Review: Basket Case

Basket Case (1982)

Basket Case is about two brothers separated after birth, that nevertheless remained...quite close. However, their relationship is often strained and blood-stained. Duane Bradley was born with a deformed conjoined twin; their birth caused the death of their mother, and the scorn of their father. Eventually, their father paid some doctors to remove the more unfortunate-looking boy, but it was an off-the-books surgery. The twins didn't much appreciate this gesture--all grown up, they decide to go track down the doctors that performed the surgery in the big city to "pay them a little visit", as the kids say these days. The city holds a lot of distractions for someone as sheltered as Duane, though, and his little buddy grows jealous since he can't quite get the same satisfaction. The movie does a great job at characterizing the brothers and is actually quite touching at times despite less-than-stellar acting. There is an inescapable charm about this movie, and the feelings of jealousy and protection between the brothers felt really genuine. It functions very well overall, creating a balance of tension and comedic relief. I really liked the puppet and stop motion effects of the deformed brother, Belial, and found it actually really freaky at times. Easily the best scene is right at the end--which I really don't mind spoiling because it really is that great--where we're afforded this perfect piece of visual poetry. I recommend Basket Case for anyone who likes the lighter side of horror, or just loves anything really weird.


Enjoy with a nice--

Flaming Little Brother

2oz Kaluha
1oz Vodka
1 scoop vanilla ice cream
1 dash of vanilla extract
1oz 151 Rum

put the first four ingredients into a blender, and mix them good. pour into a glass and pour the 151 on top, then carefully light it on fire. Insert two straws and suck it down with your closest bro...

Review: Red State

Red State (2011)

First off, don't make the assumption I did that this is about communists and possibly a cheap version of Red Dawn. It has nothing to do with that by "red state" they mean ultra-conservative. Had I actually momentarily paused on its netflix profile to see that Kevin Smith wrote and directed it I would have watched it much earlier.This is an incredibly difficult movie to review, and kind of a difficult movie to watch but its rewarding. The movie starts off focused on a couple of high school kids, and we get introduced to the antagonists, a cult-like group of religious fundamentalists modeled on the Westero Baptist church. The kids in the class are discussing how this group was protesting the funeral of a gay student who was found killed recently. The main three kids in the movie break for lunch and start talking about this website for casual sexual encounters. All the pictures of the girls on the website have their faces censored out with smiley faces so we aren't sure about who they are about to go fuck. They head out to go do this borrowing one of their parents' cars and accidentally hit another car on the way. This mostly serves to start upping the tension. Finally they get to the address and see that the woman they were about to triple-up on is a bit older than they expected, like approximately their mothers' age. I don't want to give away too much from here, but the real movie starts rolling from about here on. The next thirty minutes are some of the most tense, uncomfortable, and enraging that I have experienced watching a movie. I don't really want to describe everything that happens in too much detail, but the focus of the movie shifts to the members of the crazy church. Michael Parks does an incredible job at playing the leader of the church, and gives a long sermon filled with the kind of crazed, backward, ignorant, homophobic bullshit that is incredibly effective because you know somewhere out there are a lot of people who think that way. Meanwhile these high school kids are trapped there terrified by whats about to happen to them. The things they say in this made me uncomfortable in a way I don't necessarily want my entertainment to make me uncomfortable, but I kind of have to applaud the movie for doing it. I have to give credit to Kevin Smith's writing as well. At about the point where I was thinking of turning the movie off John Goodman comes in to save us all from breaking things to release the frustrated anger. He's sent in as an ATF agent to lead a raid on the church compound because they have a ton of guns and they shot a cop earlier. He isn't quite the shining hero, as he is under dubious government orders. Before I get even deeper into spoiler territory, because I really think you should watch this, let me start to wrap this up.

Red State definitely preys on several topical themes that are very well utilized to push peoples buttons. It is incredibly tense and borders on disturbing because of its realism. Its such a well put together movie that I have to recommend it, but I cant say it will be a very fun ride for most of it. As for the drink recommendation I had a couple ideas, either a gay themed drink to spite the antagonists of the movie or something playing on its ultra-conservative crazy pantsedness. I decided to just use a classic,

The Jim Jones
1 oz Vodka
1/2 oz Blue Curacao
1/2 oz Peach Schnapps
1/2 oz Sour Apple Schnapps
1/2 oz Razzmatazz
splash sprite
splash sour mix

Shake with ice, pour into a glass, or dixie cup. Drink the Kool Aid. You will probably need more than one to temper the outrage.

Review: Mark of the Devil

Mark of the Devil (1970)

Corrupt witch-finders terrorize an English village during the height of witch hunting days. This is a classic witch hunting movie with plenty of gruesome torture. While most of the superstitious paranoia in this movie remains effectively disturbing, some of the absurdity of the (like believing marionettes are tools of the devil) is played for laughs. Over all I'd say its on par with The Conqueror Worm, and although this one lacks Vincent Price there are some good performances here, the character Albino being especially memorable. Also, I recognized a lot of the audio from this movie from being sampled in the album  Dopethrone by Electric Wizard. I really enjoy this type of movie, there is something really stylish about them that I dig, not really sure what that says about me psychologically...