LET’S GET PHYSICAL: GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE (1943) ***

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on January 27th, 2010)

Muggs (Leo Gorcey), Glimpy (Huntz Hall), and rest of the East Side Kids try to spruce up an old house as a wedding gift to Glimpy’s sister (played by a before-she-was famous Ava Gardner).  The Kids accidentally go into the wrong house and are shocked to learn that it’s supposedly haunted.  Of course, we’ve seen enough Fake Ghosts in a Haunted House Movies to know otherwise.  As it turns out, a couple of no good spies (led by Bela Lugosi) are using the house as a hideout and churn out Nazi propaganda on a printing press in the basement.  The Kids try to put a stop to them and the usual hijinks and shenanigans ensue.

 

The first act of Ghosts on the Loose is heavily padded with lots of wedding preparation scenes.  There still is some good stuff sprinkled in there to keep you watching until the Kids get to the house though.  From then on, we get a stream of mostly funny (and sometimes stupid) one-liners and malapropisms to make any East Side Kids/Bowery Boys/Dead End Kids fan happy.

 

Ghosts on the Loose will never be mistaken for a comedy classic but director William “One-Shot” Beaudine keeps the gags coming at a steady clip.  Gorcey and Hall once again make for a good team and many of the lower tier Kids get a fair amount of screen time too.  I particularly liked the final gag in the movie when Hall comes down with a case of “German Measles”, which are essentially just little swastikas painted all over his face.

 

Naturally, if you’re an Old School Horror fan like me, you’re probably watching this flick just to see Bela Lugosi.  Even though he isn’t given a whole lot to do, Lugosi still is able to make the most of his screen time.  He also manages to be kinda funny too during the scene where he poses inside of a frame and pretends to be a painting.

 

Best exchange:  

Muggs:  What color are your eyes?

 

Dave:  Blue.

 

Muggs:  Well, if you don’t want them to be black, keep ‘em open!

 

Ghosts on the Loose is on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of the Year 1943 at the Number 5 spot; which places it below Hit the Ice and above Batman:  The 1943 Serial.

 

AKA:  Ghosts in the Night.  AKA:  The East Side Kids Meet Bela Lugosi.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: DEATHROW GAMESHOW (1987) ***

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on March 31st, 2011)

Director Mark (A Polish Vampire in Burbank) Pirro’s demented horror comedy is kind of like a Troma version of The Running Man (which was also released the same year) centered around Richard Dawson instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Chuck Toedan is the host of the hit game show Live or Die in which death row convicts have a chance to go free by competing in outlandish games.  Mostly though, they just wind up dying on the air.  During one show, Toedan unknowingly kills a Mafia don on live TV and the Mob comes after him.  When “the best hitman in the world” tries to kill Toedan, he has no choice but to make him a contestant on the show.

 

The first 20 minutes of this movie is priceless.  If the flick had kept up the same comic energy for the next hour or so, it would’ve been a classic.  The game show scenes and television commercials are great, but the movie gets extremely bogged down during the hitman subplot.  Basically, whenever the flick switches away from the game show studio, feel free to get up, grab a beer, make a sandwich or whatever because you won’t be missing much.

 

Despite the patchy nature of the film, there are a couple of really funny scenes.  I think my favorite moment was when they tie an electrode to a dude’s dick and have a hot gal (Debra Lamb) do a striptease in front of him.  If he gets a boner, he’ll be electrocuted.  After the dance, he survives but when the host places a hand on his bare shoulder, he gets a boner and is fried. 

 

Hey, did you hear that?  Do you know what that sound is?  It’s the sound of you adding this movie to your Netflix Queue.

 

Sure, it’s not great or anything but Deathrow Gameshow is funny enough, short enough (under 80 minutes), and ‘80s enough (the hairstyles alone are worthwhile) to give this a look-see.

 

AKA:  Death Game.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE CREEPING TERROR (1964) ***

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on March 2nd, 2013)

A rocketship crash lands in a small California town. A slow-moving monster emerges from the craft and creeps around town eating various citizens who are unfortunate enough to be lying on the ground and/or severely motion-impaired and/or dumb enough to stand still and allow the monster to devour them. A scientist and a newlywed cop team up to take the monster down.

The Creeping Terror has all the ingredients for a great B movie. It has awful acting, an intrusive narrator that’s constantly talking over the action, and one of the worst monsters of all time. This thing looks like a giant walking carpet. You won’t believe it.

The scenes of people dragging themselves into the creature’s mouth are unforgettable. The long lingering shots of women’s legs slowly being devoured are hilarious. There are tons of these shots in the movie, yet somehow, they never get old (at least to me).

The narrator’s intrusive ramblings are another story. The long scenes of the narrator talking over the silent footage of the actors gets a little unbearable after a while. And oddly enough, there are some scenes that are in desperate need of narration, but the narrator is nowhere to be found!

Despite the overall creaky nature of the film, The Creeping Terror has plenty of WTF moments to keep you entertained. There’s a long scene of a mother taking her child’s temperature with a rectal thermometer. Then there’s the fat fisherman who falls into a creek and slowly awaits his eminent death. But by far my favorite scene is the hilarious dance party. It features some of the whitest white people doing some of the whitest white people dancing the screen has ever seen. Plus, the terrifically terrible music playing in the background will get stuck in your head for days.

AKA: Dangerous Charter. AKA: The Crawling Monster.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961) **

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:  

(As posted on July 17th, 2007)

Director Roger Corman directed this back-to-back-to-back with The Battle of Blood Island and Last Woman on Earth. It has a lot in common with his classic Little Shop of Horrors:  It was filmed in a few days, it was written by Charles B. Griffith, and it has cartoony opening credits. It’s nowhere near as good as Shop, but it has its moments.

A bumbling spy stows away on a gangster’s boat who kills off his passengers and tries to blame it on the local legendary sea monster. Unfortunately for him, there really IS a monster on the loose! One of the crew members makes (obviously dubbed in) and the other, “Edward Wain” is actually future Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert (Chinatown) Towne. The tone is really out of whack and wildly uneven but Corman completists will wanna check it out.

Best line: “It was dusk. I could tell because the sun was going down.”

Watch fast for Corman using a telephone.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE BOURNE LEGACY (2012) * ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Remember those signs on the highway that used to read, “Was This Trip Really Necessary?”  Well, they need a sign for The Bourne Legacy that reads, “Was This Movie Really Necessary?”  It is essentially a Bourne movie… without Jason Bourne.  I mean Bourne movies aren’t much WITH Jason Bourne to begin with, and this flick proves they are even less so without him. 

It seems secret agent Jason Bourne ruffled some of the government’s feathers, so the CIA is out to exterminate any and all people associated with his old outfit.  That includes a secret agent trainee named Aaron (Jeremy Renner).  Naturally, he narrowly survives his assassination attempt, and he goes after the suits that green lit his termination. 

Actually, the plot is about Universal Studios wanting to milk every last cent from the franchise with or without Matt Damon. 

You know what this movie really reminded me of?  The Dukes of Hazzard.  Remember when Bo and Luke wanted more money, and they brought in Coy and Vance to replace them?  Yeah, that’s basically what this is.  The Bourne Identity:  The Coy and Vance Years. 

Director Tony (Andor) Gilroy (who wrote the previous entries in the series) apes Paul Greengrass’s shaky-cam style, but luckily doesn’t go overboard with it.  The action highlights are unfortunately few and far between though. Although the motorcycle chase in the end is decent, it really feels like the sort of action scene you’d see in the middle of an action flick and not at the climax.  (I did like the part where Renner jumps on a guy and squashes him Super Mario Bros. style.)  Still, Gilroy doesn’t bring anything new to the table.  Heck, since he doesn’t have Matt Damon, he actually brings LESS to the table. 

You know if this was an original standalone movie it might’ve been OK.  Not good mind you, but it would’ve at least been watchable.  However, Jason Bourne casts a long shadow (the character anyway) over the movie that it practically keeps reminding you that you’re watching the Dr. Perky version every step of the way.  

Renner isn’t bad in the lead, but he isn’t given much to work with.  Rachel Weiz is given an utterly thankless role and Edward Norton just sits in an office and gets shitty with coworkers.  At least the supporting cast is full of such heavy hitters like Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, and Oscar Isaac.  The fact that they show up in small roles makes sure this isn’t a complete waste of time. 

Ultimately, this Bourne never finds its own identity. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: OZPLOITATION TRAILER EXPLOSION (2014) *** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Even as a die-hard fan of trailer compilations and a lover of Australia exploitation (affectionately known as “Ozploitation”), I can’t believe it has taken me this long to get around to watching this.  It packs over two and a half hours of Ozploitation trailers onto one disc, and the fun comes at you in a fast and furious manner.  The sheer length and non-stop onslaught of titles can be a little overwhelming, even for someone who has sat through as many trailer compilations as I have.  Perhaps sensing the possibility of giving the viewer too much of a good thing, the makers of the Ozploitation Trailer Explosion wisely separated the collection into three distinct categories.  That at least helps break things up a little bit.  My advice is to watch one section a night and it’ll go down a lot smoother. 

“Sexploitation and ‘Ocker’ Comedies” gives us a glimpse of Australia’s wild and colorful softcore comedies of the ‘70s.  There are trailers for Mondo “documentaries” like The Naked Bunyip, The Love Epidemic, and The ABCs of Love and Sex Australia Style.  We also get trailers for such comedies like Alvin Purple, The Adventures of Barry Mckenzie, Fantasm, and all of their respective sequels. 

The next segment, “Horror and Thriller” features some of the best-known exploitation titles to come from Down Under.   Even if you’ve never seen some of these titles, I’m sure you’ve at least heard of the likes of The Last Wave, Patrick, Long Weekend, Thirst and Road Games.  And if you’ve only heard of these films, this is the perfect sampler to whet your appetite.  This was for me the most successful stretch of the collection, mostly because I’m a dyed-in-the wool horror fan. 

“Cars and Action” is the final section, and it offers up a fun smattering of… well… cars and action.  We get trailers for such Australian action flicks as The Cars That Ate Paris, The Man from Hong Kong, Mad Dog Morgan, Stunt Rock, and BMX Bandits.  The Mad Max movies are notably absent from this sequence, but you do get to see a young Mel Gibson in the trailer for Attack Force Z. 

Overall, this is a blast from start to finish.  While I have seen a number of the films featured here, I discovered at least half a dozen flicks to add to my ever-increasing watchlist.  What more can you ask for from a trailer compilation?

The complete trailer line-up is as follows:  The Naked Bunyip, Stork, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Libido, Alvin Purple, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, Alvin Rides Again, Petersen, The Love Epidemic, Wompers, Plugg, The Box, The Great McCarthy, Eliza Fraser, Don’s Party, Oz, Fantasm, Fantasm Comes Again, The ABCs of Love and Sex Australia Style, Felicity, Dimboola, Centrespread, Pacific Banana, Outback, Fright:  Night of Fear, Inn of the Damned, End Play, Summerfield, The Last Wave, Patrick, Long Weekend, The Night, the Prowler, Snapshot, Thirst, Harlequin, Nightmares, The Survivor, Dead Kids, Road Games, The Killing of Angel Street, Heatwave, A Dangerous Summer, Next of Kin, Cassandra, The Cars That Ate Paris, Stone, The Man from Hong Kong, Mad Dog Morgan, Raw Deal, Journey Among Women, The FJ Holden, Money Movers, Stunt Rock, The Chain Reaction, Race for the Yankee Zephyr, Attack Force Z, Turkey Shoot, Freedom, Midnight Spares, BMX Bandits, The Return of Captain Invincible, Sky Pirates, Fair Game, Dead End Drive-In, and The Time Guardian. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: DEATH RACE 3: INFERNO (2013) **

FORMAT:  DVD

Death Race gets bought out by an evil mogul (Dougray Scott) who turns the race into a worldwide event.  He also reneges on the contract of the reigning champion Frankenstein (Luke Goss) and blackmails him into throwing the race, which makes everyone’s favorite racer streaming mad.  When Death Race gets taken out of the prison and into the desert, Frankenstein sets out to settle the score. 

Death Race 3:  Inferno kicks off with a fun ad for the Death Race that plays things with its tongue firmly in cheek.  I thought this would mean this entry would retain some of the same black humor that made Roger Corman’s original Death Race 2000 so memorable.  Sadly, the announcer’s gusto during the race highlights is one of the few enjoyable aspects of the film.  

The new setting doesn’t add much to the flick either.  The prison races in the first two movies were like a video game come to life and had a sense of fun about them.  This time out, all we get are a bunch of drab-looking sand dunes and desert tracks, which only adds to the overall generic feel.  The inclusion of a bunch of locals protesting the race feels like a clumsy attempt at social commentary too. 

There is at least one new interesting wrinkle to the race:  A preliminary round where the female navigators fight to the death for a place on the track.  However, the sixteen-women brawl is ultimately underwhelming as the fight is rushed, the camerawork sucks, and the whole sequence is edited halfway into oblivion.  Likewise, the race scenes themselves in general suffer from over-editing and less than optimal camerawork.  Speaking of editing, the twist ending isn’t bad, but it’s needlessly over-explained and over-edited.  This is a DTV Death Race sequel we’re talking about here.  This isn’t The Usual Suspects. 

Goss is bland and generic in the lead. which suits the movie as it’s bland and generic too.  Danny Trejo doesn’t get much to do (besides get a BJ) and Ving Rhames essentially just has a cameo this time around.  Fortunately, Scott is having fun chewing the scenery as the crooked warden.  Too bad his demented glee didn’t rub off on the rest of the cast. 

AKA:  Death Race:  Inferno.