Octopunk's Review Bomb

Kill, Baby... Kill!

1966  ****

I had great luck with Bava this year.  Kill, Baby... Kill! not only has an exclamation point but also combines all the best features of the Bava supernatural folk tale vibe I've sampled a lot of in recent years.  And there's a decent creepy little girl in it, too.  Drawbacks would be the somewhat cookie-cutter good looking hero couple and the repeated little girl laugh that's supposed to sound scary but comes out forced.

Blood Tea and Red String

2006  **

Gong!  Kudos to Cat for finding a stop-motion horror movie but what the hell with this crap?  Knowing as I do how much time it takes to make stop motion animation, watching stop motion animation that mercilessly drags ON and ON makes absolutely no sense to me because it represents weeks of work during which the person should have had ample time to come to their senses.  Mice playing cards!


Yongary, Monster from the Deep

1967  ***

Drab yet endearing Korean kaiju knockoff, featuring a cast, monster and miniature sets all a little bit blander than their Japanese counterparts.  Despite less convincing tiny world, Yongary displays an appropriate thuggishness about wrecking as much of it as possible.  All badassery is compromised when he's poisoned like a rat and we pull back from a closeup on the river as he shits himself upon death.


Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster

1966  ***1/2

This is more like it!  This features a villain with an eyepatch, a dance marathon, and several Polynesian-style big dance numbers dedicated to a giant moth.

Landshark kindly said I'd never mail in a review of a kaiju flick, and I'm disappointed I left two behind this year.  I'll get back to them.


Sinister

2012  *****

Man, this movie blew me away and I wasn't expecting it.  Another one I'll have to revisit because I wanna go on and on about why I think it's great.  

And that's it!  I feel like we all had a tough time finding time this year.  I know I did, plus I kept falling asleep.  Both the Bava flick and Yongary took me three nights to finish, and they're good!  I just kept dozing.

No matter!  I've got some great ideas for next year and this was a particularly busy time.  See you folks for some Best Ofs?  I'll get mine going tomorrow.  Then I gotta catch us up on Spider-Man.

Horrorthon!

Attack the Block

 

2011  *****

I'm sneaking this one out before writing my Review Bomb because I feel like it deserves a proper review.  The only other Horrorthonner who's written about it was Tami and she really had a bad time.  Sometime before H'thon 2012 I watched it and loved it, and I screened it as part of my sci-fi horror theme last year.  Since I now could fill an entire Horrorthon with movies that I've watched during Horrorthon and not reviewed, this was the only film from my Review Bomb last year that I thought worthy of re-presenting.  It wouldn't feel right to Review Bomb it again.

My comment in said Review Bomb was "Absolutely brilliant.  Don't listen to Tami."  but I repectfully acknowledge her oppressive extenuating circumstances -- I think this movie would suck to watch on an airplane.

Coming from the same writing and production stable as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Attack the Block centers on five teenage South London entry-level thugs who suddenly find themselves fighting beasts from outer space.  While the movie has a light tone, it isn't so much a comedy as its cousins, and the characters and action are stylish in a fun, low-rent way.

Since I really am going to try to make this quick, I will list a couple of my favorite features.

First is Moses, the quiet leader of the crew.  I totally loved the way he talked.  In the opening scene it's Guy Fawkes night and the gang is mugging a nurse named Samantha, but they are interrupted when a nearby car is struck by an object from the sky.  Moses climbs in a shattered window in search of booty and is attacked by a fierce, pale simian creature.  He stabs it but takes a nasty scratch to the face, and the thing tears off into a park.  He stands up slowly while his cronies say what the hell and crack jokes.  "Moses got shanked by Dobby the house elf!"  Moses straightens and says

I'm chasin' that down.

I'm killin' that.

Watch.

Second is the gang itself, who are portrayed with such endearing frankness you're charmed even though you've seen them be intimidating bully fucks.  The movie doesn't play it down when they're crooks or jerks or ridiculous kids, so you can buy the friendship and loyalty.  I wasn't apt to yell at them when they did inadvisable things like get stoned in the middle of a beast siege, it just made sense that  those guys would do that.  

My favorite bit of good/evil razor's edge riding is when Moses tells Samantha (much later) that they wouldn't have mugged her if they'd known she also lived in the block.  She rebutts with "But it's okay if you didn't know me?" and Moses' second-in-command Pest chides her.  "Can't you see he's trying to apologize?  What's with you?"

A minute later Moses tells Pest to give Sam back the ring that they took from her, and Pest whines "Aw man, that's ours..."

Author Jonathan Lethem wrote a book about being bullied, and he referred to the "tilted logic," which always struck me as the worst part.  That exchange was like seeing it from the other side.  

Third and last is the Alien Gorilla Wolf Motherfuckers.  After the gang has their initial encounter with Dobby the house alien, they see several more meteors coming down around the building.  They head out for action but these beasts are different, as in they're way bigger.  They're shaggy, they have big claws, no eyes,  glowing blue teeth, and they are black.  BLACK.  "Too black to see."  They're like furry holes in reality, pure shapes with teeth.  I can only think of two other examples of this kind of monster, and one doesn't really count:

I once saw Disney's Beauty and the Beast as a work in progress, in which the level of finished animation varied throughout.  During most of the fight scene with the wolves, the Beast was drawn only as an outline with a face inside.  Look at that picture above and imagine him drawn that way, then say "groovy" about how huge and scary he'd look.

The other example is the awesome Monster from the Id in Forbidden Planet.  I should probably screen that next year.

Anyway, I urge everyone to check this one out.  I dig it, and I've been having a hard time not watching the whole thing right now as I grab screenshots.  I might have to own it.

What about you, Tami?  Think you can give it another shot?

Crystal Math's Review H-Bomb

Faust (2000) **

This Spanish horror film (with English-speaking actors) is more pathetic than scary. It follows John Jasper as he seeks revenge for his dead girlfriend and makes a deal with an old creepy man simply going by M (short for Mephistopheles, whom we all know to be the German demon used in such Faustian tales). He is given powers to turn into a red demon with claws and wings, but before long his killing antics catch up with him and he is arrested for a mass homicide.

Along Jasper's journey he befriends a woman determined to help him save his soul from M so he can finally live a normal life and die peacefully. There's also some crazy Satanic rituals, an underground society of M worshipers taking place in said ritual, and ridiculous amounts of sex that get in the way of a perfectly good movie.


Spooks Run Wild (1941) ***

A group of hooligans known as the East Side Kids are extracted from their big city stomping grounds to a remote rural camp to learn a lesson about responsibility. It just so happens that a killer is on the loose and will stop at nothing to claim the life of his next victim. The Kids want to help out, so they sneak out after curfew and get tormented by Bela Lugosi and his midget.

The ending was a genuine surprise, the buildup had its fair balance between the Kids, Lugosi, and the camp "counselors" who at times seemed clueless. The only caveat were all the groans elicited when the only African-American character would bust out with these terrible one-liners: "I'm so scared I'm turning white!" or "It's so dark I can't even see myself." Although when you think about it, his humor does make up for the fact that the other Kids aren't very memorable (don't ask me to name any of them, I'll just as well name the Seven Dwarfs).


Gravity (2013) ****
Two hours of Sandra Bullock breathing.


Dead End (2003) ****

Just sit right down and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip
Of Laura, Frank, Miss Marion
and the little brother Dick

Good Frank, he was a patriarch
A father, brave and true
His family spoke no complaints
When he took that detour, he took that detour

Young Dick started acting a fool,
Poor Laura lost her mind,
Then Frank and daughter Marion
Just tried to stay alive, just tried to stay alive

Car stopped at an abandon cabin in the middle of the woods,
With Frank the Dad
Wife Laura, too
Their children Marion and Richard
Some lady in white -- is she a ghost? I hope so! Here on this Dead End driiiiiiiive!

(I trust you all were singing that to the tune of the "Gilligan's Island" theme!)


Offspring (2009) **** 1/2

There once was a prequel to The Woman
Who led a tribe that acted like demons
They tracked down human cubs
And chopped you all up
If you dared interfere with their fun.


Stakeland (2010) *** 1/2

Post-apocalyptic every persyn for hirself woop-woop!

A young boy and a man referred to as Mister drive around killing zombie-vampire hybrid creatures and just trying to survive. At times it was bleak and reminded me of The Road, but this one's more action-packed and has an underlying theme of community in a time of struggle and crisis. The final showdown fell short of its potential. I yawned and missed about third of it. But the rest is a'ight.


The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008) ** 1/2

School sucks. Boys suck. God even sucks -- I mean, he's just like one Almighty father placing a curfew on my SOUL.

A slew of young teenage girls experience the overbearing nature of their fathers as they approach their 18th birthdays. Is it that their daughters are discovering boys? One Direction? God? Anyway, the focus of the film -- as you guessed -- is Molly Hartley, who is battling her dark past, hormones, and Catholic high school. The praise on the DVD box claimed it to be "Rosemary's Baby all grown up" but I just didn't see it.


The Brood (1979) ****

Family issues
Homicidal mom hates girl
Unloving midgets


Playback (2012) *
Christian Slater can't save this poor excuse for a Ringu ripoff. No, I can't be bothered with an accompanying image.


Autopsy (1973) ***

Simona is a young intern working at a mortuary when she starts hallucinating that the dead are coming back to life. She begins investigating the deaths as the body count rises and it is blamed on some planetary phenomena. The plot lagged in the middle but had plenty of booty of the female AND male type to keep going until the stunning denouement.


Living Hell (2000) *** 1/2

When old lady Chiyo and young girl Yuki's immediate family are murdered, the two are relocated to live with Yasu and his siblings. Everyone works long hours and Yasu is bound by a wheelchair, so Chiyo and Yuki reveal their true colors and take advantage of him in some exceptionally disgusting sequences. The story is complex and filled with unpredictable twists, and at times the effects and music were laughable in a creepy vein.


Dead Ringers (1988) ****

Jeremy Irons -- whom I can only envision as the voice of Scar in The Lion King -- plays the dual lead roles of twin gynecologists.

Ew.

Regardless, this film is an amazing show of talent on Irons' part because each twin has distinguishable nuances and features; about a half hour into it you begin to believe that there are two different people occupying the same physical space. Dead Ringers is also a powerful testament to the unique bond shared by twins, sharing a deep emotional connection that seems to meld them into one cosmic being. Despite Johnny Sweatpants and JPX not being twins, I see that they, too, share this bond that surpasses the blood, bone, and fibrous muscle composing our petty physical bodies. I see it everyday when they talk about the legacy of The Monkees, complex plot devices of Archie comics, or the intricate lyrics of a KISS composition.

Catfreeek's Review Bomb

From Beyond The Grave

1973 ***1/2

One of the best anthology films from this era, based on stories from British horror author R. Chetwynd-Hayes. All the stories stem from items purchased at an antique store run by Peter Cushing. Segment one, The Gatecrasher involves a man who is possessed by an evil spirit that enters him by way of a of a haunted mirror he purchases. This is my favorite of the stories but the rest are well worth viewing too. It’s one of those films where everyone gets their comeuppance, kind of how I wish life really worked sometimes.

The Barrens

2012 **1/2

A man takes his family on a camping trip to a remote area where her grew up. The area is rumored to be plagued by the notorious Jersey Devil, a murderous beast that roams the woods. When dad starts flipping out saying it is following him the family begins to suspect that dad is losing his mind. The film is a constant play of is he or isn’t he crazy with a solid conclusion at the end. Don’t you just love it when they don’t leave you hanging.

Mirror Mirror

1990 **

Sad rip off two solid films, it’s as if Beetlejuice and Carrie mated and had this poor excuse of an offspring. I’d like to say Karen Black is the saving grace but it’s Karen Black in the least Karen Blackiest role ever, she is just simply a mom. Karen & her lame emo Winona Ryder look alike daughter move into a house where an evil spirit possessed mirror resides. Miss emo is a major outcast at school who soon discovers the mirror gives her super powers and she soon goes on a killing spree. By the time she realizes she’s made a huge mistake she is knee deep into demon poop and there doesn’t seem to be a way out. Less than meh, skip it.

Werewolf: The Beast Among Us

2012 **1/2

Village is plagued by a werewolf, wolf hunters come to town, murder and mayhem, the wolf is revealed, what a twist! This film isn’t bad it’s just what is to be expected of your average werewolf flick. Same old story set in like the early 1800’s this time blah, blah, blah. This is exactly why films like American Werewolf in London & Dog Soldiers stand out and reign superior, originality wins. Watch it, skip it or put it on while you exercise like I did. Mildly entertaining and lots of action.

Tales of Terror

1962 ****

Another solid anthology but that was to be expected with a stellar cast including Vincent Price in the lead for all three segments joined by Peter Lorre (Don’t you just love Peter Lorre’s voice) & Basil Rathbone as well as some lesser know actors who do a fine job too.The three short sequences are based stories from Edgar Allen Poe, Morella, The Black Cat/The Cask of Amontillado combined together and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar. My favorite type of horror to watch on a cold and rainy afternoon. 

Body Parts

1991 ***

This silly film starring Jeff Fahey had the perfect recipe of camp & horror to make my day. The whole idea is just so outrageous and I love it. The body parts of a notorious serial murderer are harvested and given to some needy folks. A writer receives an arm and soon finds his new arm has a mind of its own and a craving for violence. He hunts down the other recipients and winds up in an all out battle against the person who received the head. Unintentionally hilarious with one of the funniest car chase scenes since Abbott & Costello took on the Keystone Cops!

Godmonster of Indian Flats

1973

"Real" rating:  *1/2

So Bad It's Good rating:  *****

It's hard to know where to start with this movie, which is the first movie to ever require me to split my rating like that.  Here are the plot keywords from its imdb page:  mutant / sheep / funeral / martial law / exploding gas station.

The first thing I need to do is publicly apologize to 50PageMcGee, whose Netflix copy of this languished at my house for over a month so I could get screencaps.  A perfect encapsulation of my lackluster horrorthonnery this year.  Sorry, Fitty!  Thanks for finding this flick.

Next item on the agenda:  Worst.  Monster.  Ever.

 GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS!  Is... in the frame somewhere, they're telling me.  Oh there he is, back there on the right.  By the trees there.

The titular monster of this tale is the sorriest threat to bear the name of Monster, lamer than every impotent crawling hand I've ever seen and the Eraserhead baby combined.  Both on a fictional level and as a movie prop, the very essence of the thing is moaning "Whyyy did you maaake meee?"

Godmonster!

I'll get back to the worstmonsterness of the situation, but next is a word on the movie itself.  I've seen some delightful bad movies.  Sorority House Massacre II.  The Crawling Hand.  They use common formulas, but in each case the alchemy of stock footage, hammy acting, whipslash editing and a dozen other factors yield a result that's surprisingly unique.  Godmonster has that quality; the editing kicks like a mule and the dialogue is silly and clunky, but add some luck plus the perpetual scotch haze that was 1973 and the resultant rhythm is pretty fun.

The 70's.  Have some now.

Our story begins when a fleece-wearing yokel named Eddie hitches a ride to Reno in the back of a truck full of sheep.  He strikes it rich at the slots and is immediately turned over to some drink-pushing ne'er-do-wells.  Good ol' Elbow Johnson suggests they hop in his car and head up to Virginia City while the credits finish and by golly they do.  Virginia City turns out to be a small town where people dress like Old Westy people most of the time just for the hell of it.

This is a huge chunk of the experience, because a cheap way to make a movie is go to some town where they do a bunch of weird shit they were gonna do anyway and film it.  So these harsh edits I mention might fling you from a conversation right into the midst of the Wild West Main Street Parade, or perhaps an old-fashioned pie eating contest.  Conversely, there are countless lingering shots of odd-looking bystanders who have nothing to do with the story, save that they're wearing themed clothing of some sort.

Larry David, Jason Statham and William Fichtner back up a young Robert Bork on piano.

At this point you might be wondering if you're really watching a monster movie.  You are, right?  It's got the word "monster" right there in the title.

 Godmonster!

After Eddie gets his money stolen and gets beaten up for being a dumb rube, kindly research scientist Professor Clemens drives him back to his sheep ranch, where Eddie sleeps off his drunk in the pen with his sheep.  It took me a while to realize that it was Eddie's ranch and not the doc's, because 1) there didn't seem to be any actual house on it for Eddie to live in, just the enclosure where he bunked with sheep, and 2) it was not clear AT ALL that when Elbow Johnson took everyone on the wild journey to Virginia City, he was essentially driving Eddie home.

Eddie has a low grade hallucination in which he mostly sees sheep and therefore is probably not hallucinating.  Then one of his sheep gives birth to a big pulsating something or other.

Godmonster!

Clemens and his assistant Mariposa show up to check on Eddie the following morning and the three of them revel in the stupendous scientific discovery they've made.  Clemens instantly became my favorite character because of his brow-furrowingly earnest performance, brought out in the way he stressed his words:

"It may provide the PROOF I need for a certain theory of cellular realignment!"

"Stand still or I'll science you!"

The trio set the pathetic beast up in some tank contraption and do their best to keep it alive.  Clemens keeps up his Kool-Aid Guy levels of enthusiasm, which is nice because the monster doesn't get rampaging until minute 70 of this 89 minute movie.  You heard me.

That isn't even the worst of it, because I've watched plenty of 50s monster movies and I've done terrible ratios of action vs. scientific jibjabbery.  But the Godmonster Babysitters Club hardly gets any screen time, thanks to an odd subplot that strolls into the movie and instantly mushrooms out of control until very soon IT is the plot, and the movie treats the monster like an unpopular relative.

"Don't worry, folks!  I'm gonna get them eventually!  (Hack!...Wheeze...)"

Virginia City isn't just a town that likes the old west, it's been furiously tailored to history's standards by the fanatical Mayor Silverdale, who finds himself at odds with an out-of-towner named Barnstable, who represents some unseen rich guy who wants to buy up the old silver mines.

Godmonster!  Oh wait no, it's these guys. 

What makes this pretender to the plot interesting is that it isn't interesting, at all, and yet the series of events keeps you guessing.  Barnstable takes to the Virginia City vibe, and we get to see him attend not one but two dress-coded events before Silverdale's cronies trick him into thinking he killed a popular dog.

Which is easy to believe because everyone's shooting live ammo on a crowded street. 

There's an extended scene of the fake dog funeral, which is not a funeral for an artificial dog but rather the other thing.  At this point, again, you may be wondering if you're watching a monster movie.

"I bet he's up there sniffing God's dog's butt!"

I mean, here's a funeral in a monster movie and

-- The deceased isn't a person
-- The deceased wasn't killed by the monster
-- The deceased isn't actually deceased.

"Hey girls, could one of you notice me and turn around and scream and stuff?  Save me a little work here?  Hello?  Pffff.  Fine,  forget it then."

Best part of all, Barnstable isn't scared off by his damaged rep, and we get to watch his sorry attempts to buy folks' land by going door to door, inexplicably still wearing cowboy gear.

"Ha ha, good one ma'am.  No, it doesn't say "Puppy Slayer" on my checks.

After a series of even sillier events Barnstable is (of course) running from a lynch mob, only to be rescued by the plot he replaced when Eddie and Mariposa drive by and enable his escape.  The conflict makes its way to the Indian Flats science research facility and in all the ruckus the lab suddenly finds itself short one Godmonster.

"Yeah let's get this rampage STARTED bitches!  Ho Yeaahhhhh!!!...  Jeez, you guys are still really far away."

The Godmonster's amok time is short and uninspiring, pretty much what you'd expect from the WORST MONSTER EVER.  The Gmonster's body count begins when it busts out, delivering a bloody double slash to a deputy before galumphing away.  The lad falls to his death, and the monster's body count ends right there too.  Victims: One.

"Wait, what did he say?"

Yeah, it doesn't get any of the kids.  It does get to munch on some potato chips or cake or something, which is probably the only pleasurable experience in its short and horrendous life.

"Jeez.  Well, better get my snacks then."

And because eight stills of this scene just aren't enough for me, I invite you to screen it for real and see if I'm exaggerating.  Just watch the thing move and try not to feel sorry for it.  I like to imagine the guy in the suit was wandering around the yard for twenty minutes before he managed to get into frame.

(Skip to the 44 second mark to get past the sheep footage.)

The ending of this has to be seen to believed, and you probably won't believe it even then.  It involves  a lot of yelling and running and shooting and fighting, and for some reason everybody's throwing garbage.

"Eat this, Iron Eyes Cody!"

While Godmonster of Indian Flats is certainly interesting, I can safely say that as a monster movie and horror movie it's quite terrible.  But oh so fun.  Soooo fun!  I guess the truly bad cinema is the stuff you have the best time yelling at, and I don't think it's a quality anyone can intentionally put in their film, because that would wreck it.  Marc and I spent 89 minutes either angrily pointing or staring in slack-jawed befuddlement, and it was a blast all the way. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings horror fans!  I hope you all are having a relaxing day filled with food and TV.

As is our loose tradition, we will be wrapping up Horrorthon reviews by the end of this weekend.  I've got a few in the hopper, but I'm sure I'll be condensing some into a leftover Review Bomb come Sunday.  Everyone else is encouraged to join me (if you've got some left) and then let's do some Best Ofs this year, 'kay?

Our new neighbors brought us some jalapeno-infused vodka the other day.  Today I shall fill a shot glass and raise it to you all.  Cheers!

Thantomorphose (“becoming death”)

(2013) ****

Laura, a struggling artist who is in a relationship with a verbally and sexually abusive, drunken man, wakes up one morning after a night of rough sex and realizes that she hates her life.  With the loss of her job and the threat of eviction she becomes a recluse.  Noticing a small bruise on her arm she thinks nothing of it.  What follows is a grueling cinematic exercise as Laura, who probably has been ‘dead’ on the inside for years, slowly begins to decompose before our eyes for an hour and forty-five minutes.  Wondering around her apartment nude she attempts to keep herself together through any means including thread, duct tape, etc.

Not for the feint of heart (I seem to say that a lot) Thantomorphose is a fascinating exercise in loneliness and the loss of one’s soul.  As Laura slowly loses her mind she literally falls apart before our eyes with disgusting visuals that include every fluid contained in the human body.  The metaphor works well.

Ha Ha!

The Haunted House of Horror

(1969) **1/2

Chris (Frankie Avalon) and his bored friends decide to leave a party to explore a local “haunted” house and hold a séance.  When the séance fails to provide any entertainment the gang does the sensible thing and all split up to explore the house.  Soon one of the hooligans is stabbed to death by an unseen assailant.  Not wishing to attract any negative attention from the police given their questionable records they decide to hide the body and leave and never to speak of the incident again.  Unfortunately this sensible plan backfires when one of the friends leaves a lighter behind with her name on it.  As the police begin to question them the friends decide to return to the scene of the crime in order to find “clues”.  This proves to be a bad decision as they learn that the killer is still among them.

It was refreshing to seen Frankie Avalon play against type as a hooligan trying to beat a drug charge but perhaps a mistake to cast him as a representative of the groovy 60s subterranean scene given his body of 1950s work up to that point (“How to Stuff a Bikini”, really?).  Despite the title nothing “haunted” or supernatural occurs in this film which ends up being more of a murder mystery than anything else.  Following the initial murder nothing really happens until the climax when the killer is revealed.  The Haunted House of Horror includes two very bloody scenes that were apparently the bloodiest ever seen on film up to that point.  A fun idea with poor execution despite a fairly engaging cast.  Skip it.