CHILLERAMA (2011) **

Chillerama was riding on the coattails of Grindhouse.  Instead of getting two movies for the price of one at a grindhouse movie theater, it’s four (short) films playing at a from-dusk-till-dawn drive-in.  Unlike Grindhouse, there isn’t any fake movie trailers in between the features.  Instead, we get wraparound sequences involving the staff at the drive-in.  I didn’t mind the teenage drama with a guy flirting with the hot girl at the concession stand, but the stuff with the necrophiliac janitor was a bit much.  

The first movie is “Wadzilla” (**), directed by Adam (The Dark Backward) Rifkin.  A mild-mannered guy (Rifkin) with a low sperm count takes an experimental drug to increase his semen production.  The drug causes his sperm to grow to enormous size, and it’s up to our hero to stop it before it tries to impregnate the Statue of Liberty (porn star Kelly Divine).

I like Rifkin’s stuff as much as the next guy, but sadly, this one is kind of a letdown.  The premise is ideal for something like this, but the whole thing feels rushed.  It would’ve also helped if it was actually funny.  There are some highlights though.  The scenes of the giant sperm wreaking havoc on the city play out kind of like the discarded ending from the Little Shop of Horrors remake, and I did like seeing Eric Roberts showing up in a cameo as a general.  

Next up is Tim (2001 Maniacs) Sullivan’s “I Was a Teenage Werebear” (* ½).  Confused teenager Ricky (Sean Paul Lockhart) spurns the advances of his girlfriend for the new leather-clad tough guy student, Talon (Anton Troy).  During a wrestling match, Talon bites him on the ass, turning him into a werebear.  Now, Ricky must stop Talon and his other werebears before they turn his class into a hot lunch.

This is an odd spoof of juvenile delinquent movies, werewolf films, and beach party musicals.  The musical stuff is the most cringeworthy element as the songs are all pretty lame and the staging is lackluster.  Speaking of staging, the whole thing takes place at a beach for some reason, even the scenes that are supposed to be set inside a school.  I don’t know if they couldn’t afford to film at a real school or what, but the wonky cardboard sets adds to the overall cheap feel to this one.  

The third “movie” is the hilariously titled, “The Diary of Anne Frankenstein” (***).  Directed by Adam (Hatchet) Green, it actually manages to live up to its title.  While hiding in an attic, Anne Frank (Melinda Cohen) learns that her great-grandfather was actually Dr. Frankenstein.  In his diary are the secrets to create a monster out of dead body parts.  The Nazis storm the attic and Hitler (Joel David Moore) kills Anne, steals the book, and creates his own monster (Kane Hodder).

This sequence manages to find the sweet spot between bad taste, over the top gore, and legitimately funny schtick.  Moore steals the movie as Hitler.  While everyone speaks German throughout the film, he talks in a made-up gobbledygook that just SOUNDS German, and the results are often very funny.  (At one point, he screams, “BOBA FETT” while the subtitle says, “KILL!”)  Kane Hodder also has some good moments as the Jewish monster who uses the menorah and a dreidel to kill Nazis.  

The final flick is Joe (Mayhem) Lynch’s “Zom-B-Movie” (**).  It starts out as a movie called “Deathication” about killer shit before the film breaks.  Then, a zombie horde disrupts the showing.  It seems the zombie janitor jacked off into the popcorn butter and turned everyone in the drive-in into zombies.  It’s then up to a small group of friends to try to survive the night.  

Your enjoyment of the final sequence will probably depend on your tolerance for the wall-to-wall gore and zombie effects.  While I got a laugh out of some of this nonsense (like the zombie breastmilk), it quickly descends into tasteless overkill.  (The zombies constantly jerk off and ejaculate blue jizz.)  I wasn’t really a fan of the Day-Glo zombie make-up either, and the constant references to other movies gets annoying after a while. 

Like most anthology horror films, Chillerama is uneven as they come.  The big problem is that it clocks in at nearly two hours, which is just way too long for something like this.  I think it might’ve worked better with two or even three stories.  Either that, or they should’ve just gone all in on The Diary of Anne Frankenstein and turned it into a full-length feature.  I would’ve bought a ticket for it, that’s for sure.

THE SNOWMAN (2017) **

The way people crapped on this movie when it first came out had me hopeful it was going to be some sort of camp trash classic.  I mean, Michael Fassbender plays a guy named “Harry Hole”.  That right there should’ve been the jumping off point for hilarity.  Unfortunately, nobody ever calls him out for having a goofy name.  What the Hell?

Harry Hole is an alcoholic burnout detective in Oslo.  His latest assignment is to solve a rash of murders.  It seems a serial killer is offing single mothers who all were once treated at an abortion clinic.  Predictably, Harry’s wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) also becomes a target.  

The serial killing scenes aren’t bad.  Our boy uses an automatic cinching tool to slice off people’s body parts, kind of like in Dario Argento’s Trauma.  He also puts severed heads on snowmen, strews body parts in the snow, and leaves taunting messages to Hole.  He certainly had the potential to be a memorable screen psycho.  Its just that the movie itself is rather inert, murky, and joyless.  The snowcapped setting is picturesque, but director Tomas (Let the Right One In) Alfredson just never really cranks up the suspense enough to make it crackle.  

If The Snowman is worth seeing, it’s for Fassbender’s performance.  Sure, his character is a walking cliché, but he’s pretty great in it.  I liked also like Rebecca Ferguson as his young partner who’s just itching to make a collar.  I just wish they had a better script to work with.  Val Kilmer is also in it for a bit as another detective.  Sadly, his lines had to be dubbed because his throat was ravaged by cancer, and the weird voice they gave him kind of adds to the oddness of his performance.  J.K. Simmons also pops up and is criminally underutilized as a pervy philanthropist/obvious red herring.  

So, The Snowman wasn’t the camp classic I was hoping for.  Nor is it an accomplished serial killer thriller.  As it is, it falls somewhere in the middle.  If it wasn’t for Fassbender’s committed performance (and his character’s hilarious name), it wouldn’t even be memorable.

AMERICAN MADE (2017) ** ½

Tom Cruise stars as Barry Seal, a shady airline pilot who gets hoodwinked by the CIA to fly planes and take spy photos for them.  When they fail to give him a bonus, he takes to running drugs for the cartels to make ends meet.  Naturally, when the CIA needs to put guns in the hands of the Contras, they call on Barry to fly them in.  Pretty soon, Barry is running drugs, guns, AND soldiers.  It’s a pretty sweet set-up, but it can’t last forever, can it?

Directed by Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow collaborator Doug Liman, American Made is one of those Dark Side of the American Dream movies.  Barry is after all, only trying to provide for his pregnant wife (Sarah Wright).  Why work a dreary job flying planes for the airlines when you can bring home backpacks full of cash at the end of the workday?  Of course, that means you’ll probably wind up being shot at, thrown in jail, or worse, but hey, so what?

American Made is basically Blow with planes.  If you want to see a drama about the rise and fall of a scumbag during the period of ‘80s excess, this is an OK one.  It coasts mostly on Cruise’s considerable charm, but unfortunately, he isn’t given much of a character to work with.  Cruise is never not fun to watch.  It’s just that the amoral character has very little redeeming quality about him.  Cruise’s constant grinning from ear to ear with his trademark Cheshire cat smile can only get the character so far.   

It doesn’t help that the supporting players are even more thinly sketched.  Wright looks great, but she is never given anything more to do than just than to just be “the wife”.  Domhnall Gleeson has some good moments as Seal’s slimy handler, although he’s really just more of the personification of “The Man” than a flesh and blood human.  Caleb Landry Jones is annoying as Seal’s fuck-up brother in-law, who’s mostly just there to complicate the situation.  

Liman hits all the marks you’d expect from a story of ‘80s greed.  However, the film is curiously lacking the emotional connection necessary to make you feel the rush of the highs and lows the characters experience.  Without that connection, it’s just a slick but empty morality play.   

AKA:  Barry Seal:  Only in America. 

BORDER RADIO (1988) **

Chris D. (the lead singer of The Flesh Eaters) stars as a musician named Jeff who gets stiffed out of some money by the promoter of his last gig.  In retaliation, he robs the place with the help of his buddy (John Doe from X), and he splits to Mexico.  As soon as he does this, his manager informs his wife Lu (Luanna Anders) that the band is about to hit the big time.  While waiting for her husband to return, she winds up having an affair with Jeff’s roadie and best friend, Chris (Chris Shearer), which naturally complicates matters.

Border Radio was one of those deals where the filmmakers started off with a short film and expanded to feature length.  It certainly feels that way too because of its herky-jerky nature.  The segments where characters are interviewed and give their answers straight to the camera don’t really add much to the film or give much depth to the characters.  I have a feeling they were only there to pad out the running time.  

Directed by Allison (Gas Food Lodging) Anders, Dean (future cinematographer for Jack Frost 2:  Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman) Lent, and Kurt (Poison Ivy:  The New Seduction) Voss, Border Radio owes a heavy debt to Jim Jarmusch.  It’s in black and white, has a very loose narrative, and the characters are all obsessed with rock n’ roll.  While there are bits and pieces that work here and there, the mosaic approach ultimately yields uneven results.  Some of the performances are solid (especially Doe, who would go on to play a supporting role in Road House the next year), but the languid pacing and overall repetitive nature of the film (there’s a lot of scenes of guys sitting around noodling on their guitar) prevents the viewer from really engaging with the picture.

POPULATION: 2 (2012) **

This should’ve been a slam dunk.  It’s basically The Last Man on Earth, except, you know, with a woman.  I’m a sucker for these post-apocalyptic lone survivor types of dramas, and even though Population:  2’s budget was pretty low, it is not without its moments.  Unfortunately, there’s just too much unnecessary business that gets in the way of the post-nuke survivalism drama.  

Scientists, in an attempt to curb global warming, create a shield to block against the sun’s rays.  It doesn’t go according to plan, and they wind up effectively wiping out the human race.  One sole survivor, Lilith (Suzanne Tufan) manages to save herself from annihilation and forages for supplies to prolong her dreary existence.  

The first sign you are in trouble is during the opening credits sequence.  I mean, the movie is called Population:  2 and there’s at least ten actors’ names in the credits.  That’s because the scenes of our heroine wandering the wasteland are intercut with flashbacks to her former life.  These flashbacks just don’t have the same impact as the stuff with Tufan sifting through the desolation.  The scenes with a pilot who dropped the bomb that killed everybody especially feel like padding, and the same static shots from his cockpit get repetitive in a hurry.  I have to wonder if this maybe started out as a short film and then director Gil Luna added in a bunch of shit with the pilot just to get it up to eighty-two minutes.

The good news is the post-apocalyptic scenes have an occasionally strong moment.  I especially liked the scene where Tufan tells us that she still wears her mask when she goes out in public, just to be safe.  I think we can all relate to that.  However, just when these sequences start to gain a little power, the filmmakers cut back to the past, and the movie loses a lot of momentum.  

AKA:  Apocalypse:  Day One.  AKA:  After Doomsday.  AKA:  The Survivor.  

DELIRIUM (2007) ½ *

You know you’re in trouble from the first few minutes of Delirium.  I know these low budget filmmakers have to pad out their films to get a releasable running time, but even I have my limits.  A jock puts a flyer on a bulletin board (OK, “bulletin board” is being generous.  It’s just a fucking easel.) to find people who want to rideshare for a “Spring Break Roadtrip”.  Then, we get a long painful scene of several students slowly walking up to the easel, reading the flyer, and then tearing off the contact info.  One or two of these shots would’ve sufficed.  Or, if you wanted to show everyone taking the scrap of paper as a way to introduce your characters, you could’ve made it cinematic or visually interesting.  Or you know at the very least, edit it down so it flows.  But no.  They show every single character walk, read, rip, and walk away.  

Anyway, the stereotypical characters finally carpool.  There’s the nerd, the jock, the horny babe, the lesbian, and the token black character.  Luckily, the sound is so bad you can’t hear what they’re saying half the time.  Unluckily, you can hear what they’re saying the other half and it’s just as annoying as you’d expect.  If the endless scenes of the characters yelling, dropping F-bombs, and hurling insults at one another don’t drive you up the goddamn wall, wait till you get to the part where the car breaks down and they all wander around the desert waving their cellphones in the air trying to get a signal.  

After yelling and fighting and launching slurs at everybody, the stranded motorists then decide to walk through the desert where there is even more yelling and fighting and launching of slurs.  As day turns to night, a killer in a black mask and fedora knocks them off one by one.  There’s a little blood, a little gore, and a little T & A, but not nearly enough of it to make this slow-moving slog worthwhile.

It’s obvious the team that made this movie had no money, time, or talent, so I will show restraint and give it ½ * instead of No Stars.  Even then, the kills, when they finally come are rushed.  The killer, who dresses up like The Shadow is OK, I guess, but he doesn’t have much personality.  That said, he’s still by far the most likeable character in the entire flick.    

STEEL FRONTIER (1995) ** ½

Joe Lara stars as a harmonica-playing cowboy who rides across the post-apocalyptic wasteland getting into adventures.  Brion James is the evil leader of “The Death Riders”.  Along with his motorcycle-riding cronies, he goes around the wasteland, toppling small town governments and executing anyone who doesn’t join his ranks.  Lara doesn’t take kindly to that, and he infiltrates James’ ranks in order to free the town of his iron fist.  

Steel Frontier is an agreeable mix of post-apocalypse action and Spaghetti Western.  It gets off to a good start with Lara finding a guy with his legs cut off on the side of the road begging to be put out of his misery.  From there, it just sort of hops from one post-apocalyptic cliché to the other.  It’s not great or anything, but it’s a decent enough flick if you like these kinds of genre mash-ups.  The action is a bit better than you’d expect too as Lara’s motorcycle has more gadgets and weapons than James Bond’s car.  Since it’s a PM movie, lots of stuff blows up, so there’s that.  

There was no reason this had to be one-hundred-and-one minutes though.  It definitely could’ve used some tightening up in the second act, that’s for sure.  Still, there are little bits of amusement to be had.  I liked the way Lara awkwardly secured his hat to his motorcycle just before a big chase scene so it would match the second unit footage of his hatless stunt double.  I also thought it was funny that after about twenty minutes, James ups and decides that he doesn’t like the name Death Riders anymore, so he changes his faction’s name to “The United Regime”.  I guess he tested the name with focus groups who decided The United Regime sounded a little less threatening.  

The cast is fairly decent.  Lara is an OK hero and James is an ideal villain (although he basically disappears for the entire second act).  Bo Svenson has some good moments as his right-hand man who has had enough of all the killing and wants to settle down.  Kane Hodder and Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quiones have small roles too, but they aren’t given a whole lot to do.