October Horrorshow: Creepozoids

David DeCoteau might be the most prolific b-movie director of all time. As of this posting, he has 161 non-porn directing credits on his IMDb page. During his career he has treated film production as a volume business. Art? What’s that? Budget? If you can make a movie for less, we’ll match it! TV movies? Direct-to-video movies? Horror? Sci-fi? Comedy? Hallmark movies? DeCoteau will direct it. He can’t direct every movie that’s released in a year, but he can sure as hell try.

The second feature of DeCoteau’s career, Creepozoids was commission work from Charles Band’s Empire Pictures, the predecessor of his long-running house of schlock, Full Moon Features. The film was written by DeCoteau and Dave Eisenstark. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Creepozoids”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Triassic Hunt

Triassic Hunt box artOnce upon a time, Roger Corman held the title of most shameless filmmaker in Hollywood. It seemed there wasn’t any low to which he would stoop in order to make a buck, often at the expense of his movies. But, there was still liveliness in his productions. Corman could make a good movie, and he had an eye for talent. The young, hungry filmmakers he had in his stable could be relied upon to repair much of the damage caused by Corman’s ruthless frugality.

The Asylum is the current champion of shamelessness. Their business model of piggybacking off of the success of better films is nothing new in Hollywood. Ripoffs are just part of the economy of film. It’s the efficiency with which they capitalize on trends that makes them unique. Their mockbusters are often released before the big studio material they are ripping off, and they have titles designed to rope in unsuspecting, or undiscerning, viewers.

Their mockbusters have production values that are amongst the worst in film, with talent and story to match. They have mastered a paint-by-numbers approach to cheap filmmaking, to the point that their movies are indistinguishable from each other, once one gets past the surface features. Continue readingShitty Movie Sundays: Triassic Hunt”

October Horrorshow: Night of the Demons (1988)

Night of the Demons, the 1988 film from writer/producer Joe Augustyn and director Kevin Tenney, is exactly the kind of sleazy, low-budget horror flick that I expect from the 1980s. It’s not a perfect shitty horror flick, but there are numerous reasons this not-very-good movie is regarded fondly by fans of horror.

The story follows a group of teens who attend a small Halloween costume party at an abandoned funeral home, rather than hit up the lame high school dance. The host of the party is Angela (Amelia Kinkade), a student at the school who is low on the totem pole, but promises a wild night. Her idea is to have a bunch of supernatural party games to titillate and frighten the invitees. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Night of the Demons (1988)”

Attack of the Franchise Sequels: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

The first Nightmare on Elm Street film was an original supernatural slasher flick. The second film had some crazy subtext going on (which, to my everlasting regret, I missed). And the third flick continued to shake things up, giving Freddy Krueger’s potential victims the ability to fight back. Every entry in the franchise through the third film had enough unique characteristics to stave off franchise fatigue, but then producers Robert Shaye and Sara Risher decided to play it safe, assembling a paint by numbers movie with a screenplay by committee, and hiring an early-career Renny Harlin to direct. This flick was doomed to mediocrity before the first frame was shot. Continue readingAttack of the Franchise Sequels: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master”

October Horrorshow: Phantoms

Phantoms movie posterPeter O’Toole was one of the greatest actors who ever lived, perhaps. He was classically trained and made a name for himself on the English stage. He was nominated for Oscars for his performances eight times, yet never won. One of his roles, that of T.E. Lawrence in the epic Lawrence of Arabia, will survive for hundreds of years, at least. By the latter stages of his career, grand roles evaporated, and he was stuck, for the most part, in roles that provided a payday, yet little glory.

O’Toole was in his mid-60s when he filmed Phantoms, the cheap horror film from 1998 directed by Joe Chappelle and penned by Dean Koontz, adapting one of his own novels. But he looked older, his once hard-drinking lifestyle having taken its toll. Phantoms may have just been a paycheck for O’Toole, but if he mailed it in, I couldn’t tell. We’ve all seen aging stars blow in and out of a movie like a hurricane of contempt, gracing the production with their talented, god-like presences, but O’Toole let none such pretense leech into the performance itself. His natural snobbishness was apparent, but he was a pro. For that, I thank him.

As for the rest of the film...yikes. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Phantoms”

October Horrorshow: The Return of the Living Dead

The October Horrorshow continues on Missile Test, when we devote the entire month of October to watching and reviewing horror films. Today’s entry is tongue-in-cheek cult zombie classic The Return of the Living Dead, written and directed by Dan O’Bannon, from a novel by John A. Russo, co-creator of Night of the Living Dead. In its own way, Return is a sequel to Night of the Living Dead, although that film’s director, George Romero, had no involvement, and had already directed his own sequels to his legendary zombie progenitor. How this came about was the result of legal wrangling between Romero and Russo. Details aside, they had a falling out, and the original film spawned competing strings of sequels and continuity that continues to this day. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: The Return of the Living Dead”