The Angry Red Planet (1959)

A crippled rocket, damaged on an ill-fated mission to Mars, is brought back to earth via radio control and some breathtakingly skillfull toggle-switch toggling. Inside are Dr. Iris Ryan (Naura Hayden) and Colonel Thomas O'Bannon (Gerald Mohr), the only surviving members of the 4-person crew. With the ship's reel-to-reel data tapes all erased by a powerful magnetic field, and Colonel O'Bannon fighting for his life against a poisonous alien infection that has turned his right arm to Lime Jell-O Fruit Salad™, earth doctors struggle to force the PTSD-ridden Dr. Ryan to remember just what (the fuck) happened.

After mega-doses of second-hand smoke fail to have an effect, the doctors use dangerous psychoactive drugs to tease the memories out of the frail, flame-haired doll of a scientist. The tale she has to tell is one of the strangest ever told, involving lush Martian jungles full of man-eating plants, 40-foot alien hellbeasts, and three-eyed Peeping Toms leaving sucker-prints on the rocket's glass portholes. How did they manage to escape? What happened to the other two astronauts? And what, if anything, can humankind learn from their folly?

All those questions are answered in The Angry Red Planet (1959, dir. Ib Melchior), a true classic of pre-moon landing US science fiction and a nonstop good time from blast-off to splashdown. We get special effects that range from the goofy (actor-animated carnivorous plant) to the surprisingly effective (death by blob!). We get charmingly naive science fantasy (Of course Mars is covered in lush jungles and oily lakes! How *else* would it be?), groovy visual effects courtesy the patented CineMAGIC process, and enough gleeful mid-century sexism to keep the writers of Mad Men in one-liners for a full season. (Mohr as O'Bannon is a real hoot--a 45-year old Lothario with spacesuit open to the navel, mouth twisted into a perpetual leer, who speaks almost exclusively in double entendres...except when speaking in SINGLE entendres.) Bad acting and questionable science can't overpower the film's energy, pacing, and sheer joie de vivre. By the time I got to the genuinely exciting climax and the requisite post-crisis warning, I was grinning from ear to ear and ready to do the whole thing over again.

2.5 Thumbs. Highly recommended.

Now, enjoy these MADcaps from The Angry Red Planet (1959):

Sleeves: They Don't Make 'Em Like THAT Anymore

A botanical sketch of the rare Martian Pussy Willow

Sammy (Jack Kruschen) worries needlessly about excessive oxygen consumption.

Angry Red Plant

Professor Van Dyke...um, Gettel (Les Tremayne) struggles manfully not to stare at the Colonel's sparse chest hair.

"Thomas! What have you been doing in here?"

"Well, guys...looks like we're fucked!"

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TerrorVision (1986): or, Quite the Dish

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 23!

In the days when "satellite TV" meant having a dish the size of a bisected Volkswagen in your backyard and access to NASA-level array-control technology, Stanley Putterman (the inimitable Gerrit Graham, "Bud the CHUD" and The Phantom of the Paradise's Beef himself ) installs a "Do-It-Yourself 100" dish in the hopes of opening a new world of entertainment possibilities. This meets with the approval of his wife Raquel (Mary Woronov of Eating Raoul, Silent Night Bloody Night, and Chopping Mall), daughter Suzy (Diane Franklin, of the superlatively MAD Amityville II: the Possession) and son Sherman (Chad Allen, Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman). Even military-minded Grandpa (Bert Remsen) is down, excited about the possibilities for monitoring enemy troop movements.

However, when a sanitation worker from Planet Pluton accidently beams a dangerous piece of garbage--a slavering, amorphous mutant called a "Hungry Monster"-- into the Puttermans' new dish, what started out as a nice night in front of the tube becomes a fight for survival and the future of the human race. As the monster crawls out of the boob tube to munch on its new hosts, the Puttermans' "swinging" guests, and Suzy's punkish boyfriend O.D. (Jon "I'm a Wolfman and I've Got Nards" Gries), Sherman makes desperate calls for help, first to the police and then to late-night horror hostess Medusa (Jennifer Richards). Meanwhile, O.D. and Suzy try to train the beast, which goes well until the Pluton Sanitation Department shows up to try and correct its error. Then things get a little messy...

Produced by Charles Band and directed by Full Moon Pictures-mainstay Ted Nicolaou, TerrorVision (1986) is an energetic, broad parody of everything 80s that, like many a fine cheese, has only grown more delicious as it ages. Viewers of a certain age will recognize a lot of the period piece details, from Raquel's Jazzercize obsession to Suzy's Cyndi Lauper fashions to Medusa's Elvira-esque show and costumery. Graham is hilarious as always (what an underrated performer this guy is), and Gries steals the show in a role that prefigures Bill and Ted by three years. The effects are goopy, practical, and disgusting, and the monster design is gross but strangely adorable. (In a standout scene, the monster uses its mimicking ability to morph several appendages into a slime-covered orgy involving the Puttermans, their guests, and even Grandpa! Must-see.) The music by Richard Band is as good as you'd expect.

TerrorVision is nothing but OTT fun from one end to the other. Even those born in the era of dinner plate-sized satellite dishes should find this blast from the past enjoyable. 2.5 thumbs.

"Don't wait up! I've heard these Noam Chomsky lectures sometimes go long."

Bonus: The awesomely 80s TerrorVision Theme song!

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Night of the Creeps (1986): or, Consider Me Thrilled

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 10!

 In Earth-Year 1959 AD, a passing insterstellar research craft is the scene of intrigue and mutiny, as a creature who looks like E.T. on steroids steals a canister of dangerous parasites and makes a waddling bee-line for the air lock. In the ensuing hail of laser fire and gratuitous alien butt-shots, the mastermind fails to make good his escape, but does manage to fling the canister out of the ship, where it becomes trapped in Earth's orbit and crashes near the campus of an American university. A jock and his girlfriend are caught between a rock and a squishy place, as the boy falls prey to the alien worms while the girl is hacked to death by an escaped axe murderer! And all this in the first five minutes!

Nearly 20 years later, nerdy nice guy Chris (Jason Lively) is smitten by sorority girl Cynthia (super-cute Jill Whitlow). At the urging of his handicapped but fearless friend J.C. (Steve Marshall in a show-stealing performance), Chris pledges to a fraternity run by The Bradster (Allan Kayser), a sadistic Aryan preppie who is also Cynthia's erstwhile boyfriend. Brad tasks the boys to steal a corpse from the university research facility and dump it on a rival fraternity's steps--and I bet you can guess which body they corpse-nap. Soon the alien parasites are running rampant, turning students both living and dead into shambling, bloodthirsty zombies with exploding heads! It's up to Chris, J.C., and beyond-grizzled and gruff detective Ray Cameron (Tom "Fucking" Atkins) to exterminate the alien menace before the planet is overrun and the sorority formal ruined.

One of the true cult-classics of 80s horror, Night of the Creeps is a great time from beginning to end. Writer/Director Fred Dekker (the man also responsible for the much-loved 1987 kids' horror-adventure, The Monster Squad) delivers a fast-paced, quick-witted, gloriously gross hunk of grade-A cheese that should satisfy any fan of the genre. His script is full of quotable quips and unforgettable images, from the suspended-animation body of the 50s jock (which J.C. memorably terms a "corpsicle") to Cynthia in formal dress fighting off zombies with a flamethrower, to Atkin's immortal catchphrase, "Thrill me!" The acting is good across the board, with Atkins and Marshall making the best impressions. Add some great makeup effects, some fun, grody gore (watch particularly for the infected zombie cat puppet), and a special appearance by legendary character actor and national treasure Dick Miller, and there's really nothing left wanting.

A flick I haven't watched in years, and one I'm very glad I revisited. 3 thumbs!

"I don't know, Brad...you've just been so cold to me lately."

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The Incredible Melting Man (1977): or, You Reduce Me to a Puddle

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 6!

Astronaut Steve West (Alex Rebar) and two expendable crew mates are the first men to visit the rings of Saturn. The men are amazed by the sight...and then of course, something goes terribly wrong! (Sunspots, to judge from the stock-footage that is the only offered explanation.) West is the only survivor; somehow the ship's autopilot gets him back to earth (in considerably less than the 3-7 years such a journey would take), and deposits him at a secret hospital overseen by West's friend, Dr. Ted Nelson (an absolutely priceless Burr DeBenning). Less than five minutes after the opening credits West has awakened from his coma to discover he's come back with a disturbing skin condition--his flesh is slowly liquefying, sloughing off his body in long drips like cheese off a deep dish! Mentally broken and craving healthy human flesh to slow his own decomposition, West goes on a murderous rampage, leaving a trail of dismembered and partially nommed bodies in his wake. Can Nelson and secretive military man General Michael Perry (Jonathan Winters lookalike Myron Healey) find West and stop him before he oozes again?

I really didn't expect this one to be as much fun as it was, but I had a blast. The Incredible Melting Man is a throwback to the sci-fi monster flicks of the 50s and 60s (think The Amazing Collosal Man mashed up with The Hideous Sun Demon), only with an extra layer of cheese and a heapin' helping of gore. Special effects master Rick Baker provides the goopiness here, and his design of the Melting Man is pretty much flawless--we get slimy drips, exposed bone, an eye sliding down his face, an ear left on a pine bush, and a final "meltdown" scene that will remind mad movie fans pleasantly of Street Trash. The victims of the melting man are also shown in loving, disgusting detail--in my favorite scene, a fisherman's just-ripped-off head floats in slow-mo down a river, Orpheus-style, before going over a waterfall and bursting like a melon!

The acting is b-movie bad, but entertaining nonetheless. Rebar's "trauma" scene in the rings of Saturn is worth the price of admission alone, but the real prize winner here is accomplished TV actor DeBenning. Channeling Bill Bixby on a bad day, DeBenning delivers every line with supreme frustration and disgust, with an expression like someone constantly smelling another man's fart. (Believe me: no one, but NO ONE stares angrily at a phone receiver like my boy Burr!) Healy is entertaining as the general in charge of the most nonchalant radioactive pathogen-carrier manhunt in history, and character actors Edwin Max and Dorothy Love have a wonderful spot as a comic relief romantic elderly couple. And exploitation fans should look for Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith as a photographer's model posing in the Melting Man's domain.--topless, naturally.

Plenty of gore, b-movie pseudo-science, some good-natured if ill-executed acting, and a bit of a shock ending made The Incredible Melting Man a ton of fun. If you like your cheese stringy, drippy, and laid on thick, this is the pie for you. 2.25 thumbs.

Sunscreen, kids. It's important.

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The Afterman (1985): or, Apocalypse When?

We begin: a bearded, slightly dumpy man sits in a darkened, presumably underground room, surrounded by dot-matrix printers and TRS-80s. Barely decipherable alerts flash in blocky green letters, monitoring something or other that's bound to be important. The Man watches news footage of atomic bombs dropping, and wistfully stares at old photos.When he gets hungry, he goes to a huge storeroom filled to the rafters with cardboard boxes. The boxes contain cans of futuristic spray-food substance, which he devours greedily. He stares at the screens, falls asleep, twiddles his thumbs. Apparently this is all he does; this is what his life is like.

Well, it's not quite ALL he does. A man has needs besides food and shelter, after all. When the Wily Worm of Wantonness rears its cyclopean dome, he waddles to another part of the complex and, shirtless, enters a walk-in freezer. There he finds the frost-flecked body of a woman, upon whose nude, frozen flesh he satiates his wicked urges.

At some length. In the first 5 minutes of the movie.

So many questions.

Cold hands, warm heart

Ladies and germs, welcome to The Afterman, Belgian director Rob Van Eyck's bleak vision of a speculative future, circa 1985. Executed entirely without dialogue, the flick is half art-house sci-fi, half grimy exploitation road movie, and 100% MAD. It's a movie that feels simultaneously thoughtful and incoherent, skillful and inept, intellectually serious but at times deliriously dumb. Take a bit of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, filter it through Quest for Fire, and dunk it in the boiling effluvia of the grindhouse melting pot, and maybe you're almost there. It's a movie that, quite frankly, I can scarcely believe exists.

Shortly after his necro-tryst with his Passed-On Popsicle of Passion--who may be his deceased wife, but is not certainly such--the Man (Jacques Verbist--NOT the guy on the VHS cover) is forced to evacuate his bunker due to a massive system failure, which leads to an off-screen explosion. We are left to infer that he's been waiting out the apocalypse, which has dismantled civilization--deserted, crumbling buildings dot the landscape, and abandoned heavy machinery returns to rust all around. Whatever brought about the fall of society was presumably not the atom bombs he was watching earlier, at least in my reading, since lush forests and fields stretch to the horizon and no one evinces the slightest radiation burns or tumors. Still, whatever happened isn't terribly important; the point is, the End has arrived, and the remaining humans must survive as best they can.

Immediately upon his emergence, the Man sees a group of other men watching him from a nearby ridge. With an inarticulate cry of glee, he rushes to them, while they calmly, ominously watch him come. He's clearly overjoyed to meet fellow survivors, and embraces their tough-guy leader. Unfortunately for him, his gesture is disastrously misread, as the wordless myrmidions lay the boots to him, after which the Leader sardonically rapes his ass while his henchmen circle-jerk around them! Welcome to our Brave New World, Bippy!

"Wait a minute...YOU'RE NOT A PROCTOLOGIST!"

At this point, we're still less than 10 minutes in, by the way.

Left bloody and now understandably shy of strangers, the Man sets about surviving without his cans of Post-Apocalyptic Cheez Whiz to rely upon. Despite his doughy physique and post-traumatic stress, he proves to be quite the trapper, snaring a muskrat underwater with his bare hands! It's a hard-knock life out there, but as long as there are aquatic rodents to be had, our Man will never go hungry.

I have seen the future, and it needs salt.

What happens next is hard to explain--the Man follows some strange sounds to a cave and sneaks inside, where he finds what appears to be a fully functioning day spa! There's tile, potted plants, patio lounge chairs, and a clearly man-made (and well-chlorinated) swimming pool, in which a beautiful woman is swimming nude! "Dude, where's the power for the filters and lights coming from if the world is over?" you might well ask--but don't expect an answer, since nobody talks.

As the Man watches from behind some palm leaves--which he sometimes rustles meaningfully--another naked woman joins the first for a dip, which quickly becomes an aquatic lesbonic sex-up. This goes on for quite some time--not that I'm complaining--but comes to a surprising end when the first water nymph goes down below the water line to pleasure her lover, who holds her there with her strong thighs until she drowns! (And from the sadistic look on the survivor's face, this was clearly the intended result.) Our Man zips up and freaks (the fuck) out, then runs weeping from the scene--as would we all.

Fifteen minutes now. Try to keep up.

When she was bad, she was horrid.

And so the movie goes--we traverse the post-Apocalyptic landscape with our portly, hollow-eyed hero, and through him we discover just how far into savagery the human race descends without the burden of the Social Contract to keep us in line. At his next stop he spies on an agricultural couple who have vegetables, livestock, and a beautiful slave woman (Danielle Detremmerie) in a chicken-wire pen. The bald, shirtless Farmer leads Slave Woman around on a swing-set chain, and periodically takes advantage of her from behind as she bends at the waist to weed the cucumbers. The girl submits without a struggle, used to this treatment. The Farmer's wife continues feeding the chickens without batting an eye.

Later that night, while the Horny Horticulturist has more loud sex with his wife (this guy plows more than soil, if you get what I'm sayin'), the Man sneaks in to steal some food--but is quickly captured and enslaved himself! Over the following days he is whipped viciously, teamed with the girl to till the Farmer's fields--literally, not figuratively, this time--and never seems to understand that a cage made out of chicken wire and extremely thin sticks should not be an impediment to his freedom. Then again, he does get a little non-rodent grub and something to do all day, so maybe it's a measured decision. He's the Cube Monkey of the future!

"Well, we might as well face it--we're here for good. So, wanna do it?"

Eventually he does break free, however--beating his Priapic Prison Papa with a post--and takes off cross country with a sack of ham and the beautiful slave woman on his heels. At first he doesn't want to share his booty with her--nor she hers with him--but that all changes when he wanders into a cliche pool of quicksand and she pulls him out. From there on out they share and share alike, both in sustenance and sexiness.

They have sex a lot.

In fact, it becomes clear as Van Eyck draws us along that, at least according to him, when you remove all the social constructs and rules of behavior, only two things matter to the human creature: food, and fucking. And not necessarily in that order. Every vignette in the movie incorporates the two: something always gets eaten, and someone always gets fucked. (Though there's no actual food in the lesbian swimmers scene above, the previous statement still holds--IYKWIMAITYD.) This was clearly one of Eyck's main philosophical points of the movie, and his dedication to it is admirable. Sure, it's not exactly a ground-breaking anthropological theory, but it does lend the flick a certain pseudo-intellectual aspect that, if missing, would lessen its impact considerably in my humble.

The parallel lines of human desire intersect most pointedly when the Woman is captured by a hard-partying Cannibal Clan, who really enjoy playing with their food. (Ba-dump.) Later they are taken in by a group of monks who have a hot-tub in their monastery (wha?), worship a statue of a man's ass, and accept payment for their B&B services by forcing the Man to fellate them. They also sacrifice wayward travelers by cutting out their hearts and eating them, but luckily the Woman catches them at it before Manny's on the menu and they make good their escape.

Freaky Friar Loves Huffing

As the film winds down, love continues to bloom between the Man and Woman. They steal clothes from a man bearing a strangely well-stocked suitcase. They forage. They have sex. He fights off some would-be rapists, impaling one on a bed of exposed rebar. Conflict arises when they are taken in by the Castle Woman, an aristocratic Zsa-Zsa Gabor type who totes an elephant gun and has an exotic, scantily clad pianist-cum-housemaid. The Man has sex with the Castle Woman, and his jealous Woman nearly freezes herself to death in the wild out of spite. They make up, have a kid, and finally arrive at the ocean. The End--or perhaps, just perhaps, the Beginning?

The Afterman is a film made of incongruities. Whiplash editing and the lack of exposition or context make for some confusing transitions and plot-points (for instance, the Man figures out what the cannibal clan are eating well before we do, making his retching reaction explicable only in retrospect). Other times, though, the flick feels extremely well-made; some of the shots of the post-Apocalyptic desolation are quite beautiful and haunting, as when the pair hole up in a disintegrating greenhouse, or walk through a crumbling factory that feels like a ruined cathedral. The lack of explanation regarding the nature of the social downfall is often frustrating, but also frees Van Eyck to create scenes of both medieval squalor and modern opulence, which may or may not be a stab at the persistence of class consciousness even after the supporting struts are kicked away. The loosely stitched vignettes never really pretend to a coherent plot, and yet still manage to draw the viewer along as well as any carefully woven narrative thread--partly because we want to see what madness the film will throw at us next.

"Okay--whoever wants to be tonight's entree, hands up!"

As I mentioned above, the quest for sex is pervasive, and so is a strain of brutish violence, executed with special effects that gain rather than lose power by their gritty, low-rent appearance. I've no reason to think the muskrat Man-snack is not a real dead creature; similarly, when the freed cannibal captives attack their guard and graphically gouge out his eyes, I think we're looking at actual ocular orbs--though hopefully those of a sheep and not a human being. Other scenes, such as the rebar impalement, the Farmer's crushed head, and a monk who takes a pitchfork to the neck, are no less visceral. Through repetition and commitment, Van Eyck creates a believably dangerous world for his characters to navigate.

Lead actor Verbist does a fine job as the Man, who learns about this terrible new reality along with the audience. Hollow-eyed, terrified, and perpetually confused, he's pretty much the perfect stand-in for the viewer. Detremmerie is lovely and believably tough, pulling her Man out of the fire as often as he returns the favor. The rest of the cast does well too--everyone has a lean, hungry look appropriate to the material. It's a compliment to both cast and director that even without dialogue we sympathize with the characters and become invested in their plight.

When she plays Peekaboo, she plays for keeps.

In closing, The Afterman is a movie that made me wonder aloud from whence (in ye fucke) it sprung. It fascinated me, held my interest, and stayed in my brain long after the end-credits rolled. Morality play? Speculative picaresque? Blood-and-boobs exploitational drive-in fodder? Maybe all, maybe some, maybe not. But it's certainly unique in my experience, and a film I enjoyed immensely. 2.75 thumbs. If you can find a copy, check it out.

Nota Bene: according to imdb, a 25th Anniversary Edition DVD was released in 2010 at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival. Also, in 2005 Van Eyck directed Afterman 2 which has no plot description on imdb but does show Jacques Verbist returning in the cast. That's a movie I'll definitely be seeking out by hook or crook to see how, if at all, the director updated his vision.

A few more images from The Afterman (1985): 

Even after the Apocalypse, programmers are all the same.

Wheelbarrow

"You're SO lucky you're the last man on earth, buddy."

The Duke of DVD initiates another manservant.

The Louvre, circa 3535 AD.

Now THAT'S a spicy meatball!

No one steals Zsa Zsa's turnips.

 

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XTRO (1983): or, Like Father, Like Son, Like Hell

Some people are just natural-born Givers. If you go to them looking to borrow a cup of sugar, they give you the whole bag. You ask for the repayable loan of an egg, and they respond by handing you a chicken and a year's worth of feed. You send them a thank-you note for their generosity, and they reply with a thank-you for the thank-you together with a year's paid membership in the Scrumptious Chocolates of the Month club. These people give and give and give, often expecting nothing in return but the acceptance of the offered gifts. All they want is the opportunity to be the vehicle on which you ride to the sunny climes of Happiness.

Of course, these people often also have serious psychological issues.

If it were a human being, the British sci-fi WTF-stravaganza Xtro (1982, dir. Harry Bromley Davenport) would be one of these people.

We open at a country cottage not far removed from the bustling heart of London, where nurturing nice-guy dad Sam Phillips (Philip Sayer) is playing fetch with his adorable son Tony (Simon Nash) and their even-more adorable border collie Katie. Perhaps hoping to recreate his favorite scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Sam hauls back and launches the stick high over the roof of the house. He succeeds better than he could have hoped, as the stick explodes in a shower of sparks and the sky is immediately filled with blinding lights and sci-fi noises of the most sinister variety. As the sky darkens and an unnatural wind sweeps him toward the light, Sam urges his son to run for it, which (being the obedient sort) he does. Long moments later Sam is gone, leaving his son an orphan and his wife Rachel (Bernice Stegers, previously of Lamberto Bava's Macabre [1980]) back on the market.

This dog refused screen credit for this picture.

Three years pass in a jump-cut. Rachel believes Sam's disappearance to be a classic case of Spousal Abandonment, but still has filed neither a missing person's report nor divorce papers. She has not let the sheets of the marriage bed get cold, however, as she now shares her London apartment with her boyfriend Joe (Danny Brainin), a successful commercial photographer and former friend of her disappeared hubby. The lovebirds largely leave the care of young Tony to their French au pair Analise (future Bond Girl Maryam d'Abo, in her debut movie role), whose main job qualifications seem to be a terrible accent and her undeniably smokin' hawtness.* For his part, Tony has never accepted that his father just up and run-oft, and constantly looks forward to the day they will be reunited.

*Nota bene: Maryam D'Abo is the cousin once-removed of Olivia D'Abo, who made her debut as the spoiled princess in Conan the Destroyer (1984), and whom I had previously erroneously assumed to be Maryam's twin sister.

Unluckily for everyone involved, the little moppet's wishes are soon to be granted. Back in rural England, a familiar blinding light falls from the sky, depositing a pool of goop in the woods which soon coagulates into one of the freakiest extraterrestrials it's ever been my pleasure to see on the screen. You want a little practical FX post-Giger nightmare fuel? Check out THIS bad boy:

Xtrordinary

 As you might imagine, that anatomical configuration is not a particularly agile one; as a result, the space beast is quickly smacked by a Citroën doing about thirty-five down the country road. Of course the drivers--one of them sporting one of the most magnificent New-Wave Brit Mullets ever--get out to see what got all up in their grille, with predictably messy results. None the worse for wear, the creature crab-walks to a nearby cottage owned by a thirtysomething spinster. There it gains entry (apparently by teleporting into the kitchen cupboard) and rams its ovipositor in her face before collapsing in a heap of denatured ickiness, which the lady's dog helpfully starts to clean up. (Eww.)

The ickiness is just beginning, however: upon awakening an hour or so later, the woman finds herself the subject of a time-lapse short on the wonders of childbirth, as her belly swells to full 40-week distension in a matter of moments. The strain on her system is too much: she collapses on the floor, dead. Just as well, for this spares her the pain and horror of seeing a full grown man climb out of her vagina, dragging most of her meaty innards with him before gnawing through his umbilical cord with his own teeth! The filmmakers do not skimp on the caro syrup nor the sloppy sound effects, making for a gloriously gross moment of WTF.

Worst party favor ever.

Of course the newborn manchild is Sam, who has been a resident alien on the alien planet since his abduction. ("I had to be...changed...so I could live there!" he later explains.) Now back in roughly human form, he quickly finds his way back to London and insinuates himself into his estranged family's life, claiming no memory of the intervening three years. Tony is the only one happy to see him. Rachel is understandably torn, and Joe struts around taunting his rival with public displays of affection toward his wife, like an alpha dog marking out territory. Still, Rachel thinks, no sense involving medical professionals (or the POLICE) in all this; instead, she invites Sam to stay at the apartment with them until they can sort things out.

This gives Sam the opportunity to start working on his real objective: apparently he's more than happy being a Double-Jointed Killbeast from Planet Yog, but can't go another space year without his dearly beloved son at his side. Left alone with the boy, Sam gives Tony a love bite on the neck--a visual that would be icky even if it weren't for the body-horror effects--which imparts to the boy some of Dad's alien abilities. What kind of abilities, you may well ask? Well, how about the ability, through simple concentration, to make anything he can imagine become real?** Talk about your fringe benefits!

Submitted without comment.

**This explains, one assumes, how Sam was able to teleport into his doomed baby-momma's house earlier--though it sheds no light on why, this being the case, Sam didn't just concentrate on coming to Earth already in human form, or better yet simply imagine Tony on the alien ship with him and have done with it.


The Xtro train has never had a firm grip on the narrative rails since the stick exploded in scene one, but here it really jumps them for good--or rather, points the engine upward and rockets straight into the outer BatShittosphere. Little Tony quickly crosses over into "It's a Good Life" territory, bringing his toy soldier to life to wreak vengeance on a meddlesome neighbor, materializing a live panther in his room, and animating a wooden clown to be his accomplice in evil! (The "real" clown is played by Peter Mandell, a Little Person in exactly the type of role Peter Dinklage hilariously vented on in Tom DeCillo's Living in Oblivion [1995].)

Even though this is far afield from the story's beginnings in Alien Abduction territory, it actually fits in to film better than you'd think. The whole movie has had an odd, otherworldly quality. Scenes shift from day to night and back with abandon. Night scenes are lit brightly from impossible sources. Chunks of context are missing or never existed. Murders happen, and no one seems to notice or care, much less phone the police. Characters speak their lines in a somnolent daze, and motivation is the merest afterthought, when it's thought of at all. In a way, the entire movie has played like an extended dream sequence--like Twilight Zone without restraint, or Tim Burton without horizontal stripes.

"If only Olaf could see me now!"

Tired of her waffling, Joe moves out in a huff, leaving Sam and Rachel to salvage their interspecies marriage. Those two head out to the cottage where it all began, leaving Tony with Analise. Using his alien mind powers and dwarf-clown henchman, Tony kills his keeper's boyfriend and knocks the French girl unconscious before infecting her with his alien cooties in another uncomfortably sexual, age-inappropriate scene. Becoming more and more alien, Tony cocoons Analise up in the bathroom and makes her a Cronenbergian egg-laying machine, then tricks Joe into taking him to the cottage.

Meanwhile (and with absolutely no buildup other than a jump-cut), Sam and Rachel are rekindling their physical relationship (like rabid minx). Unfortunately Sam's alien physiology  causes him to have an allergic reaction to Rachel's sex stank, the symptoms of which include ruptured back lesions and acute horrifying ugliness. Joe shows up and is dealt with via sonic scream, and the reunited father and son walk into the woods, sloughing skin as they go, to be taken back into the mother ship. Either in shock or not too bothered (it's hard to tell), Rachel goes back to the London apartment, where a dwarf, a live panther and one last icky surprise await her. And Fin.

"You've got to be fuckin' kidding me."

Parishioners, Xtro is a movie that delivers the goods, and throws in a bunch of extra snack crackers you didn't even know you  were hungry for. The effects are all practical and wonderfully disgusting, and the creature design is pretty great too. The acting is nothing to write home about, though the actors themselves are probably less to blame than the writer and director on that count. Still, even though the script is all over the place, there's just so much happening at all times it's hard to get too upset about. All the actors seem admirably committed, though, with special props to Maryam D'Abo, who provides some high-quality nekkidity more than once. The sythesizer score (also by director Davenport) made me want to puncture my own eardrums with Q-Tips, but given the unrelenting weirdness of the piece, I wondered if perhaps this was by design.

In closing, if you can just shut off your logic centers and let the MADness wash over you, you'll have a great time with this one. Gory, crazy, entertaining and never dull, Xtro deserves a place at the table with 80s scifi insanities like Inseminoid and Galaxy of Terror. 3 Thumbs. Seek it out, and let Xtro make you happy. That's all it wants!

More photos from XTRO (1982):

Xtro Alpo

Didn't figure on this much action

"DWARF FROM ABOVE!"

"You know the rules, Sam. You lost at Connect Four. Get suckin'!"

"What the fuck am I doing here?"

"Mommy! Give us a kiss!"

Indecent Xposure

 

"OBEY!"

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DVD Review: BRAIN DEAD (2007)

Director Kevin S. Tenney should be no stranger to fans of B-movie horror. In his more than two decades as a filmmaker, he has helmed such cheesetastic shlock-fests as Witchboard (1986), Night of the Demons (1986), The Cellar (1989), and Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway (1993). While these movies perhaps fail to earn a spot on most movie lovers' Top Ten lists, in most cases they succeed in delivering a goofy, goopy good time in the finest tradition of late 20th-century video horror.

Since Tenney was also the man at the helm for one of the Vicar's personal favorite entries in the mid-90s killer-doll boom--the relatively unknown and underrated 1996 effort Pinocchio's Revenge--I was intrigued to see what the director had been up to lately. And thanks to Breaking Glass Pictures' recent DVD release of Tenney's shot-on-video sci-fi/zombie comedy Brain Dead (2007), now I know.

The story here is nothing particularly new: while fishing with his drinking buddies in a remote cabin, an unlucky sportsman is nailed in the noggin with a falling asteroid. Unfortunately for the human race generally and this fisherman in particular, the space rock is carrying a worm-like, half-liquid parasite that quickly takes control of his gray matter and sends him on a murderous brain-eating rampage.

In a nearby rural town, vehicular scofflaw Clarence Singer (Joshua Benton) is chained Defiant Ones-style to captured murderer Bob Jules (David Crane), to be transported to the Big House in a bigger county. At the same time, standard-issue hypocritial minister Reverend Farnsworth (Parks and Recreations' Andy Forrest) is travelling through town with buxom secretary Amy Smoots (Cristina Tiberia), looking for a good spot to expiate his impure thoughts about the girl. Meanwhile, city girl Sherry Morgan (Sarah Grant Brendecke) and her closeted lesbian sorority sister Claudia Bush (Michelle Tomlinson) are hiking through the wilderness, lost thanks to Claudia's less-than-stellar map-reading skills. (Guess she earned her merit badges in other areas, IYKWIMAITYD.) Finally, Park Ranger Shelly (a very Darryl Hanna-esque Tess McVicker) answers a call from the fisherman's worried wife and heads out to the cabin to check on him for her.

Of course through a series of misadventures and coincidental cataclysms all of the above characters soon find themselves holed up in the fishing cabin where the monster has made its nest, forced to deal with both the extraterrestrial terror outside and the increasingly unhinged killer Bob. Friendships are forged, romances bloom, and comeuppances are received as the film rushes--or rather saunters--to its expectedly gory conclusion.

"You know, this has got me thinkin'..."

Whether you enjoy Brain Dead or not will depend largely on how well you like your cheese, and whether you're willing to put up with a certain amount of filler in between delicious bites. That filler consists mostly of forced, "witty" dialogue between various combinations of characters, all spoken by actors who for the most part have neither the dramatic nor comedic chops to make them work. Perhaps its by design that none of the characters react to their situation with anything like normal human responses, as no one in front of or behind the camera seems to be taking it particularly seriously--but this is one of those cases where the intended comedy is severely undercut by the characters being in on the joke. At times I half expected the score to be drowned out by a canned laugh track and a whimsical trombone lick--that dire.

But then there's the cheese--and for connoisseurs of the stuff, it's of a fairly high grade. While the meteor attack scenes boast some truly horrible CG that looks like it was done by a 12 year old on his MacBook, the makeup and gore effects are all practical, and pretty satisfying. The mutated zombie/parasite hosts are nicely done, each with his own particular look and personality. And when the space zombies attack, Tenney doesn't hold back: eyes are gouged out, holes are punched through faces, and craniums are split like walnut shells to get at the spongy pink brains within--which always come out in one piece, handy for snacking! The episodes of carnage are too few in my opinion--we could have lost several scenes of unfunny dialogue and replaced them with monster grue and everyone would have been a lot happier--but the ones we get have a gloriously gory 80s sensibility that many mad movie fans will be cheering.

The 2010 "Three Stooges" Reboot

So you've got beasts and blood, but what about boobs? Tenney doesn't skimp on that staple either: the flesh on display is plentiful and varied, as none of the actresses are shy about shedding their summer dress in the name of Art. It's all modelling stuff with no sex scenes--sorry, pervs--but there is one startling effect wherein a bit of the alien goo finds a way into the cabin using the old Trojan Horse technique...though it ain't no horse, if you get my drift. (The graphic close-up here is prosthetic--I hope--but nonetheless effective for it.)

The acting is mostly bad, as I said: Sarah Grant-Brendecke has a certain charisma over and above her curvy pin-up gorgeousness, and comes off the best of the lot; no one else really distinguishes him or herself. Directorially Tenney lets the pacing drag quite a bit, but the monster and gore scenes have an undeniable energy, and die-hard 80s horror fiends should be able to spot a few homages to flicks of the era. (I counted at least three Evil Dead nods, for instance.) And I'd be remiss not to mention that legendary schlock director Jim Wynorski has a cameo as Sheriff Bodine, so watch for that.

DVD extras will include commentary by Tenney and the cast, a behind-the-scenes featurette, deleted scenes and bloopers, and trailers, but were not available on the review copy I received.

Brain Dead isn't going to change anyone's life, and probably won't better anyone's opinion of Tenney--but it shouldn't harm his reputation either. If you're looking for something to pass the time--something with lots of gore and nudity that doesn't ask too much of your higher thinking functions--then this one fits the bill. 2 thumbs. 

I can get behind it.

Breaking Glass Pictures provided a copy of this movie to MMMMMovies for review purposes.

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Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (1987): or, The Most Dangerous Gams

If you've been playing along at home this week, you may have noticed my last few entries have resulted in rather lackluster ratings. Trust me, I'm as concerned about it as you are. I know you come here for enthusiastic celebration of the most gleefully nonsensical stuff I can clap my eyeballs on, and to tell you the truth, that's why I keep coming too. (So to speak.) And yet every now and then I hit a lull. It's the nature of the game, I know--peaks and valleys, waves and trenches, smooth and crunchy. And yet whenever it happens, I can't help facing my deepest fear: have I run out of glee? Am I becoming jaded? Has the madnness well finally gushed its last gusher? What can I do to get back in the saddle and ride?

All I can say is, thank you, silly 80s sci-fi. It's not the first time you've pulled me back from the brink, and I'm sure it will not be the last.

Ken Dixon's 1987 sci-fi effort Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity opens on a dark, jungly planet, where bodaciously breasted babe is being stalked through the woods by a reject from the Mos Eisley Cantina sequence. We know this is a primitive world, because the girl is barefoot and wearing a beige suede bikini with jaggedly scissored edging, which is of course the universal indicator of "savagery."

Thanks to centuries of evolution, the Savage Girl is perfectly camouflaged among the Blooming Bazonga Bushes.

After she goes out of her way to trip over an easily avoidable root tendril, it looks like our savage sweetie is done for. Her pursuer fires a warning shot--or else needs to get his laser sights realigned--but before he can finish the job, is himself blown away by a Tall Dark Stranger who steps out of the mist in a nick of time. She's saved! Except--not.

Next we join another primitive swimwear model, Daria (Elizabeth Kaitan) chained in the cargo hold of a Space Slave Ship, along with similarly Savage Bikini-Clad captive Tisa (Cindy Beal). Despite Tisa's assurances that there's no way out, and "The only chance we've got is no chance at all!", Daria uses her prodigious upper body strength to yank the electronically-controlled chain out of its moorings. (Guess it's all muscle behind those beige suede triangles!) Then, showing she paid attention at Savage World Polytech, Daria theorizes, "If we can reverse the polarity on these cuffs...the only thing standing between us and freedom is stealing a starship!"

At this point, a little less than four minutes in, the Boom Mic Operator decides he's had enough of Daria's scene-hogging:

Maybe it's her curling iron.

After taking out two of the world's fattest stormtroopers, Daria and Tisa readily hotwire a life boat and blast out into the bleak nothingness of space. With nothing around for millions of light years and barely enough fuel for a three-hour tour, it looks like our Slave Girls (who were never really slaves, if you want to get technical, although they *were* chained...which is a cinematic device your ever-loving Vicar will never complain about) look like they've bought a one-way ticket back to the Infinity they hoped they'd moved beyond. But before you can say "Deus Ex Tractor Beam!" the girls' ship is yanked down to a seemingly deserted planet. They crash into the sea, and Daria washes up on the rocky shore, dazed but alive. Guess it was just as well she wore her Savage Bathing Suit.

She wanders into a cave, which leads to a door, which in turn leads into the British Museum of Natural History--wait, no, it's just the opulently decked-out mansion of Zed (Don Scribner), the owner and sole permanent resident of the island on which Daria finds herself. Non-permanent residents include Tisa, who washed up on a different beach long enough ago to have traded her Savage Bikini for a gauzy black negligee (again, no complaints), and siblings Rik and Shala (Carl Horner and DTV softcore legend Brinke Stevens), who are also castaways thanks to a mysterious shipwrecking. All of them are more than happy to accept Zed's hospitality, despite his Ominous Leather Pants, Sinister Leather Boots, and the fact he apparently shares his genetic code with Patrick Bateman.

"I like to dissect girls. Did you know that I'm quite insane?"

Zed is a hunter by avocation (hence the house full of gigantic stuffed hunting trophies), and if you've seen any jungle adventure movies since around 1940 you're already several steps ahead of the case. Yes, it's yet another version of that endlessly exploitable source text, The Most Dangerous Game: Zed is responsible for his guest's shipwrecks, and intends to make them all his prey, thereafter mounting their heads (not that way...well, okay, maybe) in his gruesome Private Trophy Room. Can Daria and company turn the tables on their insane host, and turn the Hunter into the Hunted? Are they truly alone on the island, or does something else lurk in the jungle shadows? And even if they survive, how will they ever get off this godforsaken space-rock?

Of course none of that really matters, because it's all just window dressing for what this movie is really all about:

"But..."

"But..."

"But me no butts!"

"Wait, you didn't give me time to turn around!"

As a 1980s Sexiness Time Capsule, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity receives full marks. This flick has more cheesecake than a Pâtisserie Grand Opening. In addition to the aforementioned and formidable Savage Bikinis, Daria and Tisa also spend a lot of time wandering around Zed's castle in gauzy lingerie and slinky evening gowns, which would indicate that some of Zed's former victims must have hailed from the Petticoat Planet. There's a fair amount of nekkidity as well, as when Tisa goes skinny dipping in order to distract Zed's robot guards Vak and Krel (and it works!), or when Rik and Daria pretend to be making love to cover up their attempted escape (which ruse thankfully and hilariously segues into actual body-bonding). But the standout sequence is a bondage-tinged scene in Zed's trophy room, where the hunter takes a chained Shala for his spoils. (Brinke Stevens chained to a pillar and later held down on a stone altar by Vak the Mechano-Perv? You have my attention, sir!)

If T&A isn't your thing (wha?), fear not. For cheese connoiseurs, the flick likewise delivers the gouda. Listening to our Slave Girls deliver technobabble like "I'll lock the beam of the directional grid into the hyperdrive system!"--all with the cadence and intonation of a Valley Girl reading a Golden Book three divisions above comprehension level--is a joy not to be underestimated. Even the non-scientific dialogue has a similar charm, as when Daria observes, "She sacrificed herself for me...Life certainly weaves a twisted tapestry!" Best is after Rik and Daria's love scene, which boasts some of the most cheesetastic dialogue it's been my pleasure to gnosh in a while:

Rik: "Man and woman...what a great concept!"
Daria: "Now I know what I'm fighting for!"
Rik: "If I died today, I wouldn't complain!"
Daria: "You made me feel alive again!"

And it goes on, praise the powers that be.

Being a life-model for Frank Franzetta was lucrative, but demanding.

Cheese of the Sci-fi flavor is here in abundance as well. Vak and Krel are amazing androids. They seem to be envisioned as some sort of steampunk cyborgs--the cacaphony of creaking joints and valve pressure releases when either makes the slightest movement makes them the least stealthy hunting companions in the galaxy, but strangely this doesn't hinder their kill rate. Their personalities are a cross between the Terminator and C3P0--apart from the Horniness AI Chip, they are also extremely snippy with one another, getting into a hilarious argument about who should be checking the security measures at the castle and who should stay to watch Tisa play nude in the waves. The spaceship models, laser battles, and other effects are mid-range, and one hunt sequence even features a spider web trap right out of The Horrors of Spider Island--dissapointingly without a spider, however.

For all that, though, the movie is fairly well-made on a technical level. The lighting is extremely well-done: scenes in Zed's mansion have a warm, golden glow that lends a high-budget sheen to the proceedings, and the matte-painting sets and occasional Franzetta Fantasy Poses proudly fly the b-movie banner. I admit I didn't expect the movie to be as accomplished looking as it was, particularly after the afore-noted Boom Mike Cameo, but aside from that little gaffe, the flick looks great. And the bombastic, sometimes intrusive score by Carl Dante recalls the adventure flicks on which the film is partly based, and ups the fun level another notch.

Better quit while you're a head.

While perhaps not an out-and-out classic, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity never forgets what it's there to do--i.e., entertain, divert, and titillate--and for me it achieves those modest goals with a certain amount of flair and elan. It's not 2001: A Space Odyssey, or even Galaxy of Terror, but what it IS is a whole lot of fun. 2.5 Thumbs--and thanks again.

Nota bene: according to imdb trivia, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity holds the distinction of having been condemned as 'indecent' on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1992 by Senator Jesse Helms. Maybe he didn't actually watch the film, but...the very idea of Helms actually sitting down to screen Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, a perma-shock look on his face the whole runtime, is just so goddamn beautiful it HAS to be true.


A few more images from Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (1987):

Domo Arigato


Joe Eszterhas' A Night at the Museum

Zed is challenged by Rubik's Hypercube

"Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to the GWAR auditions?"

Heavy Metal

A slow night at the Duchy

"Is that a telescope in your pants, or...what? It is? Oh."

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