TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: NUTCRACKER MASSACRE (2022) ** ½

Okay, so, imagine you’re Patrick Bergin.  One day, you’re playing Robin Hood.  The next day, you’re co-starring with Julia Roberts, the biggest movie star in the world, in Sleeping with the Enemy.  Life is good.  Then, in the blink of an eye, thirty years goes by and you’re starring in a movie about a six-foot-tall sentient homicidal nutcracker.  I guess there are worse ways to pay the rent.

Bergin plays a Russian toy shop owner who literally twirls his mustache, so the audience knows he’s evil.  He also ominously hums “The Nutcracker Suite” while rubbing his hands together like a villain in a silent film.  That is to say, he’s pretty great in this.  

Bergin tells a long, confusing origin story of the Nutcracker before selling one to a babe who just broke up with her boyfriend.  She buys it as a Christmas present for her auntie, whom she’s spending Christmas with.  It doesn’t take long before auntie’s prized six-foot-tall nutcracker comes to life and begins knocking off her relatives. 

The deaths, it must be said, are solid.  One person is murdered by an ice skate, and another is strangled with Christmas garland.  We also get a great scene where the nutcracker not only cracks a guy’s nuts but rips them off too.  Admittedly, the rest of the movie is kind of ho-hum, but this scene is badass enough to boost it an extra Half Star. 

I guess I should’ve known this was going to be better than expected because it was produced by Mark L. Lester.  Yeah, THAT Mark L. Lester, the man that gave the world Commando and Showdown in Little Tokyo.  It was also directed by Rebecca Matthews, the director of the greatest fake Amityville movie ever made, Amityville Witches.  With a pedigree like that (not to mention Bergin’s fun performance), Nutcracker Massacre should make for breezy fun for seasonal horror film fanatics.

PRISCILLA (2023) *** ½

Elvis was the King of Rock ‘n Roll.  As such, he was the closest thing America has ever had to royalty.  By proxy, that would make his wife, Priscilla, a Queen.  Millions of girls would’ve killed to be in her shoes.  As Sofia Coppola’s poignant and melancholy mood piece shows, those shoes weren’t exactly a pair of ruby slippers.  

Priscilla isn’t so much a biopic, but a snapshot of a life.  It shows only Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) from her first meeting with Elvis (Jacob Elordi) till the moment she leaves him.  It shows how a (very) young girl can get swept off her feet by the most famous man on the planet.  The catch is, she has to be at his beck and call 24/7.  She’s gotta stay in Graceland and keep the home fires burning for him while he’s off making movies and shaking his pelvis.  She’s got to wear what he says and do her hair just so.  Even when this grows tiresome for her, at the end of the day, she’s still dating Elvis freakin’ Presley. 

Once they are married, she finds being Elvis’s wife has its ups and downs.  Just like every relationship, I suppose.  Except when you’re married to the King, those ups and downs were often extreme and volatile. 

There’s still genuine love and affection between the two.  His overreliance on pills to keep him going eventually transfers over to her too.  Snippets of his hot temper come out and his erratic behavior and womanizing threatens to derail the relationship.  Still, she stands by her man because at the end of the day she’s married to Elvis freakin’ Presley. 

The film is a fascinating look at when enough is finally enough in a relationship.  Their romance is a lot like any long-distance relationship.  Resentment, unfulfilled longing, and boredom cause the two to further drift apart.  Of course, when you add fame and drugs to the mix, it tends to put a magnifying glass over every bump in the road the couple has.  Naturally, the road this couple is on is a lot more surreal since we’re talking about Elvis freakin’ Presley here.  

Priscilla might be the first love story where the main character’s suitor buys her an expensive wardrobe AND a handgun to match each dress. 

Spaeny is excellent as Priscilla.  Coppola gives her lots of closeups of her to show that Priscilla is putting up a pleasant front for Elvis, the Memphis Mafia, and the press, but her eyes suggest deep sadness and loneliness.  Elordi is good as the King.  He dials down the persona we are accustomed to, but he captures Elvis’s boyish fidgetiness (especially in the early scenes) rather well.  He doesn’t quite show off the King’s larger than life personality during his Vegas era, but I think that helps to ground the film as it’s essentially a two-character relationship drama. 

Much has been made of the lack of Elvis music in the picture.  Even as a die-hard Elvis fan, I can’t say I really missed his music, mostly because it would’ve taken away from Priscilla’s story.  Consider the final scene of Priscilla walking away from Graceland.  If you put “Suspicious Minds” on the soundtrack instead of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You”, it stops being a scene about Priscilla and becomes a scene about Elvis, even if he isn’t even present.  This scene (one of the best in the film) deftly shows Priscilla has left the building.  

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: 1962 HALLOWEEN MASSACRE (2023) ½ *

Four friends attend a Halloween party at a house in the middle of nowhere.  While they drink and dance, a killer in a white mask stalks the grounds.  Later, he switches his mask out for a black hood as he picks off partygoers one by one.

1962 Halloween Massacre starts off with a long Found Footage sequence of the core four driving in a car and arguing.  Since it takes place in 1962, that means they’re filming with an 8mm home movie camera.  If that’s the case, then why can we hear them?  Sound home movie cameras didn’t come out till the ‘70s.  Did the filmmakers ever bother to research this?  All it would’ve taken was a Google search.  I guess we already know the answer to that one.  Also, would it be too much to ask that the characters from the ‘60s not use modern slang like, “Too soon!” 

Look, if you can’t accurately represent the time period on a small budget, then why even try?  Just call it Halloween Massacre, set it in present day, and be done with it.  I mean it would probably still suck either way, but at least it wouldn’t be annoying every time something anachronistic happens.

Luckily, the film breaks the Found Footage format after about fifteen minutes.  Unfortunately, we’re still stuck following around the same four annoying characters.  I guess seeing them in a party setting is better than spending all our time in a cramped car with them like in the early part of the picture.  However, once the action switches over to the party, things are nearly just as claustrophobic as the camera frequently holds tight on our four principles to disguise the fact that the budget was so low, they couldn’t afford many extras to play party guests.

Also, the movie has a weird pro-incest message that’s just confounding.  Oh, and just when it should be over, it continues on unnecessarily for ten more excruciating minutes.  If it wasn’t for the presence of the extremely cute Caroline Beagles (who plays the least annoying member of the cast), this would’ve been a No Stars flick for sure.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: HOLLYWOOD MEAT CLEAVER MASSACRE (1976) *** ½

I was kinda familiar with this one thanks to seeing the trailer starring none other than Christopher Lee on countless trailer compilations, but I had never actually seen the movie.  He originally filmed the scene for another film, but the footage wound up being sold to a different company who repurposed it to sell Meatcleaver Massacre.  (Although I’ve seen reviews mentioning he’s in the movie in wraparound segments, Lee unfortunately doesn’t appear in the version currently playing on Tubi.)  Oh, and while everything I’ve always seen for the film has referred to it as Meatcleaver Massacre (that’s even how it’s listed on Tubi), the actual on-screen title is Hollywood Meat Cleaver Massacre, so that’s the title I’ll be reviewing it under.  (I was trying to keep all these “Massacre” movies in alphabetical order, but oh well.)

So, I already knew the backstory of Hollywood Meat Cleaver Massacre going into it.  However, I had no idea it was (presumably) co-directed (uncredited) by freakin’ Ed Wood!  Plus, he also appears in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo as a photographer.  Also cameoing is the future writer of Jaws 3-D Guerdon Trueblood, who plays a nuthouse doctor.  I know they were probably never once in each other’s sphere, but I think it’s amazing that Lee, Wood, and the writer of Jaws 3-D all worked on the same movie.

A professor’s home is invaded by a gang of psychotic students who kill his family (including his dog) and leave him paralyzed.  While drifting in and out of a coma in the hospital, he invokes the name of a Gaelic spirit of revenge (don’t fuck with a professor who is an expert on occult studies) so the little shits will receive their just desserts.  That’s right, folks.  It’s Death Wish Meets Patrick… with nary a meat cleaver in sight.

I’m not sure what scenes Wood was responsible for because it all seems fairly cohesive.  If I had to guess I would say he had a hand in some of the hilarious voiceovers as some of the dialogue has a distinct Wood ring to it.  I’m thinking specifically of the scene where one of the killers contemplates suicide.  (“This is gonna leave a mess.  I hope the landlord won’t be too mad.”)

The dialogue between the killers regarding the professor being in a vegetative state is great too:

“He’s gonna lay there like a carrot!  A big carrot!”

“I never did like carrots!”

Hollywood Meat Cleaver Massacre has that look that only late ‘70s horror movies have.  It has redder than red blood, sleazy shots of Hollywood Boulevard, and chintzy fashions galore.  The print is excellent too, which makes it all really pop.  The simple use of library music really works too.  (I think that one guitar sting was stolen from the trailer for Torso.)

Most times when movies like this have freakout and nightmare sequences, it’s just because the filmmakers needed to pad out the running time.  The freakouts here are legitimately eerie, effective, and genuinely unsettling.  The psychic murders are a hoot too.  In one scene, a guy gets his guts ripped out by sentient desert grass.  I can honestly say I’ve never seen that in a picture before.  Another person is crushed by the hood of a car, and one dude gets his eyeball ripped out.  And when we finally see the monster, it’s revealed to be something that looks like a cross between Swamp Thing and Rob Zombie cosplaying as Jordy Verrill.  That is to say, it’s awesome.

And to think, if someone… ANYONE got massacred with a meat cleaver (or if there was actually a single SHOT) of a meat cleaver, this might’ve got Four Stars!

AKA:  Meatcleaver Massacre.  AKA:  Morak.  AKA:  The Evil Force.  AKA:  Revenge of the Dead.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE MANSON FAMILY MASSACRE (2019) NO STARS

The Manson Family Massacre is one of the worst films I have seen during my year of watching (almost) nothing but movies on Tubi.  It jumps around all over the place so much that you never quite get your bearings long enough to make sense out of any of it.  The fact is, I don’t think there was ever a chance of this being any good, even if the editing wasn’t so… ahem… helter-skelter.

The film is set in 1992, with a recovering addict musician trying to write new material at Sharon Tate’s old address on Cielo Drive.  Then there are flashbacks to Tex and Manson fucking around with some criminals to organize a half-assed drug deal that naturally goes wrong.  Meanwhile, the musician has odd nightmares and visions, and she’s convinced they are connected to the house, so she goes to see a psychic.  Eventually, the Manson murders play out and the musician also comes to a predictably untimely end.

I knew this was going to be bad right from the opening credits scene that rips off the photo flash sound effects from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  It only got worse once the back-and-forth narrative, complete with title cards straight out of a fifth-rate Tarantino knockoff was introduced.  It’s almost like two different movies stitched together and heavily padded with nightmare sequences that add zilch to the proceedings.

I understand the temptation of wanting to make a Manson movie.  The murders are a fascinating subject ripe with possibilities.  Heck, even if you went the straight-up exploitation route, it could still deliver a powerful kick if the material was in the right hands.  At least it tries to do something different, albeit with spectacularly awful results.  Too bad the ‘90s scenes never intersect with the ‘60s sequences in any meaningful way, other to state that the house rests on a “negative energy fault line”.

A drunk British guy gets the best line of the movie when he derides the musician’s song as being “as deep as Danzig!”

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: THE MANSON BROTHERS MIDNIGHT ZOMBIE MASSACRE (2021) **

Stone (Chris Margetis) and Skull (Mike Carey) are a pair of washed-up brothers who eke out a living on the independent wrestling circuit.  Some of the lesser-known and significantly less beefy grapplers in the arena try to make a name for themselves by injecting illicit human growth hormones to help them bulk up in a hurry.  Unfortunately, it has just one side effect:  It turns them into flesh-hungry zombies.  Once the entire arena becomes infected, it’s up to Stone, Skull, and a few surviving wrestlers to make it through the night.

Wrestling and horror have always gone hand in hand, both in terms of their fandom, and the fact that sooner or later, every wrestler-turned-actor winds up appearing in a horror movie at some point in their career. (This one features Randy Couture.)  Directed by actor Max (Sabotage) Martini, The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre is kind of a mess, but there is some good stuff here.  The humor between the good natured, but dim-witted brothers is hit and miss, and their Bowery Boys-esque malapropisms work about 50/50.  The wrestling sequences are solid, and the backstage, inside-baseball scenes of the wrestlers going over the matches in the locker room before the main event are entertaining.

Some of this, admittedly, doesn’t work.  The framework scenes of a trailer trash family reading a Manson Brothers comic book are odd and unnecessary.  It also takes way too long to finally get to the zombie action.  Still, it features two scenes I’ve never seen in a zombie movie before, which makes it marginally worthwhile.  First is the scene where a character gets one look at a zombie and immediately drops dead of a heart attack.  The second involves a wrestler waving a cape like a matador at a zombie dressed in a chorizo costume who charges at him like a bull.  So, there’s that.

Margetis and Carey (who also wrote the screenplay together) are OK in the leads, but the film really needed two guys with stronger presences to carry the movie on their shoulders.  It's nice to see Couture here, although he really isn’t given much to do as one of the other wrestlers.  D.B. (Eight Men Out) Sweeney seems out of place in something like this, but he looks like he’s having fun as the Mansons’ energetic manager. 

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER

Well, it’s November once again, and like every November, I spend the entire month catching up on all the horror movies I didn’t get around to watching in October.  Since I’m still behind on my Tubi Continued… column of trying to watch 365 movies on Tubi in 365 days (as of October 31st I’ve seen 284 movies in 304 days, which puts me 20 movies behind schedule), I’m going to combine the Tubi Continued… column with the annual Halloween Hangover and turn it into Tubi-Ween Hangover…