TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: DEATH TOILET (2018) ** ½

This is the second film for this column with the words “Death” and “Toilet” in the title.  The first, naturally was Amityville Death Toilet.  Coincidentally, this one comes to us from Evan Jacobs, the director of Amityville Death Toilet.  In fact, there are no less than SIX movies in the Death Toilet series.  (Seven, I guess if you count the Amityville one as canon.)  You know, to be successful in this industry, you have to find your niche and stick with it.  I guess Jacobs’ niche is death and toilets.

Brett (Mike Hartsfield) returns home from Vietnam (somehow sporting a Van Halen shirt) to find his brother has died under mysterious circumstances.  On top of that, he has to deal with his toilet making weird moaning noises at all hours of the day.   He eventually calls a plumber who can’t find anything wrong with it, despite it having “bad vibes.”  (“I’m a plumber! I’m not a priest!”)  When that fails, he calls a priest (Isaac Golub) to perform an exorcism on his toilet. 

The film benefits from a solid opening scene where the toilet cuts a guy’s balls off while he’s taking a shit.  There’s also a funny scene where Hartsfield interrogates the toilet at gunpoint, and it talks in a series of farts.  The best bit though is the montage where he goes through the phone book calling up churches and getting quotes on toilet exorcisms. 

Sure, some of this is crude both in terms of humor and filmmaking.  There are a lot of jump cuts, and the martial arts training montage goes on way too long.  However, when it hits the sweet spot between absurd and stupid, it kinda works.  It’s certainly funnier than I expected, especially considering most of the movie is just one guy acting alongside a toilet.  (And the fact that Amityville Death Toilet was such a… pardon the pun… turd.)  The priest’s final words during the exorcism are good for a laugh too. 

Say what you will about it, but I think it’s kinda hilarious that a fifty-four-minute movie has an intermission. I can honestly say I’ve never seen that before.  While it isn’t great by any means, at least Death Toilet didn’t stink up the joint.

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: BIG F*CKING SNAKE (2023) * ½

A giant snake is seen attacking Los Angeles.  We then flashback to see how it all got started.  It seems a swarm of snakes got into a batch of contaminated chemicals, turned crazy, and went on a rampage killing a bunch of folks.  A team of small-town cops and scientists then must band together to try to stop them. 

Big F*cking Snake (that’s the actual onscreen title as it’s list as “Big Freakin’ Snake" just about everywhere else) is sort of like a Dustin Ferguson version of a SyFy Channel “When Animals Attack” movie.  And you know what?  The results aren’t terrible for the first half-hour or so.  The flick is only forty-six minutes long, and he manages to pack a lot of kill scenes into that timeframe, not to mention a ton of herpetologist jokes.  (“You study STDs?”)

Too bad the whole thing just sort of fizzles out in the end and the titular snake is barely glimpsed.  Instead of an actual climax, Ferguson gives us a long montage of snakes in their natural environment, which looks like it was taken from a YouTube nature documentary.  Not the best way to end a movie in my estimation. 

As for the CGI snake?  I’ve seen worse.  Size-wise, it certainly lives up to the title.  It’s just a shame we don’t see much of it. 

The cast is decent, even if they are a bit underutilized.  The highlight comes when Brinke Stevens gets attacked by a bunch of rubber snakes in her bathtub.  We also have Mel Novak (looking like he’s using orange bronzer two shades darker than Trump’s) as the crooked commissioner trying to keep a lid on the snakes.  The Queen of Tubi horror, Miss Dawna Lee Heising and Shawn C. Phillips also pop up as attendees of a Fourth of July fireworks display that is crashed by the snakes. 

AKA:  Big Freakin’ Snake.

THANKSGIVING (2023) ****

I’ve been waiting for Thanksgiving for a long time.  Sixteen years, to be exact.  In fact, do you realize the wait between Grindhouse and Thanksgiving was longer than the wait between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace?  That’s sort of mind-boggling.  Let me tell ya folks, it was worth the wait.  Director Eli Roth has given horror fans something to be thankful for. 

After a Black Friday sale at a big box store ends in tragedy, a small New England town tries to move on.  One year later, a guy dresses up in a pilgrim outfit and begins offing the people he blames for instigating the riot.  Before long, he sets up a table for his victims and serves them revenge on a silver platter. 

Thanksgiving is a well-oiled slasher full of gory set pieces and finely crafted suspense sequences.  The kills include someone cut in half, decapitations, head twisting, a trampoline death, corn cob holders to the ears, death by table saw, bludgeoning, and a woman cooked alive like a giant turkey.  It’s the opening carnage-fueled Walmart massacre that’s most effective though.  (It almost plays like the Saving Private Ryan version of a slasher movie).  I especially liked the way Roth stacks the deck with obnoxious characters so that when it comes time for the axe to come down on them, you can’t wait till they get their just desserts. 

Despite the gory goodness Roth serves up, I kind of missed the down and dirty aesthetic that hallmarked the trailer in Grindhouse.  I guess it’s not much of a complaint, but the movie just looks too slick at times, and feels more like a post-Scream slasher than the early ‘80s one depicted in the trailer.  (Also, some of the best moments from the old trailer are toned down and/or missing here, sadly.)  I mean, as good as it is (and don’t get me wrong, this is certainly a crowd-pleaser), I don’t think it would crack my Top 3 Grindhouse universe movies or my Top 5 Roth films.  That just goes to show how good the man’s body of work is.  The King don’t miss. 

That’s where my bellyaching ends.  Thanksgiving is a lot of fun.  I saw it with a bunch of friends, and we all had a blast.  You don’t get a chance to see a gory holiday-themed slasher on the big screen very often, so we have to support them every chance we get.  Fortunately, the flick is doing decent enough business, which makes me hopeful that we’ll hear Rob Zombie announce a feature-length version of his Grindhouse trailer, Werewolf Women of the SS any day now. 

TUBI-WEEN HANGOVER: TWILIGHT DINNER (1998) ***

Twilight Dinner proves the rule that any movie that’s first line of dialogue is, “What made you literally eat her pussy?” is destined for greatness. 

That line is spoken by a detective interrogating a suspect accused of the heinous act.  He tells a flashback about how it all… uh… went down.  It seems two hot sisters moved in across the street from him and he fell in love with them both.  These freaky gals are wine connoisseurs who have a mysterious skin condition that makes it hard for them to go into the daylight.  Before you can say “Bram Stoker”, the girls bite him, and he slowly begins turning into a vampire with an insatiable thirst for human blood. 

Before I go any further, I have to point out that the sex scenes look like they were edited for content as they sometimes end abruptly.  The fact that the Tubi version is forty-three minutes long, and IMDb lists the running time at sixty-four, sort of supports that.  Either way, there’s still some good stuff here even if some of the T & A sequences seem to end before they start heating up.  The most surprising thing about Twilight Dinner (the original title was the infinitely more hilarious “House of Immoral Sisters Messing Around”) is the wealth of LGBTQ content.  In addition to the brief incestuous tryst between the two sisters, we also have a subplot where the vampire virus turns our hero bisexual!  I don’t think I’ve heard of that in any of the accepted vampire lore that’s been passed down throughout the ages, but I certainly commend the filmmakers’ progressive approach. 

When it comes to the horror elements, they are predictable, but effective for the most part.  The finale (which also looks like it was probably edited down) also works rather well.  Overall, vampire fans who’ve think they’ve seen it all need to take a bite out of this one.

AKA:  House of Immoral Sisters Messing Around.

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.