21st Century Cult Classics: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

Meet Tucker and Dale…

Couple of good friends…Doing some chores around the house…

Darn wood chipper…I think there’s something stuck in it.

 

Cult Classics…You know I love ’em!

But what exactly makes a cult classic?

Typically it’s a film that speaks to a particular group of people, and becomes popular among that small but fiercely loyal fan base…Although, it may not ever be critically acclaimed…And it may not ever win big at the box office…

 That’s okay, because it has us…The fans…Quoting the films…Wearing the T-Shirts…Spreading the love for a cult classic, like a virus spread by word of mouth.

 

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) – After the announcement of a sequel…That’s right a sequel!!!…I felt compelled to shine the spotlight on this instant classic. The sub-genre of redneck horror movies have been a favorite of mine, and horror fans everywhere…The Wrong Turn series, the Hatchet series, and the Texas Chansaw Massacre series, just to name a few, have delighted us for years by bringing smelly, toothless sister-humpers to the top of the list of things that scare us…

What Shaun of the Dead did to send up zombie movies, this film does one better with it’s spoofy send up of redneck horror…There were moments where the film Shaun of the Dead is serious about the business of making a zombie movie, but with this unique little gem, they never took the subject matter or themselves seriously…

Okay, so the premise is your standard bunch of teens in the woods tormented by demented murdering rednecks…

Except…

Our friends Tucker and Dale are not demented murdering rednecks…They are just a couple of misunderstood good ol’ boys who have the misfortune of being villified for a series of accidents…Just a calvalcade of moments of pure happenstance, really…

So your noisy chainsaw scares someone…They run away, and…

Not your fault…Just some seriously sad serendipity.

So, maybe they want a little payback, so they charge after you…They think you’ve murdered their friend, and…

Again, not your fault…The dude probably shoulda looked before he leapt.

Hell, even the the investigating police officer enters tyour rickety cabin to question you, and…

So not your fault…The old cabin is simply falling apart at the seams.

The non-stop display of Looney Tunes style misadventures continues throughout the remainder of the film…And sadly, our two misunderstood hillbillies are held responsible for each and every one of them…

 

It is a devilishly funny film…

 

It is a retro-grade gore-fest…

 

It is a comedy of errors that would make even Wile E. Coyote shake his damn head…

 

It is without a doubt…

 

A 21st Century Cult Classic.

21st Century Cult Classics: Bubba Ho Tep

Hey Old Elvis…Why so glum, chum?

Oh…It’s time for the nurse to deal with the growth on your pecker.

Hail to the King, baby.

 

Cult Classics…

You know I love ’em!

But what exactly makes a cult classic?

Typically it’s a film that speaks to a particular group of people, and becomes popular among that small but fiercely loyal fan base…Although, it may not ever be critically acclaimed…And it may not ever win big at the box office…

 That’s okay, because it has us…The fans…Quoting the films…Wearing the T-Shirts…Spreading the love for a cult classic, like a virus spread by word of mouth.

Bubba Ho Tep (2002) – When this came out on DVD…I had zero knowledge of it’s limited theatrical release…I hadn’t read the short story by Joe R. Lansdale…And I hadn’t seen anything that wasn’t a Phantasm movie from director Don Coscarelli in a couple decades…

But when it came out, I dove in head first…

And here’s why…

Reason Number One:

Bruce Campbell starring as a still alive, aging Elvis Presley.

Reason Number Two:

His sidekick is an elderly black man who believes he is JFK, dyed black to avoid further assasination attempts.

Reason Number Three:

These two unlikely heroes are battling an ancient Egyptian mummy.

Yeah, I know…Sounds bizarre, doesn’t it?

Well, that’s kinda the point.

And that’s all I needed to hear…I was hooked.

The story takes place within the walls of the Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas, where we discover that Elvis isn’t dead at all…He instead is growing old in utter anonymity, after swapping identities with an Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff…And he has a growth…On his pecker…His only friend is Jack, an elderly man who before being dyed black by Lyndon Johnson, was John F. Kennedy…

These two men remain surprisingly human and come off as a couple of typical Lansdale regular guys, despite the magnitude of their past lives…The quiet undercurrent that flows during this whole insane monster movie, is the forgotten nature of our elderly…Both men were shipped off to this rural East Texas nursing home, forced to leave their former lives behind…Now in their case, the former lives were taken away…But with the majority of senior citizens who end up in a nursing home…They feel the exact same way.

So…These highly irregular regular guys are forced to defend the mostly helpless residents of their community fend off a creature that doesn’t belong here anymore than the residents do…An ancient Egyptian mummy that Elvis brands with the name, Bubba Ho Tep.

So you’ve got unlikely heroes…

And you’ve got an unlikely villian…

You’ve got them battling it out in an unlikely setting…

Sounds to me like you’ve got yourself…

A 21st Century Cult Classic.

 

21st Century Cult Classics: Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer

Meet Jack.

He’s a plumber…

Having problems with his girlfriend…

And with night school…

 

But when he becomes a monster slayer…

Man…

That’s when he finds out what real problems look like.

Yep…

That’s what real problems look like.

 

Cult Classics…

You know I love ’em!

But what exactly makes a cult classic?

Typically it’s a film that speaks to a particular group of people, and becomes popular among that small but fiercely loyal fan base…Although, it may not ever be critically acclaimed…And it may not ever win big at the box office…

 That’s okay, because it has us…The fans…Quoting the films…Wearing the T-Shirts…Spreading the love for a cult classic, like a virus spread by word of mouth.

 

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (2007) – Hands down the best Plumber-Turned-Monster-Slayer movie that I’ve ever seen…

What’s that?

Oh, sorry…

Apparently, this is the only Plumber-Turned-Monster-Slayer movie that has ever been made.

Hmmm…

Anyway, this is the first film from director Jon Knautz (The Shrine) who co-wrote the script with ol’ Jack Brooks himself, Trevor Matthews. This is an understated horror comedy…The humor is dark and self-depricating, and the horror is as much a slow burn as the monsters that young Master Brooks must learn to slay…They both take time to reveal themselves…I respect a film with a name like Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, taking their time to wheel out the monsters…Takes balls.

One thing that pushed this one way over the top…

And it does deserve a bit of a nod…

The amazing Robert Englund stars as Professor Crowley, who begins the film as Jack’s night school professor…

After he awakens the evil source of an ancient curse, Crowley ends the film as…

The Big Bad.

For all of his angst, and anger-management issues, Jack is a likeable cat. He suffers through therapy that doesn’t help, an annoying pest of a girlfriend, and a slumber-inducing class that he takes to “better himself”…

He goes through all the motions…

And he genuinely tries to make his three-car-pile-up of a life work out…

But when the monster shit starts to hit the slayer fan in the third act, the character comes into his own as a rogue kicker of monster ass.

The majority of the monster and gore effects are practical and not CGI, which I both love and respect…It really helps to bring that retro-feel that a lot of my 21st Century Cult Classics contain.

I’d never say that this was the best movie that I’ve ever seen…

I’d never say this was the scariest movie that I’ve ever seen…

But I would say this was dark, funny, original, and most of all…

It was a 21st Century Cult Classic.

 

21st Century Cult Classics: Murder Party

Aaaah…Nothing like a little Truth Serum-Truth or Dare to get this Halloween party going…

Hey…Is the Cardboard Knight back there tied to a chair?

Wait a second…What kind of party is this?

Oh…Okay.

 

Cult Classics…

You know I love ’em!

But what exactly makes a cult classic?

Typically it’s a film that speaks to a particular group of people, and becomes popular among that small but fiercely loyal fan base…Although, it may not ever be critically acclaimed…And it may not ever win big at the box office…

 That’s okay, because it has us…The fans…Quoting the films…Wearing the T-Shirts…Spreading the love for a cult classic, like a virus spread by word of mouth.

 

Murder Party (2007) – This is the first film of writer/director Jeremy Saulnier…Those of you who’ve never heard of him, may not have seen his sophomore effort, which was one of the most intense and realistic revenge flicks ever made…Blue Ruin. It was Saulnier’s raw and organic revenge thriller that made me seek out, and eventually find this one…

So, here’s the story…

When we meet Chris, he is on his way home from grabbing a handful of horror videotapes at the local video store…

He stumbles upon an invitation to something called a “Murder Party” that was blowing down his street…

You figure out pretty quick, Chris is just a super-nice, and super-lonely guy…Hell, he’s so nice, that he won’t even kick his cat, Sir Lancelot out of the one and only chair in his apartment so he can watch a movie…And since Sir Lancelot decided to hog the chair, this friendless fellow decides to whip up a costume and a pumpkin bread, and head out to the party he was “invited” to…

After surviving a harrowing commute, fraught with aggressive rappers, and dark, scary streets…

Chris arrives at the party…

He actually graciously thanks the hosts for inviting him, and hands over the homemade pumpkin bread…Chris is the epitome of the perfect guest…

But the hosts…

The hosts are a collection of art-school hipster assholes who have decided to invite a random stranger to their party, for the sole purpose of turning the murder of this stranger into a work of art…

They are the arrogantly pretentious, shamelessly self-promoting, desperately approval-seeking, morally-shallow narcissists, who, for years, have been told they were special by Mummy and Daddy…

And they believed it.

You really couldn’t ask for a better bunch of antagonists…

You’re supposed to eventually hate them…

But, you’re going to completely hate them…

Right the fuck away.

 

Mishaps and mayhem ensue as the party rolls on, and with each twisted twist and each turned-up turn, come more laughs and more kills…

 

Those laughs are genuine, and at times uproarious…

And the kills are bloody, gory, gruesome, and all done without a single pixel of CGI…

Just the way I like ’em.

 

So, before Jeremy Saulnier created Blue Ruin, one of my all-time favorite revenge flicks…

Before he turned Captain Picard into a Neo-Nazi in his upcoming, Green Room…

He created Murder Party…

A 21st Century Cult Classic!

 

 

 

21st Century Cult Classics: The Voices

Oh…Hello there…Could you pass me the milk?

Um…Wait…Did I see that right?

Yep, I sure did…That’s Gemma Arterton’s decapitated, but strangely still animated head.

 

Cult Classics…You know I love ’em!

 

But what exactly makes a cult classic?

Typically it’s a film that speaks to a particular group of people, and becomes popular among that small but fiercely loyal fan base…Although, it may not ever be critically acclaimed…And it may not ever win big at the box office…

 That’s okay, because it has us…The fans…Quoting the films…Wearing the T-Shirts…Spreading the love for a cult classic, like a virus spread by word of mouth.

 

The Voices (2014) – After watching Ryan Reymolds in Buried, I had a newly discovered respect for the man’s acting chops…He carried the entire film, from within the confines of a pine box…Now I’ve seen him be a hero, a smart-ass, hell, even a smart-assed hero, but in this film you will see a side of him not yet seen before…Reynolds plays Jerry, a seemingly good-natured man who works at a bathtub factory…He’s a man of few friends…Well technically, it’s just the two…

The dog on Jerry’s right is Bosco…

The angel that tells him the right thing to do…

On his left, is Mr. Whiskers…

The diabolical devil whispering bad intentions in his ear.

Unlike with Dr. Doolittle, this time around, communicating with animals had some pretty gruesome repercussions. Unfortunately, Jerry’s decisions in the film are based on advice from his decidedly evil feline…This is a comic horror that uses a man’s hallucinatory delusions as the device that drives both the comedy, and the horror. The dysfunctional relationship that he has with Bosco and Mr. Whiskers is dangerous and deadly…But, there is a pathetic tenderness that the audience feels towards Jerry, because of it. These two innocent creatures may display false personalities that are byproducts of his delusions, but at the sad and lonely core of it, they are his only friends.

It’s when Jerry starts dating…Oh man…That’s when things really start to get funky. Blunders and mishaps mix with deluded decision-making, and cause a series of ghastly outcomes, that well…Should I refer you to the picture of Gemma Arterton’s re-animated decapitated head again?…

So, I think you get the idea…

When the audience starts to peel back the layers of Jerry’s bloomin’ onion, it drums up even more sympathy than what we felt from witnessing his lonely life. His back story reveals a damaged and disturbed childhood…One that sent him down this dark, and bloody rabbit hole, without any hope of ever climbing out…

There is as much sadness as there is darkness within joy-masked Jerry…

The laughs he creates are real, and boisterous…

The horror he causes is real, and disturbing…

And the sadness he feels is real and earth-shattering.

 

All in all…

We’ve got ourselves a great movie that’s a bit hard to categorize…

 

Can’t just call it a Horror…

I laughed my ass off far too many times to choose that category.

 

Can’t call it a Horror-Comedy…

The genuine and heartbreaking moments of Jerry’s mentally-ill machinations stop us from applying that label.

 

Looks like the only category that The Voices could possibly fit into, is…

21st Century Cult Classics.

21st Century Cult Classics: Father’s Day

What’s the matter?

You guys can’t get on board with a movie about a serial father-rapist?

He said it…Not me.

 

Cult Classics…You know I love ’em!

But what exactly makes a cult classic?
Typically it’s a film that speaks to a particular group of people, and becomes popular among that small but fiercely loyal fan base…Although, it may not ever be critically acclaimed…And it may not ever win big at the box office…

That’s okay, because it has us…The fans…Quoting the films…Wearing the T-Shirts…Spreading the love for a cult classic, like a virus spread by word of mouth.

 

Father’s Day (2011) – In the 80’s there was a little back room, inside the corner store, down the street from my house. Inside that room, were slapped together plywood shelves, filled with a cornucopia of schlocksploitaion films from production companies like Paragon Video, Video Treasures, Cannon Films, and  Vestron Video.

These were not the best films…

But, they were the most bizarre, the most outrageous, the bloodiest, the dirtiest, and often times, the funniest movies that I had ever seen.

I loved that era of home video…An era that for me, reeked of desperation.

Let me tell you, when there are only like forty freakin’ titles on those plywood shelves, and you don’t have cable…

You’ll watch every last one of ’em.

And that is what I loved about Father’s Day. Here’s a film that approaches the process the same way those great heaping buckets of cheese did in the 80’s. There are tons of tongue-in-cheek laughs, the gory practical effects are disgusting, and the nudity and sexual situations would make soft-core Skinemax actors blush. In the same way Tarantino and Rodriguez paid homage to the 70’s exploitation films with their Grindhouse productions…

Astron-6 is paying homage to uber-cheesy 80’s home video.

Steve Kostanski, Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney and Jeremy Gillespie make up the gang of rogue Canadian talents, known as Astron-6. They created a fake trailer that became so popular on the inter-webs that a full length film was inevitable.

These cooky canucks are really onto something…

And I’m already a fan.

 

So, if you’re in the mood for father-raping, a little male genital mutilation, or any other bizarre sexual situation that you couldn’t possibly imagine, this is your film.

 

Or maybe you want gut-twisting gore, extreme in your face violence, or blood dripping from your television, then this is your film.

 

Possibly, you’re inclined to watch some seriously screwball antics, comfort level testing awkward moments, or laugh-out-loud inappropriate insanity, then this is your film.

 

 

Making me feel like I grabbed this off of those dusty splinter-inducing plywood shelves of yesteryear is what makes Father’s Day a 21st Century Cult Classic.

 

 

21st Century Cult Classics: The Final Girls

Hey…Is that dude taking a selfie with a masked slasher?

Um…Yep…He sure is.

Cult Classics…You know I love ’em!

But what exactly makes a cult classic?

Typically it’s a film that speaks to a particular group of people, and becomes popular among that small but fiercely loyal fan base…Although, it may not ever be critically acclaimed…And it may not ever win big at the box office…

That’s okay, because it has us…The fans…Quoting the films…Wearing the T-Shirts…Spreading the love for a cult classic, like a virus spread by word of mouth.

The Final Girls (2015) – I know…The thought of a super-fan being so excited by the sight of a classic horror icon in the flesh, that he’s compelled to Snapchat it to his friends seems…Oh…I don’t know…Crazy, right?

Maybe not…

I can tell you right now…If I saw The Tall Man from Phantasm, or Freddy Krueger, or even Jason Voorhees walking towards me, I wouldn’t shriek and run the other way, I would say, “Oh, cool!” and pull out my phone.

And that’s what makes The Final Girls such a treat…

Imagine the film, The Last Action Hero…But instead of one young superfan of action movies getting sucked into the world of action movies through a supernatural portal in a movie theater…You have a pack of teenagers, and one super fan of horror movies getting sucked into the world of horror movies through a supernatural portal in a movie theater…

Basically…It’s The Last Horror Hero...

And, that’s not a bad thing at all…You see, both films poke a ton of fun at the cheese in their respective genres, while at the same time creating more of that same delicious cheese that we the fans crave so much.

Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley) is a delight as Duncan, the horror superfan…

Just look at his reaction to the murderous display versus that of the others…

Priceless.

But this film has another layer to it…A deeper, more emotional layer…The surprisingly authentic journey of Max, a young woman, played by Taissa Farmiga, who while trapped in an 80’s slasher film, comes to terms with who she is by exploring her relationship with her recently deceased mother, played by Malin Akerman…Her mom was one of the stars of this Friday the 13th style 80’s horror movie, and the dramatic elements created by their relationship, somehow manage to work in this rather bizarre setting.

So, it’s a comedy at times…

It’s a classic 80’s slasher flick at times…

Hell, it’s even a family drama at times…

 

But most of the time, The Final Girls is a 21st Century Cult Classic.

 

 

 

 

21st Century Cult Classics: Teeth

Cult Classics…You know I love ’em!

But what exactly makes a cult classic?

Typically it’s a film that speaks to a particular group of people, and becomes popular among that small but fiercely loyal fan base…Although, it may not ever be critically acclaimed…And it may not ever win big at the box office…

That’s okay, because it has us…The fans…Quoting the films…Wearing the T-Shirts…Spreading the love for a cult classic, like a virus spread by word of mouth.

Okay…There’s really no classy way to do this…

So…

Yes…This is that movie…The one about the toothy vagina.

 

Teeth (2007) – This film should be showered with praise by far-right evangelical Christians, because it will do more for promoting teen abstinence than anything else they’ve ever tried. It’s a dark, and twisted little horror-comedy that tells the story of Dawn O’Keefe, a girl who grew up in a blended family, next to a nuclear power plant.

When we first meet her, she is a little girl who bites her new step-brother’s finger when he gets a little frisky in the kiddie pool…

But young Dawn didn’t do the biting with her mouth…

Flash forward to a teenaged Dawn who is now an outspoken advocate of abstinence for a high school organization called “The Promise”. There, she meets herself a nice boy, named Tobey. She begins to get some serious feelings for Tobey, and the two of them start dating.

Not-so-nice boy, Tobey believes that now that he and Dawn are dating, he’s been given the greenlight to get all date-rapey with her…

Yep…I’m pretty sure that’s not his O-Face.

The film goes on from there, and moves along at a brisk pace…Leaving a trail of blood and chewed-up schvantzes in its wake. It’s not a serious film, but surprisingly, it does take itself seriously. There is a fair amount of biting social commentary under the surface (pun definitely intended), whether it be the references to nuclear energy being the cause of Dawn’s abnormality, or shining the spotlight on the hypocritical hyper-religious groups who coerce abstinence in a group of people with a natural propensity for getting it on.

The laughs in this film, are never forced…Imagine the antics of the hormonally charged boys from American Pie…If one of them had humped a shark instead of a pie.

And the vaginal vengeance that occurs, is less in response to some horrific experience like I Spit on Your Grave, and more in response to the everyday experience of being a young girl in America.

And most importantly, this definitely feels like an 80’s horror film…

Why?

Because back then, a horror movie had to be three very important things…

1. Funny…

2. Gory…

And, 3. Sexual.

And, in my opinion…A new film feeling like an 80’s horror movie is one of the sure-fire ways for it to become a 21st Century Cult Classic.

 

 

21st Century Cult Classics: God Bless America

Cult Classics…You know I love ’em!

But what exactly makes a cult classic?

Typically it’s a film that speaks to a particular group of people, and becomes popular among that small but fiercely loyal fan base…

Although, it may not ever be critically acclaimed…

And it may not ever win big at the box office… 

That’s okay, because it has us…

The fans…

Quoting the films…

Wearing the T-Shirts…

Spreading the love for a cult classic, like a virus spread by word of mouth.

 

God Bless America (2011) – Writer/Director Bobcat Goldthwait has already earned a sweet spot on the list of the best Cult Classics, with his debut, Shakes the Clown…Rarely is it that I find a dark comedy that is equal parts dark and comic…Typically, the laughs usually get left behind. But not in this sardonic social commentary piece. Joel Murray plays Frank, a man who after discovering that his daughter is a spoiled brat,  losing his job, and being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, decides to end it all. As he sits there, about to do the deed, he witnesses the epitome of entitled douche-baggery on a show modeled after My Super Sweet Sixteen. Frank decides that before he dies…He must take out as many of life’s everyday assholes as he can…

Starting with Chloe, the spoiled “star” of the reality show.

While there, Frank meets Roxy, played by Tara Lynne Barr, a classmate of Chloe’s, who at first seems sweet and innocent…

Until she doesn’t.

She joins Frank, and the two head out on a Mickey and Mallory style killing spree…And as the tagline says…They take out the trash…One jerk at a time.

Goldthwait’s view of American society and our fame-obsessed, hyper-sexualized, couch-potatoism is right on the freakin’ nose. There is a scene where Frank and Roxy endure the downside of going to the movies when teenagers are present…The teens are talking loudly…Answering their cellphones…And throwing popcorn…Until Frank and Roxy gun them all down…

Nowadays, a movie that even thinks about depicting a theater shooting wouldn’t get produced…

But do me a favor…Screw political correctness for five fuckin’ seconds…

And be thankful that this movie was released before that sack of crap shot innocent moviegoers…

And then watch this ultra-violent, shamefully funny 21st Century Cult Classic.

 

21st Century Cult Classics: Deathgasm…I mean…DETHGASM, because lower case is for pussies.

Cult Classics…You know I love ’em!

But what exactly makes a cult classic?

Typically it’s a film that speaks to a particular group of people, and becomes popular among that small but fiercely loyal fanbase…Although, it may not ever be critically acclaimed…And it may not ever win big at the box office…

That’s okay, because it has us…The fans…Quoting the films…Wearing the T-Shirts…Spreading the love for a cult classic, like a virus spread by word of mouth.

 

Deathgasm (2015) – This is a film that takes place in the 1980’s in suburban New Zealand, and truly captures that 80’s horror movie feel…80’s movie feel…Now, what does that even mean?

Let’s start with the fact that this movie never took itself too seriously…

Take this scene for a perfect example…Depicting what it was like for the character of Medina, upon her hearing heavy metal for the first time.

 

You’ve also got kids dressed like metal-heads…And the long forgotten sight of nerds playing Dungeons & Dragons…Which of course, brings forth the Karate Kid-style high school bullying…But the kills…Oh, man…The kills…They are outlandish, bloody, and test the boundaries of belief…80’s, man…Like, so totally 80’s.

 

This film tells the tale of outcast metal-head, Brodie, played by Milo Cawthorne (Blood Punch) who is forced to move in with his aunt and uncle in a small town “in the middle of ass-fuck nowhere.” He meets the only other metal-head in town, Zakk…At first it seemed like it was the best thing that could’ve happened to him, until it wasn’t…The two break into a house rumored to be owned by a legendary metal musician and Satanist, Rikki Daggers, and discover a demon summoning spell in the form of sheet music called the Black Hymn…Their newly formed metal band brings the sheet music to life, and literally…All Hell breaks loose.

 

This movie was born when The Gate and Detroit Rock City got together for a hook-up at the drive-in, fogging up the back windows of a Dodge Dart and then nine months later, BAM!

 

Or maybe you should think of this movie as a teenage boy.

That’s right, I said it…It’s a teenage boy.

Messy…Hypersexual…Destructive…Violent…And snarky as Hell.

 

Fans of 80’s horror movies will be happy…Fans of metal will be psyched…Fans of both will be freakin’ ecstatic! And these are the aforementioned fans that will guarantee Deathgasm becomes a 21st Century Cult Classic.

And of course…Long live The Brotherhood of Steel.