Some Movies That Started it All

Recently I posted a review about the Italian horror film Suspiria. That review exposed (in a non gratuitous Boob shot kind of way) how my fetish for horror came to be. Some of you asked appallingly who would subject me to such things at such a young age, while others began to better understand why I may seem a little "off kilter."

For starters, my mother is to blame (thanksMom!) being as my father was not one to leave the house except for work and other "necessary" outings and my brothers were usually out doing gawd knows what (I know but I ain't tellin'!)  That left lil' ol' me me as her bodyguard movie buddy. Face it - no one wants to watch a scary movie alone, but we all love being scared (at least in a non life threatening sort of way.) My mom did and I was no different. I loved going to see each and every one of these movies.

(We'll just skip over the part where these movies warped me so bad that I had to sleep completely under the covers - otherwise demons and goblins could see me in my bed.

Or the part where my closet door had to be closed all the way  because those glowing green eyes from that thing in Suspiria were lurking in there......

Or that the black kaleidoscope of colors I would see when I closed my eyes would form goblins of their own, forcing me to open my eyes and stay awake way later than I should have...

Of course this did result in my creativity to craft adventures in my mind where I would always be in singing contests - or at concerts - and there just happened to be some rock and roll star there that I had the hots for. They would become awe struck with me and rocket me towards stardom.....

That was the only way I could keep my eyes closed for any length of time. Well that and the headphones blasting rock music into my ears so I could drown out the sounds of any werebeasts sneaking in my room to get me.....

But that's a whole 'nother story and a side of me that's probably better if I didn't talk about anymore. So let's move on, shall we?)

So I thought I would do a little synopsis of the movies that in addition to Suspiria, started it all for me. Here they are in no particular order:

Rattlers

Rattlers is a movie guaranteed to appease just about any B-movie lover. Needless to say it scared the bejesus out of me and made it so that to this day, I cannot take a bath with my back to the faucet - I have to be facing it. You know, so I can run when I see snakes pop out of it (if you saw the movie, you would understand.)

There is a good review of the movie here.

In a nutshell, this is a movie about a small town that becomes overrun with chemically altered rattlesnakes that go around killing animals, kids, old people - they really are rather indiscriminate which I find refreshing. Definitely worth the watch for fans of reptile movies.

The Car

Wow. Was this one creepy.

First you have a blacked out car that rides around killing people and when it finally becomes cornered, we find that no one is behind the wheel!

Oh, please tell me it's not the devil himself driving the car!

Anyway, James Brolin stars in gem, but don't let his name fool ya about this one. This is still a B-movie all the way, and now that I think about it, probably has something to do with the fact that I refuse to bike ride on the road......

You can read more about it here.

The Beast Within

Ok, so this one was just gross.

Some werebeast thing rapes a chick - I think she was on her honeymoon, but I can't remember - and she ends up pregnant and keeps the kid. Hello! You don't need a brain to figure out that's not smart! But we need the premise and this one is a doozie.

So the kid - the werebeast offspring - is born normal but when he nears 18, he starts to have a "transformation" of sorts and a bunch of stuff happens, people die, and then he sheds his skin during locust season just like a locust does. It was really gross and weird and caused me many nightmares.

You can read a more in depth review of it here.

Tentacles

This B-movie is loaded with above the "B" grade actors: John Houston, Henry Fonda, Shelly Winters. Some of you might even recognize Bo Hopkins.

Much like Jaws and Orca, in Tentacles people seem to just disappear while in the water. What sucks worse is that when their bodies are discovered, we find they are gnawed down to skeletal remains, with the marrow sucked right out of their bones. How could this be? What could do such a thing?

One doctor in particular begins to suspect that their local water world was poisoned when an underground tunnel was being created, resulting in an octopus morphing into gargantuan proportions. Who can save them from all those tentacles?

I can't remember if Tentacles (Tentacoli to be exact)  was good or not ( after all, I was only 9 in 1977 when I saw it on the big screen) but I sure as hell was afraid to go into water that I couldn't see through for years after this one!

You can read more about this classic here.

Bug

Yes, Bug. And the title should tell you why this one stays with me. I mean, how could anyone resist a tagline for a move about mutant cockroaches like the one for this movie:

"They Look Like Rocks & Possess High Intelligence.

They Have No Eyes & Eat Ashes.

They Travel In Your Car Exhaust.

They Make Fire.

They Kill."

Yikes! I find it rather ironic however, that I ended up being a bug-lady at one point in my life. Yes, a bug-lady, as in exterminator.

Hey! I had to get certified for it ya' know. It's not like just anyone can walk in off the streets and start killing bugs with hazardous chemicals. Not legally anyway. Those chemicals they let me play with were badass!

Anyway, I am sure it is every bit as good as I remember. (It's because of this movie I don't have a phone, I can remember that!) AND It actually won an award for Best Special Effects. Granted it may not be from anyone you ever heard of, but it still won.

You can read more about Bug here.

Flesh for Frankenstein (in 3D)

Ironically my dad, the one who hated these kinds of movies, took me to see this because I really wanted to go. Though this movie was released initially in 1973, It came to Augusta in '81 at one of those $2 theaters that don't exist anymore (at least not around here) that loved to screen old movies because they could get them cheaply. My parents were divorced, and taking me to this movie was one of the two times my dad surprised me by doing something cool for me (thanksPop!)

I remember being repulsed by the movie. Not sure if it was the movie though, or the fact that I was there with my dad. I think I need to watch it again as I barely remember it and it is a movie right up my alley (well... except for the incest. That was just gross.)

After all, this movie has blood, gore, nudity, Dr. Frankenstein, and zombies all wrapped up and delivered in a 3-D perspective. Only word I can think of is: SCORE!

Anyway, there is a pretty favorable review of it here. The reviewer kinda rambles on about 3-D and the like which I skipped over 'cuz face it, I am about the gore, camp, and B-factor - not the cinematic effects. But it's a good review and worth the read.

Now you know the rest of the story...

There were oodles more: To The Devil a Daughter; The Last House on the Left; and of course the required Carrie; The Omen; The Shining..... they all affected me in their own way, and made me a little weirder; but they also give me an escape from real life, if just for a short while, and a whole lot of laughs and scares (and there have been so many more since!)

What more could a little girl ask for??

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Sci-Fi’s “Ice Spiders”

I do so love movies with giant bugs. And I love the SciFi channel, much to my husbands dismay (apparently the channel does nothing to stimulate brain activity. Go figure.)

I especially love when the Sci-Fi channel comes out with an "original" movie that portrays giant bugs in such an unrealistic manner that it transcends comedy and borders hysteria. Like it did with their original movie Ice Spiders.

Throw in a couple used up actors singers losers former stars named Patrick Muldoon (who looks amazing similar to a brunette Kato Kailin) and a really badly aging Vanessa Williams, and you are talking about 90 minutes of totally inane B-movie madness joy! Or perhaps some really bad flash backs of Melrose Place since both actors played it at one point in time or another.... oh and hey! So did the guy who plays the part of Captain Baker!!

Actors (and I use that term loosely) aside, we have for starters, a "covert" military laboratory that is genetically engineering giant spiders for their incredible spider silk (and if you don't believe that spider silk is incredible, just ask Toby McGuire in Spiderman. He will make you a believer.)

Secondly, standard for this type of movie, we have a weird and really bad acting mad scientist who gives the spiders an extra little somethin'somethin' to progress their growing rate, which results in their escape from the lab and proceedance (is that even a word?) to ravage a nearby ski resort. These spiders are HUGE, neon colored, smart (or at least smarter than the people involved,) and ready to chow down on some human flesh! They also oddly resemble giant ticks, with tick like flat bodies but longer legs as that of spiders. Man I gotta tell ya', I was "askerred" of them! (Hah!)

But wait! All is not lost because thirdly, this ski resort is filled with ample spider fodder Olympic hopefuls training for their coveted big medals. Luckily (and this is forth on our list) Dash Dashiell (Patrick Muldoon) works there. Dash is a former Olympian who had demolished his legs in a horrific skiing accident so now no team in their right mind wants him in their corner (lucky for the ski resort, I assure you.)  We also learn that he was a Marine at some point in his life which definitely helps with the survival skills needed to ward off angry ravenous giant spiders!

Ice Spiders embodies all the cheese of just about every bad B-movie you've ever seen involving giant bugs. The awful dialogue, the incompetent acting, the ridiculous portrayal of the giant spiders - all classic B and almost 2 hours of gawd-awful fun! (well, except for the gratuitous boob shot. You don't typically find those in Sci-Fi originals and this one was no different.)

Ice Spiders may not be anything you want to admit having watched, but I can assure you watching it at least once is a must for anyone who enjoys truly awful B movie wannabes. it's fast paced with frequent blood spillage, surprising amounts of gore, and very colorful silly looking bad-ass spiders.

Of one thing I can assure you - and that is that Ice Spiders will keep you entertained. Comedically at least, if nothing else.....

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Hostel Part 2

I was hesitant to watch the first Hostel, thinking it may be too much like SAW which I had a real problem with. Too real. Too gross. Too twisted. I prefer my horror to be more unrealistic and less believable, so I can sleep at night. I can handle any possible nightmares of zombies and vampires and werewolves. I cannot handle nightmares of sociopaths wanting to sell my innards on the black market.

Or to kill me for the sheer joy of it. That would suck.

I did watch Hostel however and actually kind of "enjoyed" it. Correction: I did not regret watching it. The setting is a slovic country and whereas I might be 1/4 Checz, I do not foresee myself vacationing there. Especially after having watched Hostel.

So why did I watch Hostel 2? Well, because even though the first one was a bit intense, it wasn't over the top, and as I said before, I kind of "enjoyed" it.

HOLY SHIT, what was I thinking!

Ok - so Hostel 2 starts out innocently enough, in the same vein as the first, with some girls (instead of guys) taking a hiatus from life, and lured to to the same Hostel location as the first movie. However Part 2 takes everything that was even remotely vile in the first, and multiplies it tenfold (from my perspective at least. Some reviewers say they feel this one was rather tame compared to the first. I think they feel that way because they are guys and ticked that the sex factor was not as prevalent in this installment. The pervs.)

Good gawd I must have looked away from the TV screen at least 8 times! My husband kept making snide remarks about my twisted personality for watching movies of this caliber, but did he look away? No sirree! So who is more twisted? He who watches in sick fascination or ME those of us who look away because they are too normal to handle such horrors!? Of course I did pick this movie, so I guess there is some merit to what he says.....

Anyway, Hostel 2 outlines the premise of these movies a little better than the first one did. In the first Hostel I was left wondering about the killers and their tattoos, and how it came to pass that tourists were being kidnapped just to be tortured and killed. Maybe I slept through that part of the movie, I can't say. All I know is that it had holes.

In Hostel 2 however, it is made painfully obvious what these sickos were doing. They were bidding on the tourists. Bidding so that they could win the tourist, then main, torture and kill their prize however their sick sadistic perverted whacked out deformed brain saw fit.

(One of the bidders saw fit to shackle their prize/victim to a table, carve them up like a Thanksgiving Day turkey, then proceeded to eat the flesh raw while his victim watched in agonizing pain and horror. Talk about a nightmare!)

So where does the tattoos fit in? Well, apparently they are a type of brand - much like a gang has "colors" - joining the bidders to the "family." But if for any reason they don't kill their "prize" they not only don't get a tattoo, they don't become part of the family either. Instead, they suffer a fate worse than any they could imagine enacting on a tourist.....

Here in Hostel 2, we have three college chicks hook up with Axelle, the overly hot daughter of the twisted bastard who has created this kill empire which has laid victim to so many young, sex starved, drunken tourists (well, I presume she is his daughter. Perhaps she is just really into old guys. To each their own, I guess.)

So these 3 girls, completely enamored with sultry Axelle,  allow themselves to be lured to Slovakia with promises of an exotic spa, rest and relaxation, and maybe some men, booze and sex...

It always amazes me how the lure of sex and drugs and booze always make these young targets so stupid. Stupid as in throwing all caution to the wind and trusting just anyone. It kind of makes you think that maybe they get what they deserve. Don't they read the papers for Pete's sake?

So anyway, the first girl to bite the bullet is Lorna, played rather adeptly by Heather Matarazzo, who I had not seen on film since Scream 3. In Hostel 2, she plays a straight-laced geek, who has zero interest in the booze and drugs that is freely offered in the fun little world of Slovakia. It's just too bad she is interested in some guy paying attention to her.

The result is her getting hung - nude - upside down, so some sick female can slice her open with a sickle, thereby allowing poor tortured Lorna's blood to poor all over this sicko's naked body amidst candlelight and marble... it kind of gives a whole new meaning to "bloodbath" and while some may have found this scene rather sexual, I for one did not.

Eeeewwww....

Meanwhile, the two remaining girls, Beth and Whitney, are wondering what happened to their naive friend when she doesn't return. At a local gathering Axelle convinces the girls not to worry, so a now relaxing Beth ends up chatting and sharing a drink with a fellow by the name of Stuart who, unbeknownst to her, is the winning bidder of her nubile flesh..... (damn. Why are the nice guys always such freaks?)

(Admittedly this movie is a little predictable but aren't most horror films? Understandably, there has to be a presence of "B-moves" that permeate all movies of this genre or else they lose much of their credibility and enjoyability (I think I just made that word up. I like it! .)

Later, in the spa's heated pool, Beth dozes off (notice-->in the pool) and wakens (still -->in the pool!) sometime later to find herself alone and her belongings stolen. I found this part odd that she would just fall asleep in a pool of all places, with so many people around, then waken to everyone and everything gone. This is one of the few scenes of the movie that seemed a bit weak to me - most definitely a B-move; lame and making little to no sense. But as stated above, I expected it (and excused it) with this type of movie.

So after waking, Beth sets out in search of her friends, but instead of finding them, notices two thug-like men approaching her. In fear, she scales the spa walls and runs aimlessly into the nearby woods, where she is rudely greeted by the "Bubblegum Gang" - those little misfit kids from the first movie that exhibit traits every bit as vile as the death bidders. Luckily she is rescued by Axelle and her "dad" before those little imps could inflict any damaging blows!

Shortly after being "rescued" a chain of events alerts Beth that Axelle and her clan are not as innocent as she once thought and that they are in fact the reason for her friend's disappearances. She realizes this too late however, and finds herself captive at the murderous hands of none other than Stuart, the man she had drinks with just the night before.

I don't want to give away too much of the final 1/2 hour of this movie, as it is definitely the best part, but suffice it to say that it will surprise you, scare you, humor you, and utterly gross you out! (Sorry - that was a bit 80's but nothing else sounded quite right.) I can honestly say that the last 1/2 hour is definitely not for the squeamish! Offering canine carnage, detached dismemberment, and payback served up without a plate.... this movie will leave you with more than a mere impression.

Hostel 2, while not as visual with sexual acts as the first, does offer up the required boob shots, and sexual innuendos. Bear in mind this one takes the female slant (versus the male slant as with the first movie) so there may be some bias in the girls favor, however the blood and guts are definitely not girly and guaranteed to satisfy even the pickiest horror buff.

I won't promise you will enjoy the movie, but I can promise you will enjoy the gore!

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2008 Day of the Dead

More often than not, if George A. Romero wrote it, chances are I'm going to like it. Granted I have not seen all his work and some of what I have seen I don't remember (please don't ask.) But he rarely, if ever, disappoints.

I had an opportunity to snag Day of the Dead, the 2008 version, for about 6 bucks recently, so based on the cost of rentals these days, I bit on the offer. I realize it's not the 1985 Romero version, but it is based loosely on the same, plus Ving Rhames and Mena Suvari are in it, so I figured it had to have promise. As I've stated so many times before, if it's got zombies in it, most likely I will like it.

This version was directed by Steve Miner, director of one of my favorite Halloween movies, H2O, as well as Friday the 13th numbers 2 & 3. That right there was an added bonus, and I can tell you I was a happy camper to have a new zombie movie for the weekend!

Now remember, this movie is not a remake of Romero's, but he is given credit as one of the writers. You would think they'd give it a different name, but hey - it worked for the Evil Dead 1 & 2, so who's to say it can't work for this one, right?

Day of the Dead 2008 "Pros"

The action. Five minutes into the movie we have our first victim, fallen prey to an unseen assailant. Another 15 minutes (give or take) into the movie and the action really begins at the local hospital where about half of the towns population shows up for treatment of various "ailments."

Soon it's every person for themselves when the sick transform and begin to attack the healthy (picture piranhas attacking chum tossed into their tank.) Quicker than you can say Eeeewww!! undead people are attacking living people and ripping off body parts with their teeth in a glorious blood fest! WOW! Talk about sheer pandemonium!

Oh yeh, this is definitely my kind of movie!

Bud. Bud is a GI who has developed quite a crush on Sarah (played by Mena Survari) but sadly gets bitten by a zombie. Soon after he himself is an undead, yet Sarah keeps him around because "he listens to orders."

Now on the surface one might think it's a bit odd to keep a zombie close at hand, but what we find out about Bud is that he actually protects Sarah from other zombies. How cool is that? It's like she's got her very own Fido who will love and protect her no matter what!

The graphics. Ripping flesh and blood spewage was so believably executed that I found myself peeking through my fingers on occasion or two. And that's not something I do very often! (ok, so it might have been the tequila, but that's a whole 'nother story.)

Day of the Dead 2008 "Cons"

Ving Rhames undead. Ving Rhames is such a strong actor.....well, I think he's a strong actor. And they turned him into a zombie at about the 30 minute mark! What the f***?? Apparently the director didn't want to be compared to Dawn of the Dead. Oh well, Ving as a legless zombie was pretty cool. I wouldn't want to piss him off, that's for damned sure!

Zombie Traits. Ok. Everyone knows that zombies possess certain characteristics. Modify them slightly from movie to movie, but to change them up completely just throws everything off balance, and that is just what this movie did.

This movie had zombies running at high speeds; performing acrobatic acts; and lastly, but certainly not least, this movie gave zombies the ability to have CHOICE! Again I have to ask... what the f***?? Anyone with half a brain knows that zombies do not think! They crave. And what they crave is eating brains!

And what the hell is up with zombies running at high speeds? How the hell are those of us with half a brain supposed to get away with f'n zombies running faster than us? I may as well roll over and play dead at that point.

So anyway, I have to say this is one zombie movie I can watch over and over. It has most of the standard B movie criteria (well, except for the gratuitous boob shot) which in layman terms, means I love it.

I'm starting to see a trend with me and bad movies. Maybe what my husband has been saying all these years is right.... maybe I am the uber dork!

Nah.

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