Night of the Creeps (1986): or, Consider Me Thrilled

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 10!

 In Earth-Year 1959 AD, a passing insterstellar research craft is the scene of intrigue and mutiny, as a creature who looks like E.T. on steroids steals a canister of dangerous parasites and makes a waddling bee-line for the air lock. In the ensuing hail of laser fire and gratuitous alien butt-shots, the mastermind fails to make good his escape, but does manage to fling the canister out of the ship, where it becomes trapped in Earth's orbit and crashes near the campus of an American university. A jock and his girlfriend are caught between a rock and a squishy place, as the boy falls prey to the alien worms while the girl is hacked to death by an escaped axe murderer! And all this in the first five minutes!

Nearly 20 years later, nerdy nice guy Chris (Jason Lively) is smitten by sorority girl Cynthia (super-cute Jill Whitlow). At the urging of his handicapped but fearless friend J.C. (Steve Marshall in a show-stealing performance), Chris pledges to a fraternity run by The Bradster (Allan Kayser), a sadistic Aryan preppie who is also Cynthia's erstwhile boyfriend. Brad tasks the boys to steal a corpse from the university research facility and dump it on a rival fraternity's steps--and I bet you can guess which body they corpse-nap. Soon the alien parasites are running rampant, turning students both living and dead into shambling, bloodthirsty zombies with exploding heads! It's up to Chris, J.C., and beyond-grizzled and gruff detective Ray Cameron (Tom "Fucking" Atkins) to exterminate the alien menace before the planet is overrun and the sorority formal ruined.

One of the true cult-classics of 80s horror, Night of the Creeps is a great time from beginning to end. Writer/Director Fred Dekker (the man also responsible for the much-loved 1987 kids' horror-adventure, The Monster Squad) delivers a fast-paced, quick-witted, gloriously gross hunk of grade-A cheese that should satisfy any fan of the genre. His script is full of quotable quips and unforgettable images, from the suspended-animation body of the 50s jock (which J.C. memorably terms a "corpsicle") to Cynthia in formal dress fighting off zombies with a flamethrower, to Atkin's immortal catchphrase, "Thrill me!" The acting is good across the board, with Atkins and Marshall making the best impressions. Add some great makeup effects, some fun, grody gore (watch particularly for the infected zombie cat puppet), and a special appearance by legendary character actor and national treasure Dick Miller, and there's really nothing left wanting.

A flick I haven't watched in years, and one I'm very glad I revisited. 3 thumbs!

"I don't know, Brad...you've just been so cold to me lately."

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DVD Review: Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness (1986)

When I received this dvd in the main for review from MVD Entertainment, I didn't know what to expect. I'd never heard of the film before, despite the accompanying press materials touting it as an "all-time horror classic!" and "one of the top 13 slasher movies of all time!" As I looked at the case, I started to get worried. The DVD cover was red flag #1--the skullface/crazyeyes photoshop job, the cartoon ants, the notebook-paper-on-fire copy background. That copy was red flag #2, as the flick's main selling point seemed to be that it "Includes a special performance from a young A.J. McLean of The Backstreet Boys!" Add the fact that there were no actual production stills anywhere to be found, and well, parishioners, perhaps you'll forgive me for having been a little doubtful about the quality of the film I was about to view.

The good news is, I shouldn't have been. Made near the beginning of the straight-to-VHS horror boom of the 80s, Tim Ritter's 1986 effort Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness, delivers more than just two punctuation marks in a row--it's got unintentionally hilarious plotting, wonderfully budget-challenged gore, totally committed performances from semi-professional actors, and enough off-the-wall skewiness to keep any mad movie fan entertained throughout. Plus it's got that charming sincerity and passion that lifts some films above the merely bad into the rarefied realm of the glorious failure.

These are recommendations, people.

We now join Afternoon Adultery Daily, already in progress.

After a nice animated credit sequence in which the title literally bleeds from the scene, we are introduced to bored housewife Sharon Strauber (Mary Fanaro) busily banging her boytoy Jerry Powers (played by "both my character and real name are clearly superhero aliases" Bruce Gold) on the marital bed. Unfortunately for them and his scores of future victims, cuckolded architect Mike Strauber (John Brace) has forgotten some blueprints at home, and enters the house at the perfect moment to catch them in flagrante de fuck you, Mikey. Mary disengages (pshhhhht!) and escorts Mike to the door for the most half-assed caught-with-my-pants-off break-up in history, telling him "I've found a new life, you should do the same. Find yourself some good friends!"

Rather than coming back with something pithy like "Wait a minute, this is MY house!", Mike hops in his BITCHEN' CAMARO and drives down to the beach to contemplate the wreck his life has suddenly become. We get flashbacks to moments in their relationship Mike now sees as clear adultery indicators--apart from, you know, the unexplained crusty spots on the sheets. Back in his car, Mike pulls a revolver out of his ass and briefly contemplates suicide...but another flashback to playing "Truth or Dare" as a kid--in which the young Mike (future Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean, looking all of 9 years old) is dared to cut his wrist with a razor and does so, much to the horror of his friends--somehow makes him decide to postpone the hard shutdown for another drive.

(Oddly, in the flashback Young Mike shows his wound to his mother, who reacts by sighing, "Oh, Mike, when are you going to get some good friends?" instead of the more standard parental reaction, "HOLY SHIT YOU CUT YOUR FUCKING WRIST YOU STUPID KID CALL 911 AAAAAAAH!")

"I want it that way."

On his way back from the beach, our suicidal protagonist chances to pass a female hitchhiker with huge boobs and the most amazing 80s hair I've seen in a while. Thinking it's time to make a good friend, he asks "Where ya headed?" to which she replies, "Anywhere YOU are!" Instead of taking her to an hourly-rate hotel like a normal person, Mike rather elects to take her CAMPING. Apparently he keeps the tent and Coleman lantern in the Camaro's trunk at all times, and before you know it, the two of them are sitting around the campfire getting to know one another via a good old fashioned game of Truth or Dare.

What follows is a wonderful scene that will determine whether you're the type of viewer who will enjoy the rest of the movie or not. After a couple of warm-up truths and some significant weirdness on her part (suggesting--spoiler!--she's not what she appears to be), the hitchhiker dares Mike to throw his wallet in the campfire, which he does, symbolically obliterating his identity. He then skips the standard kissing dare and goes straight for the big guns--"I dare you to lift up your blouse!" Here is the scene that follows in pictorial form:

Beautiful Plumage

Wait for it...

*Schwinnnng!*

And...SCENE.

If you're smiling right now, continue on. It gets more deliciously cheesy from here.

Things escalate as she next dares him to pull his eye out! When he refuses, she demonstrates his cowardice by pulling out her own and throwing it to him! Of course she's just a figment of his imagination, and dares him to increasingly self-destructive actions--cutting his finger off, cutting his chest open, and finally pulling his own tongue out with his bare hands!

It's at this point that John Brace really distinguishes himself as a totally committed thespian. This is not to say a talented thespian, necessarily, but the level to which he throws himself into the "going nuts" scene at the campfire can only be applauded and admired. His delivery of the lines (especially the repeated phrase, "You want me to [cut my chest, etc.]? ALLL RRRRIGHT! I WILL!") is simply epic, and his writhing-in-pain, foaming-at-the-mouth self-mutilation is a glorious exercise in OTT method acting.

"We've replaced Mike's regular chewing gum with Elasticized Goat Urine™. Let's see if he can tell the difference..."

Cut to Sunnyville Mental Institution, thirteen months later (as the weather-report scrolling text at the bottom of the screen tells us), where through speech therapy and presumed reattachment surgery Mike has recovered the ability to speak and grasp blunt or bladed objects. In the worst example of early release screening since Luther the Geek, Mike is turned loose, given his camaro back (watch for a great bit-character mechanic who sounds like one of the Car Talk guys' less amiable cousins), and off he goes, cackling maniacally, to kill his ex-wife and her lover. He gets half the job done, but bungles the Sicilian Divorce, allowing Mary to slash him across the stomach and escape. He stumbles out of the house, clutching his intestines, and collapses by his car, where a pair of good Samaritans call the cops and send him packing back to Sunnyville.

The rest of the plot is basically Mike going in and out of Sunnyville between attempts to kill Mary and various other incidental murders, both real and imagined. There's some pseudo-psychology from one of the doctors about how "he's been in this weird state all his life, things flipping in and out [of reality] for no apparent reason!" This gives the filmmakers carte blanche to throw anything in they want, even if it doesn't make any sense, just for the sheer hell of it--and this is a very good thing.

A few of the things they throw at the wall with varying degrees of stickiness:

• Mike plays Truth or Dare with a couple of imaginary fellow inmates, daring one to cut his arm and leg off and the other to hold a hand grenade in his mouth! And yes, it leads to an awesomely cheesy Head Asplosion. When the nonexistent playmates dare him to rip his own face off, Mike shows what a good sport he is by complying.

Automatic +1 Thumb

• Wearing a copper mask he forged in the institute's metal shop (I guess), Mike escapes the crazy ward and boosts a car, which he drives for the rest of the movie with its hazard lights on. (Which only makes sense--after all, he IS a hazard!) Moments later, Ritter pays homage to Battleship Potemkin's baby-carriage scene as Mike commits VEHICULAR INFANTICIDE.

• A bunch of Greaser punks straight out of an S. E. Hinton novel try to run Mike off the road, leading to an intense car chase, a much-bigger-than-feasible explosion, and the time-honored MAN ON FIRE stunt. Class all the way round.

It's all fun and games till somebody loses a baby.

• Still in the car he stole from the institute and having made no stops, Mike deters the cops with an UZI. Arriving at Mary's house, he gears up with several guns, a couple of Rambo-style compass-hilt daggers, a pair of nunchuks, a chainsaw, and a freaking SPIKED MACE. (In the DVD making-of interview, director Tim Ritter claims a scene where Mike stopped and picked all this stuff up at "a hardware store" was excised by the producers.)

• Mike's ex-wife, the only actress willing to get nude in this film, has a languorous shower scene as he closes in for the final dare, which leads to a wonderfully nonsensical denoument.

And I haven't even mentioned the wonderful character non-actors playing the cops in this film--one of whom apparently is half Brahman Bull, judging from his tremendous hump of back fat! Nor the appearance of the legendary character actor Asbestos Felt (Killing Spree [1987], Creep [1995], Turkles 2010], as the head-explodey inmate.

Feared in Fort Lauderdale, Sacred in India

According the to supplemental materials on the excellent DVD treatment by MVD Films, Tim Ritter was only 18 years old when, through perseverance and admitted blind luck, he managed to land a development deal for Truth or Dare. The older Mr. Ritter comes across as somewhat bitter about the whole experience, and recounts how control was wrested from him once the producers discovered his true age, how the 2nd Unit director is responsible for all the continuity flubs, and how the original special effects man went crazy and built a volcano of latex in his hotel room, leading to a quick replacement and the resultant slap-dash effects that are actually in the film. Whether these stories are strictly true or not, I honestly couldn't care less. Anything that adds to the legend, what I say.

"Oh my God! You've RUINED my AbdomiWrapper!"

In addition to John Brace's admirable commitment to his role and the anything-goes plotting, the movies is also helped (or hampered, depending on your POV) by that amazing keyboard score by Johnny Britt and/or Ken Karlson. The words "repetitive" and "intrusive" only begin to scratch the surface of the absolutely relentless Casio-farting going on here, but it accomplishes the designated task of all film scores, which is to match the tone of the film it serves. If you listen to the whole score and DON'T feel yourself going slightly insane, your mind has as much endurance as Britt/Karlson's index fingers.

Clearly Truth or Dare?: a Critical Madness is not going to be everyone's cuppa joe. But if you like your 80s with owl glasses on and huge hair, your filmmakers earnest and impoverished, your keyboards turned up to eleven and slashers completely detached from reality, you should give this MVD Entertainment Group release a look. DVD extras include the aforementioned director's interview, a commentary track, trailers for Truth or Dare and its two (?) DTV sequels, trivia and a slide show--a nice package for a largely unknown and uncelebrated film, for which I salute the company.

2.5 Thumbs for the movie and its presentation (automatic head-explodey bonus points already included).

Dare You Not to Love It

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DVD REVIEW: MAD DOG MORGAN (1976)

Few historical figures have received as much cinematic attention as the American Western Outlaw, exemplified by such figures as Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, and perhaps most famously by Jesse James and his gang. The fascination with these characters began during their lifetimes with pulp adventure books and serialized newspaper stories detailing their latest raids, glossing over their literal brutality in favor of the idealized romanticism of the folk hero. It was natural that the movies would take up their legends, and it could be argued that the popular fascination with these figures (and the do-gooding lawmen who pursued them) played a major role in the popularization of the fledgling movie industry. Just think of the number of silent serials and early talky features were Westerns, and you can easily see what I mean.

You might be aware that Australian history boasts an analogous folk hero figure, the Bushranger, whose popularity was similarly influential in the development of that country's cinema. Like their American cousins the bushrangers robbed banks, stage coaches, and unwary travelers, afterwards retreating to the bush where authorities were reticent or flatly unable to follow. The most famous bushranger was undoubtedly Ned Kelly, who has been the subject of dozens of films, including The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), which at 70 mins. long was in fact the first feature-length film ever made in any country.

Only slightly less famous than Kelly in bushranger lore was Dan "Mad Dog" Morgan, whose heavy drinking, violent temper, and brutal crimes did little to stem the spread of his reputation as a folk hero in 1860s Australia. In 1976 director Philippe Mora (whose subsequent work includes horror outings The Beast Within [1982] and The Howling II & III) directed a version of Morgan's life story with iconic American movie madman Dennis Hopper in the lead role. The resulting flick, Mad Dog Morgan, has been lauded as a classic of Ozsploitation cinema and has just been released in a 2-disc special edition by Troma Retro as part of their "Tromasterpiece" collection.

"Hotsy Totsy!"

The film starts with Morgan working in a gold camp during the Australian Gold Rush of the mid 1800s, already raising hell and picking fights with musclebound Germans in Prussian military helmets. This is of course a bad idea--when Morgan and a friend visit the Chinese side of camp to ride the dragon for a while, the German and his racist buddies invade and set the camp on fire, killing most of the Chinese workers and blowing a hole in Morgan's friend's head that you could toss a baby koala through. Morgan escapes the camp with his life, turning to a life of crime to support himself.

It's not long before his robbing ways lead him to a prison cell in New South Wales, where he is tortured, branded, and raped by a gang of Ozzie rugby players by way of initiation. Whether through fear or PTSD this makes Morgan mind his manners for the next six years, after which he's paroled. He immediately returns to his life of crime, only now he seems set on avenging the wrongs done to him on the local police, the upper crusts, and anyone else who's unfortunate enough to cross his path.

"Yer acid or yer life!"

Of course the Australian outback is an unforgiving place, and Morgan comes near perishing from exposure before he's rescued by Aborigine Billy (David Gulpilil), who teaches him to survive and becomes his sidekick and partner in crime, sort of the Tonto to Morgan's Lone Ranger. Together they rob ranchers, engage in gunfights with police, hole up with sympathizers and other outlaws, and generally wreak episodic havoc for the rest of the movie's running time.

Along the way Morgan grows a series of impressive beards (the first to emulate American President Abraham Lincoln--not because he admires his politics, but because he thinks, quite simply, "That's a fine lookin' man!"), matches wits with and thwarts a series of NSW police officers, and drinks amazing amounts of liquor. When the authorities in Victoria boast that should Morgan cross the border into their territory he will be "relentlessly and mercilessly cut down," he takes it as a challenge, leading to a tense and bloody conclusion to his rum-soaked and bloody career.

At the time of its release the film was considered incredibly shocking, mostly because of the depiction of prison rape and a couple of gore scenes. This might seem quaint to the modern viewer, since the gore is relatively understated (with the exception of the stand-out EXPLODING HEAD early on in the opium den), and the rape scene is hardly explicit (not that this is necessarily a bad thing). Also, the episodic nature of the film makes it feel repetitive after a while, with Morgan robbing/shooting someone, running from police, fighting/outsmarting them, and then starting the whole process again. There's some stuff thrown in here and there about Darwin's theories of evolution and whether Morgan is a man or an animal, whether nature or nurture has made him the beast he is, but I really didn't see it going anywhere.

Ka-boom!

Which is not to say the movie isn't worth watching--Mora gets some beautiful shots of the Australian scenery, and a periodically stylish composition will make many cineastes happy. A few of the supporting characters turn in good performances, most notably Gulpilil as Morgan's Aboriginal partner and bald baddie Frank Thring as Superintendent Cobham of the Victoria territory, who invests every line with a snakelike intensity and menace.

But of course the real reason to watch the movie is for Dennis Hopper's performance as Morgan. Hopper is clearly inebriated throughout his performance, which in an interview on the disc he shrugs off as part of his "method" acting, since Morgan was notoriously alcoholic. While I'm not sure this makes for a convincing performance, it certainly makes for an entertaining one, particularly with Hopper affecting a slurred Irish brogue that's only slightly more convincing than the amazing array of fake beards he's called upon to wear throughout the film. (The beards serve a storytelling purpose--their length and style denotes the passage of time.)

Not so beardy...

Abraham Beardy...

Ultimate Beardy

The film print is in pretty bad shape, with pops and scratches extremely noticeable (indeed, un-ignorable) in many scenes. However, Troma Team makes up for it with an impressive number of extras, including several interviews, all of which eventually drift away from the movie and into recollections of Hopper's legendary drunken misadventures. Best of all is a long interview/conversation with director Mora and Dennis Hopper himself, looking much cleaner and more in-control, who has a surprising amount of recall considering his altered state during the filming. (I'm honestly surprised Hopper remembers ANYTHING before 1980.) Tales of Hopper's antics include his visiting the real Dan Morgan's grave, chug-a-lugging a fifth of rum, and then trying to tear up the graveyard, only to be arrested and expelled from Victoria, ostensibly for life. Mora seems more interested in talking with Hopper about Easy Rider and the end of the Free Love era than about the movie at hand, but really, it's probably more informative and entertaining.

Overall this is a fine release from Troma Team, and if you have an interest in Ozsploitation cinema, bushrangers in history, or Dennis Hopper's career, you should definitely check it out.

Told you it was a bad idea.

Full disclosure: a copy of this DVD was provided to the Vicar for reviewing purposes. Apparently the FCC wants you to know.

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Thicker Than Water (2008): or, Send Me a Postcard from Macchu Picchu

Mircrobudget independent vampire movies (MIVMs) get a bad rap generally, and if you think about it, there's a pretty good reason. As cheap and easy as it is to squirt some bottled latex in a friend's face, tear up some old clothes, layer on some corpse paint and call him a zombie, it's even cheaper to pencil in some eyeliner and call him a vampire. (And if you or your friends are part of your local Goth scene, the overhead goes down even more.) Because the setup requires less money and less skill, unfortunately the MIVM has attracted the most inept, unoriginal, creatively bankrupt independent filmmakers of any genre. The fact that the built-in audience for vampire movies of any level of quality still greedily devours everything that hits the DVD shelves with a half-naked Goth chick on the cover does little to discourage this trend.

As a result, it's often difficult for a horror fan with any level of discernment to find a MIVM that they could actually call...you know...kind of good. Like trying to find the proverbial toothpick in a stake-stack...or something. That's why your ever-lovin' Vicar was suprised and pleased to find that Phil Messerer's 2008 MIVM, Thicker than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1 (official site here), is actually more than a few cuts above its mini-budgeted brethren. Well shot with an engaging amateur cast and even a few (dare I say it?) original ideas to offer, it's definitely a MIVM worth checking out, if you're into that sort of thing.

And you are. Don't lie. I know you.

The New Groovy Goth Girls™ Playset

The movie kind of digs itself a hole right at the beginning, as a trying-to-sound-creepy but-failing-miserably narrator intones "OUR STORY BEGINNNNS...." while still photos of Mayan pyramids flash by onscreen. Not still photos, actually--I think they're honest-to-God postcards. The voice-over says something about Mayan gods and their insatiable thirst for blood, but I was too awash in the slideshow to care. Luckily things get better, as we're next presented with a well-crafted tableau of dolls and bones that gives us a capsule visual summary of the movie to come.

After the credits we meet soon-to-be 16-year-old Goth girl Lara Baxter (Eilis Cahill), who has constructed a black magic altar in her room as a way of escaping from her dysfunctional family--mainly from her "twin" sister Helen (Devon Bailey), a popular cheerleader sort who enjoys ratting on Lara to their ultra-religious Mom (JoJo Hristova). (Upon seeing Lara's altar: "Mom! Lara's playing Anne Rice again!") Rounding out the family unit are henpecked Dad (Anthony Morelli) and reclusive weirdo brother Raymond (Michael Strelow), who also happens to be an independent researcher (read: Mad Scientist).

Lara: The Only Goth in the Village

The story is told mostly from Lara's point of view, with periodic voice-overs by Cahill as she writes in the titular diary. From the opening dinner scene, where super-stern Mom enforces "Accomplishment Time," demanding each child list his or her achievements for the week, we know Messerer is aiming over the top and plans to stay there. Often this is an excuse for dumb jokes and poor writing, but thankfully Messerer (who also wrote the script) has an ear for a good line and an actress in Cahill who can deliver withering sarcasm in a funny, engaging way.

After Dad announces he and Mom are separating, he completely disappears from the movie, leading me to wonder why the character was even there in the first place. In the tension-filled aftermath of this and a double-birthday party gone awry, a sibling scuffle leads Lara to cast an "Ancient Anal Acne" spell on her sister. She figures she got the ingredients wrong when the next morning Helen comes downstairs bleeding profuseley from the nose and eyes. A tearful deathbed reconciliation later and Helen is a corpse, leaving Lara guilt-wracked and the rest of the family in shock.

Bet you wish they'd tested that makeup on bunnies *now,* dontcha?

I don't want to belabor the plot too much, so instead I'll sum up. Helen comes back from the dead Monkey's Paw-style, only now she's a vampire (try not to look so surprised). The family decides to do their best to keep her alive, which means kidnapping unwitting victims and sacrificing them to Helen's cyclical bloodlust. While Lara educates them (and us) on the niceties of vampire lore, Raymond experiments in his bedroom lab in a search for a cure, or at least an explanation. Mom wrestles with her religious beliefs and the need to keep her daughter alive.

The focus in the movie is really on the family dynamic rather than on the "vampire run amok" idea, and this is to its strength, I think. Helen is kept hidden in the basement like a dirty family secret, while her family becomes kidnappers and murderers in order to keep her alive. Helen is by no means an Anne Rice-ian vampire as most MIVM characters become, but rather a scared, confused teen with uncontrollable impusles (we've all been there, right?) who occasionally becomes a monster. Again, I think this is an interesting angle--in fact, late in the movie an Anne Rice vampire does appear to claim Helen in a funny (if a bit too broad) comic scene, only to find he's drastically underestimated the Baxter family.

"Helloooo!"

The movie is shot pretty well, with some nice dark shadows and a few good mise-en-scenes. The makeup and effects are understated for the most part--dark eyeliner and lots of fake blood--but occasionally graphic, and we even get an exploding head courtesy Raymond's experiments, which is always a treat.

I mentioned Cahill's performance as Lara earlier, and it really is rather good--on the sliding scale of MIVM acting, anyway. She's engaging and funny, and really seems to inhabit the character (or else the character *is* her, which works just as well). Bailey does a pretty good job as Helen too, but the real show stealer is Strelow as Raymond, who takes the opportunity of his sister's first death to tell Mom he's gay and afterwards transforms gradually from shy reclusive nerd to svelte, confident gay vampire killer.

Messerer's script has some funny lines in it, and while he occasionally skirts the "too broad and stupid" comic line, he seldom goes over it. There are some scenes that don't work in my opinion--everything that uses a postcard for a background, for a start, and the out-of-place expository scene with the Dr. Strange-type owner of the local Freakatorium shop--but there are also scenes that work really, really well, such as an extended conversation with some door-to-door Mormons the Baxters have chosen for Helen's next meal (my favorite set-piece). There are also a couple of well-edited montages that I found funny and fun to watch.

No more, mon.

I have to say that when I first received the screener, I was quite prepared to dislike this movie, and one of the reasons was the title--that is, the FULL title, which is this: Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries, Part 1. I still don't like it, for three reasons. Number one: when it comes to indie movie titles, shorter is better imo. "Thicker than water" is a well-known phrase, implies the "blood" without coming out and saying it, and is easy to remember. Adding that lengthy subtitle just dilutes it. Number two: there is really no need to announce the proposed franchise until at least the second installment. Yeah, we all know you have big plans for your baby, but so did the guys behind Buckaroo Banzai and The Sword and the Sorcerer. And number three: there's already a Vampire Diary. Sorry guys, but you've been scooped.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised by Thicker than Water, and entertained by it pretty much throughout. I did think Lara's centrality to the plot should have been maintained; she starts off very strong, but by the end she seems a secondary character. I wasn't a huge fan of the music in the movie, but it won awards for it at some festival or other, so what do I know.

Anyway, if you're a fan of MIVMs, you could do lots, LOTS worse than Thicker Than Water. I will admit that those not already aficionados of microbudget movies might not be able to get into it as I did, but on the sliding scale us fans learn to apply, it does rather well, with some good ideas, a refreshing sense of humor, and periodically effective filming. Taking a page from the Duke's book, I give the movie 2 thumbs if you love MIVMs and vampires generally, and 1.5 if you don't.

Paper Plates are the Scientist's Friend

You can visit Thicker Than Water's Official Site here.

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Death Warmed Up (1984): or, Trepanation Island

Hey, remember the 80s? Remember the over-moussed hair, the bright primary-colored clothes, and the bloopy synth music? The salad days of MTV and Miami Vice? Remember Olivia Newton-John? Remember Men at Work?

Good. Keep those images in your mind.

Now add a healthy dose of mad science, a dollop of pre-code horror comics'* carnage and general disdain for logic, a dash of homoeroticism, and a villain straight out of Mad Max's The Wall, and you're almost in the brainspace to appreciate this New Zealand-produced mad movie from 1984, David Blyth's frankly mindfuckling Death Warmed Up.

*of the sort provided gratis daily by the inestimable Karswell over at MMMMMovies buddy site, The Horrors of It All! Check 'em out!

After some brightly colored collage-style credits, we open on young Michael Tucker (Michael Hurst) running like mad through a forest in full daylight. Dressed only in an AC/DC-approved school uniform, Mike seems dazzled by the sunlight falling through the branches of the trees as he keeps the knees pumping high, as if some fearful beast doth close behind him tread. Where has he been? What's he running from? These questions remain tantalizingly unanswered: within seconds the pastoral paradise gives way to a metropolitan cityscape, but Michael doesn't slow down for an instant--he sprints down the urban avenues right up the stairs of a local hospital, where the nurses seem to know him and don't think it at all odd that the sweaty schoolboy has burst in as if crossing the finish line at the Sydney Olympics.

"So...wanna get physical?"

After a short elevator ride Mike finds his way to the neurosurgery department, where his father, Professor Tucker (David Weatherley) is having a heated discussion with colleague Dr. Archer Howell (the wonderfully evil Gary Day). It appears some vaguely defined experiments of Howell's cross Tucker's ethical lines, something to do with immortality through brain surgery (?). The frank exchange of views gives way to fisticuffs, as Dr. Howell throws his puny partner against the wall and threatens bodily harm if the funding is cut off. When Howell sees Michael spying on them, the horrified youngster flees the scene.

Not fast enough, though, as a couple of dimly lit corridors over Dr. Howell catches up with him. Noticing the young man is sweaty and out of breath, the doctor--in the most menacing voice possible--suggests that Mike take a quick shower in the surgeons' locker room to "freshen up." Having just witnessed this same man roughing up his dear old dad, Micheal readily agrees!

It's here that we get our first dose of homoeroticism in the flick (if you don't count the hospital's extremely phallic edifice--which I do), as the fit young man takes a very gratuitous, red-lit shower, throwing his head back and opening his mouth for the gentle spray in the way Linnea Quigley and others have made a career of. This boy *really* enjoys his showers--so much so that he doesn't notice the wicked Dr. Howell sneaking up on him with a syringe the size of a billy-club, which he uses to PENETRATE Mike's taut buttocks and pump them full of his mysterious SCIENCE JUICE. Gripping Michael firmly from behind, the doctor drags him off into the shadows. Doubtless for a perfectly innocent purpose.

Gratuitous Butt Shot

Anyone who remembers the early days of MTV should get a warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia from Blyth's visual style here--impossibly bright colors, glowing red and blue gels, and copious Venetian blind-shadows are the order of the day. The periodic synthesizer stings out of nowhere only add to the feeling that any moment Simon Le Bon and Murray Head are going to step out from behind a pillar and get the party started right. (Unfortunately, this NEVER happens.)

Later that evening Ma and Pa Tucker are undressing after a formal evening out, watching a news report on Dr. Howell's research. "He's MAD!" the professor exclaims, obviously still reeling from his office ass-whupping. Mrs. Tucker, clad in what looks like a cross between an old-fashioned slip and a Merry Widow, pulls herself away from her floor-to-ceiling closet full of shoes long enough to comfort her husband with some hot MILF action.

Meanwhile Dr. Howell is driving his obviously altered new friend back home after whatever sordid tryst followed the fade-to-black. He deposits Mike at Chez Tucker then scarpers, an evil gleam in his eye. Mike stumbles across the front lawn, cradling a shotgun.

"Mike? Is that you?"

Of course Michael creeps upstairs, interrupts his parents' first sex in years, and proceeds to go all DeFeo on them in one of the films' many excellent gore scenes. Dad gets several squibs and stark splatter, and Mom even gets a shotgun blast to the gut, right in front of her precious shoe-stash. Not sated with murdering his parents, Mike blasts the table lamp on his way out--it's always the innocents who get hurt.

Seven years later Michael is released from the world's smallest padded cell and put back out in the world, his hair gone bleached-blond from the trauma. In the intervening years Dr. Howell has taken his work to the corporate sector, founding TransCranial Applications Incorporated and purchasing a private island where he is governor and god. We get some pretty good mad science action here, as Dr. Howell performs graphic brain surgery on a hapless patient while nurses with dead eyes and mesh surgical masks stand by to assist. If you look at the expressionless cadre of medical women here and start singing "Addicted to Love," well, I won't stop you.

Blaming the Doctor's butt-juice injection for his parents' deaths, Michael rounds up his girlfriend and two other mates and sets out for revenge. The first part of the revenge plan involves getting to the island on one of the rustiest ferries imaginable. While Mike and his Olivia Newton-John-channeling girlfriend Sandy (Margaret Umbers) talk to the captain, their friends Lucas and Jeannie decide to have sex on the hood of their car. When they see a couple of Mad Max rejects getting an eyefull they retire to the relative privacy of the backseat of the same car, where Jeannie shucks out of her top and gives us some female nudity, for a change.

"The next time I see you, you'd BETTER have eyebrows!"

It's here that the movie takes its *really* hard left turn, as a hunchbacked mutant in a Devo-esque jumpsuit interrupts the lovers in flagrante de Pinto. Moments later Lucas retaliates by pissing on the baddies' van, leading to some harsh threats from their leader Spider (David Letch, subscribing to the Bob Geldof/Jess Franco's Faceless school of "shaved eyebrows == MORE EVIL" thought). A ferry brawl ensues, followed by a Mad Max-ish car chase on the mainland. Our protagonists ditch the bad guys in an actual ditch, and our story can get on its way.

Or so you would think. After an odd scene where Dr. Howell and a henchman stop into a local convenience store to buy pineapples from an incredibly offensive Indian ethnic stereotype (obviously a Kiwi "comic" in brown-face), we join Mike and his mates at a beach where they've stopped for a picnic. If you're hoping for hott bathing suit shots here, you won't be disappointed:

"No more sandwiches for me, thanks--I'm stuffed."

After some deep but confusing dialog and near oral-sex from his girlfriend, Mike decides it's time to get his friends moving to some WWII tunnels he wants to explore on the island, for some reason. Meanwhile, the good Dr. Howell is performing more surgery on the mutant from the ferry, who is suffering some rather nasty side-effects from the TransCranial Application he received. Unfortunately for him, he didn't read the the fine print that read "WARNING: May Cause Drowsiness, Retardation, Spontaneous Scoliosis, and ASPLODING HEAD SYNDROME." Of course some side-effects there's no getting to the other side of.

In the tunnels under the island, the baddies catch up with our heroes again, this time on motorcycles! There's a long chase through the tunnels--and I mean LONG, several minutes too long, really--and Jeannie is clubbed by a passing cyclist just before they escape. Enraged, Lucas goes back in, grabs a length of pipe, and succeeds in impaling one of the bikers on it--though it magically changes to a piece of rebar once it pierces the mutant's back. Versitile material, that.

Spider takes his mortally wounded friend to Dr. Howell, and the doc expresses his unconcern by shoving Spider's eyebrowless face right into his friend's exposed intestines! Harsh, but fair. A bit put out over this, Spider retaliates by going down to the basement of the clinic and releasing a roomful of slavering mutants to wreak havoc through the hospital.

A real mind-blower.

It's not long before the clinic and most of the island is in flames, and Mike finds himself face-to-face with his nemesis and ready to get some answers about Howell's motivations. No dice--Howell is a mad scientist of the pre-code horror comics mode, doing these horrible things because he's EEEVIL, and he CAN. As to what he hopes to accomplish--apparently it's destruction for destruction's sake:

"I had a vision! There are HUNDREDS out there who've undergone the process...it's only a matter of hours before they all start to melt down! But there are others out there who HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED!"

No arguing with that logic. When Mike gets the upper hand with a carelessly unsecured scalpel the size of a butcher knife, the Doc plays his trump card: "You must realize that I must survive if this is to be stopped! Only I can make you well again!"

Unimpressed, Mike gets very stabby indeed on the good doctor, pinning him against the wall and THRUSTING his PENETRATING BLADE into Howell's EXPOSED FLESH, AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, until THE FLUIDS HIT THE FLOOR AND...say, is it hot in here?

It all leads to a non-confrontation with spider and a bleakish non-ending that makes about as much sense as a set of Ronnie James Dio lyrics, but fortunately is just as much fun.

The Vicar's Happy Place, circa 1985

I had a blast with Death Warmed Up, but I should warn viewers that it's not without its problems. A lot of the driving and chase scenes seem to take place in real time, which slows the movie down considerably, especially against the frantic pace of many of the other scenes. The acting and dialogue are as over the top as comic book speech bubbles, which can be good or bad depending on your point of view. There are a few really out-of-nowhere video wipes that pull you right out of the film, and at least one scene where the actors are upstaged by a boom mike. But for someone like me, that's just gravy on the chips, baby.

That said, the gore is good and goopy, the plot is wilder than it needed to be (in a good way) and the wacky homoerotic undertones (in addition to the MASSIVE SYRINGES and PIPE IMPALEMENT, the guards at the clinic use MAGNIFICENT CATTLE PRODS to keep the inmates in line) and Mad Max/80s Music Video sensibilities all push the scales in the movie's favor. If you're looking for Oscar bait, look away--but if you're looking for FUN, you could do a lot worse.

A bit of an oddity and a TOTAL product of its times, Death Warmed Up is worth at least one viewing by Mad Movie fans, and thus gets an easy 2 Thumbs Up. Grab a few beers, fix up a plate of Vegemite sandwiches, put your legwarmers up on the table, and enjoy.

"You call that a knife? That's not a KNIFE..."

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Galaxy of Terror (1981): or, In Space, No One Can Hear You Get Raped By a Worm

A couple of sermons back I spent a little time considering the relative opportunities for batshittery in the genres of horror and sci-fi. If you'll recall, I came down rather decisively on the side of science fiction as the genre with the least imaginative restraint and thus the greatest potential for true cinematic madness. While horror will always be where my heart is, in the face of the overwhelming data presented by the esteemed Dr. Hasselhoff and others in Starcrash, I must admit to the sci-fi genre's superiority in at least that one respect.

Of course creative people are always drawn toward the medium in which they can express themselves most freely, and thus once the freedom offered by the science fiction of the 70s became clear--from gravity, from Earth, from the need for basic storytelling logic--it might have been predicted that the vacuum of space would suck a few intrepid horror filmmakers through the hull of their genre and out into the horrible, terrifying void. The resulting hybrid beasts exhibit at their best the most satisfying traits of both their parents--think Alien and The Thing, or else think mmmmmovie favorite Inseminoid. At worst, they can spiral into gibbering madness and ineptitude. Like the Darwinian Milkshake Sweepstakes inherent in any cross-breeding attempt, it's a crapshoot.

Luckily 1981's hard-to-find sci-fi/horror mash-up Galaxy of Terror comes up sevens rather than snake-eyes. Packed from one end to the other with sci-fi action, goopy practical FX, and even some poorly developed fantasy mythology thrown in for no extra charge, Galaxy of Terror takes a bite out of each of its parent genres and spits up something truly delectable.

"All right, I'll see him! Tell Baio to call off his goons!"

One of the many great things about this flick becomes clear in the opening titles, which to judge by the accompanying sound effects are being shot out of a laser cannon! (I never get tired of that shit.) A veritable galaxy of past and future stars twinkle merrily before our eyes, including Erin "Joanie" Moran, Ray "The Devil" Walston, Robert "Fucking" Englund, Sid "Fucking" Haig, and future David Duchovny flesh-peddler Zalman King! And produced by the ubiquitous Roger Corman! When a movie's credits list fewer people who are NOT b-movie royalty than those who ARE, you can't help but salivate at the prospect.

The drool continues as the requisite Alien-inspired wasteland exterior gives way to a lone spaceman on the interior of the base startled by a jump-synth scare! Cradling a laser rifle--and I mean cradling it, like a baby--he finds himself surrounded by corpses with exposed brains before being attacked by an invisible monstrosity we can just glimpse in the station windows! Soon he's missing the top of his brain-bucket as well, gone before we ever got the chance to know him better.

Next a witchy old-lady voice-over informs us that we're looking at a painting of "CERES--a small world on the fringes of space!" Down on the planet's surface we find the old woman herself--or as she v-o's enthusiastically, "Mitris! the Oracle of the game! Interpreter of the Signs!" Thanks, do you have a business card? The Oracle is engaged in some kind of fantasy board game with The Planet Master, a man-like being with a head composed completely of red cartoony luminescence! Which is a great look for him, it has to be said.

"Hang on...I think I'm getting an idea..."

Apparently the Planet Master is some kind of deity who controls just about everything in the society of the movie--his name is even used in the spacemen's oaths, such as "The Master knows what kind of shit was in that grub last night!" or "Master Damn it, my balls are on fire!"* Ceres is his Olympus, and Mitris his Delphic Oracle. Except that unlike Zeus, the PM is very hands-on--so much so that when a Moff Tarkin-type pops up on the view screen to tell him about a distress call coming in from deep space, PM hand-picks a crew of space marines to go out and see what (the fuck) is up.

*not actual quotes, but should have been

Now we pretty much abandon the fantasy trappings and go straight into hard sci-fi--after all, Alien isn't going to rip-off itself, people! In the space of about a minute we're introduced to our crew, comprised of all the stars mentioned above plus two or three extra bits of alien fodder. The captain of the rescue ship is a crusty Ratchitt-esque broad with PTSD thanks to a failed mission she can't stop talking about, and when she's ready to go, she's ready to go! She gives the crew 30 seconds to ready the ship--whose control panels operate ENTIRELY on the "toggle switch" principle, as all ships in the future will--before they jump to hyperspace. She almost blows up the whole ship and everyone on it before they even GET to the Galaxy of Terror. Nice pick, PM, she's a real winner.

Actually the reckless, frenetic pace of the pre-launch preparations is a good indicator of how the movie will go from here on out, as director Brian D. Clark stomps on the gas pedal and doesn't let up for 80 minutes. Once they arrive at the planetary source of the distress call, more dangerous piloting by the Cap'n soon has the ship tumbling through orbit toward almost certain death. The captain is saved from posthumous court-martial by a combination of supernatural intervention and belatedly competent steerage ("Hang onto your shorts!" she shouts into the intercom, "We're gonna DUMP!") and before long the crew sets out to explore the decrepit space station from the credit sequence while the Captain supervises repairs.

Erin, your headlights are on.

We get Cliff's Notes introductions to the various crew members by way of Immediately Explicated Distinguishing Traits. Erin Moran is Alluma, psi-sensitive and "paid to SENSE things." Sid Haig is Quuhod, a silent warrior type with some kickass Krull-like crystal throwing stars. Zalman King is Baelon, second-in-command control freak and sufferer of Roid Rage sans Roids. Robert Englund is Ranger, high-strung engineering officer. Ray Walston is Cook, the ship's cook. Moustachioed hunk Cabren (Edward Laurence Albert) is the Voice of Reason and Studly Man, Erin's love interest. Rounding out the crew are short-lived Commander Ilvar, busty blonde bombshell Damelia (Taaffe O'Connell), and scared-of-everything Private Cos (Ralph Malph-lookalike Jack Blessing). Why? Just cos.

Once inside the space station the intrepid crew starts searching for survivors. Their recovery methods leave a little to be desired, however, as standard protocol upon finding a prone body or having a corpse fall out of an overhead storage hatch is to IMMEDIATELY incinerate it with laser fire! Three piles of ash and surprisingly zero living survivors later, our merry band head back to the ship--all except Cos, who is so terrified by being on an alien planet he stays behind to whimper and hyperventilate. (Seriously, how did this guy make it through basic space marine training?) Left alone by his teammates, Cos is quickly dispatched by a stop-motion brain-eating bug! Which, you know, is probably pretty much what he figured was gonna happen.

Faced with the torn-apart body of one of their own crewmates, the rescue party shows the appropriate remorse, as Cabren opines to Cook, "If it weren't so gruesome, it'd be fascinating!" I want that on my tombstone. Erin apparently sensed a life form around Cos just before he died which vanished as soon as he snuffed it--a fact she doesn't see the need to mention till they're bickering over it in the mess hall. Deciding the only course of action open is to track down the origin of the distress call, they trek happily out again, presumably after giving Cos the Big Barbecue.

"Potsie! I still got it!"

Of course the distress call is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE! I mean, inside the giant, spooky alien pyramid structure just a few hundred yards from the station. Commander Ilva is overwhelmed by the responsibility of his position, allowing Baelon to take control with his testosterone-fueled barking of commands--which is just as well, as within minutes the good Commander is completely devoured by space leeches! This leads Damelia to utter the not-at-all-foreshadowing line, "Ugh! I HATE worms!" which is pretty much the extent of her character development.

In fact it's a kind of trademark of the film's writers that they only give you any kind of character backstory JUST before it becomes relevant. For instance, upon entering the pyramid, Sid Haig's character uses his crystal stars to prop the massive door open, then is emotionally shattered (HA!) when they break under the pressure. Zalman tries to give him a gun for a weapon, but Sid (who has been MUTE up until this point) spits dramatically, "I LIVE...and DIE...by the CRYSTALS!" So he's like, what, a Quartz Jedi, or something?

"You gonna start shootin', you'd better start it right here."

Moments later, when the rest of the crew has left Sid to guard the entrance, the crystals magically reform and Sid is ecstatic...until a shard flies into his forearm and creeps under the skin toward his shoulder, in a wonderfully cringe-inducing practical effect. Sid uses the other star to slice off his own arm before the shard enters a major artery, only to watch the severed arm come to life and spin the broken crystal into his chest! Hey, he SAID he'd die by the crystals, and he did! Whattaya know?

Damelia returns later--alone, of course--and finds Sid's body already wriggling with maggots. (Lest you've forgotten, Damelia HATES WORMS.) Following protocol she immediately torches the body, but one little maggot gets away...and soon grows to gargantuan size! (The practical effects here are again a highlight--if you watch, you can see the puppeteer's fingers playing the "mandibles" of the worm.) Apparently worms don't feel the same about Damelia as she does about them, though, as this one quickly grabs her, rips off her clothes, and pours hot mucous all over her writhing, naked body! She screams, grunts, and groans under the beast's phallic bulk, and before you can say "OMFG WORM RAPE!" she's nothing but a slime-covered corpse.

(Nota Bene: this is probably most infamous scene in the movie, and was excised from many of the home video prints. Accept no substitutes!)

Feeling a Little Sluggish

Things go from OMG NASTY to not quite as bad, as the Captain's PTSD is predictably the end of her (she's incinerated while still living, giving us a nice screaming charred-skull exit), Baelon gets offed by a devil-headed penis monster (not really a penis, but the symbolism is obvious...at least to me), and Erin--who is claustrophobic, as it turns out--gets stuck in a tight squeeze before getting crushed to death by surprisingly non-rapey tentacles. (She doesn't go out like a punk though--she gets the prized EXPLODING HEAD death, and it's a beaut.) Meanwhile Cabren and Ranger have figured out that it's their own fears that are killing them, and that "There's no horror here we don't create ourselves." So wait...Damelia was a worm-rape-o-phobic? It all makes sense now.

The flick wraps up with a return to the fantasy elements of the opening, as Cabren must fight the Planet Master--who sloughs off his Ray Walston disguise for the battle--in order to succeed him. He fights all his zombified crewmates and their killers before offing the Lord of Space and Time and getting a cartoon glow of his own, and all is right with the Galaxy. Or at least this planet. Or, you know, the haunted pyramid. Or something.

Like something out of a Nightmare

As a horror/sci-fi hybrid from the early 80s, Galaxy of Terror holds up surprisingly well. The practical effects are a real treat throughout, particularly the rapey giant worm puppet and Erin's cranial detonation. The set designs rip off Alien shamelessly, just like everyone does, but the organic sets are done even more suggestively here, with our crew and going through veiny shafts and falling into puckered openings right and left, giving you the feeling that they're not in the belly of the beast, but up its asshole. And while the fantasy elements are not fleshed out very well (WTF happened to the Oracle, for instance?) the machine-gun pacing means you never have the chance to get bored between grody demises. And a throwaway bit where Robert Englund catches Ray Walston reading a book (obviously an ancient artifact) and seems terrified of the idea of reading it, means nothing in the grand scheme but still made me smile.

So for the intriguing premise, the refusal to be boring, the opportunity to watch several well-loved stars slumming it up before they made it big (or in Erin Moran's case, after), and most of all the OMG practical effects extravaganza, I give Galaxy of Terror 2.75 thumbs. If you're a fan of 80s horror and Happy Days, I think you'll give it an "Ayyyyyyy!"

Shut up.

"WHOA, Vicar! Who do you think I am, Dana Plato?"

PS--I must give a shout-out to the X-Y-Z Cosmonaut over at Cosmobells for providing the pixels here, as Galaxy of Terror is still criminally unavailable on DVD. If you've never jetted over to see the embarrassment of sci-fi, horror, and comic booky riches he's giving away for free over there, do yourself a favor. All it takes is interest and a little patience, which is more than amply rewarded.

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