Watched October 29, 2012
2009
Starring: Shannon Elizabeth, Monica Keena, Edward Furlong, Diora Baird, and Bobbi Sue Luther.
I have seen the original 1988 version and I recall a few memorable scenes, but I don't remember loving the whole movie. This remake updates it with terrible editing, more gore, boobs and special effects but not much else. There is a brief scene with Linnea Quigley reprising her role and costume from the original.
Angela (Shannon Elizabeth) has rented a supposedly haunted house to throw the biggest and best Halloween party ever. We meet the main characters as they are getting ready for the party. Maddie (Monica Keena) is recognized as the heroine because she is dressed only kinda sexy as some sort of zombie. Her two friends Lily (Diora Baird) and Suzanne (Bobbi Sue Luther) are both dressed up in the same sexy cat costume. Suzanne has the gigantic boobs that are just about to pop out of her bustier at any moment, it's totally nuts. Colin (Edward Furlong) is Maddie's ex-boyfriend and a drug dealer, he's going to the party to sell lots of drugs to pay off his debts to the bigger dealer in town.
They get to the party and you would think it would look like a really fun Halloween party but the movie uses these terrible speed cuts to make things look edgier, but it just looks terrible. The first hint of spookiness to come is when Maddie is in the bathroom reapplying lipstick a hand pops out of the mirror and tries to choke her. Not that long after the party starts it's shut down by the cops because Angela forgot to get a permit. Everyone leaves except for the main characters.
When the cops arrived Colin threw his drug stash down a heat vent, so he make everyone go down to the basement so he can retrieve it. In the basement they find seven skeletons. Angela tries to steal a gold tooth from one and it bites her. The demon curse begins here. Angela explains the history of the house, how in the 1920's a lady got into the occult and held a seance. The seance had seven people that all got taken over by demons except for the main lady who figured it out and killed herself before the demons could fully take over. Now there are seven people in the house again and the seven demons are going to try to get them.
Angela begins spreading the demons over everyone. Some highlights are when she tries to seduce Suzanne and rips her face off and one of her boobs. Once Lily is a demon she repeats the main scene I remember from the original by sticking a tube of lipstick into her nipple. Everyone is taken over by the demons except for Maddie, Colin and Jason (John F. Beach) just another dude. They take refuge in a room that has walls covered in spells so the demons can't get in. The demons trick them into thinking it's dawn and they can come out, but then they kill everyone except Maddie. Maddie realizes the only way to stop the full demon takeover is to kill herself just like the original lady. As soon as Maddie hangs herself the demons admit defeat and head back to their basement graves to hope for another bunch of idiot whose bodies they can inhabit.
Oh but wait, Maddie tricked those stupid demons by making a harness out of the noose, so she gets out of there alive. There is a lot of gore and tons of boobs but the build up to the big scares doesn't really pay off. I was much more just grossed out by some of the ridiculous things I saw on screen. The original is more fun, which isn't saying much but at least it doesn't have the terrible speed edits.
Watched October 15, 2012
1983
Starring Jo-Ann Robinson, Richard Hench, Roger Maycock, Frank McDonald, Carol Sue Flockhart, Barbara Magnusson and Kirk Alyn.
Ugg... This movie seemed somewhat promising when I randomly came across in on Netflix, but I was very disappointed. I did really like all the ladies outfits, but that is rarely enough to keep a movie interesting.
It begins with old archeology Professor Machen (Kirk Alyn) getting called out that he hasn't tagged any of the artifacts that he was supposed and the deadline is coming up a in few days. He lets his six students know that he can't go on their archeology trip to the ancient Indian burial ground, but he allows them go on their own. The Professor gives the kids a weird old map of that he bought off someone to guide them to the right area. The most weirdly enthusiastic of the bunch is DJ (Jo-Ann Robinson) who is carrying around two wooden sticks that she constantly hitting together for some reason. Ellen (Barbara Magnusson) calls it quickly by telling DJ that she's weird. They all pile in an old station wagon and are their way. We see tons of footage of them driving until their car starts to overheat. They stop at a gas station and an old Indian man warns them not to take any artifacts from the ancient Indian massacre site their headed to. They don't heed his warning and keep driving forever until they find the spot on the map that they're looking for. DJ begins to get visions of horrible things that will happen but she can't really decipher what they mean, so she just keeps clacking her sticks together.
They brought lots of gear for their camping trip but no one seemed to bring appropriate hiking attire. The ladies are wearing dress boots and shorts and carrying tote bags while the guys are just in tennis shoes. They wander around for awhile until they find the right spot to start digging. DJ warns them that they shouldn't be digging up any of this stuff. Randy (Richard Hench) finds a necklace while they're digging and puts it on. That night Randy and Ellen go to make out, but she's not into it so Randy, taken over by the spirit of Black Claw, violently rapes her. Ellen tries to run away but then she is killed and scalped by Randy/Black Claw. Randy goes back to the camp and everyone wants to know where Ellen is. They find her body and Randy says she must of fallen off a cliff. Randy/Black Claw continues to kill all of the other characters. Randy/Black Claw is then shot by Kershaw (Roger Maycock) killing Randy and releasing the spirit of Black Claw. Black Claw then inhabits DJ and she kills Kershaw. At the last minute Professor Machen comes to check on them and is killed by DJ.
It just isn't a very fun movie, even with the kill scenes. They couldn't figure out a good way to shoot at night so it goes back and forth between day shots shot to look like night and very dark shots really shot at night. This makes the timeline confusing to what day it is. All the build up to the kill scenes is dull and doesn't make a ton of sense. I didn't really care about any of the characters, so when they died it wasn't a big deal. Plus they were warned multiple times not to mess with this area, but they did it anyway and they all ended up dead.
Watched October 1, 2012
1988
Starring Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John Allen Nelson and John Vernon.
This was my first time watching this movie, which I know is a bit of a shocker since it's such a cult classic. I'm not actually afraid of clowns, but I'm not really into them either. Even though I've looked at the cover of the VHS a million times over the years I never picked it up.
It begins at make out point, where we meet Debbie (Suzanne Snyder) and Mike (Grant Cramer) who are drinking wine and laying in a blow up raft. They see a shooting star land that appears to have landed close to them so they naturally go check it out. Instead of a flaming meteorite, they find a giant circus tent where the meteor landed. They walk inside the tent and check it out and it's a fun house circus of sorts but they don't see any clowns. They find a room full of cotton candy and it all seems harmless until they rip open a cotton candy sack to find a dead human. The clowns show up and Debbie and Mike just barely make it out of the circus tent alive.
Debbie and Mike head to the police department to get Dave (John Allen Nelson), an officer and Debbie's former boyfriend. Dave reluctantly decides to check out the crazy story that Debbie and Mike tell him about killer clowns, but they have to dump Debbie back at home first. Since she's a girl she can't go check out supposed killer clown happenings.
While Mike and Dave are back trying to find the circus tent, the clowns descend on the town. They use all sorts of goofy ways to lure people to their death. They show up with pizza at the door and then kill a lingerie clad lady. One of the best kills are a clown that confronts a bunch of bikers and then punches head right off of a biker dude. Another is a clown that is making shadow puppets for a group of people at a bus stop and he create a shadow dinosaur that actually swallows all the people. There is also a great almost miss where a clown is hanging outside of a Chuck-E-Cheese type establishment trying to lure a little girl. The girl is sitting by two very terrible moms who obviously hate being parents, we think they are so distracted they don't see the little girl walking outside, but at the last minute her mom catches her, and saves her from certain death.
Mike shows Dave where they first saw the tent, but the tent has disappeared so Dave doesn't believe the story. They go back to make-out point and all the cars are still there but no one is around. Dave checks in a car and finds a cotton candy residue. Dave now believes that something crazy is happening. Dave heads back to the sheriff department where his crotchety old partner has been killed by a clown. Through happenstance Dave figures out the only way to kill the clowns is to shoot them in the nose.
Debbie is still at her house taking a shower for a good portion of the movie. Once she gets out of the shower, popcorn that the clowns had shot at her turns into snake clowns that try to eat her. A bunch of clowns have descended on her house and capture her in a balloon instead of immediately killing her. Luckily Mike and Dave and two ice cream truck idiots see this happen and try to chase her down. It turns out that the clowns had relocated their tent to the amusement park which is where they take Debbie.
The showdown occurs in the circus tent, where they find the balloon that Debbie is trapped in. The ice cream truck idiots find two clown ladies to make out with. Mike and Dave try to fight the clowns but then the mega monster clown shows up while the circus tent is trying to take off. Mike and Debbie make it out alive, but it seems like Dave is trapped trying to fight the clown monster. The circus tent space ship explodes and it seems like Dave didn't make it, but he pops out at the last minute. It ends with pies being thrown in our heroes faces.
I enjoyed this movie, it's fun and silly. None of the kills are very scary but for all the goofy clown business all the actors took their roles seriously. The clown costumes and make up are awesome, I think it still stands up 25 years later. The comic relief of the idiot ice cream truck dudes is pretty terrible and I'm someone that loves bad puns, but they aren't in the movie too much so it's alright.
Watched September 24, 2012
1983
Starring Reb Brown, Corinne Clery, Luciano Pigozzi and Carole Andre
Even though the cover of the VHS is awesome I was worried that it would be one of those caveman movies that has a lot of slow parts between the action. Boy was I wrong, this movie is action packed and awesome!
It begins with Yor (Reb Brown) prancing through the desert to his theme song. He stumbles upon some forest people just as a Triceratops starts attacking them. Yor is an awesome fighter so he kills the Triceratops. The forest people invite Yor to celebrate and eat the dinosaur. At the feast Yor meets Ka-Laa (Corrine Clery) and they are instantly into each other. Suddenly the less developed blue cave people show up and massacre the forest people, capturing the women and killing all the men and children. Pag (Luciano Pigozzi) and Yor are the only survivors aside from the captured women. Pag and Yor head to the blue people's cave to save Ka-Laa. On the way they are attacked again by the cave people, Pag is captured and Yor is thrown off a cliff. Yor shakes it off and climbs back up the cliff. He then grabs onto a bat and uses it to fly to the blue cave people's cave where he saves Pag and Ka-laa.
Yor has this strange medallion on his neck, and the forest people know of a woman who has the same medallion. Yor, Pag and Ka-laa head off to find that women but then they are captured by sand people in the desert. Yor kills all the sand people and the medallion women explains that there is an island which has the answers that Yor wants. Ka-laa is insanely jealous of the medallion woman and she tries to kill her, but then a blue caveman shows up and actually kills the medallion woman.
Yor, Ka-laa and Pag continue on their adventure and make it to the beach where they save some kids. The beach community rewards them with a boat that they use to get to the island. It turns out the island is the future and all the different cave people are experiments of the Overlord (John Steiner). With the help of the some of the future people, Yor destroys the Overlord and escapes with Ka-laa and Pag in an spaceship to start over.
The wigs are fantastic in this movies, especially Yor's and all the cave kids. Ka-laa just has some amazing hair in general. There are a lot of parts that are directly inspired by Star Wars, but it's still really fun to watch.
Watched September 4, 2012
1997
Starring: Todd Jensen, Samantha Womack, Oliver Tobias and Kadamba Simmons.
I think the best thing about this movie is the VHS copy we watched came in an awesome box where the cover was molded plastic that made it seem like the alien monster was popping out of the box. I didn't really like this movie, even on a campy level. Breeders take place in Boston, or so you're lead to believe. Every sign says Boston something; Boston college, Boston oil refinery, Boston monster haven.
It begins with the worst CGI space title sequence, I know it was 1997 but it was just terrible. It moves from space to a meteorite crashing down on a fictional Boston college. Luckily the rest of the movie doesn't employ much CGI, the alien monster is actually very well made. The meteorite breaks into a bunch of pieces that everyone picks up and make into necklaces. We meet the art history professor Ashley (Todd Jenson) who is apparently super dreamy and his entire class is composed of ladies who want to get with him. One of his students Louise (Samatha Womack) manages to get in his pants.
Meanwhile we discover that the meteorite contained both an alien monster and a sexy space girl (Kadamba Simmons). Ashley sees the space girl and says "You look like one of the new students." The space girl tries to explain her odd connection to the alien monster, but can't seem to get the words out. Everyone who made a meteorite necklace becomes connected to the alien. This includes Louise, but Ashley finds her covered in a goo shell and pulls off the necklace before she is totally controlled by the alien. The Boston police go underground to fight the mysterious alien, they don't really know what they're after at this point. The alien destroys all of the police in a kind of funny and sneaky way. The alien looks like a precursor to the terrible Godzilla from the 1999 American version. A bunch of the female students are drawn down into the tunnels because of their necklaces. They find a girl covered in goo, they eat the goo and then vomit it up on the frozen girl. Ashley and Louise both make it down to the tunnels where they find the space girl. The space girl finally explains what is going on with the alien monster. The space girl is a human who was captured by the alien awhile ago and now she is the alien's egg holder. The alien needs a new egg holder and he's looking at Louise. The tunnels from the school happen to lead to the local oil refinery. They fight the monster and throw him into a pit of oil where he explodes. Everyone else escapes safely.
So all the Boston signs made me think that this movie wasn't made anywhere near Massachusetts. Everyone had pretty good American accents but there were subtle slips into something else. It turns out it was filmed in the UK. I don't know why they decided to set it in the US, it doesn't add anything. Ashley was always wearing a million layers while Louise was in a mini skirt, it confused me to what the weather was actually supposed to be. I don't recommend this movie, it was barely okay.
