10 More Ways To Fill "Dead" Space

Oh, good gravy! The things I do for this blog.

I'm not talking the whole wussy boy Bruno Mars "take a grenade for you" kind of things. Well, okay, yeah, kinda along those lines. Take as an example what I've been doing since my last post here: I've been watching a 10-movie set of zombie movies. Normally, I'm all "Cool! Zombies! Gore! Guts! More gore! Even more guts!!!" Not this time. I'm done with zombies for a while. You might say, I've done them to death. (Hey, until I put AdSense on here, the humor stays cheap, so shut your cake-hole!)

Yes, 10 zombie movies. At least that is how they advertised it. Technically correct, I suppose. They mention zombies in all the movies. Or they call them "the living dead" or (no copyright infringement meant) "the walking dead". Occasionally "them motherfuckers" and "dead sons of bitches". Let's not bandy semantics.

The offenders...perpetrators...suspects?...the people behind The Midnight Horror Collection-Zombies would be none other than Echo Bridge Entertainment. This company is nipping at the heels of Mill Creek Entertainment, and I wouldn't be shocked if there was some connection between the two that us mere mortals cannot readily see, but someone else can follow the money because I'm here for the movies. Movies, we got. 10 of them! For a mere 5 bucks! At fifty cents a movie, you can't possibly go wrong. Right? Please tell me I'm right. Can I get an "Amen, brother!"?

There is no right or wrong order in which to present these films. To be blunt, a few of them brought on so little mental activity as to escape getting labelled "good" or "bad". More often that not, they got "Why isn't this over yet?" hurled at them. So, here they are, in no real order.

1. I Am Omega: If you had conflicting images of I Am Legend and The Omega Man running through your head when you saw that title, then you played directly into the hands of the shit peddlers at The Asylum. These turd monkeys crank out sound-alike movies so they hit video the same time the big-name movies they are ripping off are hitting the theaters. Mark Dacascos plays a guy whose family was killed when a plague causes people to become zombie-ish killers. He survives much like Chuckles Heston in The Omega Man. It is boring. Straight up freaking boring. There's a couple of moments where you see that the film might, with massive rewrites, turn out so-so, but it shoots itself in the foot every chance it gets. Answer me this: Why can't we have characters who just freaking kill the hero instead of almost killing them, but leave them around to recover and save the day? Could have saved a good 15 minutes of a bad ending with one more well-placed bullet.

2. Teenage Zombies: I can sum this movie up in two words for those who recognize the name--Jerry Warren. Oh yeah. THAT Jerry Warren. The guy who churned out crap films like a coke-addled Hollywood insider wannabe drops names. Only slightly better than Ed Wood and wore fewer women's clothes. Wacky teens run afoul an international plot to turn Americans into mindless zombies. If only they could have seen 40 or so years into the future, they would have realized we would turn ourselves into mindless zombies. Cornball humor, tedious camera work, and the always convincing guy in a gorilla suit with a poor-fitting mask. True Americana for your eyes and brain.

3. Last Of The Living: This piece of...um, film making?...hails from New Zealand. How the hell they made a movie down there with out working sheep into it in a big way is beyond me (last count I had, the Kiwis are outnumbered by sheep by a LARGE margin). Three annoying slackers have managed to survive the zombie plague and still manage to be uninteresting douche bags who make references to having sex with the same zombies they spend time killing, but only the female ones...that don't look too rotted. They stumble upon a living woman who is trying to find a cure for the plague. Even for a comedy (of sorts), it's a freaking zombie movie. Do things ever go well in a zombie movie? There, saved you some time.

4. King Of The Zombies: If you can overlook the "shotgun blast to the face of an innocent baby" style racism, this short little programmer (named because short films of this nature were "programmed" before or between more important things in early television days) is rather entertaining, primarily due to Mantan Moreland. He carries the film with his rapid-fire one-liners throughout the whole film while he is routinely treated like something akin to the family pet. A greatly over-looked comedian due to being a black man during a time when whites dominated films. Plus, we get a storyline that barely avoided coming out and pointing the finger at dirty Nazis for stirring up the bulk of the trouble in the film. I think the filmmakers were pussy-footing around to get international distribution during the time Hitler was rising to power in Europe. Still, an interesting bit of fun for those who enjoy older "horror" films.

5. Night Of The Living Dead: Wouldn't be a complete set without some incarnation of the granddaddy of zombie movies. Since it didn't cost them a dime to add this, they tossed it in. Always a good film to watch, but if you try to look at it from the perspective of the time in which it came out, you start to understand the intensity and unrelenting horror this film brings to the party. Slow to start, but once it gets rolling, it never stops, never backs down and stays firmly within its own logic set. Most modern films cannot make those claims. Sure, the gore level is less than you see on most episodes of Full House, but you can't deny the constantly shrinking options the characters face as the night wears on and the zombie hordes grow. Required viewing for zombie fans, if you didn't already know that.

6. Awaken The Dead: This film is a rather unfortunate misfire. The lead male actor is pretty good, but has crap to work with. The female lead could be good with a much better director and more experience. There is a supporting character that you grow to like even though his part is a bit cliche. The story ultimately is not bad but it drags and drags. The whole thing, shot on video from the looks of it, is grainy and dark and monochrome in color. Not sure if they were shooting for a "mood". It would have been more tolerable in a crisper image, if nothing else. Like I said, not utterly horrible, but it commits the sin of being painfully dull.

7. White Zombie: Old-school horror with Bela Lugosi and stilted acting styles, impressionistic minimalistic sets and wise use of lighting and camera angles to evoke emotion. While the story is a bit thin and convoluted, the flair with which this very quiet film was shot makes it a gem compared to the newer films in this set. The story uses the more realistic style of "zombie" as in Haitian-chemically-induced people who have their thought centers wiped out so that they become mindless slaves. Sure, Lugosi fiddles around with wax figures combined with the target's personal item, but that is showmanship, as well as attempting to appease the Hayes Code with witchcraft naughtiness in the place of real-life medical possibilities. A rich plantation owner wants a beautiful young woman who is to marry another man. That's the basic story, but this fun movie is all about how the story is told, not the depth of the story itself. Sit back, relax and let all the camera work, lighting and stylized sets cast their spells on you.

8. Zombie Dearest: Finally, a movie released by The Asylum team that is actually watchable. Mostly. A guy who is trying to repair his marriage while repairing his wife's old family home digs up a zombie. What does one do with a freshly unearthed undead person? This guy puts him to work digging out the septic tank while trying out his stand-up comedy routine on the maggot-brained chump. So-so performance by the lead male (who also wrote and directed), but the woman who plays his wife actually seems to have some acting ability. Too bad the script isn't up to giving her something solid to work with. The film drags in a couple of places, but it still moves at a decent enough pace with a good amount of weird humor that it doesn't overstay its welcome by much. Bottom line: You can do worse, but don't bust your ass to watch this film; digging up your septic tank is almost as much fun.

9. Grave Mistake: The biggest near-miss in the whole set. Tongue fully in cheek every step of the way, but the overly broad acting (and just plain bad acting) and tired story elements constantly drag the film down. The upsides of the film would be that it moves fairly fast, keeps the action going by bouncing around to different characters without being confusing, and, amazingly, funnier than I think they were shooting for. I mean, it IS a comedy, but the funniest bits are the little things most people don't tend to look at, like great facial expressions during certain events or the occasional pitch-perfect tone and timing of some events. The movie starts with an asshole who has just buried his wife and adds the additional insult of dumping toxic waste on her grave. We all know that means zombies are a-comin' soon. Take note of the SCA-type characters tossed into the mix. There's a great movie idea waiting to happen there. (For those of you who don't know, SCA stands for Society for Creative Anachronism, an organization that attempts to recreate ancient battle styles such as sword and shield fighting while in full armor as an extreme contact sport. Not to be confused with those weird Ren-Fest types or LARPers.)

10. Hide And Creep: I will admit that this film is my personal favorite of the modern films in this set. Much like Plan 9 From Outer Space, aliens kick start a zombie invasion. But does this film ever take the concept and twist it in every direction with knowing nods to all the major zombie films out there while heaping great slapstick humor into the mix! I actually watched this thing twice because I had so much fun with it. Oh, don't think you're gonna see something high-class. This movie had a budget smaller than my apartment, but they knew how to wring every bit of good out of every single penny. The acting and the writing stand out, and they make this one giggle-laced treat of a film. I consider the five bucks spent on this set to be worth it for this movie alone.

Seriously though, I'm full up on zombie flicks after pushing myself through the lesser efforts in this set. If only I could find a dirt cheap set of 80s cheesy slasher flicks to wash away the bad aftertaste this set left in my mouth...and brain. Brains! BRRRAAAIIIINNNSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    
  

Scream And Shout!

In keeping with this blog's original goal of finding glorious crap movies at shockingly low price points, we return to active duty with a splendid offering from Shout! Factory. Shout! has been around for a while now, and I have to admit that I have a deep well of respect for this company. They have pulled from the veil of oblivion quirky TV series like Small Wonder, Rocko's Modern Life, and Max Headroom as well as release some wonderful films of dubious (to anyone except fans of crap movies) entertainment value.  

More to our liking here at Bargain Basement Thrills, Shout! Factory also releases 4-movie "marathons" aimed directly at both cheapskates and those who delight in films that inspire giggles when they try to be deadly serious. With that, let me give you the lowdown on their 4 Action-Packed Movie Marathon collection.

You get Cyclone, Alienator, Eye Of The Tiger, and Exterminator 2 on 2 DVDs. If you aren't familiar with ANY of these titles, you live a sheltered life or you are in your 20s (or younger). In any case, if you are here reading this and you have never heard of these films, then shame on you. Out of the kindness of our hearts, Shout! Factory and Bargain Basement Thrills will educate you...if you can consider what we are about to introduce you to as an "education".

Cyclone is a fairly standard low-budget action film. The primary asset the film has is Heather Thomas in the star role as the girlfriend of an inventor who is murdered over his latest creation--a super-awesome, gnarly, radical, bitchin' motorcycle with lots of things glued and bolted onto it to make it look...well, clunky and dorky, to be honest. But it can do all these awesome things!! In theory. We never really see it do too much. In its defense, the motorcycle is a far better actor than Heather Thomas, but not as pretty as she is. Of prime interest for giggles, watch for the nightclub scene that looks like it was shot in the corner of an abandoned community center hall. Do NOT expect any action until the final quarter of the film. Lots of talk and poor Heather getting roughed up a bit fill the bulk of the film, but it at least has decent pacing and fairly interesting characters.

On the other hand, we have Alienator. Both this and Cyclone were directed by Fred Olen Ray. Where Cyclone is fairly enjoyable, Alienator is anything but. A rebel leader (played by Ross Hagen, who did not age well) escapes from a space prison and lands on Earth, so the warden sends the titular being after him. He stumbles in front of an RV driven by a drunken lout with his annoying friends as passengers. Actually, "annoying" is the key word for this movie, as everything about it makes a bushy crotch full of crabs, fleas and lice sound like a refreshing bit of R and R. Unlikeable characters who either act like morons, cry non-stop, spout gibberish or speak with a voice that makes you homicidal are paired with pointless scenes and a go-nowhere story with a--hold the presses!!--"twist" ending that can't even explain itself well and does nothing to save the film from leaving you wishing for your 90 minutes back so you can spend it kicking yourself for having watched this thing in the first place.

Eye Of The Tiger is the highlight of this 4-movie set. Admittedly, that isn't saying much, but you take what you can get. This movie is one of those simple vengeance films that the 80s seemed to spew forth as fast as it did slasher flicks. You know the drill: average guy who has been wronged too many times finally takes a stand. That's it. But this one added some odd quirks that make it stand out from the pack. You have Gary Busey as the lead character. This was before he had his noggin whacked in that motorcycle accident that apparently unleashed some weird Id creature that now makes the man appear to be mostly insane. The film also sports a traumatized child who is used as a bargaining chip by the bad guys. Ooh, and grave desecration! That is a nice spin on things. Add to that the fact almost everyone EXCEPT Busey chews the scenery up with a voracious appetite. Pretty fun stuff, except for the traumatized child bit. Oh, and this was NOT directed by Fred Olen Ray, which is probably why it was quite enjoyable.

Last, but far from least (that would, of course, be Alienator), we have Exterminator 2. Yes, a sequel without having the first one on the disc. It is better this way; just trust me. Go out and get Exterminator on Blu-Ray, watch it and then watch this sequel. That way, you get to see how far down the toilet this sequel went compared to the original. On its own merits, it...well, it didn't put me to sleep. Here we go again with the revenge/vengeance thing. Guy who is slaughtering the bad guys in New York lets his guard down to fall in love, and tragedy strikes, making him...wait, he's already killing punks, so having horrible things visited upon his friends and lover is just sadistic icing on the cake. Of prime interest is Mario Van Peebles as the nasty villain. He tries his best, from what I can see, but the role is nothing but a fruitcake with a taste for violence. The star of the film, the late Robert Ginty, looks tired and seems to just be hitting his marks to land the paycheck at the end of the day. Just go watch the original Exterminator for a decent, though definitely brutal, revenge movie.

Shout! Factory, the Bargain Basement Thrills blog salutes you for providing good, cheesy entertainment for chump change. We look forward to your 4 Scifi Movie Marathon due to be released on July 9, 2013, and it will be the subject of another blog post shortly after that release date. 

For those of you who read this, expand your library of films and welcome Shout! Factory into your home with these inexpensive movie sets. Believe me when I tell you that after watching these, you will be using Alienator as your new watermark for awful films.

(Just for the record, I bought this set with my own money, and Shout! Factory in no way contributed to this post, other than releasing this 2-disc set. However, Fred Olen Ray owes me SOMETHING for watching his alien hunter movie. Maybe a nice cheeseburger and a bottle of beer. Or a hug. I understand an apology is asking way too much.) 

What Fresh Hell Is This?

I find it amazing that I can track the date of my last posting in this blog to a major life event. The event? I discovered I have ADHD and started taking medication.

It was a good beginning, but like many of the films I review here and on other sites (well, I used to), things that start well don't always end up that way. 2 years of various mind-altering medications has led to 2 years or more of...basically nothing. This site isn't about wailing, weeping and great gnashing of teeth over the ups and downs of modern life. Hell, if it was, I'd be on here constantly whining about something.

So, what does this mean, the blogger returning to the scene of the crime?

Not sure. Can't promise I'll come back and start reviewing again, but heaven knows I've seen enough crap to post on a regular basis for months. And, even if I don't have any readers out there (Blogger tells me I've had 11,000 page views, and that number utterly wows me speechless), I miss doing this. I miss ragging on these movies that I so love and spend so much of my time and money on.

In a word...maybe.

If there isn't another new post inside of a month, then you'll know I got distrac...SQUIRREL!!!!!!!!!!!  

A New Day And A New Way

Today, we begin a new way of doing things here for the time being, just to see how it might work. First thing, I will be cross posting some of the upcoming posts on two blogs: Deranged Visions and Bargain Basement Thrills. Why? well, that leads us into the second thing. I buy too many movies. Seriously. I stacked up most of the movies (and video games, but, sorry, no video game blog for me) and did a rough calculation that I have spent nearly 1,000 bucks on movies (and games) in the last 9 months. Did I get good value? I think so, but when you are buying that many movies and you are watching less than two movies a week, you tend to start drowning in movies.

So, here's the deal. I'm on new meds for ADHD and anxiety. I'm feeling better than I have in years, and I know I can follow through now without serious distraction. I'm not posting a schedule, but you should see posting coming a bit more regularly. AND, in a effort to start cleaning house, I'm intending to start working my way through some of these Mill Creek Entertainment 50 movie sets I have stockpiled. Do they all belong in Deranged Visions? Mostly, yes, and they definitely belong to Bargain Basement Thrills as these things can be had cheap as dirt in most cases.

To celebrate my amazing brainchild, I promptly ordered a 250 movie set of mystery/suspense/action films. Heaven help me.

We are looking at the first disc, side A of the Drive-In Classics 50 movie set, just in case you want to keep up.

We start with The Devil With Seven Faces. No, Tony Randall is not in this movie, but there is an appearance by a very annoying Asian gentleman with a horribly dubbed over-blown Asian accent. Mickey Rooney would be proud.

Enter into a world hopelessly mired in awful 70's fashion. I could hardly pull my eyes away from the woman wearing the hideous patchwork quilt looking granny dress. Yes, we can truly be thankful for a change in decades. Oh and don't be fooled for a moment. Yes, those are Dutch locations running behind the credits, but take note that most of the crew's names end in enough vowels to make Vanna White turn pale.

We start with a rather uptight woman being stalked by a paparazzi, and then she seeks out the help of a rather distracted looking Stephen Boyd. Within minutes, Boyd and his overly-horny friend Tony, who happens to be a race driver (it is sure to figure in somehow), rescue her from thugs and proceed to become her guardian angels. Though I have to give the race car driver credit for being rather single-minded whereas Boyd is prepped to dip his wick in any honeypot that presents herself.

It seems our damsel in distress is one of a set of twin sisters. One is being stalked for her involvement in some shady jewel heist, and the other one is being harassed as well. One is in England while the other is in Amsterdam, yet the crafty bad guys can't seem to keep track of either one. According to a picture they show, one has dark hair and the other has light hair. How the bad guys can't figure who is whom makes about as much sense as anything else in this movie.

The characters run around and hop from one location to another with no real sense of purpose. And everywhere our heroine goes, someone dies. Why these two guys hang around a harbinger of death is beyond me. She isn't THAT good looking. Maybe that is mercenary of me, but I had to occupy my brain somehow to keep myself awake and distract me from the fact the heroine's hair changes length at random. And in one scene at the beach, Julie wears a huge blue wig that looks like someone sent part of a cos-play outfit back through time.

The highlight of the film is a car chase that almost looks like it should be in a Keystone Cops short, with overclocked film speeds and goofy action.

Then comes all the double-crossing you could see coming from the first 10 minutes. People die, people are tortured, and Stephen Boyd says he's rushing to the rescue and proceeds to sit at his desk while people come to nasty ends. I almost expected Christina Lindberg to show up and start wasting people. Alas, it didn't happen.

Ultimately, you walk away wondering how people this brainless and inept managed to pull off a heist to begin with.

Recommendation: Watch ONLY if you feel you have to see every movie Stephen Boyd ever made. Otherwise, just realize you don't need to know why the devil has seven faces.

Some Hot Cocoa For Your Winter Evening

As a person grows up, they tend to pick up cultural debris in their collective memory. This is where you get scenes like the one in Slacker where two people are discussing the merits of Scooby Doo, or hipsters sporting T-shirts with retro products like Mr. Bubble. These things stick with you and influence and flavor all that you see. Most of the time, this phenomenon is a positive thing that connects us to new events, ideas and experiences.

When these preconceived images face down something that threatens their comfort zone, a person can find life suddenly makes little sense. This can be a mild sense of displacement in most cases, but that does not make it any less awkward when it happens.

I grew up watching Lola Falana on various variety shows. She was always lively, fun and very pretty as she danced and sang and joked her way through these shows. So I had a warm fuzzy feeling about her from these warm and fuzzy appearances on these warm and fuzzy shows.

We jump ahead a large number of years to 2009....

I get my copy of Urban Action Cinema 15-movie set from the lovely folks at Walmart.com. Sure, I have some of these movies, but there are enough titles new to me that I figure it is worth the whopping 5 bucks. After it sits around for a day or two, I get around to popping the thing in. I figure I'll start with the first one on the first disc that I haven't seen. It is a little film called Lady Cocoa. A lady turning evidence gets a day out of prison and has to be protected while she waits for her deposition the next day. Standard fare. Nothing new from the sound of it, and Lola Falana is in it. Has to be some cheap made-for-TV thing, I figure.

You have the leering female guards from the finest exploitation films, but that is no big shock. You have Afros that stretch the limits of physics, but it is the mid-70s. And people are driving gunboat type cars, so obviously the gas crisis hasn't hit yet. Nothing too upsetting, until our group of three (Lola and her two bodyguards from the police) show up at a resort in Lake Tahoe. She turns into a foul-mouthed gutter snipe. She used language that made me cringe, and I have to watch my language around sailors. When she compared a modern art painting in their room to something she would find on a used Kotex, I was double-checking the cast list; this couldn't be Lola Falana. Surely there are two people with that name. But this woman has those same large lovely eyes I remember and that delicately structured face. But that voice and that language...my memories were destroyed utterly when her character is asked what she intends to do and she responds with "I'm gonna shit, shower and shampoo."

But enough of my trauma.

This movie is one of those wonderful sneak attack movies. Stupid and boring as hell for the first 30 minutes or so. Sure, you get her potty mouth. Let's not forget Mean Joe Greene as one half of a pair of hit men who speak no words, but provide some wonderful comic relief during the film. I'd watch a movie of these two on a mission. Far more fun than Terrance Hill and Bud Spencer. But this is all you get for almost one-third of the film. Filler and exposition and distraction, laced with references to Vietnam and pointless posturing.

Finally the story starts taking shape after 30 minutes or so, but it is in granny gear, just barely moving along but you know things are coming together. You start seeing how the characters are taking this side or that, and the hired killers seem to be taking their time to do the job right. Thankfully, Lola has parked the foul language and does her best to be fetching and sultry, and she is almost enough to make a male viewer break down as she talks about how she has been alone in her jail cell for the last year and a half. You want her to have some satisfaction. Yes, Lola can act when pushed, especially when she is being sexy and vulnerable.

Things explode during the last 30 minutes. There are weird and woolly chase scenes, gun fights, naughty and naked sex and some betrayals telegraphed in the first 30 minutes come to fruition. And I won't reveal this bit of fun, but let's say there is a surprise concerning an assassin that they linger on a bit too long. Creepy stuff there.

The quality of this particular copy is iffy. The Garr Group, who released the DVD set, isn't there to digitally remaster these films; much like Mill Creek, they are there to take your money and hand you bargain entertainment. I'm not dissing this company. I have communicated with the woman in charge, and she is very friendly and is happy to know there are fans of the product her company puts out. I'm not adding their web site link as it is currently under restructuring, but you can find a lot of their product in the $5 bin at Walmart as well as searching on Amazon.

For those you who were movie-goers in the 70's, you might have heard of this film under the title Pop Goes The Weasel, which a very good title for this film and it is the song that our wonderful star Lola Falana sings during the opening credits.

Worth your time if you really want to plumb the depths of blaxploitation. This is less urban than most, but it still puts the African-American actors in the foreground. If you want the hardcore type of films of this genre, you might avoid this.

But really. Lola Falana uses THAT language? Motherfucker.....

Private Conversations With a DVD Junkie

So, it's been a while. Yup. I am great at avoiding things. If there was money to be had at avoiding things, I could have retired nearly 10 years ago onto my own private island. Ah, hell, who am I kidding? I could have retired while still in college and paid to have the bimbo of my choice bound and delivered to me with a bow wrapped around her. Money would NOT have been an issue.

Just for a change of pace, and for a bit of self-humiliation, let's talk about issues. Oh, we won't delve into things like throwing myself into something too soon because it feels right and then letting that turn into sourness and loathing like I did with a relationship that ran for 15 years. We won't talk about what is an obvious inability to commit to something as simple as a blog that allows me to revel in the two things that mean more to me than, well, just about anything that can come to mind, and those two things are movies and writing. I'm a guy; we have commitment issues...and, yes, that is a cop out, and a big one at that, but we aren't on the Doctor Phil show, and if that dog wants to hunt, then it should be prepared to be on the wrong end of a shotgun wielded by a drunken sod with less common sense than a kid with 20 bucks in a 5 cent candy store.

But in the same vein as the kid with that 20 bucks, we will talk today about what has brought me (and, oddly enough, you) to this particular place at this time.

I am a DVD junkie. Formerly a VHS junkie. A junkie is a junkie. Well, not if you read William S. Burroughs, but we aren't here to talk about his drug-fueled literary upchucks. Nope. We are here to talk about an unbridled desire to own more DVDs (read: movies) than a reasonable budget will allow. The sin of avarice. Ah, sweet desire. Bullshit. Let's call it what it is. It is an addiction.

Here's the scene: Walking through Wal-Mart. It's a Saturday so the trailer parks and the clapboard shitholes have puked up their contents, and they are wandering the aisles, all looking for something that will make their misery go in the other room, at least for a while as the people pretend to be happy for a while. As I find my nose and upper lip curling in disgust, I realize I am part of them, and we are Legion. If it were not for us, Wal-Mart would find no foothold in American society. They prey on feelings of emptiness and inadequacy. Come and buy of our fruitfulness and forget your wretchedness, until the credit cards come due and the checking account holds so little that you can't make your gas bill payment in the heat of summer.

Wal-Mart doesn't make it easy. As you walk in, you are confronted with over-sized dumps of the newest and hottest DVD releases, and the "incredible" prices are displayed in sizes large enough the most myopic folks can make them out without corrective lenses. You can buy the single DVD or you can buy the two- or three-DVD Special Editions or you can buy the new and definitely elite Blu-Ray version. And you DO have a Blu-Ray player, right? No? What kind of person are you? It can play your new Blu-Rays as well as your old DVDs and it will make your old DVDs look better than reality with the unearthly magic of up-conversion, but only if you have that new LCD TV and that 60 buck HDMI cable, but you don't care about price when it comes to having Sandra Bullock look so natural that you can smell the sweat of her motorhead husband from the randy bout of morning sex they had prior to that scene of her falling off her high heels and right into your living room.

Somehow, you resist. Actually, it's the stomach-emptying reflex you get from anything by Michael Bay or starring Will Ferrell that helps propel you further into the store, but you don't argue. You have only 48 meager minutes to do your week's worth of shopping before the next bus rolls through the parking lot at a speed that barely allows you to fall into the open door without being dragged underneath the beast's grinding wheels. You know you need to hit your marks and hit them fast. That falls into the background. You know that there is a display of 5 dollar movies just up here, in the middle of the register area.

As you walk there, you remember with a fondness the annoyingly tightly packed cardboard displays of the super-thin DVD cases released by Digiview at 99 cents. All those schlock titles that pepper the public-domain landscape. How you bought them by the fistful, rationalizing the fact that they were only 99 cents, and a lot of them were double-, triple- or quadruple-features compressed to the point of meaningless pixels on one side a dual-layer DVD. Cheap bastards. But you are as much of a cheap bastard, so you bought them like a panty-sniffing freak in a Chinatown laundry grabs undies.

But those days are gone. Now corporate greed has won out over the public domain. How can you walk past a copy of Mean Girls with the still lovely Lindsey Lohan in all of her Ann-Margaret-"Kitten With A Whip"-sexiness for only five dollars? An hour and 30 plus minutes that will keep you on the couch and away from the porn sites that dump malware on your computer. Or maybe you want to delve into Tom Hanks career prior to his aura of respectability by buying "Volunteers". And how about scoring 20 movies in one shot with The Garr Group's collection of Westerns or World War 2 movies, all for the paltry price of $5? You'd be a fool not to want to own William Shatner's Western shame-fest known as White Comanche alongside a ton of no-name Spaghetti westerns and John Wayne's contract Westerns. And let's not forget scoring 300 cartoons in one set. Relive your childhood while scratching your head over what passed as entertainment in the primal years of animation.

You stand paralyzed while looking at these. You really DO need a copy of the complete Ringu series in one four disc set for only $5. And how is life not complete without the Special Edition of Animal House?

You look into your handcart and find that you now have enough DVDs to equal $40. A quick check of your shopping list tells you that this is more than your groceries for the week. So you go over the pile of DVDs and DVD sets, figuring you can pare it down. No, you deserve that 15 movie compilation of horror movies because, even though you have multiple copies of 14 of them, you DON'T have a copy of Last Woman On Earth so that makes it worth five dollars. And maybe that version of The Severed Arm will actually contain those edited 45 seconds that you so desperately need.

As you head off to buy things that will keep you from offending the noses of those you meet on a daily basis and those things that will nourish your body and keep you from passing out from hunger, you fondly recall the days you found VHS movies for a dollar or two dollars. Ah, those copies of Crazy Fat Ethel 2 and Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things and even Oasis Of The Zombies!

Ooh, wait, that 20 horror movie set has Oasis Of The Zombies. But does it have the nude scenes....

It's Christmas In July, folks. And all I want for Christmas is...

Christmas is just too much fun to confine to December. And face it, do you really want to overdose on Christmas cheer when you have screaming relatives, pointless gifts and tons of heart-stopping food surrounding you? Watch The Littlest Angel one too many times around the 25th and you'll be retching up your toenails from the sugar overload.

So spread the Christmas fun around. Hence, Christmas In July. We take some time from the month of independence to taint our souls with holly and tinsel. And what better way to do that than to review the classic Two Front Teeth.

You've never heard of it? Well, children, gather around the fireplace, whip out your peppermint sticks and let me tell you the story of a very special Christmas Eve.

A little while ago, in a city probably not too far away, there was a fellow named Gabriel Snow. He was a committed reporter of all things corrupt about Christmas: Mrs. Claus doing naughty photo shoots, elves gone wild and a mysterious plane crash that may have Santa's claws all over it. And for his wife's Christmas present he was going to present divorce papers.

Apparently Gabe's goal of debunking all things Christmas had left his marriage a bit of a wreck. That would explain why his wife, Noel Snow, was at home trying to bang Kevin, the mall Santa. But things weren't going so well for Noel and Kevin. It seems there was a gnarled, angry, leather-clad, neck-biting elf stalking them.

Not that things were going swimmingly for Gabe. His boss was pumping him for the source of his story about the crash of Flight 1225, and, for a Christmas present, he gave Gabe a hand gun. Gabe, who has a dislike of Christmas and a debilitating fear of Santa, suspected something was amiss. There was. The boss's ear and his sense of reality were gone, but he demanded Gabe go home because Noel was very likely in deep danger.

Soon, my children, Gabe and Noel found themselves on a slay-ride littered with savage elves, red-nosed reindeer, assassin nuns and a vampire Santa. And their only hope was Gabe's source for the airplane crash story, a man named "Pete" who knows more than he is telling.

If this whole thing seems far-fetched, you'd be right. It is. Unless you find Christmas to be sacred, you should be in for one fairly fast, joke-filled, horror-lace tribute to Christmas. The writer, Jamie Nash, was strung together so many off-hand cracks connected to most people's favorite holiday that it truly bears repeat viewings. Sure, it's shot on video, but the upside is that this production actually took the time to make what they put in front of the camera look good enough that it doesn't distract you from the comedy of the story.

Funny things to take note of: The evil elves are almost all played by women, and if you search down photos of what they look like in real life, you may be stunned at how attractive they are. See how many headlines you can read when they show shots of the Xmas-Files tabloid Gabe writes for. Break out the spiked eggnog for a drinking game in which you attempt to drink when you find every Christmas reference (you'll be drunk enough that you may ignite the Yule log with your breath). And watch for the insane animated sequences.

Face it, Christmas for us adults can be more stress than fun. When the tykes are nestled in their beds with visions of mountains of goodies, pop this off-beat little gem into your DVD player and let those muscle spasms caused by relatives and maxed-out credit cards ease as you find there is more to Christmas than getting a beat-down by some old lady after the same item you are.

(See more Christmas weirdness at WTF-FILM this July!!)

I Think I Was Barking Up The Wrong Tree

In the land of the cheap, you find that not everything is all dandy like candy. That screwdriver set you bought for $1 appears to be made of something softer than lead but not nearly as valuable. The generic can of baked beans had a pretty picture but they taste like they were soaked in kerosene. The off-brand dandruff shampoo holds true on its promise to rid you of dandruff; what they don't tell you is that it makes your hair tend to fall out.

Just because something is cheap does not mean that it is defective or even bad. Still, you have to approach things in a realistic fashion and accept that "cheap" also indicates you aren't going to get prime product. That brings us to the object of today's review. Mill Creek Entertainment has long been a favorite of mine as they release movies in bulk at pocket-change prices. They never promise Ingmar Bergman quality for Pauly Shore bargain dump rates. I know this when I pick up anything from their catalog and I accept all responsibility for what I get.

On a whim, I picked up Rescue Adventures Collection from Mill Creek. Five movies for five bucks. I figured it was time to give the slashers and monsters a break and try something a little different. The few people who know me seem to think I have something against anything that is not horror or fantasy. Not true. I just tend to find most genres are not likely to have the howlingly bad films the horror genre often produces. But thankfully I seem to have a nose that leads me to crap in whatever packaging it is wrapped.


I chose Poco as my first film to watch. Yes, I know they have Ann Archer in all her hotness in Night Of The Wolf, but I wanted to visit the slums first.

Poco is also known as Poco...Little Dog Lost. Personally, I think that gives away too much of the plot. Okay, that IS the plot. Little dog gets lost. Little girl misses dog. Little dog wanders through scenic locations. Viewers over the age of 6 lose interest.

I actually made it through this one without any real problems. Benji movies have me ready to doze or run away by the second cute thing the critter does. Little Poco doesn't do cute things. He does stupid things. Things like snarling at people who are trying to save the little girl who loves him, or running further into the desert when someone tries to be nice to him, or hides from a police man (setting up a distrust of law enforcement officers in the youngsters viewing this film). These are things Benji would NEVER do. Truly, Poco is a dog of the people.
You have to give a sweet family film a nod of respect when it starts with a car crash in the desert that jacks up everyone in the vehicle except the little dog. Slap the kids with a dose of traumatic reality from the onset and they'll hope for any level of warm fuzziness thereafter to assure them the world is NOT out to engulf them in pain.

Ah, if only Poco was that kind. Bad enough the mom and daughter land in the hospital and the car is totalled, but then not-to-bright Poco chases after the ambulance and then avoids anyone who tries to help him for the next 15 minutes. That's about 24 hours in dog time, which is enough time for our little "hero" to realize desert heat, blazing sun and a small dog with long, thick, unmanagable fur are things that do not go together well.
Next bad lesson from this movie: It is okay to pimp yourself to get what you need. There is a movie out there called Mooch Goes To Hollywood. They should have called this Mooch Hangs Out In The Desert. The dog plays hurt and near death to play on the sympathies of people, especially one lonely old guy who runs a gas station. He takes their kindness, he takes their food, he takes their water, and then he takes a hike. The second time he stiffs the old gas station guy, I couldn't shake from my mind the old saying: "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, love is true. If it does not, hunt it down and kill it." Now THAT would have been one rip-snorting film; an old geezer and a shaggy little dog trying to outwit and kill the other in Yosemite.

I'm sure the intent was to show love triumphs over all, including heat stroke, burned and cracked pads on the paws and playing on the sympathies of kind-hearted folk. Instead, you get a movie that makes you wonder if PETA shouldn't be notified, but only after you stake the manipulative little canine out for the coyotes and buzzards to have at. I won't ruin the ending for you because you know how this kind of tripe ends anyway. It ain't Old Yeller. But I do have to let you know that a chimp has a fine time towards the end of the film and the reaction shots the chimp gets are almost worth sitting through this bit of fluff.

In the end, Poco is worth watching if you like dopey movies (and I do) or if you have kids who love animals (and I don't...have kids, that is) or if you are in a full body cast and someone sticks this in your DVD player without your consent. Is it worth the five bucks for the Mill Creek set? Well, it's worth a dollar.