September 21st

Turn Off Your Bloody Phone (2012)
Devil's Express trailer (1976)
Forbidden World trailer (1982)
The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror V": "The Shinning" (1994)


Father's Day (2011) directed by Astron-6

For the first weekend fest of the Six Weeks, amigos Jack and Casey came over for some movies and beer and pizza and candy.  Naturally, we picked a movie about a psycho who likes to rape and kill fathers.

Based purely on the awesome teaser trailer released a couple of years ago, I blind-bought this latest Troma offering.  I wasn't disappointed.  Of the non-Lloyd-directed Troma movies, this is pretty easily the best (which, you know, ain't a huge accomplishment considering the competition, but still...).  Presented as a late-night '80s TV movie, Father's Day creates a cool vibe that mixes the sensibilities of grindhouse, '80s cheeze, Kids in the Hall-esque comedy, and little bit of Troma.

Ahab, obsessed with revenge for the rape and murder of his father, seeks out psychopath Chris Fuchman (pronounced "Fuckman") with the help of a priest and a gay prostitute named Twink.  With a plot summary like that, how could this be not be awesome? And, indeed, there were plenty of laughs, groans of disgust and "I can't believe they did that"s to go around.  Witness: eye gouging, weener injections, the power of maple (pine?) syrup, the best ultra-low-budget vision of Hell ever, fetus-stomping, uncomfortable bloody kisses, psychedelic berries, and a special guest star as God. We all had a ton of fun watching this one.

Watched: blu-ray from Troma

Tales from the Crypt 5.09: "Creep Course" (1993) directed by Jeffrey Boam
Having skipped these last Halloween for some reason -- it's gonna take until the end of the decade to finish this series, I think -- we picked up right where we left off two years ago.  Jeffrey Jones plays an antiquities professor who happens to have a for-real mummy in his basement.  The mummy needs a virgin sacrifice for some reason -- because he's a monster, I guess, and that's what they eat for dinner -- so the prof makes a deal with Anthony Michael Hall to seduce the class nerd into going to the prof's house.  This being a tale from a crypt, things don't work out quite so well for those involved.  This ep is nothing particularly special, but I now want to build a hidden mummy's crypt in my basement.

"Mummies are just zombies with bandages on."
L'il K speaking the truth.

The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made: The Re-Make trailer (2008)
Necronomicon trailer (1993)
Zombie in a Penguin Suit (2011)


Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1987) directed by Stephen Chiodo

This seems like the sort of bucket of silliness I might like, with Pennywise-like aliens running amuck in a homage to '50s B-movies, but it all kind of falls flat.  It's not that the Chiodo Bros. don't give it a nice go.  They pack as many clown-related gags into the movie as they can: multiple clowns getting out of a tiny car, shadow puppets that eat people, balloon bloodhounds, cotton candy cocoons, killer puppet shows, acidic cream pies, etc.  But, maybe that was the problem; all of the jokes are pretty obvious and not particularly surprising.  We see a klown doing something typically clowny and we know it'll end up bad for the hapless humans watching him.  Repeat and repeat until the kids from town save the day.

I think this might be because of the Bros. are special effects folks.  I imagine they think of things in terms of gags -- cool set-pieces they can build -- rather than story.  The result is a movie that feels like a series of unrelated klown scenes broken up with some tedious "you've gotta believe me!" stuff from the human characters.  I will say that I really like the klown designs and the weird language they speak.  The production design in general is spot-on.  It's a shame it's all trapped in a movie that doesn't quite work.  I have a feeling there's a pretty good short that could be edited out of this film.

Watched: blu-ray from Fox