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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: DEATHSTALKER (1984)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 2012, Bad Acting, Barbarian Movies, Grindhouse, Nick Cato Reviews, Suburban Grindhouse Memories, Sword & Sorcery, VIOLENCE!, Warriors with tags Barbarian, COnan Wannabe, Deathstalker, Grindhouse, Rick Hill, Violence! on January 26, 2012 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES PRESENTS:
DEATHSTALKER: Conan…Without Class!
By Nick Cato

I spent most of the time during the second half of my sophomore year in high school daydreaming about movies. While horror preoccupied 90% of my mind, other exploitation films took about 8%, and the final 2% was dedicated to all things CONAN. From the early Marvel comics to the 1982 Ah-Nuld film version, I was always a big fan of the sword & sorcery genre. And while the success of CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982) spawned several rip-offs, none were as memorable as the 1984 schlock-fest DEATHSTALKER, which happened to be released as I trudged through the tenth grade.

Picture—if you will—a group of fifteen year-old male teenagers managing to get into an R-rated action film with no problem. Now picture—if you will—that same group of ecstatic fifteen year-old teenagers giggling with glee as the sword & sorcery epic unreeling before them turned out to feature some of the worst acting, fakest-looking creatures, and massive amounts of jiggling boobs this side of a PORKY’S film. Even one-time sex symbol Barbi Benton appears as a princess, although she was better off taking another cruise on THE LOVE BOAT than accepting whatever peanuts she was offered for her forgettable role here.

Besides the gratuitous boobs and brutal fight sequences, what truly made DEATHSTALKER such a joy to watch was the title character himself. Deathstalker was played by stuntman/actor Rick Hill, and is far less noble a warrior than Conan: he’s a conscience-less murderer and rapist, taking any woman who even looks at him as he walks by with his bulging biceps. And in what tries to pass for a plot, a king asks Deathstalker to try and redeem himself by rescuing his kidnapped princess daughter from a tattoo-headed tyrant. Like any social misfit, Deathstalker basically tells the king where to go, then proceeds to eat (yes, EAT) half of the king’s poor dog! At this point, you either buckled your seatbelt and prepared to enjoy the trash that followed, or you left the theater and spared your brain any further damage.

I stayed.

There was mumbling around the theater wondering just why this king asked a known, savage rapist to rescue his daughter, and why he even cared if the guy redeemed himself. But such are the mysteries of rip-off, grindhouse cinema.

In one scene that drove the audience wild, a brawl goes down where one burly man (with his gigantic mallet) smashes his opponent into a bloody pancake. Popcorn flew around the (now defunct) Fox Twin Theatre in appreciation, and at one point I started to hope some of the older guys in attendance didn’t get any ideas after the film, out in the parking lot.

Between more bouncing boobs and heads getting lobbed off, there was talk of Deathstalker also having to find three objects that were allegedly part of the world’s creation (I remember one being a sword, which he finds, but can’t recall what the other two were…and you probably wouldn’t, either). Deathstalker eventually rescues the princess (who actually looks like an old sea hag) and takes the sword of creation from the clutches of Munkar, the aforementioned tattoo-headed tyrant (and MAN did his head-tattoo look fake!). Just WHY Deathstalker went ahead and did what the king asked —after saying he wasn’t interested—is anyone’s guess.

The remainder of DEATHSTALKER features our anti-hero joining a tournament where warriors battle other warriors to the death—sort-of like a sword & sorcery tribute to the Bruce Lee classic ENTER THE DRAGON (1973). Here the blood flows deeper than your standard slasher film, as arms, legs, and heads fly, bodies are impaled; all the while Munkar looks on with a smirk, thinking everyone who stands in his way will eventually kill themselves off, leaving him to rule the world. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

But as fate would have it, Deathstalker manages to kill the final opponent, a goofy-looking pig-faced warrior beast, and eventually destroys Munkar and the mystical objects of creation.

Unlike CONAN THE BARBARIAN, or better rip-offs such as THE BEASTMASTER (1982), DEATHSTALKER’s sloppy script and countless plot holes will cause even the most jaded fan of grindhouse cinema to shake their head in disbelief. But, if you’re looking for a real GUY/party flick, full of hot babes, endless bloodshed, and acting so bad you can’t help but yell back at the screen (even if you’re watching it at home), DEATHSTALKER is a prime example of a so-bad-it’s-amazing film. Most mind-boggling: this cinematic abortion was followed by three sequels, with Rick Hill returning in the title role for the fourth installment. None were half as good (or bad) as the original.

Deathstalker (Rick Hill) battles a pig-faced beast during the exciting conclusion of DEATHSTALKER (1984)

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NICK CATO’S TOP 3 1970S GRINDHOUSE FLICKS REDISCOVERED IN 2011

Posted in 1970s Movies, 2011, Best Of Lists, Campy Movies, Fun Stuff!, Gangsters!, Grindhouse, Killers, Nick Cato Reviews, Suburban Grindhouse Memories with tags 1970s, Best of 2011, Gangsters, Grindhouse, Jane Russell, nick cato, Serial Killer, something weird video on January 12, 2012 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES Presents:
NICK CATO’S TOP 3 1970S GRINDHOUSE FILMS REDISCOVERED IN 2011
By Nick Cato

3) ANOTHER SON OF SAM (1977). If you enjoy inept filmmaking, horrendous 70s fashions, plot-holes galore, and a GENUINE grindhouse experience, pay attention: Harvey, who was sexually abused by his mother as a child, escapes a mental institution and goes on a shooting rampage at a park before taking hostages in a college dorm. A SWAT team and local cops eventually apprehend him. As a show of total CLASSLESSNESS, this film was released in 1977, BEFORE there was any other fictional film about the Son of Sam, and (I’m assuming) while Berkowitz was still at large. If you like trashy, pointless films full of unintentional laughs, ANOTHER SON OF SAM is pure gold. All others, turn and run away as fast as you can.

2) In my never-ending quest to see every obscure low-budget 70s film, I came across (no pun intended) a 1972 sex comedy titled THE GODDAUGHTER, which—among other things—just might be a precursor to the current crop of adult films that parody popular movies (not to mention “Nunsploitation” films). While nowhere near as entertaining as last summer’s re-discovered 1981 Mafia flick GONE WITH THE POPE, THE GODDAUGHTER is an interesting piece of grindhouse trash for mob film completists with little-to-no conscience (some brief and ugly hardcore scenes guarantee this one will never be shown on Comedy Central).

1) THE GODFATHER AND THE LADY (1975). The lunatics at Something Weird Video claim this had never been released, all the more amazing as it stars the legendary Jane Russell (who appears in her FINAL film role before doing a couple of TV shows in the 80s), as well as six (count ‘em, SIX) former boxing champions as hit men, including Rocky Graziano, Jake La Motta, and Willie Pep. It’s a goofy comedy, featuring an opening brawl with sound effects right out of a Warner Brothers cartoon, atrocious acting, and a scam-the-inheritance plot that makes one wonder what episode of Scooby Doo they tried to rip off. Lots of cornball fun.

(All titles are available through Something Weird Video).

THE DEVIL INSIDE (2012)

Posted in 2012, Cinema Knife Fights, Demonic Possession, Demons, Exorcism Movies, LL Soares Reviews, Nick Cato Reviews, Paranormal, Possessed By Demons with tags cinema knife fight, demons, Devil Inside, exorcism, Faux Documentary, possession, Vatican on January 9, 2012 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: THE DEVIL INSIDE
By L.L. Soares and Nick Cato

(THE SCENE: After a delayed flight, L.L. SOARES and NICK CATO arrive in Rome, Italy, where they grab a taxi to the Centrino Mental Hospital, where much of this week’s film was shot. They’re both slightly jet-lagged when they enter the lobby of the large, isolated facility).

LS: I don’t get it…you’re afraid of flying but you drag me all the way to Italy to review a movie? What the hell, man.

NC: I figured if we’re THIS CLOSE to where they filmed that great exorcism sequence, we’d be re-inspired to give this one a solid review.

LS: (Rolling his eyes). Well, at least you paid for the plane tickets, and don’t forget you promised to treat me to some REAL Italian food while we’re here. And some good wine, too.

NC: My cousin Antonio is expecting us in two hours…everything has been taken care of, buddy!

(A security guard asks them who they’re here to see. When Nick reveals they just want to use the lobby to write a film review, the burly guard chases them out. Amazingly, our American horror freaks manage to sneak into the back yard of the facility, where they squat behind a row of hedges, listening to some of the patients babble and sing strange songs).

NC: We’d better get started before that goon realizes we made it back in.

LS: Good idea. You begin this one.

NC: This week we have the latest entry into the “found footage/mock documentary” horror subgenre titled THE DEVIL INSIDE, which is basically an EXORCIST (1973) version of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999). I’m a sucker for exorcism films, and have seen almost every EXORCIST rip-off that’s come down the pike since the early 70s. While most are unwatchably bad, 2010’s THE LAST EXORCISM was a rare treat (and told things from a Protestant viewpoint, for a change), and for the most part, I’ve been enjoying this recent spout of exorcism films.

LS: Well, THE EXORCIST remains the gold standard for this kind of thing. I haven’t been too impressed with most exorcism movies since. I did like THE LAST EXORCISM, though. But, as for this “recent spout,” I can’t say every movie is worth seeing. I still think THE RITE (2011) was pretty lame.

I must admit, though, that I’m really digging the whole “found footage” style of filmmaking. I know it’s starting to become a cliché just as much as any other subgenre, but so far, I’m enjoying most of these movies, which is funny, because I didn’t care for BLAIR WITCH all that much – but I can’t deny how friggin influential that film was.

NC: So, as THE DEVIL INSIDE begins, Isabella Rossi is making a documentary about her mother, Maria, who in 1989 murdered three members of the clergy who tried to perform an exorcism on her. Since then, she’s been shifted to a couple of mental hospitals. When a jury found her innocent by reason of insanity in 1991, she was transferred overseas to Italy to the Centrino Mental Hospital, on whose grounds we now stand. Spooky, huh?

LS: Not really. But go on.

(A guy dressed up in a WINNIE THE POOH costume comes over to them)

WINNIE: Hey fellas, what are you doing in the bushes?

LS: We’re reviewing a movie. Now go away kid, you bother me.

WINNIE: No you’re not! You’re looking for honey! I know it! I know it! Well, you better share it with me if you find some.

NC: Seriously, we’re not looking for honey. We’re reviewing a movie.

LS: Yeah, get lost you simpleton!

WINNIE: You guys sure are mean! I hate you both! (he runs away, crying)

NC: Now look what you did. He’s probably going to go tell one of the guards.

LS: Then you better go on with the review, right?

NC: Along with her cameraman, Isabella gets to visit her mother for the first time in over ten years. The head doctor of the hospital shows Isabella footage of her mother’s violent rages (all captured on security camera from her room)…

LS: I have to admit, I laughed out loud during this scene. Possessed people are pretty funny.

NC: …and yet, for some reason still allows Isabella and her cameraman to enter the room, warning them not to mention anything about God or religion. If THE DEVIL INSIDE has one major problem, it’s the too “easy access;” there are a few sequences where the audience is asked to accept a bit too much, but for now we’ll let that slide.

Suzan Crowley is simply fantastic as the possessed mother, Maria, and in this first meeting creates a real tension-filled scene.

Isabella goes to an exorcism class at a Vatican-run school, and is impressed at the variety of people in attendance. She is befriended by two rogue Catholic priests, who eventually reveal they perform exorcisms without the church’s permission, in an attempt to help people; apparently THEY can tell when certain people are genuinely possessed regardless of what the church says. Part of what made THE DEVIL INSIDE work for me are these two priests, Ben and David. They’re both flawed, yet seem to want to do the right thing. Ben’s more aggravated with the church than David is, but they both compliment one another’s work, Ben taking a strictly religious angle, while David (who is also a licensed physician) also uses scientific methods during their exorcisms.

LS: Yeah, I liked Ben and David, too. In fact, I thought all the cast were really good here. The trick in these kinds of movies is to seem as natural as possible. This is supposed to be documentary footage (even if it really isn’t). And everyone does a fine job convincing us of their sincerity. I also like Isabella and her mother a lot, too.

NC: My favorite sequence is when Fathers Ben and David take Isabella (and her cameraman) to witness a real exorcism. Possessed girl Rosa (played with grueling detail by real life contortionist Bonnie Morgan) delivers an insane performance as our two priests attempt to deliver her from a demon. As far as possession films go, this scene is worth the price of admission.

LS: Yeah, that was a good scene. I didn’t know she was a contortionist, but that makes the scene all the more impressive. Nice that it wasn’t all special effects for once.

(A short guy in a uniform comes over to them. He has one hand inside his coat and thinks he’s NAPOLEON)

NAPOLEON: What are you doing zere in ze bushes?

LS: Not another nut. Can’t we review a movie in peace?

NAPOLEON: How dare you, sir. Napoleon Bonaparte is not, how you say, a “nut.” And I know what you are doing. You are spies lurking in ze bushes, spying on Napoleon, trying to discover ze plans I have to take over Europe. I dare you to deny it!

LS: I deny it.

NC: Me, too.

NAPOLEON: Liars! You will get ze guillotine for this! I will go find ze guards.

LS: We better wrap this up.

NC: When our priests manage to convince the head of the Centrino Mental Hospital to let them have a couple of hours alone with Isabella and her mother, he reluctantly agrees and we’re set for yet another intense exorcism scene, this time even more violent and revealing. BUT, this was one of the film’s hard-to-accept moments—the one rule the doctor imposes on Isabella is that Maria is not supposed to be reminded of God or religion—but two priests are allowed to spend time alone with her?

LS: And it’s not like they’re there just to visit her. They perform an exorcism. Even if Maria is really mentally ill, isn’t this going to make her incredibly hostile?

NC: If not for another great (attempted) exorcism scene here, this would have been unforgiveable (pun intended). And I’m betting most horror fans just won’t go for this idea.

LS: I don’t know. I didn’t think it was logical either, but the scene is so good, I got sucked into it anyway.

NC: (POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT) Another scene that jades an otherwise intelligent possession film is when Father David almost commits murder during a baptism. There is simply NO WAY he would ever have been able to leave the church, be it by the police or his fellow clergy holding him back.

LS: Not to mention angry family members.

NC: But he manages to return to his apartment as if nothing happened, and when Father Ben asks him why he did what he did, Isabella answers on his behalf with the goofiest piece of dialogue I’ve heard in years. “Well, he’s been under a lot of stress lately.” I will admit at this point that if this wasn’t about exorcism, I most likely would have been completely turned off to the rest of the film. I don’t know how many others will be as forgiving (another pun!).

LS: Yeah, that was a pretty dumb thing for her to say. And enough with the puns!

(Another patient walks over to the hedges. It’s a tall man wearing only a white bathrobe with sandals and black socks. He says “Whooooo’s there?” like an owl then begins to jump up and down, singing the Tom Jones song, IT’S NOT UNUSUAL.)

NC: Looks like we’ve been spotted again.

LS: Damn, I hate these bushes. When you said we were going to Rome, I imagined seeing the Colliseum, not hiding in bushes.

NC: Well, despite all its flaws, I have to admit I was impressed with much of the early dialogue given in THE DEVIL INSIDE about exorcism, and I’m assuming this is part of what might turn off horror film fans who aren’t big on possession films; if this isn’t your thing, you’re not going to be interested, and hence will be less forgiving when the flaws come.

That said, THE DEVIL INSIDE has a fun time with its security footage, police file footage, and at-the-moment video footage, and does so in quite an entertaining manner. Isabella (played by the very attractive Fernanda Andrade) delivers a fine performance, and while I’ve read some negative things about the priests, I thought they both did a fine job.

LS: I avoided any reviews of this, as I usually do, before I saw it. It helped that this one wasn’t screened for critics before it was released, so there weren’t a lot of reviews before the weekend.

NC: I never read reviews before seeing a film, either, but after the screening I attended I noticed the Internet was PACKED with negative reviews.

I must admit that I LOVED the ending. I’ve heard most test audiences booed it, but to me, a horror film’s ending should be bleak and shocking. The audience I saw this with was speechless.

****(Another SPOILER ALERT. However, it is impossible to discuss the main problem with this particular movie – and why audience members have been so angry – without discussing the ending)****

LS: I think you’re talking about the last scene, which I thought was fine. It is supposed to be “found footage,” after all. But the actual ending itself —if you really love how the movie ends—then we’re in complete disagreement. When I saw the movie, people were very pissed off with the ending, and I completely understood where they were coming from. I don’t usually discuss the ending of a film when reviewing it, but in this case, I’ll make an exception, mainly because THERE IS NO ENDING.

The movie has been doing a good job sucking you in. It was much better than I expected—especially since January is a notorious time to release the real stinkers that studios have in the vaults. This one was an exception to that rule. The audience was really getting into it and invested themselves in the story. And then the movie ends very abruptly at a key scene, and the URL for a website comes onscreen. We’re told this “found footage” was currently under investigation and to go to the website for more news. This ending elicits two reactions simultaneously:

On the one hand, if you’ve been enjoying the movie up to this point, the abrupt non-ending is going to leave you wanting more. This is presumably a good thing, especially if the filmmakers want to turn this movie into a franchise, like the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY films.

On the other hand, this kind of ending is pretty cynical. First off, it has “sequel” written all over it. It wants you to pay more money to see more in the next movie. The URL pretty much is a stand-in here for the words “TO BE CONTINUED,” and after sitting through this movie and giving it your time, this kind of ending seems like a complete slap in the face. At least give us an ending that satisfies us! That makes us feel like this whole journey hasn’t been a complete waste of time and a grab for our wallets!

When I saw the movie, the theater was packed. So obviously, people are going out to see this one. At the end, everyone was angry and cursing at the screen and felt cheated. Not exactly the best way to generate word of mouth buzz about a movie. In fact, even though I liked the movie, I found the ending insulting and it kind of ruined it for me.

NC: Well, to me the ENDING was the final IMAGE on the screen. However, I’m a bit mixed on what happens AFTER the ending. That website is given (therossifiles.com) for viewers to go to to learn more about the continuing Rossi case. One of the biggest questions in the film (which asks what happened between Father Ben and his late uncle, who was his exorcist mentor) is answered on the website in a video confession. I believe this confession could have been intercut with the film’s last scenes, and would have left more viewers satisfied. Personally, I would have been happy if this was NEVER explained, as it gives the film a sense of mystery that added to the tension.

LS: Personally, I didn’t think that was one of the biggest questions of the film—and I don’t care if that was explained or not either. But I’ll tell you, for some reason I have no desire to go to the website— I paid my money. Everything important should have been on the damn screen! I shouldn’t have to go searching for answers that should have been provided in the film itself.

NC: THE DEVIL INSIDE—with its post-Internet participation—becomes a gimmick film that wasn’t advertised as one. Pretty cool IMO, although, again, I can see viewers not getting into it.

LS: Cool? The gimmick actually lowered the rating on this one, for me. I thought the ending sucked enough to ruin an otherwise solid exorcism film.

NC: As someone who has seen about twenty EXORCIST-rip offs and a dozen more possession films, I give THE DEVIL INSIDE~two and a half knives. The screenwriters should have thought a bit more about the couple of easily-avoidable flaws in their script. It’s easy to understand why many people will not be happy with this film. But if you can let these issues slide, there’s plenty of spooky fun to be had.

LS: I had a hard time rating this one. On the one hand, I was going to give it three knives, up until the ending. I guess I liked it even more than you did. But after the rip-off at the end, I was angry enough to give it just two knives. If I’m fair and split the difference, I guess I end up giving it two and a half knives, as well. But seriously, screw the gimmick of making us go to a website to find out more. Show it on the damn screen. I bet this gimmick angered enough people to generate some negative buzz—not good for future box office, or possible sequels. People just don’t like feeling cheated, especially these days when ticket prices are so damn high. But I enjoyed this movie a lot until that point. So my advice to our readers is this—wait and rent it. You won’t be as pissed off spending $5 to rent it on DVD or streaming video when the dumbass non-ending occurs, than you would if you and your date had spent $20 to go see it in a theater.

NC: (Answers his cell phone) “Yes Antonio…we’re just about done here. We’ll be over in a few minutes.” L.L….get ready for some old school, home-made pasta…hopefully without a pea soup appetizer!

(NAPOLEON comes running back, escorted by two hospital guards dressed in white)

NAPOLEON: Zere are ze spies I told you about. They want to know what Napoleon has planned next. Well, you will never know, you evil spies!

GUARD 1: Hey, what are you guys doing in the bushes?

GUARD 2: Yeah! Aren’t you guys I just tossed out of the lobby?

(LS and NC jump out of the bushes and run away, being pursued by the guards, Napoleon and the guy dressed as Winnie The Pooh, while fast “Benny Hill” exit music plays)

LS: See you next time on Cinema Knife Fight!

-END-

L.L. Soares gives THE DEVIL INSIDE ~ two and a half knives!

Nick Cato gives THE DEVIL INSIDE~ two and a half knives

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: TERRORVISION (1986)

Posted in 2011, Aliens, B-Movies, Monsters, Nick Cato Reviews, Suburban Grindhouse Memories, VHS Only Movies with tags 80s Monster Movies, alien creatures, Fibonaccis, Gerrit Graham, Grindhouse, mary woronov, Terrorvision, VHS Only on December 29, 2011 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES
“Lizard Tail Jerky!”
By Nick Cato

By the middle of my senior year of high school, I was 100% addicted to gore films and spent much time trading bootleg VHS tapes (via snail mail) through my old fanzine, STINK. The sicker the title one acquired on the underground market, the better chance you had of trading it for something crazier. Yet despite being controlled by the sleazier side of Sinema for close to ten years, a silly little science fiction farce was about to remind me that light-hearted fare could still be as entertaining as any Euro gut-munching cannibal caper or women-in-prison epic. Or necrophiliac outing…

A couple of my friends were DJs at a local college radio station. I’d often do movie reviews on their shows, and spent most of my time in the studio going through the new albums. One that caught my eye was a soundtrack for a film titled TERRORVISION, a film that wasn’t to be released until February 1986 (this was about three months prior). The main track, titled Terrorvision, performed by The Fibonaccis (whoever they were), is an addictive DEVO meets B-52s new wave jam that holds up great to repeated listens. So, with the main track imbedded in my mind, TERRORVISION finally came to my town on a freezing cold winter day in February, 1986, to a nearly sold-out opening night. Of ALL the films I’ve reviewed for this column, the theatre where this unspooled refuses to come to memory, but chances are it was the Lane Theatre, one of Staten Island’s last single-screen cinemas.

Produced by Charles Band’s Empire Pictures, TERRORVISION is chock full of cheesy acting, lame special effects, and a story that’s barely there…yet for some reason, the humor works. A suburban couple (played by PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE’s Gerrit Graham and cult icon Mary Woronov) discovers that a strange creature keeps popping up on their television. Figuring it must be some kind of interference (after all, they just had a huge satellite dish installed on their roof) they think little of it until the creature eventually POPS OFF the set and literally comes into their home. Of course, the creature enters the home when the swinger parents are out, and the kids fail to train their strange new pet. It then tries to eat each member of the family (which includes a nerdy kid who hangs out all day long with his crackpot survivalist grandfather and a teenage heavy metal sister with her rock-star wannabe boyfriend) as well as any friends or whoever just may happen to be stopping over for a visit. The alien is able to “reproduce” the heads of those he’s eaten and mimic their voices in order to hide from police and an intergalactic alien cop (yeah, this one gets goofier by the minute).

It turns out the planet this creature came from has discovered a way to turn their trash into antimatter and dispose of it by shooting it into space. This particular alien is an eating machine, forcing its home planet to get rid of him TRASH style! Guess this family had REALLY bad luck having their satellite installed just as this batch of space junk was passing earth!

While much of the humor is just plain silly, I found (even upon a recent viewing) most of it still holds up, especially the aforementioned grandfather who lives on “lizard tail jerky.” He keeps a pet lizard on him at all times, and yanks its tail off when he needs a snack. He assures his grandson the tails keep growing back as the two of them hunt the creature who has invaded their home. Although rated R, the only thing that MIGHT have given it this rating is the sleazy erotic artwork hanging around the house (remember, the parents are swingers!), much of it quite funny looking.

The highlight of the film (for me, anyway) is a late night horror film TV-hostess named Medusa (complete with a head full of snakes) who makes non-stop sexual puns, some pretty graphic for an otherwise exploitation-less film. Just WHY she’s in the film is anyone’s guess, but she provides some fine eye candy nonetheless.

What surprised me (and the audience) most is the ending (SPOILER ALERT!): Our grotesque alien (who dribbles non-stop BUCKETS of goo and slime) eventually eats the entire family and takes off for world domination in a taxi cab! Who would’ve thought such a tame sci-fi comedy would end on such a dark (although in its context, funny) note?

Although a DVD has yet to be released, you can find VHS copies on eBay and Amazon. With lots of laughs and a nifty soundtrack, this might not be as funny as SPACEBALLS (1987) or as exploitative as GALACTIC GIGOLO (also 1987), but being it was released before both, it deserves a little respect and hopefully one day a proper DVD release. It’s good, slimy, goofy fun.

(This was also one of the earliest films I can remember coming to home video less than a month after its theatrical release).

TERRORVISION’s alien creature looks like poop-monster Chet in WEIRD SCIENCE (1985), although he probably didn’t smell as bad…

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS (1982)

Posted in 1980s Horror, 2011, Action Movies, Cannibals, Grindhouse, Italian Horror, Nick Cato Reviews, Suburban Grindhouse Memories with tags Antonio Margheriti, cannibals, Flesh eaters, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Grindhouse, Italian Horror, John Saxon on December 15, 2011 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES
CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS (1982)
Support Your Local Veterans!
By Nick Cato

Besides an overabundance of slasher films, the early 80s was also a hotbed of DAWN OF THE DEAD and ZOMBIE rip-offs, and if you lived in the right places, these (mainly) euro-schlock offerings seemed to be released every week.

Although zombie-mania is mainstream today, in 1982 it was still cool to be a zombie geek. And upon seeing the above ad in my local newspaper for something called CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS, my geekdom hit an all-time high. Here was a film I hadn’t read a thing about in any horror magazine or fanzine, and it starred John Saxon, an actor I had been a fan of since his stint as a robot opposite Lee Majors on the TV show THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN (1974-76 episodes).

Thankfully one of my buddies’ older brothers smuggled us into the Fox Twin Theatre, another defunct twin here on Staten Island that’s now the site of a multiplex. For a Saturday afternoon, CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS was packed…but by the halfway point the theater had all but emptied. The fools should have stuck out the slow middle…

I should point out—before I go any further—that I eventually discovered this film was a HEAVILY edited version of a 1980 Italian production released in Europe as CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE, and eventually released on VHS in America, still edited, as INVASION OF THE FLESH HUNTERS (got all that?). As far as I know, this is the first Italian cannibal film to be shot almost entirely in Atlanta. I forced myself to watch (okay—SCAN) through Image Entertainment’s uncut DVD version (under the title CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE) back around 2002, and am happy to report that the “uncut” version didn’t enhance or change my opinion of the film. In fact, anyone seeking a gory cannibal/zombie outing can do themselves a favor and look elsewhere.

BUT: the film still has its moments.

Saxon locates a couple of P.O.W.’s in Vietnam. To survive, the men resorted to cannibalism, and as Saxon tries to help one soldier out of a prisoner pit, he has a nice chunk taken out of his arm! The theater DID go nuts over this opening sequence, which quickly ended and brought us back to modern-day Atlanta. Giovanni Lombardo Radice (who would soon get a power drill through his head in Fulci’s THE GATES OF HELL (1983) ) plays one of Saxon’s ‘Nam buddies—and for some reason they’re both living in Atlanta. When Saxon refuses to go out with him for a drink (apparently he’s still haunted by being bitten in ‘Nam), Radice heads to a local movie theater where instead of focusing on the feature, he watches some pervert lick his girlfriend’s body. Radice has a flashback and decides to bite the poor girl’s neck, which causes the place to panic. He’s chased by a bunch of crazed theater patrons, and a sorry-looking biker gang, into a thrift shop, where he’s eventually apprehended and sent to the hospital for observation. DURING this fiasco, John Saxon is at home with a babysitter, who keeps giving him flashbacks every time she flirts by showing a little leg. Knowing his wife is being unfaithful, Saxon gives in and goes down on her without literally eating anything, temporarily sating his cannibalistic urges with some playful nibbling.

At this point in the film, it became clear CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS wasn’t a zombie film, and while it moves well up to this point, the mid-section becomes quite tedious. Patron after patron began to leave the theater, but my friends and I were confident something titled CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS simply HAD to have a pay off.

It does and it doesn’t.

The action slowly picks back up when Radice and the other rescued P.O.W. escape from a hospital along with a nurse they’ve bitten. They run into the aforementioned biker gang right outside the hospital and a mini-brawl breaks out. The trio goes on to infect unlucky citizens with their cannibal virus, and eventually meet up with their former captain, John Saxon.

The rest of the film turns into a violent action flick, complete with a nifty chase sequence through Atlanta’s sewers and a flamethrower battle at the finale. The gore scenes cut out of this theatrical release (provided by ZOMBIE (1979) and THE BEYOND (1981)-alumni Gianetto De Rossi), which I finally saw on the DVD, include a gruesome close-up of Radice’s stomach after he gets a hole blown in it, a doctor having his tongue bitten off, and some sloppy mechanic having his leg sliced up like cold cuts at a deli.

I have no idea if director Antonio Margheriti was trying to make some kind of non-subtle point regarding the returning Vietnam vet as being the “real” monster, or if he just set out to make some cash by combining APOCALYPSE NOW and DAWN OF THE DEAD (both 1979). What I came away with was a satisfying exploitation experience, despite the (then) lack of gore, which was made up for with uncomfortable sex scenes, plenty of action (despite the slow middle), and some of the worst left-over disco music ever to appear in a cannibal film (and THAT’S saying something). I’ve read that John Saxon has publicly denounced the film, and co-star Radice has said Saxon seemed “out there” while the film was being shot. Either way, CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS is must viewing for Saxon completists and lovers of so-bad-they’re-good grindhouse classics. All others, stick to RAMBO…

John Saxon discovers P.O.W.s just before getting bit in CANNIBALS IN THE STREETS!

Suburban Grindhouse Memories: THE BEACH GIRLS (1982)

Posted in 2011, Comedies, Drive-in Movies, Exploitation Films, Just Plain Fun, Nick Cato Reviews, R-Rated Comedy, Sexy Stars with tags Beach Girls, Debra Blee, Drive-In, Jeana Tomasina, Sex Comedy, Val Kline on December 1, 2011 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES
Before Fast Times, Life was a BEACH!
By Nick Cato

The spring of 1982 was a fantastic time. I was closing in on the end of my junior high days and looking forward to my last summer before high school. Horror films were being released nearly every weekend, as were some decent comedies. But few comedies were as fun (or as memorable) as this silly little T&A flick that (thankfully) made its way to the Amboy Twin Cinema, Staten Island’s most notorious theater for letting us underage pests in with little to no hassle.

Nearly six months before film fans would become captivated with Jeff Spicoli’s antics in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, 1982’s THE BEACH GIRLS hit New York theaters and became something of an underground hit. I remember Roger Ebert giving it a positive review, claiming he’d rather watch it ten more times than have to re-watch whatever film he and Gene Siskel had trashed that week on their old TV show, SNEAK PREVIEWS. I went to see it two days in a row, but then again I was an eighth-grader who fell in love with the film’s star, Debra Blee—who—to my geeky pleasure—went on to appear in such classics as SAVAGE STREETS (1984) and HAMBURGER: THE MOTION PICTURE (1986) and a few others, before starring in her last film, 1987’s BEACH FEVER (Hey, at least she wasn’t afraid of being typecast!).

As far as party films go, THE BEACH GIRLS’s simple premise is quite funny: Sarah (Debra Blee) and her two friends are spending the summer at her uncle’s beach-front house. Her friends (the equally beautiful Val Kline and former real-life PLAYBOY playmate Jeana Tomasina) convince Sarah to throw a massive party. As they begin to get things underway, a drug-smuggling ship discovers they’re about to be intercepted by the coast guard, so they toss about a dozen tall black garbage bags filled with marijuana into the sea. Guess where they wash ashore?

While Sarah spends most of the early stages of THE BEACH GIRLS worrying and trying to get her friends to stop the party, the other girls make phone calls and begin inviting everyone they can think of to come over. The funniest call is made to a pizzeria, where one of the girls asks “Is your delivery boy cute?” Shady character after shady character begin to show up, each one handed a huge bag of weed at the front door as they enter the swanky house. I’d argue there’s more grass smoked in this film than in Cheech and Chong’s UP IN SMOKE (1978), or any other C&C film for that matter. There’s also some horrible music, goofy-dancing (I always wondered where these parties were, where all the girls danced around in bikinis) and a couple of really funny skits, including the coast guard eventually raiding the party and burning the rest of the pot on the front lawn, in turn getting everyone at the party (and themselves) even higher than they were! Of course, Sarah’s Uncle Carl comes home early from a trip and tries to shut the party down…but Sarah’s two friends use their boobs and a huge joint to make him change his mind.

THE BEACH GIRLS was one of those care-free party films released before the fear of AIDS began to tone things down. The California partiers on display here smoke weed, have orgies, and basically do whatever they want with reckless abandon, giving this young mind (and I’m sure many others) a false view of our coming teenage years. Then again, I grew up in New York, so who knows what I missed on the west coast?

While both audiences I saw this with laughed throughout most of it and had a good time, I wonder how today’s politically-correct theater-goers would handle the racial humor (there’s a goofy Mexican gardener who has a fight with a Chinese, kung-fu limo driver named Chang), blatant sexism, and mindless party-till-you-die attitude. As a curve ball, there’s even a couple of wacky scenes where the bags of grass talk to the partiers about to smoke them (one bag convinces a guy it’s really parsley!). I’m starting to believe all who made this flick did so under the influence of multiple controlled substances.

Unlike most modern teenage sex comedies, THE BEACH GIRLS doesn’t feature a bunch of nerds trying to lose their virginity or who are afraid to let it rip: EVERYONE who comes to this shindig drinks, smokes, and shags like the world is about to end (even a couple of dorks), all the while making fun of everyone and everything around them. The mood is basically anarchy incarnate.

And when it comes to cheesy teen comedies, what more could one want? How about one of the best lines in the film: when the pizza guy finally arrives, the girl who answers the door says, “Is that a pepperoni in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?” When the guy says “Pepperoni,” and pulls a long one out of his pants, you either get this sophomoric classic or you run in the other direction.

Ah…the 80s…

Jeana Tomasina, Debra Blee, and Val Kline make up the nucleus of THE BEACH GIRLS, in this publicity shot that sadly doesn’t appear in the film

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: WAR OF THE WIZARDS (1978)

Posted in 2011, Asian Horror, B-Movies, Fantasy Films, Kung Fu!, Magic, Martial Arts, Mythological Creatures, Nick Cato Reviews, Suburban Grindhouse Memories with tags Clash of the Titans, Kung Fu, Magic, RIchard Kiel, The Phoenix, War of the Wizards on November 17, 2011 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES:
Trying to Make Cash off of Clash
By Nick Cato

1981: While RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was on its way to becoming a classic, those of us who knelt at the altar of stop-motion animation were thrilled when CLASH OF THE TITANS hit U.S. screens to showcase the talents of the great Ray Harryhausen. Packed with countless monsters (and a mechanical owl!), this fun re-telling of the Greek myths brought the fun of classic creature-features back to the screen, along with a sword and sorcery theme. I couldn’t get enough of how cool Medusa looked (let alone when she looses her head to Perseus’s sword, which featured a nice batch of red sauce seldom seen in a PG-rated movie) and I went back to see it three times.

And then one Friday afternoon in 1982 or ‘83, I spotted the ad (pictured above) in my local newspaper. COOL! Maybe this monster/sorcery thing was slowly catching on, and I’d be able to get my fix more often in a theater and not just between the pages of Marvel’s CONAN comics.

WRONG!

An older friend of mine managed to con his old man to drive us into New Jersey (GASP!) to see this, as it played everywhere in the tri-state area except for Staten Island. I think it was twenty minutes into the film when I realized my buddy wouldn’t be letting me pick the movies anymore, and I was worried they’d leave me in the Garden State.

WAR OF THE WIZARDS turned out to be anything BUT a CLASH OF THE TITANS rip-off. And it wasn’t until I recently attempted to find this film on the Internet (where it’s not even listed on imdb.com) that I discovered it’s actually a circa 1978 Hong Kong/Taiwanese film originally titled THE PHOENIX. I KNEW something had to be up upon my initial (and only) viewing, when more screen time was dedicated to hokey martial arts action than monsters and sorcery. But like a true trooper, I convinced my buddy and his dad to stay, and to this day haven’t heard the end of it.

The story (from what I could remember through the horrendous overdubbing) dealt with a fisherman who finds a bowl with magical powers at the bottom of a lake. He becomes wealthy and begins to live the good life—until a couple of wizards and martial-artists discover he has this legendary artifact. Two women manage to defeat all those attempting to get this magic bowl, and they both decide to marry the fisherman. Like a true idiot, he begins to show off his wives (and his wealth) in public, causing more attacks on his life (including some really, really, REALLY bad-looking laser-beam effects from a magical religious cult).

The highlight of the film was the religious zealots attacking the wedding of our fisherman and his brides, when a cheesy-looking phoenix rescues the fisherman and takes him to a high mountain, where he’s trained to battle the animal spirits who control his wives, an extremely-sad-looking rock monster, and best of all, a hit-man of sorts played by non other than Richard Kiel (yes—THAT Richard Kiel, a.k.a. the metal-mouthed assassin “JAWS” from the James Bond films). I’m assuming film producers in Hong Kong were so taken aback by Kiel’s performance in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977) they just couldn’t wait to get him into one of their mythical kung-fu flicks (makes sense to me). In keeping with his metal-persona, Kiel attacks our hero with a pair of steel gloves (so at least he didn’t have to bite through thick cable wire or Roger Moore’s neck this time around) but proves to be little match for the scrawny fisherman.

With horrendous special effects all around (especially when the fisherman rides to the aforementioned mountaintop on the neck of the phoenix, which looked more like a gigantic peacock), unconvincing fight sequences, and a storyline that makes even less sense than what I just attempted to explain, WAR OF THE WIZARDS is a horrible film in WHATEVER title one may see it under.

I managed to find ONE review of this film on the entire World Wide Web, making it the most obscure title I’ve covered for this column so far. I have no idea if a VHS or DVD was released (I’m assuming it has in Hong Kong, most likely under a third or fourth title), but suffice it to say my solo theatrical viewing was more than enough.

RICHARD KIEL (fresh off his first stint as 007 villain ‘Jaws’) now goes after a newly-rich fisherman in this hokey martial-arts mess.

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: FIEND (1980)

Posted in 1980s Horror, 2011, B-Movies, Killers, Nick Cato Reviews, Paranormal, Suburban Grindhouse Memories, Supernatural, Weird Movies with tags Don Dohler, Don Leifert, Fiend, George Stover, Grindhouse, Otherworldly Horror, Spirits on November 9, 2011 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES
So Bad It’s . . . Not Good or Bad…. Just … Hmmmmm …
By Nick Cato

Faithful readers of this fine column have heard me mention Staten Island’s (now defunct) Fox Twin Cinema. The more my suburban memory is refreshed, the more I realize just how many amazing double features were shown there during the early 80s—1982 being out of control.

And in 1982, the Fox Twin introduced me to the wacky world of low-budget film maker Don Dohler. Among Don’s nearly-unwatchable achievements are the painfully bad THE ALIEN FACTOR (1978) and NIGHTBEAST (1982), both which feature unconvincing monsters and acting that’d make H.G. Lewis blush. But in 1980, Don ALMOST got it right, and the result has been debated by underground horror fans since its release.

FIEND (1980) was re-released in 1982 with the gruesome DON’T GO IN THE HOUSE (another film originally released in 1980), in one seriously uneven double-bill. After two years of seeing stills from FIEND in horror magazines and fanzines, I was thrilled to finally catch it. DON’T GO IN THE HOUSE was first, and a more brutal R-rated film would never be released (how this one hit American theaters unrated is anyone’s guess). Its depraved scenes of some lunatic killing women in his fire-proof basement with a flame thrower had the theater screaming out loud, and the film managed to work even despite its PSYCHO-inspired conclusion.

After a brief intermission, FIEND hit the screen, and within the first five minutes I can recall at least six people walking out…not due to anything disturbing, but due to a “special effect” so cheesy, it’s amazing any of us stayed for the rest. But I’m glad I did. Kind of.

Some red “spirit” is seen floating around a dark graveyard in the aforementioned special effect. It enters a grave and reanimates some 70s-looking guy, complete with big mustache and ugly sports jacket. Just WHY this happens is never explained, but we now have the title creature who—instead of eating flesh or drinking blood—decides to buy a large house in Maryland where he opens a music school!

(BRIEF PAUSE FOR MY MENTAL STABILITY: It’s my interest in plots like these that have caused me to age at an unusual rate and lose friends. Now back to the review.)

The FIEND takes the name Eric Longfellow, and spends a lot of film time wandering around the front yard of his new home where his neighbors stare at him with odd expressions. It should be pointed out that Longfellow, played by Don Dohler regular Don Leifert, does a fine job here and gives off a truly eerie vibe.

We’re eventually clued in as to just why Longfellow is a FIEND and not a ZOMBIE: if he doesn’t take other people’s “life forces” on a regular basis, he starts to grow old. When fully charged, Longfellow looks to be about 35-40 years old. But as he ages, the cheap special effects attempt to make him look like he’s in his 80s. The unique angle of the FIEND is how this freshly-risen creature kills his victims: by strangulation! When the FIEND chokes some poor soul, his body glows the same shade of ghastly red that reanimated him in the first place. And while this could’ve been a real laugh-riot (especially with the below-grade-Z effects), there’s a certain sense of dread and some decent atmosphere that makes these sequences work.

A couple of nosey, goody-two-shoes neighbors eventually begin to suspect there’s something weird about their new neighbor, and decide to investigate. (The one thing I laughed at by the middle of the film was the absence of students or any actual music playing in Longfellow’s home academy…perhaps this is what caused suspicion in his neighbors?).

FIEND is a seriously flawed film, but worth a look if only for Leifert’s fine performance as the soulless title monster, and some unusually solid atmosphere for a low budget picture. But as fans of B-horror know, there’s stretches of boredom here that will challenge even the most jaded of trash film junkies. But if you can get through these areas, FIEND isn’t too bad a time (and it didn’t help seeing this after DON’T GO IN THE HOUSE, a superior film on every level).

(NOTE: In researching this film, I discovered FIEND star Don Liefert had passed away just recently in 2010. Hopefully his rest won’t be interrupted by a tacky-looking, malevolent spirit…)

Showing his early 80s horror-film colleagues you don’t need sharp weapons to be effective,
the FIEND (the late Dan Liefert) takes another soul.

(Note: Because there wasn’t a Suburban Grindhouse Memories column last Thursday, Nick agreed to write a new one this week, as well as his regular column again for next Thursday)

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: CHOPPING MALL (1986)

Posted in 2011, 80s Horror, Campy Movies, Nick Cato Reviews, ROBOTS!, Slasher Movies, Suburban Grindhouse Memories with tags Barbara Crampton, Chopping Mall, Dick Miller, Kelli Maroney, Killbots, Suzee Slater on October 20, 2011 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES:
The Dangers of Advanced Security
By Nick Cato

March, 1986: While I’m assuming most fellow members of the class of 1986 were busy scouting colleges and making plans for their post-high school graduation, I was transfixed on the above advertisement I spotted one Friday in the New York Daily News’s weekend section. CHOPPING MALL: “Where shopping costs you an arm and a leg.” Priceless. Perfect. How come no one had thought of this earlier? Who knows? Either way I made my way to the (now defunct) Rae Twin Cinema on opening night despite the frigid temperature, not knowing what to expect.

Judging from the brief TV ad, it looked like a typical slasher film set in a mall. But CHOPPING MALL turned out to be a sci-fi-tinged outing, although it basically follows a slasher-film pattern.

A bunch of teenagers (who don’t look like teenagers) decide to hide in a shopping mall. Their plan is to party once everyone has gone home for the night. What they don’t realize is the place has recently installed a state-of-the-art computerized security system, which not only locks the place down tighter than Fort Knox, but also unleashes three 1950s-looking robots, armed with high-tech laser weapons (because, you know, all malls need laser-spitting robots to protect the priceless merchandise).

Among our group of partiers are Barbara Crampton (who, at the time, the audience referred to as “HEY! It’s that hot chick from REANIMATOR!”), who provides one of the mandatory topless scenes, main star Kelli Maroney (who had roles in NIGHT OF THE COMET (1984) and FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1982), before battling these robots and becoming a TV star) and Tony O’Dell, who had starred a year earlier in the wonderfully inept and insane EVILS OF THE NIGHT (1985).

Wouldn’t you know the same night our partiers get things going, a nasty thunderstorm sends lightning into the mall’s roof antenna, causing the high-tech security system to malfunction? And, besides our teens not being able to get in or out, the three laser-spitting robots are now running amuck, their first victim a night janitor played by cameo king Dick Miller. He gets zapped in some of the most horrible-looking “electric” effects since the psychic-battle at the finale of Ted V. Mikels’s BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE DEVILS (1972). Come to think of it, most of the teens are killed by the robots electrocuting them.

So what about those laser beams?

In the film’s most memorable scene (next to Barbara Crampton showing off her post-REANIMATOR ta-tas) one poor lass (played by the cute Suzee Slater, who also had a role in LAS VEGAS SERIAL KILLER the same year as this masterpiece) has her head blown to smithereens by a killbot (the film was titled KILLBOTS in pre-production, and expensive theater posters with this title can be found at sleazier horror conventions or on eBay). The effect is quite effective, causing everyone in the theater to scream. I was a bit taken back, too, as no one thought these little rolling ‘bots had this much aggression in them (not that electrocuting or pushing people off the second level into a hot pretzel stand is anything mellow). This glorious four seconds of celluloid was as gruesome as the head explosions in both DAWN OF THE DEAD (1979) and SCANNERS (1981). Kudos to special effects artist Anthony Showe—who—despite not being a common name among genre fans—has a respectable list of credits under his belt, including 1982’s CONAN rip-off, SORCERESS, 1985’s slasher classic THE MUTILATOR, and horror comedy effort SATURDAY THE 14^TH STRIKES BACK (1988). I challenge you to find ANYONE who has seen this film and ask them what they remember about it. It won’t be Crampton’s rack or the silly-looking killbots. It’ll be this gooey, disgusting, explosive display of cranial destruction.

The audience got a real charge (full pun intended) out of our heroes, when they realize what’s happening and start looking for things to protect themselves with. When one guy comes walking out with an M-16, I nearly fell out of my chair in hysterics. While I don’t recall any shopping malls in my area selling any type of guns (let alone a military-issued assault rifle), I think the film would have had a TAD more credibility had he armed himself with a cheese grater, or a shiatsu massager, or..I don’t know…ANYTHING you’d find more easily in a mall than an M-16!

But what else can you expect when you plunk down your cash to see something titled CHOPPING MALL? It’s goofy…it’s a borderline slasher satire…and it has a few interesting kill scenes. AND it has Dick Miller.

What more does a grindhouse fan need?

Leslie (Suzee Slater) about to have a high-tech facial make-over in CHOPPING MALL (a.k.a. KILLBOTS).

Cinema BOOK Knife Fight: MIDNIGHT MOVIE BY TOBE HOOPER!

Posted in Cinema Knife Fights, LL Soares Reviews, Horror, Horror-Comedies, Zombies, Nick Cato Reviews, 2011, Movie Books, Tobe Hooper with tags Zombies, Midnight Movie, Tobe Hooper, Texas Chainsaw, Alan Goldsher on October 19, 2011 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT BOOK REVIEW!

MIDNIGHT MOVIE by Tobe Hooper (with Alan Goldsher)
(2011 Three Rivers Press / 316 pages / trade paperback)
By L.L. Soares and Nick Cato

(THE SCENE: A run-down dive bar in the heart of Austin, Texas)

L.L. SOARES – Wow, that was some movie. I guess we should review Tobe Hooper’s lost first film, Destiny Express now.

NICK CATO: What are you talking about? Destiny Express isn’t real. It’s a fictional movie that’s at the heart of the new book, MIDNIGHT MOVIE, where Hooper tries his hand at being a novelist.

LS: You mean we’re not here to review the movie Destiny Express? Now I’m really confused.

NC: As the new novel MIDNIGHT MOVIE opens, Destiny Express is a movie Hooper made when he was a teenager in Austin. No one has actually seen it – not even Hooper himself – when a print suddenly turns up during the annual South By Southwest Music Festival…….

LS:….. Yeah, and a genuine weirdo named Dude McGee, who has found this movie, calls Hooper and offers him a lot of money to come down for the premiere screening and do a Q&A thing afterwards. Hooper is sure the movie is awful, but agrees to do it because he needs the money, and he’s really curious to actually see the flick. Not long after it was filmed, Tobe was in a car accident and has big gaps in his memories of that time period.

NC: There’s always a roll of the eyes when a famed horror film director tries his hand at a novel (Wes Craven, anyone?). When I heard Tobe Hooper—director of my all-time favorite horror film, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) —had written one, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it, especially after hearing that one of my buddies HATED it and another LOVED it. I’m curious to see what you thought of it.

LS: And we don’t normally do book reviews here at the Cinema Knife Fight website, but when there’s a direct link to movies, like a new novel by a legendary horror director, we thought we’d try something different.

And what a coincidence. TEXAS CHAINSAW is my all-time favorite horror movie, too. Since then, Tobe’s movie output has been kind of uneven, but I’m always curious about what he’s up to next, not just in movies, but in this case, his first novel.

NC: Well, for the first 100 pages or so, MIDNIGHT MOVIE had me hook, line, and sinker. The pace was nice, the initial idea seemed great (a screening of an unseen Hooper film shot in his teenage years somehow causes America to become a zombie land)…..

LS: See, that’s where he almost lost me. Hooper is the guy who made TEXAS FRIGGIN CHAINSAW, a movie that was unlike everything else around when it first came out, and yet, in this book, his first (lost) horror movie sounds like just another zombie flick. Considering how creative Tobe is, and the cool title of the movie, Destiny Express, I was hoping that when he described the actual film, it would be something different and bizarre. But it sounds like just another zombie movie. I was bummed out about this at first, since I’m really kind of tired of zombies and was hoping for something a little more original from Mr. Hooper.

But I guess it makes sense, because if Tobe was a teenager at the time, he’d probably make a first movie that was kind of derivative, influenced by the movies that were popular at the time, like George Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968).

In the book, as Nick said, a screening of this lost movie in Austin leads to the audience freaking out, and some kind of killer virus getting out into the world.

NC: Yeah, right after that great set-up, the novel goes in several different directions, and I spent most of the time wondering if Hooper (and co-writer Alan Goldsher) could bring it all together in the final act.

They do and they don’t.

LS: I’m kind of shocked that you didn’t like this one more, because I absolutely loved it. It grabbed me right away with it’s really unique style—it’s written as an “oral history” type book, from various characters’ points of view—including Tobe Hooper himself—with excerpts from characters’ blog postings, Internet message board ramblings, and e-mails, along with the characters’ narratives. I liked the way they put this one together and it kept me barreling through to the end.

And I didn’t think it lost steam after the first 100 pages at all! I thought it did a great job of maintaining a steady pace from start to finish. I was hooked and read this one pretty quickly—and I’m a notoriously slow reader.

NC: While I enjoyed Tobe Hooper as the antagonist (as well as the group of misfits who help him re-film his lost epic), and REALLY liked how the zombies are so in the background you hardly know they’re there, there were so many other things going on I had a hard time staying focused on the story: besides the zombies, why did the screening of the film cause mass terrorist attacks and outbreaks of sexual frenzy? And just who were carrying out these attacks? The zombies, or some kind of splinter cells? Isn’t a zombie invasion enough? The authors seriously should’ve trimmed this thing down a bit (even at just over 300 pages, 75 could’ve easily been chopped without losing anything).

LS: Antagonist? I thought Tobe was the protagonist/hero of this one. He is one of the main people who strive to save the day and reverse the effects that the screening of Destiny Express had on everyone who saw it. I really liked how Hooper was one of the main characters and we got some insight into who this guy is, who normally hides behind the camera. From his annoyance at how people constantly mispronounce his name (it’s “To-bee”), to his anti-social ways, to his struggles to get movies made with studio money, I just really dug that Hooper gave us a peek into his real life, even if it is really skewered.

As for the zombies, another thing I liked about the book was how it wasn’t just flesh-eating zombies that were the big threat. The movie screening affects a lot of different people in very different ways. Some become zombies. Some get a kind of sexually transmitted disease nicknamed the “Blue spew,” the symptoms of which include a need to be constantly having sex, and blue discharge when they do. Some become homicidal maniacs who suddenly erupt with violence. If it was just plain old zombies, I probably would have lost interest early on, but the fact that this book is so strange, and the symptoms of the “virus” so varied and creative, kept me coming back for more.

And no, a zombie invasion is not enough. Because a zombie invasion has been done like a hundred thousand times before. I really wanted something different, and I got it. But if you like zombies, that’s here, too. Like when Tobe has to shoot his zombified best friend in the head to put him out of his misery.

Another main character, film critic Erick Laughlin, finds that his symptoms are even weirder. Not only does he become invisible at night, but he travels to crowded places like movie theaters and shoots red dots from his body at the people collected there, giving them the weird-ass virus symptoms as well. “Spreading the love,” so to speak. I thought this manifestation of the illness was especially INSANE.

And I thought the book was a perfect length. I don’t think Hooper should have cut it down at all.

NC: DOH! I meant to call Tobe the PROTAGONIST before—not the ANTAGONIST—cut me a little slack here. Maybe the virus from the novel is starting to infect me?

While the novel works fine as a metaphor for Hooper’s views on the Hollywood system, and will make independent film makers proud of what they do, MIDNIGHT MOVIE—in the end—is a so-so offering that starts out fantastic then looses steam as it unfolds (the quick and blah conclusion doesn’t help, despite some ends being decently tied up).

I’d say this one is for Hooper fanatics only.

LS: Oh, I totally disagree. I think it’s so much more than a metaphor for Hollywood. In fact, I thought it was an out-and-out comedy a lot of the time. So many hilarious things happen throughout the course of the book, things that are completely absurd, that I found myself really digging the tone of the entire thing. I just found it all incredibly entertaining.

I thought the ending tied up everything pretty well, and gave us some real insight into the nefarious, salami-breathed Dude McGee, as well as a director named Tobe Hooper (we can only guess how much the character of Tobe Hooper is based on the real thing). The only disappointment I had was when I reached the end of the book and suddenly realized that it had been written by Tobe Hooper and Alan Goldsher, because I was reveling in how entertaining it all was, and was bummed out that Tobe didn’t do it by himself (especially since Goldsher’s name is nowhere on the front cover!). You’d think someone who has written so many film scripts could have written a novel by himself. But then I thought about it, and realized there are some talented twosomes in the writing world (some great ones in the horror genre alone), who acquit themselves just fine. So I guess you can add these two guys to that list.

MIDNIGHT MOVIE is so over-the-top, so completely OUT THERE, that I think it would win over a lot of readers who aren’t necessarily fans of Tobe’s films, so it’s not just for Hooper die-hards. I also thought it was very cinematic (no surprise there, since the author is a movie director).

I really enjoyed it, and give it three and a half knives out of a possible five. What about you, Nick?

NC: I didn’t like it as much as you did. It just didn’t wow me. I give it one knife. And chances are Hooper didn’t write even half as much of this as Goldsher did.

LS: Wow, that’s a big difference in opinion. I’m surprised you didn’t like this one better than you did. It was funny a lot of the time and had a real “Bizarro” feel to it.

As for me, I gobbled it up from start to finish, and I’d love to see more from Hooper and Goldsher.

NC: I’d rather watch CHAINSAW MASSACRE for the umpteenth time. But of course I’ll probably follow whatever Hooper decides to unleash next.

LS: Well, that’s it for our special edition of Cinema BOOK Knife Fight. Until next time…

L.L. Soares gives Tobe Hooper’s MIDNIGHT MOVIE – three and a half knives

Nick Cato gives Tobe Hooper’s MIDNIGHT MOVIE – one knife.

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