THE 31 DAYS OF TUBI-WEEN: TOMIE: BEGINNING (2005) ***

Tomie (Rio Matsumoto) is the new girl at school.  She is almost instantly resented by her female classmates due to her promiscuous ways and they proceed to bully her.  Before long, Tomie casts a supernatural hold over the entire class and soon has them under her thumb.  One of her classmates, Reiko (Asami Imajuku) befriends and even defends Tomie but she soon learns her new friend isn’t quite human.

I never saw the original Tomie.  This one is the fifth in the series, and if you couldn’t tell by the title, it’s an origin story.  That’s about as good of a place to start, I guess. 

Although I am not exactly a fan of “J-Horror”, I have to admit, Tomie:  Beginning had a few gnarly scenes.  One squirmy moment finds Tomie feeding her bullies cockroaches and maggots.  There’s also a memorable ear hacking, and the accompanying geyser of blood is so extreme that it would look right at home in a samurai movie.  And that’s not even mentioning all the heart ripping and eviscerations. 

I liked the way director Ataru Oikawa (who also directed the original) slowly doled out the supernatural elements.  Some of these freaky moments work.  (Like the ear that becomes a crab, in a scene reminiscent of The Thing.)  Some of it doesn’t.  (What is the deal with Japanese horror movies and hair?  Hair isn’t scary in any language.)  Still, I was surprised how effective the majority of the shocks were.

Since I’m not familiar with the original, I can’t exactly say if this one lines up with the first one or how it stacks up to the sequels.  All I can say is that as its own self-contained horror flick, it works.  The plotline doesn’t follow a typical horror trajectory, and because of that, there are a few surprises in store.  (Then again, maybe not for someone who’s more familiar with the series).  I will say the movie zigs when you think it’s gonna zag, and really pulls out all the stops when it comes to the gruesome stuff.  

I dug it.

THE 31 DAYS OF TUBI-WEEN: MURDERCISE (2023) ***

In the ‘80s, a group of models and strippers arrives at a skid row studio to film a workout tape.  When one of the ladies is gruesomely murdered, the production decides to trudge along without her.  Naturally, more victims follow, and only the fittest will survive.

Murdercise is a throwback to the ‘80s horror fitness movies like Death Spa and Killer Workout.  The beginning, in which a hot busty babe aerobicizes and then takes a shower, combines the horror and workout video genres better than Horror Movie Workout did in its entire running time.  The workout scenes themselves are a fun send-up of the old aerobicize videos and are entertainingly cheeky on their own merits.  (In more ways than one.)  When it comes to the horror side of things, the film scores high marks as well.  There’s a healthy body count, plenty of blood, and a couple of genuine surprises.  (Not to mention a good amount of T & A.)  Heck, even your funny bone will get a workout from watching this as there are plenty of hearty laughs to be had.

The cast is also quite strong.  Everyone seems to be channeled into the movie’s quirky wavelength and are totally onboard for whatever is thrown their way.  Kansas Bowling is great as the goodie two-shoes dancer who slowly tosses her morals aside to get a bigger part in the workout video.   The scene where she tries cocaine for the first time and goes into a coke-fueled exercise jag is pretty damned funny.  Ginger Lynn Allen (who has a topless scene) also appears as the financier of the video who has Mob ties, but it’s Jessa Flux who takes the acting honors as the bosomy Candy.  The scene where she has a meltdown when everyone refuses to look at her admittedly luscious breasts is the comedic highlight of this fun flick.  (Don’t worry, Jessa.  Trust me, I was looking.)

THE 31 DAYS OF TUBI-WEEN: HORROR MOVIE WORKOUT (2013) ½ *

After being suckered into watching Dustin Ferguson’s clip show of Dustin Ferguson movies parading as an actual movie, I Drip Blood on Your Grave, you’d think I’d be smart enough not to fall for the same trick twice.  Well, yes and no.  Horror Movie Workout isn’t a clip show of Dustin Ferguson movies parading as a horror movie.  It’s a clip show of Dustin Ferguson movies parading as a horror movie that ALSO has behind the scenes footage, trailers, and a music video tossed in there as well.  

It’s “hosted” by frequent Ferguson starlet Jennii Caroline who shows clips and does an occasional workout routine.  It all ends with Jennii inviting a bunch of her friends over for a slumber party.  Naturally, a slasher shows up to spoil the “fun”.

Throughout the film, we see clips from Escape to Black Tree Forest, The Legacy of Boggy Creek, 7 Down, Silly Scaries 2, and even a clip from I Drip Blood on Your Grave (under the title Holy Roller).  There’s also snippets from Doll Killer and a long scene that’s purportedly from Black Tree Forest 3, but it’s obviously just a home movie of someone on vacation at an amusement park.  Oh, and there’s also behind the scenes footage too, including bloopers of the cast and crew dicking around on location during the filming of Escape to Black Tree Forest, and trailers for Die, Sister, Die and Gloved Murderess.

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, we get a long scene of people sitting around and watching a lame music video in real time.  Let me tell you:  The only thing worse than watching a lame music video is watching other people watch a lame music video.

After a lot of talk and a long series of clips, we do finally get some nominal workout scenes of Caroline stretching and leading slashers in a round of calisthenics.  These scenes were obviously inspired by Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout and could’ve been fun if done right.  The problem is there’s not nearly enough of them to really justify the title.  In fact, the only thing that gets a workout is the audience’s patience. 

It also doesn’t help that many of these clips also turned up in I Drip Blood on Your Grave.  I think a lot of my restlessness was due to my overfamiliarity with many of these clips.  Your mileage may vary.  

Even with that caveat, Horror Movie Workout is a tough sit.  It’s only 45 minutes, but you’ll wish it was shorter.  One of the clips features a scene where the characters watch a clock on the wall.  You’ll be doing the same thing by the time it’s over.  Who says life doesn’t imitate art?

THE 31 DAYS OF TUBI-WEEN

As I’m sure you all remember, I am in the midst of trying to watch and review 365 movies on Tubi in 365 days.  As of October 1st, I am running behind by 22 movies.  I am also about two weeks behind on posting reviews, but I hope to get caught up real soon and eventually accomplish my goal of watching and reviewing a movie a day as part of the Tubi Continued… column.

The tradition in years past has been watching nothing but horror movies during the month of October as part of The 31 Days of Horror-Ween.  I’m combining both columns this year and calling it The 31 Days of Tubi-Ween.  I plan on not only watching 31 horror movies on Tubi during the month of October, but I also hope to make up those pesky 22 reviews I’m currently running behind on.  If not, I can always try to catch up during November’s annual Halloween Hangover column, which this year will be called Tubi-Ween Hangover.  

Will I ever catch up and meet my goal?  Tune in to find out!  

TUBI CONTINUED… BECAUSE OF EVE (THE STORY OF LIFE) (1948) ****

Because of Eve (The Story of Life) is a combination of several roadshow hygiene pictures:  The Story of VD, The Story of Reproduction, and The Story of Birth.  These informative films have been given a narrative involving a young couple in love to give it dramatic weight.  It’s also a great way to get four movies for the price of one.

Sally (Wanda McKay) and Bob (John Parker) are newlyweds thinking of starting a family.  They flashback to their first visit with Dr. West (Joseph Crehan) before they got married when they first learned about each other’s sordid pasts.   You see, Bob had VD and Sally had a baby out of wedlock.  When their secrets threatened to tear them apart, the good doctor showed them a bunch of filmstrips to educate them for the road ahead.

The scene where the doctor drops the bombshell on the couple was in the past two documentaries I watched (Sex and Buttered Popcorn and Schlock!  The Secret History of American Movies), and each time they showed it, it remained a jaw-dropper.  Seeing it in its proper context is even better.  It’s really something.  Not so much for the stilted acting and flat direction, but because of the utter frankness of the dialogue.  I’m sure audiences at the time weren’t used to hearing that sort of thing in movies.  It still works though, and packs as much of a punch now as it did back in ‘48.

The Story of VD on its own is incredible.  The extreme closeups of syphilis-ridden sex organs with giant open sores are disgusting and the images of dead syphilitic babies are horrifying.  It's also packed with lots of ballyhoo and amazing narration like, “Three million people are walking or HOBBLING along our streets today with syphilis!”  It’s all enough to put you off sex for at least a week. That is to say, it’s brutally effective.

The dramatic sequences are a doozy too.  The scene of Sally alone in her room being hysterical is especially memorable.  “That’s when I realized we were… IN TROUBLE!”  (Cue the swelling orchestral music!)  Later, she gets scared out of a skid row abortion clinic and eventually tries to end it all.  (The newspaper headline reads:  “CO-ED TRIES SUICIDE!”)

Once Sally and Bob confess their pasts to one another, they decide to forgive and forget and press on with the marriage.  But not before the doctor shows them the facts of life via the filmstrip, The Story of Reproduction.  It’s clinical and factual.  It’s definitely nowhere near the horror show The Story of VD was.  It was here I thought the movie was going downhill.  I was wrong.  It was saving the best for last.

Eventually, Bob and Sally become expectant parents.  After the doctor gives them the good news, he shows them yet another film, The Story of Birth.  This is quite simply one of the gnarliest movies ever put on screen.  The scene of the “normal” vaginal birth scene was a piece of cake.  However, the C-section scene is some real Faces of Death-type stuff.  You actually get to see doctors hacking layer after layer from a woman’s belly before ripping the baby out.  That part is grody by itself.  Then comes the scene where they stitch her back up.  Man, I started getting queasy and whoozy on this part.  I mean when the director shows the patient being sewed up, he shows every damn stitch and staple along the way.  Nothing is spared.  No cutaways.  Just pure old medical procedure footage.  I bet this had ‘em puking in the aisles back in the day.

Simply put, Because of Eve (The Story of Life) is one of the best roadshow movies ever made and one of the ultimate exploitation flicks of all time.

TUBI CONTINUED… SCHLOCK! THE SECRET HISTORY OF AMERICAN MOVIES (2001) ***

Schlock!  The Secret History of American Movies begins its chronicle of Hollywood exploitation with the Baby Boom and the advent of television (most notably with shows like Vampira that piped old horror movies directly into your living room).  The rise of American International Pictures is also discussed, with producers James Nicholson and Sam Arkoff and filmmakers like Roger Corman who marketed their films almost solely through the use of lurid posters and outrageous titles like The Wasp Woman and The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes.  The way they catered to the previously untapped teenage market with the likes of I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein is also viewed as a game-changer. 

The film works its way up to the exploitation of the Atomic Age (with films such as War of the Colossal Beast) before backtracking to the ‘30s to discuss the subject of nudity and the roadshow circuit.    From there, nudist camp movies of the ‘50s became popular before giving way to the nudie cuties.  Nudie filmmakers David F. Friedman and Herschell Gordon Lewis pivot away from nudies to make Blood Feast, which sparks an entirely new genre:  The gore film.  Friedman eventually splits with Lewis, striking out on his own to pioneer the “roughie” with films like The Defilers.

Schlock! features a pretty good assortment of talking heads.  In addition to Corman, Friedman, and Vampira, we also hear from Dick Miller, Harry Novak, and Doris Wishman.  Friedman tells some stories he already told in Sex and Buttered Popcorn, but that’s okay because he’s always fun to listen to.

While it’s far from the definitive guide on the subject, this is a decent trip down memory lane/historical account of Hollywood exploitation movies.  In fact, the biggest problem with the flick is the misleading title.  It shouldn’t be called “The Secret History of American Movies”.  It should’ve been called “The Secret History of American Exploitation Flicks”.  I could’ve also done with the scenes of a theatre troupe putting on a stage production of a Reefer Madness musical.  I did enjoy the moments when they try to explore the deeper themes lurking underneath the surface of the films themselves.  (Including the claim that The Brain That Wouldn’t Die is a feminist allegory!)  Sure, there’s nothing earth-shattering here, but it’s informative and fast-paced.

Other films featured include Teenagers from Outer Space, Carnival of Souls, A Bucket of Blood, Nude on the Moon, and Kiss Me Quick.

TUBI CONTINUED… SEX AND BUTTERED POPCORN (1989) ** ½

Sex and Buttered Popcorn is an exploration of sex in the cinema hosted by everyone’s favorite screen sex symbol… uh… Ned Beatty.  We begin with silent nudie reels and shorts and early exploitation flicks that hid behind moralistic crusading in order to show some T & A.  Also featured are movies that tackled social issues like child marriage (Child Marriage), so-called “antisocial behavior” (Reefer Madness), and… shall we say… “educational” films (Mom and Dad).   Really, they were mostly only an excuse to show a little skin.  Also covered (or uncovered as the case may be) are nudist colony movies and filmed burlesque acts.

The film also explores the penny-pinching ways the producers used to grind out a buck.  They talk about the use of alternate titles to trick audiences and skirt censors, as well as shooting “daring versions” with more suggestive dialogue and less clothing.  There’s even a segment on the numerous dancing scenes in these movies that almost always served as padding.

The interview scenes of exploitation producers David F. (Blood Feast) Friedman and Dan (Trader Hornee) Sonney hanging out and shooting the shit are fun.  They have great stories, like when Sonney talks about the making of the infamous cat scene in the classic Maniac.  They also offer up praise to the legendary exploitation pioneer Kroger Babb.

Beatty is an odd choice to host something like this, but he’s kind of amusing whenever he’s making snarky Mystery Science Theater 3000-style commentary over the clips.  Unfortunately, sometimes the clips run on too long, and not always the best scenes are used.  Sometimes, you wish the editing was a bit tighter too.  (The compilation of scenes of actors speaking directly to the audience and warning them about the dangers of amoral behavior could’ve been longer.)

Some of the other titles featured are Forbidden Daughters, Dance Hall Racket, Hollywood Script Girl, Gambling with Souls, and Assassin of Youth.

AKA:  For Adults Only.  AKA:  Sex and Buttered Popcorn:  The Story of the Hollywood Exploiteers.