BAG BOY LOVER BOY (2014) ****

You know the old adage:  They don’t make them like they used to.  I don’t think they ever made them like Bag Boy Lover Boy.  I mean it kind of feels like a sleazy update of the old roughies from the ‘60s where “photographer’s models” met untimely demises after running afoul of a sadistic shutterbug.  However, it’s done with a singularly weird vision and anchored by one of the greatest performances of mind-boggling, otherworldly lunacy I’ve seen in a long while.  I guess what I’m getting at here is, Bag Boy Lover Boy is a goddamn modern classic.

Lonely Albert (Jon Wachter) works at a hot dog stand.  He longs for the love of a customer who is nice to him but would never in a million years sleep with him.  A sleazy photographer named Ivan (Theodore Bouloukos) gets one look at his unusual features and tricks him into posing for a series of lurid photos at Albert’s expense.  Albert desperately wants to become a photographer to impress his customer crush, but Ivan only strings him along in order to get his pictures taken.  Eventually, the unhinged Albert takes to luring hookers and drunks to his studio where he kills, photographs, and violates (in that order) his models.  

It sounds simple.  It is simple.  What is unexplainable is how fucking bizarre Wachter’s performance is.  This is one of the wildest, most Wiseau-ian performances in a long time.  He looks goofy and has an accent that is impossible to place.  I have no idea if that was part of his character or if he really speaks that way.  (I guess that’s why they call it “acting”.)  I do know that his line delivery and bewildered expressions lead to some giant laughs.  Wachter hasn’t done anything before or since.  Maybe that’s for the best.  I don’t know if he could ever equal the tour de force he delivers here.  

I don’t know how others will feel about the film.  The kills aren’t graphic, but there’s a strange mix of horror, comedy, and tragedy going through each sequence that it makes for a unique experience.  Some viewers will be put off by Wachter’s performance alone.  Some will be perplexed by the odd tone.  If you’re like me though, and you’ve thought you’ve seen it all, Bag Boy Lover Boy is confirmation that you haven’t seen nothing yet.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: PRIME EVIL: THERE’S NOTHING OUT THERE (1991) ** ½

Before Scream, we had writer/director Rolfe Kanefsky’s horror-comedy, There’s Nothing Out There.  A bunch of college students spend spring break in a remote house in the woods.  The lone horror movie fan of the group gets on everyone’s nerves as he constantly warns his friends not to act like characters in horror films or run the risk of being killed.  Since that includes things like drinking, skinny-dipping, and premarital sex, he’s kind of a buzzkill.  So, they do what any good friend would do… Lock his ass up in the basement.  Unfortunately, that’s when a slimy space alien shows up and starts melting men’s faces and turning the ladies of the group into mind-controlled killers.

Kanefsky does a great job on the opening slasher movie scene set inside a video store.  Not only is it cool seeing all the old school video boxes, it’s also a nice slice of low budget horror filmmaking.  Although it starts out like gangbusters, there are some real lulls in between the laughs and monster attacks.  There are some clever moments to be sure, but Kanefsky should’ve edited this down a bit more to achieve its maximum entertainment value.

The monster, it must be said, looks terrible.  It resembles a green rubber scarf with eyes.  Just when I was about to write it off, the monster started shooting green lasers out of its eyes.  I can honestly say I haven’t seen a slimy scarf monster with laser eyes before, so I guess I’ll cut it some slack.  

Despite the unevenness of the whole enterprise, Kanefsky really crams this thing full of gratuitous nudity, so you’re always guaranteed to keep watching.  He used this aesthetic all throughout his career.  It especially served him well during his long run directing Skinamax movies like the softcore Emmanuelle cable series.

AKA:  Don’t Scream… Die.  AKA:  The Bloody Cottage in the Forest:  Scream or Die.

Well, that’s going to wrap things up for The 31 Days of Horror-Ween.  I’m not going to lie, this year’s selection of films were pretty rough going at times.  Luckily, we finished out the month with a couple of strong features.  Don’t worry, I’ll have a few more horror reviews before the end of All Hallows’ Eve to close out the month.

If you still can’t get enough horror reviews, well, you’re in luck.  November will see the arrival of Halloween Hangover, in which I’ll try to get around to watching all the horror movies I didn’t get around to watching in November.  It probably won’t be as extensive or thorough, but there’s sure to be plenty more horror for me in the near future.

Besides, it’s Halloween.  Everyone’s entitled to one good scare.

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (2014) ** ½

What would happen if Sergio Leone remade Nosferatu as a ‘90s indie junkie drama?  It might just look something like this.  A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is director Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut picture and it shows she can set a dreamlike, Lynchian mood with style to spare.  I just kind of wish there was more to it.  

Filmed in California (filling in for Iran), it’s the story of a vampire (Sheila Vand) who lurks the streets of a dead-end Iranian town preying on pimps and junkies.  When she falls for a hunky drug dealer (Arash Marandi), it goes against all her principals.  Still, she follows her heart, and strikes up a relationship with him.  Problems arise when she kills his junkie father. 

I don’t think I have to tell you the movie works much better as a vampire flick than it does as an Iranian junkie drama.  Amirpour delivers a sterling sequence when Vand seduces a sadistic pimp.  I had no sympathy for this guy whatsoever.  I’m sorry, but if you go to put your finger in a girl’s mouth and she reveals to you that she has switchblade-style fangs lurking in her teeth, and you STILL put your finger in there, you get what you deserve.  We also get a Duck Soup-inspired scene where she mimics the movements of an old junkie and the part where she threatens a kid with damnation if he isn’t a “good boy” is some real coldblooded shit.

Too bad much of the movie is so overly pretentious (not to mention overlong).  I enjoyed some of the moody, black and white visuals, but honestly, this was kind of a slog in some places.  It also says something about the acting when the cat gives the best performance in the entire film.  

Even though Amirpour draws her inspirations from all over the place, her vision remains distinctive.  Warts and all, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a unique enough experience to warrant a watch.  I mean, it features the first chador-wearing, skateboard-riding vampire woman in film history, so let’s give it a little credit here, okay? 

WOLFGUY: ENRAGED LYCANTHROPE (1975) ***

Members of a rock group are found torn to shreds by what looks like a tiger’s claw.  Reporter Sonny Chiba (who also happens to be a werewolf) investigates, and learns they had all previously raped a woman at the behest of her fiancé’s rich father.  While on the trail of the raped girl, he learns she has a tiger spirit living inside her and uses her “grudge” to kill her attackers.  Things get really weird when a top-secret government agency brainwashes the girl and forces her to channel her rage at their enemies, thereby turning her into a weapon.  It’s then up to Sonny to rescue her.

Wolfguy:  Enraged Lycanthrope takes great liberties with the established werewolf lore.  I guess because it was made in Japan, they may not have known exactly what the traditional werewolf lore was, so they just made it up as they went along.  Even though Sonny doesn’t sprout fangs and hair, he is invincible during the full moon, so there’s that.  In that regard, he’s more like a superhero (or Popeye) than your average movie Wolfman.  The scene where he heals himself in the moonlight is just one of the film’s many batshit insane sequences.  Folks, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Sonny Chiba’s guts reverse-motion themselves back inside his body.  

Sonny is great as always.  He’s particularly fun to watch in his Street Fighter-style fight scenes where he beats up a bunch of yakuza members.  (There’s one clever bit where he takes out some bad guys by throwing coins at them.)  These moments are more of the marinade than the meat though.

The scenes of people being torn apart by an invisible tiger spirit are jaw-dropping.  The wounds just appear on the victims and blood streams out of their bodies.  Trust me, this movie will teach you to never cross a syphilis-ridden junkie with the vengeful spirit of a tiger lurking inside her.

Just when you think it’s over, there is an entire section where Chiba goes off into the wilderness and gets it on with a hot mountain woman.  While he’s in the throes of passion, he imagines himself breastfeeding from his mother, which somehow restores his wolf powers.  You won’t catch Lon Chaney, Jr. doing that, that’s for sure!

If you can’t already tell, Wolfguy:  Enraged Lycanthrope doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Then again, when there’s so much crazy shit in this movie, you start to think a little thing like “sense” is overrated.  It moves at such a crackling pace that you don’t get a chance to even scratch your head because it’s already halfway through the next zany sequence. 

Die-hard werewolf purists will be appalled.  Sonny Chiba fans might not know what to think of it.  However, purveyors of WTF cinema will champion it as an unsung masterpiece.   

AKA:  Wolf Guy.  AKA:  Wolf Guy:  Enrage, Wolfman.  AKA:  Wolfman vs. the Supernatural. 

THE CARPENTER (1988) ***

Martin (Pierre Lenoir) comes home to find his wife Alice (Lynne Adams) cutting up his suits with a pair of scissors.  He does what any rational man would do in that situation:  Sends her to the nuthouse!  After the doctors treat her, Alice is released into Martin’s care and the pair move into an old house.  It’s a bit of a fixer upper as there are workman in and out of the place all day.  However, at night, one lone carpenter (Wings Hauser) works alone in the basement restoring the home to its original condition.  He also brutally murders anyone who messes with the still mentally fragile Alice.  Is he a figment of her imagination?  Or is he a vengeful spirit from beyond the grave?

The Carpenter is a surprising, low key, but effective horror film.  I hesitate to call it a horror comedy, but the humor in the film is really well done.  Wings in particular gets plenty of laughs with his off-kilter line readings.

What makes his performance so great is that he COULD have went overboard with the role, chewing the scenery like he did in Vice Squad.  Instead, he goes the other way with it, deftly underplaying the menace of the character.  This of course just makes his delivery even funnier.  When he tells someone, “Keep your hands to yourself” before cutting off their arms with a power saw, you laugh twice.  Once because, it’s a one-liner even Freddy Krueger would love, and the second because of the nonchalant way Wings delivers it.  

Hauer’s performance is pretty much the whole show.  For a die-hard Wings fan like me, that was more than enough.  Others may walk away feeling it’s a bit slight and lightweight.  I for one liked The Carpenter.  I’d say get HAMMERED and watch it.  You won’t be BOARD.  You’ll definitely be glad you SAW it.

AKA:  The Nightmare is Reviving.

DEATHGASM (2015) **

A teenage metalhead (Milo Cawthrone) goes to live with his extended family in a small New Zealand town.  Along with a few likeminded nerds and outcasts, he forms a rock band called Deathgasm.  When they play a forbidden song stolen from an aging rocker, it turns the townsfolk into possessed zombies.   

Peter Jackson pioneered the New Zealand gore movie with the cult classic Bad Taste.  He later made the Lord of the Rings franchise and turned it into the single biggest job market in the country.  Director Jason Lei Howden did special effects work on the Lord of the Rings films, and he definitely stole a few things from Jackson’s playbook.  Not only does he borrow heavily from Jackson, but Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright as well.  Too bad it all comes off feeling like a hollow imitation.

Speaking of imitation, Deathgasm doesn’t do anything Trick or Treat did better back in 1986.  It has a similar premise; just with more gore.  Sometimes, less is more though.

The gore, it should be said, is quite juicy.  We get blood-puking (and shitting) zombies, crushed heads, chainsaws to the stomach, and gut ripping.  However, the fact that the film has not one, but TWO death-by-dildo scenes is the tip-off it’s just trying way too hard.

Sure, the red stuff flies freely, but the characters are annoying, so it all just feels like overkill.  Even worse is the fact they speak in thick, impenetrable accents.  This causes the already cheesy one-liners to land with a thud, mostly because you can’t tell what the hell they’re saying half the time.  I could’ve also done without the sketchpad title cards every time a new (annoying) character was introduced.

In terms of gore, Deathgasm goes to 11, but everything else barely registers.

AKA:  Heavy Metal Apocalypse.  

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: PRIME EVIL: A QUIET PLACE (2018) *** ½

Well, Prime strikes again.  This is the second time this month a movie I was going to watch mysteriously became “Unavailable”.  Well, “unavailable” as in, “Not Included with Prime”.  I’m sorry, I like Adam Ant as much as the next guy, but if you think I’m going to pay $3.99 for Spellcaster, you got another think coming.  (Luckily, it’s available for free on Tubi, so I’m sure I’ll watch it eventually.)  I was going to save A Quiet Place for November’s horror movie watching project, Halloween Hangover, but I felt that after so many bad movies I’ve watched this month, I needed a break.  As it turns out, this was just the palette cleanser I was looking for.  

The premise is deceptively simple.  Creatures who hunt using sound have pretty much wiped out the population of a small town.  John Krasinski and Emily Blunt hold down the fort with their children, hunting and gathering in total silence, communicating only via sign language.  

That’s all I’ll say.  Although according to the box office reports, you all saw this one way before I did.  It’s just pretty amazing that Krasinski, who also directed was able to squeeze so much suspense, atmosphere, and dread with seemingly so little.  In lesser hands, the suspense would’ve solely come from people dropping stuff and then trying to remain perfectly quiet.  Well, there is some of that, but the movie really cooks when its dealing with its characters’ guilt, fear, and impending motherhood.  Who knew Jim from The Office was a born filmmaker?

I can’t say it’s perfect.  People shush each other so often that it becomes comical after a while.  You could almost play a drinking game every time someone raises their finger to their lips and be in a coma before the movie’s over.  The monsters are also kind of shitty too as they look like something out of a Resident Evil PS2 game.

Those are minor quibbles.  Krasinski delivers three or four memorable suspense-filled sequences of the family in peril.  I mean the plot sounds like something M. Night Shyamalan would cook up, only he’d be too worried trying to make a “twist” to it that he’d forget to bring on the actual scares.  Luckily for us, Krasinski is no M. Night.  

I particularly liked the world-building aspects.  I love survivalist horror, and this flick presents a unique spin on that tried-and-true subgenre.  It also clocks in at a lean and mean ninety minutes, meaning it’s all killer and no filler.  

All in all, A Quiet Place is worth making a ruckus about.