Bubba Ho-Tep

Bubba Ho-Tep (2003) Now stay with me on this one, you really need to pay attention or you won’t believe it. This movie is directed by Don Coscarelli who was responsible for the Phantasm trilogy of cult horror films. Well, he’s back with a new flick that has a very weird take on things! He also somehow convinced Bruce Campbell and the late Ossie Davis to star in the durn thing. Hold onto your hats because the plot involves Elvis (Bruce Campbell) who apparently didn’t die back then and is now living in an East Texas nursing home along with JFK! (Well played by Ossie Davis.) If that doesn’t stretch reality to the breaking point is seems that a soul sucking Egyptian mummy has somehow landed in the home and is running around at night harvesting some of the residents. It’s up to Elvis and JFK to save the day and defeat the mummy. Now this sounds so far out that it couldn’t possibly be a great little film but it is. Along with some horror, it mixes in good dollops of comedy and also a good dose of social commentary about our treatment of senior citizens in today’s world. If your sense of humor is just a little off kilter (like mine), this is probably a movie you should see. Remember, this is a low budget independent film, so don’t expect a lot of expensive set piece action sequences. And Ossie was in his 80’s when making the flick so he couldn’t be too active, but both leads are just great as their characters.
Highly recommended, the movie is rated R for: Brief Egyptian breastulation, excessive discussion about pus filled sores and assorted naughty bits, weapons grade bed pans, giant scarabs, and for the mummy flambeau.

Wild Things

Wild Things (1998): This is one of my faves. Talk about double, triple and perhaps even quadruple crosses, this movie has more unsavory crossings than you can shake a stick at. With a great cast; Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell, Denise Richards, Theresa Russell, Robert Wagner, and with Bill Murray in a great extended cameo as a sleazy lawyer, the movie keeps rolling along with new twists and turns for its entire length. It can even be of interest to those only focused on sex and violence because it has lots of both including a near X rated threesome scene that actually moves the plot forward (a little).

It concerns a Florida private school teacher who gets into trouble for dabbling with one of his rich students, who is cast out and then sues to regain his good name. No one is what they seem and even when you think you have someone’s motives figured out, chances are you will be wrong. Cast mortality is surprisingly high but the movie does stay true to its internal logic……I think. Try this one for a fun evening. It is so complicated that they explain the whole thing during the closing credits to make sure you know who did what to whom and how it was done. The movie is rated R for: multiple orbulations and a couple of bumulations, spear gun violence, pistol violence, boom violence, gator violence, car violence, tooth violence, a very hot car wash, and especially for the naughty threesome scene.

Wild Things 2

Wild Things 2 (2004) If you recall my review of the original ‘Wild Things’, I considered it to be a very good movie. Well, if you haven’t seen WT 1 for heavens sake, do not see this movie until you see the first one. It is essentially the same movie with a slightly changed plot, much weaker performances, no originality, no reason for being and it will totally spoil the first film for you. Some of the scenes appear to be lifted right out of the original film with unknown actors posing as slightly different characters. Pass on this one unless you can’t resist a movie with lots of pulchritudinous females on display. The movie is rated R for: the same violence as the first movie, the same excessive pulchritude as the first movie, and especially for the same threesome scene as the original. Sheesh!

Curse of the Komodo

Curse of the Komodo (2003): Well gang, it’s another big ‘thing’ movie. Instead of large ants, snakes, or sabretooth tigers, this time we get enlarged bullet proof mutant Komodo lizards. I couldn’t find out what the curse of the komodo was but the cast sure did curse at the komodo. Perhaps the title has some sort of prepositional license. To be fair, this is not too bad for a low budget big thing movie.
The story goes something like this; a secret Navy project on a secret island 300 secret miles south of Hawaii secretly goes terribly awry. Meanwhile in Honolulu, a gang of robbers secretly hit a casino and secretly fly off with the cash in a rented helicopter that crashes on the secret Komodo Island during a not so secret storm.
The island crew of a couple of scientists and the chief scientist’s bimbette daughter are protected by an electric fence but their generator is low on fuel. At this point you realize the house on the island looks somewhat like a Victorian mansion and you have to ask yourself, how in the heck they got that baby on a deserted island. As with most B movies of this type, looking too closely at the details will spoil the fun.
The CGI komodos have accelerating appetites and cast depopulation starts early in the movie. To make matters worse, if you touch their saliva (Who would want to anyway?) you develop a terminal infection and start to act like a character out of ‘The Night of the Living Dead’. A cover up by the Navy ensues and our cast of komodo croutons has to figure a way off the island without Navy help. In fact at one point I’m not sure the komodos were more of a danger to the cast than the Navy. In any event, some of the cast survive and the movie does come with the required topless bathing scene as well as dollops of gore to keep genre fans happy.
The movie is rated R for: multiple silicone enhancements, topless bathing, gore galore, oozing sores, useless rifle firing, C-4 explosions, and for the pilot with a drinking problem.

Suspended Animation

Suspended Animation (2001): Well, it happened again! I rented this flick expecting an el cheapo horror film and stumbled into a really good suspense/horror story directed by an Oscar-nominated director (John Hancock) and based on a real novel rather than a ‘graphic novel’ upon which far too many movies of today are based. Shot in Indiana (Hancock’s home state), the movie is about a producer of animated movies (hence the hidden meaning in the title) who goes snowmobiling with some buddies and runs into a family straight out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The lead actor gets a real hint he is in trouble when the family stamps a prime meat butcher’s mark on his forehead. But this is not your average slasher movie and events take an unusual turn fairly early in the flick leading to lots of non-constructive obsessive behavior by the lead character. Things go from bad to better to worse and back several times. The movie has a good story, unknown actors who turn in good performances, and plenty of gore for you low lives out there and you know who you are. The movie is rated R for: brief breastulation, digit excision, forehead drilling, pimple picking, general anti-social behavior, excessive loonies, and for the faulty genes in most of the characters.

Razor Blade Smile

Razor Blade Smile (1998): At last, a truly good low budget independent vampire movie and produced in the UK to boot! Narrated by the lead (Eileen Daly) the movie starts in black and white showing how one Lilith Silver became a vampire in the 1700’s. One of her initial lines to the audience is “You don’t know firetruck all about vampires.” (Authors note; Take out some letters and figure out what she really said.) The movie then shows why that statement is true. Filmed stylishly and with good use of color, this rather erotic thriller stays true to its logical premise throughout the movie, rare these days. It examines some of the issues that most movies don’t touch such as what would vampires really do in today’s world or what would be their biggest enemy besides a Van Helsing? It also deviates somewhat from the standard Hollywood rules about how vampires operate.

Lilith, most logically, is a contract assassin, a job that provides her with a good non-traceable income as well as a constant blood supply. She is contracted to off a number of powerful people, members of a super secret society and runs into conspiracies, inept police detectives, vampire groupies, and other assorted characters. The finale includes a samurai sword fight and a return to the site where she first became a vampire. The twist at the ending, though somewhat of a surprise, does fit into the logic of the movie. I don’t think I’m giving anything away but according to the narration, a vampire’s biggest enemy is boredom, all that time on your hands, and that also fits into the logic of this movie’s universe. Eileen Daly has been seen in some low budget dermis-flicks but she finally gets to show off some acting skills in addition to her dermis quality in this movie. This is an excellent rent for genre fans if you can find it (and be sure to watch to the end of the credits). The movie is rated R for: large blood flows, red bathwater, breastulations, multiple decapitations, stake in the stomach, chest carvings, free masons on acid, multiple cat suits, multiple fangs, isle of lesbos activity, and for the bad teeth of many of the English actors (and I’m not talking fangs here either.)

Decoys

Decoys (2004): What can you say about a movie whose primary subject matter is navel-less blonde alien coeds with tentacle bearing hooters? It seems they have come to Earth to mate with the local frat boys but haven’t quite got the process figured out and the lads tend to freeze to death after a night of one eyed snake dancing. Shot in Ottawa, Canada and supported by the taxpayers of that great northern nation, I’m just glad my tax dollars didn’t help pay for this effort in classic film making. The movie could have been a lot better but it seemed to be trying to stay away from being overly comedic or overly dramatic. There is, however, considerable overly acting and the movie changes from comedy to drama to horror and back at random. It starts out as a tongue in cheek horror flick and then gets serious, but with the lead sorority girls producing tentacled hooters all the time, it was a little hard not to break out laughing at the wrong times. Well, at least it’s a Canadian movie that is not a snoozer as there are too many manly men and hotly women wandering around to allow the average viewer to doze off. The movie is rated R for: excessive frat parties, multiple orbulations, excessive tentacle-ation, multiple lethal sex, multiple shapely aliens, oral bug exiting, occasional crispy and exploding aliens, and especially for the grappling hooters, a new concept in horror films.

Close Your Eyes

Close Your Eyes (2002): This English suspense film, known as Dr Sleep over there, is an excellent thriller for a small budget production. I was expecting a routine B movie but got one that has genuine suspense and several heart stopping sequences. The story is about a pedophilic serial killer with a penchant for extreme weirdness. A somewhat discredited hypnotist making a marginal living by curing smokers of that nasty habit cures a low level policewoman who is looking after the one surviving victim of the pedophile. She decides Dr. Sleep is the one who can help get the little girl to talk again when she finds he appears to have a limited ability to read minds. This causes the plot to get moving and a number of cross currents start to flow. It becomes part detective story, part suspense thriller, and part history lesson and part horror movie all well crafted into an interesting tale. Every character is placed under intolerable stress and all the actors do a tolerable job with their roles. The movie also comes with interesting use of color (a lot of red by the way), camera angles and theme music. This can be an enjoyable weekend evening of creepy viewing. Just keep the doors and windows locked and you will sleep better at night. The movie is rated R for: involuntary blood donations, questionable tattoo artistry, bizarre dead clerics, internal ratification, rampant insomnia, and especially for the quease inducing sharp stick in the eye scene.

Baby Juice Express

Baby Juice Express (2002): I don’t think this British comedy made it to these shores in great numbers but if you don’t mind thick English accents and a lot of obscure English slang, this might be a movie to rent. It concerns a number of somewhat dim crooks making somewhat dim plans that go somewhat awry. The plot is a bit outlandish and there is a kidnapping of sorts where thousands of hostages are taken. The only intelligent characters that seem to be able to count to 10 and get it right are the women in the cast, the guys are all hopeless. It seems that two dimbulbs wind up owing a semi-important semi-legal large muscular fellow a bit of quid and they come up with a plan on which the movie’s title is based to obtain funding for the payback. It seems a hardened but aging criminal in the slammer needs to sire an heir or all his ill gotten gains revert to the state if he passes on. He regularly smuggles a bit of himself (I really don’t want to go into details here.) out to his wife to try and have a remote blessed event. Our geniuses decide to hijack the shipment and hold it for ransom to raise some funds, get out of debt and get back to a life of happy petty thievery. Along the way, there is much to guffaw at, particularly if you enjoy English humor. All kinds of unfortunate things happen, including spillage, difficult to obtain backup supplies, and a pretender to the throne sample. Things stay just complex enough to keep your interest and while not a great movie, it is a good B comedy. The movie is not rated but probably would get an R for: subject matter, boxing violence, toe stomping, bus carnage, sample vials, vile samples, vile grammar, multiple wanking, untimely spillage, hookers with a heart of lead and improper use of a water pistol.

The Hazing

The Hazing (2004): This movie contains Brooke Burke’s film debut for fans of that E channel/centerfold star. Even though she is headlined, don’t expect to see her last very long in this moderately amusing horror film by Rolf Kanevsky. While definitely a low budget dead teen category movie, it does have a good group of actor/victims and some actual character development, though that’s kept pretty well out of the main line of plot development. This is kind of an Evil Dead, meets the Exorcist, meets Hell Night, meets…..just about every other low budget horror movie plot. A group of frat and sorority pledges have to go on a scavenger hunt and then stay in a haunted house for the night in order to be accepted into their houses. I realize this has been done in about umpty-seven other movies but this one is above average for the genre. One pair of scavengers break into a professor’s house to get some ‘stuff’ and find out he’s a murderer and a devil worshipper, accidentally kill him (so they think) am make off with his ‘Evil Dead’ type book of spells and a magic staff. The young group contains manly men and hotly women. In fact the skintight silver jumpsuit the brunette lead wears for the whole movie is worth the price of admission alone. In keeping with traditional values for this type of movie, the two female leads manage to extricate themselves from their costumes on occasion and there is also a lot of cast depopulation going on. You will have to keep your sense of humor about you because the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously and that is underscored by some of the lyrics in the background music. One lyric goes “Spin you head around like Linda Blair!”
The teens eventually fight back and a few almost escape when more ghosts attack as the movie ends. Not bad for a low budget, seriously overused plot line, semi-comic horror film. You could do worse for a weekend rental. The movie is rate R for: several attacks of nudity, axes galore, gallons of red sauce, horn puncturing, extreme involuntary tongue extension, and definitely for the silver astronaut jump suit worn by the brunette lead.