Demons

“I don’t which hurts more…being eaten by a demon or you twisting my nipples like that.”

Dario Argento the Italian master of horror wrote this little 80’s gem of terror. Yes the same man responsible for movies with underwater zombie/shark fight scenes and close up eye gougings.

Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) is your typical American girl living in the big American city (which appears to be West Berlin but whose nit picking?) On her way home from her communist rally she is stalked by a chromed masked guy in break dancin’ parachute pants who is giving away some free movie tickets. This stalker-marketing approach seems to work as she asks for another ticket for her equally dim-witted big haired friend-Hannah (Fiore Argento.)

That night at the theater opening, a big frizzy haired workers dressed like a giant leprechaun works the ticket booth and patrol the audience with her annoying flashlight. Among the small audience there’s a blind man and his seeing-eye girlfriend whose job it is to explain what’s happening in the film. She also likes to sneak away to make out with the greasy stranger in the back of the theater. There’s also a pimp and a couple of his employees taking a break from a long day at work. I knew he was a pimp from his disco leisure suit and the giant satellite sized gold medallion around his neck.

While at the theater Cheryl and her friend encounter a couple yuppies in polo shirts and tennis sweaters just fresh from shooting their docker pants commercials. Anyone that wears a sweater wrapped around their neck deserve a demon attack. The movie-within-the movie begins and has some teens motor-crossing across some ancient ruins eventually encountering a burial mask that turns them into a pointy teethed demon creatures. While seeing this on screen one of the theater patrons also transforms into a drooling demon and goes on a carnivorous rampage turning other theater patrons into monsters via some vicious neck slashing, eye gougings (of course) and impromoto lynchings. The survivors try to flee only to find an apparently fast contractor built a wall over the exits trapping them in so they instead barricade themselves on the balcony hoping for a rescue.

Meanwhile in what seems and entirely separate film, some coke snorting cola drinking Billy Idol fans are cruising the streets in on of their mom’s station wagon. Exchanging witty banter and eluding the cops through a series of carefully signaled right turns, they break into the now demon possessed theater. But unfortunately they get turned into demons themselves….so not really much of a character change for them. The movie continues into a cat and mouse chase ending with a helicopter crash. Yeah I was confused too.

What is the mystery of the creepy theater? Who will survive the night? Why do movie snacks cost more than the tickets? How many times did I mention the word “demons” in this review? All these questions and more are answered in “Demons.” This is one of few “Italian made, English dubbed, movies filmed in West Berlin that is supposed to be an American city” movies that I’ve enjoyed, so I say check it out and always be sure to check your pimps and ho’s for demon scratches.

Keep an eye out for…

– ticket scalping Phantom of the Opera rejects
– bald pimps in white leisure suits
– face scratching Halloweens props
– motorcycling samauri lobby displays
– illegal use of Billy Idol music in a station wagon
– eye gouging, neck scratching, leg chewin’, finger choppin’ demon party animals
– the handy-dandy Ginsu demon slicer

If gold medallions are a sign of being a pimp would Mr. T be the king of all pimps? I pity da pimps.

rated 8.4 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for Demons

Phantasm

“Don’t even mess with me…I have balls of steel!”

Before Elvis met the mummy in Bubba-Ho Tep, Don Coscarelli directed his first and finest legendary cult horror film known as Phantasm. A touching family tale about a boy, his brother, and a balding ice cream truck driver. Actually it’s more of a horrific story about a creepy mortician who steals bodies and makes them into dwarf slaves and protects his lair with flying head drilling sphere of death…but that’s splitting hairs (and heads in this case)

Jody the younger brother sees some weird things happening at the local cemetery when his buried uncle is dug back up and hauled back into the mortuary. Apparently a victim of a voided warranty. I was at first concerned that Jody was actually a motorcycle riding ugly girl due to his extremed feathers 70’s hair style…and the fact his name was “Jody” but luckily I figured the truth out after a while. Jody discovers that the recently buried are being shrunk down like human shrinky-dinks to fit into handy dandy dwarf containers for inter-dimensional slave trading. Shockingly his brother Michael doesn’t believe this totally plausible story. Jody brings back proof in the form a sliced off finger from the Tallman that mutates into a giant bug. A bug by which even the Orkin man would cower from.

Michael enlists the help of his local hippy friend Reggie. Reggies is a local ice cream salesman who cruises around in a pimped out ice cream truck convertible never seeming to actually sell ice cream but he does like to stop to play guitar solos on occassion. Michael, Jody, and Reggie fight the tall man along with his dominion of star wars inspired sand people in the cemetery mosoleum, all the while dodging brain drilling spheres and avoiding creepy ladies in purple dresses who are turned on by tombstones. The Tall Man played by Angus Scrimm, a great evil actor’s name if I ever heard one, stalks the two brothers in his hearse while they race to save their friends from the fate of slaved Oz munchkinism in their muscle car Barricuda. Some generally creepy moments and overall weirdness make this a must see. I say check it out as well as the great sequel Phantasm II.

Keep an eye out for…
– vague palm readers with cigar boxes
– sand people from Star Wars
– head drilling flying spheres
– t-top ice cream truck cruisers
– feathered hair styles that would make Donnie Osmond jealous
– gratuitous use of a guitar solo
– Hemi-Cuda coolness
– cemetery motorcrossings
– creepy women who hang out in cemeteries
– dull bladed garbage disposals
– barrels-o-dwarfs

You can’t fake a Phantasm.

rated 9.2 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for Phantasm

The Stuff

“When good smores go bad….real bad.”

How intelligent can snack food get? I often pondered this question while staring blankly into my nearly empty refrigerator late at night. A small cup of vanilla pudding mockingly stares back at me as the only remaining item that’s edible. Fortunately not only is vanilla pudding delicious and packed with sugar, it’s also not an alien life form that oozed up from the earth’s center to take over my mind….   or is that just what the pudding wants me to think?

In “The Stuff”people aren’t so lucky to have passive desert snacks. Instead some backwoods hillsman decided to taste something he sees bubbling up from the ground…because when you can’t identify something it’s always a good idea to taste it! Before you can say mass marketing, the yogurt like substance is on every shelf and in every refrigerator in America and appearing in lots of bad 80’s commercials.

Not everyone is not hooked on it though. Our pint size protagonists, Jason, in the obligatory “annoying kid who can’t get killed” role first realizes the sinister nature of the snack when he sees it crawling in the fridge. His family is hooked on The Stuff trying to get him to join their new diet plan but Jason thinks fast and fools them by eating some shaving cream instead. Jason is really the McGuiver of his time. Meanwhile A coalition of ice cream executives decide to hire an industrial spy, David “Mo” Rutherford…where the Mo stands for “needs mo acting lessons.” David’s southern charms his way into the corporate headquarters of the Stuff to try to find out how it’s made. Things are not as they appear though. The townsfolks are always eating cups of The stuff, have apparent gastoral problems and constantly spray yogurt out of their faces. That eventually makes David a tad suspicious. The laid back way Dave just matter-of-factly reacts to the horrifying events around him is pretty hilarious to watch. It’s like southern charm and witty southern banter are his only defense.

We also have some militia army guys hiding out in an abandoned renaissance festival castle just itching for the opportunity to fight vicious snack-food. David and his girlfriend enlist them to help fight “the Stuffies” and let the rest of the world know the truth. but as you well know fighting alien yogurt with bullets is like trying to nail jello to a tree.

There’s a special cameo of The Chocolate Chip Cookie King who steels the show among the various annoying standout characters most of which we find out have creamy nugget centers and there’s lots of blob-like marshmallowy evilness trying to stop our heroes fight to save humanity. All in all, a fun time so I’d say check it out. You really can’t make attacking yogurt very scary, but you can often make it hilarious.

Keep an eye out for…
– human smores
– way too southern southerners
– toasting marshmallows with no campfires
– grocery market snackfood vandals
– attack of the albino blob
– the ice cream mafia
– the evil land of dairy queen…a gravel pit of non-fat yogurt
– shaving cream eating
– The Chocolate Chip cookie King

“Come ‘n listen to my story ’bout a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed
And then one day, he was shootin’ at some fools
And up through the ground come a bubblin’ food.
The Stuff that is. alien yogurt, evil ice cream”

rated 8.4 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for The Stuff

The Toxic Avenger

“I hope my car rental insurance covers this.”

Take note geeks on love patrol, if you want to get the ladies you simply need to wear a pink tu-tu and accidentally fall into a barrel of toxic waste thereby become hideously deformed. It will give you super hero strength, motivate you to fight evil, and change your voice to a someone who sounds like they should do Viagra commercial. This is what our leading man Melvin, the soon to be Toxic Avenger, demonstrates to his helpless viewing audience.

Melvin , a local mop boy nerd, works at the Tromaville Health club where all the brain vacuous jocks and bimbos like to hang and out collect new community diseases in the jacuzzi. A group of these dumb teens decide to play a prank on extreme-nerd Melvin which causes him to jump through a window landing in a passing by truck of toxic waste. And as all us comic book geeks know toxic waste gives you super powers.

Melvin turns into the Toxic Avenger…look out Batman and Superman…Toxic avenger has unregulated EPA laws on his side. Eesh at least Aquaman could control fish with his mind. Toxie is inexplicably drawn to fighting evil and starts his crusade to literally mop up the town (leaving behind a mop on each of his criminal victims…. and the fresh scent of pine.)

The victims range from cross dressing muggers to gun touting pro wrestling rejects which Toxie equally serves up like a fast food value pack. After beating a criminal with his own arm Toxie’s tender side is revealed when he finds love in a blind girl (dumb, blonde, and blind..a toxic mutant’s perfect soul mate). She decides to move in with toxie, they make passionate toxie love, she redecorates, throws away his cool stuff then forces him to go camping. Pretty typical relationship stuff.

Toxie is a busy guy though with his own revenge hit list as he systematically wipes out the kids who made fun of him at night while his day job is being a good samaritan mutant helping grandmas cross the street and opening jars for limp wristed town folk. I could see politics in the future for the Toxic Avenger with that sort of mass appeal. Overall a great introduction the movies of Troma Entertainment where if it ain’t weird and degrading then it ain’t on film. So check it out now and decontaminate your DVD player later.

Troma Films…..aren’t those the same guys making a movie about a zombie chicken?

Keep an eye out for…
– man beaten with his own arm
– deep fried finger food
– biker road kill
– toxic redneck haulers
– pink poka-dotted tu-tu’s
– charcoal roasting
– toxic home decoration tips
– sundae ala mode bad guys
– defective gym equipment
– blind girls with extreme guide cane collections
– midget dry cleaning
– braille mirrors
– bikini camping

rated 7.9 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for The Toxic Avenger

Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers

“Camp nurses….remember this is what happens when nose bleeds go untreated.”

Angela is back. This time she’s a camp counselor. Previously murdering a dozen teens, years of therapy, and a sex change operation apparently gave her/he an excellent resume for working with kids at Camp Rolling Hills. Pamela Springsteen (yes that’s Bruce Springsteen’s little sister) plays the happy physcopath who kills anyone that mildly irritate her moral sensibility. She’s like a menopausal June Cleaver with a hatchet. She also likes to plays guitar about as bad as she can act.

Angela wants everyone to have fun and follow her rules and if you don’t you get “sent home.” “Sent home” is murder slang for “viciously killed and getting propped up in a creepy shed like a redneck taxidermy display” Not Even Brian Clarke’s huge mullet hair can stop the carnage nor does it shield him from battery acid.

The body count is higher in this one compared to it’s prequel and it appears that everyone that has a line in this movie is killed off even people that wandered onto the set had to be killed, key grips…dead, caterers…dead..,writers, producers, sound editors…all killed. Eeesh even Jason paced himself with his kills. the film is by no means scary, you’d be advised to rent Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants for more frights than this campy camp slasher. If you dare attempt to endure this movie you’ll never look at outhouses the same again.

Keep an eye out for…
– log beatings
– tongue chopping
– head drilling
– teen roasting
– battery acid to the face
– decapitation
– death by chainsaw
– death by Freddy glove
– death by guitar
– death by outhouse
– loosing your will to live from the happy camper song

“Ooooh, I’m a happy camper, I love the summer sun. I love the trees and forest, I’m always having fun! ” -Angela the happy killer

rated 2.9 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer from Sleepaway Camp II (warning this trailer is rated R)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

“This is why I use SPF 500…3rd degree sun burns are a killer.”

Freddy Krueger, the definitive horror icon of the 80’s. Nothing strikes more fear into teens than a pizza faced wise ass with hand covered cutlery who kills them in their dreams. Say what you will, Freddy was a fashion ground breaker with his k-mart special green and red sweater and Indiana Jones fedora hat. At the end of part 3 Freddy was buried in and old junk yard with some holy water and a crucifix (standard anti monster equipment everyone should have). You know you can’t keep a cash movie franchise down so this time he’s been resurrected by a dog peeing flames on his grave… that’s nothing he should really brag about.

In this made for MTV style movie nothing is going to stop Freddy from taking out the remaining survivors from the previous Nightmare sequels, even if one of them is played by a totally different actress (Tuesday Knight as Kristen Parker) which threw me off a bit. Freddy quickly cleans house of annoying teenage actors but finally meets his match in the form of Alice the Dream master who has absorbed all the powers of the the previous victims. So I guess that means Alice gets the power of bad acting, YMCA karate lessons, and big hair styling skills.

Freddy wants to use Alice to bring him new victims through her dreams so he can dispose of them in ever increasing weird ways and add more faces to his abs of souls. Case in point a girl who is afraid of bugs gets turned into a giant cockroach and is squished in a roach motel.  Apparently Freddy’s out doing it for style and extra bonus points for the most use of puns. This all leads to the final battle that has all the intensity of a luke warm bath between Freddy and the Dream Master.

I saw Nightmare 4 when I was 14 years old and I was a huge Freddy fan boy at the time so this was a great nostalgic trip back to Elm Street. I say check it out and whatever you do…don’t fall asleep…… and don’t eat beef jerky with Oreo cookies..that’ll guarantee you some real nightmares.

Keep an eye out for…

– flame peeing canines
– nurses with bad dental work
– roach motels…you can check in but you can’t check out
– pizza soul food
– the deep end of a waterbed
– Freddy french kisses
– weight lifting spotters that are horribly burned
– the esophogus of souls
– kung-fu freddy
– Freddy in Ray-Bans
– soul collecting….collect them all!

You know you’re not really scary any more when you’re on lunch boxes, t-shirts, and pez dispensers.

rated 8.9 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master