TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE TWELVE SLAYS OF CHRISTMAS (2022) **

Three women (Lauren Nicole Smith, Dare Taylor, and Cody Renee Cameron) are traveling in a snowstorm when their car breaks down.  They seek shelter in a remote manor that’s all decked out for Christmas where they are greeted by their creepy old host, Ignatius (Tom Fitzpatrick).  He then proceeds to let them open twelve gifts and tells them the story behind each one.

If you’re hoping this is going to be a Christmas anthology horror flick, you might be disappointed to learn it’s just another one of those Full Moon Features clip show packages.  Instead of holiday themed stories, Ignatius just hands the girls gifts containing a different toy of a Full Moon character as he relates flashback montages/greatest hits collection of their kills.  The monsters include Jack Attack, the murderous jack-in-the-box from Demonic Toys, the Gingerdead Man, Baby Oopsie, Evil Bong, and various puppets from the Puppet Master franchise.  The toys themselves look like an attempt by producer Charles Band to advertise a new Full Moon toy line, which makes this kind of feel like an overlong toy commercial.  

It’s a shame all this is so disposable, because the Christmas mansion set has some nice production values.  The trio of ladies are all easy on the eyes too, which helps.  (Speaking of eyes, it looks like Smith is suffering from a wicked case of pink eye.)  Ignatius himself is a neat mix of Scrooge and Nosferatu.  I just wish he had more to do.

Writer/director William Butler deserves credit for his ability to scrunch a whopping twelve segments into a scant forty-one minutes.  Despite the breezy running time, you still walk away wanting more.  Who knows?  With a little bit more care, and a better choice of clips, this could’ve worked.  Maybe it all depends on how much eggnog you consume before you watch it.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: WRESTLE MASSACRE (2018) ** ½

Wrestle Massacre brings me to the end of my streak of watching movies with the word “Massacre” in the title on Tubi.  I hope this is the last one I watch for a long time that doesn’t have the words “Texas”, “Chainsaw”, and/or “Slumber Party” in the title.  This is also our second wrestling-themed “Massacre” flick this month.  Although there are many wrestlers in the cast, the only ones I recognized were Tony Atlas, Jimmy Valiant, and Nikolai Volkoff. 

Randy (Richie Acevedo AKA: “The Cuban Assassin”) is a landscaper with aspirations of becoming a pro wrestler.  After he gets fired, has his wrestling dreams squashed, and is chewed out by his abusive father (Volkoff), he finally snaps and goes on a killing spree. 

Things get off to a good start with an opening credits sequence where Acevedo chases a naked chick through the forest.  The gore is also strong throughout as there is plenty of throat ripping, face ripping, finger ripping, ear ripping, tongue ripping, gut ripping, tit ripping, head ripping, arm ripping, leg ripping, and spine ripping to go around.  Other kills include electrocution, death by garden implements (among them:  Weed whacker, garden shears, and shovel), head stomping, eye gouging, and stoning.  The most horrifying sight of all though is seeing Shawn C. Phillips in drag.  There’s also a cool scene where Acevedo makes like a combination of Ed Gein and Andre the Giant and creates a wrestling belt out of human skin.  Despite the gory goodness on display (not to mention a healthy dose of T & A), it falls just short of being King of the Ring. 

The main issue is the inflated running time.  At an even one-hundred minutes, it could’ve easily been a good twenty minutes shorter.  It takes almost an hour for Acevedo to snap too.  I know the filmmakers were trying to draw it out and make you sympathize with him, but honestly, the constant stalling really prevents it from getting into gear.  Also, the revenge scenes feel kind of rushed, which is unfortunate, and most of the carnage occurs during a montage, which is odd.  (It would’ve been more effective if it had been allowed to play out longer instead of a series of quick-cut murders.)  The finale takes place in near total darkness too, which kinda sucks.  There are also too many characters (the guy who owes loan sharks a big gambling debt gets way too much screen time) that get in the way of the wrestling vengeance plot.  

Even with all the unnecessary characters and subplots, this could’ve easily been a *** movie at eighty minutes.  One-hundred minutes is a different story altogether.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: WEREWOLF MASSACRE AT HELL’S GATE (2015) *

Werewolf Massacre at Hell’s Gate kicks off with an odd music video for a song called “The Ballad of Straws” about a vengeance-seeking pumpkinhead scarecrow.  It uses some admittedly cool vintage horror images and old-timey Halloween photos and video (including footage from Begotten!), although most of the photos are just Google search images of Halloween costumes.  It’s a pretty awful song though.  It’s like, really shitty blues with a riff that sounds like a slightly reworked version of “Midnight Rider”. 

Then (Spoiler Alert), it just turns out to be a commercial for a book written by the filmmakers!  I can honestly say I’ve never seen a movie that started out with a music video that’s also a trailer for a book before, so there’s that. 

Even after all that, we STILL don’t get to the movie!  Nope, we have to sit through a horror host intro by “Lord Victor Fleming”.  Then, there’s a long title scene filled with even more Google images and a long textbook definition of werewolves.  (Did we really need this?  I mean, you’re watching a movie called “Werewolf Massacre at Hell’s Gate”.  I’d think you’d know what a werewolf was before you pulled the trigger on watching it.)  After that, we get ANOTHER long text scene, this one a crawl that’s used to set up the plot. That’s right folks, nine minutes (NINE) into the movie, and the movie hasn’t even started yet.  

This movie plumbs new depths of padding, I’ll tell you that. 

A woman named Frankenstein is accused of being a witch and is burned alive at the stake.  With her dying breath, she curses the village and vows to return four hundred years later.  Although this scene resembles the opening of Black Sunday remade with local public access TV equipment and talent, it’s at least… well… something.   Unfortunately, from there we get more text on-screen (reading is fundamental, kids) before switching gears to a Found Footage sequence of some bozos in the South American jungle.  Then, we cut back to shit that happened ten years ago… and three years ago… and all sorts of other shit.  There’s red tinted POV shots of a cameraman running after little kids, black and white dreams of paint ballers shooting a guy in an ape mask, etc.  The mind boggles.   

Folks, I’ve never been so dumbfounded from finding something so dumb. 

That’s kid stuff though.  Wait till you get to the scene where a priest calls an old redneck guy for help.  Folks… it’s just a guy wearing an old man mask and using an overly exaggerated old timey prospector voice!  You won’t fucking believe it. 

I thought things were looking up for the movie when this redneck and his cronies (affectionately known as “The Brotherhood of Guns, Jesus, and Pick-Up Trucks”) started to hunt (and then get killed by) werewolves (and by “werewolves”, I mean, “guys in Halloween masks”).  Then. the story shifts focus YET AGAIN and turns its attention to an annoying couple.  When her husband is killed by werewolves, the wife grabs a machine gun and fights for her life. 

Werewolf Massacre at Hell’s Gate is one of the weirdest fucking things I’ve seen in a while.  It’s really fucking bad for 90% of the running time, but that redneck section is pure Bad Movie Gold.  The rest, unfortunately, is the pits.  Then again, it does feature werewolves being massacred at a place called Hell’s Gate, so it’s got that going for it. 

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: WEENIE ROAST MASSACRE (2007) **

Marty (David Prouty) is a high school football player with a promising future who has the rug pulled out from under him when he suffers a brain injury while being scouted by a college coach (at a backyard barbecue).  Even though he’s taking medication for his condition, Marty still has bad dreams and doesn’t quite act like himself.  When some friends invite him to a cabin in the woods for a party, he does some drinking which interferes with his medication, and he starts to imagine finding dead bodies in the woods.  Is that just a byproduct of his pills, or is there really a killer on the loose?

Most of this, if you can’t already tell, plays like an After School Special on the dangers of concussions and/or a cautionary tale about teenage drinking, and frankly doesn’t come close to living up to its admittedly awesome title. 

I guess it would’ve been OK if the story just stayed with the horny teens in the woods.  However, the subplot about the asshole reporter trying to get the scoop on the murders doesn’t add a whole lot to the proceedings.  The scene where a guy whips out his guitar and starts singing a lame song about freedom doesn’t help matters either.  The sound is bad is some scenes too.  To add insult to injury, it takes an hour to get around to the damn weenie roast. 

In fact, only one weenie gets roasted.  Kind of a rip off if you ask me.  Couldn’t they have done a scene where a guy gets his dick cut off by the killer who puts it on a stick and roasts it over the campfire?  Do I have to think of everything?  At least the filmmakers don’t disappoint on the massacre front as we get a couple of stabbings, a guy cut in half, gut ripping, axing, forking, and shoveling.  If it wasn’t for that, you could’ve thrown this one on the fire.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: TOKYO HOME STAY MASSACRE (2020) ***

Three American college students go to Japan to study abroad and are put up by a host family in Tokyo.  Since they also happen to be annoying YouTubers, they film the house while the family is asleep without permission.  Before long, the teens discover the family is keeping a deadly secret and have sinister plans for their American houseguests. 

Tokyo Home Stay Massacre wastes no time plunging in headfirst with the weirdness.  From their strange run-in with a crazy taxi driver to the oddball antics of their host family, every encounter our American characters have with the native Japanese people is a bit off.  Directors Kenta Osaka and Hirohito Takimoto also do a fine job capturing the off kilter feeling of being in a strange house so far away from home.  They also have a knack for ratcheting up the tension.  Sometimes, they hold onto shots for too long, potentially portending a jump scare.  Other times they straight-up spring the surprise on you without warning.  These cinematic gymnastics may not work 100% of the time, but they are nevertheless moderately effective.  It would be fun to see what Osaka and Takimoto could do with a bigger budget and more than one location next time out.

Things really go off the rails in the finale, and I mean that in the best way possible.  It all eventually boils down to a fight to the death with the sole remaining student and the weird host family.  It’s here where the movie becomes gleefully unhinged.  We get toenail ripping, a tooth extraction with a hammer, and throat slashing among others.  In fact, the last twenty minutes is one of the most impressively sustained arrays of violence that I’ve seen in some time.

One thing is for sure:  I’m definitely not going to Tokyo any time soon. 

AKA:  Tokyo Home Stay:  Blood Ritual Legend.

THE SACRED SYMBOL (1984) **

The Sacred Symbol is The Ormonds version of a Mondo movie, and the results are as uneven, odd, and uniquely Ormond as you might expect.  Since the late Ron Ormond’s son, Tim directed the picture, there are some Christian aspects to the film, although it’s rather muted compared to the family’s other Christploitation propaganda flicks of the ‘70s.  This time out, they seem to want to give a non-judgmental look at the other religions the world has to offer.  (Or more likely, make up an excuse to use up as much stock footage as possible.)

The film opens in Biblical times with a couple of dudes being stoned to death for worshipping Christ.  Then, we switch to the present day where an archeologist brings together members of an adventurers’ club to show them filmstrips of different religions around the world.  After a lot of scenic stock footage has been spent, some grumpy members want to know what the fuss is all about, which is his cue to show off the titular sacred symbol. 

The Sacred Symbol is basically a cut and paste feature.  It contains everything from travelogue scenes of the Far East to a recreation of the crucifixion to a bad magic act (no, really).  None of this ever gels in a meaningful sort of way, but the Ormond brand of filmmaking assures the audience they have no idea what’s going to happen next.  The most memorable scenes are the Mondo movie footage of a guy lying on a bed of nails and rolling around on broken glass.  The segment on self-flagellation is kinda gruesome too.  (We even get to hear from Ron Ormond narrating one of the segments from beyond the grave, which is a nice touch.) 

Sure, it might not be as jaw-dropping as If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do, or as wild as It’s About the Second Coming, but for a religious flick that’s been cobbled together with a Mondo movie, it’s surprisingly watchable. 

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: CAESAR AND OTTO’S SUMMER CAMP MASSACRE (2011) *

Here’s another bait-and-switch “Massacre” movie on Tubi.  The menu calls it, “Summer Camp Massacre”, but the actual on-screen title is “Caesar and Otto’s Summer Camp Massacre.”  Apparently, it’s the second in a series of comedies starring the two eponymous idiots.  I’ve never seen any of the others, and I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to check them out, especially considering how bad this one is.  The fact that it stars Felissa Rose, Brinke Stevens, and Joe Estevez, made it go down a little smoother though.   

Struggling actor Caesar (writer/director Dave Campfield) loses his taxi job when he beats up a mentally handicapped man.  That means he and his dim-witted brother Otto (Paul Chomicki) have to find somewhere to lay low.  They eventually decide to get jobs as camp counselors.  Predictably, there’s also a psycho lurking in the woods looking to rack up a body count. 

I’m not sure how there got to be four of these movies (SEVEN, if you count shorts).  This one is plain just bad.  Not only is the humor painfully unfunny, but it’s often so technically inept that it makes things hard to watch.  (There are a lot of jump cuts during dialogue scenes early on.)  The film improves somewhat once the action switches over to the camp, although that’s not saying much. 

Fortunately, the gore isn’t bad.  We get a decapitation, a death by shovel, and a scene where a guy hides in a barrel that unbeknownst to him is full of toxic waste.  That’s about all the flick has going for it.

That is, unless you count the supporting cast.  While it’s amusing to see Rose, who starred in the ultimate camp horror flick, Sleepaway Camp, sending up her iconic role, the material she’s been given here is less than stellar.  (Yes, she makes a Sleepaway Camp reference.)  Brinke has a small part as Otto’s girlfriend and Estevez plays an unemployment office worker (who also happens to be Joe Estevez). 

The leads are pretty dire though.  Campfield looks and acts like Justin Long impersonating Chris Kattan.  Or maybe Hal Sparks imitating Andy Dick.  The only time he comes close to getting a laugh is when he mentions his favorite horror movie is House 2.  Chomicki is barely memorable as he lacks any discernible personality, other than he’s the opposite body type of Campfield. 

Bottom Line:  For Joe Estevez completists only.

AKA:  Summer Camp Massacre.