TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE SPANISH CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2017) **

A rock band called “The Metal Cocks”, who have a pregnant lead singer (who sports a hairy bush), go on the road to play a gig.  Naturally, their van breaks down on the way to the show.  The stranded musicians are almost immediately taken in by the weird locals who at first seem hospitable, if a little eccentric.  However, it isn’t long before they reveal themselves to be cannibals who want to dismember, kill, and eat the band. 

Despite the title, it’s really nothing like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  In fact, it’s more like a Spanish version of Two-Thousand Maniacs with a sub-Troma budget.  Or maybe a gory tribute to Jess Franco’s Killer Barbys since it features a rock band with a female lead singer.  Whatever way you want to view it, it still comes up short.

The film relies heavily on grossout humor, although none of it is actually funny.  It’s just gross for the sake of being gross.  There are scenes of guys jacking off, lots of shit and fart humor, and even a Lambada joke.  The gore includes a bloody bludgeoning, a weird scene where a clown puts a Spider-Man mask on a guy and beats him to death in front of happy children, one guy gets his dick bitten off, and a gut-eating contest.  The scene where a little girl performs an impromptu C-Section by ripping the pregnant woman’s baby out of her stomach with her bare hands may have been objectionable if it hadn’t been done so crudely.  

Oh, and no one uses a chainsaw until the last fifteen minutes. 

As an over-the-top gore and grossout show, I guess it’ll do.  I mean, if you want to see a guy shit in another guy’s face, you might enjoy it.   It’s just that it never succeeds in doing anything besides grossing you out.  If that’s what you came for, you may dig it.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: SORORITY PARTY MASSACRE (2012) **

Detective Watts (Thomas Downey) is like two seconds away from being taken off the force for police brutality.  Lucky for him, his Captain’s daughter is missing, so instead of being suspended, he gets assigned to find her.  Seems she was supposed to arrive at her sorority, but she never showed up.  After Watts arrives at the sorority house to investigate, more and more girls are murdered.  It’s then up to him and the dim-witted town sheriff (Ed O’Ross) to apprehend the killer. 

The big problem with Sorority Party Massacre is the tone is all out of whack.  It starts off with a solid opening sequence that copies Scream as a gravelly-voiced killer threatens a sexy co-ed over the phone.  So far, so good.  However, its many attempts at comedy are mostly unsuccessful (there are fart jokes).  It’s not really a spoof of the horror genre, and it’s just too goofy to work as a straight-up slasher.  Ultimately, it never decides if it wants to be a comedy with occasional bloodshed, or a horror flick with occasional laughs. 

Another stumbling block is the film’s over-reliance on flashbacks to propel the plot forward.  The comedic flashbacks of Downey dealing with his anger management issues are especially lame and go on far too long.  There are a lot of montages too, but since many of them revolve around girls wearing bikinis (or sometimes even less), I guess I can give them a Mulligan on that. 

The pacing (not to mention the editing) gets increasingly erratic as the film wears on, and the hefty one-hundred-and-three-minute running time doesn’t do it any favors either.  It’s also a bit of a rip-off that the sisters never have a sorority party per se.  (The girls are just gathered to partake in a scholarship contest.)  The ending is needlessly convoluted too, which also holds it back.  On the upside, it boasts a pretty decent cast, all things considered.  We have Leslie Easterbrook as the sorority den mother, Kevin Sorbo as Downey’s captain, Louis Mandylor as the mayor, Ron Jeremy as a cop, and the late Richard Moll as a creepy boat captain.  The kills aren’t bad either.  There’s death by acid, a bee attack (which occurs offscreen, unfortunately), burning, and a hatchet to the head.  

It’s just a shame that everything else in between the carnage is so overcooked.  The film would’ve been just fine if it concentrated on the sorority babes in the house being menaced by a killer.  Unfortunately, all the subplots and detective bullshit weigh it down. 

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: SLIME CITY MASSACRE (2010) ** ½

Twenty-two years after the release of Slime City, writer/director Gregory Lamberson returned with this super-goopy sequel.  It’s bigger in many ways (especially in scope and budget) than its predecessor.  That said, it’s just as uneven as the original, although admittedly, some of the slimy special effects are sporadically amusing. 

After a dirty bomb drops on New York, scavengers Alexa (Jennifer Bihl) and Cory (Kealan Patrick Burke) work their way through the city wasteland.  They meet up with another couple (Debbie Rochon and Lee Perkins) and team up to survive.  While foraging for supplies, they come across a stash of homemade hooch and Himalayan Yogurt.  When they eat and drink the slop, they turn into drippy, oozy, horny slime people. 

Slime City Massacre is hit and miss both in terms of tone and humor.  It honestly didn’t need the constant black and white flashbacks to the cult leader who created the slime-inducing microbrew, and the whole backstory of the killer yogurt was probably more convoluted than it needed to be.  However, it does feature a great scene where Debbie turns into a bathtub full of orange goo and her boyfriend STILL manages to find a way to have a little sexy time with her. 

The cast is ideal for this sort of thing.  Rochon is a lot of fun as one of the mutating slime junkies, and her final form is pretty sweet too.  I also enjoyed seeing Roy Frumkes turning up as a greedy land developer (named “Ronald Crump”).  His appearance here makes sense since these films have always been a homage to Street Trash.  (A bottle of Tenafly Viper makes a cameo.)  Also, it’s hard not to like any movie that features Lloyd Kaufman disintegrating before the opening credits.  While it does take a while to get to the gory bits, when the blood and slime finally start flowing, there’s a great gag where someone gets wine bottles shoved into the eyeballs. 

I can’t say Slime City Massacre was worth the wait, but it’s about on par with Slime City.  In fact, I’d probably watch a third installment if Lamberson ever concludes the trilogy.  Hopefully, he won’t wait another twenty-two years to make another one.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: SERIAL KILLER MASSACRE (1997) ** ½

Serial Killer Massacre is a Shot-on-Video horror movie that sort of plays like a serial killer version of a chick flick.  As camcorder horrors go, it’s better than most.  Then again, if you have a low tolerance for this sort of thing, you probably won’t walk away impressed.  That said, the performances are certainly better than you would typically see in something like this.

A guy in a ski mask runs around kidnapping and killing women.  He also hears voices and is so unhinged that when his therapist tells him, “Have a nice day”, he snaps and strangles her!  Meanwhile, a female serial killer is going around picking up dudes and murdering them.  It’s only a matter of time before their paths cross.  After they unsuccessfully try to kill one another, they figure, it must be love at first fight… err… sight.  But will it be a match made in heaven or a match made in hell?

The murder sequences are kind of hit and miss as the film offers you a mix of the standard stabbings along with some assorted shootings.  One scene blatantly rips off the iconic bathtub scene in I Spit on Your Grave, although it’s not nearly as effective.  Then again, it’s like I always say:  If you’re going to steal from somewhere, steal from the best.  We also get an OK decapitation and a solid scissors-to-the-eyeballs scene.  There’s even some gratuitous T & A in there for good measure, including a comically long scene where a decent looking lady starts sexing up an ugly fella. 

Honestly, there are no real surprises here.  This is one of those movies where what you see is what you get.  However, at fifty-five minutes, it doesn’t waste any time getting down to business, which is always appreciated, especially in the SOV horror genre. 

AKA:  Dying to Meet You.  AKA:  Serial Killers:  A Love Story. 

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE SCISSORS MASSACRE (2008) ****

A young schoolgirl named Mayumi (Rin Asuka) seemingly has everything going for her.  She’s in love with the captain of the track team, and now that her older sister has been married off, she’s taken over the best bedroom in the house.  Life is good.  Tragically, her family is subject to a horrific attack that leaves Mayumi’s mother dead and her face horribly disfigured.  Once life begins returning to some semblance of normal, a killer in a red coat starts to kill off her classmates with a pair of extremely sharp scissors. 

For the first half hour or so of this movie you’re gonna think this is just a sweet coming of age story.  You’ll be wondering how can such a sweet and innocent drama be called The Scissors Massacre?  Once it turns on a dime, shit gets real in a hurry.  Folks, trust me when I tell you, this flick features some of the ghastliest bloodletting I’ve seen in a while. 

Surprisingly enough, the dramatic scenes are exceptionally strong for a movie with the words “Scissors” and “Massacre” in the title.  We really get to spend time with Mayumi and her family before everything goes to hell.  Even then, we get to see their interactions and how they come together in the wake of tragedy.  Just when it seems like the wounds are healing, problems arise to threaten to tear them apart yet again.  The film is full of some genuinely heartbreaking moments and well-crafted drama.  In fact, some of the dramatic scenes are more painful to watch than the horror stuff. 

This is actually a sequel to a flick called A Slit-Mouthed Woman.  I’m not sure if it’s directly related or if it’s just a tale about another Slit-Mouthed Woman (which is a popular Japan folktale).  Either way, this is one unsettling, effective, and unforgettable horror movie. 

AKA:  A Slit-Mouthed Woman 2.  AKA:  Carved 2.  

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: REUNION MASSACRE (2014) * ½

Breana Mitchell stars as a woman who recently broke up with her boyfriend (Jarad Allen).  She receives an ominous warning from an automated Zoltar fortune teller at a carnival but thinks nothing of it.  When she gets home, she finds an invitation to her high school reunion waiting for her in the mail.  On her way to the reunion, her car runs out of gas, and she is captured and tormented by a killer in a clown mask. 

Reunion Massacre is only an hour long, so writer/director Dustin Ferguson added bumpers starring a horror hostess named “Grindhouse Ghoulia” (Kerrie Waybright Smith) to beef up the running time.  It’s kind of funny when she goes to say the title of the film, someone else says “Reunion Massacre” over top of her dialogue, which makes it obvious that this was repackaged and/or re-released for Tubi.   (Apparently, the original title was Invitation to Die.)

While Ferguson has the bare bones for a solid horror flick here, it’s mostly undone by all the padding.  He gives us long scenes of Mitchell cooking and eating spaghetti, a montage of her and a gal pal putting up Halloween decorations, pointless driving scenes, black and white domestic abuse flashbacks, negative image dream scenes, needless shots of Mitchell hanging around a botanical garden, and a lot of time is spent on her carving a pumpkin.  There’s even a scene where she lies on the couch and watches Casablanca.  Note to prospective filmmakers:  Never show a scene of someone watching Casablanca in your crappy movie because it will just make the audience wish they were watching Casablanca instead. 

Oh, and can you even call this Reunion Massacre if she never even makes it to the reunion?  Shouldn’t it be called On the Way to the Reunion Massacre?  Still, as bad as most of this is, it’s far from the worst Dustin Ferguson movie I’ve seen. 

AKA:  Invitation to Die.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: REDWOOD MASSACRE: ANNIHILATION (2020) ** ½

We pick up ten years after the events of The Redwood Massacre.  Tom (Jon Campling), the father of one of the Redwood Killer’s victims, has written a book about the Redwood Massacre.  While on a book tour, an obsessed fan named Max (Damien Puckler) claims he’s discovered new evidence of the Killer’s whereabouts, prompting the author and his daughter Laura (Danielle Harris) to join in a search of the area.  Little does the family realize, the fanboy is also a serial killer himself and may be leading them into a trap. 

It seems that returning writer/director David Ryan Keith went into this sequel with the intention of playing with the audience’s expectations.  Everywhere the first film zigged, this one zags.  Instead of having an English cast this time out, they managed to get nothing but American actors (including Halloween franchise fan favorite Harris).  Instead of taking place in the woods, it’s set in an underground military base/mad scientist lab where the hulking killer was born and bred.  Speaking of the killer, he’s given a lot less screen time in this one, which means the body count is lower and the gore isn’t as over the top.  (We still get plenty of stabbing, hacking, gut ripping, and head lopping though.)

Like a lot of sequels, Keith’s under the impression that bigger is better.  The budget is obviously larger, we have not one, but two killers, and the running time is expanded to a cumbersome one-hundred-and-three minutes.  The killer is also given an unnecessary backstory, which I guess can be said for many horror sequels.  I’m not saying that it doesn’t work.  It’s just that it doesn’t work quite as well as the first time around, and there are a lot more lulls in between the highlights. 

Harris is likable as ever.  She gives a feisty performance and is credible in her ass-kicking scenes.  She also gets a memorable moment where she gun-punches someone.  Puckler is pretty good too as the fledgling serial killer as he looks like a slightly more intense version of Casper Van Dien.  Their efforts don’t quite push this one into the win column, but they do help keep it afloat throughout the overly bloated running time. 

AKA:  Redwood Massacre 2:  Annihilation.  

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE REDWOOD MASSACRE (2014) ***

A group of friends go camping in the woods.  Of course, the main reason they’re going there is because it just so happens to be a famous murder site… because… you know, fun times, right?  Predictably, the mythical killer is still lumbering around the forest, and he’s just hankering to hack even more campers to pieces. 

The Redwood Massacre is another one of those movies where annoying British people get on your nerves, stumble around the woods, argue with one another, and then (finally) get killed.  Despite my initial restlessness and general distain for British slasher movies, once the killer got around to slaughtering campers wholesale, I had to admit it was pretty effective. 

The killer is pretty cool too.  He kind of looks like what would happen if Scarecrow escaped from Arkham Asylum and went on to become the drummer for Slipknot.  The kills are surprisingly juicy too.  The axe murder/cannibalism flashback sets the bar pretty high early on.  From there, the various axing and stabbings leave just about everything coated in crimson.  Heck, even when the killer’s just punching dudes in the face, the blood flies every which way.  I tell ya, true to the title, this guy sure knows how to turn the woods red. 

Some of the kills have a torture porn vibe to them as many of the victims are either tied up or helpless while the killer is twisting his blade into them.  That may or may not turn some viewers off.  I will say that the copious amount of red stuff will surely please the gorehounds out there.  The bad news is the finale is a little protracted as we get too many new characters popping up late in the game.  If the filmmakers decided to pack everything in about ten minutes earlier, it might’ve skated by with *** ½.  That quibble aside, The Redwood Massacre is a gory good time. 

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: RAVE PARTY MASSACRE (2017) *

I never really got the whole rave thing.  People take a lot of drugs and listen to lots of terrible music.  So, it’s basically Disco without the mirror balls.  And the music and fashions are way worse.  And you’re dancing in a condemned building instead of Studio 54.  Doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time. 

A feuding couple goes to a rave.  Two minutes into the dance, she’s high as a kite and banging some other dude.  Not exactly marriage material, if you ask me.  Anyway, a few minutes later, she and a couple other ravers (including her understandably upset boyfriend) who all had partaken in an illicit party drug, wake up in an abandoned hospital where an axe murderer in a dog mask hunts them down and chops them up one by one. 

So, if you’re playing along at home, what we have here isn’t really a “Rave Party Massacre” as the “Massacre” occurs at a hospital.  It technically should be called Hospital Massacre, but I guess since there’s already a movie called Hospital Massacre, the filmmakers wanted to avoid confusion.  I suppose they could’ve called it Abandoned Hospital Massacre.  Or maybe Post-Rave Party Massacre, but now we’re just splitting hairs.  I guess when you start focusing on what the movie SHOULD be called, and not on the movie itself, it’s safe to say, it sucks. 

Oh, and the movie is set in 1992, for some reason.  There’s a lot of footage of George Bush and Bill Clinton on the tube, and there’s mention of Ruby Ridge too.  All of this is supposed to give the killer a murky motive for the killing, but about the third time you hear Bush’s “Thousand Points of Light” speech, you start to wonder if you haven’t accidentally switched channels to C-SPAN Retro.  Maybe in order to enjoy all this you have to be hopped up on X and waving Glo-Sticks around like a madman.

Well, that wasn’t exactly a “rave” review now, was it? 

AKA:  DeadThirsty.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE PUPPET MONSTER MASSACRE (2010) **

The Puppet Monster Massacre is a little bit like Meet the Feebles as the cast is nothing more than hand puppets who speak in a variety of four-letter words.  Most of this is crude, both in terms of the lowbrow humor and the ramshackle design of the puppets.  It might be good for a snicker or two, but ultimately, it’s a bit of a chore to get through.

A mad doctor (voiced by Steve Rimpici, the voice of Duke the Unicorn in the CarousHELL movies) with the aid of his penguin assistant incubates a monster inside an unsuspecting victim.  Meanwhile, a guy receives a letter telling him he can win a million bucks if he can spend one night inside the doctor’s haunted mansion.  At the mansion, he’s met by other contestants, including the girl he’s had a crush on for years.  Little do the contestants know, the doctor is scheming to get revenge on them by unleashing his ever-growing monster. 

This was probably better off as a short.  Scenes run on way too long without much of a comic payoff.  Unless, that is, you count lots of unfunny fart jokes as a “comedic payoff”.  It also doesn’t help that many of the jokes run on way past their expiration date.  (Like the unending geyser of blood.)  The monster itself is pretty neat looking, but it doesn’t have much of a presence and lacks personality.  There’s also an odd, animated WWII flashback that’s kind of lame and seems like it’s only there to bulk up the running time. 

In addition to Meet the Feebles, The Puppet Monster Massacre seems to take inspiration from Let My Puppets Come during the scenes of puppet sex.  Unfortunately, the instances of puppet nudity and gore aren’t particularly engaging enough to make it all worthwhile.  Even with the puppet nudity, bloodshed, and foul language, it all still somehow manages to feel lightweight and tame.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: POOL PARTY MASSACRE (2017) ***

A group of catty, entitled, spoiled brats (who admittedly, look great in bikinis) gather at the home of Queen Bee Blair (Kristin Noel McKusick) for a pool party.  Little do they know a lumbering killer is lurking about the premises with an arsenal of garden tools at his disposal.  Before long, he’s making mincemeat out of the stuck-up sorority sisters.  Who will survive?  Probably Blair’s bestie, Nancy (Margaux Neme), seeing as she’s the only one at the party who wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth. 

From the awesome 8-bit style opening credits sequence, you can tell Pool Party Massacre is going to be a lot of fun.  Writer/director/star Drew Marvick delivers a solid amount of T & A (not to mention some S & M) and blood and guts.  There’s throat slashing, a screwdriver to the eye, a hammer to the jaw, a pickaxe to the brain, an axe to the neck, an electric hedge clipper to the stomach, a power drill to the back, an axe to the head, and a machete to the chest.  He also gives us what is possibly the screen’s first Psycho shower scene homage involving a weed whacker.  That is to say Marvick is a talent to watch.  (Porn star Alexis Adams is especially memorable in her nude/death scenes too.) 

I have to hand it to Marvick, a lot of the girls’ bitchy dialogue is pretty funny, and they make a lot of pop culture references along the way too.  The film is also laced with enough random bits of goofiness to make it memorable (like the crazy old biddy whose creepy tea party is ruined by the heavy metal music blaring from poolside).  The twist ending is also extremely clever.

It's Neme, the Final Girl, who gets the best line of the movie during the climax after she hears the killer’s motive and asks, “You did all this to be famous?  Why can’t you make a sex tape like everyone else?”

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE PIZZAGATE MASSACRE (2020) **

I vaguely remember when the whole “Pizzagate” thing was trending on Twitter a few years ago, but I never bothered to even click on any of it because I figured it was just a bunch of crackpot idiotic bullshit.  Before I watched this, I did a quick search of Pizzagate on Wikipedia and it pretty much confirmed what I already suspected.  It seems Pizzagate was a right-wing conspiracy theory that (allegedly) linked Democrats to child sex trafficking by lizard people Illuminati members who apparently keep the sex workers in the basements of D.C. pizza parlors. 

The Pizzagate Massacre suggests the improbable proposition that all of this is true.  Not in a “Told you so!” kind of way, but rather, “It’s all real, but it just sounds so weird that nobody will ever take it seriously”. 

Karen (Alexandria Payne) is a fledgling documentary filmmaker who loses her job at a right-wing news network right after they break the Pizzagate story.  She joins forces with an alt-right militia nut named Duncan (Tinus Seaux) to make a movie about Pizzagate and expose the truth.  It doesn’t take long for them to get into hot water with the authorities, the militia, and (possibly) the lizard people who run the world.  

Writer/director John Valley shoots the film with style and the John Carpenter-inspired synth score is pretty good.  However, despite the title, it’s not a horror movie.  In a way, it’s kind of a high wire act for Valley as he’s presenting right-wing conspiracy theory gobbledygook as stone-cold fact while (presumably) not believing a word of it.  Unfortunately, the movie never really commits to the bit.  It could’ve taken some interesting turns, but Valley just opts to turn things into sort of an oddball concoction of Coen Brothers/Tarantino/Scorsese crime movie cliches in the third act. 

Seaux is solid in the lead.  He sort of resembles Chris Hemsworth playing a Phillip Seymour Hoffman character.  He has oddball energy to spare, but the movie itself never really clicks. 

AKA:  Duncan.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: PILLOW PARTY MASSACRE (2023) *** ½

After an April Fools prank goes wrong, the prankee gets revenge by shooting the prankster.  Two years later, the friend group who witnessed and/or were involved with the prank hold a reunion and decide to party it up.  Predictably, a killer shows up to poop in the punch bowl.  (Well, not literally.)

Pillow Party Massacre has a snazzy ‘80s vibe and is packed with cool music and strong performances.  It also contains several scenes where the characters have honest, heartfelt, and dare I say, moving conversations about loss, guilt, and grief.  Look, this is definitely not something that’s necessary in a picture called Pillow Party Massacre, but I’m happy to know it’s here, especially when it’s played so nicely by actresses Laura Welsh, Chynna Rae Shurts, Allegra Sweeney, and Jax Kellington.  Heck, even the horror movie staple “Truth or Dare” scene plays more like a therapy session between the friends as they ask “Truth” questions that are more of the “checking in on your friends” variety than the typical “tell me something dirty” dialogue you’d normally hear in something like this.

Eventually, things erupt into a heated argument between the girls, and when all their pent-up feelings come out, they finally settle things with an all-out pillow fight.  Director Calvin Morie (An Amityville Poltergeist) McCarthy sure knows how to shoot one of these things.  He gives us lots of slow-motion shots of feathers floating in the air, plenty of close-ups of hot co-eds giggling, and gratuitous shots of girls ripping their tops off.  In short… Cinema.

McCarthy doesn’t rest on his laurels when it comes to the gore.  He delivers a knife through the back of the skull and out the eyeball, a geyser-riffic throat slashing, a hand hacking, a scene where a guy is cut in half LENGTHWISE, head smashing via pillowcase full of rocks, face burning, and one gal gets impaled to a tree.  The biggest takeaway here is that McCarthy shows us you can make a gory ‘80s style slasher with characters that are three-dimensional and that you genuinely care about while still delivering on the demands of the genre (AKA:  T & A and blood and guts).

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: PAINTBALL MASSACRE (2020) **

Paintball Massacre opens at a high school reunion filled with awkward encounters and annoying grown-ups stuck in a state of arrested development acting like doofuses.  The next day, the former classmates work past their collective hangovers for a game of paintball in the woods.  Naturally, it doesn’t take long for a killer to infiltrate the game and begin hacking the competition to pieces. 

Like Nutcracker Massacre, this is one of those low budget British horror movies where everyone speaks with muddy accents that are hard to understand (at least to these American ears).  I think the filmmakers were trying for a horror-comedy feel, but it’s never really successful as the slasher scenes are weak and the dismal attempts at humor fall flat.   The use of faux-Spaghetti Western music when the paintballers enter the playing field is groan-inducing and the scenes where one of the girls keeps trying to equate the group’s situation to a Fast and the Furious movie gets old quick. 

Most of the kills happen offscreen, which is the big problem.  Because of that, we usually just see the aftermath of the carnage.  We do get death by land mine, an impalement with a real estate “For Sale” sign, and a face peeling.  Ultimately, there’s just not enough here to really satisfy horror fans. 

It's a shame too because the set-up is sound enough.  (Well, maybe without all the unnecessary reunion scenes in the beginning, that is.)  I have to wonder if it all might’ve worked better if they just made the killer someone using real bullets rather than having a slasher in a paintball mask picking off the friend group one by one.  This would’ve made it closer to something like Masterblaster than, say, a feature length version of the paintball scene from Friday the 13th Part 6.  Seeing how the horror elements rarely click, the action movie approach might’ve been the way to go.  (All the Fast and the Furious comparisons would’ve made more sense too.)   

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: NUTCRACKER MASSACRE (2022) ** ½

Okay, so, imagine you’re Patrick Bergin.  One day, you’re playing Robin Hood.  The next day, you’re co-starring with Julia Roberts, the biggest movie star in the world, in Sleeping with the Enemy.  Life is good.  Then, in the blink of an eye, thirty years goes by and you’re starring in a movie about a six-foot-tall sentient homicidal nutcracker.  I guess there are worse ways to pay the rent.

Bergin plays a Russian toy shop owner who literally twirls his mustache, so the audience knows he’s evil.  He also ominously hums “The Nutcracker Suite” while rubbing his hands together like a villain in a silent film.  That is to say, he’s pretty great in this.  

Bergin tells a long, confusing origin story of the Nutcracker before selling one to a babe who just broke up with her boyfriend.  She buys it as a Christmas present for her auntie, whom she’s spending Christmas with.  It doesn’t take long before auntie’s prized six-foot-tall nutcracker comes to life and begins knocking off her relatives. 

The deaths, it must be said, are solid.  One person is murdered by an ice skate, and another is strangled with Christmas garland.  We also get a great scene where the nutcracker not only cracks a guy’s nuts but rips them off too.  Admittedly, the rest of the movie is kind of ho-hum, but this scene is badass enough to boost it an extra Half Star. 

I guess I should’ve known this was going to be better than expected because it was produced by Mark L. Lester.  Yeah, THAT Mark L. Lester, the man that gave the world Commando and Showdown in Little Tokyo.  It was also directed by Rebecca Matthews, the director of the greatest fake Amityville movie ever made, Amityville Witches.  With a pedigree like that (not to mention Bergin’s fun performance), Nutcracker Massacre should make for breezy fun for seasonal horror film fanatics.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: 1962 HALLOWEEN MASSACRE (2023) ½ *

Four friends attend a Halloween party at a house in the middle of nowhere.  While they drink and dance, a killer in a white mask stalks the grounds.  Later, he switches his mask out for a black hood as he picks off partygoers one by one.

1962 Halloween Massacre starts off with a long Found Footage sequence of the core four driving in a car and arguing.  Since it takes place in 1962, that means they’re filming with an 8mm home movie camera.  If that’s the case, then why can we hear them?  Sound home movie cameras didn’t come out till the ‘70s.  Did the filmmakers ever bother to research this?  All it would’ve taken was a Google search.  I guess we already know the answer to that one.  Also, would it be too much to ask that the characters from the ‘60s not use modern slang like, “Too soon!” 

Look, if you can’t accurately represent the time period on a small budget, then why even try?  Just call it Halloween Massacre, set it in present day, and be done with it.  I mean it would probably still suck either way, but at least it wouldn’t be annoying every time something anachronistic happens.

Luckily, the film breaks the Found Footage format after about fifteen minutes.  Unfortunately, we’re still stuck following around the same four annoying characters.  I guess seeing them in a party setting is better than spending all our time in a cramped car with them like in the early part of the picture.  However, once the action switches over to the party, things are nearly just as claustrophobic as the camera frequently holds tight on our four principles to disguise the fact that the budget was so low, they couldn’t afford many extras to play party guests.

Also, the movie has a weird pro-incest message that’s just confounding.  Oh, and just when it should be over, it continues on unnecessarily for ten more excruciating minutes.  If it wasn’t for the presence of the extremely cute Caroline Beagles (who plays the least annoying member of the cast), this would’ve been a No Stars flick for sure.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: HOLLYWOOD MEAT CLEAVER MASSACRE (1976) *** ½

I was kinda familiar with this one thanks to seeing the trailer starring none other than Christopher Lee on countless trailer compilations, but I had never actually seen the movie.  He originally filmed the scene for another film, but the footage wound up being sold to a different company who repurposed it to sell Meatcleaver Massacre.  (Although I’ve seen reviews mentioning he’s in the movie in wraparound segments, Lee unfortunately doesn’t appear in the version currently playing on Tubi.)  Oh, and while everything I’ve always seen for the film has referred to it as Meatcleaver Massacre (that’s even how it’s listed on Tubi), the actual on-screen title is Hollywood Meat Cleaver Massacre, so that’s the title I’ll be reviewing it under.  (I was trying to keep all these “Massacre” movies in alphabetical order, but oh well.)

So, I already knew the backstory of Hollywood Meat Cleaver Massacre going into it.  However, I had no idea it was (presumably) co-directed (uncredited) by freakin’ Ed Wood!  Plus, he also appears in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo as a photographer.  Also cameoing is the future writer of Jaws 3-D Guerdon Trueblood, who plays a nuthouse doctor.  I know they were probably never once in each other’s sphere, but I think it’s amazing that Lee, Wood, and the writer of Jaws 3-D all worked on the same movie.

A professor’s home is invaded by a gang of psychotic students who kill his family (including his dog) and leave him paralyzed.  While drifting in and out of a coma in the hospital, he invokes the name of a Gaelic spirit of revenge (don’t fuck with a professor who is an expert on occult studies) so the little shits will receive their just desserts.  That’s right, folks.  It’s Death Wish Meets Patrick… with nary a meat cleaver in sight.

I’m not sure what scenes Wood was responsible for because it all seems fairly cohesive.  If I had to guess I would say he had a hand in some of the hilarious voiceovers as some of the dialogue has a distinct Wood ring to it.  I’m thinking specifically of the scene where one of the killers contemplates suicide.  (“This is gonna leave a mess.  I hope the landlord won’t be too mad.”)

The dialogue between the killers regarding the professor being in a vegetative state is great too:

“He’s gonna lay there like a carrot!  A big carrot!”

“I never did like carrots!”

Hollywood Meat Cleaver Massacre has that look that only late ‘70s horror movies have.  It has redder than red blood, sleazy shots of Hollywood Boulevard, and chintzy fashions galore.  The print is excellent too, which makes it all really pop.  The simple use of library music really works too.  (I think that one guitar sting was stolen from the trailer for Torso.)

Most times when movies like this have freakout and nightmare sequences, it’s just because the filmmakers needed to pad out the running time.  The freakouts here are legitimately eerie, effective, and genuinely unsettling.  The psychic murders are a hoot too.  In one scene, a guy gets his guts ripped out by sentient desert grass.  I can honestly say I’ve never seen that in a picture before.  Another person is crushed by the hood of a car, and one dude gets his eyeball ripped out.  And when we finally see the monster, it’s revealed to be something that looks like a cross between Swamp Thing and Rob Zombie cosplaying as Jordy Verrill.  That is to say, it’s awesome.

And to think, if someone… ANYONE got massacred with a meat cleaver (or if there was actually a single SHOT) of a meat cleaver, this might’ve got Four Stars!

AKA:  Meatcleaver Massacre.  AKA:  Morak.  AKA:  The Evil Force.  AKA:  Revenge of the Dead.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE MANSON FAMILY MASSACRE (2019) NO STARS

The Manson Family Massacre is one of the worst films I have seen during my year of watching (almost) nothing but movies on Tubi.  It jumps around all over the place so much that you never quite get your bearings long enough to make sense out of any of it.  The fact is, I don’t think there was ever a chance of this being any good, even if the editing wasn’t so… ahem… helter-skelter.

The film is set in 1992, with a recovering addict musician trying to write new material at Sharon Tate’s old address on Cielo Drive.  Then there are flashbacks to Tex and Manson fucking around with some criminals to organize a half-assed drug deal that naturally goes wrong.  Meanwhile, the musician has odd nightmares and visions, and she’s convinced they are connected to the house, so she goes to see a psychic.  Eventually, the Manson murders play out and the musician also comes to a predictably untimely end.

I knew this was going to be bad right from the opening credits scene that rips off the photo flash sound effects from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  It only got worse once the back-and-forth narrative, complete with title cards straight out of a fifth-rate Tarantino knockoff was introduced.  It’s almost like two different movies stitched together and heavily padded with nightmare sequences that add zilch to the proceedings.

I understand the temptation of wanting to make a Manson movie.  The murders are a fascinating subject ripe with possibilities.  Heck, even if you went the straight-up exploitation route, it could still deliver a powerful kick if the material was in the right hands.  At least it tries to do something different, albeit with spectacularly awful results.  Too bad the ‘90s scenes never intersect with the ‘60s sequences in any meaningful way, other to state that the house rests on a “negative energy fault line”.

A drunk British guy gets the best line of the movie when he derides the musician’s song as being “as deep as Danzig!”

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE MANSON BROTHERS MIDNIGHT ZOMBIE MASSACRE (2021) **

Stone (Chris Margetis) and Skull (Mike Carey) are a pair of washed-up brothers who eke out a living on the independent wrestling circuit.  Some of the lesser-known and significantly less beefy grapplers in the arena try to make a name for themselves by injecting illicit human growth hormones to help them bulk up in a hurry.  Unfortunately, it has just one side effect:  It turns them into flesh-hungry zombies.  Once the entire arena becomes infected, it’s up to Stone, Skull, and a few surviving wrestlers to make it through the night.

Wrestling and horror have always gone hand in hand, both in terms of their fandom, and the fact that sooner or later, every wrestler-turned-actor winds up appearing in a horror movie at some point in their career. (This one features Randy Couture.)  Directed by actor Max (Sabotage) Martini, The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre is kind of a mess, but there is some good stuff here.  The humor between the good natured, but dim-witted brothers is hit and miss, and their Bowery Boys-esque malapropisms work about 50/50.  The wrestling sequences are solid, and the backstage, inside-baseball scenes of the wrestlers going over the matches in the locker room before the main event are entertaining.

Some of this, admittedly, doesn’t work.  The framework scenes of a trailer trash family reading a Manson Brothers comic book are odd and unnecessary.  It also takes way too long to finally get to the zombie action.  Still, it features two scenes I’ve never seen in a zombie movie before, which makes it marginally worthwhile.  First is the scene where a character gets one look at a zombie and immediately drops dead of a heart attack.  The second involves a wrestler waving a cape like a matador at a zombie dressed in a chorizo costume who charges at him like a bull.  So, there’s that.

Margetis and Carey (who also wrote the screenplay together) are OK in the leads, but the film really needed two guys with stronger presences to carry the movie on their shoulders.  It's nice to see Couture here, although he really isn’t given much to do as one of the other wrestlers.  D.B. (Eight Men Out) Sweeney seems out of place in something like this, but he looks like he’s having fun as the Mansons’ energetic manager. 

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER

Well, it’s November once again, and like every November, I spend the entire month catching up on all the horror movies I didn’t get around to watching in October.  Since I’m still behind on my Tubi Continued… column of trying to watch 365 movies on Tubi in 365 days (as of October 31st I’ve seen 284 movies in 304 days, which puts me 20 movies behind schedule), I’m going to combine the Tubi Continued… column with the annual Halloween Hangover and turn it into Tubi-Ween Hangover…