I’ve written about this before, but my old man had an affinity for bad cinema. Especially the sci-fi variety. It didn’t matter what it was or how bad it was. If it had something to do with space or monsters, he had a hard time looking away. Good sci-fi got the wheels turning, while bad sci-fi brought out his guttural chuckling and whooping. If it was too bad to be funny, then came groans and profanity. Hmm...kind of like me. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Tremors”
Tag: Black Comedy
October Horrorshow: The Frighteners
Before he was boring me to tears putting endless hours of Tolkien tales to film, Peter Jackson used to make horror films. Not many, to be sure. Peter Jackson is not a horror filmmaker. He is a filmmaker who has made horror flicks. His most memorable work in the genre was Dead Alive (Braindead for all you worldly purists out there). That film is memorable for being, perhaps, the goriest horror film of all time. It truly was an exercise in bloody excess, impossible to faithfully convey in a posting to a website. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Frighteners”
October Horrorshow: Critters, or, Power of the Night!
I don’t think I’ve seen this movie since the late 1980s. That’s almost thirty years of depriving myself of big hair, a pack of unstoppable, ravenous fur balls that are more teeth than animal, and Power of the Night, the number one single by Johnny Steele. Oh yeah, this was the decade I grew up in, with all its foibles, bad fashion, and shit music. This was the decade that put Eric Clapton in pastels and convinced teenagers everywhere that synthesizers were an acceptable accouterment to rock music. And my God, Reagan was in the White House. No, no, no. If it weren’t for the amazing run of substandard cinema throughout the decade, I would want to have the entire time wiped clean from my memory. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Critters, or, Power of the Night!”
October Horrorshow: Cockneys vs Zombies
This one was oh, so close. A tribute to London’s East End, that also acts as a quasi homage to both Shaun of the Dead and the works of Guy Ritchie, Cockneys vs Zombies is a film that just fell short of living up to its premise. That premise is: a bunch of East Enders with a unique grip on the English language suddenly find themselves in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Cockneys vs Zombies”
October Horrorshow: Dead Heat (1988)
“These caps[sic] are on the biggest murder case of their lives...their own.”
So declares the DVD box art for the 1988 zombie action flick Dead Heat. When searching for a shitty movie to idly pass an evening, a typo on box art is a pretty fair indication a viewer has found a winner. Any movie called Dead Heat and starring Joe Piscopo doesn’t need any extra hint that it’s a special film, but the fact the producers didn’t care enough to release the flick with a simple bit of copy editing on the box is just icing on the cake.
Directed by Mark Goldblatt, Dead Heat follows two 1980s Hollywood-style rogue cops, Detectives Mortis and Bigelow (Treat Williams and Piscopo, respectively), as they try to track down a ring of armed robbers that have an uncanny ability to absorb massive amounts of flying bullets and not die. The film opens with a shootout of ridiculous proportions to ram this point home, as a pair of robbers armed with Uzis take on half the police force in a shootout on the street. Cops are dropping left and right, but no matter how many times the perps are shot, they just won’t go down. It takes a grenade and a speeding car to do the trick. To start the film, this scene is a total howler, in the scale of its violence and its absurdity. It does wonders to set up the rest of the film for a viewer. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Dead Heat (1988)”
October Horrorshow: Piranha 3D
It’s October, when calm nights are suddenly pierced by screams, unseen malevolent presences terrorize entire families, crazed masked murderers stalk virginal teenagers, and Missile Test celebrates all that is evil in the world with the October Horrorshow, a month’s worth of horror film reviews. A good horror film? We’ll watch it. A bad horror film? Bring it on. An absolutely putrid pile of dog shit that had no business being produced at all? Yep, we’ll delve into those, too. Because the only thing that matters during the October Horrorshow is that there’s blood. And today’s selection has plenty of that, and not much else worth watching. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Piranha 3D”
October Horrorshow: Dead Alive, aka Braindead
It’s raining again. Cold, dark rain. If I close my eyes, the sound of the drops slashing against the windows and spattering on the roof sounds just like a shower of blood. For this is October, when innocent thoughts turn to dreadful deeds, when the creaking of an old house at night is nothing less than the sinister wanderings of evil spirits, and when an innocent trip in the wilderness becomes a fight for one’s life. October is the month of Halloween, and to celebrate, Missile Test is dedicating the entire month to watching and reviewing horror films. Speaking of blood, today’s review is of a film that has plenty to spare. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Dead Alive, aka Braindead”
October Horrorshow: Fido
Vampire bats fill the night sky, deranged slashers lurk in the woods, werewolves bay at the moon, and the undead walk the earth in search of human flesh. It must be October, when imaginations turn to Halloween, and Missile Test celebrates with the October Horrorshow, dedicating the entire month to watching and reviewing horror films. The good, the bad, and the putrid. If there’s blood, there’s always a reason to watch. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Fido”
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 reading “October Horrorshow: The Return of the Living Dead”
October Horrorshow: Slither
October. If it weren’t for Halloween, October would be an intolerable month. Last week, New York City was sunny and the temperature was in the 80s. When in the apartment, I’d have all the windows open, breathing fresh air, wearing nothing heavier than a t-shirt. Today, as I write this, it is 54 and raining. It’s a cold rain, too, matched in ugliness during the day only by the grey skies that spawned it. And at night, it’s a barrier, something to keep a person locked away indoors. No windows open today. They’re shut tight, and a cotton fleece has replaced the t-shirt. In a matter of days the life has been sucked out of this city. Everything feels like it’s dying. But, that’s autumn. Thank goodness for horror films. Because it’s time once again for the October Horrorshow, when Missile Test chases away the doldrums of the changing seasons by watching and reviewing horror films. The good, the bad, and the putrid. It doesn’t matter. As long as it has blood, it’s better than dealing with fall. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Slither”