Deadly Friend

Watched August 28, 2012

1986

Starring Matthew Labyorteaux, Kristy Swanson, Michael Sharrett, and Anne Ramsey.

I had previously seen the epic scene where robot Kristy Swanson throws a ball at Anne Ramsey's head and it explodes, then decapitated Anne Ramsey's body still walks around the room for a minute before dying. That scene is super amazing, so I figured why not watch the whole movie. 

Paul (Matthew Labyorteaux) and his mom move into a new neighborhood. There is no mention to what the deal is with Paul's dad, but whatever the reason he's not around. Paul is a friendless genius who is working on a project at the University. He has a bright yellow robot buddy named BB, I'm not sure if he built BB, but I assume he did. BB doesn't have a synth-y awesome robot voice, he has a creepy gremlin voice that he mumbles half words with, mostly just saying his name. For the first time Paul finds a friend in his neighbor Sam (Kristy Swanson). But Sam has a big secret, her dad beats the crap out of her regularly. 

While playing basketball, their ball falls into the yard of their neighbor Elvira (Anne Ramsey). They try to get it, and Elvira pulls a gun on them because she hates visitors and anyone trying to get into her locked yard. On Halloween, they decide to get their basketball back.  BB figures out the combo to the lock on the fence and they break in.  Elvira hear them, grabs her gun and shoots BB a million times with a shotgun destroying it. Paul is very distraught about losing his robot friend. I don't understand why he just can't rebuild BB. Paul and him mom have Sam over for dinner.  Paul walks her home and kisses her. Once at home, Sam's dad freaks out and pushes her down the stairs and she breaks her neck. Paul is again devastated, he has just lost his robot and now his girlfriend is brain dead at the hospital. 

At the University he has been doing some tests on brain reanimation. Paul thinks that he can bring Sam back to life. So Paul and his other friend Tom (Michael Sharrett) drug his mom so they can sneak off to the hospital. Paul and Tom break into the hospital and steal Sam's body just as she is being taken off life support. Paul puts BB's chip into Sam's head and she comes back to life. Sam comes back as half Sam and half BB, but she can't talk so she appears to be mostly robot.  Paul is mainly just trying to hide her from everyone because I don't think he really thought this whole thing through. BB had some rage issues so Sam pretty much immediately kills her dad. Sam lures him down to the basement with a bottle of booze and then pushes him into the furnace. Paul finds this out and hides the body of the dad in a coal bin. 

I can't figure out why Paul doesn't try to make out with Sam. Why bring back your girlfriend if she can't talk and you're not going to try to have sex with her. Sam continues on her killing rampage and destroys Elvira with a basketball in the best scene of the movie.  Elvira had called the cops before she was killed, they show up and try to catch Sam.  Sam tries to run away while switching back and forth between BB and Sam modes. Her voice comes back but it's really BB's voice so all she can say is BB, which is pretty great.  Paul shows up just in time to watch Sam get shot. You think that this is the end but Paul tries again to bring her back and the final scene is Sam killing Paul. Good riddance in my opinion, Paul was pretty much the worst. He brought Sam back from the dead and didn't even try to explain what was happening to her. He just hid her in the garage or the attic.

The end credits run with a song that is just the voice of BB saying BB in different ways, it's pretty amazing. I did enjoy this movie, the basketball scene alone makes it worth it. I don't really feel for Paul that much, I was more bummed about Sam's situation with being a reanimated robot girl who was murdered by her abusive father.

The Video Dead

Watched August 14, 2012

1987
Starring: Roxanna Augesen, Rocky Duvall, Sam David McClelland and Victoria Bastel.

I liked the premise, zombies come out of a television and attack people, but it just didn't come together for me. The low budget is apparent and the acting is pretty bad.  It begins with a man receiving a random delivery of a TV that he didn't order and doesn't want. He accepts it anyway, the TV turns itself on and out of it come killer zombies. The man is found dead wearing a party hat. 

Sometime later the house is sold, while the TV remains in the attic. The couple that buys the house are out of the country, so they send their two teenaged kids to help unpack before they arrive.  Zoe (Roxanna Augesen) arrives first,  I guess she is supposed to be about 19 years old but she looks at least 30.  She begins to unpack the boxes when her brother Jeff arrives. Jeff meets a neighbor April (Victoria Bastel) who is walking her parent's toy poodle. The poodle escapes into the woods and is killed by a zombie. Later that night, Jeff finds the TV in the attic, gets high and watches it. A women comes out of the TV, speaks directly to Jeff and makes out with him.  Jeff thinks it's the drugs so he takes the TV down to the basement.  He did get a warning from a weird guy on the TV to cover the TV screen with a mirror to stop the zombies from coming out.  Jeff takes the advice and tries to cover the TV with a mirror, but the masking tape keeps tearing so he can't get a decent piece.  It's a great advertising moment for tape dispensers. Jeff finally manages to get the mirror attached to the TV.  Jeff doesn't stop the zombies that already got out and they proceed to kill many of the neighbors, including April's parents.

The weird guy on the TV,  Joshua Daniels (Sam David McClelland) turns out to be real and shows up at the house. He tries to explain what the deal is with the zombies, but I still didn't totally get it.  The zombies hate to look at themselves, so if you place mirrors all over they will run away.  Zoe, Jeff and Joshua try to zombie-proof the house with lots of mirrors. Then Jeff and Joshua head into the woods to kill the zombies. They find a random old shack and inside is the ripped apart body of April.  Joshua convinces Jeff to be zombie bait and create a rope swing to hang him from a tree. At the last minute he gives Jeff a bright red chainsaw to defend himself. The zombies show up, and Joshua has fallen asleep in the shack. He does wake up and shoot some arrows at the zombies, but that doesn't really kill them. There is lots of running around trying to destroy the zombies until both Jeff and Joshua are killed. 

Back at the house,  Zoe realizes something must be wrong because Jeff isn't home yet and it's getting dark. The zombies descend on the house and Zoe remembers that the zombies feed on fear. If you act nice to them, they won't try to kill you. Zoe makes them all some of her famous beans, then they all go down to the basement for a dance party. Zoe locks them in there, where they can't escape, and they eat each other. It ends with Zoe in a mental hospital and her deadbeat parents come to visit and give her the TV as a gift....oh no!

The motivation of the zombies is pretty unclear, they don't seem to be eating brains they just like to kill. It's also crazy that there is no way to kill them, they have to kill each other. It's not explained how they got into the TV and how they come out. There is no clue to who sends the TV either. The music is really intense, it tries to make every scene seem like something scary is going to happen.  It just didn't come together for me, even though there were a couple good moments. My favorite part was when the bride zombie pops out of a washing machine to kill a lady.

Class of 1999

Watched August 7, 2012

1990
Starring: Bradley Gregg, Traci Lind, Malcolm McDowell, Stacy Keach and yet again, that little gross out Joshua John Miller.

I was in high school in 1999 and boy it would have been a lot cooler and more fashionable if it looked like this. This movie takes place in a 1999 of the future. A section of Seattle has gotten so out of control that it's declared a free weapon zone where there are no police, like Escape from New York, except it's not a prison. All the kids still have to go to school. Principal Langford (Malcolm McDowell) has hired Dr. Forrest (Stacy Keach) and his kill-bot cyborgs to be retrained as teachers.  That's how out of control these kids are, they need really tough robots to keep them hitting the books. Cody (Bradley Gregg) has just gotten out of jail and is heading back to school. He is part of the Blackhearts gang, who all have adorable black hearts  tattooed  on their bodies. He's trying to be good to stay in school, because if he acts out or starts fights it's back to jail with him. The future drug of choice is "edge", which is snorted up the nose. I love weird future drugs, especially the "mist" in Prayer of the Rollerboys.

The robot teachers  (Pam Grier, Patrick Kilpatrick, John P. Ryan) begin by doing a fair job of keeping the kids in line. But it doesn't take long for their soldier programming to override their teaching abilities and they start being the crap out of the kids, including Cody.  No one believes Cody when he says that he was beaten by a teacher and that he saw one of them snap the neck of a student.  Cody's love interest is Christine (Traci Lind) who also happens to be the daughter of the principal. He begins investigating the teacher and he takes her along to the house where all the teachers live. Christine is clued into something being off when she discovers that Pam Grier only has a bra with no matching underwear. She concludes that only robots would have mismatched undergarments.

The robo-teachers are so bent on messing with the kids that they set up the two gangs to have a big shoot out. They're also convinced that Cody is the lead troublemaker, so they're really just trying to kill him.  After the gang battle, Cody manages to convince the head of the rival gang the Razorheads that the teachers are robo-soldiers trying to kill them all. They head to to school where the teachers show their true robot abilities by having flamer throwers, guns and claws for hands.  Principal Langford tries to stop Dr. Forrest since he controls the robo-teachers but Dr. Forrest is just a greedy capitalist who wants to make money by selling his robo-teachers to all the schools in the country (I think?) Cody and Christine manage to destroy the robots and escape the burning rubble of their school to fight another day.

The biggest fault for me with this movie, even though it was very enjoyable, is that if these kids hate school so much why do they go? Kids drop out of school all the time. I have the same issue with Class of 1984, but I have to say I enjoyed this movie much more than Class of 1984. The fashions are fantastic. I think the main gang attire of the Blackhearts are pink flowing scarves. So if nothing else it's fun to see the crazy outfits that are supposed to look tough, including tie-dyed leggings. This movie is very much a rip off of The Terminator,  Escape from New York and a little Rock 'n' Roll High School but that doesn't make it any less fun to watch.

The FP

Watched July 31, 2012

2011
Starring: Jason Trost, Lee Valmassy, Art Hsu and Caitlyn Folley

This movie is totally awesome!
It takes place in the not too distant future. There are two gangs in the FP  (Frazier Park) and they battle for street cred by having Beat Beat Revelation competitions. JTRO (Jason Trost) and his brother BTRO (Brandon Barrera) are in one gang competing against L Dubba E (Lee Valmassy). In the final battle of Beat Beat, the game pad is connecting to electricity so it can kill you if you don't do well. BTRO is 187'd by L Dubba E and JTRO is devastated by the death of his brother.

One year later JTRO is working at a lumberjack having given up on the gang. His old friend KCDC (Art Hsu) comes to get him,  telling him that the whole FP has been taken over by L Dubba E and he controls the one liquor store in town. Apparently if people can't get their liquor they turn to hard drugs.  Plus all the ducks have left which is a really big deal.  JTRO reluctantly comes back to the FP to avenge his brother.  He's really out of shape so there are multiple training montages to get him back into proper Beat Beat Revolution shape. While he back in town he runs into his crush Stacy (Caitlyn Folley), she is pretty much the worst, but JTRO likes her anyway. There is a spectacularly amazing scene that makes no sense at all.  JTRO has a bad day training so KCDC hands him a tampon since he's so bad he must be a women.  Later that day JTRO is hanging out with Stacy in a playground. She is digging in the sand and JTRO is confused to why she is doing that.  She says she's digging around to find a rag, because this is a good spot to look. WHAT!? Luckily JTRO has a tampon so he gives it to her. We had to rewatch this scene because it was so crazy.  It does show that Stacy is the trashiest, so all the slutty things she does aren't surprising.

Finally JTRO gets good enough to challenge L Dubba E to a major Beat Beat Battle. JTRO wins the Beat Beat Revolution battle, but doesn't kill L Dubba E. This leads to a crazy gunfight. In the end JTRO and his gang win over the town and the ducks come back. I won't spoil the last scene by the lake but it's unexpected and true to character.  I couldn't think of a better way to end the movie.

I have to believe that everyone on this movie had a blast making it.  I love ridiculous battles, especially life and death video game battles. L Dubba E has some of the greatest jumpsuits ever made. The imagery of this movies rules, and the slang is extra ridiculous.  I highly recommend this movie, it's fun, silly and ridiculous.