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Wrestling for the brainless and faceless

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wrestlemaniacWRESTLEMANIAC

2.5 Stars  2006/18/73m

“Let the face off begin.”

Director/Writer: Jesse Baget / Cast: Rey Misterio, Leyla Milani, Jeremy Radin, Adam Huss, Margaret Scarborough, Catherine Wreford, Zack Bennett.

Body Count: 6

Dire-logue: “Hasta la vista…you fuck!”

Six teenagers driving through a Mexican scape that looks suspiciously like California take one of those classic film wrong turns on their way to a beach where they intend to shoot a porno on a camcorder and end up in La Sangra De Dios, a ghost town inhabited solely by lobotomised wrestler El Mascarado who, in spite of the solitude, rigidly sticks to the rules of south-of-the-border wrestling: that your opponent is permanently retired upon the removal of his mask. Or, in the case of lost teenagers, removal of the face will do fine.

After a start is indistinguishable from a sombrero full of other ‘comedy’ slashers, with heavy injections of skin and girl-on-girl action, the killing ushers in a quite enjoyable slasher opus that remains loyal to the genre cliches for the most part, whittling down the players until the surprisingly capable final girl embarks on a quest of vengeance against the killer.

Just how much do you want to escape in one piece?

Just how much do you want to escape in one piece?

Played by Mexican champ Misterio and under six feet tall, our loon looks far more imposing than the hulking American WWE wrestlers who have ventured into the body count genre.

Clocking in at a comfortable 73 minutes, nothing gets boring and Wrestlemaniac plays out like a gored-up version of Scooby Doo and ends with the sentiment ‘keep it simple’, a mantra which has served the film quite well.

Blurb-of-interest: Catherine Wreford was in The Butcher.

May Meet: The films I couldn’t finish

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Those who know me well will vouch for my high tolerance of crap. Crap music, crap TV and crap films. But every now and then there’s that straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Here are five films I couldn’t deal with. I may have fast-forwarded to the end but the whole experience was out of the window for one reason or another…

fiveacrosseyesFIVE ACROSS THE EYES (2006)

It looks like a slasher film. It sounds like a slasher film. Slasherpool gave it five stars… I can only hope that AnthroFred was on crack that day because this is a sure fire candidate for biggest waste of time EVER!

A quintet of high school girls go to a sports event at a school…. theirs, someone else’s, I really didn’t care. On the way back, she who is driving their mini-van knocks into another  vehicle at a bar and they unwisely flee the scene.

By this point, the camcorderiness of it all was becoming too much for me to take and thumb circled the fast-forward button like a vulture eyeing a carcass.

The driver of the other car chases and catches them and turns out to be a thirtysomething woman who’s evidently got the decorators in as she holds them at gunpoint, makes them strip and let’s them leave, only to chase them again, probably to kill them, I don’t know, it was well into x4 territory now.

A girl craps in her own hand and tosses it at the trailing car, nobody gets murdered and eventually the five girls gang up and kill the psycho bitch. What are The Eyes, you ask? It’s the name of the back country where this all takes place. Yay, relevance. Fucking dreadful.

edenlakeEDEN LAKE (2008)

Here’s an oddity, a film which was quite obviously good enough but I made one of my rare sensible decisions to stop watching.

A city couple head off camping for the weekend and cross paths with some horrible teenage scrotes who begin a campaign of terror against the outlanders after they accidentally kill their dog.

I reached the point where it looked like I was going to get very angry with it – before the dog-o-cide – as I do about the subject of the don’t-give-a-fuck teenagers in society and opted to have a quick peek at the end, which only served to prove that it had in fact been a good idea to discontinue.

Yeah, so it’s “real” horror or whatever, but people call Radiohead “real” music and I don’t listen to that either. I want a Belinda Carlisle level of horror: big hair, strong predictable melody and commercial appeal, not downbeat state-of-society stuff. Film is supposed to help me escape all that BS, not take me on a trip back to it for entertainment’s sake.

iamtheripperI AM THE RIPPER (2004)

I only have hazy memories of what can only be a described as a French student project filmed on a Nokia.

At a Paris party, a skull masked killer turns up and kills a load of people. Okay, fine – this occupies about 15 minutes worth. Then they all come back to life (I think) and it becomes some bizarro Matrix-horror film with super powers or something? I don’t even remember.

But it was shit in its purest, distilled form.

nyripTHE NEW YORK RIPPER (1982)

Just how this film has a 6.1 rating on IMDb is beyond my understanding. It’s SHIT!!!

The New York Ripper has garnered a reputation for hefty misogyny, which was fairly common in early 80s horror. Yes, it’s there but I expected that.

What I didn’t expect was how boring it would be. Fulci made the film look relatively professional, the murders are drippy and gross and very brutal but so little else happens. The gap between slayings grew as my patience shrank until I could take it no more and scurried to the end to see who the killer turned out to be and what the deal with the mad quacking was.

I actually had to watch the end twice to try and get it straight – some girl in a hospital bed with no arms or something. Zzzzz.

seasonSEASON OF THE HUNTED (2003)

Muse Watson is in this. The Fisherman from I Know What You Did Last Summer wouldn’t lower himself to a camcorder tripe-fest would he? He was in Prison Break, damn it.

It turns out that yes, he would. He needs money too, y’know.

In this tale of some hunters becoming the hunted, I made it about twenty odd minutes in before x4-ville took over and I realized that this over-long film was not going to gauge my interest. Ever.

I can’t tell you what happened later in it but it wasn’t the slasher film the box art made it out to be.

There, see? Vegan Voorhees can’t promise to give you a fair rundown of everything because sometimes it’s just too damn shite to make it through. It becomes the unscratchable itch. Turn it off! Turn it the hell off now!

To this end there can be no real winner or loser this month; four of these films are irredeemably crap and the other is likely to induce a killing spree of my own. It being the odd one out, let’s pretend Eden Lake is the only good one.

Return to sender

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ripper3RIPPER 2: LETTERS FROM WITHIN

1.5 Stars  2004/86m

“Back from the grave to redeem his soul.”

Directors: Lloyd A. Simandl & Jonas Quastel / Writers: Evan Taylor, Jonas Quastel, John Sheppard & Pat Bermel / Cast: Erin Karpluk, Nicholas Irons, Richard Bremmer, Mhairi Steenbock, Jane Peachey, Daniel Coonan, Colin Lawrence, Myfanwy Waring, Andrew Miltner.

Body Count: 6

My BFF Grace auditioned for a role of “black girl with attitude” in this movie. “Cool!! Ripper‘s a really good little film!” I cawed. She didn’t get it. We were sad. Sometime later, sadness blossomed into a joy of relief. And there was no sign of “black girl with attitude” anyway.

The 2001 Anglo-Canadianian original was a neat little knock-off of Urban Legend with a confusing ending that sort of nodded in the direction of a possible sequel, which resulted in this dismal British feature, the quality of which is alluded to by virtue of the fact it’s never been released in the UK in any way, shape or form to date.

This hackneyed marriage of ideas from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and the left over jetsam from the previous film sees Molly Keller (now played by Karpluk) in an institution following the intangible twist ending(s) from the first round. Her shrink recommends her for a trip to a specialist clinic near Prague where Egor-like doc Bremmer carries out questionable treatments on a group of troubled youths by exploring their subconscious while they sleep – how or why he does this is something we’re apparently not meant to ask about.

Molly’s schizoid brain transmits a cloaked fiend – possibly Jack the Ripper, who we’re told is an ancestor of hers – into the groups’ collective dozing and he begins doing away with them one after the other while they roam about in their fantasies / nightmares.

Even with two directors and four scribes, the creative team fail to even muster the most basic of chills given the gothic castle setting and while away the running time with endless ‘dream’ sequences, including some sexual deviant ambling around a fetish club, serving no purpose other than to visualise soft-core lesbianism and an excess of tits.

Otherwise, criminally undeveloped sub-characters are blandly killed off before Molly confronts the dream stalker (though not before aping Jennifer Love Hewitt’s “what are you waiting for?” moment from I Know What You Did Last Summer) and the film ends as confusingly as the first one did, with absolutely no confirmation of who did what or if any of it happened at all to a group of people who might not have even existed.

Nothing but a mass of empty shells and no gun powder, Ripper 2 is the equivalent of Root Canal Surgery: The Musical, starring Justin Beiber.

Blurb-of-interest: Lloyd Simandl had already directed the even worse Possession: Until Death Do You Part back in 1987; Erin Karpluk later had a role in the TV series Slasher.

Valley of the Cheapjack Franchises: BLOODY MURDER

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Another cheapjacker that jacks Friday the 13th for its material: Bloody Murder and its sequel and spin-off are probably the most blatant photocopies of Jason’s adventures at camp going, so much so that there’s even a backstory concerning a hockey-masked psycho killer…

bm1BLOODY MURDER

1.5 Stars  1999/15/84m

A.k.a. Scream Bloody Murder (UK)

“They thought it was just a game.”

Director: Ralph Portillo / Writer: John R. Stevenson / Cast: Jessica Morris, Christelle Ford, Patrick Cavanaugh, Michael Stone, Peter Guillemette, Justin Martin, Dale Smigelski, Tracy Pacheco, Lindsey Leigh, William Winter, Michael Proshaka.

Body Count: 6

Dire-logue: “If it comes down to it, I’m willing to be with you carnally.”

Teenage counsellors fixing up Camp Placid Pines hear the legends of Trevor Moorhouse, a hockey-masked, chainsaw-for-an-arm maniac who likes to disembowel the local population. Nevertheless, they decide to play a bizarre game of hide n’ seek (called Bloody Murder) and shortly after some of them – I stress some – start disappearing, thus giving rebirth to the legends and allowing drippy heroine Julie to do a bit of detective work.

Some really shameless elements are lobbed into the mix with a so-called red-herring suspect that a toddler could figure out, and a Randy clone who makes the group watch Sleepover Camp Massacre XIV (actually clips from the just-as-crummy Fever Lake) and goes so far as to comment on the prolonged running time of the movie being “unusual for films of this genre.” The prime suspect happens to be named Jason. How much groaning can you exhibit during 84 minutes?

Julie – whose dad went to the camp years earlier – uses her laptop to figure out the mystery but the killer turns out to be someone else who we didn’t really pay much attention to… Up to this point, the film offers up clues to keep you looking the other way, but the whole production is juvenile, almost goreless, and lazy, with the worst news coming in the form of a dumb twist that virtually promises a sequel.

One good line: “My older sister swears she knows someone whose brother disappeared up here years ago…” And that, my friends, is how rumours get started.

bloodymurder2BLOODY MURDER 2: CLOSING CAMP

2002/15/82m  2.5 Stars

A.k.a. Halloween Camp

“The second cut is the deepest.”

Director: Rob Spera / Writer: John Stevenson / Cast: Katy Woodruff, Amanda Magarian, Kelly Gunning, Arthur Benjamin, Tiffany Shepis, Ray Smith, Tom Mullen, Lane Anderson.

Body Count: 8

Extraordinarily, Bloody Murder did something right to generate this decent follow up, easily the best of its ropey franchise, which takes us back to Camp Placid Pines five years after the previous incident (and ironically the same number of years that separate the events of the first two Friday the 13th films).

This time, the teen counsellors have made it through the summer, bid farewell to the campers and are now locking down the place for the off-season. Amongst the group is Tracy, whose brother Jason disappeared first time round, a fact she feels the need to remind everybody of to the point ad nauseam. Stories of Trevor Moorhouse circulate and are dismissed as sub-standard summer camp myths by the know-all who becomes the first victim of a masked, machete-favouring killer in a ghoulish plastic mask.

It should have been easy to avoid the potholes the first film continually buckled its wheels into, and Closing Camp starts out sticking to the genre rules like flypaper with the standard teens having sex, wandering off and getting slaughtered amidst repeated nods to ‘the rules’ of horror movies, yet again featuring the black guy who bemoans that he won’t last long.

This all entertains for the most part but the after-school theatrics of Tracy’s detective work mar the payoff as similar turns did in the first film and as the film moves into the third day with several deaths and disappearances, you wonder why the remaining kids aren’t just put up in a local hotel instead of hanging around the death camp and – unbelievably – splitting up to look for clues!

Once this season’s killer is revealed and the motive spurted like Betsy Palmer’s outtakes, it’s followed by almost exactly the same twist as first time around! Strangely, the film elects a sort of secondary final girl who survives along with Tracy and, as was the case in #1, there is only one female fatality. What is this, BM, pro-feminist slashing?

Merit for half-succeeding in getting it right…if only they’d continued with the same enthusiastic outlook.

graveyardTHE GRAVEYARD

1.5 Stars  2006/84m

A.k.a. Bloody Murder 3

“Fear is buried here.”

Director: Michael Feifer / Writer: Michael Hurst / Cast: Lindsay Ballew, Markus Potter, Patrick Scott Lewis, Lief Lillehaugen, Erin Michelle, Trish Coren, Chris Stewart, Eva Derrek, Natalie Denise Sperl, Sam Bologna, Mark Salling.

Body Count: 8

Another teen prank goes fatally wrong in this sequelly-spin-off instalment of the “series”. Puck from Glee (the disgraced, late Mark Salling) is the victim after a fake scare in a cemetery, which ends with him impaling himself.

Several years later, his six friends reunite at Camp Placid Pines, where a masked killer who holds them equally responsible begins the olde eliminado game. Good girl Michelle tries to keep things together and re-acclimate Bobby – who took all the blame and spent five years inside – to the rest of the group, while ringleader Jack seems more interested in reigniting his failed relationship with Allie, even after his new girlfriend goes missing (read: is murdered in the shower).

Cue red-herrings tossed in at every given opportunity, although it’s pretty damn obvious who the killer is before long and it seems physically impossible for them to have flit between murders and group searches for missing buddies. Other characters appear only to be killed off minutes later and, of course, no modern DTV slasher flick would be complete without T&A and a butch lesbian. There’s also a crap Sheriff who prioritises a burglary over an alleged murder and is credited for saving the day at the end!

Any credibility gained in the so-so Bloody Murder 2 is tossed into the campfire, thanks to dire plotting and god-awful dialogue, which rarely strays beyond “quit screwing around” mentality but casually throws a “maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon…” into the mix as things go from bad to worse for the viewer of this rubbish. I never thought I’d miss Trevor Moorhouse…

Overall-blurbs-of-interest: genre regular Tiffany Shepis was also in Dead Scared, Home Sick and Scarecrow, Victor Crowley, as well as a blink cameo in Detour; Mark ‘Puck’ Salling was also in Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering.

halloweencamp2

Bloody Murder 2 was re-titled Halloween Camp for UK DVD and was ‘followed’ by Adam & Evil under the bizarro name of Halloween Camp 2: Scream if You Wanna Die Faster! ‘Trevor vs. Jason’ indeed…

Out of the closet, into a nightmare

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nightmare_on_elm_street_2A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 2: FREDDY’S REVENGE

3 Stars  1985/18/82m

“The man of your dreams is back.”

Director: Jack Sholder / Writer: David Chaskin / Cast: Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Rusler, Clu Gulager, Hope Lange, Marshall Bell, Sydney Walsh, Robert Englund.

Body Count: 9-ish

Dire-logue: “Lisa, there’s a Jesse on the phone!”

Although often cited as the worst of the Elm Street franchise (a view I shared until a few years ago), Freddy’s Revenge, on a subtextual level to say the least, is actually pretty good viewing. Plus the fact that it’s so superbly 80s, even the metallic shininess that adorns the titles!

*shing!*

*shing!*

Although there’s enough evidence that this sequel was rushed into production without a lot of thought, at least the creators tried to vary the theme rather than provide a retread of the original and things begin magnificently with a creepy dreamscape that could rival some of those in #1 for effectiveness. Fears of kidnap, social inadequacy, and hell are realised almost perfectly in the sequence, which introduces us to our final boy, Jesse…

elm2elm3

 

Jesse and his family have recently moved into 1428 Elm Street and their teenage son is in Nancy’s old room and already having nightmares about a burnt, claw-fingered guy who, it seems, is more interesting in getting Jesse to do his bidding rather than just slashing him to death.

Jesse soon becomes torn between what’s real and what’s in his head and his parents naturally blame it all on drugs but then some murders occur: first his high school’s nasty gym coach in an exceptionally sexual manner (we’ll come on to that later), then his buddy Grady and some poor schmucks invited to love-interest Lisa’s pool party.

Lisa demonstrating what happens if you look like Meryl Streep and dress like Tiffany

Lisa demonstrating what happens if you look like Meryl Streep and dress like Tiffany

There’s no dream-stalking in Freddy’s Revenge, at least none that’s as clear cut as the other films. No, “oh shit, I’m asleep!” Only Jesse needs to stay awake and sometimes that doesn’t appear to work as Freddy cuts his way out to wreak havoc whenever he feels like it.

Elm Street 2 has a reputation as ‘the gay film’ in the series. Why? Well, from electing an effeminate boy as the lead who whines to Lisa that “he’s [Freddy] trying to get inside my body,” is a good start. Then there’s Nancy’s diary that quite literally comes out of the closet with insights. The aforementioned gym teech is into S&M and catches Jesse in a downtown gay bar before escorting him back to school where the coach is then tied to the showers, stripped, whipped and slashed by Freddy before the showers spurt blood in a bizarre ejaculative gesture. It’s worth noting that furiously chewing gum has never succeeded in making ghostly things depart for future reference.

elm4Jesse – it’s in the name! – shrieks in a high-pitched voice much of the time before Freddy literally comes out of him to take over and it eventually takes Lisa’s kiss to save the day. In effect, heterosexuality is what claims victory, re-repressing Freddy into the background and out of harms way.

There are those who criticise the film for being a ‘gay pride parade’ but it couldn’t be more the other way if it tried. 80s America wasn’t really much of a ticker tape parade for homosexuality at the best of times and the film paints quite a marginalised portrait: the thing that lurks inside trying to take over is evil and must be repressed. Quite the celebratory message indeed.

elm6elm7

 

Is it worth pointing out the irony of these people who moan about diverse sexuality being explored in a film series where the central character is a child molester? I’d bet they’re the same ones who whinge when there are no tits on display. It’s OK, look, there’s an undead kiddie-fiddler instead!

Anyway, back in the black and white world of horror cinema, Freddy’s Revenge fails on several levels: there are only two ‘proper’ murders, although both are good, not enough of the skipping-rope chant, the acting is all over the place and Patton doesn’t make much of a sympathetic hero and it’s really Meryl Streep-a-like Myers who does the legwork. Freddy though, looks great and at his scariest with a sort of moist quality to his skin (ew!) and the final shock is amusing.

Why be scared of Freddy when there's a giant poster of Limahl over your bed!?

Why be scared of Freddy when there’s a giant poster of Limahl over your bed!?

Who knows what writer Chaskin was trying to achieve here? Parts of it work and parts don’t, but it all looks well made and it’s certainly different and betters – at least – parts 5 and Freddy’s Dead.

Blurbs-of-interest: Jack Sholder edited The Burning and directed Alone in the Dark; Christie Clark (Jesse’s little sister) was later in Children of the Corn II; Marshall Bell was in Identity; Clu Gulager was in The Initiation; Englund appeared in Behind the Mask, Hatchet, Heartstopper, The Phantom of the Opera and Urban Legend.

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