Friday, February 27, 2015

Slime City


I was going to play some more Elder Scrolls: Oblivion when I came home from work, but for some reason I just didn't want to. I wanted to write a post about Slime City, but I didn't want to actually take the time to watch it again just to take notes. I really don't think I have to take notes for me to write a post about Slime City because just watching the trailer for it on YouTube reminds me all over again why I love this film so much. It's one of those movies where you know that the budget was low, the acting is as wooden as Pinocchio's wiener and it's chock full of dumb dialog and fantastic practical special effects. What's not to love really unless micro-budget grindhouse bu-bu-bu-bullshit isn't your thang, than go ahead. Excuse yourself. I will forgive you. This time anyway.

The way I even found out about this movie was I found the final scene on YouTube (by accident) that some one decided to upload. I watched the ending probably 10 times. I had to get  a copy of this. I got lucky one day at Disc Replay and found one, lonely copy just sitting there on the shelf among all the other horror dvds at the time, and I snatched it with the utmost enthusiasm. "See, I told you someone would buy this!" That was what the guy behind the counter said to the other guy behind the counter when I brought it up to them to pay for it. It was a good day.

Gregory Lamberson's Slime City is my ALL TIME FAVORITE 80's grind/slime/gore film.

It has our main character beating a homeless guy with a lead pipe, chomping (yes, I said chomping) some gang bangers arm off in broad daylight, smashes his best friends head into the floor until a massive pool of blood pretty much covers the whole area, vomits green shit in an alley, has sex with some ghost/hooker woman that lives across the hall and eats Himalayan Yogurt. Honestly, what more could you ask for?

The greatest, slimiest ending to a low budget horror film I've probably ever seen. Maybe not EVER, but it certainly is my #1 ending of choice if anyone ever asked. It truly takes you where you think the film is just going to end, but it just keeps grinding it's way past being where it should end and it keeps you guessing when. Just when. 

I'm going to tell you right now, if you're into these kinds of movies and you haven't seen Slime City, please get a copy. You'll probably love it just as much as I do.   

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Order of One: Kung Fu Killing Spree



My favorite martial arts movie has always been Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon. Recently though, I've seen another one that might be more entertaining just because of it's lack of common sense. Kung Fu Killing Spree. Yes, another entry from that dreaded Freakshow Cinema boxset. This is the last one from that set I'm going to post about, I promise. If you want a glint of the garbage I've dragged myself through from this set so far, go back and read my posts about "Glitter Goddess" and "Curse on Blanchard Hill". Kung Fu Killing Spree is probably the best movie in this set, and that's not really saying a whole hell of a lot. This movie starts immediately with a shoot out in some diner or dive or that looks like it's been abandoned a while back or is in the middle of a mall that no one goes to anymore.

I want chicken, I want liver.

Meow mix, meow mix please deliver.

 There's a text crawl that says some things about some guy wanting to obtain the sword of destiny, which I guess is the sword that pierced Jesus' side during the crucifixion or some gobbaldy-gook. That guy is ambitious.

I want to cook some eggs and watch Shogun Cop.

Three flower power, Charlie's Angels chicks break in the restaurant and shoot up the place. They aren't too hot.

The strip club owner looks like a down-syndrome version of Charles Grodin. At least he has a pretty sexy plus sized stripper in his club. Kudos sir.

Basically, this movie spends alot of time with a buff Moe Howard kung fu-ing the shit out of bad guys, special moves with comic book bubbles that say "skull fist of destruction" and "heart explode palm", video game HUDS complete with health bar and kill counter, a cooler that has a sign that says "$2 dollar beer" that no one pays for and more of those flower power, Charlie's Angels wanna-be chicks. This film was way more entertaining than I expected it to be. If you're in the mood to see Moe Howard's weight lifting brother beat the hell out of a bunch of idiots with a paper thin plot to follow, this one is a no brainer son.
 

Strange Behavior



There's a lot of strange behavior in Strange Behavior. This is honestly the only other horror film I can think of outright that takes place in Illinois besides the original Halloween. This is also the only horror film I can think of outright where a guy pisses a pint of blood into a public toilet and doesn't really seem all that phased by it. It looks like it fucking hurts. Drink some cranberry juice sir. Please. He'll never have kids. For some reason, I'm kind of happy about that.
 
The power goes out in some kids house. He lights a candle, yells the dogs name only one time, makes some shadow puppets on the wall and gets stabbed pretty sluggishly and unconvincingly.
 
A naked guy stands in the bathroom door frame watching another guy shave.
 
The power likes to go out in this movie.
 
The same guy that was shaving clips his toe nails at the dinner table.  

An old guy has a mid-sized fridge in his office crammed to the brim with cans of beer. I certainly could use a fix.

Probably my favorite line in the whole movie: "You couldn't get an A on Sesame Street." Priceless.

The party the two main guys go to is awkward, hilarious and has some of the most off set costumes I've probably ever seen. The music they dance to sucks massive balls as well.

What's a 13 year old girl doing with a fat 18-21 year old guy anyway??

Tubs gets stabbed about 40 or 50 times by Igor's double-chinned brother.


This film also contains experimental drugs and blood being pissed into a toilet in an 80's Steak and Shake. Wait, I mentioned that already at the beginning. Strange Behavior adds up to being an interesting psychological thriller that I will definitely watch more than a couple of times. I just wish there were more scenes with Igor's double-chinned brother stabbing fat people. 

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Glitter Goddess: Queen of the Sunset Strip



Normally, I love watching and/or wasting an afternoon with a documentary. They can be fascinating if the subject matter is presented correctly and neatly. But this doc just doesn't make it. It's not really what I expected either. I actually really didn't know what to expect or had any preconceived notion as to what this documentary could possibly contain, let alone what it actually does. Especially on the back of the Freakshow Cinema case it says, "Llana rebels by becoming an Alice Cooper groupie." I guess I didn't watch this far enough in to witness such a transformation. Alice Cooper kicks ass. This documentary about Llana's lesbian mother in the 50's doesn't.
 
School's out for summer.
 
No more Mr. Nice guy.
 
Apparently this doc is 115 minutes. I'm glad I only survived 40 of those 115. The introduction is way to damn long and has spray painted lite-brite, Microsoft paint worthy text that says things that no one even remotely cares about. And some shitty, c-lister alternative song that I've never heard. Thank God. It clocked in at about 4 minutes and 20 seconds. 35 minutes and 40 seconds left.
 
There's also a quick mention of some involvement with Scarlet Fry. FML. I actually said that out loud when his name was on the screen. I knew then and there I wasn't going to make it to the end of this trash heap. 
 
Right after all the rainbow brite introduction, Llana and Oprah are talking about how her mother was gay. There's an incredibly horrific re-enactment of Llana as a little girl wanting to eat some candy and her dad trying to convince her to drink her milk instead. 
Then her mom is confessing her gayness to her dad and her dad gets psychotic and says some bizarre stuff about working in a coal mine and says some racist comments about colored people.
 
I still want to punch Oprah.
 
This documentary is irrelevant and freaking boring. And haphazardly edited to boot. I still only made it through 40 minutes. If you can make it to the end, be my guest. Just skip all the re-enactments and the Oprah interviews. That will probably leave you with the 40 minutes I missed. 
 

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Things (1989)



A little over a month ago, my younger brother Mike came by a few hours before he had a hot date to watch a shit movie with my wife and I. We trudged on down into my basement and started to browse my collection. He suggested Leprechaun 2. I already knew I could do better. Wide eyed, I whipped out Things and Sledgehammer. He laughed at the cover of Things. A guy with a horrible mullet, power drill and an unkempt mustache? I knew he'd fall for it. I blurted out "I immediately regret suggesting this movie." They asked why. I was actually kind of scared that they would belittle me for owning Things. But they laughed and cried and enjoyed it more than I expected them to. Maybe they're just as mentally unstable as I am. We gobbled up two whole pizzas and drank some fine wine. Laughing out loud I said to my brother, "I hope this doesn't kill the mood for your date." Mike replied "This just made my date even better and I haven't even met this girl yet." I knew I was a matchmaker. This movie proves that dating sites such as Plenty of Fish and E-Harmony have no place in society. I still got married and Mike is still dating. I guess love does conquer all. 

Mullets, coats in freezers and putrid voice dubbing galore.

Make me a cheese and bread sandwich.

   Watching Things is kind of like going to a rave or a LSD party without the drugs. You really don't need them to watch this "movie." Or maybe you do. It might actually make sense afterwards. Basically, one of the guys in this movie wants to have a child so bad he dreams about some weird chick wearing a devil mask taking her clothes off and giving him a baby. He also subjected his wife to some sort of experimental impregnation or something-or-other. 

Along the way though, anything and everything that could possibly happen in a fever dream seems to happen. They watch some very shitty movie called "Groundhog's Day Massacre", add water to bottles of beer to make them taste better, put their coats in the freezer and take a tape recorder and a satanic book out of the freezer. 

Some guy strapped to a chair gets his eyes ripped out of their sockets if I remember correctly and a guy with fruity looking glasses and a pedo-stache laughs like Wario. The Things pop out of the guys wife's stomach and it basically gets more ridiculous after that happens. Amber Lynn reads some non-nonsensical news in between power drills and mini chainsaws get employed along with really shitty Dario Argento lighting and lots of stupid over dubbing and yelling. Lots of yelling. And a song that keeps playing over and over (25x) again that has lyrics that say "you got yourself in a tailspiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnn". I fucking hate that song. It drives me nuts.

What makes me laugh more than anything though is that there is actually a dedicated group of people that are fans of this film to the point of calling themselves "Thing-ites.' Now that's extreme. That's like me being an RPG fan and getting into LARPING. Even though I have watched this movie probably at least seven or eight times, I still don't consider myself a Thing-ite. Probably because it's not my favorite movie of all time like those guys. I just like it because it makes me laugh when I need it. And I have a life. Sort of.

Oh, I forgot. Those blue curtains you see at the beginning of the movie hanging on the inside of the front door of the house are shower curtains. Now that's some seriously genius interior decorating. 


HI-8



Let's get a matter of personal taste out of the way. When it comes to the type of women I fancy, I absolutely love bigger, plus sized and full figured ladies. My personal list includes but certainly isn't limited to Denise Bidot, Christina Hendricks, Kat Dennings, Elke the Stallion and Dors Feline. That's just scratching the surface. But I'm not writing this to spill my guts on my love of plumper women. I'm doing this to share somethings about the SOV horror anthology, HI-8. If you love those kinds of girls, you'll love the ones in HI-8. It's full of them. It also has some of my favorite SOV shorts and directors this side of Gary P. Cohen. Todd Sheets, Tim Ritter and Brad Sykes. Need I say more? I hope not. Unless you don't know who those guys are which would be a damn shame. It's also a damn shame if you still don't have a copy of HI-8 yet. There's even a fictional (maybe?) lost SOV in one of the shorts called "Bloodgasm". It's beautiful. I have HI-8 but I need a copy of Bloodgasm. Who wants Italian sausage?

   Dad still has his vhs camcorder from when I was a kid, right?

It's in the attic.

This anthology is special. It has a really cute brunette with a big ass jogging in tight, black running shorts. Some guy has his dad's hi-8 camera making a movie with her running down a dirt path and some faux Jason/Meyers mix horror villain-person with a machete, hockey mask and full bodied mechanic suit. I wanna be like Mike. 

A decent looking redhead and her husband drive around raping and murdering women because he's a rapist. And she supports him. Then she wears a strap-on and starts killing women after killing her husband. Interesting.

There's also a big rubber alien monster thing in a garage after a meteor crashes to the earth. There's also a fat bald guy that is terribly acted and hasn't worn deodorant in about 48 hours. Times are tough. 

Two guys talk about how it sucks that no one rents movies anymore because everything is digital these days.  Tim gets a box of vhs tapes because the store is closing. He finds one called Bloodgasm. "A lost SOV!" Damn straight. He bangs his biggins girlfriend and then they meet the director of Bloodgasm and kill him. Awesome.

A guy with a camo bandanna breaks into a hospital to save his nana. Him and all the old people are outside. Zombies show up. There's a They Live reference from an old guy. They walk to slow to the van. Everyone dies. Go figure.

Some pedo dirt bag is spying on a pretty cute fat girl. He just wants to know what time it is. She likes black men. A fat black guy breaks into her house to rape her. She bites his weiner. He wipes the sweat from his brow with a towel that says "diva" on it. Then she rapes him in the mouth. He dies. Let's move on.

A radio host keeps getting calls on his rotary phone. Most of you probably don't even know what those are. The phone keeps ringing after her rips the power chord out of it. His butter faced girlfriend wants to dance with him in the kitchen. He cries for a second then stabs his girl in the back. She comes back as a zombie and rips his heart out. So overplayed.

A hay-haired blonde and a pretty plus sized brunette arrive on the beach. The brunette pours beer on her chest. A couple bitches about the guys ex. The woman wants a sandwich dammit. She's also pregnant. The woman makes his ex drink Drano and then they smash her head in with a mallet. I want to do that sometimes.

A cute chick with big lips and some douche are driving through the desert. They run across a really beat up building. Her nipples show through her tank top. The douche disappears then appears behind her. Their car doesn't work. She goes for a walk and finds his camera just sitting there.  She watches herself get killed on the camera and then the douche shows up and laughs. What an idiot.

That hot, big-assed girl in black jogging shorts at the beginning? She turns into some demon thing and kills those other guys with her? I guess?

  I realize that I went through HI-8 rather quickly, but really all I wrote here is all you need to know. You're already going to know if it's a movie that you're going to like before you even watch it anyways. I hope this post wasn't to sloppy for you. Keep it gory.

     
  

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Squishing the format



I think something needs to be changed a little bit here. The Cinema Slayer unfortunately hasn't had as much time as he would like to have lately to do full length film walkthroughs. He wants to keep the format the same, but it needs to be shorter, more compact and easier to digest. 
 
It'll be kind of like drinking a protein shake for breakfast instead of having a full meal when you get up in the morning. You see, movie walkthroughs are the bacon, eggs, sausage, toast, pancakes, oj and milk. Something like Oh The Horror or Bleeding Skull reviews are the protein shake. They get straight to the point with no fuss, sugar or preservatives and he thinks that's what needs to happen here so he can keep posting and you can keep reading.
 
It's for the better.
 
You'll get stronger and lose more weight and he'll be able to run a mile in 12 minutes instead of 20. Got it? He feels like a dietician except for shit film reviews. I bet he wishes this was his full time job instead.

Saturday, February 7, 2015

BECOMING THE BEAST: My reflections on collecting horror and cult films



BECOMING THE BEAST:
My reflections on collecting horror and cult films
 
I'm going to start off by apologizing. I know in my latest post I mentioned that I was going to post walkthroughs of my favorite horror anthology as of late, HI-8, and the ridiculously infamous Things from Canada. And trust me, I still plan on doing just that. But, I think now is a good a time as any to sift through some pieces of my past to figure out not only for myself, but for you as well as to when, why, who and what I was doing that led me to become a beast. Figuratively speaking of course. Get on with it then.
 
The earliest I need to go back is probably when I used to watch movies and tv with my father. He used to be a mechanic, working a normal 40-50 hours a week and sponsoring the almighty Snap-On tools. He had weekends off, and before I even started going to school, I have some slight memories of my closet in my bedroom being stuffed from shelf to ceiling with random vhs tapes. Movies like A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Gremlins, Re-Animator, David Cronenberg's The Fly and many, many other cult and 80's horror, action, sci-fi and whatever else my dad loved that he could gets his magnetic mitts on at the time lined that top shelved area of my bedroom closet. Those weekends he didn't work were spent with me watching him play Atari 2600, NES, and lots of movies on vhs. I loved it growing up.
 
I would say the movies that we watched the most would have to be Gremlins, both Ghostbusters films, Wanted Dead or Alive with Rutger Hauer, Die Hard I & II and Aliens. To this day, Aliens is still one of my favorite movies of all time. Trudging that disgusting ventilation system on the LV-426 with Newt has always been a staple to me from that movie because even as a small child, I felt sorry for Newt. I wanted to be her hero. My other two saving graces as hobbies that kept me sane growing up were being an integral part of the second rise of the video game industry through my dad buying an NES and a Sega Genesis when they were both released, and heavy metal. Yes, the music. I didn't see that movie until I was in Jr. High. My dad had that on vhs as well.
 
My parents always rented random movies from either Blockbuster (can't believe most of those are closed now) or Hollywood Video. If I was the age I am now back when my parents were renting movies, I probably would've went ape renting and buying as many big boxed vhs horror movies as possible. Sona Video in Bolingbrook was amazing as well. It kind of reminded me of Hollywood except it had a deeper well of cult and horror that the other two did (from what I remember). Makes me wish I had this as a hobby about 15 years ago in high school because when Hollywood by my parents closed down, I'm pretty sure they had a ton of gems in their store that I would love to have in my basement right now. Too late.
 
Another piece of my movie up bringing is my good friend, Matt. Wish you were here, son. Arizona is not where you're supposed to be. During my grade school days, many of my weekends were spent at his house watching his dad's vhs and laserdisc (yes, his dad had a pretty size-able laserdisc collection). Matt recently acquired his whole collection, including the Pioneer LD player his dad had setup with a pretty badass Bose surround sound kit. And Attack of the Killer Tomatoes on LD. What more could you ask for. But we used to watch all sorts of tapes including Nutty Professor, Bride of Chucky, Joe's Apartment and whole sleepovers that were wasted on muting the tv at 3am and doing our own over-dubs of Howard Stern, shitty infomercials and music videos. We LOVED the music video of Pink's "Just like a pill." Gee, I wonder why.   
 
Something happened after I graduated high school, however. I never really cared about collecting movies in general, let alone horror or cult. While I was in college for fire science, I dated a girl for two years. This is the part I really didn't want to try to remember, but unfortunately this is a main part of it. During the course of us dating, we went to the theater ALOT. I mean, pretty much everytime we went on a date, a movie was always involved. We saw Napoleon Dynamite, Anchorman, Taladega Nights, both Michael Gay (oops) Texas Chainsaw Massacre re-makes, The Ring 2 and the first 3 Saw films. I won't lie to you, I wasn't used to any sort of horror aesthetic because at that time, it just wasn't in my blood. She LOVED it. I was uneasy about it. I tried to like the Saw movies, but I just couldn't. My thinking at the time was "how the hell could any one like a series of movies where people just get mutilated in a bunch of elaborate traps for 80 minutes?" I just didn't understand. 
 
I went to U of I for two summers in a row with the Naperville Fire Department as an explorer to get my fire science hours. When I came back, she decided to break it off with me and I honestly didn't know what to do. I put everything I could into it, but it just didn't work. It was for the better. The one (main) thing I had left from those two years was her love of horror flicks. I researched anything I could online about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. At the time, I had no clue that there was an original put out by Tobe Hooper in 1974. I saw the trailer on Youtube and I immediately had to find a way to see the original. It looked so much more brutal and gritty than the re-make (even though the re-make is pretty gory in its own right) and it "was based on a true story." Holy shit. That's when I found out about Ed Gein. And my side interest in psychology and serial killers was born.
 
After that, I pushed horror movies out of my life altogether for about a couple of years to try to re-collect myself after her breaking up with me. I moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico to be Matt's roommate for a while. It was a blast. I don't think I've ever been so drunk before in all my life before that. I was depressed mostly and I had some solid friends to help me along the way. Including my wife to be, Nicole. She's been there with me through alot of things. Alot of great things and not so great things. But that's life. Her movie collection included the first two Saw movies. Every time I was at her house (after I moved back from NM) she always asked to watch Saw II. I would always promptly refuse. It reminded me of my girlfriend that I fled the state from. 
 
One weekend we decided to visit my brother Kevin in Champaign. He has the collector's box set with the billy doll face on it that has Saw I-III. I told him "I want to give this horror thing another go. I want to watch this whole Saw box with you back to back, and I want you to explain the story to me because I just don't get it." He gleefully obliged. We watched Saw. I didn't even think about my ex. It was a very different experience. For some reason, I loved the traps and the gore. The story is pretty prominent until you get to about midway through Saw IV. Then it's kind of just about the traps and the gore. Which is really what Saw should've focused on in the first place. 
 
I was ready. I watched Saw II with Nicole and enjoyed it. I finally felt part of the club. But it was only the beginning. I had NO CLUE what was going to happen when I got a job in Champaign. We moved down there. I started working at DSC, and I met my now long time cult/horror collecting buddy Steven. About a couple weeks go by and I still kind haven't gotten used to his quirky sense of humor and sarcastic demeanor. He asked me in my office one morning, "Ever seen Trick or Treat? It has Ozzy and Gene Simmons in it!" I replied "no" of course. He brought it to me the next day at work. I FUCKING LOVED IT! He also let me borrow such classicks (heh) as Don't go in the Woods, The Last Slumber Party, Puppet Master I-III, Troll I & II, Messiah of Evil, The Thirsty Dead, Freaked and many, many others. The list is too long. 
 
I became a film-trash fanatic after that. Steven introduced me to Fangoria magazine and the almighty Gods of 70's/80's trash cinema, Bleeding Skull. I freaking love those guys. They collect and watch some amazingly shitty movies. I wish I were them. Now I have a pretty decent collection going on in my basement. My wife has even been subjected to watching some of the turds in my collection including Things and The Janitor. She laughed her ass off at Things. She dislikes The Janitor. She still likes Saw. Maybe I shouldn't have written this. Actually, I'm glad I did. It saved me one more day from watching that Brony documentary on Netflix. God Save the Queen.    
        

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Intermission 4




Something quick. I'm going to work on those walkthroughs of Hi-8 and Things starting tomorrow morning after I get home from work. By the good graces of mother nature, I did not have to watch the Super Bowl. It snowed like a boss here in northern Illinois and pretty much no one around where my wife and I live even remotely left their homes. It would've been fun to go to my parents house though. It's always a good time. I did miss Katy Perry on a giant robotic tiger however and that makes me sad. Oh well, that's what Youtube is for. I'm going to eat some food that shouldn't go together and catch up on some movies that I haven't gotten around to watching yet. See you guys tomorrow.

Intermission 3






















Ah, the Superbowl. It's later today. I'm going to my parents house and way too many people are going to be there. I don't even like football. Hell, I don't like sports in general. I love it when I tell another man that and they either ask me if I'm gay or they say I'm un-American. I actually find it quite amusing that the only thing they have to look forward to in their lives as a stress relief or a hobby is keeping track of stats and numbers that don't fucking amount to anything, who the new coach for the Washington who-gives-a-shit team is or screaming at the tv about a call or a play THAT YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER. But I guess the same thing could be said about me watching ill fated garbage heaps that I refer to as "movies", but that's besides the point. The point is is that sports (and mostly football) are just downright boring to me. I'd rather watch Curse on Blanchard Hill for the third time than watch a bunch of muscle bound, over paid, pigskin chasers. Nah, that might actually be going TOO FAR.

Lets leave the sports alone for awhile. I'm sitting here eating some Cinnabon cinna-bread with orange marmalade, and I decided to make another "intermission" post I guess to let you guys know what the next two films I'm going to walkthrough are going to be. Hi-8 is fun. It's the most giddy I've been about a horror anthology in quite awhile. It has heaps of plus size girls, gore, stupid acting, a lost SOV (which is always exciting!) and other random happenings like a fat bald guy that hasn't worn deodorant in about 48 hours.

Do I really have to give any details about the almighty Canuxploitation film, Things? I probably don't if you're reading this. If you haven't seen it by now or are just starting to descend into the very strange and depressing world of horror collecting and trading and you don't know anything about Things... then you haven't descended deep enough my friend. Get your spelunking gear ready because it's about to get dark, deep and pretty creepy. Not really. It's just going to be a very odd adventure. And you're all invited. Enjoy the Superbowl. I probably won't.