ZONE TROOPERS (1985) **

A platoon of soldiers become trapped behind enemy lines in Italy during WWII.  While on the run from the Nazis, they stumble upon a crashed rocket ship.  Naturally, the Nazis want to use the ship for their own devious purposes.  The troops eventually befriend an alien and together, they team up to fight the Nazis.

This premise sounds like it can't miss, but it does.  The problem is that it's 75% war movie and 25% sci-fi action.  The budget was frankly just too low to support either genre convincingly.  

The war scenes are OK, but we all know you came to the party for the sci-fi cheese.  Unfortunately, it takes its sweet time getting going.  Because of that, you’ve got to wait a long while before anything remotely science-fiction-y happens.  That being said, the end where soldiers and aliens stand side-by-side to blast Nazis with ray guns is appropriately silly. There’s not nearly enough of it to make it worthwhile though.

The grunts are well cast.  Tim Thomerson is good as the gruff, seemingly unkillable “Sarge”. Art LaFleur does a fine job as the stone-faced “Mittens”.  Timothy Van Patten is a lot of fun as Joey, the “aw shucks” guy with a Brooklyn accent who feels like he came right out of a B war movie from the ‘50s.  They can only do so much to enliven this middling, if well-meaning cornball flick.

JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017) *** ½

Justice League is missing the godlike awe Zack Snyder brought to Man of Steel and Batman v Superman.  If ever a movie needed that touch it’s this one.  I mean you have the biggest names in the DC arsenal assembled together for the first time.  It should definitely feel loftier.  As it is, it’s perfectly acceptable Saturday morning fun.

Snyder stepped down during post-production due to a family tragedy and was replaced with Joss Whedon, who brings his patented wisecracking antics to the party.  Because of that, there is an inconsistency in tone.  Whedon, who already had two Avengers movies under his belt, tries to duplicate the Marvel formula, which is sometimes at odds with what Snyder had previously established.  Even though the movie didn’t really need the jokey tone, I have to admit that it is often hilarious.  (I especially liked the Pet Sematary references.)  Maybe it’s the Super Friends fan in me, but I dug seeing the superheroes ribbing each other.

Seeing the League unite is half the fun.  The chemistry between the superheroes makes up for the film’s lapses in tone.  I loved seeing the bromance between Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) and Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) blossom.  Gal Gadot continues to impress as Wonder Woman, Ray Fisher makes a solid debut as Cyborg, and Ezra Miller steals the show as The Flash.  Although I wasn’t a fan of Aquaman’s Hell’s Angels look, Jason Momoa did a fine job in the role.  (I especially liked the scene where he accidentally sits on Wonder Woman’s lasso and confesses his deep-seeded fears to the team.) 

Some elements feel like leftovers from The Avengers.  Remember in that movie when a box-shaped doodad was going to end the world?  Well, this one has THREE box-shaped doodads that can end the world.  The villain, Steppenwolf (Cirian Hinds) lacks personality too.  In fact, he often feels like he came out of a video game.  

All of that hardly matters when the heroes are front and center.  The action is entertaining.  (The Flash sequence, though it is reminiscent of Quicksilver’s scenes in the recent X-Men films, is awesome.)  The performances are game.  It pretty much gives you everything you could want from a comic book movie.  Qualms aside, when it’s firing on all cylinders, it’s a lot of fun.  I mean how can you not grin from ear to ear when you see Superman fly past The Flash and call him a “slow poke”?

The 3-D is surprisingly good.  Most of these things forget that they should have stuff coming out into the audience’s laps.  So, it’s a treat seeing all this stuff come out of the screen:

·         3-D Fruit 

·         3-D Bullet 

·         3-D Suitcase 

·         3-D Batarang 

·         3-D Gun 

·         3-D Sword 

·         3-D Cyborg arm

·         3-D Trident 

·         3-D Axe 

_·           3-D Wonder Woman 

2017 Comic Book Movie Scorecard:

The LEGO Batman Movie:  ****

Thor:  Ragnarok:  ****
Spider-Man:  Homecoming:  ****
Logan:  ****
Wilson:  *** ½
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:  *** ½
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets *** ½
Wonder Woman:  *** ½
Justice League:  *** ½
Ghost in the Shell:  *** ½
Atomic Blonde:  **
Death Note:  **

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: MURDER OBSESSION (1981) *** ½

Murder Obsession starts right off the bat with an excellent topless strangulation scene.  Turns out, it's only a movie.  The lead actor Michael (Stefano Patrizi) just got a little too carried away and almost killed his leading lady (Laura Gemser). (Those method actors are such a pain in the ass.)  Shaken by the incident, Michael runs off to see his mamma (Anita Strindberg) with his girlfriend Deborah (Silvia Dioniso) in tow.  (Maybe they should have called this Mother Obsession.)  He tells his mom Deborah is really his secretary, but she sees right though that.  Soon, more of his moviemaking friends show up to the house where they are picked off one by one by an unseen killer. 

Directed by Riccardo (Caltiki, the Immortal Monster) Freda, Murder Obsession is a hoot from start to finish.  Any director who gets Laura Gemser naked in the first minute of their movie knows what the hell they’re doing.  Later, she gets a great scene where she’s attacked in the bathtub.

Freda handles the stalking sequences stylishly enough, but he really outdoes himself during the extended nightmare scene where Dioniso is subjected to numerous outrageous perils in rapid succession.  First, she’s chased down a hallway while wearing a flimsy, haphazardly-tied nightgown.  During the chase, she runs smack dab into a giant spider web, complete with huge rubbery looking spider.  She’s next attacked by a horde of rubber bats before running through the forest where blood drips down on her from some bloody skulls hanging in the trees.  Zombie monks eventually catch her, string her up, tear her nightgown off, and force her to drink the blood of a chicken. 

The best part is when she's menaced by the giant spider.  Sometimes, they use the giant prop rubber spider.  Other times, it's clearly a regular sized spider attacking a Barbie doll.  Folks, I live for shit like this.   

This sequence, taken on its own exemplary merits, is a wonderful example of genre filmmaking.  It’s atmospheric with equal measures of cheese, sleaze, and genuine ghoulish thrills.  I especially loved the close-ups of the drooling monks with rotten faces. 

The thrills don’t end there.  There’s a hilarious axe-to-the-head scene that features even worse special effects than the spider.  I mean, the dummy head doesn't even have any eyeballs!  Fortunately, the chainsaw-to-the-throat effect is much better. 

Some would label Murder Obsession incomprehensible.  I prefer to think of it as unpredictable.  Sure, there might be great lapses in logic, but I guarantee you, you're never sure where it's going next.  I can understand being underwhelmed by the ending.  All I can is getting there is half the fun.

AKA:  Murder Syndrome.  AKA:  Satan’s Altar.  AKA:  Unconscious.  AKA:  Fear.  AKA:  The Wailing. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: DEMONOID (1981) ** ½

Samantha Eggar and her husband do a little digging in the Mexican Mummy mines and accidentally unleash a centuries-old killer hand.  Before long, it possesses her hubby and he takes off for Vegas.  Samantha follows in hot pursuit until the hand decides it likes her better, kills the husband, detaches itself, and comes after her.  She then turns to priest Stuart Whitman to help destroy the hand once and for all.

Say what you will about this movie, but the opening is amazing.  A priest hacks off the hand of a topless woman and it runs around all by itself while a devil that looks like something out of an ‘80s heavy metal album cover subliminally flashes on screen. You have to wonder if it was added after the fact to beef up the running time (it’s only 79 minutes long), or at the very least add a little T & A to the mix.  Whatever the case may be, I loved it.  

The scenes of people voluntarily hacking their hands off have a certain kick to them (like the part where someone is forced to use a blowtorch on their wrist to free themselves of the hand).  I also liked the part where the hand fakes out a victim out by using a mannequin hand as bait.  Unfortunately, everything in between almost feels like something out of a TV Movie of the Week.  Even with the brief running time, there are still several lulls during the handless stretches of the film.  Still, it’s better than Oliver Stone’s similarly-themed The Hand. 

AKA:  Devil’s Hand.  AKA:  Demonoid:  Messenger of Death.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: MALATESTA’S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD (1973) *

Here’s a jaw-dropping slice of homegrown, regional, low-budget ‘70s hokum.  Your jaw won’t drop because it’s particularly gruesome or scary or anything.  It’ll drop because of how cheap (and bad) it is. 

The idea is sound.  Who wouldn’t want to see random people getting bumped off in a carnival setting?  Too bad the production values are so poor that even the simplest of scenes are awfully unconvincing.   

For starters, there’s hardly anyone ever at the carnival.  At all times it looks like it was filmed at a carnival after closing time with background extras being precious and few.  When someone finally does get killed, they aren’t even missed, which doesn’t help to generate suspense.  There is one potentially great scene where a guy is decapitated on a rollercoaster, but the effects are so shoddy, and the editing is so haphazard that the payoff is basically ruined. 

Speaking of editing, the whole movie feels slightly off-kilter because of the way it’s assembled.  Scenes come and go with little bearing on what happened before.   Often, the film is choppy and incoherent.  In other places it feels unfinished, almost as if it was cobbled together after the fact.  Because of that, it feels much longer than the seventy-three-minute running time suggests. 

The subplot about the horde of cannibals that lurk below the carnival works the best.  The scenes of the cannibals attacking their victims owe a great debt to Night of the Living Dead.  While we’re on the subject of public domain films, I must point out that I did like the part where the cannibals all hang out and watch Lon Chaney movies.  

The acting is painfully amateurish at times.  The only name star in the cast is Herve Villechaize, who has a small role (no pun intended) as a carny.  He’s far and away the best actor in the film, which really isn’t saying much. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE NESTING (1981) **

An agoraphobic writer (Robin Groves) moves to the country to soothe her condition.  Turns out the house she’s rented is a former bordello that’s haunted by the spirit of the madam (Gloria Grahame from Blood and Lace, making her final film appearance).  Before long she’s having waking nightmares of being a hooker and slowly starts losing her grip on her sanity. 

Director Armand Weston is most famous for the legendary porn classic The Defiance of Good.  His skill set didn’t seem to carry over into the horror genre.  The Nesting works in fits and starts and occasionally threatens to genuinely gather momentum.  The problem is that the scare sequences don’t have much in the way of rhythm.  The stalking scenes go on and on, almost comically at times.  At least they have memorable punchlines.  (One scene climaxes with a drunkard handyman being pulled into a lake by zombie arms and another ends with a scuzzy chicken farmer getting a sickle planted in his forehead.) 

All of this is occasionally amusing, but you’ve got to put up with a lot of dull, predictable crap in between the good stuff.  It’s also undone by a lousy ending.  Groves’ wisecracking boyfriend grates on the nerves too. 

John Carradine is around long enough to say a couple of lines before having a stroke and disappearing for a good chunk of the movie.  Then he turns up later in the picture, but promptly has a heart attack and is sidelined yet again.  He’s still well enough to manage reciting the huge exposition dump in the final reel though.   

AKA:  Phobia.  AKA:  Massacre Mansion.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA (1976) ***

After watching the documentary GLOW:  The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, I got a hankering to watch a Matt Cimber movie.  He of course directed a string of exploitations pictures long before his involvement with the ultimate women’s wrestling show.  I’m glad to say, The Witch Who Came from the Sea is one of his best. 

Millie (The Shooting) Perkins stars as a mentally frail waitress who lives with her sister and two nephews in a gloomy seaside town.  When she learns her two favorite footballs players have been murdered during a kinky sex act, she flies off the handle.  It’s also troubling to her because she’s unable to remember if she’s the one responsible.  

The Witch Who Came from the Sea has a freewheeling, experimental feel to it.  The murder sequences have a dreamlike quality and the freak-out scenes are quite memorable.  It has a grimy, homemade look so the “normal” everyday scenes almost feel like a home movie.  Because of that, when things get weird (like the scene where Perkins imagines a bunch of bodybuilders being strung up and killed), it feels especially freaky.   

Due to its very nature, the film is uneven and sometimes frustrating.  Whenever it threatens to derail itself, Perkins swoops in to save the day.  You never quite know what she’ll do next and her homicidal bursts of lunacy are really something to see.  One moment, she’s sweet and innocent.  The next, she’s unhinged and deranged.  The supporting cast, which includes such favorites as George “Buck” Flower as a cop and Roberta Collins are equally fine and lend terrific support.