Watched April 7, 2013
1994
Starring: Edward Furlong, Frank Langella, T. Ryder Smith, Amy Hargreaves.
I like to pair similarly themed movies together and after watching Arcade it reminded me of Brainscan, which I hadn't seen since it originally came out. Both these movies came out around the same time but Brainscan had a much bigger budget and the star power of Edward Furlong coming off Terminator 2.
Michael (Edward Furlong) is a teen haunted by the car accident that killed his mother and left him with a gimpy leg. His father is constantly away on business, so Michael spends his time reading Fangoria magazine and playing video games. He has a sweet set up of a computer that answers his phone calls for him in his attic room that is teen boy heaven. He regularly spies on his neighbor Kimberly (Amy Hargreaves) filming her as she undresses in front of the window. On a tip from his friend Kyle (James Marsh), Michael orders a new game called Brainscan. This game is supposed to the craziest new gaming experience like nothing you've played before. Even though Michael is a jaded teen he's ready to try anything. He orders the game off the 1-800 number and the first disc arrives the next day. The first round of the game has him murdering a man within an hour time limit. Michael completes this and exits the game to find the severed foot of the man in his fridge. Is he still in the game or is he committing these crimes in real life? That's the basic plot. It seems like the game has become real and taken over Michael's life. He has to complete all four discs of the game to get out of the game. This requires him to bury the foot, kill his bed friend all while trying to stay away from the detective (Frank Langella) who is investigating the case. The last thing he has to do the win the game is kill Kimberly, but he can't, even when the Trickster merges with him. Michael kills the Trickster and the game is completed. Michael comes back to the true reality where he has murdered no one. There is a weird part at the end where we see a dog with the severed foot in his mouth to hint that maybe it was real after all, except we know that Kyle is still alive.
This is a fine horror movie, but nothing really crazy popped out to make it extra special. The Trickster (T. Ryder Smith) is the game character that tells Michael what he needs to do next, and pops out of the game into Michael's reality. His makeup is pretty great and he is disgusting. The special effects hold up well as they did a lot of prosthetic work along with the CGI effects.
Edward Furlong has my favorite hairstyle from the early 1990's and that's enough to keep me engaged, but you're better off just watching Terminator 2 again. The Igor image/animation that answers the phone on Michael's computer was the best.
Watched March 31, 2013
1993
Starring: Megan Ward, John de Lancie, Peter Billingsley, Seth Green, and A.J. Langer
Since we've watched several super stinkers in a row, we were looking forward to something a little better. This is a Full Moon release, which if you seen other movies by them you'll know they produce straight to video horror and fantasy movies. I enjoyed this movie because I like other things that all the people have been in. It stars Q from Star Trek: Next Gen, Rayanne from My So-Called Life, the crush from Encino Man, the kid from A Christmas Story and Willow's werewolf boyfriend, what more could you ask for.
Alex (Megan Ward) is a teen girl dealing with the recent suicide of her mother, with no help from her dad who is drowning his sorrow in cookies. She does have a great support system of her boyfriend Greg (Bryan Dattilo) and friends, Nick (Peter Billingsley), Stilts (Seth Green) and Laurie (A.J. Langer). After school they head to Dante's Inferno, a local arcade. Difford (John de Lancie) is there, a representative of a video game company who is trying to get the kids to test out a new game called Arcade. The game is a virtual reality game which fully immerses you in the digital world. It's some terrible early 3D that is mostly very low vector shapes. I guess it was cutting edge at the time. Nick is the first to play because he's a real pro gamer. The first level makes you skateboard through a dungeon maze of spikes, but then a "screamer" gets him and he hits the escape button to quit the game. Greg goes next, but while he's playing everyone leaves the room and then the game sucks him in because he loses. The game is collecting souls! Everyone at the arcade is given a home version of the game to try out. Alex is concerned because she doesn't know where Greg has gone but she just takes his car and drives herself home.
At home Alex tries out the game and quickly realizes it's more than just a video game. She tries to shut it off but can't. She still hasn't heard from Greg, but sees him trapped in the game. She goes to Nick's house to try to convince him that the game is evil. They decide that they have to go to the game company to tell them what's happening. Nick thinks that the story of the game sucking someone in sounds crazy so instead of telling Difford that story, he says they just really love the game and want to learn some tricks from the designer. The designer gives them a map of the game, and explains that they used brain cells from a dead kid to create the core of the game. The designer is even scared of what he created and doesn't have a way to shut it down. Alex and Nick go to find Stilts and Laurie but they've both been sucked into the game. They go back to Dante's Inferno to go into the game to save their friends. Nick, the supposed pro gamer is taken out almost immediately when he's distracted by a floating, rainbow colored gyroscope. It's up to our non-gamer Alex to keep going and save everyone. She finds Greg is a pool of strawberry lava blood but can't save him. The game is represented by a terrible boxy face that looks like a bad transformer head and it taunts her as she moved through the levels. Alex makes it through all the levels but it electrocuted as she confronts the game. Luckily she picked up an extra life by saving a little boy on the river styx level. The little boy turns out to the be the soul and braincells of the game. Alex comes back into the game and throw her extra life mechanical heart at the game and destroys it. All the friends are saved and they all high five at the end, well not really, but it ends like they would.
Not a great movie by any means, but it takes you back to time when it was thought that virtual reality was going to be a big deal and the future of video games. If anything I liked it because it reminded me of being in the early '90's. Not a horror movie, I think it only got an R rating because they let the kids throw out some F-bombs.
The best thing about Full Moon movies is that they always include a mini video about the making of the movie called Videozone. All the teen actors looked like the were having the best time on the set of this movie. They also showed the original character designs for a lot of the game and they were so much better than what ended up onscreen. The embodied game was a cool skull not just a boxy head dude, but for some reason they had to change it.
Watched March 21, 2013
1998
Starring: Michael Rooker, Leslie Hope, Andrew Jackson and Kevin Zegers.
This is the second movie with a cool lenticular cover (Blood Moon was the first) and I've learned something about fancy covers. Fancy VHS boxes mean that the movie inside is terrible, if you have to resort to tricks on the outside it means there isn't much on the inside.
The movie stars every one's favorite dad from Mallrats, Michael Rooker, as a gun wielding priest with some serious issues. It begins with some secret ritual; a photo, some hair and a band aid are burned by a secret sect and this unleashes the Shadowbuilder.
It turns out the band aid belonged to Chris (Kevin Zegers) a kid who is being raised by his aunt and was born with a special goodness inside him. The Shadowbuilder needs to kill him to unleash hell on earth, that's my guess anyway. Father Vassey (Michael Rooker) is trying to find the Shadowbuilder before he takes six souls, kills Chris and brings evil to the earth. The shadowbuilder is mostly just a spooky dark mist that travels around and hates the light. It begins killing people and it takes a little bit of time before Father Vassey can explain what's happening. The town gets taken over by the evil vibes given off by the Shadowbuilder and they start killing each other. The Shadowbuilder is hurt by light so it shuts down the electrical grid. But that doesn't matter to the crazy guy, Evert Covey (Tony Todd) who's been hoarding lights and generators for the last week. Chris gives himself up to save everyone else, because he's a saint. The Shadowbuilder takes him to a church to finish the ritual, but Father Vassey shows up and takes the Shadowbuilder down.
It started off very confusing, and I have to say that Michael Rooker is a great character actor but you really don't want him to be the main character you have to root for. There is a funny scene where an old man, who has just murdered his wife because of the Shadowbuilder's bad vibes, chops down a telephone pole only to have the pole fall and kill him. Nothing really stood out as particularly fun or scary, skip this one.
Watched March 11, 2013
1982
Starring: John Wintergate, Kalassu, Lindsay Freeman
Once the movie begins you know by the title credits that it isn't going to be good. If you don't have enough money for decent titles, you don't have enough money to make a movie. The plot is somewhat explained as typed words on a screen in a police station. Also it was obviously shot on video, the quality reminded me of the movies I used to make on video in high school. Later I found out that this movie has the distinction of being the first movie shot on video then transferred to film.
The plot exists somewhat, but it takes some leaps to pull it all together. Jim Royce (John Wintergate) inherits a house from his deceased uncle. Years earlier many people had been mysteriously killed in the house. Jim is an unattractive human being (to me anyway), but he's got a plan. He puts out a classified listing to rent out rooms in the house, but only to hot chicks ages 21-26. Somehow this works, he gets a ton of chicks to move in with him. They all just hang out in crazy swimsuits by the pool. There's a strange hobo gardener who hobbles around the house and works on things. I'm not sure if he is supposed to be the red herring to the real killer. Jim also has the power to move things with his mind. Jim works in some data management job but he has a hilarious drunk friend who tries to inject some comedy into the film, because drunks are always funny. Weird stuff happens at the house, like one of the girls, while in the dirtiest shower I've seen on film, sees blood coming out of the wall, then sees herself as a pig face demon. Another girl moved in to escape her rapist fiance, but the fiance finds her and tries to get to leave the house with him. Instead the girl goes to the beach with Jim, where they make out until Jim gets knocked unconscious, she just starts bleeding everywhere then drowns herself in the ocean. Jim doesn't seem to question it, he just goes back home. All the ladies throw a big housewarming party, but the party happens to be on the same night that people were killed before. Things go nuts, everyone starts dying. It turns out the killer is one of the weirdest girls, who was actually our favorite character. I guess she escaped from an asylum, but the house also has something to do with it, I think.
Yes, there are lots of boobs. Including the scene where the girls is in the shower and she pushes her boob hilariously against the shower door a bunch, in fear of course. Since it was the '80's the swimsuits, hairstyles and outfits are all great. Jim is so unattractive I cannot understand that any of these women would ever want to sleep with him. There is also a scene where everyone throws pies in each other faces. Also when a band comes over to rehearse the girls grab one of the dudes, pants him, squeeze his butt and push him in the pool.
Apparently they thought this movie was scary, so they put a dark shadow over the screen as a warning when scary stuff was going to happen. It looks so terrible. Most of the "actors" in this movie never made another movie. It's mess, there are really longs parts where nothing really happens. There is no concept of time, it could be minutes or weeks that this whole thing takes place. Definitely skip this one.
Watched March 7, 2013
1983
Starring: Aleisa Shirley, Bo Hopkins, Susan Strasberg, Dana Kimmell, Steve Antin
This movie has a hard time dealing with establishing shots that actually build on the story. It begins with Melissa (Aleisa Shirley) taking a shower. Yeah, boobs within the first couple of minutes. Even though the actress is obviously not 15, it's creepy to think that she is supposed to be and the first view we get of her is her naked body, yuck. I'm totally for nudity in crappy movies, but not when it's supposed to be underage. The we cut to a bar fight! This small Texas town makes it obvious that they only have a couple native American Indians living there, but they hate them. Melissa is then seen trying to pick up dudes in the parking lot of the bar, but there is some sort of presence that follows her around. The dude she makes out with is then mysteriously stabbed multiple times.
It turns out that Melissa's dad is an archaeologist who is working on a dig near the town, so he relocated his family there. His wife (Susan Strasberg) used to live in the town but moved away long ago. Melissa is a total horn dog, trying to have sex with every dude she meets. I know she's suppose to be lonely and beautiful, but she's pretty terrible and dull. Every guy that Melissa tries to have sex with ends up dead. The sheriff (Bo Hopkins) begins to investigate these murders and immediately blames Greyfeather, one of the two Indians who live in town. Greyfeather is so distraught by this that he hangs himself. So they move onto pinning the blame on Jason Longshadow (Don Shanks) the younger Indian dude.
The sheriff has two kids Marci (Dana Kimmell) and Hank (Steve Antin) who are the same age as Melissa. Marci is a junior sleuth who tries to help her dad find the killer. They ride around town trying to figure out who did it. Marci calls Melissa out at the funeral for the two boys who were murdered, then she becomes Melissa's friend for some reason. The next week is Melissa's sweet sixteen BBQ and the whole town is invited. Meanwhile the sheriff has been doing his job investigating the murder, while this lady is trying to marry him. He checks out microfiche of some murders and a suicide that occurred in the town some years ago but have some similar patterns to the current murders. It all culminates at the super sweet sixteen BBQ. Hank and Melissa go off skinny dipping, but then Melissa runs out of the water for no apparent reason. She is then almost raped by some perverts. Hank tries to help her, but he's useless and gets knocked out. Luckily the murderer comes out of nowhere and saves Melissa. SPOILER: the murderer is Melissa's crazy mom! Apparently Melissa's grandfather was a nutjob who either molested or tried to kill Melissa's mom. Anyway so Melissa's mom had been killing all those guys as a way to protect her daughter, she kept seeing her father in them. The movie ends with Melissa's mom being captured, but then Melissa walks into the house with a knife and a crazy look on her face. I'm not sure if you're supposed to assume that Melissa is just about to kill herself or that there will be a sequel with Melissa as the killer.
I had a fun time watching this movie. Marci has an amazing double take reaction shot when she first uncovers a body. There are some awesome hairstyles and a crazy custom song about "Melissa." The dvd did have some super killer trailers on it from Code Red DVD. I can't wait to find Stunt Rock and Nightmare!
