Category Archives: Film

Teenage Zombies (1960)

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teenagezombies0220 Movies for $5; What could possibly go wrong?  Part XI.

This was a huge letdown almost immediately.  The title had me anticipating something very different.  Well, at least it was only 73 minutes.

The gang is hanging out at the ‘ol Campus House malt shop.  One of them suggests a picnic lunch on an island that no one has ever realized was just off the coast.  In the next shot, they are lounging on the beach.  Their small boat is anchored 25 yards off of the beach, yet none of the group seems to be wet.  And that is a shame as the girls are pretty hot.

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Lilly of the Field, not toiling.

They follow a path and see zombies — more like lumbering workers — toiling in the field overseen by a women who looks like Lilly Munster.

I have to hand it to this film, White Zombie and King of the Zombies — they have at least harnessed the zombies to do something productive.  Walking Dead could learn a lesson here.

The youts bolt, but discover their boat is gone.  They go to a nearby house where Lilly meets them at the door.  While talking, they hear the girls screaming.  Soon they are locked in a cage with the girls.

A couple of Men in Black go to the island.  They inquire about the production of  5,000 capsules which will be used to subdue the US population.  If they are not ready, they must rely on hydrogen bombs to complete their mission.  Really seems like there would have been an alternative somewhere in the middle.  Luckily Lilly has the 4 teenagers to use as guinea pigs — presumably for the drugs, not the H-bombs.

teenagezombies0

Is this the Sheriff or a picture of the Sheriff?

There is a lot of walking, boating, and a gorilla.  And that makes it sound more interesting than it actually was.

Definitely one of the worst movies in the collection, not worthy of further discussion. Clearly, it is in the collection due to its public domain status, and in this blog due a slavish obsession with completeness.

Post-Post:

  • Available for download at You Tube and Internet Archive, but why would ya?
  • One of the boys says he is from Compton.  I got nuthin’.
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C’mon, a payphone mounted on a louvered panel? I guess Mom didn’t want her big-shot director putting holes in the wall.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

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dayearth011928, India.  Keanu Reeves, sporting a beard of Almost Human density, is sharpening his crampons when he sees a bright light over the horizon.  He climbs a vertical face to find a glowing sphere.  He brushes away some surface ice with his pick, causing the sphere to go mini-nova and knock him out.  He awakens to find the sphere gone and a scar on his hand.

In the present day, super scientist Jennifer Connelly is recruited along with a group of other experts in the sciences and engineering.  Her specialty is astro-biology which would seem to be pretty simple given that no biology has been discovered out in the astro.  Her friend Don Draper spots her in the crowd and fast-tracks her inside.

An object has been spotted speeding toward earth, Manhattan specifically.  And, oh yeah, it will be here in 78 minutes.  The group boards a helicopter and flies over New York City.  If this brain-trust is supposed to save humanity, I am unclear about how it makes sense to airlift them to ground zero where an object traveling 18,600 miles a second is going to impact.

dayearth07Luckily, the object slows down before impact and lands in Central Park.  When the dust settles, it is revealed to be sphere like the one in 1928, only much larger.  A being emerges, and approaches Jennifer.  So the army shoots him.  The giant robot AL GORT then follows, knocking out all the electrical equipment and weapons.

The injured alien is revealed to be Keanu Reeves again, or at least a pile of his DNA swiped in 1928, and is take to a hospital.  Why the 80 year gap?  Why choose a guy in India when, even in 1928, New York would be the likely location to address the world (or maybe London or Paris — definitely not the Karakoram Mountains.),  And they just happened to pick the only guy in India who was not Indian or British?

In the hospital, much like Neo, Keanu is reborn slimy, fully formed and hairless, emerging from a gelatinous goo.  Within minutes he is back to his movie-star self, with a full head of hair but no beard.

Kathy Bates shows up as the Secretary of Defense and begins grilling him.  She is particularly repulsive in this role.  I’m not sure what I’ve seen her in since Misery, so maybe it is her, or maybe it is her resemblance to an actual vaguely feminine, arrogant, feckless shrew of a Secretary of State — referring, of course to John Kerry.

Keanu, or Klaatu — his freakishly similar alien name — is having none of this, so escapes.  Proving that he truly is not of his earth and does not understand our strange ways, he eats a tuna salad sandwich from a vending machine.  Predictably, he passes out in the mens room of the train station.

After being revived, he calls Jennifer to help him, and she shows up with her obnoxious step-son.  Klaatu Reeves applies an ointment to his wound which heals it and conveniently even dissolves the stitches.  He directs Jennifer to drive out into the country where he retrieves another sphere from a pond.  Other spheres around the world begin collecting the earth’s flora and fauna like an ark.

Klaatu Reeves finally spills the beans.  He is not here to save humanity, he and robot AL GORT are here to save the earth from humanity.  Trying to make the case for our species, Jennifer takes him to see her mentor John Cleese.  Unfortunately her obnoxious son rats them out to the government.

When the government tries to use a diamond drill on AL GORT, he breaks down into billions of metallic insect-like nanites.  The nanite swarm spreads, devouring soldiers, stadiums, trucks.  After seeing Jennifer crying with her obnoxious son, Klaatu Reeves has a Terminatoresque “I know now why you cry” moment.

He stops the nanites, sparing humanity, but the sphere lets out another blast.  This one, an EMP, shuts down everything electric.  IMDb and Wiki both indicate that the earth is left forever without electrical capability, but I don’t see where that is indicated.  Klaatu Reeves does say that there will be a cost to humanity, but that could have just meant we had to rebuild, giving earth a breather.  And how exactly would we be prohibited from using electricity forever?  Did they suspend the laws of physics?

OK, say the all-knowing, beneficent Klaatu Reeves and AL GORT have thrust us back into the stone age for the good of the earth.  Welcome back TB, plague, polio, smallpox, dysentery.  Anywhere people are clustered, look forward to horse shit up to your knees. Hooked up to a dialysis machine?  Don’t start any long novels.  I just hope these brainiacs remembered to provide for the the cooling towers in 400+ nuclear power plants around the world.  And it is a certainty that as civilization breaks down, the biggest growth industries will be tribalism, slavery and war.

Maybe some other do-gooder aliens will show up in a thousand years and save humanity again — this time by giving us the miracle of electricity.

It didn’t move the earth for me, and I’ve had my fill of sanctimonious aliens, but it was much better than I had been lead to expect.

Post-Post:

  • This is the role Klaatu Reeves was born to play — a blank-faced, emotionless “other”.  And he pulls it off very well.  Would have been nice to have one “whoa” though.
  • How is nanites not in spellcheck?
  • Supposedly Klaatu Barada Nikto is in here somewhere, but I missed it.  Many points in the original movie are revisited — names are re-used, and scenes re-played, sometimes in a different context.  But why bury something so iconic? Were they afraid kiddies would only know it from Army of Darkness?
  • Based on Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates.
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Al Gort

13 Sins (2014)

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A distinguished old codger is introduced at an elegant event.  He stands, observes his rapt audience and says:

A bear taking a dump asked a rabbit / Does shit stick to your fur as a habit? / Of course not said the hare / It’s really quite rare / So the bear wiped his ass with the rabbit.

As he is clearly past his prime, but was once respected, the audience indulges him with a few uncomfortable pity laughs.  Kind of like with David Letterman.  Then he follows up with:

There once was a lady named Dot / Who lived off of pig shit and snot / When she ran out of these / She ate the green cheese / That she grew on the sides of her twat.

Then he cuts off a couple of the hostess’s fingers.  As you do.  Being a bunch of elite, high-society, self-righteous, NPR-listening, Obama-worshipers, there is not a Concealed Carry Permit in da house.  Or even one man willing to stand up to an 80 year old with a fruit knife.  A security guard comes in and shoots grandpa as he is reaching for his phone.

After the credits, we see Elliot Brindle.  He is having a day sort of like Pat Healy in Cheap Thrills.  He has an pregnant girlfriend, whereas Healy had a new-born; he gets fired just like Healy; has mounting financial pressure; and he acquires mysterious benefactor just like Healy.

He gets a phone call offering him a chance to make some big coin.  As in Cheap Thrills, the challenges start small; in this case, merely swatting a fly for $1,000.  The reward jumps to $3,622 to eat the fly.  Just as Healy was tempted with the exact amount he owed to avoid eviction, Brindle is offered this non-random amount which is exactly what his girlfriend owes on her credit cards.

Next, during a nice day at the park with his future in-laws, he is challenged to make a child cry for $5,000.  Good stuff.  This is already much better than Cheap Thrills.  However, my confidence is rocked by the introduction of Ron Perlman — never a good omen in a movie.

The comedy ratchets up as he is challenged to take a dead man out for a cup of coffee.  Kind of like Weekend at Bernie’s, except funny.

13sins03Well, it’s all fun and games until someone loses a hand; which eventually happens.  Things start to get darker as Brindle is offered $100 large to cut off the hand of an old friend.  Then he brains the guy’s brother with a chair.  And steals his car.

13sins04It gets dark where it should be dark, funny where it should be funny, and twisty.  And Koechner-free!  Cheap Thrills got the attention, but 13 Sins is superior in almost every way.

I give it 11 out of 13 sins.

Post-Post:

  • Elliot’s father is a hilarious, racist quote machine played by Marvin from Die Hard 2.  Very entertaining.
  • Devon Graye, who played the teenage Dexter, was probably better than this movie deserved as Elliot’s special needs brother.
  • The circus-tune ringtone, which apparently the caller assigns in this universe, is Entrance of the Gladiators.
  • Sadly, could not work in a Brundle-Fly reference for Brindle.
  • Director Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism) does love his widescreen:

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Cruel World (2005)

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After watching Cruel World, I noticed the blurb on the cover where Luke Y. Thompson called it “a Cult Classic.”  Curious what his criteria could possibly have been, I tried to track down the review.  It was not linked at IMDb, but Rotten Tomatoes still had his headline.

cruelworld06Classic out-of-context blurb!  Frankly, the producers should have been thrilled with “watchable.”

20 movies for $5; what could possible go wrong.  Part X: Cruel World.

It gets off to a decent start as a group of 20-somethings explain why they want to be on a reality show.  It gets better as Jamie Pressly shows up wearing a man’s shirt and panties.  At this trajectory, this thing could be Citizen Kane before the 2nd act.

She and her husband met on a reality show called Lover’s Lane filmed in the house where they now live.  While they vacation in Tahiti, they plan to rent the house out to another reality show.  Edward Furlong shows up unexpectedly, as he would have to, because who would invite him?

cruelworld07Jamie had rejected him on the show where she met her husband.  On tape we see her use the excuse, “I don’t think I could make you happy.”  Also acceptable would have been, “You are unbelievably bloated and creepy.”

She attempts to get away, and even inflicts some very satisfying damage on him.  They end up in the pool, further elevating the picture.  Sadly Jamie is killed, thus largely ending the entertainment portion of our program.  If you can overlook Furlong’s performance, it really is a decent low-budget movie for the first 15 minutes.

The contestants show up in a stretch Humvee, and thankfully are less hateable than any cast of Big Brother I’ve ever seen; although, to be fair, I have never made it past episode 3.  Furlong starts them off easy with drinks and a pool party as he watches from a control room.

The challenges begin with disgusting, then progress to dangerous.  The first person is voted out and is killed off-site by Furlong’s slow brother Claude.  And when you are in a family with E. Furlong, and you are known as the slow one, that’s making a statement.

cruelworld02Claude’s attempt to kill a second contestant does not go so well as she is Asian, and thus is a black belt.  Claude take several kicks to the noggin before throwing her to the ground.  She tries to escape by climbing a tree.  As Claude grabs her leg, she brilliantly starts peeing so he releases her in disgust.  Asians is smart!

Finally, still being smarter than Big Brother contestants, the survivors realize that Furlong intends to kill them.  Eventually the field is whittled down to one.

It is understandable why Furlong wants to kill the lovely Jamie Pressly — he feels that she humilated him on national TV.  Although, I assume she similarly humiliated at least 8 other guys in this reality show — she only married one.  But his motivation for killing this new bunch of yahoos is a mystery to me.  Not sure motivation was a big issue for Furlong as an actor either.  He is not a method actor, but more likely is a meth actor.

My big question, what happened to the Asian girl?  Claude chased her into a storage pod  Is she still there?

As Luke Y. Thompson said, “watchable.”  But not much more than that.

Post-Post:

  • Cast includes Angel’s sister from Dexter.
  • Halfway through the collection, but I can’t even claim to have finished 2 of the 4 discs since the box listing does not match the discs.
  • Just for the record, a furlong is 1/8 of a mile or 220 yards.

Detour (2013)

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detour03Cover 1:  This is the only art at IMDb.  Is dirt ever effective cover art for anything?  Did we learn nothing from Centerfield?  It makes sense once you’ve seen the movie, but it doesn’t get any easier on the eyes.

Cover 2:  Infinitely better, except for one thing.  The poster shows the car wheels-up.  In the movie, the car is clearly wheels-down.  Even on the same poster, just inches below, you can tell by the safety belt that the guy is in an upright car.  I’m no nitpicker, but this is pretty blatant.  The Poseidon Adventure got it right 40 years ago.

That aside, it is a surprisingly good movie mostly following the template from Buried.  I admired the purity of Buried, but the exterior cheats here don’t hurt the narrative.  Not sure they help, but they don’t hurt.

The film starts off so abruptly that I first thought I had accidentally fast-forwarded or picked up from a previous session (although being on Hulu, the absence of an obnoxious, punitive commercial should have tipped me off).

Jackson, an ad man played by Neil Hopkins wakes up in his car with a nosebleed.  He is also disoriented by the fact that there is dirt packed against all the windows.  Obviously being buried, his phone does not work.  For some reason he tries the radio; which, unless The Professor was in the backseat, would not be much help.  Then he tries to start the car, which I just chalk up to panic.

detour04He begins recording himself on the phone, but fortunately this does not turn into a found-footage, hand-held joint.  Hey, I could use a hand-held joint right now.

Despite being a situation very similar to Buried, Detour actually has an edge in suspense.  While the claustrophobia of being buried in a box would be incredible, being in Jackson’s situation is more suspenseful.  True, he has more legroom, overhead lighting, tilt-steering, pleather seats, and a low low APR, but he is also excruciatingly close to the surface.  Or is he?  Should he try to dig himself out, or would that just create a cave-in, killing him immediately?  On the other hand, if you are buried in a box, you’re not going anywhere.  Is hope always a good thing?

Taking inventory of the vehicle, he is able to MacGyver some items to good use.  The Club is used to stop a cave-in and also helps catch brown rainwater which has filtered through the dirt.  He is able to use folding chair legs and a jack to punch a hole to the surface where is can see about a quarter inch of daylight.  Of course with half the movie left, the excitement is short-lived.

The pressure on Jackson grows as the outside pressure on the car causes continual creaks and encroachments by mud and dirt.  Finally he is driven to make an escape attempt.

Of course some of it it far-fetched.  And I’m not entirely sure Neil Hopkins was up to the task.  But it does end up being an enjoyable single-location thriller that is surprisingly easy to empathize with.

Post-Post:

  • Neil Hopkins played Charlie’s brother Liam on Lost.
  • There is a big deal made of a crude map he draws in the Owner’s Manual of the route he had been driving.  No idea why.
  • Also don’t get the title.  Their really is no detour.  In fact, Jackson might actually be sitting right on the road he was traveling.  A metaphysical detour, I guess.
  • Kudos on the scene where he determines that he is about 5 degrees off vertical.  Absolutely meaningless in the big picture, but a nice sequence.