LIZZIE (2018) ***

Indie darlings Chloe Sevigny and Kristen Stewart star in this retelling of the Lizzie Borden story.  We all know the old rhyme.  “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks, and when she saw what she had done she gave her father forty-one.”  Right away, we know the film is going against the “print the legend” philosophy because we learn her mother is already dead and her father has remarried.  I guess “stepmother” didn’t sound as good in the rhyme. 

Bridget (Stewart) is a maid who comes to work in the Borden household.  Daughter Lizzie (Sevigny) is prone to “spells” and her headstrong antics exasperate her strained relationship with her stern father (Jamie Sheridan from The Stand).  Dad is a sleazeball by the way.  Not only does his shady business practices make him enemies all around town, but he also likes to force himself on Bridget at night.  Bridget and Lizzie form a friendship that soon blossoms into a romance.  Naturally, her father’s increasingly erratic behavior threatens to separate them.  When he and his wife are murdered the fingers are all pointed at Lizzie, but did she really do it?

Sevigny and Stewart are both excellent.  The film is more interested in exploring their relationship than wallowing in the details of the grisly axe murders.  (We don’t see them till near the end.)  For a while, it works extremely well.  Things start to become sluggish though once the movie enters its third act.  Still, the strength of the performances keeps things glued together, even when the narrative dawdles.  It also helps that the murders themselves pack a punch, as it will appeal to true crime buffs and Celebrity Skin aficionados equally.  (Spoiler Alert:  They occur while the killer is totally nude!) 

It’s not perfect, but I liked the film’s feminist spirit.  It frames Lizzie’s plight as not as much of a crime but rather a women’s and/or gay rights issue.  She is often shown to be ostracized not only by her family, but by society for who she is.  It’s little wonder why someone would snap and start hacking away at the people who hold her back and stand in the way of her happiness. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF HERCULES (1971) *

FORMAT:  DVD

A tyrant has it out for Hercules.  He sends a slave girl to seduce and betray the legendary strongman, and she zaps him of his strength by banging him.  This allows the king to chain him to the wall in his palace.  Tied up and helpless, poor Herc is unable to do anything but watch as an orgy unfolds. 

Not that you need a Spoiler Warning for a porno movie that’s over fifty years old, but it ends when Hercules escapes from his chains.  He then stabs the king in the neck while he’s sleeping and strangles the girl who betrayed him.  I know this is just a crummy skin flick, but you’d at least expect Hercules to give the king a fair shake by fighting him while he was awake.  It just seems cowardly for someone so strong to murder his enemy in his sleep, not to mention kill a woman with his bare hands in cold blood. 

Anyway, this abysmal porno was shot without synch sound.  I only bring it up because the moaning and groaning on the soundtrack is so overdone that it’s often hilarious.  In fact, the dubbing is so bad that it rivals the dubbing in an actual Hercules movie.  I guess all the money in the budget must’ve gone to slave girl outfits and togas. 

Despite what the title would have you believe, there’s nothing remotely erotic going on here.  The opening scene is pretty gross.  The icky king sits on his throne making disgusting grunting noises while a slave girl gives him head and spits his seed into a wine glass.  In fact, there are a lot of spitting scenes in this.  What?  Did anyone in Ancient Greece know how to swallow?

That wouldn’t have mattered I guess if the stuff leading up to the semen spitting was even remotely sexy.  Since it’s anything but, the ladies’ refusal to keep their mouths shut just ends the already dismal scenes on an even lower note.  Then again, they didn’t make too many porno versions of Italian peplum heroes, so I guess you have to take what you can get. 

A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (2024) *** ½

This prequel to the smash hit A Quiet Place from director Michael (Pig) Sarnoski shows how the alien beasties who kill anything that makes a sound took over the planet.  Lupita Nyong’o stars as a hospice patient making what could possibly be her last trip into New York City when aliens attack and murder anyone who makes a peep.  She and fellow survivor (Joseph Quinn) band together (along with her service animal cat) and try to make their way to safety. 

You know this is Sci-Fi because it involves 1) New Yorkers who actually know when to shut the hell up and 2) A cat that listens to its owner. 

Okay, all jokes aside, this is a pretty intense and rousing prequel.  In fact, I think it might be my favorite of the trilogy.  Sarnoski sets the stage quite nicely using a mix of restraint and suspense.  He keeps the carnage mostly contained to the periphery as Lupita (or her cat) is almost always front and center.  He’s more concerned with her plight than showcasing the details of the initial alien invasion, which kind of makes it kindred spirits to Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. 

Ultimately, the film is about finding the will to live in the face of unspeakable (see what I did there?  I know I said no more jokes, but c’mon that was a good one) tragedy.  Even though Lupita’s character is terminally ill, she still must fight on to live another day.  Pretty heady stuff for a prequel to a horror Sci-Fi blockbuster.  I mean, it’s hard not to get caught up in the drama.  All Lupita wants is one last pizza before she dies.  Is that too much to ask?  I will say the film loses a bit of steam once Quinn enters the picture, but he and Lupita have enough chemistry to more or less make it a moot point.  

We’ve seen plenty of survival horror films before, but not quite like this.  In an age when most prequels feel like cash grabs, this one finds unique ways to say something about the human condition in the midst of all the special effects.  Then again, I wouldn’t expect any less from Sarnoski after the incredible Pig. 

RETARD-O-TRON VIDEO MIXTAPE VOL. 1 (2005) ***

From the twisted minds at Cinema Sewer comes a jaw dropping collection of messed-up video clips guaranteed to boggle the mind and distress the stomach.  This was basically the forerunner of viral internet video clips.  Since it’s a mixtape, the success rate of seeing clips that have actual entertainment value is hit and miss.  Most of the scenes are of home video oddities, disgusting porn clips, Jackass wannabes, skateboard and bike stunt fails, Japanese kid’s shows, movie trailers, WTF music videos, live newscast bloopers, and parking lot fights.  I guess your enjoyment of these clips will depend on your interests.  I kinda dug it, but your mileage may vary. 

The best moments are the promos for failed TV pilots.  The most memorable is Steel Justice, about a cop’s dead son who is reincarnated as a robot dinosaur.  (Yes, you read that right.)  The bizarre music video by David Hasselhoff is a close second though. 

Obviously, the porno scenes won’t be for everyone.  For me, they almost played like an X-rated mondo movie that showed everything that the old mondo movies only hinted at but dared not show.  There are scenes of guys sticking cigarettes in their dick hole, ripping bong hits out of girls’ asses, and lots of vomit and shit.  You’ve been warned. 

Some of the clips I recognized were from the Kekko Kamen live-action movie, Let My Puppets Come, Long Jeanne Silver, and Deadly Weapons.  For the most part though, I didn’t have a clue what I was watching half the time, which is about the best thing I can say about it.  Hearing The Cramps, Richard Cheese, The B-52’s, and The Ramones playing over some of the clips was kind of fun too.  Honestly, I could’ve done without all the bike riding accidents, fake Jackass shit, and footage of real fights, but there’s something here to offend everybody, which is the way I guess it should be with something like this. 

DEBBIE DOES DAMNATION (1999) ** ½

A skull-crab monster helps a naked woman escape the clutches of a cannibalistic serial killer.  She then agrees to go to Hell on a quest to find the devil’s horns.  (When’s the last time you heard a plot description start off like this?)  She dies pretty fast, so it’s then up to Debbie (Jeanin Lake) a naked blonde who gets accidentally dropped into Hell by her guardian angel, to finish the job. 

Made for peanuts, and shot in black and white on Super 8, Debbie Does Damnation is sort of a mini marvel.  Produced by the unlikely pair of Donald G. (Roller Blade) Jackson and composer Robert O. Ragland (who did the music for many Charles Bronson movies), it features some great (and not so great) stop-motion special effects.  Parts reminded me of Eraserhead, Basket Case, and Tetsuo the Iron Man.  Of course, any movie you can say that about is bound to be uneven as hell. 

And yes, the plot is fractured, and the whole thing looks piecemeal, but that’s kind of the charm.  All this is admittedly fun for a while.  However, I started to mentally check out during the second half when the overreliance on poorly choreographed sword fights threatens to sink it.  (The sword fights with naked chicks are okay though.)  Thankfully, it clocks in at a brief fifty minutes, which is about the expiration date for this sort of thing.  Even then, it still feels overlong in some places. 

One and done starlet Jeanin Lake is quite good as Debbie.  The most fun though comes from seeing Michael Sonye (AKA:  Dukey Flyswatter from Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama) and perennial tough guy William (Darker Than Amber) Smith popping up in supporting roles.  Say what you will about the movie, but it contains the only scene in cinema history where the lead singer of Haunted Garage decapitates Conan the Barbarian’s dad, so it has that going for it. 

I can’t say Debbie Does Damnation is “good” exactly because it’s way too patchy.  I can say that I certainly admire the chutzpah that went into the making of it.  Sometimes chutzpah is all you need.  Sometimes. 

Writer/director Eric Brummer went straight into directing porn after this. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: NAIL GUN MASSACRE (1987) ***

FORMAT:  4K UHD

I’m kind of surprised I have never reviewed Nail Gun Massacre as it was always a staple of the Lovell household growing up.  During the waning days of VHS rentals, we had a place up the road called Dawn’s Video where you could rent ten movies for ten days for ten bucks.  It was a steal.  Unfortunately, sometimes finding ten movies you actually are going to watch was difficult.  Sometimes, you were forced to rent any old thing just to make it to ten tapes.  Nail Gun Massacre started out as one of those “rent any old thing” rentals, but it quickly grew into a beloved staple of our movie nights for my friends and me. 

A woman is raped by a gang of rowdy construction workers.  When the deed goes unpunished, a nail gun-toting vigilante wearing combat fatigues and motorcycle helmet picks them off one by one while spouting one-liners so unfunny that they become downright hilarious in spite of themselves. 

For example, when a guy accidentally pisses on the killer’s shoes, he says, “You pissed me off!” before shooting him in the dick with the nail gun.  This scene rivals the elf embryo scene in Elves for the most rewound and rewatched scene in the Lovell household. 

At least that joke makes sense.  There are also one-liners that are so abstract that it’s hard to tell what the killer even means.  When two construction workers say they’re going to play a game, the killer clutches his fists, looks to the heavens and says, “Games!  Games!  I’ll make death a game!”  I guess you had to be there. 

Even if the lines themselves aren’t funny, the killer’s delivery is hysterical.  For whatever reason, he sounds like a mix of John Wayne and Darth Vader.  I don’t know why his voice sounds like this.  I know he’s wearing a motorcycle helmet on his head, but that wouldn’t make his voice all computerized and echo like that. 

Then again, if you start asking too many questions about things like logic during Nail Gun Massacre, you won’t have any fun.  I can’t quite call it a classic though since some of the stretches in between the killing can be downright dull at times.  However, the finale is so inept that you’re liable to rewind and rewatch it as many times as me and my friends did back in the day. 

4K UHD NOTES:

Oh, and yes, you read that right.  This was released in 4K!  I can’t fucking believe it.  Nail Gun Massacre in 4K.  What a time to be alive.  Needless to say, it looks about as good as you could expect Nail Gun Massacre to look.  As far as presentation and preservation go, I would say the good folks at Terror Vision… ahem… nailed it. 

AKA:  Carnage.  AKA:  Nail Gun of Revenge Execution Hunter.  AKA:  Texas Nail Gun Massacre.

RENFIELD (2023) ***

Nicolas Cage has already starred in the definitive vampire comedy, Vampire’s Kiss.  Because of that, appearing in this horror-comedy reboot of Dracula seems a little like overkill.  After about five minutes you realize that overkill is the name of the game as blood spews everywhere and bodies explode into tiny pieces.  I guess if you’re gonna go over the top, you might as well hang ten. 

The film has a neat conceit.  Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) has been serving Dracula for close to a hundred years and the Count has put him through so much that he has to go to therapy.  He goes to a group session that specializes in toxic relationships and uses the members’ awful abusers to feed his boss.  When Renfield meets a spunky cop played by Awkwafina he gets the courage to stand up to the Count. 

Director Chris (The Lego Batman Movie) McKay is obviously having fun with the concept.  The recreations of the 1931 original with Cage doing a spot-on Lugosi are fantastic.  I kinda wish there was more of these scenes, but it’s obvious all involved wanted to push the story forward instead. 

However, it’s only half successful.  While the stuff with Hoult and Cage is great fun, the unnecessary subplot with Awkwafina trying to arrest the Mob family responsible for her father’s demise is just baffling.  I will say that having a vampire engage in Hong Kong-style fight scenes is kinda neat (there’s even a nod to The Street Fighter).  It’s just that whenever her character is onscreen, it drags the entire movie down. 

The idea of a Dracula movie from Renfield’s point of view is ingenious.  I just don’t know who thought adding a bunch of mobsters and a dull cop revenge subplot was a good idea.  I mean you have Nic Cage as Dracula!  I can understand putting him in the background to focus on Renfield, but to just forget about him completely while all the cops and robbers bullshit plays out is befuddling to say the least. 

Cage occasionally sways back into his Vampire’s Kiss accent (particularly while in his burn make-up) but that’s forgivable, especially when he cranks it up to 11 on some of his line deliveries.  (“I AM THE REAL VICTIM HERE!”)  Hoult is a good foil for him and the chemistry is there between them.  I just wish the movie wasn’t so concerned with the lame Mob plot and allowed the both of them to truly shine. 

The gore is pretty inventive and frequently funny.  I mean we’ve all seen movies where a guy gets his arm ripped off and it’s then used as a weapon.  This is the first movie where a guy’s arm is ripped off and it’s used to impale another guy to the wall. 

So, when Renfield works, it’s a home run.  When it doesn’t, it’s kind of a mess.  All the stuff with Awkwafina’s storyline is mid at best.  However, when the blood is flying, and Cage is chewing the scenery, Renfield is damn near irresistible.