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We started a new podcast series about epic final fights in movies! The first two episodes are about the final brawls in The Night Comes For us and Commando. The Ito vs. Arian, and John Matrix vs. Bennett fights are things of beauty, and in these episodes we discuss every punch, kick, and impalement via pipe (it’s glorious). Get ready for some fun discussions about random final fights!
If you are a fan of the podcast make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening and hope you enjoy the episode!
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MY CALL: Do you like Lovecraft? Have you been asking when they’ll finally get his work right on film. Well, this is about as close as you’re gonna’ get (this decade). Outstanding film; equal parts weird Sci-Fantasy and Horror. MORE MOVIES LIKE Color Out of Space: If you want more Lovecraftian movies/adaptations, go for The Dunwich Horror (1970), George Romero’s The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill in Creepshow (1982), The Curse (1987), The Unnamable (1988), The Resurrected (1991), The Unnamable 2: The Statement of Randolph Carter (1992), Cthulhu Mansion (1992), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Lurking Fear (1994), Dagon (2001), Dreams in the Witch-House (2005) and Cold Skin (2017). And although not specifically of Lovecraftian origins, his influence is most palpable in From Beyond (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Lord of Illusions (1995), The Shrine (2010), Baskin (2015) and The Void (2016)—all of which are on the more gruesome side to varying degrees.
Gorgeous shots of a darkly mystical forest introduce the seclusion of the Gardner family estate. From minute one, I love the atmosphere captured by this film. It’s one of equally wondrous nature and the wondrous unknown betwixt its shadows.
Having recently departed the city for a quiet and secluded lifestyle, Nathan (Nicolas Cage; Mom and Dad, Mandy) and Theresa Gardner (Joely Richardson; Maggie, The Turning, Red Lights, Event Horizon) have a lovely family with endearingly normal quirks. Together they have survived Theresa’ cancer with their kind-hearted yet cynical good witch-in-training Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur) who communes in hopes of ridding her mother of her illness; a spacy teenage son Benny (Brendan Meyer); and the imaginative youngest son Jack (Julian Hilliard). Among the players is an unwary passerby to their property (Elliot Knight; American Gothic) and the Gardners forest shack squatter (Tommy Chong; Evil Bong).
After a pink glowing meteorite strikes their property, peculiarly mutated nature begins to turn on the Gardners. Having seen what happened in The Curse (1987) and The Blob (1988), I have an idea of the gooiness to come. But it begins innocuously with pink flowers appearing on their lawn, an otherworldly mantis-like creature emerging from their well, and the well itself emitting sounds.
What starts out as chopping vegetables along with fingertips, a boy playing with his invisible friends in the well, manic Cage-typical emotional outbursts and alarming skin rashes eventually develops into bright pink forests, scenes reminiscent of The Thing (1982) and Society (1989), and bloody creature mayhem.
A mixture of CGI and practical effects, the monstrous gore and creature work are quite satisfying. Even if some of the CGI (e.g., the roadkill scene) isn’t so great, it doesn’t harm my enjoyment of the film. But what happens to the mother… that’s the real gem (and a shocker).
Director Richard Stanley (Hardware, The Theater Bizarre) is no stranger to weird films, and he really aced this one with the scintillating admixture of moods. Few films have captured that Lovecraftian feeling of awestruck dread, obsessive mania and unsightly terror. So this came as a most welcome addition to my Lovecraft-adaptation movie collection. There is allure to that which dwells in the purple ectoplasms, and it will have you!
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John’s Horror Corner: Prison (1987), a positively gory, shocking and bonkers rollercoaster of fun thanks to Renny Harlin!
MY CALL: This feels a lot like a Freddy movie (i.e., parts 4-5) in style, execution and choice of death scenes and special effects… and I mean that in a good way. This is really entertaining, boasts a solid cast and features neat kills. MORE MOVIES LIKE Prison: For more vengeful death sentence spirits, all I can think of is Shocker (1989).
The sophomore feature from director Renny Harlin (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Deep Blue Sea), this low budget horror was actually produced by Charles Band (Parasite, Meridian, Doctor Mordrid, Head of the Family). And much as the early work of Charles Band and later Full Moon Entertainment, this movie’s opening scene (a dream-like sequence) has the dusky appearance of an episode of Tales from the Crypt (1989).
We open with the ominous last walk of a death row inmate to the electric chair, led by prison guard Sharpe (Lane Smith; V, Red Dawn). As his sentence is carried out and the current courses through his body, the special effects team do their very best—offering brief shots of crackling, burning, pulsating skin.
Now (many years later) appointed to serve as the warden of a new prison, Sharpe must re-appropriate a long-abandoned prison shanty to meet penitentiary holding demands. During some cursory renovations near the old execution chamber, the angry restless spirit of an executed inmate is released upon the prison with Freddy Krueger-like powers to manipulate his lair… and he does so with Krueger-like theatric flair as almost every victim’s body literally ‘erupts’ into a room of on-lookers. This movie was terribly written, but was saved by fun-loving shock factor. It’s exciting, cheesy but fun, well-executed, and probably landed him the director’s seat for A Nightmare on Elm Street 4.
Walls and floors are super-heated to blister inmates, melt the rubber soles of their shoes and burn them alive into charred corpses. Pipes and hoses are animated to trap, strangle and impale and inmate who is later dropped through the ceiling of the commissary raining blood and gore down with his mangled corpse. The very bloody barb wire death scene smacks of subsequent deaths in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 (1988) and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988). It’s quite the show of gore!
As inmates quickly turn up dead, state-appointed Katherine (Chelsea Field; Death Spa, The Dark Half) investigates the strange occurrences at the prison much to the crooked Sharpe’s chagrin. Among the prisoners are Burke (Viggo Mortensen; Leatherface: TCM III, The Prophecy) and Tiny (Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister; The Fifth Element, Wishmaster 2).
In general, I’ve learned I can trust Renny Harlin to entertain me with whatever movie he makes. But still, I remain very pleasantly surprised at how a movie that somehow flew under my radar for decades (I only just heard of this movie last week from an Instagram post) turned out to be such a decent horror flick. This bonkers movie culminates with a throne-like electric chair erupting from the ground with an electro-zombie of vengeance seated atop who then blasts lightning at his offender. None of it really makes any sense, but I don’t care. This is just plain awesome!
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John’s Horror Corner: Black Sheep (2006), a goretastic New Zealand horror-comedy about killer sheep.
MY CALL: A horror comedy about mutant flesh-eating sheep? Sign me up! Fun, gory and delightfully funny with great practical gore and special effects, this is one every gorehound needs to see. MORE MOVIES LIKE Black Sheep: For more kitschy New Zealand horror comedies try Dead-Alive (1992), Bad Taste (1987), Housebound (2014), Deathgasm (2015) and What We Do in the Shadows (2015). And for yet more gory yet quirky creature features, go for Isolation (2005), Splinter (2008), Blood Glacier (2013), Zombeavers (2014) or Boar (2017).
After some agricultural experiments in genetic engineering go horribly wrong, a flock of sheep mutate into erratic flesh-eating monsters. For the most part, that’s all you should need to know in order to decide if this gory horror-comedy is for you. The humor is every bit as overt as Shaun of the Dead (2004), and a step in the direction of slapstick. However, it wanders nowhere near the extremity of Dead-Alive (1992).
For more HORROR COMEDIES: For more horror comedies try Critters (1986) and sequels, Brain Damage (1988), Blood Diner (1987), Frankenhooker (1990), Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh (1991), Leprechaun (1993) and sequels, Head of the Family (1996), American Psycho (2000), Shaun of the Dead (2004), The Hazing (2004), Dead Snow (2009), Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009), Chaw (2009), Piranha 3D (2010), Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010), Final Destination 5 (2011), Chillerama (2011), Piranha 3DD (2012), Grabbers (2012), The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Bad Milo (2013), Warm Bodies (2013), The Editor (2014), Burying the Ex (2014), Housebound (2014), Zombeavers (2014), The Voices (2014), Dead Snow 2 (2014), The Voices (2014), Smothered (2014), What We Do in the Shadows (2014), Cooties (2015), Deathgasm (2015), Bloodsucking Bastards (2015), Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015), He Never Died (2015), Ava’s Possessions (2015), The Final Girls (2015), Krampus (2015), Love in the Time of Monsters (2015), The Greasy Strangler (2016), Better Watch Out (2016), Mayhem (2017), Happy Death Day (2017), The Babysitter (2017) and Satanic Panic (2019).
The catalyst for our story comes when a militant vegetarian sabotages a scientist’s work by stealing a lamb fetus in what appears to be a cannister of Ninja Turtle ooze. A laughably slimy rubber monster of a mutant lamb fetus escapes from this incubator, bites the vegetarian animal rights activist, and wanders to a grazing flock of sheep with its umbilical cord in tow. Once infected by this genetically modified mutant fetus, the rest of the flock become ferocious flesh-eating sheep. And when these infected sheep attack, it’s pretty fun to watch!
Meanwhile, the activist’s infected bite manifests much like slowly turning into a zombie. Only the outcome is the slow transformation into a massive weresheep! Like in District 9 (2009), this transformation boasts various transitional phases between human and weresheep form. Those bitten slowly develop hooved feet, horizontal pupiled-eyes, and hulking sheepitaur bodies. I enjoyed the monstrous creature effects, which were all practical.
The gore is very “tearing stretchy latex flesh” in style, and there’s much wound work and blood and guts to be enjoyed. Especially when the protagonists fall into the offal pit! Also watch out for the blood-spraying plane propeller death scene, the stretchy penis bite, and loads of lacerated wound work and dismemberment.
His first feature film, writer and director Jonathan King brought us a cult classic horror comedy that I just love! How has this man not gone on to make 80 more similarly awesome, gory, hilarious films? Delightfully funny with great gore and special effects, this is one every gorehound needs to see.
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You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
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The MFF podcast is back, and this week we’re talking about the Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, Starship Troopers, Showgirls) directed Hollow Man. Released in 2000, this horror-thriller tells the story of what happens when an egomaniac scientist is stuck in an invisible form (Hint – he gets super creepy and gross). In this episode, Mark and David Cross (of the Award Wieners Movies Review Podcast) discuss, Nu-metal, The greatness of Kevin Bacon, and Elisabeth “Action Hero” Shue. Enjoy
If you are a fan of the podcast make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean,or Spreaker.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast #254: Swimfan, Sushi and Soggy Sagas
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The Soggy Saga continues! Jay Cluitt (Life vs. Film) came back to help us talk about the thriller Swimfan. So far, we’ve talked about the waterlogged Piranha 3D, Lake Placid and Anaconda, so, it felt like a logical move to talk about a movie that features lots of swimming, death and nu-metal. Released in 2002, Swimfan tells the story of a woman stalking a high school swimmer after they have a casual fling in a swimming pool (it’s weird). In this episode, we discuss sushi eating, Detroit Rock City, and ponder if the stalker really is a fan of swimming.
If you are a fan of the podcast make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean,or Spreaker.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
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John’s Horror Corner: Isolation (2005), an Irish farmhouse horror about monster cow fetuses and a genetic experiment-gone-wrong.
MY CALL: This is a really great gore-slathered creature feature which, above all, is even written and directed and acted impressively as well. Strongly recommended to fans of gory creature features. MORE MOVIES LIKE Isolation: For more Irish horror movies check out Leprechaun Origins (2014), Leprechaun 2 (1994), Leprechaun (1993), Rawhead Rex (1986), Grabbers (2012), Cherry Tree (2015), Holidays (2016; St. Patrick’s Day segment), The Hallow (2015) and Hole in the Ground (2019). And for more remote mutating monster movies, go for Black Sheep (2006), Splinter (2008), Blood Glacier (2013), Harbinger Down (2015) and Life (2017).
I don’t know how many films have ever produced major scenes out of animal husbandry, but this movie begins with over 20 minutes dedicated to the rather graphic obstetric treatment (of a cow) and subsequent birth scene (of a calf). And dare I say, it was kind of intense watching our farmer (John Lynch; Black Death, Hardware) and veterinarian (Essie Davis; The Babadook) at work. There are liquid sloshing drippy sounds and birthing goop and an afterbirth-slick calf. The farmer actually gets his hand gorily mangled in the process (I won’t say how, you’ll have to watch). And right after all this, we roll into a moderately intense scene with the newborn calf and mother cow, and then a rather disgusting “post-partem” examination. This movie is off to a bold start! LOL
Reminiscent of a gore-slathered chestburster (Alien), slimy squirming mutant fetuses dissected from the mother cow’s body during an autopsy prove to be more viable than the veterinarian had estimated. Two nearby mobile-home squatters Jamie (Sean Harris; Deliver Us from Evil, Prometheus) and Mary (Ruth Negga; Preacher, World War Z) get pulled into the plot as early as the birth of the inordinately large calf, a product of large offspring syndrome, a genetic abnormality caused by a genetic experiment led by a shady scientist (Marcel Iures; The Cave) to produce beef and dairy more efficiently. And there’s the ‘farm macabre’ basis for your horror movie!
Conceptually, this wanders deep into the territory of The Thing (1982) with sociological fears of ‘the other’, infectious potential, the need to prevent its spread to civilization and gloppety-gook mutant gore. I was quite pleased with the creature effects and chunky blood’n’guts quality. We see the creature in numerous scenes and in different aspects and life stages as it scampers around the farm and matures a la Alien (1979).
Writer and director Billy O’Brien (The Hybrid, I Am Not a Serial Killer) delivers engaging pacing, decent photography and a solid cast. The writing is smooth and things stay interesting and tense throughout this dark and very messy, deliciously gross gorefest. Without a dull moment, this makes for an excellent popcorn fright night flick.
This movie is actually pretty good! Not only that, it’s quite credibly delivered (given its premise), which isn’t to be expected of a film with such abundant monster and gore scenes. Whether you enjoy jumpy creature features or gore-oozing flicks, this comes highly recommended!
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John’s Horror Corner: Blue Sunshine (1977), a weird drug-induced oddity of 70s cinema.
MY CALL: Don’t see this because it’s good—it’s not. But it is an intriguing horror oddity of the 70s and that alone makes it worth one viewing for completists. MORE MOVIES LIKE Blue Sunshine: For more drug-induced horror, try Bliss (2019) or Climax (2018). Although those movies feel like you’re on drugs whereas Blue Sunshine is just about the effects of the drugs.
IMDB—”A bizarre series of murders begins in Los Angeles, where people start going bald and then become homicidal maniacs. But could the blame rest on a particularly dangerous form of LSD called Blue Sunshine the murderers took ten years before?”
Perhaps a trend of the decade (e.g., Shivers, The Crazies), people are becoming psychotic for no apparent reason. They become edgy, aggressive and flat out murderous. Other than their overt behavior, the only symptom seems to be inexplicable hair loss resulting in advanced clumpy baldness. And once that hair comes off, the afflicted behave somewhere between Frankenstein’s monster and a 28 Days Later (2002) rage zombie.
The cause of this homicidal mania is traced back to a bad batch of LSD a bunch of classmates took at Stanford ten years ago. And, for some reason, after ten years it makes you go made like something out of The Happening (2008) or The Signal (2007). As manic as that sounds, this movie plays out far more like a mystery-thriller than horror.
This film also really drags. The content is intriguing, but the pacing is soporific. When the occasional “action” scene comes along, it’s not very exciting, suspenseful or scary; nor is there any gore beyond some blood pooling beside a dead body. Writer and director Jeff Lieberman (Squirm, Satan’s Little Helper, Just Before Dawn) needed to inject more urgency into this thing.
Overall this was a pretty boring but kinda’ neat oddity of the 70s. It falls in league with The Visitor (1979), another such oddity that I neither recommend nor rave over yet was glad I saw it for the simple sake of doing so.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast #253: Vertical Limit, Long Jumps and Bill Paxton
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker. (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere)
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
The MFF podcast is back, and this week we’re talking about the mountain climbing sorta-classic Vertical Limit. Released in 2000, and directed by Martin Campbell (Goldeneye, Casino Royale) this movie tells the tale of an insanely dangerous rescue mission on the K2 summit. It’s a fun film that features excellent location work, gigantic jumps, and a young Ben Mendelsohn. In this episode, we discuss mountain dew explosives, broken fingers and a very slimy Bill Paxton. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean,or Spreaker.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
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John’s Horror Corner: The House on Sorority Row (1982), another forgettable “classic” slasher movie without one good on-screen death scene.
MY CALL: Another “classic” not worthy of the term. Crappy death scenes, nearly goreless, yet surprisingly impressive overall production value. Go figure. MORE MOVIES LIKE The House on Sorority Row: For more sorority horror, try Black Christmas (1974), The Initiation (1984), Black Christmas (2006) and Happy Death Day (2017). However, I’d skip the remake Sorority Row (2009).
Excited to move on to the next step in their lives, high society sorority girls Katherine (Kate McNeil; Monkey Shines), Morgan, Diane (Harley Jane Kozak; Arachnophobia), Vicki (Eileen Davidson; The Last Sharknado), Liz, Jeanie and Stevie are planning their graduation party. But when their crotchety House mother Slater won’t allow the celebration, the girls take matters into their own hands with a good old-fashioned sorority prank. Only, no surprise, the prank is taken way too far and goes horribly wrong… killing Slater!
But the party must go on, right? So the girls hide Slater’s body and go about their celebrations only to be picked off one by one by a killer. But wait! Who could the killer be?
I must come clean. I didn’t expect much from this movie—I expected exploitative 80s slasher garbage (like Unhinged). Yet much to my surprise, the score, editing and production value all greatly exceed my expectations. Just in the first five minutes it’s quite evident how much care went into the filmmaking. That said, for all the care that went into this, very little such care is attended to the death scenes. The kills are incredibly basic and, with little exception, largely off-screen… making for a big disappointment in the horror department. Dare I contest a ‘classic’, but the third act revelation isn’t as exciting as you’d hope either.
Writer/director Mark Rosman (Mutant, The Invader) does what he can to garner some cheap thrills (i.e., nudity, sex scene) and create a great horror movie framework. But he doesn’t seem to be trying all that hard to elicit scares. Sigh.
Despite noticeable efforts, this movie failed in the most important component: the horror. It’s perfectly watchable, but not something I’d recommend. Moreover, I wouldn’t recommend the reimagining/remake Sorority Row (2009), which is thankfully better in terms of jump-scares and kills, but by comparison to its source material “better” doesn’t really signify much.
Movies, Films & Flix 