LET’S GET PHYSICAL: EMMANUELLE 5 (1987) ***

“EMMANUELLE APRIL”

FORMAT:  VHS

NOTE:  For the Let’s Get Physical column, I wanted to devote the month of April to the official Emmanuelle series and the unofficial Black Emanuelle franchise.  As you can see, April is almost over, and I am running behind with the Let’s Get Physical column, as per usual.  However, I have plenty of Emmanuelle VHS and DVD’s and Severin’s The Sensuous World of Black Emanuelle Blu-Ray set sitting on my “To Be Watched Shelf”, so just consider this month “Emmanuelle April” and next month “E-MAY-nuelle.” 

Monique Gabrielle takes over for Sylvia Kristel (and, Mia Nygren, I guess) for the fifth installment in the durable Emmanuelle franchise.  Producer Alain Siritzky had the right idea to hire Immoral Tales’ Walerian Borowcyk to direct an Emmanuelle movie.  Apparently, he didn’t hit it off with Gabrielle, so much of it was handled by his assistants.  Then, when producer Roger Corman got ahold of it for American distribution, he had Steve Barnett add new footage and re-edit the film.  Looking at the finished product, it’s obvious it was passed through many hands.  Still, Gabrielle gets naked a LOT, which smooths out many of the film’s rough edges. 

Our tale begins at the Cannes Film Festival where Emmanuelle (Gabrielle) has just starred in a controversial movie called “Love Express”.  She catches the eye of a sheik (“He makes Darth Vader look like Mother Teresa!”) who lures her to his country under the guise of a movie premiere.  Actually, he wants to kidnap her and make her a part of his harem.  It’s then up to Emmanuelle’s nerdy photographer pal to rescue her. 

Emmanuelle 5 is definitely campier and sillier than the previous entries of the series.  That, it should be said, isn’t a bad thing, as it makes for an agreeable good time.  Whether it was Borowcyk, his assistants, or Barnett behind the camera, the playful atmosphere and sense of humor keeps it light and fun.  There’s a particularly great scene where the paparazzi rip Emmanuelle’s clothes off and chase her around Cannes, and the harem escape sequence would look right at home in a Jack Hill movie.  (Emmanuelle even takes a break during the escape for a little hanky-panky.)  Things kind of threaten to go off the rails with not one but two false endings, and the whole thing feels curiously unfinished.  

That said, this is an enjoyable vehicle for fans of Monique.  Picking up where Sylvia Kristel left off is a daunting task, but Gabrielle is up for the challenge.  She is game for just about anything (including seductively eating seafood) and has no qualms whatsoever about getting naked at the drop of a hat.  Because of that, I’d say it’s a totally worthwhile sequel.   

AKA:  Emmanuelle in the Harem.  

FEMALE MERCENARIES 2: THE MAD DOCTOR OF ZOMBIE ISLAND (2008) **

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on March 2nd, 2023)

I saw this listed on Tubi as Mad Doctor of Zombie Island, which sounded promising enough.  After sitting through a long prologue about a giant meteor crashing into the Earth (it looks like a wad of aluminum foil), two chicks getting into a Kung Fu battle, and a scene featuring the slowest death via quicksand in screen history, I was kind of flummoxed.  At about the ten-minute mark, the title “Female Mercenaries 2:  The Mad Doctor of Zombie Island” appeared, and it started to make sense why it didn’t make sense:  It was a sequel to a movie I had never heard of, let alone seen.  

Ten more minutes went by, and I was hopelessly lost again.  Characters come and go.  They die, only to reappear as clones.  I was starting to pull my hair out.  

Fortunately, at about the twenty-minute mark, the movie revealed its true purpose:  Gratuitous nude scenes, strangulations, catfights, and bondage.  If the filmmakers had cut the useless first two reels and gotten right to the good stuff, this might’ve skated by with ** ½.  Maybe.  All I know is that things got markedly better the less the actresses wore.  

Anyway, the “plot” has a mad doctor (who I assume died in the first movie) cloning herself on her secret island so she can continue her diabolical experiments.  Every time one of her prisoners dies, she clones them.  Sometimes she turns them into werewolves?!?  After she turns a couple of guys into zombies, their girlfriends team up to storm the island and get revenge.  

No wonder this was so weird.  It was one of those W.A.V.E. Productions where you can basically write your own fetish video and they film it for you.  I guess all the catfights and bondage stuff was OK, but I certainly don’t have a fetish for longwinded prologues and incomprehensible plots.  (Not that you would watch something like this for the plot, but oh well.)  All that stuff got in the way of the fun.  It didn’t help that the sound was bad, and a lot of the dialogue was muffled.  Still, the overly dramatic death scenes were good for a laugh or two.  I also enjoyed the long, lingering shots of the actresses’ butts when they’re lying on the floor dead.  

I’ve been meaning to check out the W.A.V.E. documentary, Mail Order Murder.  I see it’s on Tubi.  I guess I know what tomorrow’s movie is going to be. 

AKA:  Mad Doctor of Zombie Island.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: FEMALE MERCENARIES ON ZOMBIE ISLAND (1995) **

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on August 22nd, 2023)

In the year 2000, an asteroid (it looks like your grandma’s chair) hurtles toward Earth with the potential to wipe out all of existence.  Tina Krause’s solution?  Take a shower!

After the asteroid kills most of the population, sexy Doctor Pamela Sutch sets herself up on an island turning men into mindless zombie soldiers and performing brain transplants.  After she kills off most of the peaceful farming women on the island, the survivors swear revenge.  With some help from the zombie henchmen who long to become human again, they plan to overthrow the mad doctor once and for all.

Before I continue with this review, I have to get something off my chest:  There was no goddamn reason this needed to be 111 minutes.  The plot circles around and loops back on itself a lot.  The heroines are captured, then escape, only to be recaptured and escape again.  There are also long scenes where actors are forced to say an incredible amount of ridiculous exposition with a straight face.

That said, it has a scene of Tina Krause getting undressed, taking a shower, being chloroformed, and hogtied, not one but two long text crawls that look like they came out of a Sega Genesis game, and the world ends via piece of furniture, all BEFORE the opening credits start, so it’s not all bad.

Unfortunately, it seems like they added the opening after the fact as the rest of the movie is rather light on nudity.  I guess the filmmakers thought if they frontload it with a lot of T & A to lure you in, you’d forget what you were watching and why you were watching it in the first place.  Oh, did I mention this is a W.A.V.E. movie?  Questioning what the fuck you’re watching kind of goes along with the territory.

We do get some great gore along the way.  There are slashed throats, hilarious brain operation scenes, zombie attacks, and even some Kung Fu too.  I also enjoyed the fact that when the zombies eat people, it’s not raw like in a Romero movie.  They actually take the time to put their prey in a giant pot and cook them like an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. 

What else can I tell you about this one?  There’s mud wrestling, bondage, discipline, electrocution, strangulation, wet T-shirts, catfights, and water fights.  I mean, a movie with all that going for it can’t be all bad.  It’s just way too long and much too slow moving in between the good stuff.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: EATEN ALIVE: A TASTEFUL REVENGE (1999) ****

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on March 15th, 2023)

(NOTE:  This film appears as a bonus feature on the Blu-Ray for Limbo)

Okay, so when I watched Mail Order Murder, the W.A.V.E. Productions documentary, this was one of the titles that really stuck out.  The short clips that were shown don’t quite do it justice.  This is one of the nuttiest fucking movies I’ve seen in a long time.  I think I may be hooked on W.A.V.E.

Stacey (Debbie D) gives it all for her company but is still passed over for a promotion by her bitchy boss (Barbara Joyce).  To make matters worse, the job goes to Stacey’s ROOMMATE (Tina Krause) just because she’s prettier than her!  The nerve.  What’s a gal to do?  If you answered, “Grab a shrinking gun, shrink her enemies down to size, and then eat them”, then this is the movie for you.  

I’ve never been one for drugs, but this movie left me high as a kite.  Director Gary Whitson gets maximum laughs from the hilarious concept and the acting and shrinking scenes have to be seen to be disbelieved.  Some of the greenscreen “special” effects will have you rolling in the floor with laughter.  

If you’re not familiar with W.A.V.E. Productions, they basically allowed fans to write in to them with a list of their fetishes and they would incorporate them into their next no-budget horror movie.  I don’t know who had a fetish for shrinking hot naked women and then eating them, but God bless them and keep them for all eternity.  I’m not sure if I too have the fetish now, but I kind of already want to see it again.  One thing’s for sure, it’s one of the most insane films I’ve seen in a long time.  

The movie is only about thirty-five minutes long, which is about all the running time this insane premise could stand.  It’s almost like they shrunk the movie down to size too.  That is a good thing, though.  When you strip down something like this down to its barest essentials, it makes the weird-ass sequences seem even weirder.  

Speaking of being stripped down and bare, there’s a lot of nudity here, which also helps make it an unadulterated classic.  There’s a sequence where Debbie D and Sunny try on swimsuits for like ten straight minutes that is cinema at its purest.  Heck, I’m not even gonna talk about the scenes that take place INSIDE Debbie’s stomach where the shrunken girls are digested on something that looks like a Slip n’ Slide from Hell.

Even though it’s only thirty-five minutes long, Eaten Alive!  A Tasteful Revenge is still somehow packed with flashbacks, an overlong end credits sequence, AND post-credits bloopers.  I usually object to so much padding, but these scenes were so nice the first time that I didn’t mind seeing them twice, if only to double-check that I didn’t hallucinate the whole thing.  If you thought you’ve seen it all, by all means, check this sucker out.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LIMBO (1999) *

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:  

(As posted on October 27th, 2022)

About ten minutes into Limbo, it became apparent that B-Movie Scream Queen-turned-first time director Tina Krause rented Jacob’s Ladder one night and decided to make her own loose remake using the crappiest home video equipment available.  That probably wasn’t the worst idea in the world, but the problem is that there is barely any connective narrative tissue to hold the thing together.  Because of that, it looks like one long, cheap, SOV music video.  

A woman named Katherine goes to a bar where she is given an ominous warning by an unseen stranger.  After Katherine picks up a cute waitress (Krause), things spiral into a lot of shaky-cam/let’s-use-every-filter-and-editing-trick-that-came-with-the-camera music video sequences.  She returns to the bar the next night where she picks up another stranger and the cycle repeats itself until Katherine learns she’s actually dead and in limbo.  (Hey, it’s not a spoiler if it’s in the title!)

This one was a tough sit.  Although I enjoy seeing Krause in her low budget horror movies, this is by far the worst one I have seen.  It was also by far the shortest flick I’ve watched this month (it’s only fifty-four minutes), but it sure as Hell felt like the longest.  

It's not all terrible.  If you can make it to the homestretch, there are a couple of decent gore effects (given the budget).  We get a pretty good face ripping scene as well as a not-bad gut ripping sequence.  However, that doesn’t make up for all the schizophrenic editing, incoherent storytelling (a vampire subplot is dropped into our laps in the late going), piss-poor camerawork, and piss-poorer sound.  

I admire Krause’s ambition.  More Scream Queens should take the cinematic reigns and direct their own movies.  I just wish that Krause’s directorial effort was closer in spirit to her other low budget vehicles instead of an overlong, experimental, wannabe student film.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: BLOODY MUSCLE BODYBUILDER IN HELL (1995) ****

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:  

(As posted on November 9th, 2022)

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell is basically a low budget, hour-long, shot-on-video Japanese remake of Evil Dead 2.  After reading that sentence, you should already know if you are the target audience for this sort of thing.  Even if you didn’t dig it as much as I did, you have to admit:  It has one of the greatest titles in movie history.  

Shinji (writer/director Shinichi Fukazawa) is a bodybuilder who takes his girlfriend and a psychic to investigate his father’s supposedly haunted house.  Before long, the vengeful spirit of his father’s former lover possesses the psychic and uses his powers to lock the couple in the house.  After being tormented endlessly by the possessed psychic, our hero eventually uses his love of weightlifting to smash the demon once and for all.

Some scenes follow Evil Dead 1 and 2 pretty closely, and the recreations are quite impressive considering the time and resources that were available.  Fans of Sam Raimi’s trilogy will enjoy these moments to be sure (everything from the headless corpse attack to the iconic “Groovy” scene is here), but I was even more impressed by Fukazawa’s original flourishes and twists on Raimi’s standbys just as much.  The eyeball stabbing scene is great, and the part where a necklace comes out a person’s mouth and digs into their eye is kind of freaky.  The film even manages to one-up Raimi when the dismembered hand fuses together with a severed head, creating a Bride of Re-Animator-esque creation.  Also, those who were always incensed that Evil Dead 2’s poster boy, the skull with human eyes, was nowhere to be found in that movie will be pleased that a very low budget version shows up here.

In front of the camera, Fukazawa mimics Bruce Campbell’s performance rather closely and nails many of his facial tics.  Weirdly enough, this was his only movie, and it’s sort of a shame.  Even though it’s clearly a riff on Evil Dead (I hesitate to call it a “rip-off” as it’s more of a homage than anything), his own unique spins on Raimi’s films are enough to make you curious what he might’ve been able to do with a completely original premise.  

“Sayonara, baby!”

AKA:  The Japanese Evil Dead.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SANTO VS. DOCTOR DEATH (1973) **

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on January 27th, 2021)

A thief sneaks into a museum and vandalizes a valuable painting.  An expert is brought in to restore the work of art and deems it to be a fake.  In reality, he’s in league with the ring of thieves who plan to sell it on the black market and make a fortune.  Stymied, Interpol brings in El Santo to bring the thieves down. 

I tend to find El Santo’s non-horror and sci-fi films to be among his lesser work, and despite the great title, Santo vs. Doctor Death has only the slightest horror trappings.  The scenes of sexy women in flimsy negligees walking down hidden passageways and catacombs are about all we get.  The movie is particularly sluggish whenever our masked hero isn’t on screen.  The art heist stuff is well-filmed, but mostly dull.  The same goes for the stuff with the Interpol agents.  We do get a pretty good car chase and the helicopter vs. boat finale is well done, although it is ultimately too little too late.  The ladies in the cast are all easy on the eyes though. 

Santo vs. Doctor Death is one of the few movies El Santo made away from his native Mexico.  It is also the only film he made in Spain.  The change of scenery is a bit of a mixed blessing.  While it may be a tad on the slow side, it is one of his best-looking flicks.  The cinematography is excellent and there are moments that look like they would be right at home in a Bond rip-off.  However, El Santo is usually at his best when he was working with guys who really knew how to utilize his talents, and this Spanish crew just can’t seem to do that.

The three wrestling scenes are OK.  Like the rest of the movie, they look slicker than usual.  The bulk of them are filmed in an empty auditorium, which is surprisingly effective.  Seeing the matches taking place in a mostly black void (complete with obviously phony canned crowd sound effects) is just odd enough to make them memorable. 

AKA:  Santo Strikes Again.  AKA:  Masked Man Strikes Again.  AKA:  Dr. Death.  AKA:  The Saint vs. Dr. Death.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: MARDI GRAS MASSACRE (1978) ** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 22nd, 2014)

Mardi Gras Massacre plays like a lost Herschell Gordon Lewis movie as it’s basically a loose remake of Blood Feast. The difference is the psycho in this one kills women and offers them as sacrifices to an Aztec god; not an Egyptian one. Big difference.

A crazy rich dude wanders into various New Orleans bars and strip clubs looking for the most “evil” hooker he can find. Once he finds his prey, he brings her home and ties her spread eagle on a sacrificial altar. Because he likes to wear a long robe and a weird mask, they just think he’s kinky. They never expect he’s going to actually cut their heart out. It’s then up to a cop (who’s dating a hooker that’s just bound to be the killer’s next victim) to stop him.

Like many a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie, Mardi Gras Massacre features static camerawork, stilted acting, and cheesy (yet highly entertaining) gore set pieces. Everything in between the gore-drenched sequences is pretty shoddy technically (there are a lot of jump cuts) and many dialogue scenes go on far too long. The production values are about on par with a porno from the time, which gives the film a reasonable amount of charm.

I’m not going to lie; this movie is rough going in places. The pacing is uneven, most of the acting is lousy, the ending is terrible, and you’re liable to fall asleep on some parts. However, there is enough scenes of hookers getting naked, hearts being ripped out, and disco dancing to qualify Mardi Gras Massacre as a fun ‘70s time capsule.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: BAN THE SADIST VIDEOS! 2 (2006) *** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on November 5th, 2017)

(NOTE:  This documentary was included on the Night of the Demon Blu-Ray)

David Gregory’s informative and absorbing follow-up to his Video Nasties documentary, Ban the Sadist Videos! focuses on the BBFC, the British Board of Film Censorship.  Thanks to their chronic nitpicking of gory and violent images in horror movies, Britain becomes the most censored nation in the free word.  The head censor in charge, James Ferman, takes to his job all too well, gleefully cutting stuff out of movies as he sees fit.  In actuality, the things he found objectionable (like throwing stars, nunchucks, blood on female flesh, etc.) seems pretty arbitrary.   

Gregory also shows how the British government used Video Nasties (mostly thanks to the country’s sensationalized tabloids) as the public scapegoat for violent real-life incidents.  The infamous Bulger case, where two boys killed a toddler, is blamed on Child’s Play 3, even though the kids never even saw the movie!  There is then a movement to further crackdown on horror films, which leads to an unlikely champion in Ferman, who winds up defending them. 

There are a couple of interesting side notes here, like the rise of the black market for movies without certificates.  I also enjoyed seeing the logistics of putting censorship into action (the board has to go back and watch thousands of videos that have already been released, leading to a huge backlog).  Gregory also does a side-by-side comparison of Evilspeak and its eventual censored version.  I wish there were more of these comparisons, because seeing the actual cut footage gives you a good idea of what the censors found objectionable. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: BAN THE SADIST VIDEOS! (2005) *** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on November 5th, 2017)

(NOTE:  This documentary was included on the Night of the Demon Blu-Ray)

David Gregory is one of the great horror film documentarians of our time.  A director of several behind-the-scenes DVD special features, he has been entertaining and informing for decades, giving us in-depth documentaries on some of the most popular horror movies ever made.  With Ban the Sadist Videos, Gregory gives us a comprehensive look at Britain’s crackdown on horror videos in the ‘80s. 

Gregory begins with a glimpse of just how wide open the video market was in the early ‘80s.  Since the major studios were a little slow on the uptake, independent companies were able to flood the market with exploitation titles like Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave, and Cannibal Holocaust.  Video stores were practically everywhere at the time, so these films were readily available to just about anyone.  Soon, moral crusaders took it upon themselves to ban the movies in an effort to “save the children”.  This led to a government crackdown on violent videos and police raids on mom and pop video stores, which gave the videos instant worldwide notoriety. 

In America, we didn’t have this sort of hubbub.  Our battle was mostly with the MPAA who cut out all the nasty bits before the movie could even be released.  As a Yank, I found this documentary to be highly informative, but the real reason to see it is for all the cool archive footage of the old video stores and seeing goriest snippets of the films in question.  I also enjoyed the interviews with filmmakers like Jess Franco, Wes Craven, and Dario Argento, who talk about how it feels to have your work censored.  I just wish there was more footage of them because most of the directors interviewed take the censorship kind of personally.  

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: FRATERNITY OF HORROR (1964) ** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

Fraternity of Horror is a previously unreleased movie made by the producers of Night of the Demon when they were just starting out.  It was also directed by none other than Rocky Jones himself, Richard Crane.  It can be found among the many extras on Severin’s Blu-Ray release of Night of the Demon as a bonus feature.  It’s not great, but it certainly has its moments. 

A fraternity readies to scare the bejabbers out of their new prospective pledges (and their dates) during a late-night scavenger hunt inside of a makeshift haunted house during hell week.  Once the pledges arrive at the mansion, they eventually realize they are not alone.  Then, things get REALLY weird.

The college prank set-up reminded me a little bit of Ring of Terror and some of the haunted house shenanigans are reminiscent of Monsters Crash the Pajama Party.  The opening fraternity party scene is a lot of fun too.  A band named The Spinners (no, not those Spinners) does a great song called “Watusi Woman” while a sorority sister shakes her moneymaker on stage.  Crane gives us a couple of effective moments along the way too, like the sudden appearance of a severed head.  

The plot takes a wacky turn near the end, and it almost becomes an entirely different movie by the final reel.  I won’t spoil what happens.  All I’ll say is that the plot twist is so random that you’ll either go with it or you won’t.  (I went with it because, why not?)  However, some of the tension that Crane managed to build up is lost since so many of the scenes inside the haunted house are so darkly lit that it’s hard to see much of anything. 

Surprisingly enough, this wound up making for a decent double feature with Night of the Demon as the film’s monster sort of resembles Demon’s Bigfoot creature.  (Although it honestly looks more like the Bigfoot from Shriek of the Mutilated.)  While the filmmakers were obviously destined for bigger and better projects, Fraternity of Horror is a nice little indicator of things to come.  

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1983) ****

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 4th, 2019, as a part of The 31 Movies of Horror-Ween)

When I was compiling a list of movies to watch this month, I sort of figured the majority of them would be bad.  Heck, I was kind of counting on it.  Let me tell you, I was completely floored by just how awesome Night of the Demon was.  It is one of the grimiest, grossest, grindhouse-iest movies ever made.  Not only that, it is far and away the greatest Bigfoot flick of all time.  

A professor (Michael Cutt) wakes up in a hospital with bandages on his face.  Everyone wants to know what happened to him, so he relates a series of flashbacks.  First off, some inconsequential guy gets his arm ripped off by Bigfoot.  I don’t know if that was something the professor actually witnessed or just some cool-ass shit to kick off the title sequence, but that was some pretty groovy gory goodness.  

During the title sequence, you’ve got to listen to a lot of flute-led smooth jazz while a bunch of dull white people that look like they stepped out of a JC Penney catalogue walk around endlessly.  Then, the plot begins.  The professor watches recovered home movie footage that convinces him Bigfoot is in his woods.  One of his classmates tells a story about a couple banging in the woods being attacked by Bigfoot.  (If you’re keeping score, this is a flashback inside of a flashback, which makes it even better… and there will be many more to follow.)

This sequence is incredible.  Bigfoot interrupts the couple while they’re getting it on inside their van.  The heavily-bosomed woman watches, mouth agape as what’s left of her lover’s bloody body slides down the windshield while she repeatedly screams, “Oh!  Oh!  Oooh!  Oh!” before dying of fright.  This is truly some funny shit.

The professor then takes his students into the woods looking for Bigfoot.  When Bigfoot steals their boat and leaves them stranded, they go looking for help in the form of the mute “Crazy Wanda” (Melanie Graham) who lives in the woods.  She’s mute on account of the fact the Bigfoot raped her and when she had Bigfoot Jr., her Christian father killed it at birth, so the enraged Wanda burned him alive.  Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t talk much neither after all that.  Now, Bigfoot occasionally leaves her trinkets he finds in the woods (possibly lifted from his victims), which I guess makes it kind of like a warped version of Bigfoot alimony.

You know how in most Bigfoot movies he’s portrayed as a missing link type thing?  In this one, he’s basically a furry Jason Vorhees.  That description is quite accurate when you consider he kills someone while they’re in their sleeping bag.  This sleeping bag death puts the one in Friday the 13th Part 7 to shame.  

The gore in this thing is off the chain.  Bigfoot uses an axe on a lumberjack, makes two Girl Scouts stab themselves to death, and there's gut-ripping and eyeball-popping too.  It’s the scene where Bigfoot rips a guy’s dick off that is the real showstopper.  

In short, Night of the Demon is the movie The Legend of Boggy Creek should’ve been.  They actually have a lot in common.  Both contain scenes of the local yokels being interviewed about the legend of the monster.  It even shares the same flashback-heavy structure Boggy Creek had.  However, unlike Boggy Creek, it’s got lots of T & A and gore.  That is to say it’s the greatest Bigfoot movie ever made.  

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS (1983) ***

 FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

Comin’ at Ya was a surprise hit that kicked off the 3-D revival of the ‘80s.  The makers of that film quickly reteamed for another 3-D adventure.  This time instead of an old-fashioned western, they delivered a 3-D Indiana Jones rip-off. 

An adventurer (Comin’ at Ya’s Tony Anthony) is hired to retrieve the titular treasure.  Problem is, one of the crowns is in the possession of a crazed cult leader.  Tony assembles a ragtag team (including a boozing mountain climber, a washed-up circus strongman, and his trapeze artist daughter) to sneak into the cult’s temple and steal the treasure. 

Many of the 3-D effects are cheesy.  You can clearly see the strings on the pterodactyls, fireballs, and floating keys as they fly out into the audience.  We also get a completely random eleventh-hour Exorcist-inspired head-spinning scene. 

This might not be the best 3-D transfer from 3-D Archive as some of the “in your face” effects don’t quite line up just right.  (The dirt in the print seems to float in midair at times.)  I’d say the success rate is about 70/30 in terms of effective eye-popping effects, which is still much better than your typically indifferent 3-D home releases.  Then again, with this much stuff coming out of the screen, it’s hard to complain.  Also, the majority of the depth of field effects look terrific. 

Admittedly, some of this gets a bit exhausting after a while.  However, I can’t fault the filmmakers for trying to toss every conceivable object at the audience.  In fact, Treasure of the Four Crowns has more 3-D effects in the first twenty minutes than ten typical 3-D pictures combined.  With so much stuff hurtling at your eyeballs, it’s enough to make you dizzy.  In an age where most 3-D is post-converted, it’s refreshing to watch something that embraces the gimmick, even if it comes at the expense of the story.  

There are one or two clever sequences, like the Raiders-inspired opening and a nifty scene where the team break into the cult leader’s fortress.  Then again, these moments would probably be underwhelming in 2-D.  I mean, as a “movie”… well… it ain’t much.  As a gimmick… it’s certainly worth seeing at least once, if only to remember a time when filmmakers knew how to properly use (or in some cases, overuse) the technology. 

The 3-D effects include:  

• 3-D Star Wars Crawl

• 3-D Glove

• 3-D Cigarette 

• 3-D Spear

• 3-D Vine

• 3-D Leaves

• 3-D Vulture 

• 3-D Pterodactyl 

• 3-D Rope

• 3-D Snake

• 3-D Wood

• 3-D Dog

• 3-D Sword 

• 3-D Straps

• 3-D Skeleton Hand

• 3-D Sword

• 3-D Scepter

• 3-D Key 

• 3-D Crossbow

• 3-D Arrows (multiple)

• 3-D Spears (multiple)

• 3-D Sword

• 3-D Spikes

• 3-D Fireball (multiple)

• 3-D Sword

• 3-D Flames

• 3-D Fireworks 

• 3-D Cigarette

• 3-D Suit of Armor

• 3-D Spear

• 3-D Crown

• 3-D Pointer

• 3-D Magnifying Glass 

• 3-D Key

• 3-D Stick

• 3-D Cans

• 3-D Glass

• 3-D Water

• 3-D Flames

• 3-D Drawers

• 3-D Key

• 3-D Key

• 3-D Hands

• 3-D Snow

• 3-D Feather (multiple)

• 3-D Key

• 3-D Beams of Light (multiple)

• 3-D Hand

• 3-D Safecracking Tool

• 3-D Harnesses (multiple)

• 3-D Rope

• 3-D Grappling Gun

• 3-D Tony Anthony

• 3-D Magnet

• 3-D Chain Link Fence

• 3-D Feet

• 3-D Dog

• 3-D Rope 

• 3-D Feet (multiple)

• 3-D Scissors

• 3-D Candle

• 3-D Knife 

• 3-D Tambourines (multiple)

• 3-D Candle

• 3-D Tambourine

• 3-D Rope (multiple)

• 3-D Spikes

• 3-D Metal Snakes

• 3-D Real Snakes

• 3-D Sword

• 3-D Flame

• 3-D Glowing Orbs

• 3-D Explosions (multiple)

• 3-D Fireballs (multiple)

• 3-D Exploding Face

• 3-D Gun 

• 3-D Glass

• 3-D Monster

So, to sum up:  ** for the movie.  **** for the 3-D.  *** Average. 

AKA:  Crown in the Temple of Doom.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982) ****

FORMAT:  4K UHD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:  

(As posted on January 12th, 2011)

Question:  What is best in life?

 

Answer:  To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!

 

Question:  What is second best in life?

 

Answer:  To watch Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, see him kick ass before you, and hear the lamentation of your woman who wants you to turn it off so she can watch the Lifetime Channel.

 

Conan the Barbarian was the movie that got Schwarzenegger noticed as a bona fide action hero.  He gives a great performance as the sullen, merciless, and all-around badass Conan.  Arnold was so awesome in this movie that most Hollywood skeptics thought he only had one acting mode, but he soon proved them wrong.  He went on to show them that he could not only play musclebound barbarians, but also musclebound robots, musclebound commandos, and musclebound pregnant men too.  (Umm… yeah let’s forget about that last one, shall we?)

 

But Arnold is so great in Conan that you can almost excuse Hollywood’s ignorance.  I mean not many dudes can pull off the animal pelt banana hammock look, but Schwarzenegger does it effortlessly.  I particularly liked the scene where he disrupted Thulsa Doom’s snake orgy and overturned a cauldron full of bubbling Nilbog Milk.  It’s shit like this that makes him a Legend of the Silver Screen.  Arnold throws himself into the action scenes with all the gusto of a real barbarian so that you actually forget you’re watching Arnold Schwarzenegger; you’re fucking watching CONAN. 

 

I think what makes the character of Conan great is that he’s totally relatable to the (male) audience members.  Besides the giant muscles and broadsword, he’s just like us.  He’s the kind of guy who enjoys a good time and likes to party.  It’s nothing for him to down a few too many Black Lotuses and punch a camel.  Hey, we’ve all been there.

 

This dude also gets more ass than the proverbial toilet seat.  First Conan lays a hot breeding wench who just wants him for his seed (you’ve got to love those low maintenance chicks).  Then he gets lost and has to bang this fucking smoking hot witch just to get directions (this is why guys should ask for directions more often) who still somehow happens to remain smoking hot even after her hair turns white and she grows fangs.  (Then Conan tosses her ass in the fireplace after busting a nut, making her a different kind of smoking hot.)  Finally, of course he bangs Sandahl Bergman who is also kinda hot even though she could probably break me like a twig over her knee.  Seriously, he gets so much tail in this movie that he makes James Bond seem chaste.

 

There is more than Arnold’s performance and the colorful character of Conan that makes it one of the Greatest Movies in the History of the Human Race.  We also have some flawless directing by John Milius.  He does a helluva job on the action scenes and handles the sorcery parts of the movie just as well.  Milius captures the world that Robert E. Howard created perfectly.  Nearly every frame of the movie looks like a Frank Frazetta fever dream; which is to say it’s pretty awesome.  You also have to give credit to art director Ron Cobb (who also worked on Alien) for designing some pretty badass looking sets.  From the Wheel of Pain to the giant snake pit to Thulsa Doom’s orgy den, every bit of this movie looks and feels like it’s 100% authentic barbarian times. 

 

The supporting cast is also memorable.  You’ve got fucking William Smith as Conan’s dad.  Not many dudes actually look like they could’ve sired Schwarzenegger, but Smith is definitely in that select few.  James Earl Jones makes for a great villain too.  He looks like a Soul Train version of Genghis Khan and commands the screen with authority.  I also liked Sandahl Bergman, Gerry Lopez, and Mako as Conan’s traveling companions.  The latter two bring a quirkiness to the mix that compliments Schwarzenegger and Bergman’s brawn nicely.

 

The script by none other than Oliver Stone is terrific.  I especially liked how Stone wrote Conan’s character as Jesus on Steroids.  Don’t believe me?  Well, let me lay this on you:  Like Jesus, we don’t see much of Conan during his teenage years.  (For all we know, Jesus could’ve been tied to the Wheel of Pain too.)  Both Jesus and Conan went around the land helping people.  Both of them were crucified.  Both of them died and came back to life.  Both of them cut off James Earl Jones’ head and tossed it down a flight of stairs.  Okay, so Jesus didn’t do that last one, but you’ve got to admit there are certain uncanny parallels. 

 

This film also cleverly played on people’s fear of religion at the time.  Remember, Conan was released at a time when the audience still had people like Jim Jones on the brain, so it was only natural that his foe would be someone of the cult leader variety.  I’m sure it was no mistake on the filmmakers’ part to make Thulsa Doom’s underlings dress like those annoying Harry Krishna guys you used to see at the airport either.  I mean you just take one look at those jackasses and you immediately want to punch ‘em in the face.  It’s this kind of universal hatred that makes them ideal villains.  And you know, I’m a sucker for movies in which the hero storms his enemy’s castle and the villain shouts, “Infidels!”; so this movie is right up my alley.

 

The thing I really love about Conan is that the filmmakers treated the source material with the respect that it deserves.  Milius and Stone approach the character with the same kind of respect that Richard Donner brought to Superman.  In fact, Conan has the same basic structure of that film.  The first act deals with the loss of his parents, the second act features him finding his place in the world, and the third much longer act is one big adventure.

 

The flick also has a lot of parallels to Return of the Jedi, which came out a year later.  Both films feature scantily clad slave girls laying at the villain’s slide.  Both films feature a monster keeper who gets all choked up when his pet beast is slain.  Both films feature a funeral pyre for a major character.  And that’s not even mentioning the fact that James Earl Jones is the baddie in both.  (The ending of the flick also predates Predator too as Arnold dons body paint and sets booby traps.)

 

Any movie that uses Jesus, Superman, and Star Wars as inspiration can’t go wrong if you ask me. 

 

Then you’ve got some positively fist-pumping music by Basil Poledouris.  It’s primal and foreboding and it fits the title character to a tee.  Thank God Poledouris wrote this shit because if he didn’t, there’d be about 768 movie trailers that would be without music.

 

Arnold is The Man in this movie.  I know I said it before, but it bears repeating.  Who else but Arnold could play Conan?  He gives a great performance and handles his dialogue better than you’d expect.  YOU try saying the word “lamentation” with a thick Austrian accent. 

 

I don’t know who came up with all of that “Chuck Norris is so tough…” crap.  All I know is that Arnold could easily crush that fool.  The proof is in the crucifixion scene when the vultures gather around Conan’s body.  The vultures don’t eat him, HE eats the vultures!  You won’t see Chuck Norris doing that, that’s for sure.

 

By Crom, this is one great movie.

 

AKA:  Conan. 

QUICK THOUGHTS:

I don’t have much to add as I pretty much said my peace years ago, but as I was watching this again, I was struck by how silent the film is in some stretches.  It’s a testament to Milius’ sturdy hand as a director.  We all know he can write dialogue like nobody in the business, but his gifts as a storyteller and his expert crafting of compositions are evident throughout. 

4K UHD NOTES:

This is a mighty fine restoration by the folks at Arrow.  This is as sharp as the film has ever looked.  The nighttime scenes in particular really pop, especially the ones that are accented by campfire or torchlight.  The details in Thulsa Doom’s throne room stand out even more than before as well.  The soundtrack also slaps.  

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS (2014) **

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As it appeared in my book, The Bloody Book of Horror)

As much as I love the Leprechaun movies and Warwick Davis’ performances in them, I went into this reboot/sequel with an open mind.  For one, it was produced by WWE Studios, who gave us the classic wrestler slasher movie, See No Evil.  Another reason was that the Leprechaun would be played by none other than Hornswoggle.  He’s not as well-known as some other wrestler-turned-actors like Kane, The Rock, or Rowdy Roddy Piper, but that’s okay.  Since his career has more or less been devoted to wrestling in a leprechaun outfit; Leprechaun:  Origins seemed like an ideal vehicle for him to make his dreams of movie stardom come true.

A bunch of American college students go to Ireland.  While drinking in a bar, some old dude offers to give them a ride to a cabin in the woods.  They soon find themselves locked in the cabin with a diminutive demon Leprechaun.

The opening scenes feature a lot of POV shots (gold-tinted of course) of the Leprechaun stalking his prey.  That led me to believe it would take a while before we actually got a good look at the new Leprechaun.  Surprisingly, it doesn’t take long to see the new Leprechaun in all its (gory) glory.  Oddly enough, it looks a lot like the Elf from Elves.  Disappointingly, he DOESN’T speak OR make goofy rhymes.

Okay, I get it.  They were trying to go the “serious” and “scary” route for this one.  However, making a “serious” and “scary” movie about a killer Leprechaun is just kind of stupid.  Sure, the other movies in the series were stupid too, but this is a different kind of stupid.  At least the Warwick Davis pictures were knowingly stupid.  This is the wrong kind of stupid.  

I really missed the original incarnation of the character.  This mindless monster could’ve been anything really as it doesn’t particularly resemble a Leprechaun.  I’m not even sure why Hornswoggle would’ve even wanted to be in this.  I mean he is completely silent and covered head to toe in make-up the whole time.  Not exactly the best way to get noticed in Hollywood.  Maybe he owed Vince McMahon a favor or something.

Leprechaun:  Origins is not supremely shitty or anything.  It’s “watchable” at best, but it never comes close to approaching “enjoyable”.  It’s just incredibly miscalculated.  

There are some okay moments.  I liked the part where the dumbass boyfriend falls asleep before getting it on with his hot girlfriend.  There’s also a great “Oh shit” scene where The Final Girl mistakes her friend for the Leprechaun and buries an axe in her face.  The gore is also decent as the Leprechaun rips out gold earrings and tongue piercings, and pulls out one guy’s spine.  (Maybe the guy had a gold plate in his back or something.)  There is a callback to the “Fuck you, Lucky Charms!” line from the original, but that’s about it in ways of connective tissue with the original films.

As bad as most of this is, I didn’t hate it.  I wouldn’t even mind a sequel with Hornswoggle in the lead.  Just… you know… next time make him an actual Leprechaun who says rhymes and kills people.  I’m sure it’s not much to ask, is it?

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LEPRECHAUN BACK TO THA HOOD (2003) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 24th, 2009)

You may think that the Leprechaun series had reached a creative low point since Leprechaun Back 2 Tha Hood recycles the same ghetto setting from the previous movie.  I have to disagree.  You can tell this flick is going to be pretty inventive just by looking at the title.  Most brain-dead horror sequels set in the hood would use the more traditional slang word “Da” in the title, but this one opts for the lesser known (and much more eloquent) “Tha”.  Just like the title, the film is slightly better than you’d expect. 

 

The plot is just like all the other Leprechaun movies.  Some people steal the Leprechaun’s gold and he wants it back.  For the Leprechaun, it’s the Same Shit Different Day Syndrome. 

 

The air of over-familiarity isn’t the only debit the film has.  It also gets off to a slow start as Leprechaun doesn’t start killing people until about a half hour into the flick.  Even after he shows up, there are still some considerable lulls in the action.  Plus, the characters aren’t nearly as likable as they were in the previous entry.  At least they are more fleshed out than most characters in horror sequels.

 

Despite its flaws, Leprechaun Back 2 Tha Hood is still quite a bit of fun.  Although there are a number of kills that are left off screen, the ones we do get to see are memorable.  Hearts are ripped out, legs are ripped off, and a guy gets a baseball bat IN the knee.  Easily the most outrageous kill is when one dude gets stabbed with a bong.  Leprechaun Back 2 Tha Hood also features a hilarious Lord of the Rings inspired pre-credits sequence that had me in stitches.

 

Warwick Davis gives yet another fine performance as Leprechaun.  Although I was somewhat disappointed by the conspicuous lack of funny rhymes, that was acceptable because he played the character as a much more malevolent monster this time around.  Just because he was a meaner greener killing machine didn’t mean he didn’t bring the funny.  Wait until you see him smoke a bong, get high, and get the munchies.  That shit was great.  Chaplin, eat your heart out.

 

Leprechaun also gets as good as he gives in this one.  In one scene, he takes an electric razor to the eye and in the end, he gets shot up by some shamrock filled bullets.  The highlight of the film though is when he hangs on to the bottom of the hero’s car and gets squashed by the hydraulics system.  That scene was tight.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LEPRECHAUN IN THE HOOD (2000) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 23rd, 2009)

Usually adding rappers to your horror sequel is a sure sign of creative bankruptcy.  If you don’t believe me, check out Busta Rhymes in Halloween:  Resurrection.  For the Leprechaun series, it actually makes a lot of sense.  I mean all the Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) knows is rhyming and killing.  The same could be said for most rappers.

 

The opening scene takes place in the '70s.  Ice-T (with the obligatory afro) finds Leprechaun’s pot of gold and uses the amulet to turn the irate Irishman into stone.  (“You midget Midas motherfucker!”)  When Ice-T blows on Leprechaun’s golden lute, he becomes a big-time rapper.  Cut to 2000 where a trio of up-and-coming rappers rob Ice-T’s office and accidentally set the Leprechaun free.  They get their hands on the lute and their career begins to take off, but Leprechaun is hot on their trail.  And he wants his gold!

 

Leprechaun in the Hood is the first film in the series that actually follows some sort of continuity.  Like Part 3, Leprechaun is encased in stone by the magical amulet in the beginning of the film.  There’s also a hilarious scene where he gets momentarily weakened by smoking a joint laced with four leaf clovers.  (Four leaf clovers as we all know, was the cause of his death in Part 1.)  Leprechaun also gets some funny rhymes this time out.  (“A lot of time has come and pass, but you’re still a big fat ass!”)

 

Speaking of rhyming, the scenes of the heroes rapping on stage are kinda lame (especially their “religious” rap in a church) and bog the film down.  I will give the filmmakers credit for taking their characters seriously though.  When one of them gets killed unexpectedly, the other two deal with it in an appropriate and believable manner.  I mean how many horror sequels do you know of where the characters actually take time out to mourn the loss of their friends? 

 

I’m not saying this flick is Sophie’s Choice or anything.  There is plenty of blatant ridiculousness here to please any self-respecting connoisseur of the Leprechaun franchise.  How about the subplot where Leprechaun possesses some skanky chicks and turns them into “Zombie Fly Girls”?  Is that weird enough for ya, folks?  The kills are of a fairly high quality and include death by electrified mike stand, heart ripping, and of course, popping caps in people’s asses.  The funniest death though is the throat slashing via afro pick.  And for some reason, a lot of the plot revolves around guys dressing in drag.

 

The highlight of course is when Leprechaun raps at the end.  (“Lep in the hood, come to do no good!”)  You may think that Leprechaun’s rap name “Lep” sounds stupid, but when you consider that other rapper names like Nas and Pras sound just as dumb, it’s kinda believable.  I also like the rap names for the main characters Post Master P (“I deliver a positive message!”), Stray Bullet, and Onassis (“He used to be a pimp; you know… he OWNED asses!”).

 

Warwick Davis gives another stellar performance as Leprechaun.  He seems to be having more fun here than he did in the last film, that’s for sure.  Ice-T is also pretty good and gives his best performance in a movie not named Ricochet.  If T’s presence wasn’t enough to give the movie “street cred”; Coolio also turns up in a cameo playing himself.

 

The pacing is erratic, the cinematography is cruddy, and most of the songs (with the exception of Leprechaun’s rap that is) are terrible.  That shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the flick though.  Leprechaun returned three years later with Leprechaun Back 2 Tha Hood.

 

Leprechaun (naturally) gets the best line of the movie when he smokes a fatty and says, “A friend with weed, is a friend indeed!”

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LEPRECHAUN 4: IN SPACE (1996) **

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 22nd, 2009)

Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) is chilling out in space trying to marry a hottie Princess (Rebekah Carlton) so he can get his hands on her father’s gold.  Then a bunch of Space Marines show up, rescue the Princess, and head back to her home world.  Leprechaun stows away on board their ship and the mischievous munchkin murders the Marines one by one as he tries to reunite with his bride-to-be.

 

Director Brian Trenchard-Smith has the dubious distinction of directing the best (Part 3) and the worst (this one) Leprechaun movies.  I’m not saying that In Space is terrible or anything, it’s just sorta so-so.  Let’s take a look at the Stupid to Cool Ratio.

 

Let’s start with the Stupid Stuff first.  This flick has some of the worst CGI effects known to man.  I know that this is a low budget, straight-to-video Leprechaun sequel we’re talking about, but model spaceships being held up by strings would’ve been preferable to the Nintendo 64 graphics that are passed off as “effects”. 

 

Then there’s the atrocious performance by Guy Siner as the evil Dr. Mittenhand.  This guy is done up to look like some reject from a Dr. Who episode and he overacts like a sumbitch (he speaks in a mock Dr. Strangelove accent).  Later in the film, Leprechaun mixes this bozo’s DNA with a spider and a scorpion and turns him into a lame monster that wouldn’t have cut the mustard for one of those Roger Corman Presents remakes.  The Mittenhand scenes are annoying and take up too much of the flick’s running time; time that would’ve better spent on Leprechaun killing people.

 

Speaking of which, Leprechaun’s kills are kind of weak in this one.  I think the sorriest death came when he flattened a scientist’s face like a pizza.  What’s most depressing is that when Leprechaun murders someone in Part 4, he doesn’t say a funny rhyme afterwards.  The only rhyme he gets is, “Death and destruction is my game, agony is my name!”  Talk about pathetic.  This is especially disappointing considering that his limericks were so superb in the last film.  He does sing “Danny Boy” at one point though.

 

And I think that’s essentially my biggest beef with the movie:  It just doesn’t feel like a Leprechaun movie.  Sure, the setting is novel, but it doesn’t really enhance the whole premise of the series; namely people looking for Leprechaun’s gold who make wishes that get turned against them.  Nobody makes a wish in this movie and his gold is mostly forgotten about until the movie is almost over.  It also doesn’t help when most of the flick consists of boring ass scenes of cut-rate Space Marines walking down hallways looking for Leprechaun. 

 

Much of Leprechaun 4:  In Space is too stupid for words but I did laugh occasionally (admittedly not nearly as much as any of the previous films).  Which leads us to the Good Stuff.  I think the best thing this flick has going for it is The Resurrection Scene.  Most horror sequels have a scene where the killer comes back to life and Leprechaun 4 has a doozy.  In the opening scene, the Marines blow Leprechaun up and one of the soldiers pisses on his dismembered body parts.  While peeing, some of the Leprechaun’s essence jumps back inside the Marine’s dick.  Later, when the soldier is making out with a chick, the Leprechaun comes bursting out of his cock.  While this scene is hilarious to be sure, I think it would’ve been better if the special effect was something a little more extravagant than just Leprechaun rising out of a pair of pants lying on the floor.

 

As you all should know, I’m a sucker for a good jumping-on-a-grenade scene and this movie certainly delivers.  The scene in question comes when Leprechaun jumps on a grenade to save the Princess.  Sure, it’s not on par with the similar scene in Child’s Play 3, but it’ll do in a pinch.  While we’re on the subject of the Leprechaun’s fiancée, I have to commend Carlton for the excellent scene where she gratuitously whips out her titties.  (“When a woman of royalty shows her breasts, it means a death sentence!”)

 

Then there’s the ending.  Leprechaun gets hit with a laser beam and grows to enormous size and chases the soldiers around the cargo bay.  It’s pretty funny.  Then the heroes blast the giant Leprechaun out of the hatch and into space.  Since this movie has already ripped-off of Aliens so much by that point, I’m sure James Cameron didn’t mind them stealing the ending either.

 

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the scene in which Leprechaun kills a guy with a lightsaber.  (What, you expect Warwick Davis to go all the way to outer space and NOT make a Star Wars in-joke?)  As funny as this scene is, I wish it wasn’t so brief and the effects so shitty.

 

As you can see, the Stupid to Cool Ratio is about an even 50/50.  That’s far below the norm for the series.  While Leprechaun 4:  In Space certainly has its share of Stupid Stuff, I can’t bring myself to give it any less than Two Stars.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LEPRECHAUN 3 (1995) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 21st, 2009)

When I was in high school, this was the first movie I ever reviewed for our school TV show.  I liked it back then, and it’s just as much fun now.  Leprechaun 3 is simply the best film in the franchise.  This is the Goldfinger of the series.  (I think Leprechaun would like that bit of praise because it has the word “Gold” in the title.)  This is the one where all the elements clicked.  The one that was more than the sum of its parts.  The one where they finally got the formula down pat.  It’s as if director Brian (Night of the Demons 2) Trenchard-Smith said, “The audience wants to see nothing but the Leprechaun killing people then saying funny rhymes afterwards, so by God let’s give it to them!”

 

3 finds Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) in Las Vegas.  Scott (John Gatins) loses his college tuition at the roulette wheel until he gets a hold of one of the Leprechaun’s gold coins.  He makes a wish on the coin to be on a winning streak and it comes true.  An incompetent magician (John DeMita) and a haggard looking casino worker (Caroline Williams from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) quickly steal the coin to get their own wishes.  This of course doesn’t set well with the Leprechaun, and he makes sure that their wishes backfire drastically.

 

Leprechaun went to Hollywood in Part 2, so Vegas was a natural setting for the little bugger.  As with the previous installment, the rules are all different from the original.  This time instead of shamrocks or wrought iron being the bane of the Leprechaun’s existence, it’s his gold that is his Achilles Heel.  He also awakens from being imprisoned in stone by a magical amulet, which is different from his tree house prison from the last picture. 

 

In addition to the inconsistencies in the Leprechaun lore, the film also takes too long to get going.  Far too much time is spent on the Indian pawn shop owner who does battle with the Leprechaun in the first act.  I did like the part where he bit the guy’s ear off though.  (“I like Indian food… so spicy!”)  Once Gatins gets a hold of the Leprechaun’s loot, the film really starts to cook. 

 

What makes Leprechaun 3 so memorable is the rhymes.  This one has the best of the entire series.  (“With all of this killing, I’ve lost me schilling!”)  The funniest ditty comes right after Leprechaun kills Williams.  She wishes for a perfect body, and he makes her boobs, lips, and butt grow to enormous proportions until she literally explodes.  Afterwards, Leprechaun quips, “What a lovely lass, I had to blow up her ass!”

 

There’s also a lot of random bizarre shit in this movie that I enjoyed.  Like the CD-ROM program that tells the Leprechaun’s back story.  That was original.  There was also a quirky kill in which Leprechaun made a gangster’s fantasy dream girl turn into a cyborg with boobs.  It didn’t make a lick of sense, but it was cool nevertheless.  The weirdest thing about the flick though is the subplot involving the hero being bitten by the Leprechaun and becoming a Were-Leprechaun.  How much Mad Dog 20/20 do you have to drink before you come up with THAT idea?

 

I also liked how Leprechaun runs around Las Vegas (“Golden Nugget!  I’d like one of those!”) and nobody even blinks.  The best of these scenes comes when he runs into an Elvis impersonator who says, “Nice shoes, do they come in blue suede?”  These exterior shots also provide us with a good look at Las Vegas’s Fremont Street in the ‘90s.  I was there recently in ‘07 (when I got married) and the downtown section has definitely taken a turn for the worse, so it was nice to see the old part of Vegas perfectly preserved in time.

 

Leprechaun 3 delivers on the gore (the bloodiest scene is when he saws the magician in half), clever kills (he turns a guy into a human slot machine), and hilarious rhymes (“For that trick, I’ll chop off your dick!”).  The flick also contains some intentional humor that’s actually quite funny.  (Like the Mafiosos who have a debate about boxers vs. briefs.) What more could you possibly want from a Leprechaun movie?

 

Trenchard-Smith also directed the next installment in the series, Leprechaun 4:  In Space.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: LEPRECHAUN 2 (1994) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 20th, 2009)

Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) is back.  This time he’s in Hollywood looking for a bride.  He sets his sights on the virginal teenaged Bridget (Shevonne Durkin), much to the chagrin of her boyfriend Cody (Charlie Heath).  Leprechaun chains her up in his magic tree house and prepares for his wedding while Cody desperately to convince his drunken Uncle Morty (Sandy Baron) that Leprechauns are real.

 

Leprechaun 2 is a step up from the first film in terms of production design.  It’s a lot slicker looking and actually feels like a real movie.  I can’t really say it’s traditionally what we would call a “good” movie, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t have me in stitches.

 

I think what makes Leprechaun 2 work is Baron’s performance as the drunken Uncle Morty.  This guy is great.  He looks and acts like George Carlin’s evil twin or something.  His best scene comes when he tries to cheat Leprechaun out of his gold.  (“I could ask for a million dollars… I could ask for a BILLION dollars… but no!  I want your crummy pot of gold!”)  Leprechaun gives him what he wants and makes his pot of gold magically appear in Morty’s belly!  There are a lot of negative things you can say about this movie, but they are easily forgivable because the sight of a crock of gold magically appearing inside of an old dude’s stomach is fucking hilarious. 

 

There’s also a great scene earlier in the picture where Morty gets into a drinking contest with Leprechaun.  Afterwards, Leprechaun crawls into a coffee bar and drinks a bunch of java to sober up.  When the obnoxious barista gets on his nerves, Leprechaun scalds him to death with an espresso machine!

 

Another death scene that gets some laughs, both intentional and otherwise comes when Leprechaun makes one of Cody’s friends think that Bridget is seducing him.  She rips off her shirt and the guy moves in closer to her chest, unaware that it is just one of Leprechaun’s illusions and he is really putting his face into some whirring lawnmower blades.  While this scene is funny enough as is, what makes it downright hysterical is the fact that it features what has to be hands down the worst body double in film history.  Durkin obviously has pale skin and small breasts, but when she takes off her shirt, she miraculously has a dark tan and huge silicone implants.  It becomes even more apparent when the editor keeps cutting back and forth from her face to her tits.  Of course, her boobs are merely an illusion created by the Leprechaun, so it kinda makes sense that her tits wouldn’t match her body.  Because of that, I guess I can give this scene a Mulligan.  That still doesn’t mean it isn’t uproarious.

 

As you can tell, most of this movie is entertainingly stupid.  Some of it is downright disturbing.  Like the scene where Leprechaun threatens to consummate his wedding with Bridget and licks her face.  (“Kiss me, I’m Irish!”)  Then there’s one part that will just make you want to puke.  Leprechaun he tells her, “We’ll have to make many changes to your face.  The wee ones won’t suckle if you don’t look like them!” 

 

Be glad this movie spared you the sight of Leprechaun babies suckling at the teat.

 

For whatever reason, Leprechaun 2 makes up a whole bunch of new rules regarding the Leprechaun.  For example, he can only be killed by wrought iron, but in the first film it was a four-leaf clover that did him in.  Leprechaun even has some stupid rules regarding marriage.  He’ll only marry a woman who sneezes three times without someone saying, “God bless you”.  (“She sneezes one, she sneezes twice; she’ll be my slave when she sneezes thrice!”)

 

The filmmakers also made some glaring continuity errors too.  In the beginning, Leprechaun gets trapped inside a magic tree for a thousand years.  But the first movie ended with him being trapped inside a well!  He also said in the original that he was 600 years old, but he claims to be 2000 in this one.  I hate it when they do shit like that.

 

A couple of inconsistencies aside, Leprechaun 2 is fun for the most part.  The series was really gathering steam at this point, with Part 3 being the crown jewel of the franchise.  It’s even better when you play this Suggested Drinking Game:  Take a shot of Irish Whisky every time Leprechaun says, “I want me gold!”