painted Mary Kay pink.
Then they have to go rescue a bunch of fertile women who are being held prisoner in Frogtown. By frogs. Seriously. A bunch of people in frog masks/gloves run the place. Apparently, frogmen arose instantly as a result of radiation. (May I remind you... 1987. Hello???!?!) Anyway, the head frog is called Toady. Really.
There's bad acting and cheesy sets galore. I have no idea why this is rated R. (Oh, 1987.) They talk about impregnating women/sex a lot, but we see a total of 2 breasts for about 2 seconds. There are also a few scantily-clad, but completely-covered bimbo scenes. I get the feeling that they originally intended this to be a late-night-cine max kind of thing, then just went for campy comedy instead. As a female, this decision is not disappointing to me, but male viewers may feel cheated. :)
According to Netflix, this film "spawned two sequels." Why?? Did this actually make money???? Well, it looks like it was shot in Agua Dulce for about $10,000 so maybe it did. Was this a straight to video, or did it have a theatrical run? Anyone know?
Alone in the Dark (2005)
Askance at the Abskani
I am not sure when the IMDb summary was written. Or maybe I zoned out during the film...but the plot summary only kinda-sorta-maybe-a-little-more-like-not-much describes what i saw. "Evil queen"? "Genius anthropologist with an incredible memory"? "The Abskani are planning on coming back to life in the 21st century to once again take over the world"? NONE of these things were in the movie I just experienced. Very odd.
The movie opens with a prologue, read aloud:
"In 1967, mine workers discovered the first remnants of a long lost native American civilization - the abkani. The Abkani believed there are two worlds on this planet: a world of light and a world of darkness. 10,000 years ago, the abkani opened a gate between these worlds.
Before they could close it, something evil slipped through. The Abkani mysteriously vanished from the earth. Only a few artifacts remained, hidden in the world's most remote places. These artifacts speak of terrifying creatures that thrive in the darkness, waiting for the day when the gate can be opened again. Bureau 713, the government's paranormal research agency, was established to uncover the dark secrets of this lost civilization. Under the direction of archaeologist Lionel Hudgens, bureau 713 began collecting Abkani artifacts.
When the government shut down his controversial research, Hudgens built a laboratory hidden within an abandoned gold mine. There, he conducted savage experiments on orphaned children in an attempt to merge man with creature. Hudgens' victims survived as "sleepers" - lost souls awaiting the moment of their calling."
Okaaaay....the person I was watching this with turned to me and said "What the BLEEP!?" only he didn't say BLEEP..
Basically what follows is a movie that has fight elements like "Kill Bill" (including the image of a slow-mo bullet fired and leaving the barrel), "Stargate" TV series (with little centipede creatures attached to spines), creatures straight from "The Relic" (even going as far to grab a head and...well...kill) and Aliens (a hoard of them hanging along the walls and coming to live) and an ending that echoes "Resident Evil".
I am trying to remember when anyone was actually ALONE in the dark, and can only come up with the guard who is creeping around a dark room...it qualifies, I suppose, since the main characters aren't with him but actually in the next room over. Oh wait no, there IS that nasty little creature with him. So no, he is not alone in the dark. That would be a good name for this movie. "Not Alone in the Dark". Or perhaps "Alone in the Dark Except for that THING". It couldn't hurt the movie any. And really, I mean that. This film could NOT be hurt.
There is a moment when some orphans turn into zombies and attack soldiers and museum curators (it seemed to kinda make sense at the time). Brad Dorff points a gun at Christian Slater saying he knows he is an infected orphan! Lucky for Christian he was electrocuted as a child. So he is NOT infected. This is proved to everyone's satisfaction when he shoots a zombie. Everyone gives him a hug and we learn the true meaning of Christmas. Just kidding!
Christian Slater goes to his old orphanage to tell a nun his orphan mates are missing. "It's happening again!" she says. It is? Unless it was pre-empted by the opening narrating scroll of words I didn't see it. Or perhaps it is just to emphasize the horror of missing orphans that will turn into zombies that attack soldiers and museum curators. Oh the humanity!
Then there was that weird episode when they descended into the "well" onto a pit of sand that was filled with slithering snake like creatures. So they all screamed a lot and danced around and shot at the sand. Of course there were some rock ledges they could have stood on to avoid the snakes, but I guess the visual of people standing on ledges to shoot snakes in sand is too much like watching people shoot fish in a barrel. Which, on something like The 700 Club would liven things up a bit. But in a horror movie... Wow. Hey and now that I have (kinda) trashed the movie I suddenly want to see it again.
I think I will skip the intro tho.
Cobra (1986)
Cobra still bites
One of my all time favorite go-bad-it's-good flicks; Stallone action vehicle COBRA (1986). Well, one man's action-packed thrill ride movie is another man's giggle-fest, I suppose. And I am that giggler. There is just so much to laugh at here.
Stallone at his mumbliest: "You're da disease.... and I'm da cure."
He's a cop who drives his own custom chop-shop hot rod on the job. OK, he's undercover. Still... do a lot of cops do that? I bet he parks it next to the little trailer on the beach that Mel Gibson lives in, in LETHAL WEAPON. You know; because he's so poor all he can afford is LA beach front to park his trailer at. But I digress...
Back to COBRA. The bad guys are this huge cult of axe-wielding, drug addicted, bulked-up, profusely sweating, *chanting* psychos with a maniac stare. A whole raft of them, each so choked with crime-loving, law-hating rage 24/7 that it's all they can do to spit cop hating sentences out from between their clenched teeth. If I saw just one guy like this in a movie, I would probably get a chuckle. But THE WHOLE GANG IS LIKE THAT. Excuse me, did anyone happen to see my suspense of disbelief around here? I seem to have lost it. I must have dropped it when I was laughing.
This same bunch of uber-bad guys are always several steps ahead of the cops (except for Cobra, natch). OK, they have a spy in the police feeding them info. Even so, this bunch of barely cognizant, drug maniac psychos (see above paragraph) have a covert spy and command network that surpasses anything LAPD can manage. They pull off operations that would put the Impossible Missions Force to shame. Yet they can cannot so much speak, as growl. They find time to do all this in between lengthy sessions of lovingly slow knife sharpening work, and crazed group chanting about the joy of doing crime. Amazing.
A fun perk; we get to watch Stallone crank up a screen romance with on-other than ex-wifey-poo-to-be Brigitte Nielsen. Which with hindsight, we can appreciate as a symbolically bad move, what with Sly and Brigitte destined for a well publicized real-life divorce a year>or so latter. When the kissy scenes start, join me in my worse Burgess Meredith, cigar-chomping impersonation; "DON'T DO KID! SHE'S POISON! SHE'LL BREAK YER HEAAAAART!" Oh, the tragic irony.
So anyway, one crime leads to another, people get killed, Cobra gets lectured by his gruff boss about following procedure, delivers rants about the uselessness of the court system and extols the virtues of vigilante-cop justice, yada yada. It's been a while and I'm embarrassed to say that I don't actually remember if we get to hear his boss bark the hallowed demand; "Your gun and your badge!" Maybe Cobra just tosses his badge without waiting to be asked, I forget. Shoot, I can't remember if there was any badge tossing going on at all. It's merged into a blur with all the other maverick cop flicks.
Things wind up with Brigitte and Sly hiding out in farm country, but soon chased on foot through an orange grove. In the middle of, and let me emphasize, the ORANGE GROVE, is a old corrugated-metal building. So... in the middle of farm country, in the middle of an orange grove, the pair are pursued into the old metal building, inside of which is... No, it's not a orange crating warehouse! What were you thinking? It's a deserted factory with huge furnaces and foundry-like thingys! Sheesh, weren't you paying attention? I said it was in a orange grove; so of course it's a foundry. Orange warehouse, yeah right...
A baddie shoots the lone security guard and a few stray bullets hit a control panel, naturally firing up the entire shebang to full>throttle. Oh, and what a factory it is! Flames spew into the isles from every piece of machinery such that you can barely turn around without risk of incineration. Automated hooks traverse the hellish place, unencumbered by guard rails or safety devices. It's the factory that OSHA forgot! Well, THAT'S WHY THEY PUT IT IN AN ORANGE GROVE! Who's gonna look for a foundry there? What product do they make in this orange grove factory? We see no sign of it. I'm thinking; orange juicers?
The final glorious battle and mini-debate between good and evil transpires. The biggest baddest of the uber-thugs literally spits out his contempt for the law, and is duly met by Cobra's mumble finale. Cobra is victorious of course in this the ultimate battle of the speech impaired. Cobra sees to it that the spit-hulk's arguments go right up in flames, so to speak. Cobra makes amends with his LAPD bureaucratic nemesis by punching him to the ground, and all is well. As the aroma of barbecued maniac fills the air, Sly rides off happily with... Brigitte?!!! "Noooooooo! Kid, I'm begging' ya! SHE'S POISON I TELLS YA! POISON!"
I laugh out loud every time I see this movie. It's a masterpiece of action/maverick-cop cliché.
Titicut Follies (1967)
A tremendous film
Just seen this on DVD and this must be Wiseman's best film - I can see why it caused such an uproar when it first came out! The impression it leaves is indelible and no one who sees it will forget the scenes it contains. There's a lot of unsettling stuff but ultimately the whole rotten system of 'treatment' stands accused without a single diatribe or the heavy handed Michael Moore touch we are used to today.. This sort of remarkable film should be seen far and wide although I can see how it will not be to everyone's taste, as it is a very uncomfortable ride.. understandably the photography is a bit grainy and jumpy in the cineme verite style, but after a few scenes with the unfortunates and Wiseman's skills one forgets/forgives all shortcomings.
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)
A new stake in the dark
Jesus Christ - If there is one thing that the Son of God is good at, it is banishing vampires.
Mary Magnum - Her motorcycle outfit is one of the wonders of the modern world.
El Santos - The Mexican superhero wrestler! Obviously he earned his small plane certification at some point.
Gloria Oddbottom - Santos' assistant (or something). She gets her butt squeezed; a lot.
Father Alban - He has one of the more extreme hairstyles ever attributed to a priest. Munched.
Dr. Praetorious - Pioneer in the art of grafting lesbian skin onto vampires to protect them from sunlight. Christ pays him a visit.
Johnny Golgotha - Before becoming a vampire he used to work for Domino's Pizza. Turned to ash.
Maxine Shreck - The head female vampire, a royal pain in the neck. Hahaha! Ahhh! No hit! No hit!
Father Eustace - Looks like the man who played Christ in Madonna's "Like a Prayer" video, but in this movie he is a vampire. Could Madonna be one of the erotic undead? It would explain a lot of things. Turned to ash.
Jesus is a stalker.
Christ has powerful kung fu and even a special style.
Vampires cannot swim.
Thirty-six people can fit into a jeep.
The Son of God has to be careful about what T-shirt he wears.
Christ is not as good at playing "mercy" as you would expect.
Drum sticks, canes, crutches, and even toothpicks are lethal to vampires.
Rasputin was born again and eventually became an evangelist.
Dodging intestines is a heck of a way to spend an afternoon.
Jesus (1999)
God save us
To say that this Jesus blew righteous chunks is to insult the blowing of chunks everywhere. Hubby and I lasted five minutes with the bad Jesus movie, during which time we groaned, we laughed, we mocked the production values. I know you're dying of curiosity, so let me just highlight a few aspects of Really Bad Jesus Movies and How to Avoid Them.
1. "Holy" does not equal "Constipated." Bear this in mind while watching.
2. If the actor's idea of Jesus involves a lot of turning his face into the light and attempting to look "beatific" WHILE playing the Son of God as an irrevocably constipated surfer-dude, change the channel.
3. A man whose personal charisma induced people to fundamentally change their lives and beliefs probably didn't deliver his sermons like Al Gore on 'ludes. Also, see #1 above for further clarification.
4. If the production values for the Walking on Water scene resemble something filmed in your bathtub, change the channel. Also, if the Walking on Water scene reminds you of the old Cars video for "It's Magic," just give up and go to bed.
5. I am fairly certain that the inhabitants of the Holy Land did not punctuate every utterance by either flailing their arms, rolling their eyes beseechingly heavenward, or dropping to their knees.
6. Overwrought soundtrack? Why yes, yes it is. NEXT!
7. Lots of eyeliner = visual shorthand for morally compromised. See: Mary Magdalene and Judas. It makes you want to yell at the screen: "No, Jesus! Don't trust him! Don't you see he's just a shill for Mary Kay? This can only end badly!"
8. Language--for folks brought up with the King James version, hearing classic Biblical quotes spoken as, "you have little faith," makes you long for Aramaic.
9. The soft focus and back lighting. Please. It's just too Touched By An Angel to be taken seriously. Holy. We GET IT.
10. Repeat after me: Jesus? Not a hippy. I know he wore robes and sandals and had longish hair and a beard, but there's a difference between period-appropriate costuming and hippie wear. The former actually involves some grooming.
There. I hope my list will be helpful to you, particularly in the two weeks before Easter, when Jesuses (Jesii?) will be everywhere. Watch at your own risk.
God Told Me To (1976)
Schlock Happy
"God Told Me To" is in many ways Larry Cohen's best picture, which probably isn't saying all that much to people unaccustomed to the confines of schlock cinema. Viewers who never watch anything that doesn't play at the local Cineplex will look upon this picture with a sense of mounting dread over the low production values and haphazard plot lines. I, however, am the Queen of Bad Cinema, and my realm contains a round table where Sir Cohen sits with Lord Herschell Gordon Lewis, Baron William Castle, and Sir Roger Corman of New Concorde. I can take the offering that is "God Told Me To" and pronounce it good and godly. And I will, because Michael Moriarty appears nowhere in this film. Cohen seems to have a thing for the squirrelly actor of "Law & Order" fame, casting him in at least three of his major works--"The Stuff," "Q: The Winged Serpent," and "It's Alive." After anxiously looking around for Moriarty's name anywhere near this film and not seeing it, I settled in for what I hoped would become a wonderful experience.
Although far from perfect, "God Told Me To" is immensely entertaining. Did I mention I don't care much for Michael Moriarty? Here's a movie any B-movie fan can really sink his or her teeth into. Imagine New York City in the 1970s (I know, it's unpleasant, but do it anyway). The streets bustle with activity as people drive, walk, and ride their bikes to various destinations. Why, look there! Here comes a chap peddling along without a care in the world! Then we hear a shot ring out and the poor guy does a header into the pavement. Do angels ride bicycles? Anyway, more shots ring out and more people tumble to the pavement, presumably incapable of ever rising again. It looks like some guy channeling Charles Whitman is up on a wooden water tower playing target practice. Fortunately, tough cop Peter Nicholas (Tony Lo Bianco) assumes the highly dangerous task of talking the hunter down. He fails spectacularly, but before he does the gunman tells Nicholas that "God told me to" murder all of these people. This cop will continue to hear this phrase in the coming days after a devoted father slaughters his family, after a police officer (Andy Kaufman!) goes off the deep end during a parade, and after a few other highly unpleasant incidents unfold in the Big Apple. In other words, what we see happening here is just a typical day in New York City. What's the big deal? Well, Larry Cohen isn't content to merely let his movie founder in the degradation of the typical police thriller genre. No sir! What starts out as a series of seemingly unconnected crimes turns out to be something so sinister that the human mind boggles while attempting to conceive of it. Turns out Nicholas is a highly devote Catholic with a wife (Sandy Dennis) and a young girlfriend (Deborah Raffin) who feels as though he's different from everyone else. The whole "god told me to" thing finds the detective discovering exactly why he never seemed to fit in. His investigation into the crimes turns up reports of an immaculate conception years before, a shadowy cult that worships some nut named Bernard Phillips (Richard Lynch), and Mason Adams playing an obstetrician. Then things get really weird. Nicholas tracks down a woman who tells him a story he would rather not hear, complete with on screen flashbacks, about an alien abduction that took place years ago. Again, this type of stuff is par for the course in New York City, but you wouldn't know it by watching Detective Peter Nicholas's reaction. He races out of the building on a quest to track down the enigmatic Bernard Phillips, with good reason. The very future of the human race could well depend on our hero putting a stop to the supernatural shenanigans going on in his beloved city. Wow!
I'm not quite sure what to make of "God Told Me To." The film doesn't fit in any single cinematic genre, so I'm not sure it would appeal to fans of pure cop dramas, or pure science fiction, or pure apocalyptic films. You sort of need to transcend boundaries with this movie or you'll only end up liking chunks of it. I do think that Tony Lo Bianco did a wonderful job as the conflicted and tormented Detective Peter Nicholas. As proof of this assertion, I ask that you view closely the scene where he listens to the father talk about butchering his family. The rage slowly building in every fiber of Lo Bianco's being as he digests this string of spoken atrocities appears so genuine that I thought he was really going to deck that guy when he finally blows. So I guess you can say the acting isn't too bad. The special effects, on the other hand, ain't that great. You get a cheesy showdown between Phillips and Nicholas at the end involving a lot of camera shaking, collapsing walls, and flashing lights--hardly the stuff of big budget effects teams working with state of the art equipment. But ultimately, "God Told Me To" is entertaining because it's creepy and offbeat.
Cohen's films are seeing a big resurgence on DVD thanks in large part to Blue Underground. Included as extras on the disc are a commentary with Cohen, a poster and stills gallery, a trailer, a Cohen biography, and seven television spots. I learned by watching these extras that "God Told Me To" also went by the name of "Demon," which often means that the movie tanked under its original title so the distribution company slapped a new moniker on it in order to release it somewhere else. If you want to explore the Larry Cohen canon, this picture is a great place to start.
Bollocks (1977)
Little seen but remarkable Australian drama
Brunton's reputation as producer for the Australian Film Commission has unfortunately put the merits of his own, more personal, projects in the shade. In particular his first and most unique film Bollocks', an evocative study of urban alienation which is still revived today during occasional retrospectives, fully deserving of a closer examination as well as a wider audience.
Finely balanced on the brink of avant-garde cinema, vox-populii investigative reportage and the particular concerns of native Australian cinema, Bollocks' is a journey into a personal heart of darkness, where the denizens of a camping ground become cruel symbols of industrial exploitation and political/physical disenfranchisement.
Hero Josh Penhaligon, the brash, bald-headed salesman hero of Brunton's film, is at once a figure of sadness as well as of paranoia. His condition relaying something essential concerning the society in which he moves, a snap shot if you like of the trivial world of hype, glitz, free lunches and parties. But this abruptly changes. A manager at a local publishing house, esteemed within his own area of contacts, he finds the sudden contraction of his world a shock and the forced relocation to the Newman Camping Ground an mind-collapsing experience. After the glitzy world of book publishing, such a descent into turmoil forces him to re examine his priorities (the colour panel' incident anticipates his emotional collapse) and investigate his position in life. His monologues played straight to camera, while initially unnerving, are the eye of his emotional maelstrom. Nothing he says will make any difference, but we feel pity for him as his battles continue.
This is no film for the squeamish. Bowden, the arrogant Camping Ground co-ordinator' (a toe-curlingly vicious performance by Richard Whitaker) is a character whose smell of corruption develops quickly into a full blown horror. His unwanted sexual advances, his drunken rages and violence, all bring a depth and an immediacy to Bollocks' that few would have expected. During Penhaligon's time of trial, Bowden's jeering amusement at the Fair,(allied with the unwanted advances of the dominatrix Janice), create a hell for the young salesman with which our sympathy is acute.
Mainly filmed on location at Burbeck in Victoria, Bollocks' has an immediacy and strength rare in Australian cinema at this time. Brunton managed to recapture something of the same impact in his next film The Last Pogo', but then unfortunately was content to rest on his creative laurels and retreated into a purely producing capacity at SCCTV. But Bollocks' remains, and a more complete achievement it is hard to imagine.