NETFLIX AND KILL: LITTLE EVIL (2017) ***

Horror-comedies are a tricky thing.  If you can’t find the right tone, the comedy can overpower the horror.  Luckily, the writer and director of Little Evil, Eli Craig does a fine job juggling genres.  Having already directed the cult classic Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, he’s quickly become a pro at marrying the two genres and having fun with the usual horror clichés. 

Adam Scott just got married to the beautiful Evangeline Lilly and they seem like they’re going to have a perfect life together.  However, her son just so happens to be the Antichrist, which puts a damper on things.  She shrugs off his odd behavior (like using a goat puppet to talk), but it’s hard to ignore the fact that people have a habit of dying around him.  Teachers throw themselves out of windows and birthday clowns set themselves on fire.  Adam finds it increasingly difficult to get along with the kid, especially when he buries him alive in the backyard.    

The movie takes an unexpected turn about halfway through when Scott finds himself caring about the spawn of Satan, despite the death and destruction he causes.  I mean, he didn’t CHOOSE to be the Antichrist.  Maybe with a little love and guidance he’ll turn out okay. 

Adam Scott can do this sort of meek character in his sleep.  The film plays upon fears of stepfathers who are afraid of not measuring up to their stepchild's biological father.  I mean how can you measure up to Satan himself?  Scott is the perfect type of nice-guy underachiever that the role requires.   

Lilly is also a lot of fun as the mom who turns a blind eye to her son’s behavior.  We’ve all seen mothers who are in denial of their child’s actions.  Because of that, it’s funny seeing her have that same kind of detachment when she learns her son just buried his stepdad alive.  Lilly’s nonchalant revelation about the morbid circumstances around her son’s conception is one of the funniest bits in the movie.  (“I told you not to judge me!”)  Clancy Brown and Sally Field also do a fine job in their supporting roles. 

Craig takes a lot of visual cues from other movies.  There is a lot of stuff taken from The Omen, with a little Poltergeist thrown in there for good measure.  The general premise is slight and a bit predictable, but thanks to the clever writing and fun performances, it manages to very funny and completely charming.

NETFLIX AND KILL: CULT OF CHUCKY (2017) **

Cult of Chucky picks up a few years after the events of Curse of Chucky.  Now, the wheelchair-bound Nica (Fiona Dourif), who was blamed for Chucky’s last rampage, is being moved into a sterile psych ward in the middle of nowhere.  Predictably, her shrink brings in a Chucky doll as part of some half-assed therapy session and it doesn’t take long before Chucky is roaming the halls and killing patients. 

The seventh Child’s Play film isn’t so lucky for Chucky.  Even though director Don Mancini did a fine job on the past two entries, this one just feels uneven and slapdash.  While he introduces some OK concepts into the Chucky mythos, they don’t really make a whole lot of sense.  Like when Chucky puts his spirit into multiple Chucky dolls and they all start running around killing people and making wisecracks.  Sadly, more Chuckys doesn’t equal more fun.

Another problem is that it all seems to be leading up to something that never happens.  Just when the movie starts to kind of come together, it ends abruptly, leaving things wide open for yet another sequel.  I guess it’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe effect.  Why deliver the goods in this one when you can promise even more stuff in the next installment?

When in doubt, Mancini piles on the gore.  There are set pieces revolving around severed heads, ripped-out tongues, and a power drill, among others.  They’re juicy and all, but without a strong narrative to go along with it, they lack the punch of the series’ best kills.

Alex Vincent makes a welcome return as Chucky’s original owner, Andy.  In fact, the subplot about him keeping Chucky’s head in a box and taking out his frustrations on it is a lot more interesting than the stuff in the nuthouse.  Jennifer Tilly is also back as Chucky’s love Tiffany, but they never really figure out what to do with her or her character. 

Naturally, Brad Dourif gets all the best lines as Chucky.  The funniest one references one of his earliest roles.  I won’t spoil it for you because it’s one of the best lines in the movie. 

So, if you’re just in it for the wisecracks and gore, Cult of Chucky may be up your alley.  Sadly, it left this die-hard Child’s Play fan cold.  It’s easily the weakest installment of the series.  That probably won’t stop me from watching the next one though.

NETFLIX AND KILL

Well, it’s that time of the year again.  It’s October and you know what that means:  Time for everyone who has a movie blog to spend each and every day watching and reviewing horror movies.  As you can see, it’s already October 5^th and I haven’t reviewed any yet, but fear not, I will be watching and reviewing at least 31 horror films this month.   

Usually when I do one of these things, I try to have a theme to tie everything together.  In past years, I have watched nothing but sequels and in other years I have wasted precious money watching crap I’ve found in the bargain DVD bin at Wal-Mart.  I finally started streaming Netflix this year and while browsing their selection I found a ton of horror movies, so I figured I’d watch 31 horror flicks to celebrate the Halloween season.    

This will be fun because the films I’ve chosen include a couple of horror sequels, along with a lot of low budget crap, so it should be a nice mix of what I have done in previous years.  I hope you all have as much fun reading about my plunge into the horror of streaming as I will writing about it. 

Here’s a couple of links to the previous years’ 31 Days of Horror-Ween reviews:  https://thevideovacuum.livejournal.com/tag/.the%2031%20days%20of%20horror-ween 

https://thevideovacuum.livejournal.com/tag/.the%2031%20movies%20of%20horror-ween

THAT’S ACTION (1990) **

Imagine That's Entertainment, but instead of clips of classic MGM musicals, it’s filled with clips of crappy AIP action movies.  Robert Culp is our host for this seventy-eight-minute compilation.  He’s usually great, but even he can't bring any spark into the lifeless script he’s been given (which was written by director David A. Prior, who conveniently directed a lot of the films featured).   

The clips themselves are uneven as hell and range from several minutes to only a few seconds.  Most of them look low rent.  I mean, just look at the scenes from Space Mutiny.  Are you really supposed to watch the scenes of Reb Brown being chased around in a futuristic golf cart in an abandoned warehouse and think to yourself, “THAT’S ACTION!”  If anything, the scenes from Space Mutiny showcase just how painful it must be to watch it without the benefit of the robots from Mystery Science Theater 3000. 

There are some highlights here, like the flying hand scene from Future Force, but they're more the exception than the rule.  Even though the emphasis is on action, we still get to see clips from horror movies like Aerobicide and The Lost Platoon.  Most of the fun though comes from seeing guys like Oliver Reed and Cameron Mitchell slumming it in such cheap-ass action junk.   

Culp teases a sequel at the end, but for one reason or another, it never happened.

VINEGAR SYNDROME SPRING 2017 CATALOGUE OF FILM (2017) ***

In a short span of time, Vinegar Syndrome has become one of the best home entertainment divisions around.  Their primary focus is on vintage smut, but they also cater to fans of ‘70s exploitation, ‘80s horror, and ‘90s VHS gems.  This three-disc DVD collection of trailers acts as a visual catalogue of all the films in their library.  Remember the Something Weird Sampler?  Well, it’s kind of like that, except it’s well over eight hours long.  Sitting through the entire thing is a daunting task, especially when two of the three discs are XXX rated.  If you break the discs up into one-hour blocks, it goes down a lot smoother.   

The only complaint is that many of the trailers for the films featured could not be located.  In the interest of posterity, newly-made trailers have been edited by Vinegar Syndrome and placed in their stead.  These (mostly brief) trailers don’t pack nearly the wallop as the original “vintage” trailers, but since they are only acting as a placeholder, they aren’t that much of a distraction. 

Because of its catalogue nature, it doesn’t flow as well as something like Trailer Trauma or the 42^nd Street Forever series.  Many trailers are entertaining on their own merits (like Prisoner of Paradise, Mai Lin vs. Serena, Hot and Saucy Pizza Girls, Taboo 2, and Night of the Spanish Fly), but a lot of them are just kind of cobbled together.  By the time you get to the third disc, some of the trailers start to repeat themselves because of their availability on blu-ray.  Still, just having all these trailers in one spot is pretty cool.  I’ve already jotted down some titles I should probably get my hands on, and in that respect, the disc(s) accomplished its goal.

POOR WHITE TRASH PART 2 (1974) * ½

You know you’re in trouble from the very first scene.  Two lovers sit outdoors, holding each other in their arms.  Then, the camera slowly dissolves to… the same shot of the two lovers holding each other in their arms!  That’s right, folks:  They pulled a Manos! 

At least this ineptness is interrupted by a not-bad scene where the lover boy gets an axe in his chest.  This sets his best gal a running through the woods where she meets a lecherous country bumpkin who takes her home and holds her prisoner while his equally trashy family members look on.  Eventually, the killer makes his way to their cabin and begins snuffing out the country-fried clan one by one. 

The director was S.F. Brownrigg, and if you’ve seen his Don’t Look in the Basement, you might already know what to expect.  Part ‘70s hicksploitation flick, part ‘80s-style slasher, Poor White Trash Part 2 is thoroughly unpleasant and is filled with long painful scenes of people shouting at one another in overdone southern accents.  Even though portions of the film are a chore to sit through, it fitfully comes alive whenever someone gets bumped off.  In addition to the aforementioned axing, there’s a decent scene where a guy gets his throat torn out with a rake and an OK barb-wire strangulation. 

This was originally released as Scum of the Earth, but it made much more money as Poor White Trash Part 2.  It’s funny because the first Poor White Trash wasn’t that film’s original title either.  That was a drama called Bayou, starring Peter Graves.  Naturally, the two pictures have nothing to do with one another. 

Suggested Drinking Game:  Take a shot every time the psycho patriarch says, "Fetch me a jar", and you'll be just as drunk and demented as he is.  

AKA:  Scum of the Earth.

BONNIE’S KIDS (1972) ***

Ellie (Tiffany Bolling) kills her lecherous stepfather (Leo Gordon) when he tries to rape her sister, Myra (Robin Mattson).  Together, they stash the body and take off for Los Angeles where they hit up their rich uncle (Scott Brady) for a place to stay.  Eventually, he ropes Ellie and a slow-on-the-draw private investigator (Steve Sandor) into a scheme involving a bag full of money.  She convinces the P.I. to take the money and run away with her and it isn’t long between her uncle’s associates (Alex Rocco and Timothy Brown) are in hot pursuit.

Bonnie’s Kids starts out as standard drive-in fare before slowly revealing itself as a quasi-Elmore Leonard type of crime picture.  Director Arthur Marks (who later had a great run of directing Blaxploitation flicks like Bucktown, Friday Foster, and J.D.’s Revenge) does a particularly fine job during the sleazy pre-credits sequence.  Some of the back-and-forth over the money gets a bit repetitive late in the game, but for the most part, Marks keeps things running smoothly, even when the film is hopping from genre to genre. 

The cast is great, which helps tremendously.  Tiffany (Wicked, Wicked) Bolling should have been a star.  Whenever she’s front and center, the movie really crackles.  Mattson is equally fine as the Lolita-like spitfire who plays with the affections of both men and women alike.  Old pros Rocco and Brady add extra dimension to their already colorful characters and leave memorable impressions as well.