31 MOVIES IN 31 DAYS
For several years I had been wanting to take the "31 Movies in 31 Days" challenge for October and this year is the year. I kicked it off by getting behind as soon as possible and then went on a 4 movie bender on the 4th day of the month. Now I am back on track and looking to get behind again. So, rather than post a blurb/review for each film I am going to do these in sets of 5 or so. That will give you something lengthy to read each time and allow me the inevitable chore of getting behind.
#1 Phantoms(1998)
Phantoms was a movie I had never heard of starring Rose Macgowan, Ben Affleck and Liev Schrieber. At first glance, this movie looks phoned in at best and I had no doubt in my mind that the acting was the sole reason I had never heard of this film but once it got rolling it was actually pretty entertaining. Macgowan and her Dr. Sister visit a sleepy little vacation town to find everyone either missing or dead and call on the "George and Lennie" duo of Affleck and Schrieber to do some investigating. When it is clear they are both absolutely no use Peter O'toole shows up with a little insight into the situation.
Overall, a pretty interesting watch just because of some of the gnarly attacks and the final battle scene. Don't go to the bathroom during the attack scene on Schriebers character( probably the most interesting of the entire film).
#2 Progeny (1998)
My second film(also from 1998? WTH?) is an interesting one. Progeny is about a a woman who gets impregnated by aliens that keep experimenting on the humans. Produced by the same folks that did Reanimator, I thought we would be in for a similar ride but this film actually kept its story quite close to its heart and made for a well done suspense story rather than using campy gore to its advantage. Heavy on story and low on camp also means there's not much alien sexy time to be seen and surprisingly very few impregnation scenes. It kept my attention but not much more.
#3 Shock Em' Dead (1991)
Probably one of the greatest campy, gorey, schlock movies I have seen in the last ten years. Starring Traci Lords this film has it all girls, "rock n roll", comedy, spandex, gore, and chest vaginas?
The story goes off the rails almost immediately when a pimply faced pizza worker named Angel Martinez tries out for the shittiest band of all time and basically gets laughed out of the rehearsal space and kicked out on his ass. This all after he told his boss to fuck off in a hilarious scene. He then gets kicked out of the trailer park he's living in for shredding too hard. All of these hardships lead Angel to make a deal with the devil "to be the greatest rock star of all time"
Angel then wakes up on a sea of tits and cocaine. He starts his new life by looking over his sweet axe collection and then going back to show that shitty band(fronted by some guy wearing a 'Bro(the bra for men)'" who's boss by ripping through some terrible song called "Hairy Cherry", now you're on the right page.
After showing what it's like living a rock star life: you know, pinching girls asses, having them show you their tits, dumpster blowjobs, the usual. We get a glimpse into what Angel is gonna have to do for this new lifestyle. In an epic kitchen scene he whips out his "chest vagina" which apparently needs to be fed souls in order to keep him alive. The killing begins!
The spree starts off with some great revenge killings(the whole pizza place gets it) but then he seems to soon run out of people to kill and turns his sights to Traci Lords, who he's apparently deeply in love with. This culminates in a hilarious fight scene with Lords' boyfriend to win her over.
I have two takeaways; 1) I'm proud of Traci Lords for not getting naked 2) "I ain't seen this much tuna since the fishing trip I went on last summer" such great lines in this one.
Greatest B-movie I've seen in a looooong time!
#4 Hell of The Living Dead(1980)
Italian zombie gore at its finest. I originally thought this was a Fulci movie but was dead wrong. The story's a good one, a female reporter and her team go into the New Guinea jungle to research a group of flesh eating zombies that were created by a nuclear chemical spill from a nearby plant.
The story has an interesting "moral" and it is laced throughout the entire film. That of, if we don't feed the third world countries they will turn into zombies and kill everyone. An interesting take on a real world problem.
The super excellent soundtrack by Goblin helps you get through some of the slow scenes which are few and far between. There's a lot to keep you busy here. Once the reporter tries to go "undercover" and try to fit in with the cannibals we get some pretty great scenes full of flesh eating, intestines and human sacrifice, with a little full frontal nudity to boot.
This film only gets better with its culminating scene as the mouthy reporter is essentially speaking directly to the audience about the worlds faults as she is ripped limb from limb. The greatest ending! Someone email me if they can find this soundtrack anywhere, I've had no luck tracking it down.
#5 The Spawn of the Slithis(1978)
I had not seen this movie since about 1996 or 97 and had fond memories. It's basically a shout out to the Cold War era nuclear monster flicks from the 50s set in "today"(1978). My wife wrote it off as a ripoff of "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" but I think that was a mistake.(ed. note she merely stated that Slithis looked like the Creature and does not feel it was a ripoff, at all - :))
You know the story but not like this. Nuclear leak causes slime to take on its own properties and morph into a fish-like creature (SLITHIS) to start killing dogs and then people. The first death scene is by far my fave with the old man being forced by he wife to get up and check on "what that commotion was?" and declaring "I DETEST ROBES!". That gave me a good laugh for quite awhile. But also made it easier for me to see him die.
The rest of the movie plays out with the dummies in the town trying to track down what is killing everyone. Led by the high school journalism teach who thinks he is a full on investigative news journalist, the town keeps coming up short. I thought the "flashbacks" in the movie showing some insight into what the journalism teacher was thinking were interesting but overall didnt contribute much to the story, they were probably just put in to pad out the running time anyway.
The downside of this movie is the terrible acting by the police chief. This guy is straight absurd! I dont know what favor the director owed him but to stand out as a BAD actor in the movie, you gotta know he is sooooo terrible. Backed up with a terrible score you would think this movie would be even worse but it actually holds out quite nicely. I really enjoyed the whimsical music of the street bums and winos right before they were attacked. The final scenes on the boat were awesome too with the luck-dumb characters choosing to offer the monster back to the sea where it came from rather than taking it in as a trophy, paving the way for my directorial debut "The Return of Slithis" (I WISH)
Overall this movie is fucking SLITHIS you HAVE to see it if you haven't. Its a cult classic for a reason.
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