Throwback Thursday: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

Couple of yuppie douchebags are out for a joy ride through Texas…

What could possibly go wrong?

Well…I suppose a redneck with a chainsaw could hack up your Mercedes…

Oooh…Looks like he nicked you…Probably just a scratch, though…

Whoops…Maybe not.

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) – Okay…The other day when I recommended a bunch of Horror Sequels That Don’t Suck, I was reminded of this film…And I decided that it deserved a bit more attention…

Let’s start with the movie poster…

 

 

Look familiar?

 

 

No?

 

 

How ’bout now?

Tobe Hooper, the man who wrote and directed the original film could never understand when he attended screenings for his 1974 cult classic…Why no one was laughing…His original intention, especially for the scenes with the Sawyer family, was to fill the audiences with uproarious laughter…Instead…Those creepy rednecks only filled the audiences with blood-curdling fear…

So…

More than a decade later…

He decided to try again…

And this time…

 

He wasn’t fucking around.

 

Right off the bat…Let’s start with the comical poster that spoofed the insanely popular John Hughes movie of the previous year…Then, with an opening scene like the one depicted above…The tone of this film became quite evident…Saying it played like a cartoon…Well, that’s not nearly good enough…The tone of this film was straight-up Looney Tunes…Actually…Looney Tunes isn’t nearly bizarre enough…This time Hooper made his band of greasy rednecks so outlandish that they seemed to be animated by John Kricfalusi…

So here’s the story…

The two yuppie scum that were dispatched by Leatherface and the rest of the Sawyer clan…Just so happened to be on the request line of a local rock station….

Meet Stretch…

She’s the DJ who recorded the chainsaw attack…She’s also right off the bat…A tough as nails serious bad-ass…And no doubt this film’s Final Girl.

Stretch reaches out to the only member of law enforcement who believes that the chainsaw family is back at it again after more than a decade of silence…

Meet Lefty…

The uncle of Sally…The Final Girl from the first film…And the one lawman taking this  case both seriously and personally.

The two start working together…Lefty asks Stretch to play the audio of the attack on the airwaves in order to get more people believing…That’s when some of the Sawyers pay a little visit to their local radio station.

Meet Chop-Top…

Well…Sort of…Right now he’s pretending to be a long time listener…

He soon reveals himself…

As a long time lunatic…With a steel plate in his head.

Just when Stretch thought she had seen it all…She got to meet another member of the Sawyer family…Perhaps the most famous of them all…

Meet Leatherface…

Ewww…What could be worse than watching him dry-hump his chainsaw?

Shit…I had to ask…Didn’t I?

In this scene…We really get to see what makes Stretch a Ripley-esque Final Girl…She actually holds her shit together when faced with greasy sister-humpers on a rampage…She surprisingly uses her charm to disarm and delay the rampaging monster named Leatherface…Who lets her live.

In the meantime…Chop-Top has tenderized the head of Stretch’s co-worker with a tack hammer…And he and brother Leatherface haul him back to their lair…And then…The ballsiest Final Girl on the planet…Follows them home…Man, this chick rocks.

For those of us…Curious about how the Sawyer family survive as members of our “normal” society…We get to find out about the family business…Gulp…Catering.

Meet Drayton…

Head Chef and CEO of The Last Round Up Rolling Grill…Home of the Award Winning Five Arm…Ahem…Alarm Chili.

With the legitimized Sawyers winning chili cook-offs and sawing up victims to provide the secret ingredient of prime meat for their chili…They are caught off guard by our two heroes…Both of whom are willing to do anything to stop these freaks.

Even fight fire with fire.

The two are locked into a deadly battle with the entire Sawyer family in their stately home constructed of human bones…dessicated corpses…And abandoned carnival remnants…They cause some serious damage to the family…Their home…And their ability to make another piping hot pot of people chili anytime soon…

And this time…It’s the Final Girl…

Who does the chainsaw dance at the end of the film.

This film was a great sequel, made by the original director and captured his original intent…

This film was darkly comic, cartoonish, and carnivorously crazy…

This film had way more gory gross-outs than its predecessor…

This film had one of the ass-kickingest, bad-ass bitches as its Final Girl…

This film is not to be forgotten, and is without question…

 

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throwback Thursday: The Blob

So…You’re gonna go poking around that meteor, huh?

That didn’t work out so well…Now, did it?

You should’ve learned from Jordy that messing with meteors is bad news…

You Lunk-Head.

 

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

The Blob (1988) – This remake of a 1950’s monster movie was directed by Chuck Russell on the heels of his well received horror sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors…And like he did with that film, he once again wrote the script with Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist) who, for shits and giggles, threw in a handful of Stephen King references…

As if his résumé didn’t already prove his love for the author…

Those of you familiar with King’s novel, The Stand, will remember the character of The Trashcan Man…The hobo above who went poking at the meteor was listed in the credits as “Can Man”…Not to mention the fact that the main character played by Kevin Dillon shared the same last name as the big bad in that novel, Randall Flagg.

There’s not only some fun King references…But you’ve got the great 80’s horror movie archetypes in place here…

 

There’s The Outcast…It’s usually a stoner…Or a nerd…Or sometimes like in this case…An all-around bad boy.

Then you’ve got The Cheerleader…

And of course…What horror film from the 80’s would be complete without…The Jocks.

 

The Outcast Brian Flagg, played by Dillon, discovers the old hobo with a hunk of the blob eating its way up his arm…He has a run-in with the Cheerleader, played by Shawnee Smith, and one of The Jocks…This particular jock, Paul, was played by Donovan Leitch Jr., son of the well-known psychedelic 60’s artist, Donovan… 

They take the injured hobo to the hospital…

And that’s when the blob really takes off running…

 

Well, more like slithering…

 

After eating the lower two-thirds of the Can Man, the next thing the blob does is hork down seven-eighths of Paul before leaving the hospital…

Now I have no idea what planet this thing came from…

 

But I can tell you this…

 

Wherever it’s from…

It has less tolerance and tougher punishments for a Jock assaulting an unconscious girl than Judge Aaron Persky does.

After dispensing with our resident date-rapist…The blob worms its way though town leaving a trail of slimy, half-eaten corpses in its wake…As the carnage continues…The Outcast is joined by The Cheerleader, who transforms before our eyes into a Final Girl, and an absolute bad-ass bitch….

Just like in the original 1958 film, the only way to defeat this lump of goo, is with the effects of freezing cold temperatures…Luckily for everyone…There just so happens to be a snow-making truck close by…

Aahhh…

Sweet serendipity…

What’s that?

Set up, you say?

Predictable, you claim?

Who gives a fat, smoky, green turd?

Not me.

 

They also did the delightful thing that almost every 80’s horror movie is known for…

 

That moment right before the credits roll…

They set it up for a sequel…

This is a movie that captures the essence of what is so great about 80’s horror…

 

This is a movie that although formulaic, is still a fun and kick-ass thrill ride…

 

This is a movie that has great and gory physical effects throughout the entire runtime…

 

This is a movie that because of those facts, stands the test of almost thirty years worth of time…

 

And without a doubt…

This is a movie that is…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throwback Thursday: Brain Damage

So there’s a talking blue turd-worm in your sink…

Guess there’s only one thing to do about it…

Let him inject drugs directly into your brainstem, of course.

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

Brain Damage (1988) – This warped late 80’s yarn comes from writer/director Frank Henenlotter, the man who a few years earlier created the cult classic, Basket Case…In this one, he opens a window into the long and bizarre life of Aylmer, a slightly phallic, host-hopping, brain-noshing, drug-dealing, parasitic creature…Aylmer gets tired of eating cold calf brains from a Jewish deli, bails on his roomates, Morris and Martha…

Moves down the hall…

And finds Brian…

Aylmer injects his extremely euphoric, highly hallucinogenic, accutely addictive drug directly into Brian’s medula oblangata…A gift that he trades with Brian in return for field trips outside to find Aylmer some fresh food…

Their first field trip takes them to a junkyard…

And Aylmer grabs a snack from the nightwatchman’s noggin.

During their next field trip, Brian tries to go out to dinner with his girlfriend…

Mmmmm…Spaghetti and Brainballs, anyone?

After abandoning his plate of pulsating brains, Brian wanders into a night club…

In his drug-fueled fugue state…

He meets a girl and wanders out into the back alley with her…

 

And if you were thinking that Aylmer looked a bit too phallic before…

 

How ’bout now?

 

On a side note…

This film received the award for Scariest Oral Sex Scene…

A title held by The World According to Garp for six years…

 

On a lighter note…

Their next field trip puts them on a train, where they run into…

Hey look!…It’s Duane and his Basket-O-Brother from the film Basket Case…

One of the best nods to an earlier film…Ever.

 

On a more serious note…

This film did more for the war on drugs in the 80’s, than Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign…

I mean, seriously…

Look at what happens to Brian in this flick…

He spirals out of control…

He can’t remember anything from the night before…

He is losing family and friends…

Shit, minus the scenes containing nudity, violence, gore, and of course the chick fellating a blue turd-worm…This would make a great After School Special!

It could be called…

My Brother Has a Monkey On His Back, and a Blue Turd Worm On His Neck.

This is a movie that is sexually charged in a very bizarre way…

 

This is a movie that is unabashedly and surprisingly anti-drug…

 

This is a movie that perfectly illustrates the loss of control in addiction…

 

This is a movie that is completely comfortable with it’s twisted sense of humor…

 

This is a movie that is most definitely…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

Throwback Thursday: Ghost Story

So you’ve decided to hook up with your twin brother’s ex girlfriend…

So not cool for a whole bunch of reasons, dude…

Not the least of which being…

I’m sure there was a pretty good reason he broke up with her…

Yep…That sure looks like a pretty good reason…

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

Ghost Story (1981) – Based on a novel by Peter Straub comes the tale of a gentlemen’s club in rural New England where a  night of tragedy turned into a lifetime of supernatural recompense…The Chowder Society is a group consisting of four well to do and influential gentlemen who regale each other with scary stories…The cast that makes up the Society is four amazing, aging, A-List actors…Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and John Houseman.

Years earlier, all four young men became smitten with a new girl in town named Alma Mobley, played by the always creepy Alice Krige…When Edward, one of the Chowder Heads, tries and fails to get busy with her…But then tells his buddies what a super-stud he was…It gets back to Alma and she calls him out…But before she can report his Brewer’s Droop to the group, Edward accidentally bashes her head on the fireplace…Now, at this point, our well-to-do friends at the Chowder Society decide to cover their collective asses, put the body in a car, and push it into the lake…

Oh shit…I don’t think dead bodies are supposed to do that…

Decades later, Edward’s twin boys get caught up in the nightmare, as each of them get involved with what they believe is a real live woman, named Eva Galli…But as she shows her true self, and is revealed as the living embodiment of the malicious spirit of Alma Mobley…Things start to get pretty messed up…One twin dumps her…The other one scoops her up…And well…You know what they say about the sins of the father…

 

Now here’s the straight dope…

This film actually holds up…The practical effects floored me when I first saw them, and they still floor me today. At times the film is a New England style gothic mystery, but at other times, it is also a chilling and macabre horror film with plenty of scares and plenty of…

Well, this…

And this…

And man…That ain’t even the half of it…

There’s more horrifying decomposing body special effects in this film than you’ll find in most episodes of The Walking Dead…

And they were created by the master of special effects himself, Rick Baker…

The first R rated horror film that my older sister and her boyfriend snuck me into was Friday the 13th…

This film was the second…

It was filmed not far from where I grew up, and I still remember the cheers from the audience when a familiar bit of scenery would pop up on the screen…

It was so exciting for me back then to see horror movies on the big screen…

And this one…

In particular…

Stayed with me…

 

For a long time.

 

The film is a classic revenge story, with a supernatural twist…

 

The film is the grisliest, gruesomest, goriest ghost story from the 80’s that you’ll ever see…

 

The film tackles sexuality and gender roles, and taps into the inherent male fear associated with these issues…

The film is without a doubt…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

Throwback Thursday: Dreamscape

What’s scarier than a guy who can enter your dreams with mad ninja skills?

Oh yeah…

 A guy that can enter your dreams and become a snake.

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

Dreamscape (1984) – In the 80’s, I went through a serious Dennis Quaid phase…He was an everyman, a regular guy, and identifying with his characters was a breeze…It was what I refer to as The Harrison Ford Factor…Ford’s characters were so easily accessible, that an audience member could slide right into their loafers and take a stroll…Quaid’s roles, in the 80’s for sure, had The Harrison Ford Factor…

I loved Breaking Away…

And Caveman…

I think I saw Tough Enough twenty times…

Enemy Mine was awesome, too…

Innerspace, dude, that one still makes me laugh…

But this one…

Oh, man…This one was the pinnacle…

The pièce de résistance.

Can’t tell you how many times I saw it…Lost count at like a hundred.

The film was directed by Joseph Ruben (The Stepfather, The Good Son) and it tells the story of Alex Gardner, played by Quaid, a psychic whose abilities have been squandered on gambling and womanizing…He reunites with his former mentor Dr. Novotny played by Max von Sydow, who needs Alex to help him with his latest project.The goal is to link psychics with the minds of sleeping patients who suffer from night terrors, or nightmares that plague them in the waking world…

Sounds all nice and altruistic, right?

Novotny is a nice cat who wants to do good deeds with this technology…But for every nice scientist who wants to do good things, somewhere lurking in the shadows behind them, is a dark and evil presence who wants to do the polar opposite of good deeds…Especially with technology like this…In this case it’s Bob Blair, played by the believably evil Christopher Plummer…

Now just like Novotny enlisted the help of his “good” psychic Alex Gardner, Blair has recruited his own psychic…This one…Oh man…This one is of the evil variety.

Enter Tommy Ray Glatman…

Shit, he even makes eating a tuna sandwich look evil.

Tommy Ray is played by the legendary character actor, David Patrick Kelly, most well known for uttering the phrase…”Warriors…Come out and Play-y-ay!” with bottles on his fingertips…But in this one he plays a rival psychic whose dream assassin abilities would get a nod, a bow, and a tip of the fedora from Freddy Krueger…While Alex is still learning the ropes, just trying to navigate around other people’s noggins, Tommy Ray can do…Well…He can do just about anything.

Like for instance, turn his fingertips into scalpels, and surgically remove someone’s heart from their chest.

This film is a classic good vs. evil tale with science fiction sensibilities to delight our inner nerd and enough scares and creepy imagery to please the fan of horror within us…It is not a film that I think is easily categorized…

 

It is a film that captures the essence of fear that encompasses the world of nightmares…

 

It is a film that demonstrates the dark side of politics, and what power does with powers…

 

It is a film that much like Nightmare on Elm Street, shows us that we are our most vulnerable when we are asleep…

 

It is a film that is definitely…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

Throwback Thursday: The Gate

Dad! Whoa man, am I glad to see you…

There’s this gate to Hell in the backyard, and…

Um…

Oh…So you already know about it, then. 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

The Gate (1987) – This is sort of a Home Alone meets Hellraiser…It’s the story of two pre-teen friends…

Named Bill Gates and Stephen Dorff.

Just kidding…

But to be honest…Terry and Glen are indeed friends, and Glen is indeed played by Stephen Dorff…

In this story, these two boys are both leaning on eachother…Terry leans on Glen due to the death of his mother the previous year, and Glen leans on Terry due to the demise of the once close relationship he had with his tom-boy sister Al…

I’ve always loved when the main characters in a scary flick are kids…You lose the skepticism right away…When supernatural horror comes to town, and the adults are the ones dealing with it, they require explanation, and proof, and that shit takes time…When the kids are running the show, it’s like…

Aw shit, we got demons in the backyard…

Kids take it in stride, man…

Your friend tells you a story about a workman who died while building your home, and when he pops out of the drywall all zombified…

You look at it and say…”It’s the workman.”

Taking it in stride.

Your friend goes a little evil on you and bites the ever-loving shit outta your hand…

So your sister stabs him in the eye with a Barbie doll.

Taking it in stride.

You discover a demon eyeball in the palm of your hand…

You grab a hunk of broken glass from a dirty bucket and stab that shit.

Taking it in stride.

There’s no…What’re we gonna do? They just freakin’ do it.

These kids are in a dire situation that keeps getting worse as time ticks on…They’ve got demonic moths, levitation, dead dogs, live moms, zombie workmen, fake parents, dwarf demons, annoying 80’s teenage girls, and a really freakin’ huge demon…

But I’m telling you, kids are tough, they are resilient…

And these kids deal with a gateway to Hell like they were the freakin’ Winchesters.

 

Get in your way back machine…

Set the dial for 1987…

Put a little European Death Metal on your Sony Walkman…

And watch The Gate…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

 

 

Throwback Thursday: Night of the Creeps

Ding-dong…

Hey Cynthia…Your date’s here!

Brad?…Are you like feeling okay? 

Oh, Brad…You’ve got a splitting headache…I’ll grab you an Excedrin.

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

Night of the Creeps (1986) – Fred Dekker is the man responsible for two of the classic late 80’s horror homage films that gave credit to the monster films of the late 50’s…This film, and The Monster Squad…Dekker gives not only nods to the monster movies that he loves so much, but also to the great horror filmmakers that he admires…

The main character is Chris Romero…

His best friend is James Carpenter Hooper…

Chris’ love interest is Cynthia Cronenberg…

The cop who’s on the case is, Ray Cameron…

His back-up is Detective Landis and Sergeant Raimi…

And of course their lead witness in the case, is the janitor, Mr. Miner.

Now if you’re wondering where James Gunn got his inspiration for the wonderful 2006 horror gem, Slither, then look no further…The film opens in black and white…With a young couple parked in the woods for a makeout session…Maybe even a little over the sweater second base action…In typical 50’s monster movie fashion, the dude goes to check out a meteor that just crashed…But what’s not in typical 50’s monster movie fashion, is that while he’s gone, his girl is attacked by an axe wielding maniac…And at the same time, the dude gets exposed to discarded alien cargo, in the form of a parasite that jumps down your throat faster than an angry mother-in-law.

Flash forward to 1986…This little firecracker of an 80’s horror comedy has two geeky college chums who, while awkwardly pledging a fraternity, unwittingly unleash a long forgotten and most probably freezer-burned dude from the 50’s turned host to an alien parasite.

 

The geeks have accidentally started an extraterrestrial parasitic zombie plague on their quaint little college town, and with each slug-like parasite that talks you into a little oral…

The recipe for nightmare gets more delicious…

Start with a dead and buried axe murderer that comes back from the grave and starts tormenting the students and townspeople…

Add a heaping helping of infected college kids…

Throw in a few housepets…

And not only do you have a delightful little bisque of campy 80’s horror fun…But you also have a town that has gone completely batshit crazy.

This is a movie that has been surprisingly well-received by both fans and critics, and considering Dekker threw the script together in under a week, the reception becomes that much more surprising…Now Dekker is pretty much a two-hit wonder, but that’s fine with me…I mean check out the easter egg for a movie that he hadn’t even made yet…

 

This film, and The Monster Squad are a part of my 80’s collection…

 

And I revisit them both…

Regularly…

 

So pull out your dental dams…

 

Fire up your flamethrowers…

 

And watch Night of the Creeps…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

 

Throwback Thursday: Intruder

Hey…It’s Sam Raimi!

Hey…It’s Bruce Campbell!

Thanks…

You guys were there to help us say goodbye to the 80’s…

And sadly…

To help us say goodbye to the 80’s slasher movie.

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself…

A Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

Intruder (1989) – As you can see from the promotional artwork…Hell, even the pictures I used…Bruce Campbell who has a brief cameo, right before the end credits roll, and Sam Raimi, who plays Randy the butcher, a guy who gets dispatched pretty quickly by the film’s slasher…Are the main selling points for this film…

But, for me, as the opening credits roll on the final slasher film of the decade best known for slasher films, it’s not about seeing A-List actors as part of the cast…It’s about seeing a name like, Greg Nicotero…For me, that can only mean one thing…That the kills are going to be legendary.

And, isn’t that really what it’s all about in these delightful throwbacks?

Yep…It sure the hell is.

This entire film takes place within the walls of a small local grocery store, similar to, and named after, the grocery store director Scott Spiegel worked at in Michigan when he was younger. The confined space of a locked after hours grocery store works perfectly for this genre, as does the early setup of an outside threat…One of the clerks, Jennifer has an edgy ex-con boyfriend who gets tossed out of the store after a tussle with the night crew…Thus creating a “don’t go outside” vibe, that makes the night crew, and the viewer, that much more claustrophobic.

One by one, the staff of the Walnut Lake Market are being picked off…And in grand slasher movie tradition, the kills get ratcheted up a notch with each passing attack…

You know…Those moments where you say…

“Oh cool!”

Now, don’t get me wrong…I love a great, well-acted, well directed, artistic, touching, thought-provoking, dramatic film as much as the next guy…

But that’s not this…

And this…

Is not that.

It’s kinda always been my big beef with movie reviews and the critics who write them…

Take for example, that my favorite film of 2015 was Lenny Abrahamson‘s powerful, organic, and touching film, Room…

But this past weekend, I was giddy like a wee girl while watching Jeremy Saulnier‘s debut film, Murder Party…

How could I possibly enjoy Murder Party, a film that pays homage to gory slasher films like Intruder, if my favorite film of 2015 was, Room?…

Well it’s quite simple, you see…

I am a cinephile…

 

Not a lover of some film…

Nor a lover of motion pictures, except horror.

 

It was the legendary film critic Roger Ebert who said this about the legendary horror film Hellraiser…

“Who goes to see movies like this? What do they get out of them?”

And almost thirty years later, in his review of Wolf Creek, he said this…

“There is a role for violence in film, but what the hell is the purpose of this sadistic celebration of pain and cruelty?”

Ebert’s inability to ascertain the answers to these questions…Questions that he himself posed, just further illustrates that critics with a self-proclaimed disdain for a particular genre of film…Should not be involved in the critique of those particular films.

So do me a favor…

Please…

If you hate horror movies…

 

Don’t become a friggin’ movie critic, okay?

 

But if you love ’em like I do…

Then watch Intruder…

It’s a Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

 

 

Throwback Thursday: C.H.U.D.

Whoa…Wait a second…

Did something just snatch her up by the ankle, and drag her and her little dog into that manhole?

 

Yep…Sure did.

 

Now, how’s that for an opening title sequence?

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself a Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

C.H.U.D. (1984) – The title stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.

The End.

 

What?

That wasn’t enough for you?

Hmmm…

I thought for sure it would be…

 

Oh well…In that case…This film was released in the glorious eighties, a time when Aqua-Net was clogging up the ozone, Bill Cosby’s drinks were trustworthy, Donald Trump was a slightly less orange-colored apolitical businessman, and Michael Jackson was alive…And also black. Now that the history lesson is out of the way, let’s talk about C.H.U.D.…

Here’s a movie that despite what its initials stand for, actually takes itself seriously. At a time when Reagan was closing down mental institutions all over the country, any of the inhabitants that didn’t have family willing to take them in, which was most of them, were out on the street…

The population of homeless people skyrocketed…

The deinstitutionalized state that the film not only shines a light on, but because of Daniel Stern‘s character A.J. “The Reverend” Shepherd, it also gives faces and names to it, as well. As the monsters that live beneath New York City take victim after victim, A.J. is joined by George, a man who photographs the homeless, played by John Heard, and the two of them try to figure out what’s going on…The film once again takes aim at the gorvernment of the time, as the cause of the creatures that live below the city is due to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission dumping toxic waste beneath the city.

Despite the socio-political and environmental statements being made, this is a straight-up classic 80’s monster movie.

And the fact that it was based on a true story made it even better…

What?

What the hell do you mean by…No it wasn’t?

Time for another history lesson…

These things are not just some cheesy urban legend brought to life…Some people do flush baby alligators and then they grow up in the sewers to become monstrous killing machines…

And folks…C.H.U.D.’s exist.

Every fact I know comes from the same news source…

The Simpsons…

See…

What more proof could you possibly need?

 

 

Throwback Thursday: The Stuff

Hey, if Mom and Dad say I should eat it…

Then it must be goo…Uh, I mean good.

 

Well…It’s Thursday, and you know what that means…

For some of you, it will be a thirsty one…

For others, it’s not a time to throw back a cold one…

But instead, a time to dust off an old copy of a forgotten film…

So bust out the ol’ top-loading VHS player, the LaserVision, or the Betamax and watch yourself a Throwback Thursday Classic.

 

The Stuff (1985) – In a time when consumers are eating copious amounts of GMO’s, bizarre food additives, like live bacteria, nanites, and whatever mystery ingredients that we haven’t found out about yet…The relevance of this film and the irony that comes from it, is not lost on me. It was made right smack in the middle of the 80’s, a time when consumerism and public willingness to follow a popular trend might actually rival current times. Director Larry Cohen (It’s Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent) poked fun at us, the viewer, because he knew if a product like The Stuff came out, and was marketed and popularized the way he portrayed it…

We would buy The Stuff…

We would eat The Stuff…

And then…

The Stuff would eat us.

Before I get into it, can I just say that none of this would’ve happened if some old dude who stumbled upon Satan’s Semen bubbling up from the ground, hadn’t stuck his fingers in, and took a taste?

Okay…Glad that’s out of the way.

Of the handful of intersecting storylines in this film, the story of the young, burgeoning conspiracy theorist, Jason is by far my favorite. He upsets the apple cart at home, when he refuses to get on Team Stuff with the rest of his clan. But kind of like the kid in Invaders From Mars, he doesn’t stop there…Jason realizes that this is bigger than Mom, Dad, or even his douchey big brother, and takes it up a notch or two. Kind of fun to watch a kid lose his shit at the grocery store, knock The Stuff from people’s hands, and rip The Stuff down from the shelves…Hey, it’s not my kid…So it’s fun to watch.

The cast of this film includes some great actors, like Michael Moriarty (Bang the Drum Slowly), who plays Mo, the guy hired by the competitive junk food industry to find out exactly what The Stuff is…Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas), plays the Army colonel who gets on board with Mo and gives him the fire power he needs…Danny Aiello (Moonstruck), who has a Great Scene with a Great Dane…And of course, my personal favorite…

Comedian Garrett Morris (Saturday Night Live), as Chocolate Chip Charlie.

Oh look, he’s such a funny guy…

He must be laughing about something…

Ooooh…Maybe not.

Man, I am still such a huge fan of the practical effects of that era, that I find myself re-watching my 80’s horror collection pretty regularly.

But by far, my favorite thing is the counter-culture take on consumerism in this film…It’s surrealistic in its relevance, considering the fact that we live in an era where we have a reality TV star as a presidential candidate…

What?

Come on, now…If The Donald purchased a mine full of The Stuff, he’d package it up and sell it in a New York minute…

And let me tell you…It would be uuuuuge.

 

So basically, what I’m telling you, is that this B-Movie is a damn fun ride…

Whether that ride is one that takes you down memory lane…

Or maybe even takes you on a maiden voyage…

But either way, if you are willing to take the ride…You just might enjoy it.