TODAY I WATCHED... (Movies, TV) 2021

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century

I'm off from work and it's rainy and dreary outside, so it seems like a good day to stay in and revisit the Monty Python documentary "Almost the Truth: The Lawyer's Cut" on Netflix.

Malignant (2021)



A pregnant woman and her abusive husband are attacked in their home by a shadowy figure, killing her husband and causing her to lose the baby. Soon after, she starts having waking dreams where she witnesses the shadowy figures murder spree. She and her family start investigating her connection to the figure, where suppressed memories and family secrets are soon discovered. Not a bad film, but once the reveal occurs, we get some sketchy cgi of the figure and it has an ending that doesn't totally resolve all questions.

Chopping Mall (1986)



A group of twenty-something mall employees decide to have an all night party in the mall after it closes. Unfortunately for them, it's the same night as the mall's new security system,a trio of robots, goes online and the robots are turned homicidal by an electrical storm. Chaos ensues as the employees try to survive the night in the locked down mall. Think of it as a cross between a slasher film, Short Circuit and a touch of Robocop.

Schlock-Tober is in full swing:

"Mind, Body & Soul" (1992)

Ginger Lynn Allen (aka '80s porn queen Ginger Lynn, who was trying to get into "straight" acting at the time) is surprised to learn that her boyfriend is a member of a Satanic cult when he brings her to a sacrificial ceremony out of the blue (who says romance is dead?). The ceremony is broken up by the police, and Ginger goes into protective custody, which makes her a target of the cult because she knows too much.
A cheap, cheesy softcore horror/thriller from the infamous Rick Sloane (creator of the Vice Academy series, which also starred Allen) with all of his usual trademarks: cardboard sets, sub-par scripting, wooden performances, and of course, lots of female eye candy. Entertaining junk. Your mileage may vary depending on your level of crush on Ginger Lynn.

"Hellhole" (1985)

After witnessing her mother's murder, a woman (Judy Landers) develops amnesia and is sent to a womens'-only mental hospital to recover. Not only does the murderer follow her there to finish the job, but the facility's crazed doctor (Mary "Rock N Roll High School" Woronov) also likes to use troublesome patients for her private medical experiments.
A trashy, ridiculous, but totally watchable mish-mosh of the slasher, medical horror, and chicks-in-prison genres, with a great cast and lots of pretty girls in various states of undress. Delightfully sleazy fun.

Husk(2011)-a group of friends on a road trip find themselves stranded when their vehicle is involved in an accident. They cut though a corn field to an old farm house to find help, but find the place deserted. One of the friends starts having visions of a tragedy that took place years earlier at the farm and now a evil spirt haunts the land and uses the farm's scarecrows to claim it's victims. Yet another entry in the killer scarecrow subgenre that seems to give birth to one of these types of films every few years. I'm not the biggest fan of scarecrow/horror films, but this film is well made and is a decent watch for this time of year. It's no Dark Night of the Scarecrow, but it's solid at least. 2/5

Fear Street Part 2:1978 (2021)



The brother and sister team trying to stop the witch's curse plaguing  their town hunt down a survivor from an earlier rampage. The survivor recounts what happened on that fateful day at summer camp in 1978. This one has a strong Friday the 13th vibe to it, with a pretty cool soundtrack to boot. Really enjoyable.

Fear Street Part 3:1666 (2021)



Final chapter of the trilogy which, in the first half, shows the origins of the curse that the town has been dealing with for centuries. The second half deals with the brother and sister team attempting to end the curse once and for all. All in all, a very good series of films.

Kickin' it Schlock-Tober style:

"Don't Go in the Woods" (aka "Don't Go in the Woods... Alone!", 1981)

A group of hikers are pursued by an insane, machete-wielding mountain man who also chops up a bunch of nameless, faceless background characters who are unlucky enough to get in the way. Yes, that's the entire plot.
Soooo.... who is the mountain man? Why is he killing all these people? Who the hell knows? The movie doesn't tell us a damn thing. The story is crap, the acting is crap, the dialogue is crap, the dubbing is crap (one character suddenly develops an Aussie accent about halfway through the film!) but at least it has an absurdly high body count and the gore was cartoonishly awesome.
I'd heard that this movie was bad, but I wasn't prepared for HOW bad this plotless, pointless, utterly inept hunk of slasher junk was.  
AVOID ... unless you absolutely have to see every '80s slasher movie ever made.

So for Schlock-tober you don't actually watch just any horror movie, it has to be a "schlocky" one right? As in cheesy, campy or crappy or some combination thereof?

tohostudios wrote:

So for Schlock-tober you don't actually watch just any horror movie, it has to be a "schlocky" one right?  As in cheesy, campy or crappy or some combination thereof?

I don't put that much thought into curating my movie picks for the month...I just like saying "Schlock-Tober."  

...but I guess in order to qualify for Schlock-tober status, obviously a movie would have to be a cheap/cheesy, though not necessarily crappy, horror flick, and Lord knows there are more than enough of those out there.

"Don't Go in the Woods" definitely fell hard on the "crappy" side though. Woof, what a stinker!

House (1986)



Horror comedy starring William Matt as a Vietnam vet and popular horror author,separated from his wife after the disappearance of their son, inheriting a house from his aunt after her suicide. He soon discovers that the house is haunted and the mysteries of the house are tied into his past. Not a great movie by any stretch but not a time waster either. This spawned like 3 sequels, none of which I have seen.

I saw House a long time ago (so long ago I rented it at a Mom and Pop video store on VHS!) but I remember liking it. Isn't George Wendt in it?

tohostudios wrote:

I saw House a long time ago (so long ago I rented it at a Mom and Pop video store on VHS!) but I remember liking it.  Isn't George Wendt in it?

Yes. He plays Katt's neighbor and is pretty good comedy relief.

Schlock-tober continues!

"American Nightmares" (aka "Mister Malevolent," 2018)

A pair of computer hackers get hijacked by a mysterious storyteller who forces them to view numerous tales of terror with an urban slant. Segments include an unusual online dating scenario, a hooker who meets a murderous clown, a right-wing radio host who learns a violent lesson in gender politics, and more.
Cheap but occasionally funny "Creepshow" style anthology starring Danny Trejo as the Crypt Keeper style host and featuring a bunch of familiar faces like Nichelle "Star Trek" Nichols, Clarence Williams III ("The Mod Squad"), Vivica A. Fox ("Independence Day") and Jay Mohr. I've seen better, but I've also seen lots worse.

"Deep Rising" (1998)

Would-be pirates board a luxury liner in the South China Sea, planning to pull off the robbery of the century -- but they soon learn that the passengers and crew have already been devoured by a monstrous, octopus-like creature from the depths, and they're next on the menu.
A fast, funny, tongue-extremely-in-cheek creature feature/action thriller from Stephen ("The Mummy") Sommers, starring a hilariously deadpan Treat Williams ("NOW what?") as the square-jawed hero and Famke "Goldeneye" Janssen as the damsel in distress. A hidden gem, this one's tons of fun.

"Shocker" (1989)

A college football player must stop a serial killer who survives the electric chair by becoming a creature of electrical energy, who can travel through television signals and jump in and out of other people's bodies.
A flashy, but ultimately pretty dumb, cult item from a slumming Wes Craven, who was definitely phoning this one in - apparently Universal Studios hired him in the hopes that he'd create a new Freddy Krueger style horror icon for them. The result is a confused, overlong mess that goes from mildly interesting to irritatingly stupid pretty quickly. At least it had a great soundtrack featuring Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Dangerous Toys, and more.

That Deep Rising sounds interesting, never heard of it. Unfortunately I've seen "Shocker".

Tigers Are Not Afraid

A Mexican film that's a dark fantasy very much in the vein of Pan's Labyrinth. A group of children all orphaned by a Mexican drug cartel are simultaneously on the run from them and out to get revenge. Like Pan's Labyrinth fantastic visions and fantasies are interwoven into the gritty reality in which these children exist. Very well done and the child actors are fantastic but this is pretty heavy stuff.

"Boo" (2005)

College students spend their Halloween night exploring an abandoned and supposedly haunted former hospital, which of course has a sordid past. You can probably guess out how well that turns out for them.
An effective, low budget little spook show (directed by Anthony Ferrante, later of "Sharknado" fame) that throws in pretty much every "haunted" cliche you can think of - objects moving by themselves, ghostly kids, blood seeping from walls, frequent flashbacks to horrible things that happened back in the day, possession by restless spirits, blah blah blah. The gore, while cheap, is plentiful. "Boo" doesn't have an original bone in its body but I had enough fun to dub it Schlock-tober worthy.

I've had Boo on DVD for years and have never watched it because I read some awful reviews of it. I'm not even sure why or how I ended up with the DVD but in any case it doesn't sound like I'm missing anything.

tohostudios wrote:

I've had Boo on DVD for years and have never watched it because I read some awful reviews of it.  I'm not even sure why or how I ended up with the DVD but in any case it doesn't sound like I'm missing anything.

It was OK. Not a masterpiece by any means but a decent seasonal time waster. Certainly nothing I'll ever sit thru again though.

...and after "Boo," I went for something completely different...

"The Paul Lynde Halloween Special" (1976)

This 1976 showcase for the dubiously talented, barely-closeted comedian, sitcom second banana and "Hollywood Squares" regular is a time capsule of jaw droppingly awful mid '70s what-the-fuckery.
Paul is granted three wishes on Halloween night by a pair of witches (Margaret "Wizard of Oz" Hamilton and Billie Hayes, aka "Witchiepoo" from H.R. Pufnstuf). This leads to a trio of cringe-tastic fantasy sequences featuring Paul as a singing truck driver, an Arabian Sheik, and the swingin' host of a disco dance party. Even by '70s variety show standards, this show was hellishly bad, full of eye rollingly corny jokes, terrible song-and-dance numbers, and cameos by slumming celebrities like Betty White (!), Florence Henderson, Tim Conway, and Donny & Marie Osmond.
This special is probably best remembered for giving KISS their first-ever prime-time TV exposure. Naturally their three (lip sync'd) songs ("Detroit Rock City," "King of the Night Time World," and "Beth") are the show's highlights, and the band also partakes in some unintentionally funny forced banter with the host. (Lynde: "Your makeup is really something, how long does it take you guys to get that stuff on?" Gene: "We're not wearing makeup.")
I have seen KISS' performances from this show on bootlegs over the years but when I stumbled across the full show on YouTube, I couldn't resist. All I could say was "Wow... the 1970s really were a whole 'nother planet, man."

Do I dare try to revisit the "Star Wars Holiday Special" in December?

Nightmare Before Christmas

I normally watch this film as part of my annual Christmas horrorthon but today on my daily walk I went past a house that had this great display of Jack Skellington, Sally and Oogie Boogie that just put me in the mood to watch it now. It fits for Halloween too.

Out on Bail (1989)



Low budget action flick where Robert "The Exterminator" Ginty plays a drifter who witnesses a local killing. He is wrongfully jailed, and after he is let out on bail (hence the title), he sets out to free his name.

"The Purge: Anarchy" (2014)

In the second "Purge" film, a group of average citizens find themselves stuck on the mean streets of L.A. during the annual all-crime-is-legal-for-12-hours "holiday," and must figure out how to survive amidst the chaos. As usual for this franchise, there's not much plot, but there's plenty of ultra-violence laced with not-very-subtle social commentary. I actually like this one better than the original "Purge."