Wizards of the Demon Sword (1991), Or Is That A Demon Dagger In Your Pocket?

Dearest friends, it is I, the Duke of DVD, returned once again from a long sabbatical, a sojourn that sent me to the farthest corners of the world, in order to return to you, my dear readers, the cinematic offal that you so crave! I've crept silently through darkened hallways, stepping over the moldering carcasses of sacrificed druids, their faces frozen in rictuses of pain. I've endured the 301 Flayings of the Man-Child of Lower Cambodia. I've burrowed with stunted dwarves, delving deeper and deeper, unearthing nameless entities best left buried.

Yes, friends, I've blown entire stacks of Coke Rewards(tm), launched Russian rockets from Chinese platforms, drove a Kia, and subjugated an entire realm to the east of Moldavia, in order to bring you what you most desire. "But Duke!" you interject, spraying your befouled environs with blue cheese fragments and bone meal. "Surely you took some time for yourself!?" Yes, I did, and thank you for your concern, friend. I spent a liberal amount of time soaking in the hot springs of Calhoun Holler outside Possumrape, Kentucky, followed by a month-long trip into Indo-China to visit a hedge-wizard with a knack for curing gonorrhea (for a friend, I assure thee!).

Despite these side ventures, I never lost sight of what my reading public wants: Troma movies. That is why, today, I return to you at the turn of the tide, when you thought all hope was lost, as you were just about to dump your last bottle of Ativan into a half-empty bottle of grandma's cough medicine. Fear not, for I am with thee! Gaze upon what I've brought you, and despair!

As most of you know, I worship at the altar of Troma, but even I must admit when I've bitten off more than I can chew safely, and in this case, folks, I have. Today's rotten pile comes to us in the form of Wizards of the Demon Sword, which is basically a Conan-meets-Princess-Bride movie of epic suckage. I scarcely know where to begin, so let's just do the obvious and start from the beginning, shall we?

This title sponsored by Mordor and the letter "Z".

The movie opens with the unspoiled, clad-in-white Melina (Heidi Paine), who is running through a desert landscape from a group of road agents, whose lack of weapon skills is only matched by their penchant for wearing all-leather. She tricks them for a while, pretending to have leapt off a 5' cliff, which apparently they thought of as too steep for a human to survive. But after a bit one of them gets clever and uses a horse to pursue her, finally capturing her with a net. One of the other ruffians, who appears to be in charge, orders her brought back to the castle. They are about to leave when a hunky hero arrives firing crossbow bolts before asking any questions.

"Guys, I can see my house from here!"

He introduces himself as Thane of Hawksridge (Blake Bahner). He dresses like Conan doing Broadway, and wields a massive two-handed sword that is ludicrously over-sized. He dispatches the bandits in short order, and then we get some expository scenes in which Melina informs him that she's the daughter of Ulric (the awesome Russ Tamblyn or Dr. Jacoby from Twin Peaks!), keeper of the famed Demon Sword--which is really just a dagger. It seems that Ulric has been captured along with the Sword, and taken to the castle of the evil Lord Khoura (Lyle Waggoner), who is determined to use the nefarious Demon Sword for his own person gains.

Satisfaction. Fuck yeah.

Thane (of Hawksridge!) is all for stopping that shit, so he sets of with Melina to find the fabled Seer of Roebuck (guffaw! played by Hoke Howell), who is supposed to help them in some way that the bourbon I'm now drinking has made me forget. At any rate, they're off! Meanwhile, at Khoura's castle, we see his #1 henchman is really a lady, who dresses like she's right out of the Thunderdome. Khoura, who is trying in vain to activate the Demon Sword, realizes that he needs fresh virgin blood to do so, so he sends his dominatrix out to find some.

"This is the Demon Sword?! I thought it was one of them glass dildos..."

Thane and Melina, meanwhile, have arrived at a village. We get a humorous scene involving a slave trader (played by the amazing Lawrence Tierney) who sells sex slaves, both young and old. Thane and Melina eventually find their way into a hookah den of sorts, all the while asking where the Seer of Roebuck is. Some humor is thrown in here, when Thane gets a dance from a bellydancer and slips a large coin into her bustier. They finally get directions to the Seer and are off to see him.

I must hand it to the folks at Troma, they threw in totally unnecessary yet awesome claymation dinosaurs. Seriously. They're sprinkled throughout the movie, have almost zero interaction with any of the actors, yet, well, there they are. Thane will comment on them from time to time, but that's about it. I still got a smirk from seeing them.

And here we get a rare glimpse at the Harryhausen species of dinosaur.

Finally, our intrepid adventurers arrive at the Seer of Roebuck's hovel. The Seer himself resembles a late-stage Alzheimers Dumbledore and his manner of speaking is like a cross between Mr. Magoo and Burl Ives. Meanwhile, back at Khoura's castle of awesome... actually, we get scenes cut back here from time to time but nothing really much happens other than Khoura spouting some admittedly awesome dialogue that is so over-the-top hammy it deserves light applause. We get a scene where Khoura's henchwoman does some spell in order to take over Melina's body somehow, and try to kill Thane remotely, but that doesn't work.

"Hi, I'm Kenny Rogers, welcome to Jackass!"

Finally, Thane and Melina leave the Seer (having learned what? I'm not sure), and on the way slay a flying dinosaur and eat it. While sleeping, Khoura's henchmen find them and kidnap Melina, yet leave Thane alive for some fucking reason, and tie him to the ground. Thane awakes with a snake on his chest, that rattles despite clearly being a boa instead of a rattlesnake. Like us, the snake soon becomes bored with Thane and leaves. A wandering swordsman by the name of Damon (Dan Speaker) happens by and frees Thane, only to challenge him to see who is the most saturated with testosterone...I mean, the best swordsman. It ends in a tie, and they become best buds, with Damon pledging his sword arm to Thane's cause. Away they go to Khoura's castle!

Snakes on a Thane

Melina is finally reunited with her father in Khoura's Dungeon of Shame. Thane and Damon arrive in short order and proceed to penetrate large numbers of leather-clad guard-ass with their giant...swords. One thing of note here: a guard with long hair that is basically the head guard keeps goading his underlings into attacking (and dying via) Thane and Damon, yet he himself keeps fleeing, only to arrive again with another group of guards, and then fleeing again. Hilarious stuff! Thane and Damon make short work of most everyone in the castle not named Khoura. The evil man himself finally shows up with Melina and her father, with the Demon Sword (dagger) in his belt.

Damon is killed, off-screen, by Khoura, and Thane attempts to attack Khoura but fails due to his magic. Khoura ends up with a death grip on Thane's tunic, for some reason or other, and Melina draws Thane's attention to the freakin' Demon Sword/Dagger, just sitting there, tucked into Khoura's belt. Thane simply looks over, draws the dagger/Sword out, and plunges into Khoura's chest, simple as that. Khoura screams and disappears in a flash of light. Thane hands the Demon Sword back to Ulric and then starts making out with Melina right in front of her dad, who rolls his eyes and walks away. The end.

"Compensate much?"

Friends, have I ever lead thee astray? "Yes!" you bleat, dropping a half-chewed chicken carcass out of your greasy fingers, "You told me it was safe to perform ass-to-mouth on the Whore of 701 Delightful Diseases!" Ahh, yes, there was that...well, anyway, I shall not lie to you this day when I say that Wizards of the Demon Sword does indeed have a tiny bit of merit to it. Sure, the claymation dinosaurs are laughable, as is the blatant Conan plagiarism, but when you get past all that you will find that Wizards does have a few worthy ideas, mostly due to the humorous dialogue. The fighting is atrocious, the sets are best forgotten, and the plot will drive you mad waiting on the actual wizards of the fabled Demon Sword to show up (They never do! Who are these "wizards"?!).

But still, if you like cheese, and I mean thick, sloppy, dripping off week-old nachos directly into your greasehole cheese, then you could do worse than watching Wizards of the Demon Sword...but just barely. Incidentally, it's also laughable that The Hills Have Eyes great Michael Berryman is given top billing on the cover as well as featured on the cover art, yet his scene is all of 10 seconds long.

In the end, I would have to say this, like most Troma movies, deserves a split score. I give it 1 Thumb Up if you are a fairly well-adjusted person, capable of tying your own shoes and shitting in a pot without soiling passersby. I give it a solid 2.5 Thumbs Up if you are a fan of Troma movies, or the type of person who likes to spend a busy afternoon hooking up a golf-cart battery to your inflamed nipples.

"Et tu, Thane?"

Until next time, my dearest friends, I bid thee adieu.

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DVD Review: There's Nothing Out There! (1992)

Dearest friends, it is I, the Duke of DVD, once more entering into sexual congress with all that is MAD in cinema, an unholy coupling that will spawn wretched, unnameable things best put down with alacrity, lest they grow in power and finally destroy the world in a black tempest of wanton deviancy. I have traveled far and wide, my dearest subjects, and delved into many a’ forgotten hole, in order to mine the choicest of stinky nuggets for your cinematic pleasure.

From the top of Bihor Massif in the west Carpathian Mountains, to the lowest valleys of forgotten islands in the South Pacific, I’ve searched. I’ve made profane trades with entities whose names I cannot commit to this page, in exchange for the best of the worst, the sort of movies that burrow under your flesh and deposit night-black eggs, which gestate unknown to you, until such time as you are devoured from within, your eyes becoming black orbs as your tongue swells, your sphincter loosens, and blackened blood pours from your gaping mouth.

I do this, my friends, so that you don’t have to. So that you may sit in your mud-dobbed hovels, a sheep’s-dung fire warming your wizened, twisted hands as you gulp down the few spoonfuls of watery gruel that serve as your only meal that day. Knowing that a glimpse of my written word is the only thing sustaining your will to live, I take it as a sacred duty to risk life and limb in order to procure movies to watch that no mere human is capable of. What monstrosity do I have for you today?

Journey with me, let us find out... (MORE MADNESS)

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DVD Reviews: HEAVY MENTAL (2009) and DEAD EYES OPEN (2008)

It's a maxim that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that old saw is true, then the two recent indie film releases from Troma Team DVD, the low-brow gross-out horror-comedy Heavy Mental (2009, written and directed by Mike C. Hartman) and the more serious zombie apocalypse flick Dead Eyes Open (2008, written and directed by Ralf Mollenhoff) should be very flattering indeed to their respective inspirators. As imitations go, both are pretty spot-on, at times almost to the point of slavishness.

Hartman's flick, for instance, seems to want nothing more than to be a full-fledged Lloyd Kaufman-style boobs, blood, and boogers flick. Specifically, it wants to be The Toxic Avenger. In Heavy Mental, aspiring young metal guitarist Ace Spade (Josh Hooper) receives a guitar once owned by his heavy metal idol and convicted murderer Eddie Lee Stryker (Hartman) as a birthday present from his two gay dads. At band practice Ace discovers that the guitar gives him superhuman shredding ability, making his band a shoe-in to win the upcoming Detroit Battle of the Bands competition. When local crimelord and heavy metal hater Mrs. Delicious (Brenna Roth) decides to blow up the nightclub where the competition is taking place, thus putting an end to Metal in Detroit in one swell foop, Ace is possessed by the spirit of Eddie Stryker and transformed into a hulking, musclebound, skull-faced Monster of Metal to put a stop to her unrighteous schemes.

A rare photo from Skeletor's Glam Metal period.

Monster Ace (Denny Hundiak) becomes a grotesque crimefighter in the Toxic Avenger mold, wielding a guitar instead of a mop to make Detroit safe for metal-loving losers of all stripes. His various encounters with Mrs. Delicous's minions are straight out of the Troma handbook--he rescues the owners of a Daughter-and-Pop Porn Shop from thugs by rippng the miscreants' arms off, decapitating them with his "axe," and exploding their torsos with a blast of a riff-based laserbeam. Other Troma-esque characters show up to get gruesomely murdered: a morbidly obese Hot Dog Eating Competition Champ (in novelty nerd glasses and an ACTUAL propeller beanie, to give you an idea of the humor-sophistication level) strokes his trophy "I'm the Weiner! I'm the Weiner!"; a pair of slutty lesbians rip his guts out and then make out in the blood and half-digested weiners (cartoon squeaky-boob/tongue-flapping sound fx? Of course!), and one of Mrs. Delicous's henchmen is a half-gangster, half-rooster hybrid mutant who communicates in clucks and lays a giant goo-filled egg in fright. And Uncle Lloyd himself cameos as the recording company executive who signs Ace's band in the expectedly upbeat if caro syrup-sticky conclusion.

It has to be said that Heavy Mental hits what it aims for rather well. Plot-wise, effects-wise, lowbrow humor-wise, it's mostly indistinguishable from actual Troma product--maybe a little obviously cheaper and with a smidgen less charisma from the cast. Still, Hartman and his performers' enthusiasm cannot be questioned. But for some reason, the imitation pales for me in comparison to the real thing. Maybe because when Lloyd and Co. do this stuff, it's THEIR stuff--like it or hate it, they're doing what they do and making no apologies. Heavy Mental feels like Hartman copping someone else's schtick--specifically, Mr. Kauffman's. That's a tough row to hoe--after all, by definition NOBODY can be more Lloyd-like than at Lloyd, so you're bound to fall short.

Heart of Rock n' Roll: Still Beatin'

If you're a hardcore Tromite and can't wait for Uncle Lloyd's next feature, Heavy Mental might be a nice snack between meals. Still, personally, if I wanted to watch Toxic Avenger--well, I'd just watch Toxic Avenger. 1.5 thumbs.

The German-language indie zombie flick Dead Eyes Open worked a little better for me. Like Heavy Mental, Ralf Mullenhoff's movie also wears its influences on its sleeve, and features a cameo from the creator of its main inspiration: in this case, universally acknowledged zombie-movie king George A. Romero. Most would say emulating Romero's zombie expertise is a bit loftier a goal than trying to fill Kaufman's effluvia-soaked sandals, but I can't blame Mullenhoff for aiming high--especially when he takes such an above-average shot at it.

Though it has to be said, the movie doesn't start out that promising. A group of six friends decide to take a real wilderness vacation, putting aside cellphones, computers, iPods, and all other modern technological distractions. They even take the extreme (and credulity-sinking) step of having only one of their group know the exact location they'll be camping, and having him drive the others there in a windowless police van, PURPOSEFULLY running out of gas en route. I know they do things diffently on the Continent, but really? Could this EVER be a good plan? It doesn't help that the characters are the defniition of 2-dimensional cardboard movie "types": there's the Drunk Party Guy, the Nerdy Tech Guy who's Lost Without his iPhone, the Sports Fanatic, the Rugged Outdoorsman, the Bitchy Athletic Chick and the Mousy But Resourceful Girlfriend. They all have names, but you'll forgive me if I can't remember them.

Another Pretty Face

Of course the friends have picked the worst possible time for an extended wilderness outing, as without their modern amenities they don't get word that the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE began while they were stranding themselves in the middle of nowhere. Their camping spot selection is also unfortunate, as it's right next to a rural family graveyard where the dead are starting to rise. Bitchy Athletic Chick is bitten and sickens, leading the stranded young people to seek help at a nearby farmhouse where a creepy old lady is keeping her dead-but-still-kicking husband imprisoned in the garden. All hell predictably breaks loose, and the dwindling group of city-dwellers must fend off not only the living dead, but also a series of psychopathic rural folk who the apocalypse only brings out the worst in.

Once the zombie action starts, the movie actually does pretty well, with several suspenseful set-pieces. Mullenhoff generates some genuine unease in the farmhouse with the crazy shell-shocked hausfrau, who knows Athletic Chick is a biohazardous time-bomb just waiting to explode. The house itself is a great setting, full of shadows and dust-filled rooms containing who knows what unspeakable secrets. Back at the camp, Resourceful Girlfriend and Sports Fanatic are trapped in the van by some of the zombies, and once the male half of the couple meets his gruesome end, the girl must decide whether to stay holed up in the blacked-out van or make a break for it. Once again, the suspense and terror are handled rather well here. And a later set-piece, in which Geeky Guy and Resourceful Girl float downriver on an inflatable raft, under a railway bridge from which a legless zombie is waiting to drop on them, is inventive and exciting.

Frau Pemmican

Eventually this couple of friends make it to a farmhouse where a psychopathic farmer is keeping his dead wife's corpse under wraps, and an invading police force--who actually ARE trying to be helpful--tied up in a pigsty for zombie bait. The farmer, played by Roland Riemer, is a wonderfully creepy character, and like the redneck killers in Night of the Living Dead and the chaos-strewing bikers in Day of the Dead, really more of a monster than the zombies. Speaking of those movies, George A. Romero shows up on TV at the first house as a scientist and "the best known expert" on the zombie apocalypse--a nice touch. He tells the audience in bald terms (and badly dubbed German) what the original Dead trilogy always showed: "People are unable to cooperate. If we worked together, we might have a chance. If and only if. But people won't work together."

One thing that softened my opinion toward the movie was its attempts at a unique style. Portions of the film are shot in distressed, faded filmstock-style, an obvious digital effect but still enough to make the movie visually interesting. Though some viewers may have the opposite reaction and be annoyed by it, I appreciated this attempt to make the movie something besides the cookie-cutter shot-on-video glossiness. The zombie effects are low-budget but practical, and hearken back to Romero's first two zombie epics in a way that many fans of those films will appreciate. And the filmmakers don't skimp on the goopy stuff--there's plenty of raw meat (chicken) gnoshing, skin pulled away in the teeth, streaming blood and exposed bones to satisfy the gorehounds out there. There's even a ribcage/pig-guts effect that's used twice (perhaps ill-advisedly--the obvious use of the same apparatus for two different characters pulls one out a bit), another possible homage to King George. The keyboard score is also pretty good, minus a badly out-of-place rockabilly song in the opening credits.

Also in the film's favor: Everything is Scarier in German. This is a known fact.

German Hospitality

Dead Eyes Open doesn't break any new ground, but it pays respect to its influences without being a direct copy, and managed to hold my interest throughout. It hits all its marks but doesn't seem slavishly devoted to aping its predessors, which works to its credit in my opinion. Not a game-changer, but still a pretty enjoyable indie zombie flick, and George knows we need more of those. 2 thumbs.

Both DVDs are available from Troma Team releasing, and were provided to Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies by the company for review purposes.

Aufiderzein!

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BLU-RAY REVIEW: Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986)

My fellow citizens, I bid thee welcome once again! Once more we shall hold hands and skip merrily along down that well-trodden, but oh-so-sublime path to Tromaville. The very air is turgid with excitement! I feel you quiver as a small moan escapes your cracked lips. Fear not! The genius that is Troma welcomes you into its loving embrace with a new Blu-Ray (or Brown-Ray?) release. Oh sure, there might be some toxic waste strewn along the pathway. There might be mutants around every turn. But think of the rewards!

Friends, the Duke of DVD does not mince. Nor does he dice, but that’s another discussion. One can be well-assured that if I like something, and I mean truly worship something, then you can be confident in the fact that this thing, be it a movie or a disused phallus in the shape of a religious icon, is worthy of your attention. Such are Troma movies. They excite, they titillate; they inspire conversation and sometimes retching. They always, however, entertain.

Let us explore, shall we?

Class of Nuke ‘Em High begins, as most all movies should, within the confines of Tromaville, that city unlike any other. It seems the corpulent manager of the local Tromaville nuclear power plant has been lax in keeping up with necessary regulations. This has led to so many gallons of toxic waste seeping into the local environs around the plant that even Haliburton would be ashamed to be associated with it. Then again, perhaps not!

"Mornin' Bob." "I'm not Bob, Harry!" "I'm not Harry!"

Of course, instead of an endless sprawl of warehouses or a grassy plain, right next door to the nuclear plant is a high school! Tromaville High, no less, filled with a veritable menagerie of nerds, spazes, twerps, geeks, punks, sluts, jocks, wasteoids, potheads, dumbasses, fuckups, and my personal favorite, a Mad-Maxian gang of cretins called The Cretins. In other words, your typical high school. Unfortunately, toxic waste somehow very quickly gets into the water supply, whereupon a geek (or perhaps a nerd?) drinks from it, not noticing the water has turned from clear to green.

Though a smashing success, the Recycled Water Program still had its detractors.

Very quickly the nerd starts having such a fit that one would think he was either in the throes of an exorcism, or having his testicles attached to a golf cart battery. He quickly turns violent, choking a passerby before finally running through the classroom to leap to his death from a window. Many bystanders (including Troma great Michael Herz in his only on-screen performance ever, thank you very much IMDB) watch on with horror as the nerd’s flesh melts from his bones.

"Established" might be stretching it a bit.

Soon the media gets wind of this and descends upon the area, harassing the rotund nuclear plant manager, who insists his plant is safe. “I don’t give a wet fart what you think!” he exclaims, much to our delight. You can’t pay for writing like that, folks! (Seriously, I doubt the person who wrote that got paid.) I would be remiss if I didn’t pay fealty to the opening credits, where one can listen with wonder at the awesome Nuke ‘Em High-theme song! I was guffawing mightily!

Back at the school, an enterprising douche has talked his girlfriend into making out whilst at school, in the most logical place possible: the fallout shelter! Due in most part, I’m sure, to the rampant nuclear scare of the 1950s, Nuke ‘Em High has itself a full-blown fallout shelter down in the basement. A more perfect during-school makeout spot I’ve not heard of! He scarcely gets his hand up her shirt before toxic sludge drips down on both of them. She thinks it’s something else--from his pants--and, screaming “EWWWW!”, runs off.

"Don't judge me."

Meanwhile, we have The Cretins. Looking like post-apocalyptic rejects, and with an attitude to boot, they roam the halls, hardly attending classes, and instead run a small extortion effort in-between selling pot. Pot that is grown next door. At the nuclear plant. See where this is going? Before you can stutter out “Hey, who laced my pot with sludge!” The Cretins are selling tainted green. The first fun-stick goes to one of our group of spazoids, who wastes no time in using it as leverage to get all his horny friends to attend a frat party at nearby Troma U.

The ol' high heel to the groin shot. A Troma favorite.

Now, friends, I’ve been to my share of frat shindigs, hootenannys, and par-tays, but I’ve never seen a frat party like this. It’s a veritable Roman bacchanal! The theme seems to be a beach-esque variant, so everyone is wearing swim suits, or trying to. Several gratuitous titty shots are doled out here from the master’s table, for which we are very thankful. As any devotee of Bacchus knows, nothing makes a party like a little Vitamin M. No sooner has the first top dropped than our intrepid dude pulls out his toxic-laced weed.

"I totally love your hairless chest! In a non-gay way, I might add."

It is now time that we should meet the two who are most central to our story: Warren and Chrissy. It seems they’ve been dating, but so far haven’t “sealed the deal,” so to speak. Each one confesses to their friends that they don’t want to rush the other. Inevitably, they are on a collision course. A sexual collision course, fueled by weed. It seems marijuana laced with toxic water produces an aphrodisiac effect not unlike the Duke himself disrobing in front of you. Trust me, it would drive any person of either sex wild with unquenchable lust.

"Your puffy nips are harshin' my buzz."

Before you can say “My GOD, those are puffy nipples!”, the two are going at it like shorn monks, upstairs on the bed used to hold people’s coats. Did I mention “puffy nipples”? Chrissy has teats that look like they’ve been hooked up to a milking machine which ran on full blast for a week. Very off-putting, but that’s the Duke’s personal tastes. Ahem, where was I? Oh yes, rutting youngsters! Their friends happen upon them during coitus, but all they do is watch, instead of joining in like any sane people. We get a hilarious sight-gag here, though, as one of the nerds pulls out some binoculars to watch the festivities, binoculars complete with bugged-out eyes attached to them. If that isn’t funny, then why did I chortle?

Hangover from the Black Lagoon.

The two love birds head home, to their respective beds, whereupon they have terrible, toxic-wasted-fueled dreams! Warren sees his dong grow to gargantuan proportions, and Chrissy sees her belly swell as if with child. Sadly, each was only a dream. Meanwhile, The Cretins are busy once again. The lead Cretin seduces the German teacher in a hilarious scene, and she quickly joins the group, which consists of a dude with his face painted gray and two teeth protectors in his mouth at all times, another dude who dresses like a preppie except for black lipstick and somehow also has perky breasts (this is never explained, but it doesn’t have to be, it’s awesome!), and several women in various states of Cyndi-Lauper-esque dress.

"Ok, so, crisis averted. Who's hungry?"

The Cretin leader and one of his lackeys hatch a devious plan to steal an old lady’s purse. Instead of simply snatching it, or holding her up at knife-point, they use a brilliant scheme in which one of them ingests Alka-Seltzer to make himself foam at the mouth, which his friend claims is an epileptic seizure. He asks the old lady to quickly give her pocketbook over to put in his friend’s mouth so he don’t bite his own tongue off. GENIUS! She hands over her whole purse, and the punk runs off laughing with it. Not to be outdone, the other stands up and repeatedly punches the old lady, so much so that his friend has to return and pull him off her. Why didn’t they just do this to begin with? That wasn’t in the plan, that’s why!

"And I say I'm angstier than you!"

Not soon thereafter, Warren shows up in the alley where the Cretins are hanging, and basically Hulks-out on them, throwing them around like rag dolls, for his is in the grips of the toxic poisoning. Meanwhile, Chrissy is having her own side effects, namely pregnancy. Only, instead of a “normal” birth, she pukes up a toxic sperm out of her mouth, into the toilet at school! Still feeling sick, she is rushed to the hospital, where her mother arrives. The doctor informs Chrissy’s mother that she has miscarried. Her mother screams, causing a doctor walking behind them to jump, tossing a full bottle of urine sample into the face of another doctor nearby!

"Excuse me while I pop this pimple... there it goes!"

Warren finally gets Chrissy while the monster rampages through the school, killing Cretins left and right, including the leader. It isn’t done with Warren and Chrissy, however, and corners them in the school chemistry lab. Lucky for them, the lab is equipped with a high-powered laser! Warren picks up the laser and shoots the monster with it, causing it to become unstable somehow. The pair leap free of the building as the monster explodes, detonating the entire school in a huge explosion!

"Face the wrath of a frickin' las-er, monster!"

Warren and Chrissy are safe, but as the camera slowly pans over the wreckage of the school, another sludge toxic sperm baby leaps up! The End!

Friends, this movie was a blast from start to finish. It was hilarious, with the typical aplomb of a Lloyd Kaufman movie. It seems that Richard W. Haines, a longtime Troma editor, was supposed to direct this himself, and indeed he is credited for it, but the job proved too much for him and the man we all know and love as Troma’s brainiac, Lloyd Kaufman, was brought in to finish the work, and it really shows. The humor throughout is expertly written and the effects, while minor, work very well.

The blu-ray edition is a gem. The picture quality is quite impressive for a movie from 1986, and the disc is loaded with extra features as well. Throw in a kick ass menu screen designed to look like a scientific measuring device, and you got a swell package. I give this movie a well-deserved 3 Thumbs Up. If you enjoy good movies, and are in any way a fan of toxic sperm babies, then you owe it to yourself to pick this one up!

"Th-th-th-that's all, Fuckers!"

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DVD Reviews: DARK NATURE (2009) and PEP SQUAD (1998)

Troma Team DVD's two latest releases, Marc de Launay's Dark Nature and Steve Balderson's Pep Squad, are a study in contrasts. One is an understated, deliberately paced thriller that has garnered some critical acclaim in European film festivals. The other is an over-the-top high school satire featuring an assassin prom queen and a kidnapping gone awry. Unfortunately neither is quite as successful as it might have been, but likewise neither is entirely without merit or promise.

If I sound lukewarm on these, sorry, Tromites--not everything can be Night of the Chicken Dead.

Dark Nature opens up with an unexplained killing at a country estate, where a sweet-looking old lady is bludgeoned to death with a typewriter by her slightly less-sweet-looking husband. As the hubby goes about cleaning up the mess he made on the rug, he in turn is stabbed to death by an unseen assailant. If you're waiting for context or explanation, you might want to go grab a beer--it's going to be a while.

Next we find join a stock dysfunctional family on their way for a weekend in the country at the same estate. We have Mom, Precocious Young Son, Unassertive Stepdad, and of course Surly Teenage Girl, who would rather listen to her iPod and make inappropriate overtures to the curator of the John Paul Jones museum than spend quality time with Mom and New Dad. Waiting for them at the house are Slutty Sis and her Ambiguously Oriented Male Companion, who are concerned about the missing parents, but not overmuch. Rounding out the crew is the Peeping Tom Birdwatcher and the Skinny Pale Groundskeeper, who totes around a suspiciously weighted canvas sack and mumbles to himself a lot.

Eventually People Start Dying, there's some cryptic talk about Family and how the Skinny Pale Groundskeeper loved the Murdered Old Lady, and a Shock Ending that one can only assume is supposed to explain the film's title.

In his commentary on the Dark Nature dvd, director Marc de Launay talks a lot about he and his collaborators were interested in "subverting viewer expectations," which apparently means keeping the body count low, keeping most of the murders offscreen, and having the killer actually BE the person who is the obvious (and almost ONLY) suspect. There are a couple of gore shots--one fairly good one in which Unassertive Stepdad gets his head caught in a bear trap (though the set-up for this is beyond ridiculous)--but also some pretty atrocious CG gore (a knife that exits the chest at a completely different angle than it enters the back) that seems unnecessary, especially since there were prosthetics built for the aftermath shots anyway.

There are a couple of positives to take away, however: the high-def cinematography throughout is excellent, and justly won some laurels at HDFest 2009. Surly Teenage Girl (character name Chloe) is played with a believable bad attitude by Imogen Toner, and Obvious Killer Niall Greig Fulton is good in his villain role. And in the one effective subversion of expectations in the film, de Launay gets around the cliche "cell phone loses reception" trope rather ingeniously: the victims' phones work flawlessly, with 5-bar reception--but since the country house is miles from nowhere, it will take the police an hour to reach them! It's elegant in its simplicity, and could be used to build suspense by putting a time limit on the villains machinations (but isn't). I'm surprised more scriptwriters haven't thought of this, so kudos are due for that.

Where Dark Nature lacks a sense of humor entirely (or else has one so dry as to be undetectable), Steve Balderson's 1998 effort Pep Squad rather shoots for that over-the-top, broad comedy vibe that Lloyd Kaufman and his Tromites have refined to an art form all its own. Introverted but attractive high school senior Beth, whose OCD Mom and Distant Dad are getting a divorce, finds herself embroiled in the wicked machinations of high school politics when her new BFFs, school paper editor Julie and student body president Scott, get on the shit lists of two separate Keerazy Bitches who both want to be homecoming queen. One is Terra, a self-involved, John Waters-esque character with a bottle tan and penchant for stalking anyone she thinks has wronged her, and the other is Cherry, who favors Ilsa Boots and deals with disrespect via kung-fu kicks and vehicular homicide.

As with the Troma films it tries so hard to emulate, Pep Squad is full of eccentric characters and seedy subplots. There's a Drunken Cheerleader-Nympho, a Creepy Goth Girl (character name: "Suicide Chick"), a Perverted Principal, and a couple of silent nerds who bear the brunt of everyone's wrath. Perverted Principal tries to molest Beth, which leads her to knock him unconscious, which leads Julie and Scott to kidnap him as part of Julie's ill-defined Che Guevara-like scheme to "change things" at the school, which leads to Julie shooting the Principal and having to call in Cherry for help disposing of the body, which Terra sees and uses to blackmail Scott to make her the Prom Queen. Along the way Cherry murders a few of the Prom Queen Competitors, kidnaps the new Sassy Black Woman Principal, and busts up the prom in order to grab the crown.

It all sounds deliriously entertaining, but somehow it's not as much fun as you'd think. Part of the problem is the script's attempt to portray Beth, Scott, and Cherry as outcasts in the high school social scene, which anyone who's been to high school can tell you doesn't' jibe with the whole Editor/Student Body President/Gorgeous Rich Girl set-up. Also, much of the humor falls flat, partly due to the amateur acting, but mostly due to the script. Though if you think there's something inherently hilarious in a blonde-fro'ed Goth girl scratching obsessively through all the pics in her yearbook, "America the Beautiful" playing over a nearly nudity-free sex scene, or a high school party featuring a Siouxsie Sioux lookalike in a wading pool while musclebound slaveboy's drink her bathwater, well, there's something here for you.

The biggest problem, though--and it's a common one in films like this, in my experience--is the unwillingness of Balderson and crew to GO THERE. Though it clearly aims at John Waters/Lloyd Kaufman territory, the film has little of the nudity, gore, or even outre ideas that makes those other movies sizzle. Of course since it was lensed in Kansas with largely local talent, this is perhaps unsurprising, but it still doesn't help matters. However, they *did* manage to film a climax with Cherry in her dominatrix boots and prom crown standing in front of a blazing American flag, so that's something, anyway. And Brooke Balderson as Cherry and Amy Kelly as Terra are standouts in an otherwise unremarkable cast.

Troma Team DVD is to be lauded for giving indie filmmakers a shot, and both de Launay and Balderson show promise, even if it's not fully realized in these examples. Both dvds have some nice extras--commentary, behind the scenes vignettes, and of course the usual Tromatic Trailers--which is a much nicer presentation than they'd be likely to get anywhere else. While the movies weren't entirely to my liking, I wouldn't be uninterested in seeing where either filmmaker goes from here.

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DVD Review: BIGFOOT (2006)

When I went down to the PO box recently and found this latest Troma treat waiting for me, I was perhaps unreasonably excited. After all, just think of it: Lloyd Kaufman and company entering the world of Sasquatchsploitation? Visions of a Tromatic skunk-ape danced in my head, and I looked forward to a Toxie-meets-Night of the Demon (1980) romp that would redefine the limits of good taste when it came to b-movie Bigfoot goodness. The fact that the largest review pull-quote on the dvd was the Cleveland Free Times gushing, "Reminiscent of JAWS" (no exclamation point!) only perversely added to my excitement.

Alas, it was not to be, as Bigfoot (2006) is not a Troma-produced flick, but rather a labor of love from writer/director Bob Gray, filmed on location in Ohio and only picked up for distribution by Troma. Shot on video using mostly local actors, Gray's movie is obviously a labor of love and he's to be applauded for getting it finished and congratulated for scoring the distribution deal. Unfortunately, that's about all the enthusiasm I can muster.

Let the Stink-Off Begin!

Booted from the military after punching a superior officer for abusing his underlings, single falther Jack Sullivan (Todd Cox) returns to his his hometown of Mentor, Ohio, with wisecracking daughter Charlie (Brooke Beckwith) in tow. He soon hooks up with old friend and now-sheriff Bob Perkins (Gray) and starts and romance with cute park ranger Sandy Parker (Liza Foster), whose school field trips have been marred recently by several mutilated deer carcasses. Crazy old man George Hobson (Van Jackson) claims it's the work of a Bigfoot who's lived in the area for years, and thanks to urban sprawl is losing his habitat. When the creature starts putting humans on his menu, Sullivan, Perkins, and Parker get closer and closer to a truth they can scarcely believe.

Let me just say that Bigfoot is not a bad movie, particularly considering its shoestring budget. The idea of a suburban Bigfoot is silly on its surface, but is executed with mostly a straight face and passable explanation in the script. The Bigfoot make-up is particularly well-done, and the few gore scenes are respectable when taken on that famous sliding scale.

Squatch in the Hood

The cast, which seems to be mostly local talent, is engaging enough. Cox is not your typical leading man, and while his line-readings are often stiff, it kind of plays to his tough guy character. (A late nod to Rambo as he suits up to fight the beast is kind of smile-inducing.) Gray, directing himself as the half-comic, half-dramatic character of Sheriff Perkins, is also okay. There are even a few standouts in the cast. Child-actor Beckwith makes an impression as Charlie, at least until the movie forgets about her around the halfway mark. (Her jealousy of her father's girlfriend and grudging acceptance worked for me.) Foster is attractive and very good as the park ranger/love interest, giving off a genuine good humor and compassion despite her irrepressible Midwest accent. (For example, upon discovering a mutilated deer she exclaims, "Oh my GAD!") And Van Jackson is entertaining as the Crazy Ralph analogue, and gets a fun final scene in the confrontation with the monster.

The problem is that Bigfoot, which as I say is not really that bad all things considered, still does nothing to distinguish itself from the pack of indie DTV movies of which it's a part. The performances are okay but nothing spectacular. The monster suit is good, but that'll only take you so far. The humor is inoffensive and good-natured, but not particularly memorable. The direction is capable but pretty static. (Although a few scenes in "Sasquatch Vision" led to chuckles, as the 8-foot-tall monster would have had to be crouching in sparse underbrush only a few feet away from the characters, completely unnoticed!) As a whole, the movie is just kind of there. It never sinks to the bottom but also never goes over the top, and as a result comes off as kind of bland.

Little-known crypto-fact: Bigfoot can resist the lure of neither gravel pits nor roadside flares.

In its press materials for the DVD, Troma calls Bigfoot "the movie that started the Sasquatchsploitation craze!" This means that either the PR people have confused Gray's labor of love with the 1970 flick of the same title (in which the creature kidnaps some women and fights bikers, apparently--now THAT'S Squatchsploitation!) or else hope the prospective DVD buyer will do so. The DVD extras consist of a trailer, a photo gallery, director's commentary, an engaging 10-minute "making of" feature (complete with a cryptozoologist stretching to make it seem plausible a Bigfoot could appear in Ohio), and the usual array of Troma trailers.

I can't really hate Bigfoot, because I can see Gray and his group put a lot of work and sweat into it, and it's nice to see that sometimes movie dreams come true. However, I also can't really recommend the movie unless you love DIY cinema and have a thing for any and all things Bigfoot. 1.25 thumbs.

"You tell Patterson I'm comin'...AND HELL'S COMIN' WITH ME!"

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Blu-Ray Review: Poultrygeist (2006), or, This Review Contains No Chicken-related Puns

Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears! (and your chicken nuggets) It is I, the Duke of DVD, come 'round once again like that old pair of stained underwear that you used to wipe your leaking dong off because you didn't realize you were out of bedside tissues before you commenced to playing tug of war with cyclops while watching 30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray. Oh sure, you thought you had tucked the pair far enough under your stained mattress that you would never see it again, but your mom had to go change your sheets while cleaning, and now they're back, so stiff they could stand up on their own. Only this time I must temporarily change my moniker. For the length of this review, I shall be known as the Duke of Blu-Ray! That's right, blu-ray. That future-tech spinning disc designed to hold high resolution copies of the MADdest movies ever. Rest assured, dear readers, that I have a MAD one for you today!

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead comes to us from that most-beloved-by-the-Duke studio Troma. This time, Troma President Lloyd Kaufman himself is at the helm for what is surely the most fart, sex, and poop jokes ever packed into a movie. Have you ever sat back in your favorite overstuffed chair and thought "Hey, I wish someone, some enterprising individual with more balls than common sense, would craft a movie which involves lots of lesbian action, undead fisting, un-PC comments about suicide bombers, and wrap it all up with a heaping helping of chicken-related sight gags!"? Well, this is your lucky day, punk.

Cling tenaciously to my buttocks as we explore...

Our movie opens with what appears to be every 80's horror movie's cliched opening: two young people are having midnight sex at an Indian burial ground. Now, at the best of times this is quite dangerous, and in more normal movie fare would be the catalyst for all manner of undead goings-on. Instead, Kaufman turns your preconceptions on their head and has undead Native American arms come up to start grasping the coupling naked youngsters, and very quickly we have the first of what will be many fingers/hands inserting into anuses. The use of prosthetic butts in this movie deserves not only an Oscar, but a whole new Oscar category, to which Poultrygeist would be the only entrant.

"Oh baby, your hands are everywhere!"

Every single new scene threatens the use of either something going in or out of an anus, and often delivers on that threat. Before the young couple realize what is going on, an axe-wielding loon steps out of the shadows. The kids run off, leaving underwear behind. The axe-maniac first sniffs the girl's panties, but finds them repulsive. Moving on, he sniffs the dude's underwear, and then begins masturbating (with an obvious prosthetic cock). Suddenly, an arm comes from under the ground, through his anus (didn't see that coming, did ya?), out his mouth, grabs the underwear from his hands, then pulls them back through his body and down into the ground. This is in the first 10 minutes, folks.

"Come for the curse, stay for the food!"

We then cut to a half year later. It seems that a major fast food restaurant called "American Chicken Bunker" has purchased this land and has built a restaurant on it. Arby, the young guy from the opening scene, is returning from college. Arriving at the restaurant, he is greeted by a large group of protesters, holding such signs as "I Love Cock".

"I'm not sure what you lesbians are protesting here, but I support you!"

We also meet her girlfriend Micki, who is attached to a running joke throughout the film in which she is frequently mistaken for a man. We next get the movie's first song and dance number. That's right folks. Not content to have his movie be the most awesome movie ever, Lloyd Kaufman had to go the extra mile and make it into a musical! Another thing Kaufman likes to do is throw stereotypes into people's faces, and he does this quickly by parading out a drunken Native American who the protesters are using as a focus for their anti-corporate hate. This wont be the last stereotype used in the movie I'm thinkin'.

After the musical routine, Arby has scored a job with the American Chicken Bunker. The manager, named Denny, introduces him to another coworker named Carl Jr., whom Arby knew from school. Sensing a pattern with the naming scheme here folks? Other coworkers include Jose Paco Bell, a Latino frycook, and Humus, a burka-wearing cook that is routinely called names like Hamas and Al Jazeera. Jose Paco Bell discovers a box of mutated, pulsating eggs and when he cooks one and serves it, all hell breaks loose. Soon we have mutant chickens running around, one of them pushing Paco Bell into a meat grinder, where he is turned into a burger himself. A sentient burger, who talks with Arby letting him know what is going on and how to stop it.

"What do you mean 'Burkas aren't part of corporate dress code'?!"

Arby is too preoccupied with his girl being a militant lesbian, though. We get a dream sequence in which he is engaged in a threesome with the two girls, and then we get an extended song routine in which the two lesbians (plus about 8 other coeds) are all topless. One thing is for fucking certain: In a Troma film helmed by Mr. Kaufman, you don't have to wait long to see tits.

We next see the arrival of General Lee Roy, the company president. He woos the protesters into his good graces by a hilarious song routine and in no time the restaurant is packed with hungry chicken-lovers. Unfortunately for everyone, the Native American spirits are having none of it, and quickly infect the chicken. I must give props here to the myriad of humorous signs and labels on everything in the restaurant setting. From a drink on the menu called "Cluckwork Orange" to the hundreds of food labels on things in the back storage, the persons responsible for setting up all the, um, sets, deserve to have a pat on the back.

"Hey, I didn't ask for that much special sauce!"

I was constantly laughing at signs like "Instructions For Making The General's 2-Spice Secret Recipe: 1) Add Salt 2) Add Pepper 3) Deep Fry". From here the plots develops rather quickly. Lloyd Kaufman himself plays a grown-up Arby, who we assume has come back from the future somehow to warn Arby that his life is going to suck from there on out unless he leaves American Chicken Bunker. We don't know how Old Arby got there, and we don't care. What we do care about, however, is Lloyd Kaufman in a dress, wearing a g-string, doing a song and dance number. Yes, don't deny it, you DO care about such things!

Nothing says "good cinema" like high-pressure poop squirting.

Next up the chicken MADness continues. We have a grotesque scene involving an obese man (named Jared, supposedly of Subway fame, having fell off the wagon so to speak and gotten fat again) in a bathroom, spraying shit all over the walls. We have Carl Jr fucking a raw chicken carcass, which turns mutant and bites his dong, giving us the choice quotes: "Easy with the teeth! I was gonna pull out, it just felt so goooood!" In fact, this movie is choice quote heaven. Let us pause for a moment and pay homage to these gems:

"I was just trying to help him!"
"By fucking him to death with a mop?!"

"It's just like my granpappy used to say: 'Hey Junior, get over here with those matches! This cross ain't gonna burn itself!'"

"That's the thing about a chicken. It's got dead eyes. Black. Like a sex doll!"

"The chicken has declared jihad on us all!"

"Eat my meat you vegan whores!"

"How could I ever love someone that wants me to eat cock?!"

"I know him, we were on the debate team together in high school. I was anti-beastiality, he was pro!"

I could go on and on. Suffice it to say, this movie is hilarious to the point of crying. Pretty soon all of the restaurant patrons are chicken zombies, complete with beaks and some feathers. We also have a full-blown mutant chicken, given birth to by General Lee Roy, who swells up like a giant human egg before bursting and spilling for the giant killer chicken. In a hilarious scene right out of some insane person's nightmare, we are whisked around the restaurant as the many zombie-fied chicken people kill, eat, and wax philosophic about various things.

"One Paco Bell burger, coming right up!"

We have an old lady zombie chicken who rips the face off a victim and begins to eat it, declaring "I know it's fattening, but I loooove the skin!" We have a big-tittied woman about to get eaten but when her top comes off she realizes her huge knockers are mesmerizing the chicken zombies and begins to go-go dance on the table top. You can't make this stuff up, people! Oh wait... you can if you are a Troma writer I suppose. At one point, a chicken zombie reaches through the rear end of a patron and pulls his balls out through his ass, then tosses the balls into the deep fryer.

"My momma warned me to not fuck chickens!"

Finally the zombie chicken menace is turned away by simply flipping the "Open" sign to "Closed". This doesn't work forever, though, and in the final scenes the zombie chickens are gunned down with a handy cache of M-16's that were in the restaurant. The giant mutant chicken is still about, as well as other zombie chickens, and so in a scene we saw coming from a long way off, Humus casts off her burka to reveal not only a hot bikini-clad body, but also a suicide bomber's C4 jacket, complete with hand-held trigger device. Troma knows no restraint!

It's, um... finger-lickin' good?

As Arby and Wendy flee the restaurant, Humus blows the whole thing up in a spectacular fireball. Arby and Wendy speed off, accompanied by a young girl that happened to escape with them. Arby gives the little girl a Miller Lite, which she proceeds to chug. In the final seconds, the little girl lays an egg, which causes them all to scream, which causes them to flip their car, which explodes in a massive fiery wreck! Fin.

Needless to say folks, this is easily one of the most crazy, fucked up, insane, balls-the-the-wall AWESOME movies I've ever had the pleasure of watching. No scene fell flat, no one was left unoffended, and no chicken left unkilled.

Now lets talk a bit about this new-fangled blu-ray medium. The picture quality for Poultrygeist was fairly outstanding, with only a blemish here and there. The disc itself is packed with features, including a full-blown making-of that is a must watch.

As per a lot of Troma releases, there is an introductory video (optional) with Lloyd as he talks about this first Troma blu-ray (or brown-ray, as he calls it) release. Not only that, but this is the first Troma movie in anamorphic widescreen! I could go on and on, gushing with praise for this movie. It has everything from a Ron Jeremy cameo to deep-fried testicles. What more could you possibly want?! Nothing, says I. Three Thumbs Way Up for this one, folks. See it. Now.


(Note: a copy of the Blu-Ray release of Poultrygeist was provided to MMMMMovies for review purposes.)

"Enjoy folks, there's plenty of mutated evil chicken to go around!"

The General, having an egg-cellent time.

Ladies and Gentleman, Lloyd Kaufman

"With tits like these, who needs a burka?"

"Easter Bunny, NOOOOOOOOOO!"

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