Bad Movie Night

Don't believe the invite I sent for Bad Movie Night. I tried to connect "Baby New Year" with another killer baby night since so many people are assembling babies currently. But really we've moved on from killer babies onto killer toddlers.

In It's Alive III: Island of the Alive the killer babies are put on an island to lessen their opportunities for killing. It worked in Lord of the Flies, right? Four years later people come to check on how they've not been killing. They indeed have become reformed and return to their homes to become productive members of society. Oops! I went over the whole plot.

In Shogun Assassin the actor playing the baby is four years old but he's in a baby carriage the whole movie (witness the alternative title Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril). See the continuity? Sandra Bernhard does a voice for the Engish dub. That's weird.

Here's what happened last week:

Bad Movie Night

We're going to watch the best horror movies from 2009 suited to Bad Movie Night. That precludes Let The Right One In which is too slow and isn't goofy/gory enough. Same with Big Man Japan:



Okay, that one might be goofy enough. The My Bloody Valentine remake was good but the DVD doesn't come with enough 3-D glasses for everyone. Martyrs is too horrifying and would bring everyone down. Alien Trespass was a movie trying to be a bad movie, which never works. I haven't seen Zombieland, Paranormal Activity or The House of the Devil yet, which all look promising.



So that leaves these two. Trick 'r Treat is an anthology movie starring Anna Paquin and Dylan Baker. Yeah, you know him. He's this guy:



How many of you are thinking child molester right now?

Drag Me To Hell has mucus.

Here's what happened last week:

Don't Miss Lists

Movies
Wow, it's the middle of the month and I haven't done this yet. A couple of weeks ago, this is what caught my eye and some I put on hold.

Stepfather II: Make Room For Daddy - I hear the sequel isn't half bad and Terry O'Quinn returns.

Jennifer's Body - This actually appeared on the AV Club's worst movies of the year list today but I named it the 7th best movie of the year back in December before ever seeing it. We'll see who's right.

Wolfen - The werewolf movie from 1981 that's not American Werewolf in London or The Howling. But do those movies have Edward James Olmos?

Paranormal Activity - Good lord, this is still out in theaters. I'm putting Avatar on hold right now!

Buck Rogers in the 25th century, the complete epic series - I think I only got the first disc, just to remember what it was like. Also, Twiki:



Essential Dinosaur Pack - I probably had something funny to say about this, I don't remember. Maybe something like, there better a Eustreptospondylus in that pack! No, that's not it.

Breastfeeding and Returning to Work - This one too. Hell, write your own joke in the comments.


Music
The essential video collection by Joel, Billy
or
Captain & Tennille, the ultimate collection - Something along the lines of "these are lame!"



Vapours by Islands - Did I mention that I missed my 10 year high school reunion to see the Unicorns and it was the second best concert I ever saw?

Ultraviolet by Kid Sister - I didn't know that was out. Hey guy, this is out.

Rose city by Viva Voce - Marissa and I went to see this band at Cafe Montmarte but they seemingly cancelled them for a wedding reception. Now the bar is gone. I win Cafe Momo. Muhahahahahahaha. Ha.

Pirate radio motion picture soundtrack - I heard the movie was bad but the music was good. Now I can hear all the music but look at something else!

Bad Movie Night

Don't Open Till Christmas mercifully isn't about some Santa Claus that goes around killing people. It's about someone going around killing Santa Claus'. Switcheroo! BleedingSkull.com says:

"Witness dubbed lines that appear without mouth movement. Cringe at the cheese-spook score, popping up every five seconds, regardless of what’s transpiring onscreen. Scratch your head at the bicycle riding Santa, fumbling around some kind of wax museum in a drunken stupor for nearly ten minutes"

Here's director of Shaun of the Dead Edgar Wright's comment on Don't movies:



We already watched Don't Go Into The Woods... Alone! which I DON'T remember too well but it's by the guy who did past BMN movie The Executioner, Part II , which I loved, and future BMN movie Lady Street Fighter, which I also love! We will soon watch Don't Panic a movie out of Mexico City.

I'm glad I brought up Mexico City. Santa Claus comes from that same city and as you might expect from all the UFO visitations and drug kidnappings the inhabitants of that city have become a little nutty. Bleeding Skull again:

"I hereby proclaim this seasonal nightmare required feel-good viewing once a year, every year. Just don’t show it to any little kids."

Note that we're not really watching the movie but the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode with this movie that just came out a couple of weeks ago. With limited time only Tom Servo figure! No, I haven't played with it. Much.

Here's what happed last week:

Raimi loves the snow!

If you don't live in Wisconsin, you might not know that we had a pretty big snow storm last night. Well, it turns out that my 8 month old puppy LOVES the snow! Tonight, Michel and I took him out to play in the snow (which is deeper than he is tall), and i took a video and some pictures:

Bad Movie Night

Christmas horror is my favorite genre of horror after zombies. Oh Santa Zombie: Slip a Sable Under The Tree... Alone!, why don't you exist? Feeders 2 is SOV and from my personal POV those are the kind of movies I LOV. Yeah, that's all I got for this one.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 is only the second time we're going to watch the sequel to a movie we saw previously. The last time was for our third movie ever, Sleepaway Camp 2. But that was right after watching Sleepaway Camp. SN, DN 2 is out of print and demanding 30 dollars for the DVD! So I bought a VHS for 6 bucks. If Linnea Quigley appears in this only in flashback to the first movie and we already counted that one does it still count in the LQ, which would now be at 7? That's almost 5% of all the movies!

Bad Movie Night

Apparently all you need to be a Phantom of the [Blank] movie is a guy who had a disabling accident who's not seen much after that. Like Gary Busey!



To complete the mall theme, since we already saw Chopping Mall, I haven't seen The Initiation with Daphne Zuniga yet and Hide and Go Shriek is out of print, there's Dawn of the Dead. DotD will be our 150th movie, our sesquicentennial. If I'd thought ahead it would have been fun to note our 150th movie with a sasquacentennial celebration of bigfoot movies. Is that a stretch?

Both these movies have Ken Foree in them. He was Buford 'Bubba' Brownlee in From Beyond and looks like this. Remember?:



Hey!, the AV Club just posted the Best Bad Movies of the decade. Guess which one was number one. And don't worry, we'll get to Dragon Wars and Glitter soon. Also, I think this means I have to watch The Happening after swearing off M. Night Shama etc. Crap.



P.S. I found out if you play the two lambada movie trailers from the last post simultaneously you get a Wizard of Oz/Pink Floyd thing happening.

Cannon Movie Night

I only found 3 Thanksgiving themed horror movies. There's ThanksKilling, a film one Amazon reviewer gives four stars to but it's "not quite as funny" as Poultrygeist:



There's Thanxgiving, which looks like this:



So that just leaves Home Sweet Home, a 1981 movie that's impossible to search for and not get Sweet Home Alabama with Reese Witherspoon, stars Jake "Body By" Steinfeld and the girl who's not Thora Birch in Hocus Pocus, Vinessa Shaw. Who, btw, is hot now. This is proven by the most high profile mention she's ever gotten.

Last time I was watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 I had a broken ankle and in the middle of it I started to fall while using my crutches and, so not to put any weight on my foot I fell to the floor instead. It hurt very, very much and I STILL enjoyed the movie. This is our last Cannon film (for now) and the second film by Tobe Hooper. The other Hooper film, Lifeforce, was the only other Cannon Film we had seen previous to this month.

The year after TCM2 came out Cannon Films had some high profile and expensive flops, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Masters of the Universe. These failures started an infighting between the two Cannon Cousins, Golan and Globus, and was enough to ultimately bankrupt the company. Golan and Globus would take their feud public by releasing two competing lambada movies on the same day. No, seriously. The verdict: Globus' Lambada: Set The Night On Fire grossed $2 million in 1,117 theaters and Golan's The Forbidden Dance made $720,000 in 637 theaters. But let's have our own showdown. Which trailer is better?:

Cannon(ball) Movie Night

From the guys who wrote the horror movies The Gate and The Faculty and starring David Naughton from American Werewolf in London comes a frighting tale of the "Game Master", whose twisted mind sends a group of innocent college students through a demented night of hell, forced to play a game of the Game Master's making. Just kidding, this is a Disney movie about a scavenger hunt. It's one of Disney's first PG rated movies though, so there is some graphic cleavage. Look for David Naughton drinking a Dr. Pepper in the movie:



When you think Cannon Films your mind might turn towards Cannonball Run. This would be incorrect, they have nothing to do with the film. But here it is during Cannon month anyway. Shut up. It's not to be confused with the Paul Bartel movie Cannonball! starring David Carradine and Mary Woronov about a cross country car race:



...which in turn shouldn't be confused with the Paul Bartel movie Death Race 2000 starring David Carradine and Mary Woronov about a cross country car race. Which in turn shouldn't be confused with the Paul Bartel movie Eating Raoul starring Ed Bagley Jr. and Mary Woronov about a cross country car race through the metaphor of a cannibal prostitute serial killer.

Cannon Movie Night

The worst musicals are science fiction musicals. Okay, there's only one other one, Toomorrow:



Remember in 1994 when everyone was dancing in the street, had late 70s model cars with fins taped on them and wore silver jumpsuits? That's because The Apple accurately predicted a year 14 years before it happened! One of the Cannon Cousins directed this one, Menahem Golan, with Yoram Globus producing. The movie, which updates the Old Testament story (a "new" testament if you will), was a flop everywhere in the universe. It wasn't until Golan/Globus started cranking out action movies half a decade later did the money start coming in.

The best musicals are horror musicals. Sweeney Todd, Little Shop of Horrors, Evil Dead: The Musical...



...um, that episode of Buffy. I've never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show but people seem to like it. Then there's Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise starring Suspiria's Jessica Harper and that guy who was in muppet stuff:



He also did the music. More songs of his: (Just An) Old Fashioned Love Song, Rainbow Connection and We've Only Just Begun. So we're in for a treat. No, I'm serious!

Amazing Discovery

What I was trying to search for tonight that took me 2 seconds after I got home:



But Look Around You was fun too:

Bad Movie Night

Recognize this logo?:



Do you have the overwhelming feeling you're going to see something awesome? That's because Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus started filling America's eyeholes with greatness as soon as they bought Cannon for $500,000 in 1979. They would go on to make Enter the Ninja, Invaders From Mars, Cobra, The Last American Virgin and Alien from L.A. and those are the movies we're NOT going to watch.



Their biggest franchise was the American Ninja movies: American Ninja, American Ninja 2: The Confrontation, American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt, American Ninja 4: The Annihilation and American Ninja V: We Just Started Using Roman Numerals All of the Sudden for No Reason. Some, if not all (but really 3), of them are



as Joe Armstrong who's going to get Ninja-y and a little bit American-y but you should really look out for the ninja-y part all over your ass. With romantic interest Hilly from Weird Science.

Speaking of ninjas, Duel to the Death has them. At one point they combine to form a super ninja, ala Voltron. But I've said too much...

Don't Miss Lists

The library has gotten new stuff. They're going to give it to me. For Free!

DVDs

The stepfather - I was totally going to buy this. Terry O'Quinn and the girl from Popcorn and Cutting Class demonstrate that step parents are always evil.



Saturday morning cartoons, 1970s - Why not? There's Grape Ape, Banana Splits, New adventures of Gilligan, Sealab 202. All the shows I'm slightly too young to remember.



Runaway - I was totally going to buy this one too even though it came out a million years ago. Tom Selleck takes care of killer robots in the future. Not current killer robots!

Robot chicken. Star wars, episode 2 - I think I'll watch anything Star Wars that Lucas has nothing to do with.

The Last house on the left - The original Wes Craven movie.

The hurt locker - Poor locker, did someone pound on you because they didn't turn the lock clockwise a couple of turns first?

Flash of genius - Could be the best windshield wiper based movie ever.

Elvira, mistress of the dark - I was just reading this AV Club interview with her about how this movie has become quite the cult item. And now it's already in transit.

Anvil! the story of Anvil - Exclamation point. I have to watch it.

Drag me to Hell - This I put on hold a long time ago. I'm 16th for 16 copies. I'm next!

Inglourious Basterds - Tarantino hasn't disappointed me yet. Except for his last movie, that was a little disappointing.

Humpday - Based on a real porn competition run by Dan Savage.

District 9 - Based on this short film:



(500) days of Summer - Zooey Deschanel made a good movie!

The world according to Monsanto - That everything is fine as long as you throw away seeds you didn't buy?

Getting to know electricity - I really have fallen out with electricity lately.


Music

Jewish ballroom dance in Yiddish - Six copies and no holds.

Man on the moon the end of day by Kid Cudi

The boy who knew too much by Mika

I told you I was freaky by Flight of the Conchords - If only for Sugarlumps:



The Beatles by Beatles - I got my wish from last month that they get the remastered White Album.

Sainthood by Tegan and Sara - My favorite twin sister lesbian musical duo that I saw throw up once.

Piano music for babies

Movie Night

No Bad because this night is so good.

The best horror movie franchise villains of all time (meaning after 1968 [and no bullshit crap like Dracula]) are, in order:

1. Freddy Kruger
2. Jason Voorhees
3. Michael Myers
4. Leatherface
5. Pinhead
6. Chucky
7. Angus Scrimm
8. Jaws
9. Leprechaun
10. Dead, wet Japanese girls



We're going to see number 5 but, personally, my favorite cenobite is Chatterer:



The worst cenobite ever? CD from Hellraiser III, a former DJ that throws compact disks at people. Who'd think hell could run out of ideas?



And who'd think there would be a toy?

The Thing will be our fourth John Carpenter movie, a record for directors at (B)MN. It's also the second Kurt Russell/Carpenter pairing after Big Trouble in Little China. It's in the top five of best horror movies ever.

Hey!, check out an interview posted today of Jess "Bloody Moon" Franco, last week's horror director legend over at the AV Club.

Bad Movie Night

If there's one person who's legendary for making bad horror movies, it's Ed Wood. And it can only help your enjoyment of Plan 9 if you watch Tim Burton's Ed Wood. In case you haven't seen it here are some things you should know:

-The movie was funded by Baptists, some of whom are in the movie.



-The Baptists objected to Tor Johnson having lines because he was unintelligible.





-The movie was written around 8 minutes of footage Bela Lugosi looking at a flower because...
-Lugosi died before production began so Ed Wood's wife's chiropractor takes his place, holding his arm over his face the whole time.

So that got me to wondering who the new Ed Wood is. If that's measured in amount of movies then the answer is Jess Franco (190). If it's measured in aliases:

Joan Almirall | Rosa M. Almirall | Rosa Maria Almirall | Rosa María Almirall | Clifford Brawn | Clifford Brown Jr. | Clifford Brown | Juan G. Cabral | Betty Carter | Candy Coster | Terry De Corsia | Rick Deconinck | Raymond Dubois | Chuck Evans | Toni Falt | Dennis Farnon | Jess Franck | J. Franco | Jesse Franco | Jess Franco | Jesús Franco | A.M. Frank | Adolf M. Frank | Anton Martin Frank | Jeff Frank | Jess Frank | Wolfgang Frank | Manfred Gregor | Jack Griffin | Robert Griffin | Lennie Hayden | Frank Hollman | Frank Hollmann | Frarik Hollmann | Rick Deconinck in Italy | B.F. Johnson | J.P. Johnson | James Lee Johnson | James P. Johnson | David J. Khune | David Khune | David Khunne II | D. Khunne Jr. | D. Khunne | David J. Khunne | David Khunne | David H. Klunne | David Kuhne | David Kunne | David Kühne | Lulu Laverne | Lulú Laverne | Franco Manera | J. Franck Manera | J. Frank Manera | Jesus Franco Manera | Jesús Manera | Jeff Manner | Roland Marceignac | A.L. Mariaux | A.L. Marioux | John O'Hara | Preston Quaid | P. Querut | Lowel Richmond | Dan L. Simon | Dan Simon | Dave Tough | Pablo Villa | Joan Vincent | Robert Zinnermann | Cole Polly in French version | James Gardner in French version

It's Jess Franco as well. Or should I say Lulu Laverne!

Bloody Moon (AKA Die Säge des Todes [translation: The Saw of Death]) is only our third Video Nasty. Video Nasties was a list of films deemed unsuitable for UK audiences. In fact, people in the UK wouldn't see the movies on that list uncut until 2001 or later. Unless they could find a bootleg. Ten of the 72 movies on the list still have not been seen uncut in that country. We've seen The Burning (Cropsy killing people with hedge trimmers) and Night of the Demon (Bigfoot killing people by pulling off their penises).

Bad Movie Night

Legends of Horror month continues with the sub-theme of the siege movie. That's when you're in a place and other people want in your place but you don't want them in your place so you try to keep them out of your place while they try to get into your place.

Assault on Precinct 13 is John Carpenter's second movie, following the sci-fi spoof Dark Star. Did you know John Carpenter scores most of his movies, including the iconic Halloween score? Look:



I mean listen.

I mentioned that watching a non-horror movie by a legend of horror may be a little like watching the George A. Romero romance There's Always Vanilla. Maybe we should watch that, judging by this video I found:



Speaking of, Romero executive produced his own remake of NotLD and had make-up artist Tom Savini direct. They're still coming to get Barbara, they still hole up in a farm house (zombies are excellent siegers). Ending's different though.

Bad Movie Night

Dario Argento in '85! ...made these two movies that are super Italian-y with their weird dubbing and faulty logic and beautiful murder set pieces.

Creepers is the shortened version of Phenomena for American audiences because they thought Americans were too stupid and impatient to sit through the long dialogue scenes. This is good for us because those scenes are boring and I don't understand them. It stars pre-Labyrinth Jennifer Connelly and post-Halloween Donald Pleasence.



I haven't seen Demons. I hear it's gory and there is nudity. Mario Bava's (Black Sabbath) son directed it just after the MST3K movie Devil Fish which is about a shark octopus hybrid and stars Massacre In Dinosaur Valley's Michael Sopkiw. I'm disappointed they didn't call it Shocktopus!

I checked my Netflix to make sure Demons was on the way and it got skipped even though it was available "Now". That hardly ever happens. So I decided to send the invite anyway and order the movie from Amazon. If it doesn't arrive in time we'll watch the movie that got shipped instead: Kung Fu Zombie.

Burgers

i'm hosting trivia, and the first question of the night was: "What united states forest service mascot's name and image is protected by federal law?"

and a team just came to complain that i didn't give them points for their answer, but they put "Smokey the Burger". i guess the guy was thinking about what he was gonna order, but i just think its really funny.

Don't Miss Lists

beHold!

Movies and TV

Violent City - Someone at the Madison Public Library loves Charles Bronson. They add a new movie of his every month. Anyway, it's Italian and the Italians don't do anything wrong except when choosing sides in a World War.

Disco Godfather - I mean, it's called Disco Godfather! I've been really interested in blaxploitation since finally seeing Coffy recently and finding out that it is awesome.



The Brothers Bloom - From the guy who did Brick, the best movie of whatever year that was.

Night of The Living Dead - The eight millionth copy of NotLD the library has gotten, this is called the "40th Anniversary Edition". I find it funny that someone else released a DVD under the same name but bragged it was a "2 disc Collectors Edition" but the reviews on Amazon say they just divided the movie over two discs. Of course, who would think that a quality copy of the movie would have a cover like this:



There's a lot of terrible design when it comes to DVD covers but come on.

Funny People - I was trepidatious when I heard the new Judd Apatow movie starred Adam Sandler. And even more so since it got mixed reviews but I have to try. Hey, wouldn't be funny if someone was looking for this movie and accidentally got Funny Games?



Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 - Documentaries about people who are passionate about stupid things are some of my favorites. Anyone see the crossword puzzle documentary?

Music

Feels by Animal Collective - Worst future best of the year album ever.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix - Best future overrated album of the year.

That's confusing.

Post-nothing by Japandroids

Popular Songs by Yo La Tengo - Have you ever liked an album and thought, "yet another great record by these people" and therefore been underwhelmed?

Abbey Road by Beatles - This is the only re-mastered Beatles the library got. I want to hear how much better it sounds but I'd prefer the White Album.

Bad Movie Night

We finally have our first acronym movie since C.H.U.D., R.O.T.O.R. V and Q don't count but H.O.T.S. and C.H.O.M.P.S. would. This movie has never come out on DVD and is currently out of print (is anybody printing VHS anymore?). You can only see it at my house!

Chopping Mall AKA Killbots has Dick Miller in it. I keep count of Cameron Mitchell, Clu Gulager and Linnea Quigley but not Dick even though he has been in Rock 'n' Roll High School, White Dog, Night of the Creeps and Dead Heat. Why not? Because you expect Dick Miller to be in a lot of these films. He's in everything. He's in Gremlins and Terminator and A Bucket of Blood. Dick Miller is so cool he was deleted from Pulp Fiction as the owner of the junk yard that gets rid of Marvin's body.

I also said Chopping Mall has the one student from Head of the Class you don't remember. Okay, well first there's Arvid, of course, his fat friend who was also in Better Off Dead, Robin Givens (the most famous one), Khrystyne Haje (the hottest one), the guy that was so cool he sat on his desk next to the teachers desk(!) and the little girl. He's the other one. Wait, I forgot about the Indian guy. And, oh crap, this lady:



And wait, wasn't there a slutty one? Never mind, I never watched Head of the Class.

Bad Movie Night

What a world showcase of films Bad Movie Night is. Mystics in Bali (or Leák) is from Indonesia and The Boxer's Omen (or Mo) is from Hong Kong. But they both exist in the world of black magic. Also, Asia.

When people ask what my favorite bad movie is I often say Lady Terminator. MiB (not Men in Black)is by the same person. So also considering Dangerous Seductress, which has one of my favorite opening scenes ever, I really need to get my hands on other stuff this guy has done. Anybody own Selir adipati gendra sakti?

Watch out for maybe the most unusual death we've ever seen in a movie.

The Boxer's Omen will be our first Shaw Brothers movie, which took too long. They have one of my favorite intros in movies:



Which you'll recognize from Tarantino using it in front of Kill Bill:



We could do a whole month of Shaw Brothers: The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Five Deadly Venoms, The Super Inframan, The Mighty Peking Man.

Speaking of, I want to do a whole month of Cannon Films films. American Ninja, The Apple, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, New Year's Evil, Over The Top, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and, yes, Bloodsport. Was there ever a greater production company? In conclusion, I want this shirt.