Review: Phantasm

Phantasm (1979)

Phantasm basically has the same plot as Plan 9, that is aliens are stealing human corpses because of reasons. The film centers on young Jody, a boy of 13 and his older brother Michael Baldwin. Their parents died some time ago, and at the start of the movie so has one of Michael's buddies. Michael Baldwin seems to act like taking care of Jody is a total drag, man, and cant wait to get back "on the road". Soon things start getting weird, because this really tall guy in a suit and some Jawas start fucking with Jody Baldwin. However, the creepiest thing about this movie to me is Michael Baldwin's other buddy, the balding ice cream truck driver with the pony tail. He is so slimy and has a really odd relationship with the young 13 year old Jody. I almost think this would have been an even better movie if all the weird supernatural/sci-fi stuff was a fabrication of Jody's mind to cope with all the shit he has to deal with. Actually at first I wasn't sure the kid wasn't just seeing things, his brother definitely doesn't believe him at first. This is the kind of movie with odd pacing and direction of the plot that actually adds to the tension. We aren't really sure what it is gong to happen next because it keeps throwing really weird paranormal shit at us and then going back to a late 70's after school special about hanging out with your older brothers friends. The main ghoul is this tall creeper who can change his appearance, which opens up even more doubt as to who to trust and who is really themselves. I really feel like I need to watch this movie again to really get it, but it did intrigue me. I had to return it to videodrome last night so a second viewing will have to wait, but I will return with a more in-depth report on it when I find the time.

Corpse Reviver

1 1/2 oz Brandy
1/2 oz Fernet
1 oz White Creme de Menthe

Pour ingredients into a glass with ice, stir lightly and strain into a cocktail glass. Will bring anyone you want back to life, be sure to have a child sized brown cloak for them as they will be tiny and gross after reanimation.

Review: Chopping Mall

Chopping Mall (1986)

Chopping Mall basically combines several things that were popular in the 80's: Robocop, slasher movies, and shopping malls. This shopping mall has purchased a set of new security robots to patrol the building at night, that will incapacitate any intruders. They have safety features that should prevent them from coming after mall employees, but of course they get hit by lightning and that control system malfunctions; of course, they go on a murderous rampage. This rampage happens to occur whilst a group of teenagers that work at the mall decide to stay overnight and have a party at a furniture store. The movie follows some of the general cliches after that--the janitor (albeit he was white) gets killed first, the kids drink and have sex (thereby calling down the old testament judgement of the slasher movie gods), and the really nerdy couple that does not hook up at the party end up living. The movie also is reminiscent of Dawn of The Dead, since the group ends up smashing lots of windows in the mall and there are lots of scenes in which they gear up to try to fight the robots. The heroine shows plenty of competence with firearms and definitely holds her own against the robots, which was fun to watch. There is also a great head explosion, a couple good one-liners, and the robots actually look pretty cool. The soundtrack is really great--the perfect kind of 80's synth but with a manic, goofy quality that really fits the mood. It's a really fun movie that combines lots of elements of other 80's movies and is definitely worth a viewing or two.

Boom! Head Shot!
dash grenadine
1/2 oz 151 Rum
1/2 oz Grand Marnier
1/2 oz Midori

put booze and ice into shaker, strain in to shot glass, violently dash in grenadine being sure to spill some on the bar. then throw it back hard, like a laser from a robot exploded your melon all over the place. optionally, throw the contents of the shaker at someone's face and pretend it exploded (read: cheesy effects).

Roger Corman sci-fi triple feature!

Yesterday I got to see the classic Ridley Scott's Alien on the big screen, digitally restored in all it's glory. It was an amazing viewing experience, I know that sounds corny but it was true. Out of movies I have seen in theaters vs on a tv, this has easily been one of the biggest differences I have experienced. The scope and detail of the sets is astounding, the sound of the ship filling up a dark theater, it was something else. It is still playing at The Plaza Theatre in Atlanta until after this Thursday, 7/10/14 so if you can GO SEE IT! It is easy to see then when this movie first came on the scene how people would flock to copy it and make a buck, so without further or do lets look at a couple of attempts via the king of cheap cheese: Roger Corman, who made a couple of sci-fi movies heavily inspired by Alien in the early 1980's.

Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
Ok, so this is a rip off of Star Wars primarily, and doesn't really have a connection to Alien, but I wanted to talk about it anyway. Predictably it starts off with a long shot beneath a huge space ship, which actually looks pretty good. The interior... not so much. The big ship is full of ass holes, which apparently have nothing better to do than be all empirey and conquer people who don't appear to have anything worth taking. The wizard of oz head booms our that he is gonna take this dirt planet's harvest, because EVIL. Oh wait, the poor agrarian people are going to get some mercenaries with hearts of gold to defend themselves from evil bastards who want their crops? Never seen that one before. They actually titled the Spanish dub The Magnificent Seven in Space, and Robert Vaughn was basically the same character in both this and Magnificent Seven. The main character reminds me of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory so I hate him. But its made up for by Hannibal from the A-Team being a literal space cowboy. As they mosey around they just about trip over people who want to help fight against the evil Sador, seems like if everyone hates him they should have kicked his ass already. In addition to Hannibal and Robert All-Business Vaughn they end up with a nerd girl who fixes things, some weird white dudes, a sexy viking chick with a ridiculous helmet, and a sleestak. Its pretty cornball, but there are some nice spaceship porn shots of the exteriors. The interiors are more Flash Gordon or Star Trek OS than gritty Ralph MacQuarry or HR Giger looking. Although one looks like a flying ball-sack. Not even joking. Or maybe they're boobs, it's right there on the poster. The movies is pretty damn ridiculous, and I am not entirely sure how much of it is intentionally goofy but you will definitely laugh at something.

Galaxy of Terror (1981)
Starting off with weird new-agey sci-fi spirituality mumbo jumbo (that barely comes into play agian through the rest of the movie) you might think this movie is gonna be a different type of shit. Actually it starts to get a lot better, especially the last 2/3rds of the movie. A weird demi god being that rules an space empire realizes one his ships found some ancient alien pyramid thing, and he wants more people to check it out. even though its evil and makes weird stuff happen. So they send a crack team of misfits with their own personal demons and some dirt between them. They fly over, fuck their ship up on the way down, explore the spooky pyramid and shit goes further south as they start to get picked off by a mysterious force that seems to play on their fears. Sid Haig plays a mute, because he hated his dialogue, and he probably gives the best performance of anyone here. Robert Englund is in this too but he was kind of under utilized, they could have had him go much crazier.There are some shots in the halls of the space ship where its really obvious that they used take out containers from McDonalds to decorate the halls. There are also some shots that look really cool and some neat effects. There are also some horribly cheesy sound effects, it is really hard to suspend your disbelief when the monster is making the same slobbery goop sound used in Scooby Doo. I really did enjoy this one, but it falls a little short of being actually pretty good which is really frustrating.

Forbidden World (1982, AKA Mutant)  Anyway the plot of this one involves a research lab on a remote planet that was attempting to genetically produce high-yield food or something. But Monsanto fucked up just like ally the hippies keep telling us and produce a damn monster that runs amok through the station and eats people and steals their DNA... or something. It is shameless in its ripping off of Alien. It does however include more gore and boobies, as a good ripoff should, also some really terrible synthesizer music. That being said there are some shots in this that are really cool, and only some of them involve tits. You may notice some similarities between the other movies I have mentioned, and by similarities I mean he recycled a bunch of shit. Particularly battle footage at the start from Battle Beyond the Stars, and the Big Mac container walls from the Galaxy of Terror set. What a forward-thinking, environmentally conscious producer! Remember, reduce, reuse, recycle! According to IMDB there during an early screening of the movie one viewer laughed out loud during a scene which Corman took as an insult and hit the dude. It's a pretty enjoyable flick, what it actually lack is a little more insanity and weirdness to push it over the edge of cult classic-ness. Its pretty straightforward bug hunt, and a serviceable vehicle for action and gore beats that only really lacks in film and sound clarity and the acting. The effects aren't really THAT bad, neither are the sets despite being partially made from take-out containers. My least favorite part is the child-like voice the android, robot guy has.

Out of the three, I think I enjoyed Galaxy of Terror the most, but I can see Battle Beyond the Stars being a more enjoyable experience for a group of friends drinking and watching something ridiculous. Galaxy of Terror was really close to being actually good, if it had just a bit more production value and maybe a script re-write.

Almost Human (2013 (not the one with Karl Urban))

Almost Human

I'm going to try to burn through my Netflix list as it has piled up something fierce, and for some reason I felt writing short reviews would somehow make me more likely to do this... Yeah I'm confused by my own reasoning.

Anyway, Almost Human is very independent but not entirely cheap feeling sci-fi horror gore romp. The plot is damn simple, a guy gets abducted by aliens, comes back a few years later and kills a bunch of people, because. The acting and script are a little weak, but entirely forgivable. The production is surprisingly good however, particularly the sound and music. Fantastic, chilling, creepy, obviously influenced by John Carpenter's The Thing (so of course I like it). Some of the gore-gags are pretty well done, and at least one made me say "what the fuck" out-loud, which is a good thing. Its a decent, short, indie horror flick. While not amazing, the people involved obviously know horror and how to make a movie. Its fun and worth adding to your list if you have run through the big horror titles already.

Review: Creature

Creature (1985)
A complete and utter rip off  homage to Alien, but a really fun one. Two competing corporations have been exploring the solar system in the near-ish future. One makes a discovery on the moon Titan of some strange containers that can only have been left behind by an alien species. Well it breaks open immediately and starts wreaking havoc, then a quick cut and their ship slams into a space station. This is just the beginning. The company sends another team back to investigate further. Between a not-so-smooth landing and electrical storms on the planets atmosphere running interference on their computer systems the crew is already in a jam. By the way the crew is a typical assortment of older almost-tough-guy engineers and scientists and 80's babes. They make a couple discoveries, that there is a nasty alien life form about to eat them all, and that there was a crew from the rival, German space company there to investigate just prior to their arrival that also got got. They meet one survivor from the German expedition who wisely advises them to blow everything up and fly the fuck out of there. It takes the crew some time to get their ducks in a row, the plot stresses their dangerous condition because not only do they have this alien thing to deal with but they are running out of air and power too. Also the alien is capable of talking over peoples bodies, so their are sort of zombified slaves. So the movie also takes liberties from The Thing as well. One of the worst/best things about this one is the sound design, as the sound effects for the space ship operations are taken from a mixture of much older sci-fi movies and serials, video games, and Star Wars. I should mention though, that the sets are fairly well done, and the acting is really not that bad and it has some pretty good moments in it. We get 80's haircuts, some gorey kills, perky 80's tits, some funny moments like the German guy grabbing the ass of the female security officer while they are both in space suits, a pretty good looking alien costume that in no way took heavy inspiration from H.R. Giger's xenomorph designs, and a really great final moment that I don't want to spoil, but it might involve flying dragon kicking an alien with a bomb strapped to it out of an airlock and then shooting it. It's still on Netflix as of reviewing this, so I would recommend pouring a drink or two and giving this one a shot.

Review: Shakma

Shakma (1990)

Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes) in a movie about a group of grad-students and their professor playing a live action role playing game in a locked-up science building, when a failed experiment turns a baboon rabid and sends it on a killing spree. They use a real monkey too. That's really all I should have to say to convince you to watch this one. Its just great to see a unique idea, you have these kids in a locked up tower treating it like a dungeon, and unbeknownst to them there is a real critter on the loose trying to kill them. Its pretty cool to see a real animal being used as monster, and not just a puppet or a guy in a suit. Not that I have anything against those, and speaking of which its great to see McDowall play opposite a real monkey. Its a fun romp with a little gore and some good laughs. Check it out.