Last of the Living (2009)

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lastofliving0220 Horror Movies for $7.50 — Part XVIII.

Now this is more like it.  And by it, I mean it is more like the movies in the $5.00 collection than its ritzy high-falutin’ diskmates in the $7.50 box.  A terrible transfer is probably to blame for many of its woes — not as bad as Curtains, but pretty bad.  So it is not a sharp image, and the cinematography and poor sound quality are probably related to that issue. The zombie make-up rarely consists of more than a bloody nose.

And yet.

It is one of the rare films that opens with a ballad and pulls it off.  Morgan is wandering the deserted streets of London (because all cities in England are London). His journey is effectively inter-cut with very short bits of TV news footage covering the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse and breakdown of society (and doing it better than Fear the Walking Dead).  There is not a single other person seen, and the zombies were also apparently considerate enough to clear the streets of blood, bodies and cars (i.e. they probably filmed at 6 am Sunday morning in the business district).

lastofliving04Our protagonists are Morgan, Johnny and the nerdy Ash who live together in one house.  It is not clear how many humans are left as the streets are barren; but the phones work, and Morgan even calls a girl for a date — although he does get a voice-mail, so she’s probably a goner or, in my experience, screening her calls.

They suit up for a trip to the market for chips and beer.  And rather than the leisurely stroll we usually see, these guys literally run to the market.  Along the way they have a few entertaining run-ins with the undead so this almost comes off as the zombie version of Help!.

lastofliving12This is even more true as they are running through the market in a musical montage with their shopping carts — but it is a sense of fun more than fear that is propelling them.  Right through to the nicely-choreographed zooming through 3 un-manned check-out lines, pulling a hard 90 degrees and heading out.

lastofliving14On the way home, they stop at a CD store — speaking of things that just won’t die.

They go on living their bro lifestyles, drinking beer, talking about girls, playing the drums, watching exercise videos of bikini babes.  They get bored and, housing being a breather’s market, they decide on a whim to move to a new mansion.  Along the way they rescue a hot chick from a church.  And by “rescue” I mean they get her father killed, lose a new zombie antidote and blow up the church; but they do end up with the hot babe, Stef, on the team.

lastofliving23Incredibly, they drive all the way to The New Zealand Research Centre — OK, possibly it wasn’t London after all — and pull into the empty parking lot.  You’d think there might be survivors there working or at least cars of the dead that worked to save humanity until they dropped dead like in The Stand.  But no.

Stef is able to synthesize more of the antidote, and they head for the airport to fly it to anti-zombie island where the real research is done.  There is a time-factor, though, that adds suspense to the humor.  And actually works.

lastofliving31This was a very enjoyable watch despite the technical shortcomings of this print. Like Hide and Creep, it was was just low-key fun and I can imagine watching it again.  The music seems to be stock, not always fitting the scene, but that just added a certain charm whether it was intended or not.  The characters were well-defined and likable for a change, and the actors were fun in portraying them.

One of the best of the set.

Post-Post:

  • The cover says “Shaun of the Dead’s Got Nothing on These Slackers” which is pushing it a little far.  But a good print would have made it perfectly respectable.

Tales from the Crypt – Death of Some Salesmen (10/02/93)

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tftcdeathofsome02After we see Ed Begley Jr. humping some floozy in a hotel, he is up early the next morning to check the newspaper obituaries; presumably to see if my appetite is listed. Actually, we were fortunate enough to see very little of him, but did get some swell nudity from the girl — in a show hosted by a puppet. That still baffles me.[1]

Apparently he made her promises about rescuing her from her lousy job and that dirtwater burg.  She accuses, “But you said you loved me” and he responds, “Yes, and you dropped your little panties.  It’s called salesmanship.”  No, it’s called lying.  Sharknado / Sharknoddo.

He drives out to a farm where Yvonne DeCarlo answers the door.  Asking for her husband, she tells him her husband died a few days ago.  Unlike her first husband, this one ain’t coming back — not even on TFTC.

tftcdeathofsome07He pretends to be shocked and does a variation of a gag that Chevy Chase did so much better in Fletch. He explains that just last week her husband had made a down-payment on a cemetery plot. He says it is too bad he died before paying the balance because the plot package covered funeral expenses plus $10,000 cash.  “Reluctantly” Ed agrees to bend the rules so Yvonne doesn’t lose out on the bennies (i.e. he bilks her out of $250 cash).

Having ungilded the Lilly (see what I did there?), he arrives at another farmhouse.  In a bizarre but fairly pointless bit of casting [2], the door is answered by the always welcome Tim Curry, but playing a woman (an actual woman — Ma Brackett — not just a sweet transvestite).  Although he went to the wrong address, and there was no obituary to lay the groundwork, Ma is still interested in what he is selling and calls out Pa Brackett — also played by Tim Curry. Very strangely, Ma looks like Tim Curry, but I can detect no resemblance in Pa.

tftcdeathofsome10They are very impressed by the brochures he has had printed up. He generously offers them a package deal for $750 that will provide $20,000 in death benefits.  Sounds like a good deal to them, but Pa is pretty shrewd and says they will have to see the plot in person.  Ed is able to stall them for a day and they go down stairs to get the cash.

While alone, Ed sees several of his predecessors — salesmen who have been decapitated, gutted with vacuum cleaner hoses, stuffed into TV consoles, etc.  He heads for the door, but is locked in and Pa clubs him to unconsciousness.

They rouse him, handcuffed,  and introduce him to their daughter Winona (also played by Tim Curry).  Despite all manner of hideousness, he tells her she is beautiful.  She takes him upstairs and rides him cowgirl style, although more cow than girl.  During pillow talk, she says she wants to get married so they can take her dowry and get away from her parents.  The dowry is money from all the dead salesmen and Winona estimates it at $40 – $50,000.

tftcdeathofsome08Begley shoots Winona and digs down about 4 feet in the basement where he finds a box with a piece of paper in it.  He unrolls the document to see one of his own contracts for a Restful Hill Cemetery plot — that is the dowry. This is where things go awry.

The contract is a mess.  I guess they figured that no one would notice in state of the art 1993 low-rez TV. Why were Mr. Jones and Begley filled in the Witness line rather than as the active parties?

And why was it buried under 4 feet of dirt?  Did one of the family dig the hole that night? And then fill it in?  For what purpose?  OK, the microwave salesman’s head was in the microwave, the TV salesman’s body was stuffed in the console, so it makes sense that Begley would be buried.  But irony shouldn’t require that much work.  In fact, irony should require no work  — the universe does the heavy lifting.

tftcdeathofsome06Turns out Begley was shooting blanks (with the pistol, presumably not in bed).  Winona is not dead, and Pa blows Begley away just before telling him that this is salesmanship — a phrase that sort of worked in the beginning, but makes little sense at the end.

If you overlook the nonsense at the end, it is a fun episode with great performances from Begley and especially Curry.  It was nice to see Lilly Munster again even though she had put on a lot of pounds and years (but haven’t we all).

Post-Post:

  • [1] It never occurred to me before that there really aren’t any cute Muppets. Granted, there aren’t that many humans among them, but — again, just occurring to me — they are almost all male. In fact, the only female I can think of is Janice — a groovy chick, but with a mouth that goes half-way around her head.  Just because it works — awesomely, BTW — for Anne Hathaway, doesn’t mean everybody can pull it off.
  • [2] Maybe I was wrong about the pointless casting.  The IMDb also cites his Emmy nomination for playing mother/father/sister/daughter, but he only portrayed 3 characters.  Sister and daughter don’t count as two people — this ain’t Chinatown, Jake.  Maybe this is why they all look so similar and the daughter is a little off.
  • The ugly daughter is named Winona.  Begley’s name is Judd.  Coincidence?  Just as an aside, PC I am not, but I never call real people ugly.
  • Title Analysis:  Inevitable, I suppose.  But shouldn’t it be “Deaths” since there were several killed?  Maybe “Death of Another Salesman” would have been a better choice grammatically and parody-wise.

Hide and Creep (2004)

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hideandcreep0120 Horror Movies for $7.50 — Part XVII.

Wow did this movie jump the proverbial shark in about 2 minutes.  We get off to a fun start with Chuck, the owner of a video store (yeah, VHS) talking to a customer on a land-line phone about zombie movies and why they all seem to be rented out.  Nice, amusing start.

Cut to a guy sleeping in a tree, who then falls and hits the — of course — ground.  Lying on his back, he is wearing only a t-shirt and his junk is hanging right the f*** out there. Or maybe it was standing right the f*** out there.  I didn’t look too closely, but that’ll take about 3 letter grades off a movie right there.

Another group of yahoos is watching the Spice Channel when it suddenly cuts out.  One of the hicks treks a ridiculously long way to check on the generator and finds that the electrical cable has been cut.  The next time he is seen, several fairly well-dressed hideandcreep08zombies are chowing down on him.  More freakishly well-dressed zombies appear (did God allow another church roof to collapse?), and here his mulletted hick friends have gone off without their rifles.  So the head mullet calls for them to “split up and meet back at the house.”  My question: In such a situation, when splitting up, which idiots are not going to choose the direction of the house?

Chuck wakes up on the floor of his store, being hassled by a customer banging on the door.  The film regains a lot of its humor and momentum as both the clerk and the customer are not naked.  Despite some stunningly cheap zombie make-up, Hide and Creep gets off to a solid 2nd start.

Multiple colorful characters enter the movie . . . naked guy Michael who claims he was abducted by aliens, the girl at the diner, secretary Barbara at the police station, Chris the deputy she apparently has the authority to fire, Reverend Smith who is attacked in his church, Mullet’s gun-toting teen daughter, a doltish agent from the Dept of Homeland Defense (sic) investigating reports of RC — Reanimated Corpses, naked guy Michael’s girlfriend who also shows up naked.

hideandcreep30

DEAD GUY. CALL CHUCK.

Hide and Creep isn’t swinging for the fences.  It takes its time, but keeps the story full of quirky characters and mostly unforced humor.  The characters, in groups or alone, go on their own quests and occasionally cross paths.  There are no massive zombie hordes and no heads are lopped off, although there are plenty of zombie killings — the survivors are just trying to get through the day.  Chuck holes up in the police station, Mullet gathers his family, etc.  It is all very . . . not realistic exactly, but natural.

hideandcreep36It never lags and has surprises in store, even a few in the last minutes.  I was, as always, leery of the comedy / horror genre, but like Zombie Dearest, I was completely won over.  This is a genuinely fun movie.

hideandcreep53

This does NOT make up for her boyfriend’s junk earlier.

Post-Post:

  • I like that the Mulberry Baptist Church has dates for Founded, Built, Moved, Restored, and Rededicated. Even if it is a real sign, I like the quirkiness.
  • The poster is terrible!  What’s with the sepia tones?  It gives no indication of the fun to be had here.  Who is the demon in the back-ground?  This is a zombie movie.  Why is Mullet on the cover and not Chuck?
  • Title Analysis:  Also terrible – no relation to the movie at all.

Thriller – Well of Doom (02/28/61)

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twellofdoom01A long-nosed chauffeur is driving two men in suits through a thick fog.  As they are discussing the dangers of the Moors, Penrose laments that they are going to be late to his bachelor party.  The driver slams on the brakes as there is a giant standing in the road.

He has his arms raised menacingly and is wearing one of those tinker-bell jerkins with the little tutu-like ruffles around the waist.  Who decided this was the official uniform for giants? Obviously they are custom-made; there are no Giant and Fat man stores selling them.  If they are custom made — bespoke, if you will — why not order a f***ing pair of proper trousers and a snappy blazer?

twellofdoom02And who decided to start stores that catered only to the Tall and Fat like they were freaks to be segregated from decent — though in need of new clothing — people?  C’mon, #talllivesmatter.  OK, I’m not so worried about the fat ones.  I just lost 65 pounds — it ain’t rocket science; well maybe a little physics.

The giant pulls the chauffeur out of the car.  Fearing a bad Uber passenger rating, the two other men — Penrose and his estranged butler Teal —  gamely get out of the car to help the driver.  It’s only a giant, after all; it’s not Ferguson MO.

Before they have a chance to have their heads ripped off, the giant’s equally creepy boss shows up.  He coyly throws out devilish names they might use for him — Beelzebub, Baal, Moloch.  Moloch seems to stick, and his giant is named Styx.  Presumably still carrying a lot of anger from a childhood where the other kids called him The Stygian Fairy, he kills the chauffeur and drives off with the three men.

twellofdoom03Flashback:  Earlier that day, Teal had dropped in to toast Penrose’s upcoming nuptials, despite some sort of falling out.  Although I’m not sure how you have a falling out with a butler — you just buttle his ass right out the door.  They toast the bride Laura and throw their glasses in the fire.  Laura calls and tries to talk Penrose out of attending the stag party, but he refuses.

Back in the car, Penrose believes this is just a stag party prank.  Moloch is in the front seat pointing a gun at him.  One pothole and he could have ended up like Marvin in Pulp Fiction.  As it is, Moloch puts a slug in the seat next to Penrose just to let him know this is not prank.  Penrose offers him his entire net worth — a little prematurely in my opinion — but Moloch says it is not enough.  In an ill-fated escape attempt, Moloch kills Teal.

twellofdoom05Penrose is locked in a cell with the titular Well of Doom.  He claims that Penrose’s father threw the rightful owners of the castle down the well to their doom and usurped their position; although did not usurp their source of fresh water – idiot!

And Moloch should know because it was he who was killed!  Bwah-ha-ha-ha.  Oh, and Styx has kidnapped Laura and she is in the cell across the hall, gagged and naked — er, bound.

Moloch presents Penrose with a contract to sign over all his possessions.  Penrose refuses, suspecting he and Laura will be killed anyway.  Moloch, in true Bondian style leaves him alone to contemplate his doom.  Penrose rigs an escape plan from the Well involving a device a Bondian device worthy of Q — a rope.

twellofdoom08When Moloch returns, he finally relents in order to save Laura’s life. Of course, after signing, Styx tosses him in the well anyway.  After they leave, Penrose is able to climb up the rope which would have been perfectly visible to Moloch and Styx.

Finding Laura’s cell empty, he goes back up into the castle and finds Moloch and Styx stripping off their make-up.  He also sees that his former butler Teal is still alive and is really the ringleader.  With Penrose dead, he will claim Penrose and his wife are on an extended honeymoon and will enjoy the estate as overseer.  Yeah, that honeymoon story should satisfy the neighbors for years.

He says that document Penrose signed is going to “make up for years of humiliation . . . have you ever thought what it is like to be a man’s man and live in a household where they give you orders day after day?”  Maybe he really is a man’s man, he’s sure never lived with a woman.

twellofdoom09In a nice bit of luck, and by “bit”, I mean a Rock of Gibraltar sized bit of luck, Moloch and Teal shoot and kill each other; and Styx falls from a balcony thinking Penrose is a ghost.

Several reviews give high praise to this episode, but it wasn’t really anything special.  The high point was the make-up on Moloch and Styx.  Its effectiveness is especially obvious when we get a scene of them without it late in the episode.

Penrose, Laura, Teal and the story are only adequate.  But the show really belongs to Moloch, Styx, the make-up department, and the cinematographer — all outstanding.

Thus concludes the ten episode run of the Thriller Fan Favorites Collection.  At first, I thought I had found a show that possibly even trumped The Twilight Zone.  But, like any show, the quality was a bell curve — just seems like the curve would have been a little more subtle if you’re cherry-picking 10 episodes.

On the plus side, the screeching score was effective, there were some good scripts, and it rarely dragged or seemed padded out like the hour-long TZ season.  But Boris Karloff brought nothing to the show except his name, and presumably the 57 remaining episodes would all be lesser efforts.  But they are on You-Tube, so who knows.

Post-Post:

  • Richard Kiel (Styx) was best known as Jaws in a couple of James Bond joints.
  • Thriller filled the Outer Limits slot after the rest of the episodes went behind the paywall.  The question now is do I want to shell out for Hulu.
  • Hulu sucks.

The Cry (2007)

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Can it be an Urban Legend if it started in 1500 AD?

Can it be an Urban Legend if it started in 1500 AD?

20 Horror Movies for $7.50 — Part XVI.  

Title Card:  La Llorona is based on a Mexican legend of a woman who drowned her kids in the river after her husband left her for a younger woman [1].

You lost me at the title sequence.  First we get the preceding on-screen explanation which is generally not necessary in a good movie.  It is followed my by a montage of poorly composed pictures and cacophonous music.  However, it is quite brief, so I was relieved to quickly see an opening shot labelled as Mexico circa 1500 AD; although it really had a 1510 AD vibe to it.

We a hear a titular cry as a young child is — I’m guessing here — drowned. Unfortunately, due to more godawful camera work behind the credits, I couldn’t say for sure.  In the pre-title sequence there are even a couple of shots of kids swimming away — why would those shots have been chosen for a film whose entire premise is based on kids being drowned?  Again, it is mercifully quick; for both us and hopefully the child.

thecry02The next scene is showing the presumably present day (2007 AD) New York skyline.   We can, at least, be confident in saying it is later than 2001 AD.  After an interminable flyover of Manhattan, we end up in an apartment where a woman is frantically making charcoal drawings, the latest of a boy with a red ball. Minutes later, the boy with the red ball is attacked by something with bad eyesight in the park.

This is the 9th kid that has gone missing in the last 3 weeks in Spanish Harlem.  But this was a white kid, so things get serious.

thecry03

Trivia: All evil entities have poor eyesight.

The wooden Detective Scott is listening to the radio about the case, but turns it off — because why would a detective be interested in hearing about the cases?

Distracted, he nearly hits the artist-woman pushing her kid in a stroller across a cross-walk.  After the fright, the woman stops — in the middle of the crosswalk — to give her kid a hit off his inhaler.  So neither of these two lead characters are particularly likable or smart, but at least one of them does look hot in a wife-beater.  For some reason — possibly lack of talent — the detective just stares her down as she does this.  No apology, no remorse, just a dead-eye stare.

thecry04A woman jogging in the park hears some ominous whispers and her eyes get all red.  She goes home to her 9-month old baby and hears more whispers.  She calmly turns on the bath, carries the baby off-screen and drowns it.  To her credit, she does go straight to the police and confesses.

Perez and Scott go to a fortune teller to get the scoop on La Llorona.  Her extensive answers in Spanish with no subtitles do not help the film. We do learn that La Llorona is now stalking New York because the artist’s son is the reincarnation of of he child La Llorona drowned.  Finally, we get a little meat to the movie.

The artist has asked to see Detective Scott at the park.  Meanwhile, La Llorona is on quite a spree in the park.  She kills Scott’s partner.  We get a blurry POV of him pointing a gun and firing at this . . . what, ghost?  This clod could be chief security officer on the USS Enterprise 1701-D.  Then she kills off a couple of yahoos who try to help Maria and her son.

We finally learn through flashbacks that Scott was a stockbroker whose son was drowned by his ex-wife (grounds for the divorce are not mentioned).  So apparently, Scott quit stockbroking, went to the police academy, made detective, and was lucky enough to be assigned to the unit that would get this case.  La LLorona had been on a bloody rampage lately, but where was she during the 10 years it must have taken Scott to make this career change?

Literally the creepiest shot and best performance in the movie.

The artist loses track of her child after Scott insists at gunpoint that she put him down. She finds later him in the lake, but drops him as her eyes go all red.  Scott saves the boy, but the artist for some reason jams two branches into her eye sockets, leaving bloody holes.

How did the kid survive underwater?  Why did his mother blind herself?  Is La Llorona still out there?  Why did she kill the other kids if they weren’t the reincarnation of her son?  We’ll never know, but at 83 minutes, I think we’ve put enough time into the investigation.

Just really a nothing of a movie with some terrible performances and camerawork  There was the germ of a good idea in the screenplay, but it was squandered with dull characters, coincidences and unanswered questions.

Post-Post:

  • [1] In the legend, the ghost of La LLorona searches the earth killing other children to take the place of her own when she is judged at the Pearly Gates.  Wouldn’t she get more satisfaction killing off married men who cheat with younger women?  Does she not have access to the Ashley Madison list?
  • It is interesting that the movie ties its theme into real cases like Andrea Yates and Susan Smith.  It would have been more acceptable in a better movie — here it just seems exploitative.
  • I would never have guessed that Detective Scott played Dexter’s brother.  So he can act; he just chose not to do so here.
  • Carlos Leon knocked up Madonna.