Author Archives: Hud

Drew the right thing

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far from home 1989 drew barrymore

FAR FROM HOME

2.5 Stars  1989/18/89m

“One boy wants her love. One boy wants her dead.”

Director: Meiert Avis / Writers: Ted Gershuny & Tommy Lee Wallace / Cast: Drew Barrymore, Matt Frewer, Richard Masur, Karen Austin, Jennifer Tilly, Andras Jones, Anthony Rapp, Susan Tyrrell, Dick Miller, Stephanie Walski, Connie Sawyer.

Body count: 6

The main critical objection to Far From Home upon its 1989 release was that it exploited then 13-year-old Drew Barrymore – who was at the peak of her personal problems – and it’s hard not to agree, just look at the VHS cover there. From the outset, we’re shown her character Joleen slo-mo swimming in a little black bikini, having ice seductively rubbed over her skin, and then almost date-raped by a character played by then 20-year-old Andras Jones. It’s… icky.

On the eve of her 14th birthday, Joleen and her dad Charlie (Barrymore and Frewer – Drew n’ Frew) are nearing the end of a summer driving around freeways as part of his journalism career, when they run out of gas and find themselves stuck in the small Nevada hamlet of Banco, population 132. Rented a trailer for the night by the crotchety Agnes, Joleen meets Jimmy, Agnes’ hunky son, while Charlie spends his time looking for gas to buy so they can get home to LA.

far from home 1989 susan tyrrell

Someone is prowling the area with murder in mind, and Agnes is soon electrocuted while she takes a bath. In the trailer park, they meet fellow strandees Louise and Amy, and agree to use what little gas they source to carpool back to California. Joleen, meanwhile, flirts with Jimmy, who attempts to rape her, only to be saved by awkward teen Pinky (Rapp, recently notable in the Kevin Spacey scandal).

When they attempt to leave, “mystery”-killer punctures the gas tank and drives a remote controlled car with a lit candle underneath, blowing up their only means of escape (and the poor soul trapped inside). Jimmy is the natural suspect and eventually apprehended, but the actual identity of the loon is startlingly obvious to the rest of us.

Nicely photographed with some elements of decent direction from music video helmer Avis, it’s also nice to see a film not confined to middle-class suburbs. But the paper-thin whodunit, ridiculous over-acting by Tyrrell, and the Dear Diary narration from Barrymore undermine what could’ve been achieved given the capable cast (Masur is good as the anti-cash mechanic, though other actors are wasted in thankless roles) and crew (Tommy Lee Wallace! Mary Woronov’s late husband!). Sadly though, the exploitation of an underage girl is what you’ll remember most. Eww.

far from home 1989 drew barrymore

Ultimately, the film failed due to studio problems that resulted in it playing in barely a handful of theaters (like, four).

Blurbs-of-interest: Barrymore, of course, would later play Casey Becker in Scream; Andras Jones was Rick in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4; Jennifer Tilly was Tiffany in Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky, and Cult of Chucky, as well as appearing in The Caretaker; Tyrrell was the psycho auntie of Night Warning; the woman being seen to in the trailer was adult star Teri Weigel, who was in Cheerleader Camp.

Black cats and Goblins on Halloween night

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satan's little helper 2004

SATAN’S LITTLE HELPER

3 Stars  2004/15/96m

“Your house is next.”

Director/Writer: Jeff Lieberman / Cast: Katheryn Winnick, Alexander Brickel, Stephen Graham, Amanda Plummer, Wass Stevens, Dan Ziskie, Melisa McGregor, Joshua Annex.

Body Count: 15

Laughter Lines: “His ass is fuckin’ grass!”

Pre-teen geek Dougie (Brickel) is obsessed with the titular computer game, and looks forward to finding Satan when trick or treating on Halloween with his big sister, who has returned from college with her new boyfriend, much to Dougie’s annoyance.

Peeved, he wanders around town on his own and encounters a masked figure propping up bodies on their porches and lawns – but not real ones, right? Dougie believes he’s found Satan and asks the muted maniac if he can be his helper for the night. As the naive accomplice to the loon, Dougie laughs along as Satan dishes out more tricks than treats on the unsuspecting residents of the town.

Confusion as to who is under the mask takes up a lot of attention: Big sis Jenna thinks it’s her actor boyfriend just really getting into the part while Dougie thinks his new friend is just playing it all for laughs. This makes for a good moment when Jenna realises there’s someone else entirely behind the mask.

satan's little helper 2004

Satan’s Little Helper comes across like a combo of Uncle Sam and Office Killer – fun in the moment, but nothing you’ll go out of your way to recommend. Lieberman – who wrote and directed Just Before Dawn back in ’81 – wisely goes for the ribs rather than the jugular, so’s to avoid an accusations of pandering to Halloween, and the largely likeable cast assist in making it a fun little experience (sans the murder of a cute cat).

Plummer is a hoot as the kids’ nutty mom, and Winnick is a good final girl, though her little brother is required to seek new depths of stupidity from time to time to prop up the contrived nature of ‘Satan’s’ killing spree, but it doesn’t really harm the film, which is polished off with an unsurprising but inoffensive twist, successfully book-ending it with the kind of unexplained finality that normally sinks other straight-to-video productions.

 

Wait for it…

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frayed 2007

FRAYED

3 Stars  2007/15/111m

“You can’t escape your darkest fear.”

Directors/Writers: Rob Portman & Norbert Caoili / Writers: Kurt Svennungsen, Dino Moore, Dana Svennungsen / Cast: Tony Doupe, Aaron Blakely, Alena Dashiell, Tasha Smith, Kellee Bradley, Don Brady, Dino Moore, Colin Byrne, Quinlan Corbett, Tim Evans, Rachel Pate.

Body Count: 11

Laughter Lines: “I know how to warm you girls up – every time I fart, you guys drink.”

This was headed for 2-star city for about 105 of its 111-minute running time. Unavoidable partial spoilers follow, because when I happened to read the five words “if you’ve seen Haute Tension…” I thought I had it all figured out.

In September 1994, five-year-old Sara’s birthday party is hijacked by her annoying older brother, Kurt, who is sent to his room by his mom. She later comes to talk to him and is thanked by being beaten to death with a baseball bat and little Kurt is packed off to an institution.

Years later – thirteen, I’m guessing (yay! it’s not a multiple of five!) – the doctors at the clinic feel he’s failed to make significant progress and arrange for him to be transferred elsewhere. Meanwhile, his father, the local sheriff, allows Sara to go camping with her BFF Vanessa, much to the annoyance of her stepmother.

frayed 2007 tasha smith alena dashiell

We cut to a young security guard frantically searching the woods when he takes a tumble – or is shoved – down an embankment. He’s rescued by a motorist but they are attacked by a clown-masked psycho who kills the driver and accosts him through the woods. In this scene, some 25 minutes through, I figured out that the guard and the killer were one and the same. From this point on, only he sees the loon, yelling about his presence all the time, but nobody else ever reacts to the killer, only ‘Gary’s’ shrieking that he’s coming.

The focus eventually drifts back to the family home where brother and sister will face off. He realises who he is (or isn’t, whatever), lots of “get out of me!”-style antics ensue until Papa comes home brandishing his gun. I confess I yawned, wondering how it had a fairly favourable IMDb rating after extended scenes of girl hyperventilating in their hiding places, off-camera killings, and too much talk, with the big “the call is coming from inside the house!” moment skewered by the fact this revelation was obvious an hour ago.

frayed 2007

But then… Frayed goes one step further and then another step, hurling twists all over the show, ending the film in a very grim, downbeat way, but at least one I didn’t see coming a mile off. It’s as if they used the Haute Tension twist to cover up for the mechanics of the real twist happening underneath. Still, the film is in dire need of a good 15-20 minutes being cropped off, as the midriff is hard terrain and more focus could’ve gone into making the stalk-n-slasher section better, but just about worth it for the eventual payoff.

Wisconsin Mine Syndrome. With Cher.

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trapped alive 1988

TRAPPED ALIVE

1 Stars  1988/92m

A.k.a. Trapped

“There’s evil underground.”

Director/Writer: Leszek Burzynski / Writer: Julian Weaver / Cast: Randolph Powell, Sullivan Hester, Mark Witsken, Laura Kalison, Alex Kubik, Elizabeth Kent, Cameron Mitchell, Michael Nash.

Body Count: 9

Laughter Lines: “Do you realise that just five miles down the road a horde of beautiful and horny young men are panting for our bodies?”

Thank you to @AFinalBoy for making me aware of this… intriguing… product… of film.

Shot in Wisconsin in 1988 and shelved until ’93, the cover image was clearly sought from some adult video store section as the hair styles of the two leading ladies would fool nobody in thinking it was shot anywhere near the 90s.

Three prisoners break out of jail on a snowy night before Christmas and end up car-jacking two poodle-haired party gals on a backroad. Police checkpoints send them careening off the road and literally falling down a shaft at the largely abandoned Forever Mine.

A deputy later shows up to investigate and almost immediately has sex with the clearly desperate wife of the sleeping mine caretaker, who looks like a regional Cher tribute act if ever there was:

"Do you believe in life after Trapped Alive?"

“Do you believe in life after Trapped Alive?”

Down in the mine, the lead prisoner – Face – makes one of the girls do a striptease for him, while locking the other girl in some dark room, and the requisite almost-reformed young inmate tries to get an old generator running. They’ve failed to notice a few human skulls lying around and when the muscle is found with his face chewed off, they grow suspicious. The deputy then enters the cave system and is trapped with them when somebody cuts the rope.

Mucho talking occurs until – almost an hour in – a murder finally happens. A largely goreless, ridiculous slaying, where the victim sounds more like he’s yodelling than shrieking in pain. Deputy guy takes charge, makes almost-reformed bloke continue fixing stuff while he… does something else. Good girl Robin holds a flashlight for the guy and uses the time to fall madly in love with him.

The cannibal mutant thingy returns and grabs the other girl, forcing almost-reformed to shoot her dead before a worse fate can unfold. The remaining three try to escape, Robin strips to her bra and panties to dive through a flooded shaft (it’s snowing above, so how cold is this water likely to be?), kills the monster, then Cher rocks up, back-fills the story that the monster is her papa and blows up the mine with deputy dude inside, allowing Robin and almost-reformed to escape, then kiss loads.

trapped alive 1988

As the countdown on my VLC player refused ever to tell me there was anything less than 17 hours of the movie remaining, I felt trapped alive by Trapped Alive, a film so terminally boring they toss in a scene where Cameron Mitchell talks to a photograph for about nineteen minutes just in case you might still be awake. The monster only kills two people and is defeated at first strike and there’s very little grue. However, my main question at the end was did Cher’s husband actually sleep through all of this??

Blurbs-of-interest: Cameron Mitchell was also in The Demon, Jack-O, Valley of Death, Toolbox Murders, and Silent Scream.

Dark night of the scare– Oh no, wait.

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dark harvest 2004

DARK HARVEST

1 Stars  2004/86m

“You reap what you sow.”

Director/Writer: Paul Moore / Cast: Don Digiulio, Jeanie Cheek, Jennifer Leigh, B.W. York, Jessica Dunphy, Amiee Cox, Paul Bugelski, Booty Chewning.

Body Count: 10

Laughter Lines: “This says something about you – you left the black guy and the lesbian to get the bags.”

Yet more college kids versus yet more homicidal scarecrows, but even worse than the usual fare. In the 30s, a sheriff discovers a farmer has been murdering his farmhands and turning them into scarecrows, leading to the only good crop in the region. Seventy years later, farmer’s great-grandson shows up with his fiancé and some other friends, having inherited the place. Grandson learns that the farm is cursed and when the harvest moon (or ‘blood moon’) rises, it wakes three scarecrows each with an axe to grind. Or a scythe.

Crap everything sinks this in a pile of manure from the get-go, with annoying token girl-on-girl scenes, characters who argue non-stop, a questionably-accented “British” girl, and white-bread leads who are more boring than being stuck on a secluded farm with only Keeping Up with the Kardashians to watch.

Unsurprisingly shelved for two years after it was shot, and followed by two sequels that may or may not be related to this one. Avoid please.

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