SCREAM AND STREAM AGAIN: BLOODMANIA (2017) * ½

(Streamed via Watch Free Flix)

Bloodmania was the final directing effort of Herschell Gordon Lewis, the man who invented the modern-day gore film with Blood Feast.  I don’t know if co-directing and hosting a no-budget horror anthology movie was exactly how he wanted to go out, as it’s nowhere near the same league as his classics (or even the latter-day Blood Feast 2).  Even if his segments aren’t very good, I guess they aren’t bad for a ninety-year-old.  He’s clearly having a ball during his Crypt Keeper-style introductions to each story, which accounts for something at least. 

The first tale is Lewis’s “Gory Story” (* ½).  A loser finds out his girlfriend is cheating on him.  When he tries to kill her with a chainsaw, he accidentally cuts his own hand off.  He then goes around sporting a hook and finds out the hard way it’s cursed. 

Gory Story has a one-joke premise:  The dude keeps accidentally stabbing himself with the hook.  It’s not very funny, but at least the gore is over the top.  You know, when Lewis did this sort of thing in the ‘60s it all had a sense of humor, some style, and a lot of low budget ingenuity.  This unfortunately plays like your typical bad shot-on-video horror-comedy.  If it had been just a lot of gory shit for the sake of gory shit, it might’ve been okay.  However, it suffers from an awkward structure and the stupid newscasts eat up way too much time (and get in the way of the gore). 

“Attack of Conscience” (*) is the next story.  A woman goes for a drive with her unbalanced fiancée who purposefully crashes the car and sends her into a coma.  There, she perpetually lives out (and dies from) more horrible deaths at the hands of her lover. 

Like Gory Story, this chapter suffers from a crummy structure.  It could’ve played like a half-assed variation of Happy Death Day, but it’s all done in such an annoyingly vague way that it almost immediately becomes frustrating.  The shitty CGI is also an uneasy fit alongside the cut-rate practical gore effects. 

The next tale is “The Night Hag” (**).  A bickering couple are killed by something living inside their walls.  A new family buys the house and moves in, only to come face to face with the feral cannibal woman who secretly resides within the walls. 

This story was also done by Lewis, and it suffers from weird tonal shifts.  The early scenes play out like a comedy, complete with a sitcom laugh track.  The stuff with the new family is played mostly straight, and it’s sort of effective.  I liked the scene where the husband takes a sleeping pill which induces sleep paralysis, rendering him unable to fend off the night hag’s advances.  Too bad the ending is fucking terrible. 

They saved the best (relatively speaking) for last with GOREgeous (**).  It tells the story of a former rocker named Gordo who gets his kicks by chopping up women with a samurai sword.  He gets a gig managing an all-girl rock band and quickly sets out to make them his next victims. 

GOREgeous ain’t great, but it’s coherent, fast moving, and doesn’t wear out its welcome.  It’s also packed with lots of nudity, which makes it the best story by default.  Although it’s pretty cheesy stuff, it does contain the world’s first treadmill chase scene.  There’s also a funny swordfight, but instead of swords, they use guitars.

Although Bloodmania ended Gordon’s career with a whimper, it’s still far from his worst film.  Anyone interested in the legendary director will be sure to stumble upon it at some point.  Just try to watch his classics first.

POLTERGEIST 3 (1988) **

Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) gets pawned off on her Aunt Pat (Nancy Allen) and Uncle Bruce (Tom Skerritt) and goes to stay with them in their big-ass skyscraper in Chicago.  It doesn’t take long for the demented Reverend Kane (Nathan Davis, a poor substitute for Julian Beck) to come looking for Carol Anne as he once again needs her to guide him “into the light”.  With the help of Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein), Pat and Bruce buckle down to go to the other side to find Carol Anne.

Everyone always talks about “The Poltergeist Curse” because of the deaths of many actors in the franchise.  This is the one most clearly affected by the curse since poor little Heather O’Rourke died during the making of the movie.  Because of that, a terrible pall hangs over the entire film.  Even if she had lived, Poltergeist 3 would’ve still been a lame sequel.  Since she died, it just adds an unpleasant air to the proceedings. 

Let’s talk about the good stuff first.  I really dig Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen in this.  While Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams are sorely missed, Skerritt and Allen have their own brand of chemistry that makes their scenes together fun to watch.  It’s just a shame they were stuck in a crappy Poltergeist sequel.  I also enjoyed a young Lara Flynn Boyle (in her film debut) as their spunky daughter. 

This is also the slickest looking film in the franchise.  Gone is the soft-focus Spielbergian feel of the first two movies.  The sleek, polished look compliments the skyscraper setting and helps to give this entry its own distinct vibe.  We also get a WTF moment when Boyle bursts through a husk of Rubinstein that qualifies as the flick’s lone oddball set piece.

That’s about it.

The big problem is that director Gary Sherman (who also directed the classic Vice Squad) only has one trick up his sleeve:  Mirror bullshit.  People look at their reflection and see something happening in the mirror before it happens in real life and/or a ghost that can only be seen in the mirror and not beside them.  That’s it.  This gag gets old fast and Sherman hammers it mercilessly into the ground even before the first act draws to a close. 

Seriously, you won’t want to look at a mirror for a week after you watch this.  Not because you’ll be scared.  You’ll just be sick of seeing mirrors. 

The ending is also hard to watch.  It feels rushed, almost as if it was hastily rewritten after O’Rourke’s death.  It’s also awfully anticlimactic.  The fact that they used a painfully obvious double for O’Rourke doesn’t help matters either.

The worst part of the movie though is the gratuitous shrink character played by Richard Fire.  He has got to be the most unlikeable, grating, annoying asshat to ever appear in a major horror franchise sequel.  I know he’s supposed to be the guy you love to hate, but he is so delusional, arrogant, condescending, and moronic that you just want to punch his stupid face every time he shows up.  Most of the blame should be diverted to Sherman and his co-writer Brian Taggert (who also wrote Wanted:  Dead or Alive with Sherman) for shamelessly stacking the deck against him and piling on repulsive trait after repulsive trait.  Fire was obviously a much better writer than actor as he also wrote the classic Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer.

POLTERGEIST 2: THE OTHER SIDE (1986) ** ½

For decades, it’s been hotly debated who really directed Poltergeist.  Was it the credited director, Tobe Hooper who was responsible for the horror classic?  Or was it producer Steven Spielberg who was calling the shots all along?  We may never really know.  One thing is for sure though.  We know who directed Poltergeist 2:  The Other Side, and it was… uh… Brian (What’s Love Got to Do with It?) Gibson.  I mean, he’s not exactly Spielberg, is he?  Heck, he’s no Tobe Hooper!

So, basically what we have here is a Poltergeist movie without any input from Spielberg or Hooper.  As such, it’s about what you’d expect.  The family (minus Dominque Dunne, who is conveniently forgotten about) returns, and their chemistry together helps to carry the film over a lot of the hiccups and stupid shit that occurs.  JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson are still as fun as ever to watch together (the scene where they contend with the insurance company over the house in the first film is pretty funny), and Oliver Robins and Heather O’Rourke also do a fine job as the kids.

The real star is Richard Edlund, who did the special effects.  

The film has a couple of strong set pieces to keep it from falling into the usual sequel trap.  The scene where Robins is attack by haywire dental work will freak out anyone who ever wore braces, but the real showstopper is the Tequila Vomit Monster (who was designed by none other than H.R. Giger).  This sucker gave me nightmares as a kid and showed me at a young age the dangers of drinking.  Why they show stupid filmstrips in health class and not this scene, I’ll never know.  To this day, I haven’t swallowed the worm yet, and I have this movie to thank for it.

This time out, the family goes to stay with Williams’ mother.  When she croaks, the supernatural shit starts up again.  The poltergeist sort of manifest themselves in the shape of a creepy old preacher named Kane (Julian Beck) who wants poor little Carol Anne (O’Rourke) to guide them into the light once again.  It’s up to a wise old Native American (Will Sampson) to help the family and drive away the evil spirits.

The Native American mumbo jumbo really cuts into the action.  Did we need the powwow scene where Sampson sits around the campfire and lets a bunch of ghosts fly up his nose?  Or the long scenes where he and Nelson go and do some half-assed men’s retreat?  Sampson is not a bad actor, but his character just feels totally gratuitous.  He’s also a poor substitute for Zelda Rubinstein, who once again appears as the pint-sized psychic, although she isn’t given a whole lot to do. 

While the film is slow to start off, it quickly switches gears and begins to feel rushed.  The ending is a real shitshow.  The scenes of the family flying around definitely feels like Gibson trying to out-Spielberg Spielberg, but it just comes off as embarrassing.  Apparently, the studio cut a half-hour out of it just before its release, which probably accounts for a lot of the pacing whiplash that occurs. 

Also, Kane is a weak villain.  Personifying the evil from the original movie was a real misstep.  It doesn’t help that the big thing that makes him evil is… he’s old.  It’s like look how creepy that old guy is, which really smacks of ageism.  The scene where he comes to the door and screams, “YOU’RE GONNA DIE!” is some unintentionally hilarious shit too. 

You know, every time I try to dis this movie, I think back to the Tequila Vomit Monster and have to reassess my position.  Yes, there’s a lot of stupid shit in Poltergeist 2.  Yes, it’s nowhere near the same league as the original.  However, a little Tequila Vomit Monster goes a long way.

CLEANING OUT THE DVR: RUPTURE (2017) *** ½

(DVR’ed from The Movie Channel on February 17, 2018)

Steven Shainberg has had an interesting career.  He started out with the bleak Jim Thompson adaptation Hit Me before becoming something of a critical darling for 2002’s Secretary, which for my money is still the best BDSM movie of all time.  Whatever critical praise he garnered from that flick was quickly squandered when he made the universally panned Fur:  An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus.  It took him a good ten years to get his next directing gig after that fiasco, but he made quite a comeback with this bleak and brutal sci-fi/horror/survival flick starring Noomi Rapace. 

She stars as a divorced mom on her way to a date with her new boyfriend.  She gets a flat tire and is kidnapped by some shady folks who take her to an underground clinic, strap her to a gurney, and proceed to perform a bunch of horrifying “tests” on her where they make her confront her worst fears.  Noomi eventually discovers the doctors aren’t trying to scare her to death.  Rather, they want to scare her to the point of “rupture”, which is probably just as bad, if not worse.

Essentially, this is kind of like Captivity Meets Martyrs with a little bit of Invasion of the Body Snatchers thrown in there.  The plot is predictable, but the game cast help to elevate it into being something more than just another psychological horror show.  Rapace is aces as the smart, resourceful, and feisty heroine.  She does her best John McClaine as she crawls around ventilation shafts, dodges despicable scientists, and tries to survive the night.  It also helps that the trio of doctors, Michael Chiklis, Lesley Manville, and Peter Stormare are perfectly cast.  Each one brings their unique energy to their roles and together make for a formidable threesome.

Is Rupture kind of predictable?  Yes.  (It’s probably no coincidence that there’s only a one letter difference in the words “Rupture” and “Rapture”.)  Does it feel like a variation on Martyrs?  Sure.  However, the way Shainberg doles out the clues, sets the atmosphere, and ratchets up the tension is expertly done.  Writer Brian (Hard Candy) Nelson also posts an interesting concept:  Is your greatest fear the very thing that’s holding you back from your achieving your potential?  If you’re in Noomi’s shoes, you might not like the answers, but if you’re an audience member, you’ll probably enjoy the movie. 

FULL MOON HIGH (1981) *

Writer/director Larry Cohen’s movies usually have a string of tongue-in-cheek humor, social commentary, or macabre wit running through them.  When he flat-out goes for laughs though, the results can disastrous, as anyone who has seen Wicked Stepmother can attest.  The same can be said for Full Moon High.  The jokes are juvenile, the gags are tired, and a pretty decent cast is thoroughly wasted. 

Adam Arkin stars as a high school student who accompanies his dad (Ed McMahon) to Romania on a top-secret mission.  While dad is busy having a three-way, Adam is forced to wander the streets of Romania unattended.  Naturally, he gets bitten by a werewolf and returns home with a craving to bite people on the ass. 

Yes, you read that right.  The werewolf in this movie goes around biting people on the butt.  Ho-ho.  You’d think that would mean they would also turn into a werewolf too, but the film is so dumb it doesn’t even stop to entertain that possibility. 

Like many of the horror-comedies of the early ‘80s, Full Moon High takes a lot of its inspiration from Airplane as the gags occur at a rapid-fire clip.  Unfortunately, there isn’t nary a laugh to be had here as the results are closer to Saturday the 14^th than Student Bodies.  Heck, this makes Saturday the 14^th look like Saturday the 14^th Strikes Back! 

Some of the gags, you just shake your head in disbelief.  Take for example the scene where Arkin foils an airline hijacking by turning into a werewolf.  I know this sort of thing was on the audience’s mind in those days, but it’s just so random (and stupid) that it comes off feeling forced.  The whole idea that Arkin remains eternally young is a bit odd too.  In fact, the entire second act in which he returns home twenty years later feels like it came out of a totally different movie.  It’s almost as if Cohen took two half-finished scripts and combined them. 

Not only that, but it’s sort of a shame that something that features Joanne (Switchblade Sisters) Nail, Roz Kelly, Jm. J. Bullock, Demond Wilson, Bob Saget, and Pat Morita is a total washout.  Even an extended cameo by Arkin’s old man, the usually reliable Alan Arkin falls flat.  I hesitate to call Full Moon High a “dog” because that would be sinking to the movie’s level.  

WE’RE GOING TO EAT YOU (1980) ***

Tsui (Zu:  Warriors of Magic Mountain) Hark directed this wild horror-Kung Fu hybrid.  Agent 999 (Norman Chu) goes to a remote island to find a master criminal known as Rolex (Melvin Wong).  There, he stumbles upon a village solely populated by cannibals.  Naturally, it doesn’t take long before their chief (Eddy Ko) wants to turn Agent 999 into a hot lunch.

I have to be upfront by saying that not all of the humor works.  Some of the gags are overly broad, painfully obvious, or just plain unfunny (like the stuff with the horny transvestite).  I guess that’s to be expected though.  The very nature of combining so many genres virtually guaranteed this was going to be wildly uneven.  (There’s even an element of film noir here as Agent 999 wears a fedora and smokes constantly, just like an old-fashioned movie detective.)  The strongest sequences are weighted towards the first act, but there are some definite rough patches along the way.  However, when it finds its sweet spot, and all the elements come together, it’s kind of dazzling to watch.

The breathless action sequences masterfully blend Hark’s knack for action choreography with horror and humor.  There’s a terrific scene where Agent 999 is strung up like a human hammock and has to fend off a meat cleaver-wielding cannibal.  The ingenuity of this scene, not to mention the clever punchline, will surely put a smile on your face.  Another fight scene takes place in “the slaughterhouse” where he singlehandedly takes on a squad of cannibal guards features some really funny sight gags and impressive Kung Fu moves.

Again, a lot of this is uneven.  The ending is sort of dumb too.  That said, there is some jaw-dropping stuff to be had here.  It’s definitely the best Kung Fu cannibal comedy I’ve seen in some time.  In short, fans of horror-comedies and Kung Fu insanity are sure to eat up We’re Going to Eat You.

AKA:  Cannibal Kung Fu:  Burn!  Cannibal Fist.  AKA:  Kung Fu Cannibals.  AKA:  Hell Has No Gates.  AKA:  No Door to Hell. 

CLEANING OUT THE DVR: THE BELKO EXPERIMENT (2017) ***

(DVR’ed from Cinemax on February 16, 2018)

It seems like an ordinary day in an office building in Bogota, Columbia when all of a sudden, a voice comes on the intercom and tells the workers they must kill one another in order to survive the day.  Initially, they shrug it off, thinking it’s a prank, but when steel shutters surround the building, blocking their escape, they suspect their predicament is all too real.  When they fail to execute their co-workers in a timely fashion, random people begin dying, thanks to explosive chips implanted in their heads.  Eventually, the employees come to grips with their grisly situation and begin terminating the staff. 

Written by James (Guardians of the Galaxy) Gunn and directed by Greg (Wolf Creek) McLean, The Belko Experiment is a none-too subtle metaphor about cutthroat business practices, predatory co-workers, and overly hostile work environments.  Just because Gunn and McLean skimp on subtlety doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.  I mean, the premise is admittedly kind of thin.  (It’s The Office Meets Battle Royale.)  When you’re making a movie with this many exploding heads, subtlety is kind of overrated.

Yes, the plot is probably the sort of thing that might’ve been best suited to a short film, or maybe even a horror anthology.  Thankfully, Gunn’s smart and funny script, coupled with McLean’s no-nonsense direction help propel the film along at a rapid pace.  While the plot is a bit skimpy, there aren’t many wasted moments.  Every scene builds on top of one another, so there’s no gratuitous padding to get in the way of the fun. 

It helps that the heavies are expertly cast.  Tony Goldwyn can do this kind of scumbag yuppie role in his sleep by now.  However, he finds new ways to make this archetype even more despicable.  John C. McGinley is also a lot of fun to watch as the sex pest of the group who adapts to the role of executioner way too easily. 

We also have Gunn regulars Sean Gunn as the office’s resident conspiracy theorist, Michael Rooker as the kindly janitor, and Gregg Henry as the mystery man who is pulling the strings.  If you’re a fan of Gunn’s work, you should certainly enjoy seeing all of them popping up.  John Gallagher, Jr. is a bit milquetoast as the hero, but that’s kind of what the role requires as he is one of the few voices of reason.

Even though most of the horror comes from the “What Would You Do?” scenario, the gore is solid all the way around.  Fans of exploding heads will surely dig it as it contains almost as many exploding head effects as a Scanners movie.  Even though most of the kills come courtesy of boring old gunfire, we still get a few choice impalements, axes to the face, and skull crushings too. 

In short, The Belko Experiment is a fast-moving, down-and-dirty, three-chord horror movie.  It’s content to resist the temptation to exceed its grasp and that restraint results in a consistently entertaining little flick.  It certainly beats a day at the office, I’ll tell you that.