Deadly Friend (1986)

Deadly Friend is a film directed by Wes Craven and was a follow-up to his iconic Nightmare on Elm Street movie. It's a terrible movie about a young robotics genius who brings his murdered neighbor back to life using his cybernetic skills. She then goes on a murderous revenge spree. I'm going to spoil the whole thing, so you don't have to bother watching it.

(If you do plan to watch - against my advice - then you probably want to stop reading here.)

Don't say you weren't warned.

The movie starts with a single mother moving her son, and her son's robot, to suburbia. The son is basically a young version of the guy from Gremlins.

And the robot exhibits that kid's genius ability to create semi-murderous machines that talk like the Buck Rogers robot (Twiki) mashed-up with Donald Duck's voice.

Once settled in suburbia, the robotics expert kid meets the locals. One is a regular-looking version of Clint Howard who delivers papers around the neighborhood. The other, Kristy Swanson, is abused by her father. When her father's abuse kills her, the robotics expert decides to bring her back to life by implanting one of his circuit boards in her head. Of course, she immediately goes for revenge while the robot-genius kid attempts to hide her existence and keep her killing under control.

The title tells you how well that plan works out.

There are exactly three decent moments in this movie. The last one is pretty spectacular, but the first is when Kristy Swanson kills her abusive father. It's a moment that falls flat when it should have soared (I mean, who doesn't love watching that kind of an asshole get his comeuppance). Instead of a sweet death scene though, we get this.

Pffft.

The second worthwhile moment of this movie is the inexplicable (surprise?) ending. After Kristy Swanson has been killed a second time to end her revenge spree, the body is taken to the morgue. Like the idiot-genius he is, the robotics kid decides he can still help her (despite the fact that his previous "help" caused her to go all murdery) and aims to revive her again. That's when this happens.

So, the chip in her head caused her to internally robotify?

And finally, I've saved the best moment for last. This one is a gem, but needs a little set-up. As per usual in suburbia, there's one nasty neighbor who doesn't want the kids anywhere near her house. In this case, it's Mama Fratelli from The Goonies. At one point in the movie, the kids lose their basketball over Mama's fence. She scoops the ball up and keeps it. Later, Kristy Swanson decides this is appropriate retaliation for that slight.

Boom!

And then her headless body tries to walk it off.

As I mentioned from the start, I've spoiled the three best moments of this film because it's not recommendable. Unless you're a huge Wes Craven fan, I guess? Otherwise, avoid this movie.

Zombie Doom (1999)

Three adrift sailors land on an island. Unfortunately, that island is home to a clan of murderous murdering murderers who have trash-can lids as shields and wear metal masks.

The leader of the clan employs a doctor to raise an army of the dead because...um...they needed to fulfill the criteria for putting the word "zombie" in the title, I guess? Anyway, my head hurts from trying to make sense of the first 15 minutes of this movie while being distracted by interludes of gore.

Let's face it, no one is here for the story.

Anyway, a former member of the murderous clan is allowed to attempt escape, along with the sailor guys, for the thrill of the hunt. A chase ensues that includes a lot a gore, a handful of zombies (again, just to fulfill the promise of the title), a couple of ninja, and a completely dubbed film which also features a guy who wears a small square of felt as a mustache unironically.

You've got to admire their commitment to not giving a shit.

There are so many things tossed together on-screen that you'd think one of them would be a plot. But this movie isn't about that trivial aspect of movie-making. Nor anything resembling "production value." Instead, the only value in this production was poured into gore, fake blood, practical gore effects, and everything that's not storytelling, visual acuity, or character development.

The last thing to go through his head is obvious. But tell me what he was thinking in that moment.

It's like somebody gave a 14 year-old, Lucio Fulci-inspired kid an over the shoulder camcorder (yet a ton of money for gore special effects) and said, "Make a movie!" If there was a script, it must've been written in crayon as suggestions for the actors. But more likely, the director just shot a bunch of scenes and then dubbed together a story later through some patchwork editing and a shrug of the shoulders.

"I want a ninja split in half in mid-air. I don't care how we get to that point." - the director, probably

While this movie keeps things interesting throughout its short run-time (78 minutes) with plenty of gore and terrible dubbing, it's not quite strange enough to be funny nor entertaining enough to completely overcome its poor production value.

Recommended for fans of gore and those who study completely absent plotting.

Neon Maniacs (1986)

"When the world is ruled by violence,

And the soul of mankind fades,

the children's path shall be darkened

by the shadows of the Neon Maniacs."

Does that intro voice-over make any sense to you? Good, then it sets up this movie perfectly.

The first few moments establish that there are killers living under the San Francisco Bridge that murder. Oh, they also have trading cards for some reason...

Don't worry, these are never explained nor seen again after this point in the movie.

Each member of this group of murdering killers has his own theme/preferred murdering method. It's kind of like someone said, "That Village People thing was pretty cool. Let's mix that with a bunch of deadly killing murderers who all dress in costume. But they're not 'People' so we'll call them 'Maniacs.' And everyone is going wild about neon because it's 1986, so we'll toss that word in too."

Neon blood, because...well, the word is in the title so...

So, after their random killing of the fisherman (to establish that they are, in fact, murdering killers) the Neon Maniacs venture out to do some good old-fashioned murdering of teenagers. Unfortunately, one of their would-be victims doesn't get murder-killed. She gives a statement to the police and then goes back to high school, where no one believes her story.

EXCEPT...for one plucky, young pseudo-Punky Brewster type who is really into horror films.

So plucky, her hat couldn't possibly stay on straight.

Plucky Brewster decides to investigate on her own and (accidentally) discovers that the monsters have a weakness. As she's doing some digging, one of them trips into a water puddle right in front of her. That's right, these creatures have their own garlic/silver bullet. And it is...WATER!

Yes. These scary slashing-hackers disintegrate when they come into contact with the most common substance on earth. You could literally defeat them with a spray bottle.

Or a water gun...

...water bucket...

...shower combo.

It's clear that this movie doesn't care about logic. It's got a central conceit that no one thought through (i.e. Does the fog they're walking through also harm these monsters?). The film pours everything into the idea of 12 themed killers, but dries up otherwise. There's no gory deaths to wash over the viewer, and barely more than a spritzing of story. Recommended only for 80s horror buffs.

Hausu (1977)

The Criterion Collection just released this film on DVD with a fantastic set of extras and a whole slew of infused legitimacy. Honestly, I think it's the best example of the company showing that they are not just movie snobs with an interest in reinforcing the standard canon. It's a little like a Shakespearean critic giving two thumbs up to 10 Things I Hate About You and then hosting a Ross Perot-style Infomercial about the DVD. You might not get what their motivation is, but the fact that they're going to these lengths is impressive even without understanding it.

While the film is about a young girl who goes to visit her aunt with a group of her school friends, it is literally shot in such a fashion that makes all of what I just typed irrelevant. The stylistic content is absolutely stomping on the literal plot. From the painted backgrounds to the animated segments and the creepy cat, this film takes the snooze-worthy set-up and churns it into a raging blast of quirky artistry. Nobuhiko Obayashi definitely did not waste the screen-time of his film. He took every rubber-stamp moment and turned it on its head. Need to get those school-girls to the house of the film's title? Well, why not do it with a little psychadelia sprinkled around the edges? Got some boring exposition? Spice it up with kaleidascoping. How can you jazz up a lot of drawn out chatter? Throw in a pratfall scene and boatloads of matte backgrounds...maybe even a short animated sequence where the girls ride the train out to the countryside.

Even with all the Easy Rider experimentation, the first part of the film drags. It's nice that we actually view a flashback as if the girls are watching it on an old grainy film, but it still doesn't quite make up for the fact of that the story is a bit tedious. As I said, the style is definitely out-weighing the substance here. But maybe that's the point: to take a vapid script and turn it into something visually exciting. To tell the truth, most American horror films can't seem to accomplish this task. And I still wait for the day when both style and substance wedge their way into American film in general (although, to reel the cynicism back a notch, there are a few examples that do a damned good job).

Once the girls get to the aforementioned House, the weirdness doesn't stop (some kung-fu action against falling chandelier crystals, for example). As soon as there's a floating severed head biting her schoolgirl friend on the ass, you know that weirdness has turned a strange corner. After that, there's a woman eating a severed hand, a fire-woman, a schoolgirl getting beaten to death by pillows and mattresses, and an awesome-ass piano death (see below).

Needless to say, the movie is weird. It's even a hair more weird than my usual fare, but still not quite as far out in the stratosphere as The Holy Mountain. Definitely a different kind of horror to be had with this horror film.

A few things to note:

*Word on the street is that the director got the story idea from his 12 year-old daughter

*The director got his start directing Charles Bronson in Mandom commercials (nothing sells some cologne like showing a couple of guys putting it on...together)

So, thank you Criterion. You've definitely educated me on how liberally you interpret the phrase "important classic and contemporary films". This movie definitely opened my eyes to all sorts of crazy. Maybe next time you could do an edition of The Killing of Satan?

The Hand (1981)

I remember watching this film when I was very young and it came on television. For all of these years I could picture the scene where Michael Caine loses his hand. It would pop full-bore into my brain whenever I would pass someone on a two lane road, or when someone else would as I was in a car nearby. Or whenever I would see one car pass another on television. And even sometimes when I just thought about cars passing each other on a two-lane road (from 8:58 to the end of the video below).

Outside of that, I remember absolutely nothing about this movie. Because of that, I was very surprised to find that it was a parable of an artist losing his ability to art, and then being hunted down psychologically by that propensity.

And Oliver Stone directed it, so there must be, like, multiple layers about a story where a dude loses his hand, he becomes a retro-cyborg, his severed hand carries out the vengeance of his subconscious mind (because, really, it can't just go get a job at McDonalds), before the main guy gets thrown in a nuthouse without really telling us whether the hand was imaginary or not. Damn auteurs.

There is some seriously fantastic Michael Caine in this film though. No joke, for a B-rate horror movie, he still brings the goods snarled in the side of his lip (much like the badass Harry Brown), and he lays them dead on the table (see the original Get Carter). He even does this while lip-syncingly commanding his dead-hand to strangle his soon-to-be ex-wife while lying in an adjacent room, and ESPECIALLY while wrestling with his. own. hand.

The following is a Public Service Announcement:

Michael Caine's hand strangles Michael Caine in this movie. Thus, Michael Caine's hand > Michael Caine. If this evidence holds true in relation to all of Michael Cain's limbs, then no one should decapitate Michael Caine's head from Michael Caine's body in the event of a Zombpacalypse. There's no telling what absolute horror Michael Caine's severed head could dispense upon an unsuspecting world.

Thank you for your cooperation.

So, watching this film when I was young scarred me for life. But at least it kept me from getting a limb severed in an automobile accident...and then have that limb, maybe, kill people that made me mad. That would've been pretty awful, right?

Psycho's do not explode when sunlight hits them! (sadly)

First of all, do you understand what is a REAL horror movie? Imagine this: a politician breaks every ethics rule in the book WHILE being an asshole and is caught on tape. That same "public servant" then becomes a reality TV star because far too many of us want to see a broken, ethically pliable stereotype of a politician (Blagojevich) succeed in some reality psuedo-games (The Apprentice).

To be honest, that's what I want. But I want it all the way. I mean, fuck these reality shows that try to create a conflict between groups of people strung together out of some fabricated social connection. Let's do those shows the right way! Let's do them like From Dusk Til Dawn.

Let's get the run-down first. Well, after one of the best. fucking. openings. in film history, From Dusk Til Dawn (FDTD) moves quickly from buddy outlaw movie (think Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid meets Fear & Loathing) to action horror movie (Feast) in just about 30 minutes. It's a total head-fake of an opening, and that's how reality shows should be.

The subjects should have no idea what the show is "about". If you must, tell them a lie. If you can't get away with that, tell them nothing at all. Hell, tell them they're getting together with like-minded people who are interested in coagulating their power into a cheese of social influence. I'm sure they'll bite.

These unaware groups should wander into a spectacularly lit playing-field (coliseum) which offers some variety of indigenous weaponry hidden to the contestants (maybe guitars in a music shop or bottles and pool-sticks in a bar, as in this film). This is where it will all go down.

In the film, the humans happen to find themselves in a vampire bar just in time for dinner. The new reality show will mirror FDTD and put one self-interested group in a dog-pit with another. The two will then resolve their issues (without intervention) as nature intended, thus saving the rest of us from either worshipping them or suffering their eventual offspring.

From this basic concept we would end up with fantastically-gripping shows like The Hipsters vs. The Popped Collars in a battle for the Social Networking Badge and "Who Is More Useless to Society?" starring Celebrities and The Beauty Pageant Parents. We could be entertained while solving many of society's issues - satisfying our blood-lust with the real thing rather than supplanting it with simply sending the losers back to the lives they led before their instant fame. Dammit, these people need punishment!! And it might as well be dished out by another equally contemptible group, right?

It's just too bad that a bad-ass Clooney-type won't be able to step in at the last minute and make sure no one wins.