R1 vs R2 smackdown!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: in the all-important Battle of the DVD artwork, Region 2 generally kicks Region 1 right in the down-belows. Not always, mind you...but most of the time. I was looking for - *BORING STORY ABOUT MARTYRS* - when I came across a few DVDs that illustrate what I'm talking about. Some of these R1s are alright- maybe I even prefer one or two to the R2 covers...but then there's the newest R1 Near Dark, which makes me want to buy one for the express purpose of gluing eyeballs on it for the express purpose of clawing them out.

Now, I certainly don't judge books or movies by their covers, but I most definitely judge the covers themselves. And there's nothing you can say that will make me stop!

R1 vs R2

awesome movie poster friday - the FRIDAY THE 13th edition, PART THREE!

Part THREE? Wow. I was worried the last time a Friday the 13th rolled around that I wouldn't have enough material- this time, I was positively beside myself in apprehension and fear. Could there possibly be enough material for a third installment? Surely not...but remember, this is Jason Voorhees we're talking about. He just won't die, no matter what you do to him! Wait, that's not true- he dies all the time, but then he comes back- just like the Awesome Movie Poster Fridays devoted to that series that will never, ever stop giving. Jason and the Friday films will limp along gracelessly long past their sell-by dates. I'm of the mind that even after humanity winks out and Earth is naught but a scorched, arid wasteland, a Friday the 13th sequel will still be in production somewhere. Cher and the cockroaches will buy tickets and watch Jason do what he does so well. There's a strange comfort in that for this horror fan.

This edition of AMPF is the equivalent of Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. It's a too gooey, a bit anemic, and not at all what you really want, but your memories of editions past have brought you here and you'll see it through to the end. And surely, it must be the end, because where could we go from here? It's a new low, mired in New York City's toxic sludge, and the final nail has been driven in. Secretly, though, you know that's not completely true. You have a feeling that Awesome Movie Poster Friday: The Friday the 13th Edition will be back for Part IV. It doesn't seem feasible, but it'll happen and you'll be right there to look at it, hating yourself the whole time. You're doomed! VIVA LA VOORHEES!

For further study, please consult your local librarian or simply click: AMPF: F13 Part One / Part Two. Check out the rad French VHS covers below! I done got 'em here.

A Waste of Time

I spent about 77 minutes of my life watching the lesbian-ish vampires-in-a-brothel flick A Feast of Flesh and I really feel like...that's enough. That's all I have to give to it. I don't even want to spend 77 seconds reviewing it, so I have chosen two screencaps which I feel will sum up my miserable experience whilst saving me precious moments that would be better spent doing something else entirely, like perhaps punching myself in the face repeatedly.

1) The distributor's disclaimer. For fuck's sake, the least you can do is use spellcheck.


2) The lady victim here is supposed to be a) dead and b) tied to the bed. The filmmakers have avoided the question "How do you tie someone to the headboard, exactly?" by not tying her wrist at all.

There. I just saved you 77 painful minutes. The things I do for you kids, I swear!

short n' tasty rev-yooo round-up

The Grapes of Death

Liberal pesticide use gives a vineyard's seasonal output an aromatic bouquet of death in Jean Rollin's 1978 beauty. Grapes of Death is a "zombie" flick in line with something like The Crazies- the infected become viciously homicidal, but they don't die first. What really sets the film apart and puts a little meat on its bones, though, is the fact that these killers aren't completely mindless. Unfortunately for both them and their loved ones, the infected experience moments of clarity during which they're completely aware of their urges- and that they can't stop them.

The cinematography is lush and the pace is the variety of languid typical of the era, but Grapes packs a few unexpected shocks as well. The violence is surprisingly brutal and victims don't always die right away, while the gore is plentiful and plenty nauseating- both blood and pus flow liberally. The Grapes of Death is a worthy addition to the zombie(-esque) pantheon, not least because it follows in The Beyond's footsteps by including a hot blind chick.

Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge 

I get the feeling that Phantom of the Mall is one of those love-it-or-hate-it flicks...although I don't understand how anyone in anything resembling a right mind could hate it. In the film's fictional town, Morgan Fairchild is the Mayor. Your Honor, I rest my case.

But you need more. Well, the title tells you the essential plot: it's like Phantom of the Opera, dudes. But it's in a mall. Ah, the mall- now just an inconvenience, it was once- not so long ago, in fact- a place of wonderment and magic. Why, the intrepid heroes of Romero's Dawn of the Dead had never seen a mall before they took refuge in one (I'm not sure if the casting of Ken Foree in Phantom is meant to be a nod to Dawn or not, but I'm going to pretend it is). Phantom of the Mall was released in 1989, a time when a mall was still the place to be, a time when Pauly Shore (who stars as "Buzz") was merely annoying and not Pauly Shore annoying, a time when VHS tapes could cost upwards of $89.99 (as the sticker on my copy indicates), a time when songs over the closing credits featured lyrics about the movie you just watched. The line "Is he the Phantom of the Mall? Or just some retard in a broken hockey mask?" is pure poetry.

Don't worry- Eric is not just some retard in a broken hockey mask! No, he's just a boy who was wronged by greedy developers who burned down his house to make way for THE MALL. Now he lives in the world's largest air ducts and papier-maiche caves, practicing ju-jitsu and making mix tapes for the girl he left behind. I'm telling you: THIS MOVIE IS THE SHIT. I'm sure you agree, and I didn't even tell you that it also features Kelly Rutherford, aka Megan the Hooker with a Heart of Gold from Melrose Place, in an early role as "Salesgirl". The only question that remains is, why doesn't this tape live in my pants?

Rattlers

Oh, Rattlers, I can't help but love you. You're not "good", but who cares? You epitomize the 1976 drive-in experience, and sometimes that's all that really matters to me. You're produced by Sultan of Sleaze Harry "The Child" Novak. You feature a scienceologist and a photogologist engaging in battles of the wits concerning women's lib...before they fall in love and have a romantic night dancing and making out by a fountain in Vegas. You feature amazing toupees, a love theme, whiny divorcées getting offed in the bathtub, long stretches where nothing happens, Army cover-ups, nerve gas...and yes, rattlesnakes- but only a lethargic few, craftily edited to give the appearance of a hostile many. Yes, Rattlers, when I watch you it's like I'm somewhere else entirely- watching a crappy movie under the stars instead of a ceiling.

WARNING: talk of me ahead

Boy oh boy, friends, it's tough out here in cyber-land. If you listen to The Scare-ening at all then you know that lately I've been railing against the hype machines that seem to be in perpetual motion all over the internet, particularly on Facespace. Basically, my argument boils down to this: yes, indie creative types (filmmakers, artists, writers, clog dancers, Colonel Sanders impersonators) must put the word out about their work or there's a good chance no one will find it. One must pimp oneself and then hope others will join in the fight...however! It's okay to talk about something- or even someone- else from time to time. If someone relentlessly pushes their product on me, updating their status every couple hours to market themselves without taking a fucking breath, then I tune 'em right out and their efforts prove to be counterproductive, at least as far as I'm concerned.

That's all fine and good, but then when I've got stuff to talk about...well, it becomes tricky. I can't not talk about things, because otherwise "there's a good chance no one will find it"; however, I'm aware of the bitching I do and so there's also a chance I may be acting hypocritical.

Then I say to myself, "This is your website and you can write whatever you want, so quit thinking about it all so much, provide the links you want to provide, then fuck off and write some damn reviews or something." Okay, self, sheesh. You don't have to be so hostile.

There is an actual review of Ludlow over at Slammed & Damned. It feels weird to say that- you know, that someone is watching my movie and writing about it- but I suppose that it simply means that after all this time and all the behind-the-scenes stuff and what have you...it's really real. For those who have shown interest in it, first of all, THANK YOU. Second, the DVD is being assembled. It'll have a commentary track and a brief interview with Shannon Lark. I'll update with information on availability as it...becomes...available.

Mike Snoonian of All Things Horror has gone and declared Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear an "essential horror short film for your collection"! I am duly, DULY honored. If you want to check out the movie that has, as Mike puts it, an "epic one car pileup", well, look to your right. I mean on the computer screen. There's ordering info over yonder! Be the envy of...well, someone somewhere, to be sure.

If you live in the Boston-ish area, you should be psyched: on Wednesday, September 1, All Things Horror is once again hosting their movie night at the Somerville Theater. Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear is showing that night alongside the much-hyped Dead Hooker in a Trunk, Rubber Doll Whore (no idea about that one), and Liz Adams' Side Effect, which alone is worth more than the ticket price. Seriously, go see Side Effect if you can. Visit All Things Horror for tickets and all that...sure, it says Taste the Fear- Taste the Flesh, but I'm pretty sure they're talking about my movie and not some sort of weird energy snack.

awesome movie poster friday - the HOUSE edition, part two!

If you ever get a chance to see Hausu (House, 1977), umm...do. It's completely insane. It's having a bit of a revival now, playing in theaters here and there and getting the Criterion treatment come October. It even pops up on cable now and then. I'm not quite sure how to label it- a cracked-out haunted house fable, maybe? Would "very Japanese" suffice? However you want to describe it, it certainly should include "awesome". Same for the posters. Which is why they're here, in Awesome Movie Poster Friday. WHOA!

i wish

That's right. I wish the title was literal and the show featured Belial and two weirdos in shitty Michael Myers masks.

oxymoron ahoy!

I hate to say it, but Silent Scream (1980) is essentially the filmic version of that old "she was hot until she turned around joke"- you know, where a woman, shown from behind, has a great body but then turns around and is- GASP- not beautiful (or worse, actually a dude- GASP AGAIN). I believe this phenomenon has its own special term now: butterface, as in "(all) but her face". Whee, making fun of the way people look is...fun!

In case you couldn't tell, I don't actually find it to be fun, and "butterface" is fairly well abhorrent. However, I forgot to wear sunscreen yesterday and as such, I got a bit of a sunburn. I'm using this dehydration and pink skin tinge as an excuse for my poor choice of metaphor with this film. Had I ess-pee-effed it up yesterday, my words would be so beautiful right now that you'd be puking out of your eyes.

See? Dehydration.

Anyhoo, Silent Scream tells the tale of Scotty (Rebecca Balding), a college student desperate for housing. She finds a gloomy old manse on the beach with rooms available; sure the owner is never around and her teenage son Mason (Brad Reardon) is a bit weird, but there are other students living there as well and the place is cheap enough. Before long, however, Scotty's new-found dreamworld is rocked to its very core when a wackadoo living in the basement/crawlspaces/amongst the insulation starts giving tenants a bad case of The Deaths. Okay, "rocked to its very core" might be overstressing things, but there is a lurker and people do die and the hands and pointy implements of said lurker.


Silent Scream truly has it all, even if the film's title promises an unpossibility. Why, get outcher peepers and gander at these attractions:

The aforementioned creepy manse, all looming and foreboding and chock full 'o cobwebs!

The proliferation of oversized sunglasses!

The proliferation of bowl haircuts!

Yvonne DeCarlo and Barbara GD Steele!

The sweet sweet memories of The Boogens one gets when The Boogens star Rebecca Balding appears!

The orchestral score that...mmm...borrows heavily from Psycho!

So with all these checkmarks in the "fuck yeah!" column, why does Silent Scream end up...well, a butterface? It's because these lovely trappings fool you into thinking you're watching a great movie. "Oh, but there's Avery Schreiber playing a detective!" you say. "And Cameron Mitchell! Why...there are a lot of interesting shots here, and clearly director Denny Harris was trying to make an ambitious gothic slasher movie!"...and, you know. You'd be right. Unfortunately, all of those elements- the lurker, the foreboding house, the Psycho score- have been utilized in much better films (Bad Ronald, umm...Psycho). Silent Scream is fine. Serviceable. Enjoyable, even. It's trying to be something more than it ends up being in the end, which is a fairly standard "crazy family" tale. It all sort of meanders along and sometimes some stuff happens. Sometimes it's creepy. Then it's over and you give it a "Huh. Well, I watched that."

I'm not really holding anything against it, it just wasn't as great as I thought it was going to be. You know, when it turned around.

Silent Scream is available from Boulevard Movies. Click here to see that I'm not lying about it!

Damn!

Damn you, Mondo Tees! Quit making amazing limited-run posters that sell out before I can save up the scratch to buy them. CASE IN POINT:

stuff and things

First of all, I would like to point out that the Strange Kids Club was kind enough to interview me and then carry through and post the damn thing. Go give it a read, won't ya? Let them know it wasn't a waste of bandwidth. Or maybe that it was. Whatever your thoughts, check it out! Now, onward.

You know what? I was typing out this whole big spiel about the next Film Club pick, how I'd narrowed it down to three choices but I just couldn't seal the deal with any of them, how you guys would have to help me decide, blah blah blah. I even made a poll- a poll where you could vote! It was all terribly power to the people.

As I was listing the candidates, though, I got to one and I was hit by a big fat DUH. I couldn't see how anyone would vote for one of the other two films when this was an option. Therefore, I put on my official Final Girl robe and powdered wig (I WISH) and smacked my official Final Girl gavel down with a resounding EXECUTIVE DECISION. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you your next Final Girl Film Club choice:

Hellbound (1994)

Chuck Norris vs Satan's Messenger. While the other two options are considered to be great films (or, at least, one is great and the other pretty damn good) and they're surely better than this...how could we not watch Chuck Norris battle demonic forces in our next Film Club meeting? That would, like, go against nature. It's on Netflix Instant Watch, so chances are you have no excuses for not joining in!

The film: Hellbound
The due date: Monday, August 30
What you do:

1. Review the movie on your site. Add a link to Final Girl in there somewhere. If you've reviewed the film before, that's fine- but you must retrofit your review with a link to FG to be included in my round-up.
2. Email your link to me at stacieponder at gmail dot com. Put 'film club' or some such in the subject line.
3. Bask in the warm, glowing, warming glow of Film Club Day. Easy, breezy, et cetera et cetera.