It's the holiday season, and it's a very busy time for me. I've been hanging out in graveyards, going to various pumpkin-related festivals, eating Halloween Oreos, and generally being awesome. That puts a damper on bad movie reviewing. I still watch them, I just don't review them. Since I have an extremely short attention span, I forget I watched them. So, here's a brief sampling of some of the movies I watched but didn't get around to reviewing...
Son Of Frankenstein
I am a big fan of the Frankenstein Monster. I think I have a lot in common with him. We both inhabit a world we don't understand, we both strike terror in the hearts of the general public, and we both get chased through the wilderness by torch-wielding villagers. Anyway, the son of Dr. Frankenstein carries on the work of his dad; which involves digging up chunks of really big dead guys, stitching them together, applying electricity, and then being surprised that no one appreciates that. I think it's somewhat suspicious that all these Dr. Frankensteins keep doing the same thing over and over again and keep expecting different results. Haven't they seen any of those other movies? And the fact that they keep making men. Big ones. With big hands and big feet. Over and over again. It's just something to think about.
Pulse
Yahoo recently had an article called "The Scariest Movies You've Never Seen". Sorry to burst your bubble, Yahoo, but I've seen 'em. The only one I somehow missed was Pulse, which is an internet-era ghost story. I enjoy Asian horror films, but I'm not especially terrified by what passes for ghosts in Asian horror films. They look just like everyone else, only they're usually looking down, or they have their hair in their faces, or they're crawling around like crabs, or their hanging around mostly offscreen. Because I generally ignore people, even in real life everyone looks like they're mostly offscreen to me so I don't find that to be very unusual. Anyway, Pulse has something to do with some website, and the ghost dimension has filled up, and now ghosts are everywhere. It was ok, but I wasn't knocked out by it.
City/Ruins
I'm a fan of noisy music. The noisier, the better. The more convoluted, difficult, and upsetting, the better. City/Ruins is a low-budget documentary about the Cleveland Experimental/Industrial Noise Music scene, where bands that few people have heard of that make music that sounds like a vacuum cleaner being shoved down a flight of stairs talk about other bands that few people have heard of that make music that sounds like a vacuum cleaner being shoved down a flight of stairs. There are quite a few clips of very intense guys making an unholy racket using equipment tucked into suitcases, so there's that. If you're looking for melody, look elsewhere.
Kill, Baby, Kill
Kill, Baby, Kill has something to do with gold coins in people's hearts, a witch, women screaming and moaning wearing lingerie and sporting huge blown-out Lana Del Rey hair, open coffins scattered about, doors opening by themselves, foggy cemeteries, grave-robbing, creepy children whose faces peer through dirty windows, cobwebs, machetes, spooky organ music and dodgy dubbing. Other than that, I have no idea what happened.
I've never heard of this film. Why didn't anyone tell me about this? You're all dead to me.
Anyway, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is a film about a bed that eats people. It actually drags them below the sheets and blankets and dissolves them in foamy bile because that's something that everyone's clamoring to see.
So, this dude plans a romantic evening with his beloved lady-friend (who has tied her gingham shirt in a knot below the bosoms a la Daisy Duke) and they break into a haunted estate or garage, set the mood with a candle and a bucket of Colonel Sanders' 11 herbs and spices, and then the bed suddenly dissolves them in bile offscreen while making crunching, chewing noises. That sort of thing happens a lot. Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is a lot like a foamy Goldilocks story, only there's voiceover narration, spinning newspapers, stock footage, and no one ever changes the sheets. Cast-members wander around in pajamas and negligees and just casually plop themselves down in a monstrous bed that's outdoors sometimes and indoors sometimes like it's the Night Before X-Mas and they're settling their brains for a long winter's nap because people often take naps in beds they just randomly find. I'm sure that's fine.
Anyway, there's bloody saddle shoes, delicious caterpillars, unconvincing headstones, a picnic, and Pepto-Bismol. Someone says, "This place looks clean for being abandoned so long. I hope there's not a maniac around.". I'm not sure why. There are many artsy, pretentious moments which fall flat, and the haughty narrator sounds suspiciously like Stewie Griffin. Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is awful and boring and confusing, but it's recommended if you like stuff that sucks.
The vile, hideous weed attacks people in this musical horror comedy. Honestly, I'm not sure how anyone can choke those disgusting things down. They're just the worst. You know, tomatoes were considered poisonous in North America during the 17th century, and I'm not certain they're wrong.
Actually, that looks pretty cool. Anyway, they're overgrown nightshade, and they're filled with gelatinous, seed-filled nastiness. Yuck.
Anyway, back to the movie. Tomatoes are thrown, rolled, smashed, submerged, crushed and smeared. I'm not sure why. Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes isn't funny, it's not musical, and it's not horrific. However, it is offensive, nonsensical, and awful; but not in a good way. It's been called The Worst Film Ever Made. It's not, but I'm sure it's on the list somewhere. Here's a trailer:
The Innocents is arguably one of the greatest ghost stories ever filmed. Actually, there's not much to argue about. Featuring a screenplay co-written by Truman Capote based on Henry James' novella The Turn Of The Screw, stark and lustrous black-and-white cinematography by Freddie Francis, an effective score by Georges Auric, and gutsy acting by Deborah Kerr; it's a spine-chilling film filled with subtext and suggestion. There are strange cries in the garden, disembodied whispers, voices calling from a lakeside gazebo, sheer curtains billowing in darkened rooms, ghostly sobbing, laughter echoing through a creepy country estate, creaking doors, candlelit hallways, and the implication of unpleasant scandals. The sound, art direction, and costumes are all excellent, and the effects are simple but terrifying. I watched The Innocents on DVD. Here's a trailer:
Elke Sommer gets awfully bosomy in a torture chamber, summons a ghostly baron, and wears an assortment of jaunty hats in this hat-filled horror film. Incantations are read, plot-integral parchments are accidentally burned, and Elke wears distractingly long false eyelashes. Generally, I try not to read aloud any old parchments I find, especially if they're filled with arcane invocations. Actually, I try not to read any incantations or invocations regardless of what they're written on aloud because it always comes to no good, and by "no good" I mean they usually raise bloody undead corpses with an aversion to disinfectants that have a tendency for wearing foppish hats and who shuffle around stabbing or strangling people as they buy a refreshing Fanta from a vending machine, or even worse, summon Joseph Cotten. And then Joseph Cotten shows up wearing an ascot, and you suddenly wish you were watching any number of his great films such as Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Shadow Of A Doubt, Gaslight, The Third Man, Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte, or Touch Of Evil, none of which are this movie. I watched Baron Blood on Netflix. Here's a trailer:
Ever since I first saw an image of London After Midnight in the magazine Famous Monsters Of Filmland, I've been fascinated by this lost film.
Yes, it's lost. The last known copy was destroyed in an MGM vault fire in the 1960s. Lon Chaney starred as The Man In The Beaver Hat, which is pretty terrifying. I mean seriously, who wears a beaver hat? Beside the fact that Lon Chaney is dressed in formal wear, a cape, has deeply baggy, bloodshot eyes, and a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs; but he's wearing a top hat made out of a beaver pelt. I have questions. Where would you go to get one, and why would you want one? What do they do with the tail? Weren't the ordinary top hats available? Does beaver pelt have special vampiric qualities that only function if made into formal headwear? No one knows. I'm almost certain that The Wife Of The Man In The Beaver Hat said to him before he left to lurk and murder and be a vampire around London after midnight, "Are you really going to wear that thing?", and there was a big domestic dispute. Unfortunately, the film is lost and we don't get to see that.
However, there is a recreation of the film using stills on the Lon Chaney DVD box set. The camera zooms and pans across various still publicity photos, and it's awfully boring. However, barring someone finding a copy of this legendary lost film in a janitor's closet in some Scandinavian mental institution somewhere; it's as close as we'll ever get to seeing it.
We're half-way through October, and I'm distressed about it. There's so much more to do. I haven't eaten all this candy corn. I haven't visited any haunted locations. And I've only dressed up for Halloween once.
Ok, maybe twice. It's been awfully windy around Deathrage Towers, and the decorations I secured to the outside of the penthouse windows have all blown down and by "I secured" I really mean someone else did. I sent a couple of Administrative Assistants out on the ledge with a few inches of tape and a string of orange lights, and haven't seen them in a while. I should have someone check on that. That's not important right now. What's important is that I am trying to watch as many monster movies as I can before the big day. It's not as easy as it sounds. I wanted to sign up for The Cult Movie Network through my blu-ray player because I've seen just about everything on Netflix. It involves knowing numbers, and passwords, and it involves more than one step; so obviously I gave up in frustration after 15 seconds. I wish one of those Administrative Assistants hadn't plummeted from the penthouse ledge so they can set that up for me. You just can't keep good help nowadays.
Anyway, I watched Rodan on DVD from my Godzilla DVD box set. No, you can't borrow it. Get a job and buy your own, and no, I'm not hiring.
Wait, maybe I am. Has anyone checked the sidewalk outside the building for some administrative assistants lying around on the job? Someone should do that. If you're not sure which ones are the administrative assistants, they might've been partially liquified from a 42-story fall, their fists are clutching Scotch tape and decorative lights, and they have a look of job dissatisfaction on their faces.
Let's stay focused, OK? I watched Rodan because I couldn't figure out the instructions on the blu-ray player, and it's a classic giant monster movie, and by "classic giant monster movie" I mean some guy dressed up in a rubber pelican suit dangles from strings and destroys a miniaturized Japan. There's voiceover narration where someone says "an angry mushroom cloud" and that a subterranean cave created by larval-stage Rodan offspring have created "an evil smell". I don't know what that means. There's also stock footage, various unnecessary wild animal noises, repetitive shots of Japanese army tanks, and lots and lots of explosions. It's pretty great if you like stuff that sucks. Here's a trailer:
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