I'm a bit sad that Shockwaves isn't more awesome. It's the kind of film that would be fun to recommend in a "you have to see this underwater nazi zombie film!" kinda way. Seriuosly, underwater nazi zombies! How can that be bad? Well, it isn't that bad, but it just isn't that exciting either. Don't get me wrong...the army of underwater Nazi zombies (I can't stop typing that sentence) are awesome and all the scenes where they feature are pretty damn cool. The problem is the rest of the film, which is mainly filler.
But those underwater nazi zombies...look at them!
The background story is something along the lines of...towards the end of the second World War, the Nazis had created some amazing SS troops that were able to live underwater. This amphibian specialist SS unit turned out to be a bit unpredictable and when the war ended it was all swept under the carpet...or under the ocean in this case. And the secret stayed there for thirty years until our gang of merry holiday makers interrupt their sleep. They have to abandon their leaking boat and get stranded on a remote island, populated only by a former SS Commander (played by Peter Cushing).
He tells them to get out of there before the shit goes down. But it's already too late and the underwater Nazis start picking them off one after the other. The nazis themselves are pretty hard to kill, unless you can get really close and take their goggles off. Yup. That's how you kill unstoppable underwater nazi zombies. Remove the goggles!
Shockwaves is alright as a curiosity and it has some really awesome scenes in it. But, the script is pretty lame and not really anything I'll be revisiting any time soon.
So, after asking 100 experts, Time Out London has published a list of the top-100 horror films. I know for sure I've seen at least 51 of the titles listed and watched bits of at least another 30. Sure, there are loads of great films on there and it's nice to see the inclusion of some forgotten classics like Let's Scare Jessica To Death...but...with any list comes omissions and with the horror genre being so close to my heart, there are a lot of them in this one.
Here's a random list of 30 horror films (big and small, old and new) not included in the Time Out top-100 that I would defintely place in my own top-100, many of them in my top-50 even.
I Drink Your Blood (1970)
Messiah Of Evil (1973)
Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968)
There's so-bad-it's-good, there's so-bad-it's-just-bad and then there are films like The Howling III: The Marsupials, a film that just doesn't fit into either category. It's an absolutely terrible film and I kind of enjoyed watching it, but I would never call it good in any way, shape or form. Let's call it so bad that it's just really bad but kinda fun but mainly bad
. Catchy description, eh?
The film starts with a young girl running away from home because, as she puts it "my step father tried to rape me and he's a werewolf". I mean, what else can I say? Do you need anything more than that?
OK, let's try to sell this to you...
Set in Australia...this means werewolves with Australian accents!
Not only do you get werewolf nuns!
And a werewolf ballerina!
You get weird werewolf nudity, werewolf children, transformations all over the place...
The "story" goes something along the way of...back in the 19th Century, some thylacines mated with humans, resulting in some weird wolf/tiger/human hybrids. When the thylacines were killed off and made extinct in the early 20th Century, these 'werewolves' went underground, hiding in the Australian bush or in Siberia. Now, in the present, suddenly they're making themselves known. The army is called in, as are various scientists. Our young runaway, becomes a horror movie star, falls in love and has werewolf babies. No, seriously...I can't do this. Just thinking about this mess makes my head hurt. Just watch it...I guess.
That's just one of many pseudo-philosphical one-liners you get treated to in Swamp Thing, Wes Craven's attempt at adapting a DC Comic for the big screen. I know nothing about this comic, or comics in general, so I have no idea if it's a successful/truthful adaptation - all I know is that the film is an absolute blast.
I had pretty much given up on Wes Craven after Scream 4, which was one of the most atrocious piles of shit I have ever forced myself to sit through in the cinema. But, when the good folks at The Good Bad Movie Club announced that they were going to screen Swamp Thing at The Prince Charles...well...I decided to give the man another chance.
And I'm really glad I did. In fact, I might even watch that copy of Craven's Deadly Blessing (1981) I bought from Arrow Video a while back. It's been collecting collecting dust in fear of a repeat Scream 4 experience.
Anyway, Swamp Thing...a proper so bad it's amazing kinda film. An absolute top cast, with Ray Wise (you know, Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks amongst other things), Nicholas Worth (who was amazing in Don't Answer The Phone (1980)), David Hess (of The Last House on The Left (1972) and The House On The Edge Of The Park (1980) fame)...and then Adrienne Barbeau, who's been in a shitload of things, including Cannibal Women In The Avocado Jungle Of Death (1989).
The film is cheesy, but extremely charming and fun. Wise plays Doctor Holland, a scientist working on a secret project hidden away in a swamp. His goal, to create a combination of animal and plant capable of thriving under the harshest of conditions. So, yeah...his intentions are good, but just around the corner lurks evil...in the shape of Dr Anton Arcane, an evil scientist (actually, I'm not quite sure what he is) who wants to rule the world. He and his militia goons attempt to steal Holland's notebooks and the potion but it all goes a bit wrong. Holland turns into a half-man, half-swamp creature with super human strength and Alice (Barbeau) runs off with notebook number 7, containing the last piece of the puzzle. What follows is a cat and mouse chase through the swamp, where Arcane's goons try over and over again to get their hands on the book, only to be stopped by Holland (now the Swamp Thing!) Alice goes from being scared of Swampie to falling for his charms after realising that he's still Dr Holland at heart. It's all very stupid, but surprisingly sweet and never gets boring. It's really well-paced throughout.
A great film to watch with some friends and some beers. Louis Jordan really steals the show as the loon bag Arcane and the film is worth watching just to hear his hilarious, but often completely nonsensical one-liners.
"A man who loves, gives hostages to fortune."
Erm...yes.
So, give Swamp Thing a chance...you won't regret it.
Last night the guys at The Good Bad Movie Club had managed to locate a pristine 35mm print of the film and it really looked gorgeous. Normally when you're watching old prints scratches are part of the charm, but seeing a scratch-free 30-year old print was pretty awesome.
How can you not love a film that contains lines like:
"Let's go send these fuckers a Rambo-gram"
and
"What's that? Robot blood."
and
"Computer, huh? Let's go crash the fucker"
and
"I guess I'm not used to being chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots"
The movie....
Oh yes! Seriously...Chopping Mall is just awesome...and is pretty much the definition of a true 80's classic. It has everything you want...EVERYTHING! Robots shooting laser, exploding heads, computers with square flashing lights, nudity, terrible clothes, ridiculous haircuts, big guns, electrocutions...it's all there....and more...the list goes on.
Some fancy-pants shopping mall have just introduced a new automated security team, the Protectors (No's 1, 2 and 3), three ultramodern security robots, programmed to protect the mall from intruders after hours. It should have been so easy. The robots were meant to be able to distinguish between baddies and good guys just by asking to see an identity badge...but somewhere it just went horribly wrong. I guess it's difficult to precise programming when your computer just has a few rows of flashing square lights.
One of the protectors
Anyway, a group of young mall employees are taking advantage of their keyholding responsibilities by having an after hours party at The Furniture King, one of the shops. They do what teenagers do in these kind of movies...get drunk, fool around, strut around in their underwear etc. And then...BOOM! the robots go crazy and start killing them off one by one. They have to take full advantage of what the mall has to offer and find the tools to outsmart those robots. I like to think this is all intended to be some some powerful satirical comment of American consumerism a la Romero's Dawn Of The Dead, but I doubt it...I think it's pretty much just robots killing kids and the kids fighting back.
Of course it's ridiculous...it's called Chopping Mall...but it's also totally awesome. Seriously, watch it...or I'll send the Protectors after you.
Neon Maniacs (1986) Directed by: Joseph Mangine Starring: Clyde Hayes, Leilani Sarelle, Donna Locke
Oh dear...where do I start with this one? A film I just wanted to watch because of the title. Oh yes, I am a sucker for stupid titles...and Neon Maniacs sounds like it could be fun, right? But, oh no...this is just weird...and not in a good way, just in a what-the-fuck-is-going-on-and-this-is-stupid kinda way. I'm not really sure who the audience is meant to be. It's too ridiculous and cheesy to be aimed at adult horror fans, but too violent (but not really) to be a "family horror".
Anyway, what is it all about? I guess I'll just get right down to it.
Student Bodies (1981) Directed by: Mickey Rose Starring: Kristen Riter, The Stick (seriously that's his credited name)
Long before Kevin Williamson, Wes Craven and the bloody Wayans brothers thought it was clever to take the piss out of the slasher film, Mickey Rose made Student Bodies. Pre-dating Scream by 15 years and Scary Movie by 19 years, it's hard to imagine that neither of the people involved in those films had seen it.
Sure, with a heavy emphasis on comedy it is more along the lines of Scary Movie, but much of what people thought was so "clever" about Scream is present here.
We know where it's going from the start. The title setting the date tells us 'Halloween', followed by 'Friday the 13th' followed by 'Jamie Lee Curtis' birthday'.
Like in Scream we start off with a babysitter receiving a scary phonecall.
She goes out in the garden to check what's happening. Nothing there...back inside.
OH NO...she forgot to lock the door!!
Anyway...the baby sitter's boyfriend comes over, they go to the bedroom and voila, first confirmed death. It's a running theme. Sex=immediate death for the rest of the film.
Next day at the funeral, the killer strikes again.
OK, these constant titles pointing out the obvious are amusing at first, but the novelty soon wears off.
Time to introduce Toby, our hero and "final girl" if you like.
She discovers the body at the funeral and immediately becomes a suspect! But who's the real killer? It's the talk of the schoolyard:
Student A: Who could've done these murders? Student B: I don't know. Could've been anybody. Student A: Well, it can't be anybody. It's gotta be somebody. Student B: Of course it's somebody, but that somebody could be anybody. Student A: Well, look. We didn't do it, right? Student B: Right. Student A: So, you can't say it could be anybody. We're anybody. Student B: True. But we're also somebody.
Back to Toby. She's great. And rather cute. And she goes on a mission to clear her name and find the killer.
We get the compulsory locker room POV shots.
Cheerleaders...
And even a school dance!
Toby goes looking for clues...in a parade float...
...but the killer strikes again.
So she's back in the principal's office...
Eventually, she finds some clues...
But, who's the killer? The body count is going up at an alarming rate.
Is it the crazy teacher obsessed with making horse head bookends?
Is it Malvert, the creepy janitor?
Whoever it is...all hell breaks loose...
Seriously, the final ten minutes is completely bonkers.
So, is Student Bodies any good? Well, not really. It's alright as curiosity. It does overdo the comedy. The killer's internal monologue gets annoying very quickly, the constant post-modern self-referencing wears dry. There is zero gore and zero nudity. In order to gain an R Rating, the film is interupted halfway through with a random man shouting "FUCK YOU" to the MPAA.
It's mainly interesting in the way it's telling the audience about the inherent silliness of the slasher film, at a time when the genre itself was very much in its infancy. Sure, it had been seven years since Black Christmas, but things didn't really kickoff until Halloween and Friday the 13th in 1978 and 1980 respectively.
And then there's the lovely Toby of course, played by Kristen Riter. According to imdb this was the only movie she ever did.
Her only other credit is the classic music video for Centerfold by J. Geils Band.
So…I watched Shion Sono's Suicide Club on Sunday morning. Now, it's perhaps not the most obvious choice for a lazy Sunday morning movie, but I had just been reading about it and was a bit curious. Well, what can I say? There was quite a lot to take in and I'm still not sure what to make of it. From the infamous opening sequence where 50 smiling Japanese schoolgirls jump in front of a speeding subway train to the surreal bowling alley sequence where kidnapped humans and animals are kept inside white duvet covers, whilst their captors perform weird songs about death, the whole thing is quite a mind-boggling mess. And let's not forget the "wheel of flesh" that occasionally makes an appearance. Yes, that's right. It's a wheel made out of strips of human flesh, taken from soon-to-be suicide victims and stitched together to form a giant wheel.
As you'd expect from the subject matter, it's a very dark film. It shows a bleak world where the only people who look happy are the ones who have made the decision to end their lives. And who's to blame? The internet? Vacuous pop music? Our obsession with fame? Are there supernatural powers at work here? The film doesn't provide us with any answers and throws in more than a fair share of surreal elements to confuse the audience...the above mentioned wheel of flesh being one. But maybe that's the whole idea, to make us question why some things are considered weird and some aren't. Why do we accept that 50 young school girls would collectively kill themselves, but get confused about a wheel of flesh?
Anyway, I really have no idea what to make of it and I'm not going to pretend that I do. Extremely tasteless and troublesome, but still quite a fascinating watch.
What a curious little film. Starring Martin Landau, Jack Palance and Donald Pleasance it was always going to be interesting, but I really had no idea of what to expect. A new doctor is struggling to fit in at the mental hospital he's been placed. When a powercut disables the hospital's security system four of the most dangerous inmates escape. They eventually surround the doctor's house, forcing him and his young family to fight for their survival.
This was…well…weird. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just didn't feel like a normal horror film. The way it's written, shot and paced just made me feel a bit uneasy, but not in a 'I'm scared' kinda way. I just couldn't figure out what type of film it was trying to be. Despite there being no supernatural elements to the story, and the plot itself being fairly straight forward, none of it felt realistic. It's almost like all the characters were non-humorous caricatures of themselves…if that makes any sense. At time it plays out like a chiller intended for the whole family, but then it gets too sinister and gruesome for that to have been the intention.
It's not that it's a bad film, in fact I quite enjoyed it. I just don't know where to place it. It's well worth watching for the great cast, Jack Palance in particular. If you do watch it, let me know what you think. I'm still a bit confused by the whole thing.
So, today's Halloween and thus the end of the official horror month. But, but...I imagine that won't affect my viewing habits too much. In fact, I imagine November will be just as heavy on the horror. Anyway, I've been watching quite alot of movies the last few day, some alot better than others. Here's a selection...
Barn Of The Naked Dead (1974) As you'd expect with a title like that, this is pretty sleazy. Man plays nice, lures women to his farm, locks them up in his barn and plays out some twisted circus fantasies. It's a hideously misogynist script, which just leads to the whole film being completely unbelievable and annoying. Only worth watching for Andrew Prine, who plays the wacko and completely steals the show.
Just Before Dawn (1981) Surprisingly effective chiller of the 'loud-teen-campers-ignore-the-warnings-of-local-forest-ranger-only-to-bump-into-machete-wielding-loonbags' variety. Well worth checking out.
I Drink Your Blood (1970) One of my favorite discoveries this year. Great fun. Satanists, rabid construction workers. This film has everything. Awesome!
Turkey Shoot (aka Blood Camp Thatcher) (1982) I only bought this because I was so impressed with some of the directors other films (especially Dead End Drive-In), but this was a bit of a bore. Most of the film is devoted to showing Olivia Hussey looking worried. And I guess she should be. After all, she's either in a horrible prison camp or being hunted like an animal by rich people. Hmmmm. Nope. Bad.
Prom Night (1980) Four children commit a crime, resulting in a young girl's death. Six years later it's their high school senior prom night and an unknown killer has decided it's time to make them pay. Despite starring Leslie Nielsen as the school principal, this is pretty average. Not much happens until the end...and even then it's not terribly exciting.
Yeah that's right, the name of the film I just watched is The Corpse Grinders, a 1971 "horror" directed by a Ted V. Mikels. With such a great title came high expectations, but I realised pretty quickly that the name was as good as it was ever gonna get. Not anywhere near as grisly as I expected, not the least bit scary and would in general have been a total waste of my time, had it not been reasonably goofy and even charming at times.
So, what's the deal? Well, ok. Previously harmless cats are going crazy all over town, biting and even killing their unsuspecting owners. At the same time, dodgy cat food brand Lotus are doing great business. Could there be a connection? Of course there is! Their special secret ingredient happens to be human flesh and this is what's giving the cats their bloodlust. But where does one go for this ingredient? Well, a good place to start would be the cemetary. Lucky for factory owners Landau and Maltby there's a crazy couple living just by the cemetary and they're more than happy to dig up corpses for a bit of cash. Doctor Howard Glass and nurse Angie notice their cat behaving aggressively and when more people are attacked they get suspicious and try to find out what the hell is going on. Meanwhile, Landau and Maltbyy stops using cemetary-fresh corpses for a while and starts killing homeless people instead, working up some good mileage on their factory grinder. It's a race against time, good vs evil. Will Howard and Angie discover the secret and get to Landau and Maltby before more people are killed. And who is that man in a moustache that keeps watching everything? He looks like an undercover cop and acts like an undercover cop. Could he perhaps be....an undercover cop?
There are so many flaws in this film, it would just be tedious going into too much detail. The plot is pretty bad, the script is terrible, as is the acting. It looks like a bad tv soap opera....and so on. But, you know...it kept me interested enough to want to see the end. There are some strange characters that keeps it watchable, but also more confusing since they don't really serve any purpose. There's a one-legged mute woman working in the factory, who for some reason is the only one Landau treats with any kind of respect. He's even quite nice to her. And for someone who is usually pretty quick to throw just about anyone into the grinder, that's pretty unusual. I'm not quite sure what the purpose of this is. To show he has a heart? A bit late for that. Then there's also the weird couple in the cemetary, Caleb and Cleo. Cleo has a doll that she treats like a real child, but we never really find out why.
Hmmm...I doubt I'll ever watch this again, but at the same time I don't regret having seen it. A pretty terrible little oddity of a film.
I'm Nik, a Swede in the wonderful mess that is London. I watch a lot of films and I listen to a lot of music.
I mainly seem to write about films these days, but occasionally I do post about music. If you want me to remove a song, send me an email (recordsmakegreatpets@gmail.com) and I will remove it immediately. If you like what you hear, please support the bands by buying their albums and going to their shows.
