Title: Scream Bloody Murder a.k.a Claw of Terror a.k.a. Matthew a.k.a The Captive Female (1973)
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
My Tagline: “And people thought the murderer in Sling Blade was crazy.”
Body Count: 11 people, 1 dog
Favorite Quote: “Know what I mean?”
Plot Synopsis: What if Kevin Bacon and Clint Eastwood had a bastard love child who for no apparent reason loved murder and inexplicably had some serious issues with women? It is this scenario that the obviously disturbed people behind “Scream Bloody Murder” explored. The movie begins when, for no reason at all, our young hero murders his father with a bulldozer and runs over his own hand. Now I’m no farmer but do you really plow an empty field with a bulldozer? And shouldn’t he have run over his right hand so he could kill people with his left or “sinister” hand? Though they did give him hook-hand so I guess that’s something. As I said there is no motivation given for his actions though I like to think the kid walked in on his parents having rough sex. This idea coupled with repressed guilt over killing so many people might account for some of his psychosis but at no point is even an attempt to understand this mammary-phobic Momma murdering Matthew made. So little Matt gets sent off to the loony bin not to return home until he is…well they don’t say what age he is supposed to be but he’s clearly in his twenties. It just so happens he comes home on the day his mother remarries with some redneck. This doesn’t sit well with Matthew and he goes a little crazy with an axe…well a lot crazy with an axe. This sends him on the run and not two hours after leaving home the next morning the dude kills two more people. With five dead and a child disfigured within the first twenty minutes I was starting to worry this movie was going to be a blood bath. Things calm down just a bit though as ol’ Matty makes a hooker friend named Vera, or as he later insists on calling her, Daisy. After some more murder Matthew kidnaps Vera and holds her hostage in a mansion he has taken over. Daisy doesn’t take to this new living arrangement too well and outsiders eventually play their part to interfere. Matthew’s world implodes in on itself finally culminating in a bizarre and disorienting scene in a random church. One thing I’ll say for this movie is that it slowly gets progressively crazier without peaking in the middle and just when you think things can’t get any more crazy BAM! There’s something crazier.
“I feel like a dog on a leash.”
I find the character Vera a little funny in that she seems completely incapable of gauging people and must be totally unafraid of harm. She only charged twenty bucks for what must have been hours of sex (I have to pay that much just to get a girl to touch me) and seems degradingly comfortable with her lifestyle. I find the actress who plays Vera a bit funny in that despite the fact she was willing to play a hooker, agreed to be bound and gagged for hours on end, spends a significant portion of the movie running around in just a towel, and at one point is indeed bare-ass naked we never see a nipple or ass. These are staples of slasher films and their absence in a movie where we are forced to watch poor woman jump around a house while hogtied and dial a turn-style phone with her tongue (I see why she became a hooker) seems just a little strange to me. Maybe it was a crew choice over actor’s choice. I don’t know but even while in production they had to know they were on a sinking ship and the only way to get some floatation was to throw in some nice bazongas. With fully clothed bondage you’re only appealing to a niche market and if you want to fill those seats you need universally appealing T&A.
Review: Those who will especially enjoy this movie are those who really like bad acting and bizarre characters. This is a standard variable in the equation for fun-bad movies but in this area “Scream Bloody Murder” triumphs. The death scenes are hilarious and I would argue are among the best, or worst depending on how you look at it, in movie history. Apparently a human’s skin is as fragile as tissue paper and our bones have the compressive strength of peanut brittle. Our bodies contain maybe four ounces worth of blood, mostly kept in a small pouch in our mouth, that once lost instantly kills us. And we don’t struggle to survive or anything. Once we are injured we’re dead. Now maybe I’m spoiled but I just can’t believe people used to watch things with such lousy film quality. It was like wearing someone else’s prescription glasses. I don’t know what they were going for at the first of the movie but it looked terrible. The look improved over time but unfortunately the writing did not. And that Matthew guy is one fucked up little dude. Overall I’d say it was incompetently produced and very stupid but I would recommend it to other bad movie fans. So get out there and watch it.
Questions: -Just what he hell was Matthew’s problem anyway?
-So was Daisy his Mom’s name or something? And her hair was black so why was he so instantly drawn to the redheaded hooker?
-Wasn’t his mom a little young to have such an old kid? And her new husband said he was going to explain all about sex that night but she’s already had a kid so shouldn’t she already be familiar with the mechanics?
-Why the hell was Vera so stupid and trusting? And wouldn’t she make more money working a regular job if being a hooker meant being paid twenty bucks for half a day’s work?
-And wasn’t that the most persistent candy salesman ever?
-Didn’t Matthew seem a little too well educated for just being released from a mental hospital? I mean, he went there before he even hit puberty but he knew how to drive and was friendly with people and everything.
3.12.2008
3.10.2008
Don't Look in the Basement Review
Title: Don’t Look in the Basement! a.k.a. The Forgotten a.k.a. Death Ward #13 (1973)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Tagline: “Not Recommended for Persons Over 30!”
My Tagline: “Not Recommended for any Persons Anywhere!”
Favorite Quote: “Good evening deary.” & “Objection overruled.” & (paraphrased) 'Why didn’t you call us to say that your phone was out?'
Plot Synopsis: At a remote sanitarium an axe-wielding mental patient murders his doctor and rather than report it to the police or do anything else that would be unnecessarily responsible the head nurse, Dr. Gerladine S. Masters, simply assumes the role of headmaster and tosses the corpse down into the basement. Shortly after the murder a young nurse, Jane St. Claire, that the good doctor had hired a week prior arrives to report for her new job. She is informed of the Doctor’s passing and is assimilated into the Sanitarium’s staff. Masters also explains that she intends to continue the Doctor’s work with his philosophies and theories as the guiding torch. These theories include the idea that the way to help cure the insane (and even schizophrenia) is to support and feed their delusions and obsessions so much that they will reach a point of collapse where they will “use their own strength” to pull themselves out of insanity. I guess it’s like hitting the restart button for your brain. Needless to say this approach doesn’t work and with every second that ticks by the inhabitants of this nuthouse get crazier and crazier until by the end everyone is a murderer. There’s also a major plot twist that I would hope we all saw coming a mile away.
Review: Who would have thought that running an illegal sanitarium out of a country house with a staff of two and where the patients are allowed to roam freely with access to axes, knifes, prescription drugs, and no locks on the doors would be such a bad idea? You would become one light sleeper in that place let me tell ya. Aside from poor ol’ Sam and maybe Sergeant Gaffee everyone in that place was bat shit insane, and I mean the dangerous kind. So why the hell were they kept there? It obviously wasn’t a state institution (unless things have gotten a lot worse than I thought) and these people were supposed to be “The Forgotten” so where’d the funding come from? Was the Doc rich or something? How did he get acquire these people? Couldn’t he have applied his whacked out theories on one patient first before taking on a ward’s worth of crazies? And what they hell was Danny’s problem? All you’d have to do is kill him and half the movie's conflicts would be resolved right there. And poor Sam, his problem was the Doctor gave him a lobotomy. If he hadn’t been held prisoner by these people he could be okay by now. I could go on all day but what I’m driving at here is that the movie has a few plot holes and the occasional gaping maw of backward reasoning. The trick is to find joy in this, not sorrow. The film is terrible and terribly fun to watch.
“Taste Me!”
This movie has some great lines and some terrifying close-ups that are so jarring it even puts “Killers From Space” to shame. And as far as those crazy characters that great bad movies need this film is bursting at the seams with them. (it takes place in a nuthouse after all) Everyone in this movie except Nurse Claire acts bizarre and brings something fun to the party. And they just seem to get worse and worse as the film continues. Nurse Claire is almost like the straight man for a comedian. All of the characters may be uniquely quirky and homicidal in their own very special ways but they need a unifying force to bring them together beyond the agitating force that is the prick Danny and it this need that Nurse Claire fulfills. She is no doubt a strong woman as well. If I was awoken in the middle of the night by Danny fondling me he’d be dead and I’d be outta there faster than you could demand that someone taste you and your new strawberry flavor. But Claire sticks it out right up until she starts screaming uncontrollably.
“Love me! Say it!”
There’s probably a lot I could say about this great movie but I’m worried it would reveal too much and may over-hype it so I’ll just let it be with a recommendation that you see this movie. You won’t completely regret it.
Trivia: This film was shot in 12 days with less than $100,000. (and it shows)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Tagline: “Not Recommended for Persons Over 30!”
My Tagline: “Not Recommended for any Persons Anywhere!”
Favorite Quote: “Good evening deary.” & “Objection overruled.” & (paraphrased) 'Why didn’t you call us to say that your phone was out?'
Plot Synopsis: At a remote sanitarium an axe-wielding mental patient murders his doctor and rather than report it to the police or do anything else that would be unnecessarily responsible the head nurse, Dr. Gerladine S. Masters, simply assumes the role of headmaster and tosses the corpse down into the basement. Shortly after the murder a young nurse, Jane St. Claire, that the good doctor had hired a week prior arrives to report for her new job. She is informed of the Doctor’s passing and is assimilated into the Sanitarium’s staff. Masters also explains that she intends to continue the Doctor’s work with his philosophies and theories as the guiding torch. These theories include the idea that the way to help cure the insane (and even schizophrenia) is to support and feed their delusions and obsessions so much that they will reach a point of collapse where they will “use their own strength” to pull themselves out of insanity. I guess it’s like hitting the restart button for your brain. Needless to say this approach doesn’t work and with every second that ticks by the inhabitants of this nuthouse get crazier and crazier until by the end everyone is a murderer. There’s also a major plot twist that I would hope we all saw coming a mile away.
Review: Who would have thought that running an illegal sanitarium out of a country house with a staff of two and where the patients are allowed to roam freely with access to axes, knifes, prescription drugs, and no locks on the doors would be such a bad idea? You would become one light sleeper in that place let me tell ya. Aside from poor ol’ Sam and maybe Sergeant Gaffee everyone in that place was bat shit insane, and I mean the dangerous kind. So why the hell were they kept there? It obviously wasn’t a state institution (unless things have gotten a lot worse than I thought) and these people were supposed to be “The Forgotten” so where’d the funding come from? Was the Doc rich or something? How did he get acquire these people? Couldn’t he have applied his whacked out theories on one patient first before taking on a ward’s worth of crazies? And what they hell was Danny’s problem? All you’d have to do is kill him and half the movie's conflicts would be resolved right there. And poor Sam, his problem was the Doctor gave him a lobotomy. If he hadn’t been held prisoner by these people he could be okay by now. I could go on all day but what I’m driving at here is that the movie has a few plot holes and the occasional gaping maw of backward reasoning. The trick is to find joy in this, not sorrow. The film is terrible and terribly fun to watch.
“Taste Me!”
This movie has some great lines and some terrifying close-ups that are so jarring it even puts “Killers From Space” to shame. And as far as those crazy characters that great bad movies need this film is bursting at the seams with them. (it takes place in a nuthouse after all) Everyone in this movie except Nurse Claire acts bizarre and brings something fun to the party. And they just seem to get worse and worse as the film continues. Nurse Claire is almost like the straight man for a comedian. All of the characters may be uniquely quirky and homicidal in their own very special ways but they need a unifying force to bring them together beyond the agitating force that is the prick Danny and it this need that Nurse Claire fulfills. She is no doubt a strong woman as well. If I was awoken in the middle of the night by Danny fondling me he’d be dead and I’d be outta there faster than you could demand that someone taste you and your new strawberry flavor. But Claire sticks it out right up until she starts screaming uncontrollably.
“Love me! Say it!”
There’s probably a lot I could say about this great movie but I’m worried it would reveal too much and may over-hype it so I’ll just let it be with a recommendation that you see this movie. You won’t completely regret it.
Trivia: This film was shot in 12 days with less than $100,000. (and it shows)
3.05.2008
Deadly Daphne's Revenge Review
Title: Deadly Daphne’s Revenge a.k.a The Hunting Season (1987)
Rating: 4 out of 5
My Tagline: “Where the hell is Deadly Daphne?”
Favorite Quote: “Relax, have a good time.”
Plot Synopsis: You would think it’s about a girl named Daphne and the revenge that she seeks but as you may have guessed from my tagline it has almost nothing to do with that at all. This movie is actually about a blonde teenager, Cindy, who during the course of running away from home is more or less raped by a small group of hunters. (I always thought that if you wanted to get picked up you were expected to put out but whatever) Telling you this may spoil the surprise as one naturally assumes that the girl who is going to be raped is Daphne and the bulk of the movie is about the gruesome way she deals with the situation. Instead the movie takes an odd turn into a bad legal/psychological drama involving a lot of talking, contracted murder, suicide, love, and the exploration of man’s dark side. The idea of tackling such issues within a bad movie like this is hilarious. Especially when you consider how much easier it would be to just make a slasher flick. Things start off fine, go dull, go a little less dull, and then get pretty crazy.
Review: I enjoyed this movie because I made fun of it the whole time and it’s pretty rife for riffing. Even if that isn’t your game it can be fun on it’s own. It has those great weird characters and plot turns that leave you asking, “What were they thinking?” It’s competently produced and it’s pretty clear they tried hard which is a fun change. Though there is no doubt that the bad writing and acting will leave you chuckling. (I’ve seen more convincing love stories on Star Trek for Pete’s sake!) The racist male lead is one of my favorite characters of all time and the film’s attitudes towards women are pretty funny. If it’s the ridiculous whims of the flighty Cindy or a man’s wife being such a bitch he is driven to suicide or a mob boss’ ho sitting at his feet this movie is guaranteed to please all vagina haters everywhere. It’s also the movie that finally demonstrates the plight of the white-male-business-owner and the reality of his hardships. He makes one mistake, rapes a white girl, and next thing you know the whole world is out to get him. Poor white-male-business-owner, no one ever gives him any breaks.
Rating: 4 out of 5
My Tagline: “Where the hell is Deadly Daphne?”
Favorite Quote: “Relax, have a good time.”
Plot Synopsis: You would think it’s about a girl named Daphne and the revenge that she seeks but as you may have guessed from my tagline it has almost nothing to do with that at all. This movie is actually about a blonde teenager, Cindy, who during the course of running away from home is more or less raped by a small group of hunters. (I always thought that if you wanted to get picked up you were expected to put out but whatever) Telling you this may spoil the surprise as one naturally assumes that the girl who is going to be raped is Daphne and the bulk of the movie is about the gruesome way she deals with the situation. Instead the movie takes an odd turn into a bad legal/psychological drama involving a lot of talking, contracted murder, suicide, love, and the exploration of man’s dark side. The idea of tackling such issues within a bad movie like this is hilarious. Especially when you consider how much easier it would be to just make a slasher flick. Things start off fine, go dull, go a little less dull, and then get pretty crazy.
Review: I enjoyed this movie because I made fun of it the whole time and it’s pretty rife for riffing. Even if that isn’t your game it can be fun on it’s own. It has those great weird characters and plot turns that leave you asking, “What were they thinking?” It’s competently produced and it’s pretty clear they tried hard which is a fun change. Though there is no doubt that the bad writing and acting will leave you chuckling. (I’ve seen more convincing love stories on Star Trek for Pete’s sake!) The racist male lead is one of my favorite characters of all time and the film’s attitudes towards women are pretty funny. If it’s the ridiculous whims of the flighty Cindy or a man’s wife being such a bitch he is driven to suicide or a mob boss’ ho sitting at his feet this movie is guaranteed to please all vagina haters everywhere. It’s also the movie that finally demonstrates the plight of the white-male-business-owner and the reality of his hardships. He makes one mistake, rapes a white girl, and next thing you know the whole world is out to get him. Poor white-male-business-owner, no one ever gives him any breaks.
The Fog Review
Title: The Fog (2005)
Rating: 0 out of 5
Tagline: “We’re sorry.”- At least that’s what it should be.
My Tagline: “This movie sucks.” Or “Why would you do this?”
Favorite Quote: “Blood for blood!”
Plot Synopsis: Superboy and the dumb blonde from “Lost” regurgitate some lame dialogue from a lame script riddled with forced tension, boring sequences, and a general case of terminal lameness.
Review: John Carpenter is universally recognized as a “Master of Horror” and has been part of the film business for over forty years. His film “The Fog” is one of his better-known works and for good reason; it’s a good movie. So why would you go and remake a perfectly good horror movie when there was nothing wrong with it? Did you really think you were going to outdo a master? Did you really think you could make it any better? To put it kindly this movie fails miserably in every way. Not only can it not even hold a candle to the original, it just plain sucks. I could go on a point-by-point comparison between it and the original but this movie is so bad I don’t believe it is even worth recognizing as a legitimate film. Not even by bad movie fans. As far I’m concerned this movie doesn’t even exist. Avoid it like the plague, especially if you liked the original.
Rating: 0 out of 5
Tagline: “We’re sorry.”- At least that’s what it should be.
My Tagline: “This movie sucks.” Or “Why would you do this?”
Favorite Quote: “Blood for blood!”
Plot Synopsis: Superboy and the dumb blonde from “Lost” regurgitate some lame dialogue from a lame script riddled with forced tension, boring sequences, and a general case of terminal lameness.
Review: John Carpenter is universally recognized as a “Master of Horror” and has been part of the film business for over forty years. His film “The Fog” is one of his better-known works and for good reason; it’s a good movie. So why would you go and remake a perfectly good horror movie when there was nothing wrong with it? Did you really think you were going to outdo a master? Did you really think you could make it any better? To put it kindly this movie fails miserably in every way. Not only can it not even hold a candle to the original, it just plain sucks. I could go on a point-by-point comparison between it and the original but this movie is so bad I don’t believe it is even worth recognizing as a legitimate film. Not even by bad movie fans. As far I’m concerned this movie doesn’t even exist. Avoid it like the plague, especially if you liked the original.
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