Killer Condom -review by Gorehound

 

Troma produced films aren’t for everyone. I, for one, love them. Lloyd Kaufman is a genius when it comes to low-budget movies. As a makeup artist you have to love the over the top makeup effects and copious amounts of blood.

Killer Condom starts off in a brothel. Something evil is lurking in the night stands hungry for penis. The main character is a gritty gay detective Luigi Mackeroni.

Even though he’s a cop he enjoys paying a cute boy toy to ram his huge cock in some man-gina.

After Detective Mackeroni loses a testicle to the ravenous rubber it becomes personal.

Killer Condom is in German, which is bizarre because it takes place in New York City. So if you don’t speak Deutsch you will be reading subtitles. Not a big deal, but I’m warning you if you don’t like reading during a movie. There is plenty of sex, tons of blood, penis, a creepy drag queen, and gore. You may find yourself cringing and holding your crotch like this guy.

Fear not, the Killer Condom isn’t a freak of nature. There is a larger plot to this dick dissecting madness. You’ll just have to watch the movie to find out more.

Ralph Konig wrote the comic book Killer Condom which the film is based on. Although I like this movie, Troma has better offerings, like Terror Firmer and The Toxic Avenger.

Killer Condom isn’t one of the most famous or infamous Troma movie, but I still recommend watching it for a good laugh.

– Gorehound

Zombieland (2012) review by the Director

 

Here we go again:

Columbus Ohio (Jessie Eisenberg) a young anti-social yet happy go lucky guy finds himself in a zombie apocalypse. He makes clever rules, which he writes down, and carefully follows.

These rules are repeated throughout the movie on the screen. Columbus hooks up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) who is a roughneck natural zombie slayer. Columbus cracks observational humor throughout the movie, which sometimes annoys Tallahassee yet amuses him enough to stick with the ‘scrony little spitfire.’

Zombieland:

After a great intro of crazy zombie shenanigans…

Tallahassee, who names everyone after the city they come from meets Columbus.

Tallahassee and Columbus raid a super market in search for Twinkies, Tallahassee’s favorite treat, which reminds him of life before it went to crap.

After butchering all the Zombies in the store they hear a little girl crying for help. That is when the two meet up with anti-heroes Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock her little sister.

The crew eventually teams up for while before Wichita and her sister split ways to head to their ultimate destination, a childhood amusement park. The plan here is for Little Rock to have her last peaceful fun a child should have before a hard life living in Zombieland, a world ruined by people turned into flesh eating monsters (metaphorically not much different than the world now). Columbus forms a crush on Wichita, which because she is super hot and let’s face it, there aren’t many eligible girlfriends running around.

Their is trouble and gun fights, tension, and a lot of actually charming and funny jokes.

What makes Zombieland unique is it’s not a straight up horror. It’s also an adventure comedy. It’s made like a horror movie. Its chock full of graphic gore living easily up to it’s R rating. Yet it has a playful, satirical feel. It’s a fun movie and highly entertaining.

Shaun of the Dead is the definitive the fan favorite cult zombie comedy. Personally I didn’t like Shaun of the Dead as much as this one. I wanted to like Shaun better, it was more violent and more terrorizing. There is no denying Zombieland has a charm and it gets under your skin. I think Zombieland is more American dark comedy and Shaun of the Dead is more British or Irish type macabre comedy. Booth are worth seeing and I’m sure I’m the minority in liking Zombieland better.

Zombieland tightrope walks its comedy and violence, keeping it just a little bit cartoony and fun without loosing the terror of a zombie take over. I think their trick is almost never killing a human character. If they had humans dying it wouldn’t have felt like fun, it would have been another horror zombie movie. That’s why Zombieland is a comedy about zombie horror and Shaun of the Dead is a zombie horror movie that happens to be funny.

Acting:

Woody Harrelson is great in comedies and he is having fun in this one. Emma Stone is cute and plays the tough girl yet vulnerable role well. Jessie Eisenberg is kind of a dork, but his is smart, has great timing and delivery. I really enjoyed his semi-nerdy role. Though he seems weak, his is tough enough and certainly smart and discipled enough to survive in Zombieland. He sells the character great.

Gore:

A couple smashed heads, blown apart zombies, endless shotguns kills, zombies stabbed, ran over, exploded, on and on, lots of bloody gore. Nothing horribly disgusting but very violent and not for young children.

Sex:

Nothing, just Emma Stone looking sexy.

Directing: 

Triple threat writer, producer, director Robin Fleischer helms this boat. Slick high budget Hollywood studio produced, the movie looked great. Nothing particularly creative, but its wasn’t an artsy, low-budget movie so it was made the traditional way, high quality, no mistakes, no chances taken, nothing gained, nothing lost. The movie never takes itself too serious, the Zombie Rules Columbus comes up with are written on the screen! It’s funny though, and the rules are good zombie survival skills, they keep Columbus alive.

This is Zombieland:

A fun way to spend 90 minutes. It’s not great but it’s very entertaining. If you are looking to watch something a little light hearted with clever banter but still want your horror fix, its well worth watching. I recommend seeing it.

-The Director.

GutterBalls 2008 -review by the Director

Gutterballs…

Brought to you buy the clever Canadians of Plot Digger Films (the same company that gave birth, or aborted, Hanger)

Game on:

A couple of rival bowling teams meet in a bowling alley after hours for a little bowling royal.

Strike:

Gutter balls is a highly politically incorrect offense movie. It’s brash and violent. It’s cruel and stereotypical. A brutal rape leads to graphic violence, campy comedy, and rowdy sex.

It’s a mystery serial killer, pick em off one by one, plot.

The gore hits very hard. Gorehounds will be grinning ear to ear with a sadistic smile. Especially during the DIY sex change operation. Not to mention there are a lot of dangerous places to get hurt in a bowling ally, ball returns, pin setters, and pin polishers.

 

It’s sexy including a hot chick in a super high mini skirt bending over to bowl and showing off her naked clam.  You’ll have to watch that scene near the beginning to unleash the fourteen year old boy in you.

The acting is quite bad and zany at times securing it’s B-horror status and cult potential.

She evidently doesn’t like rubber dongs, you’ll see why…

Even though it might be easy to criticize gutter balls for it’s bad acting and low budget feel. It’s a brave film chock full of splatter gore, nudity, and way better than paint by numbers multi-million dollar budget horror.

-The Director.

Sharknado review by the Director.

The scent of blood, but not in the water:

Sharknado opens with a nail bitting scene between black market shark fin dealers. The buyer gets cheap on the Captain who has hulled in fins from a pod of 20,000 sharks. The buyer offers $100,000. The Captain draws a rifle and says it’s worth a $1,000,000 (But he plays it deadpan, no sticking the tip of his pinky in the corner of his mouth like Dr. Evil in Austin Powers). The Asian buyer nervously squeezes his bag of money. Captian is crazy and he want to get off dis fuuking boat thinks the Asian. The captain tells the man the secret to catching lots of sharks. The Asian doesn’t care. But when you have a gun pointed at you, you better fucking act like it’s Adolf Hitler talking to you.

“The man shouldn’t be afraid of the shark, the shark should be afraid of the man.” The scruffy Captain says. Wow that’s really insightful.

He is drawn out on deck by screams or terror from the crew. When Captian Socrates returns below deck, the money and the buyer are gone. The captain quickly catches the Asian buyer on the deck trying to escape. Sharks fly up from the water and eat them both. Sharks are a coming. It’s time to be afraid of sharks, lots of sharks. Ironic how wrong the Captain’s secret philosophy is.

Feeding Frenzy: 

Ex-pro surfer Fin (Ian Ziering, of 90210 fame) owns a bar and grill on the Santa Monica Pier.

He is out surfing when a fellow surfer is attacked by a shark. Fin’s friend Baz is riding a jet ski and is attacked. Fin helps the injured surfer to the beach. Sharks are filling up the waters around the Santa Monica beach, people are being attacked.

A vicious storm is coming. The storm has attracted thousands of sharks. WTF? All kinds, especially the man eaters, Tiger sharks and Great Whites are drawn to the foray. Your guess is as good as mine.  It is never addressed in the movie. Probably one of the most amazing things about this movie, it’s plot is so impossible the writers don’t even bother trying to explain it, awesome.

What’s Next?

The Storm devastates Fin’s Bar. His bar bitch Nova (who has a secret crush on Fin but he reminds her he is much to old for her and secretly gay), his best friend Baz, and best alcoholic customer George (John Heard, casted for cheap star power) load up into a truck and begin trekking inland.

Areas of flooding are everywhere. Inside all the little pools of flooded water are killer sharks. Remember when you were a little kid and you thought there could be a shark in the swimming pool? Well this is totally happening in Sharknado. People are getting eaten and attacked in waist deep pools of water cause by storm surge.

As the group ventures out they of course encounter sharks. Fortunately for them Nova is a bad ass shark slayer with her pump action shot gun. Drunken George uses his lucky bar stool as a weapon, he saves Nova’s precious life. Then George get’s eaten (and John Heard collects his check).

Fin looses his best customer. But he remains cool and focused.

Fin’s good guy character development is accomplished in a painfully long scene where Fin rescues a whole bus full of kids. One at a time tediously Fin and Baz rescue kids out of a bus, hanging off a bridge. Baz is very strong because in a matter of minutes he pulls up about 30 kids and large female bus driver. Sharks are jumping at their heels adding tension.

I knew Tara Reid (American Pie) was in this movie. I also knew she had some botched cosmetic surgery and it damaged her movie career. But she was back! Like a mythical phoenix rising into the realm of made for TV movies.

Tara Reid plays Fin’s ex-wife April Wexler. Fin makes it to April’s house, a coastal mansion. Wow does Tara look funky. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but something was amiss. It must have been the surgery, must have been.

Fin tells April and their daughter Candice they need to get out, storms a coming. Right on queue a storm surge smashes the large windows and floods the living room. In the water is, you guessed it, a man eating white shark. Fin, with Nova and Baz, battle the shark to save Fin’s family.

Look out Candice!

As the storm comes on to land it spawns massive water spouts full of killer sharks. Nova and Fin’s son team up to fly a helicopter at the water spouts and throw a makeshift bomb into the center. Their brilliant theory is that the explosion will separate the warm and cold air causing the water spout full of sharks to collapse. Seems legit, and it works. As the spouts falls it drops water full of sharks on to the Santa Monica locals.

These falling sharks are hungry, yes sir!

It just occurred to me our protagonist’s name is Fin, like shark fin, shark fin soup, the shark hunt attracted the sharks, The storm throws them into the air, OH MY GOD I think I understand this movie.

Acting:

Ian Ziering is a decent actor. He plays the nice guy hero surfer part well. It’s been a long time since 90210 was on TV and Ian looks exactly the same.

Tara Reid plays the superficial protective single mom role well. Rumor has it Reid was rejected for Sharknado 2

What do you mean I didn’t get the part? I’m fucking Tara fucking Reid, botch cosmic surgery victim in recovery bitch!

Cassie Scerbo (Nova) was fun to watch.

You probably remember her from her role in ‘Bring It : In it to Win It!’ Scerbo really showcases her versatility as an actress from playing a cheerleader to a Rambo bartender in Sharknado. Look out for this rising star. Jaason Simmons (Baz) solidified himself as another B-list actor in another B-movie. If he could just get into a Quentin Tarantino film it could be his deserved big break into Block Busters.

This must have been so awkward.

The premier of Sharknado! A packed house.

Sex:

Nothing! Cassie Scerbo’s tight shirt and amazing tan?

Gore:

Lots of sharks eating people in parts or whole. CGI sharks blown up, shot, and butchered. Sharknado was a SyFy made for TV movie yet surprising these movies are quite gory. A bloody bit off arm, a shark cut in half with a chainsaw, two characters escape from the inside of a great white using a chainsaw. There is enough CGI gore and some practical bloody scenes to keep it campy.

Directing: 

This is Anthony C. Ferrante’s 5th made of TV horror film. Impressive huh? He was behind the wheel for such films as Scream of the Banshee and Leprechaun’s Revenge. I think just pulling off a movie called Sharknado shows the versatility and fearlessness of Ferrante.

Notice how he get’s his actors to embrace their peril. You’d think Tara would be doing something a little more interesting as her ex-husband shoots a gun at sharks attacking from the SKY!

Final Thought: 

Suspend all rational thought when you sit down to watch Sharknado. Try not to judge yourself as you watch this film or compare yourself to others. Enviably while watching Sharknado questions pop into your head like, What have I done with my life? How did I get to this point? What went wrong?

Take a wild guess where Nova was? I’ll give you a hint. Jonah.

Cast these thoughts aside while trying to enjoy dialog like:

“The storm is dying down.” “How can you tell?” “Not as many sharks flying around.”

“We can’t just wait here for the sharks to rain down on us.”

“Sharks took my grandfather. That is why I hate them.”

“I think we are going to need a bigger chopper.” A nod to Sheriff Brody’s similar line in Jaws.

and finally. “Why is there a retirement home next to the airport? Because old people can’t hear.”

Yes, its what you think, and it gets better. 

Rating Zero out of Five. Nah, kidding,  it’s still better than watching CSI-Nova Scotia or whatever CSI is up to now. Is Sharknado Camp nirvana? Is it so bad it’s good? I’m torn. I could rate this horror movie a 1 or a 5 and both ratings would be successfully rationalized. So I’ll just land in the middle of the pool.                

-The Director (head spinning)

Satan’s Little Helper -review by the Director

 

This is a fun little movie about a too-naive boy named Dougie who is obsessed with a popular video game Satan’s Little Helper. As the movie opens Dougie is excited (creepily excited) to see his sister who is coming home from college just in time for Halloween but, unfortunately, he’s crushed to find out that sis has brought home her boyfriend as well. While Dougie goes off sulking he spots a person in a tacky costume and devil mask who seems to be up to some mischief. Dougie is convinced that the stranger is Satan and the boy begs to tag along and play the part of the little helper.

Now whether or not this masked stranger is, in fact, Satan, he is silent throughout and has an insatiable blood-lust. Satan goes about town merrily slaying people and otherwise causing chaos. Dougie is so caught up in his video game world and thinking that “Satan” is just playing around that the boy doesn’t notice the real danger. In one scene, Satan is pushing Dougie in a shopping cart through a busy parking lot. Dougie begins to look at the people around (the pregnant woman, the old man, etc.) as video game targets and taunts Satan into going after them.

Overall, there’s a humorously high body count, a kid that’s not too annoying despite how blind he is to the chaos he’s helping contribute to, a sister that’s hot enough that Dougie’s creepy obsession with her is sorta understandable, and Amanda Plummer as the mom! The movie has enough quirky charm that by the time Dougie realizes that Satan is a bad guy (shocker!) you actually feel kinda bad for him.

 -Rabid Fox

Pumpkinhead review by Rabid Fox

 

Pumpkinhead (1988)

Overview:

Rural store owner and loving father Ed Harley loses his son in a tragic accident. He seeks a reclusive old woman to summon a demon that Harley recalls from his childhood to take revenge on the people that he holds responsible for his son’s death.

The Breakdown:

So there’s a movie with a hydrocephalic-skulled monster and Lance Henriksen and it’s not Aliens? Yes, I was intrigued too. This movie opens on a stormy night and a cabin in the woods. A panic-stricken man is pounding on the door of the Harley family’s cabin door desperate for the family to let him in. It’s clear that there is a monster after him and although we don’t know why, but we do know that there’s no way Mr. Harley is opening his door. Young Ed Harley looks out his bedroom window and sees the monster dragging his prey off into the woods.

Cut to years later and Ed Harley is a man grown. He is working his land and caring for his son and the interaction between the two is sweet – Ed Harley is a good and loving father. We see that Ed is also the owner/operator of a small rural general store and he’s about to get some visitors. A group of ambiguously-aged persons (they look like 20-somethings but this is an 80s movie so they could be trying to pass for high schoolers, college kids, or retirees) who I’ll call “kids”, are on a roadtrip to do some back-country dirt biking and cabin-staying. If the ambiguous age of the “kids” didn’t give away the 80s-ness of this movie their dirt bike fetish certainly would. The “kids” stop off at Harley’s general store and we get a quick breakdown of the group dynamics. There’s one stereotypical bad boy who likes to push his girlfriend around and is generally pretty physically and verbally abusive to his buddies. But he has a leather jacket, rides dirt bikes, and drinks and drives, so clearly this guy’s got what it takes to attract followers. The other “kids” seem decent other than their choice to hang out with Leather Jacket (as he will be referred to from here on out).

As soon as the “kids” arrive at Harley’s general store, Leather Jacket immediately shit-talks Ed’s little boy for wearing thick “coke bottle” glasses much to the chagrin of everyone around, including Ed Harley. Soon after, Ed is called away on a quick delivery and leaves junior at the store. For some reason Leather Jacket and one of his pals decides to start dirt biking right near the general store instead of waiting until they got to their cabin. The Harley’s dog, Gypsy (yes, it’s way more important to remember the dog’s name and no, I will not refer to any of the “kids” by their character names) doesn’t like the bikers or their dirt bike noises or their dirt bike ways (smart dog!) and goes chasing after them. The young Harley goes chasing after Gypsy and accidentally gets trampled under Leather Jacket’s dirt bike.

The “kids” are panicked but decide they should stay with the boy and explain to Ed that the whole thing was an accident. However, Leather Jacket has priors (because he’s a badass, remember?) so he bullies most of his friends into running away and hiding up in their cabin. One of the friends, let’s call him Nice Guy, decides to stay behind with junior until Ed comes back. As you might imagine, Ed does not take the news of the accident lightly. He gives Nice Guy a death stare and then bundles up junior to take… home? I guess the hospital is nowhere nearby so junior dies in Ed’s arms. Grief-stricken, Ed goes looking around for a special someone that lives in the woods and might be able to bring his boy back. Let’s just call this special someone the Woods Witch for lack of a better term.

So Ed Harley takes his son’s body to the Woods Witch who (is awesome!) immediately tells Ed that she doesn’t have the power to bring the boy back to life. When Ed presses her about his need for revenge, however, she notes that she can summon a demon of vengeance colloquially known as Pumpkinhead. A little grave-digging and a little of Ed and junior’s blood mixed together with some alakazam and Pumpkinhead arrives and the work of settling Ed’s score. Now what’s interesting here is that the demon is indiscriminate in his killing of the cabin-goers. That’s a little surprising since most of the “kids” are actually pretty nice and there’s even one who we see is very religious, usually in horror movies at least some of the nice ones live. Not so much here…In another interesting move, due to the blood used in the summoning ceremony, Ed and the demon are connected. As Pumpkinhead continues his killing spree we also see Ed becoming more connected to the monster, even taking on some of the demon’s attributes; only then does Ed Harley realize he’s made a devil’s bargain with the Woods Witch. As Ed struggles to stop Pumpkinhead and attempt to save himself, he comes to realize that he and the demon are too connected and that the only way the monster can be defeated is if Ed is also taken out. He relies on the sole surviving “kid” to help him out with that.

Final Analysis:

I really enjoyed this movie so don’t let the fact that I don’t really spend any effort trying to remember most of the characters’ names throw you off. The film does a great job of quickly endearing you to Ed and his son (and Gypsy!) and the story of the monster is pretty entertaining; I like that Pumpkinhead is just the name that the locals give to the demon due to its giant head and the fact that it rests in a creepy pumpkin patch. The Woods Witch is also a great character and her abode is oozing with creepy charm. All in all a very enjoyable watch, just leave your dirt bikes outside and your leather jackets at the door.

        Rating 4 out of 5

-The Rabid Fox

Grizzly -review by Lawrence S. Talbot

I love the 70’s. The best thing about the decade for me is the exploitation movies.

With guys like Roger Corman, Jack Hill, and William Girdler, some of the wildest moves ever made were produced during this period in  American cinema. There certainly has never been a decade that has been half as bold and daring as the 1970’s. That said, the success of Jaws inspired a legion of great and not so great killer animal film and along with Alfred Hitchcock’s the birds 15 years earlier, inspired a whole new genre. It’s a horror sub-genre that I am a complete sucker for, no matter how bad it is (Orca the killer whale, anyone?). In the wake of Spielberg’s killer shark movie, William Girdler’s Grizzly is one of the greatest examples of man vs. nature on film.

The plot is simple. Have you see Jaws? Then you’ve seen Grizzly. It’s exactly like Jaws except on land. It’s all here. You have a Bear killing off campers, A park supervisor who refuses to close the park, and even main characters that are a bit similar to Sheriff Brody and Matt Hooper. It’s Jaws in the woods.

However, don’t let that stop you from seeing Grizzly. It’s sheer exploitation fun. Along with the original Piranha, it’s the best thing to be inspired by Jaws. The gore is plentiful enough and there are scenes that are incredibly zany. Top all of that off with a great performance by genre great Christopher George(City of the living dead, pieces, graduation day, Mortuary, the exterminator, day of the animals,) who adds a level of believability to the whole affair.

-Lawrence S. Talbot

Tarantula reviewed by Lawrence S. Talbot

Directed by Jack Arnold

As time goes by and more films are reviewed, it’s going to become increasingly more obvious that I have a total love affair with classic horror and science fiction films from the 30’s to the early 60’s. When I was a child my father exposed me to a lot of them and I became absolutely obsessed with monsters because of it. As a result, these classics inspire a warm, familiar feeling inside of me that none of the modern horrors ever could. I’m determined to share my knowledge of them and to keep the memory of these near-forgotten classics alive for future generations. A lot of them require a further suspension of disbelief and less jaded viewership, but I think that for the most part, they’re all the better for it. There is an unmistakable charm to these films that could never be duplicated.

It may seem a little quaint today with all of the horrors that we endure on a day to day basis, but in the 1950’s the public was petrified of nuclear fallout and the threat of annihilation at the height of the cold war (For a bit of perspective, I highly recommend Joe Dante’s wonderful film, Matinee). Of course, various studios were very quick to exploit this fear and like all times of great turmoil, wondrous film monsters were born. The first monster movie to fully take advantage of this was 1953’s The Beast from 20,000 fathoms. The classic Ray Harryhausen film would feature an ancient dinosaur being reawakened by nuclear testing and wreaking havoc on its old stomping grounds in modern day New York City. The success of this film would inspire the original Godzilla the following year and create the entire landscape of Kaiju cinema over in Japan. The next year, Warner bros would produce the first giant insect film, the 1954 Classic, THEM, which featured a colony of gargantuan flesh eating ants. THEM! Is a surprisingly effective and occasionally haunting film and serves as a total high water mark for the genre. Like most trendsetters, it inspired a legion of imitators and in 1955, Universal Studios, known for its beloved legacy of producing some of the greatest monsters ever created, continued the big bug craze with Tarantula.

We begin in the desert where a grotesque, mutated man stomps down the hillside, suddenly collapses, and dies. Dr. Matt Hastings (Played by the always awesome, John Agar, the hero of many of Universal’s iconic sci fi pictures) a young, handsome, doctor and all around 50’s action hero, is summoned to take a look at the body and finds himself completely dumfounded by the man’s features. An autopsy is suggested as it is theorized  that the creature may Dr. Eric Jacobs(Played by stuntman, Eddie parker, who was most famous for portraying Klaris the Mummy in Abbott and Costello meet the mummy), who Hastings knew.  Driven to find answers, Dr. Hastings drives into the desert to speak with Professor Deemer (Leo G Carroll) at his lab and finds that he is experimenting with gigantism in an attempt to solve the growing problem of world hunger. In his lab we see a menagerie of horrors, from giant rats and rabbits to the titular giant Tarantula.

Deemer informs Hastings that Jacobs had been impatient and decided to try the formula on himself, resulting in a terrible case of Acromegaly. What Deemer fails to inform Hastings of is that Jacobs had also injected his assistant, Paul Lund with the deformity-inducing formula.

Deemer soon begins to show symptoms of the drug, becoming hideously deformed and bed ridden. Meanwhile,   Human and animal bones are found scattered throughout the desert and it is soon discovered that the giant Tarantula, being well fed, has grown to town stomping proportions. Can the military (including a cameo from a young Clint Eastwood) stop this eight legged horror? Will Professor Deemer get a facelift?

Coming directly off of his success of his immortal classic, Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and its highly underrated Sequel, Revenge of the creature (1955), Jack Arnold does a fine job directing Tarantula. The cinematography and set design further expands upon his desert background work on  It came from Outer space(1953) as  further  advantage is taken of the desert landscape. The Joshua tree scattered desert would become a staple of monster movies for years to come and would eventually become almost exclusive to the lowest of budget affairs, including Ray Kellogg’s delightfully kitschy The Giant Gila Monster (1959).

What truly separates Tarantula from other colossal arthropod films is that it’s one of the few that doesn’t deal with nuclear radiation in any form. Instead, the beast is unleashed by completely different means and another fear is exploited, that of the ever growing concern of world hunger. Also of interest is the inclusion of several human monsters, victims of the same serum that created our giant Arachnid friend.

The makeup by Bud Westmore’s unit might come off as a bit silly to today’s jaded viewers, but at the time it was top of the line. The giant spider effects are serviceable and while not believable, have a certain charm to them. Some of them were achieved with puppets, which I absolutely adore, but the majority was done with a live spider and rear screen projection and overlapping. The majority of this is handled competently and never reaches the embarrassing levels of a Burt I Gordon production; Gordon being know for films such as the Beginning of the end, which featured live grasshoppers being filmed crawling on a picture of a building to achieve an effect.  While certainly dated, Tarantula is a few notches better than Gordon’s work, as well as many of its other contemporaries (films such as The monster from green Hell, earth vs. the spider, the giant claw).

What may keep Tarantula from being as great as some of the other classic science fiction films of the time is that it could be possibly be accused of lacking depth.  Many of the characterizations are a bit thin and you won’t find any of the haunting atmosphere of the quintessential atomic age horror, THEM. Nor will you find the political and social commentary of films like the Day the Earth stood Still (1951) or Gojira (1954). Also, without a leading lady like Creature from the black lagoon’s Julie Adams in her iconic white one piece, it could be seen as lacking the sexiness of some of the more well known B-movies of the time as well. However, anyone looking for such depth in a movie such as this is entirely missing the point. Tarantula is about having fun and enjoying the innocent thrill of watching a giant spider. At the end of the day, Tarantula is still a studio picture and its budget and direction keeps it from ever feeling completely laughable, especially when compared to some of the more hilarious flicks of the time(See It Conquered the World for example). It serves as one of the finer examples of the “giant bug” genre and is sure to please anyone who is a fan;  It’s never boring and more than delivers on its premise. I’d recommend seeing THEM! First as it’s truly a classic, but Tarantula is a good second feature to follow it up with. It lacks the suspense, mystery, and sense of dread of that famous ant picture and may be a bit closer to the typical Universal b-monster movie but what’s so wrong about that?  When it’s all said and done, that’s why we see films with titles like Tarantula and the Deadly Mantis. I would recommend checking out Jack Arnold’s other science fiction films of the period as well: Creature from the black lagoon, Revenge of the creature, Monster on the campus, It came from outer space,  and especially The Incredible shrinking man, which is one of the best and most profound science fiction films of the 50’s or another era.

   -Lawrence S. Talbot 

Frankenhooker reviewed by Director

       Frankenhooker

 

“Medical schools upset me, mother – I’m anti-social – I’m becoming dangerously amoral.” -Jeffery.

The Premise:

A medical student’s fiancé dies at her Dad’s birthday party. The young medical student Jeffery builds his father-in-law to be, a horrendously dangerous lawnmower or a tiller I’m not sure, but it’s remote control. Which is really cool. Anyone who has ever cut grass has dreamt of a radio controlled lawnmower. I suppose hardcore gardeners dream of radio controlled tillers. Daddy’s daughter is excited to show off the remote control feature. Oops she immediately runs herself over because she is a total moron. Everything is destroyed but her head. Fortunately that’s all her lover needs.

If you are still reading:

Jeffery is totally distraught over his fiancé demise. He feels he can put her back together. He not only wants to rebuild her, he wants to make her better than before. She was a foodie, she ate for comfort and had a fat ass. A fake fat ass, but a fat ass regardless.

Now where can he get sexy body parts for his lover that’s just a head floating in swishing magic purple water?

Prostitutes of course!

Jeff devises a semi-retarded plan. This is a guy who can perform reconstructive surgery even the worlds greatest surgeons couldn’t dream of. For the sake of multiple cheesy jokes and gaping plot holes, I’ll keep this moving along. Jeff gets his skank ho parts and uses crack cocaine with explosives to get his parts separated. The tramps smoke the hell out of that crack because, as we all know, hookers love to smoke the crack.

Half naked girls and glass pipes, I kind wonder if that’s what the producers had in mind at the pitch meeting. I can’t even imagine that pitch meeting. Who wouldn’t invest nearly a million dollars in a film called Frankenhooker?

A very angry pimp is after him for killing all his pussy hustlers but he is, like everyone in this movie, as smart as a box of hammers. It is of note I learned that not only is crack cocaine highly addictive it can also be laced with invisible explosives. One can also just sew any body part back on, give it a huge jolt of electricity, and it will work fine, it won’t even bleed.
The medical student Mary Shelly style uses lightning to reanimate his sexy corpse of stripper parts.

Parts he personally selected especially the blown off jiggly jugs.
Nothing good happens after this point to anyone. Hell nothing good happens to anyone in this bastard of a movie.

If you are a veteran of bad movies like Lawrence S. Talbot, Gorehound, and I are as we sat down to watch this 1990 pile of sheep vomit and you can make it to the end. It has a surprise (completely impossible) ending!

GORE:

Yes, the movie is gory, but it always comes soaked in absurdity and comedy. A freezer of rubber looking practical body parts from tits to toes. I never saw a torso though. I would have thought I would have seen at least one profusely bleeding torso. As disgusting as the idea is, it’s never gross. We witness six or seven escorts get blown to chunks by explosive cocaine. FrankenHooker kills everyone she tricks out, via electrical explosion. I think this movie has the most exploding mannequins in lingerie I’ve ever seen.

SEX:

No sex but plenty of naked boobs, breast groping, and scantily clade prostitutes. No full frontal though, what’s up with that? Frankenhooker has a smokin hot bod too bad if you try to bang her she bangs you apart like an M-80.

Acting:

Painful to watch.

Director:

He was really good at filming mannequins explode in various poses.

Music:

Was there music? I think it had random 1980s homemade keyboards and synth.

Final Rating:

Maybe really drunk and at a party with free drugs this would be mildly entertaining.

On it’s own, substance free, ouch. It’s so terrible but mildly funny to poke fun at. It certainly fails as a comedy and it fails as a horror movie. I think the first time I saw it, I was so engaged in how bad it was I was in a mild state of shock. It’s hard to believe ‘Unearth Films’ produces DVDs of this movie. Why would they want to be associated with Frankenhooker in any way? It can only damage your credibility and Unearthed has so many excellent titles. This is not one of them. This is a bad troma movie. Let that last sentence sink in.

 “durr watch this movie, impress your friends.”                   

-The Delicious Director

Hell of the Living Dead review by Lawrence S. Talbot

Hell of the living dead(1980)

Over the years, I’ve seen nearly one-hundred Italian horror films and one theory that I have about them is that the more alternate titles one has, the worse the movie is. Released under the titles Virus, Zombie creeping flesh, and Night of the zombies (and probably a zillion more), Hell of the living dead is a prime example of this rule. The film is directed by infamous knock off and exploitation filmmaker, Bruno Mattei and written by Claudio Fraggasso of Troll 2 fame. With these two schlockmeisters at the helm, Hell of the living dead could be considered so bad that it’s good.

Our journey through cheesiness begins with A team of scientists creating “operation sweet death”, a chemical created to solve the world’s population problem. In typical zombie movie fashion, the agent is released and the world becomes infested with the living dead. Later, swat team finds themselves on a top secret mission in Papua New Guinea where they encounter the titular flesh eaters, along with a group of vacationers. Together, they fight for survival and seek to find the cause of the infection.

I’ll begin with the part that everyone is here for-The gore. Luckily for gorehounds, it’s plentiful. However, those looking for realistic depictions of gory mayhem should look elsewhere as the effects are completely laughable. A charming staple of bad Italian horror films is that the filmmakers always seem to be so focused on their gory set pieces that they forget that the human body isn’t made out of silly putty. The zombies themselves are unimpressive though, mostly consisting of men in glistening, unset greasepaint and the few gory ones look like they’ve had their faces dunked in cherry pie. Another important element of  a good-bad movie is the acting. Here it’s completely madcap and perfectly compliments the zany  and utterly stupid characters, who spout a stream of constant one liners, courtesy of Fraggosso’s signature flair for laugh inducing dialog. Unfortunately, the score is composed of pieces stolen from Goblin’s scores for Dawn of the dead, Contamination, and Beyond the darkness. While these scores are fantastic, it’s really distracting if you’ve seen these movies. What keeps this movie from being the perfect laugh-fest is that it is bogged down by a constant use of stock footage, mostly from nature documentaries and mondo shock films. These scenes go on forever and stop the movie dead in it’s tracks, while not adding anything at all to the narrative. So, unless the idea of watching ten minutes of ancient burial rites and villagers eating maggots seems entertaining to you, I’d recommend keeping the fast forward button handy. Overall, I would recommend this movie as something to watch with a group of friends and a few beers. It’s one of my favorite bad movies.

-Lawrence Talbot