I recently compiled a bunch of my posts, edited them and added some bonus illustrations then made a zine. You can now read Terrible Movie Nights #1 in a handy paper format. It's for the sale in the newly created Store. Check it out!
I was at the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, OR this April where I debuted the zine. While there I made my first trip to the Goodwill "bins" which is a Portland thrifting institution that I had never experienced. Just my luck, I found a ton of awesome horror VHS and I bought all I could carry. The next couple of months should be fun as I work my way through.
Watched May 5, 2013
1987
Starring: Michael Ironside, Wendy Lyon, Lisa Schrage, Louis Ferreira.
It begins in 1957, at the prom. Mary Lou (Lisa Schrage) has a steady date, her boyfriend Bill. While he goes to get some punch, Mary Lou heads behind the bleachers to make out with Buddy. She talks to Buddy while they grind on each other about how she is only dating Bill because he's rich. Bill goes looking for Mary Lou, overhears this and pulls Mary Lou off Buddy. Bill is pissed that Mary Lou is cheating on him but she doesn't seem to care either way. The terrible Mary Lou is crowned prom queen, as she is onstage Bill throws a stink bomb he found in the bathroom at her. Instead of stinking up the place, the fuse ignites her gown and she quickly goes up in flames. No one tries to put her out, they just watch her burn to death.
Flash forward 30 years, we meet Vicki (Wendy Lyon), a good christian girl who happens to be dating Bill's son, Craig (Louis Ferreira.) Bill (Michael Ironside) is now the principal of the high school where Mary Lou died. Vicki's conservative parents are allowing her to go to prom but they don't have money to let her buy a new dress. She checks out the drama department's prop basement to see if there's something she can wear. While in the basement she finds a trunk and she opens it to find the crown, cape and sash from the 1957 prom queen. Somehow Mary Lou's spirit was captured in this trunk, now that it's open she's out for revenge.
The first kill scene is one of my actual fears realized. In the art room, Jess (Beth Gondek) tries to pry a gem off the prom crown which activated Mary Lou's anger. Jess begins to be terrorized by the spirit of Mary Lou. She is thrown all around the room then brought closer to the paper cutter. I have always been afraid of cutting off a finger on one of those things. But, instead of being decapitated by the paper cutter, Jess is hung by Mary Lou's coronation gown then thrown out the window. It is thought to be suicide because Jess just found out she was pregnant.
Vicki is a pretty popular girl and she is running for Prom Queen already. With Mary Lou haunting her and trying to take over her body, she begins to have weird episodes and nightmares. Vicki has a lifesize carousel/rocking horse in her bedroom that comes to life in a really gross way. We see Vicki fully naked for awhile in the gym change room as she stalks her best friend then crushes her inside a locker. There are several other great kills as Mary Lou takes revenge on other people that stood in her way.
Finally Prom Night comes around and Vicki is totally taken over by Mary Lou, she is sure she'll win prom queen. The theme of prom is late 80's neon and it looks great. Josh (Brock Simpson) is the school computer nerd, who is my kind of dreamy spaz and he has set up a computer voting system for the prom queen. The other popular girl tried to bribe him before to make sure she won but he couldn't be bought, but then she blows him and that was his real asking price. Vicki/Mary Lou was the real winner but he changes it to the other girl. Vicki/Mary Lou will have none of that and she changes it back for her to win and electrocutes Josh through his computer. I was bummed.
Vicki/Mary Lou is announced as prom queen. Bill knows what's up and shoots Vicki several times to destroy the spirit of Mary Lou. Instead Mary Lou's burned body bursts out of Vicki's corpse and goes from being totally decrepid to restored. She keeps killing everyone but then someone (Craig I think) places the crown on her head and it traps her back in the trunk. Vicki isn't dead after being shot 3 times, so she and Craig escaped into a car, but the song Hello Mary Lou begins to play on the radio and you know that it's not over.
What a treat! This movie had so many great surprises and gross scenes. It doesn't have much to do with the original Prom Night movie, but that doesn't take away from it's splendor.
Watched April 21, 2013
1983
Starring: Leif Green, Jim Greenleaf, Scott McGinnis, Jon Gries, Corinne Bohrer.
Nerdy Eugene (Leif Green) has just gotten a job at the arcade working the snack counter. All the teens in town love hanging out in the arcade, partially because of all the great games and partially because it's managed by young, hot Jefferson (Scott McGinnis). Patsy (Corinne Bohrer) is a perfect young valley girl who loves the arcade, but her dad Mr. Rutter (Joe Don Baker) thinks it's a den of filth and sex. Mr. Rutter is trying to shut down the arcade with the help of his two nitwit assistants. It comes down to a city council meeting to figure out if they can shut down the arcade. So many of the teens really love it and they don't have any other place to hang out. The city council doesn't really do anything but Jefferson challenges Mr. Rutter to a video game. If Mr. Rutter wins, Jefferson will shut down the arcade but if Jefferson wins they'll keep it open. Mr. Rutter can have anyone play for him and he chooses King Vidiot. King Vidiot (Jon Gries) is an awesome punk who's obsessed with the arcade. He doesn't want it shut down, but Mr. Rutter promises him and his female posse mini-motorbikes and he just can't say no.
Jefferson hasn't been able to play any video games since he lost his virginity with his girlfriend and her dad walked in on them. His girlfriend was forced to move away and he whenever he looks at a video screen he sees the dad's angry face. McDorfus (Jim Greenleaf) is a fat slob who is always at the arcade and is the best player around. He is chosen by Jefferson to take his place during the challenge. Mr. Rutter's henchmen learn this and kidnap McDorfus so Jefferson is forced to play during the big showdown. Jefferson rises to the challenge and starts out strong but towards the end King Vidiot is winning. At the last minute, McDorfus frees himself and shows up to win the big battle of Super Pac Man. The arcade is saved and all the teens rejoice.
I love valley girls so Patsy was great for me, every word out of her mouth was fantastic. This
movie falls firmly into the T&A teen sex comedies of the 1980's but
with the added bonus of video games. You get to see boobs right away and continually throughout the movie. No one actually has sex, but there is a working
hot tub inside a van. The soundtrack is alright but I wish they would have used some of the Bruckner and Garcia video game songs, they wrote Pac Man Fever and many others. The DVD that I watched was still pretty poor quality with the lighting being really dark most of the time. I did enjoy it but I think if I had seen it when I was a teen I would have loved it.
Watched April 14, 2013
1990
Starring: Rainbow Harvest, Karen Black, Kristin Dattilo, Yvonne De Carlo, William Sanderson.
I had watched this a couple years ago then gave it to Jen when I did my big moving VHS purge. Well it came around again and was pretty enjoyable.
Megan ( Rainbow Harvest) is a Lydia Deetz clone who has just moved with her mom ( Karen Black) into a new house after the sudden death of her father. The house has a mysterious past that includes a murder that left the house abandoned. All the furniture in the house was bought by an antique shop, they took everything except for a freestanding wood mirror. In the articles taken from the house there is a diary. The antique shop owner Emelin (Yvonne De Carlo) begins to read the diary and discovers that there was a demon in the mirror and the young woman who lived in the house killed her sister to stop the demon.
Megan is a goth outcast but on her first day of school makes friends with Nikki ( Kristin Dattilo) a regular looking girl. All the popular kids immediately hate Megan because she dresses in black while they all wear pastels. At home the mirror is in Megan's room and she becomes enchanted by it. She is compelled to stare into it, rub her face and gum on it, all while not realizing the mirror is bleeding.
At school, a teacher yells at her for not taking a test and then he has a heart attack while she furiously draws circles on her test paper. Megan is not completely aware that the mirror is taking her terrible thoughts and making them a reality, but she slowly gets clued in. During gym class they're all in the pool and the most popular girl gets mad at Nikki, so Megan, through the mirror powers, tries to drown her in the pool. This doesn't work but the popular girl is taken out of the pool and goes to the showers. There all the steam pipes burst and scald her to death.
Megan mentions her new powers to Nikki, but Nikki doesn't want any part of it. This causes Megan to hurt Nikki to convince her to be friends again. Nikki figures out that Emelin might know something about it, so she goes to talk to her. Megan finds out about this and kills Emelin. Nikki figures out that she has to destroy the mirror. Megan kills Nikki's boyfriend by creating a figure that looks like Nikki to drown him in a tub of water. Finally Nikki goes to Megan's house, where Megan has lost control of the mirror. The mirror forces Megan's mom to put her hand in the garbage disposal, dismembering her and she bleeds to death. Megan wants Nikki's help to stop the mirror now, but they just want to get out of the house. The mirror stabs Megan and Nikki is over here wishing everything would go back to the way it was. This takes them back to the original murders that occurred in the house with Nikki and Megan now the two sisters, but Megan is still dead. I'm not really sure what that means, that it was a cycle of sisterhood and demons.
The movie has some nice death scenes and Megan is super weird but interesting to watch. She wears some extra crazy hats. There's a scene where all the popular girls make fun of Megan by dressing all in black. They all look so much better I don't understand why they think it would make Megan mad, but I guess it does. You do get to see the demon that is trapped in the mirror for a little bit, but it still doesn't really explain how it got there, or why it can still control things while in the mirror.
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.
