Tag Archives: Nu-di-ty

Drew the right thing

2 comments

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.

Wisconsin Mine Syndrome. With Cher.

Leave a comment

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.

2 comments

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.

“I don’t kill people anymore.”

2 comments

psycho ii 1983

PSYCHO II

3.5 Stars  1983/18/108m

“It’s 22 years later and Norman Bates is coming home.”

Director: Richard Franklin / Writer: Tom Holland / Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Meg Tilly, Robert Loggia, Dennis Franz, Hugh Gillin, Claudia Bryar, Robert Alan Browne.

Body Count: 6

Laughter Lines: “I don’t kill people anymore.”

An Australian girl who I used to work with, Tammy, told me a few years back that her father’s girlfriend is the widow of Richard Franklin, and has the knife-in-the-mouth prop from the movie. Envy.

Franklin, who was chosen to direct after his rather awesome Road Games (with Jamie Lee Curtis), and the story picks up 22 years after, as Norman Bates is granted release from his institution, much to the chagrin of Lila Loomis, the kind-of final girl from Psycho, whose sister, Marion Crane, was the infamous shower victim.

psycho ii 1983 anthony perkins norman bates

It’s a bit of an unlikely contrivance that he’s sent back to the very place where he committed the crimes, but, hey, it’s an 80s horror flick. Provided a job at a Fairvale diner, Norman meets young waitress Mary Samuels, who just happens to need a place to stay after her boyfriend trades up. Norman initially offers her a room in the motel but, upon learning the new manager has turned it into a by-the-hour party joint, so insists she lodge in the house.

Before long, weird things start to happen: Creepy phone calls from ‘mother’, a toilet that overflows with blood, spyholes in the bathroom wall – and also some disappearances. First to go is the sleazy manager, then a couple of horny teens stop by to make-out in the basement and find themselves set upon by a woman in a long black dress wielding a scary-ass kitchen knife…

psycho ii 1983

Psycho II is something of an unlikely horror sequel, which, in later years would’ve been shot the year after the original and called for a re-cast, so Perkins returning to the role is a major plus – indeed the film was planned to be a TV-film until he agreed to star. Franklin, a protegé of Hitchcock, liberally peppers the film with visual homages to the original. High angles, aerial shots, and step-zooms echo the style nicely – that awesome crane shot from the attic window down to the basement is everything.

Several revelations uncapped at various points throughout the movie thicken up a slightly convenient plot, but also push it beyond the confines of the average sequel: is Norman blacking out and dressing up as mom again? Is someone else on the scene? The decision to implement more standard slasher clichés of the era was a wise one and results in some inventively grisly murder scenes, the knife-in-the-mouth being the standout, at the same time retaining the classiness of a high-end movie.

psycho ii 1983

The story segues neatly into Psycho III (released in ’86 but set just a month or two later). This should be textbook material when it comes to creating quality follow-ups.

Blurbs-of-interest: Perkins was also in Destroyer; Vera Miles top-billed The Initiation around the same time; Browne and Gillin also returned for the third film.

Babes, Blades & 80s Parades

Leave a comment

pool party massacre 2017

POOL PARTY MASSACRE

2.5 Stars  2017/18/80m

“Worst pool party ever.”

Director/Writer: Drew Marvick / Cast: Kristin Noel McKusick, Margaux Neme, Crystal Stoney, Destiny Faith Nelson, Alexis Adams, Jenifer Marvick, Nick Byer, Mark Justice, Drew Marvick.

Body Count: 11

Laughter Lines: “How about any killer from every horror movie in the 80s? You couldn’t open anything back then without a dead body falling out of it.”

At first glance – both from the cover art and the trailer – this looks like just another sub-bargain basement production to get hot girls to remove their bikini tops, but there’s a little more than meets the eye. But also hot girls removing their bikini tops.

Spoiled rich girl Blaire has run of the roost while her parents take off on vacation, but they’re glad her sensible childhood friend Nancy is there to keep the calm. Soon, Blaire’s vacuous friends Tiffany, Britney, Jasmine and Kelly show up, plus a boyfriend and his horny brother.

Who is the hulking face-off-camera loon who starts doing away with the guests, the neighbours, and the pizza guy with a new weapon each time? It’s actually fairly obvious who it might be from early-scene dialogue, but Pool Party Massacre‘s last few minutes open the curtains to an interesting and amusing revelation.

pool party massacre 2017

It’s not a twist that we haven’t seen before, but the script suddenly switches into witty gear, and fears that this would turn out to be on the same level as Spring Break Massacre are mercifully put to bed. It’s a bed with a severed head in it, but a bed all the same.

Given the approach, there’s surprisingly actually only a few topless shots, no annoying girl-on-girl scenes, and some likeable banter between characters who aren’t entirely objectionable, plus some decent camera work reminiscent of the genre films of yore. This isn’t to say I’ll ever watch it again, but it’s a refreshing change from what’s expected and had Marvick used the same level of incisiveness displayed at the end for the first 70 minutes, this could’ve been a fun little companion to The Slumber Party Massacre.

The DVD comes with an awesome reversible sleeve, that has an 80s VHS-style cover on the back.

1 2 3 … 57