Midnight

Midnight Directed By John Russo, Starring Melanie Verlin (1982).

I first saw the poster for this film in Tom Savini's Grande Illusions. I would pour over that incredible book, read it cover to cover and then feel sick afterwards from the macabre-ness, but I always came back for more. At that age (I was probably 12), I just started my addiction to gore movies and horror special effects, after first seeing the poster in the book, it dawned on me that this John Russo film has eluded me for a long time. I'm not sure why I never checked it out, because it has all kinds of talented people related to the world of George Romero. You've got Tom Savini, Bill Hinzman, John Amplas and writer/director John Russo, who along with Hinzman famously played a walking corpse in a certain seminal 1968 film about the undead. It even has Lawrence Tierney as a lecherous, incestuous cop.

   Maybe I avoided it because somehow I knew it could never live up to that ghastly poster. Midnight is pretty cheesy and I had high hopes for the film, but I guess my intuition was sharp because it's totally weak.

   Nancy, a Catholic girl who looks like a butch lesbian 80's McDonalds crew worker is having major problems with staying faithful to her religion. Melanie Verlin who plays Nancy later on showed up in Monkey Shines. Sometimes when Nancy wears a vest and lady suit she looks like Robin Zander from Cheap Trick.

The Dream Police, NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH

   Her stepfather played by Tierney, is a drooling creepy perv who almost gets into her 
high-wasted pants, but is knocked out by a minuscule boombox (he must have a fontanelle that hasn't harden over from birth still on top of his head). We also get a Satanic cult who think anyone not in their flock is a Demon and should be put to death. This concept would later be taken for Bill Paxton's Frailty, with more effective results. 

I love this Church of Satan home kit for tweens

   The awkward children (one has a Sharpie pentagram drawn on her forehead) are priceless. There's migraine inducing tropical incidental music that reminds me of the scene in Hardcore when they play the snuff film and crank up that weird Mexicali soundtrack.

   After Nancy is almost raped by her stepdad, who's a cop, she starts hitching a ride. Midnight makes it seem like the highways are crawling with drooling men in search of jailbait and maybe they were in 80s Pittsburgh. Two dudes in a van named Hank and Tom offer to take her to California and she gets in. There's this hokey montage song that sounds like a female Jimmy Buffet. This state must have some of the worst cheap local bands in the U.S.! (case in point, the lounge vocals found later on the Day of the Dead score). So far the most horrific aspect of this film is the music! They fill up at a gas station where a black preacher (Bob Johnson) and his daughter (Lachele Carl) warn them not to stop, because dead bodies have been popping up around town. The poor preacher goes to visit his wife's gravesite and is attacked by a giant fat guy in plaid and overalls.

There's also a bunch of racist hillbillies that fuck around with the van because Hank, one of the passengers is black. This film's alternate title was Backwoods Massacre (which would've been a great way to cash in on some of that Leatherface money)! The poor excuse for Gunnar Hansen in this film is the ludicrous Cyrus, who wields a big knife and is about as terrifying as Larry The Cable Guy.

   

Whatta Hipster Doofus

Atheists crave the noncommittal taste of Dr. Pepper

   It turns out Hank and Tom are grocery thieves who go shopping then not pay. They are about as badass as Pee Wee Herman's convict friend Mickey, who got arrested for cutting off the label on a mattress. Nancy is their accomplice, but doesn't condone the robbery, she's so fucking pious. They outrun the police and almost crush Cyrus the fat galoot who murdered the preacher and drowned his daughter. He hides out in the shadows in the forest and when he laughs, one character thinks it's a hyena. 

I'm glad this game of strip poker is progressing along very slowly

   Abraham (John Amplas) and his brother Luke (Greg Besnak) who has a sweet handlebar mustache show up as a fake cops who pin the murders on the dudes from the van. The travelers end up dead by these redneck pigs and Nancy gets abducted and put in a dog crate. It's all a set up because the two cops and the fat mongoloid are all related in a Texas Chainsaw style family. The Savini effects are pretty much non existent, which is seriously disappointing.

For the last time I don't know Bun E. Carlos

   At midnight something crazy happens--excited? Something might happen in this film! The kids from the beginning are the Chainsaw-esque family, they sacrifice victims and feed the blood to their mother. The mom is a John Dugan as Grampa ancient living corpse type (the make-up is so lame that the dead women in Don't Go in the House outshine whichever make-up artist actually worked on this (I cant imagine Savini really handled the effects)!

I would say this is a Nightmares in a Damaged Brain scenario where he was on the set briefly and told the effects crew what to do, but all the Romero people are involved. I can't figure out why Midnight is so dull, it's watchable in a train wreck sort of way, but sad because I respect the people who made it. 

here let me brush your teeth with cold steel

   John Amplas and Lawrence Tierney can do no wrong in my book and bring some life to this flavorless piece of work. Nancy incessantly prays in her dog cage and wonders if "God is testing her faith". The satanic prayers from the ghouls and her heavenly ones start intersecting. One girl tries to mock her faith, which only makes her believe more. Nancy's dad shows up to rescue her, but it's funny because we all know his intentions are impure. I've seen so many limp wristed bubblegum movies on Satanism lately, somebody out there recommend a good one already or I might give up on the sub genre all together! Speaking of Bubblegum metal there's a great one-man band that sounds exactly like Venom called Midnight, check them out!

    There was actually a Midnight 2 that came out in 1993, also written and directed by Russo.  John Russo even has a Kickstarter video to remake the original Midnight, which will include Gwar (obviously Oderus will be there in spirit). Even though this film is clunky, it seems like Russo used most of the budget to pay Tierney, maybe it just needs a do-over?

Is that Tarantino on the line?

    In any case I support Russo, maybe he can pull it off, or it could be some kind of George Lucas obsession that should be buried forever and not receive a green light. My favorite thing about Midnight was the poster art and some of the actors like Amplas and Tierney, the rest was pretty forgettable. I hate to bad mouth this film, because it's made by people I respect and admire but I can't give it a positive review. The same thing happened to me with Deathdream, which didn't impress me or Skunkape all that much and we both wondered what other people saw in it. It's all subjective though, check out Midnight for yourself and see what you think.

Here's that Kickstarter vid 

Pieces

Pieces (Mil gritos tiene la noche or 1000 cries is the night) Directed By JP Simon starring Christopher George (1982).

Last year I reviewed something totally off the cuff and Halloween unrelated (but no less horrific and terrifying). That film was Alan Clarke's SCUM, a visceral unnerving portrayal of English borstals. This year after the onslaught of Asian flicks that have been invading the blog, I decided to take one day of rest and bring them back later, right now its time for some pieta stuffed with entrails and book learning or Juan Piquer Simon's classic Pieces!

   When I first saw this movie as a youngster I didn't get it and turned it off. All I knew about it was that Paul "Bluto" Smith (who kinda looks like my dad) was chopping up co-eds with a chainsaw at a college. This was during the heyday of 80's snuff scare, Reagan religious hysteria and it was covered in enough controversy which made me want to not revisit it for a long time or maybe I just wasn't ready.

    Then a bunch of shit happened, I went to community college and after the Grindhouse Releasing ultimate version came out, I thought I'd give it another shot, since it was in a less fuzzy condition than the video tape I had seen. That's when I fell in love and now treasure it as one of my favorite slasher flicks! There's two different audio tracks that have separate music (I like the Spanish version soundtrack better than the CAM library score) but the badly dubbed version is essential!

    At no point should there be logic applied to anything in this film, that would unravel it like a pathetic naked mummy. 

   In Boston 1942 a young boy's prude mother freaks out when she finds him putting together a naked girl puzzle. The same thing happened to me when my mother saw an ad for The Gore Gore Girls in Fangoria that showed nipples, accept I didn't hack her to bits (or "pieces") like this rambunctious pint sized maniac did! 

   Years later I went to CCSF, which resembles the campus in this film, there's a pool, a tennis court and lunatics in charge of the asylum.

   Now in present day 1982, a cute skater girl gets decapitated in broad daylight on the lawn by a gardener with a chainsaw.  

Yawn, I wish I had some hotdogs to cook on my desk

   Exploitation vet Christopher George (The Exterminator, Enter The Ninja) and his real wife Lynda Day George show up to investigate. They always work together as a package actor deal I'm assuming. Paul L. Smith is seen polishing a huge chainsaw and case closed, he seems to be the only murder suspect, but OH SHIT! after he's taken away, gruesome murders keep happening. The killer is shown in a silhouette of a hat and cloak that reminded me of those 80's "neighborhood watch" signs.

Have you seen this man? call Mcgruff the crime dog

   In the world of Pieces, five minutes will go by before a naked girl shows full bush and than is dismembered in the ghastliest way possible. All the students are overly exaggerated and Simon is clearly poking fun at the genre (which was still in its infancy in 1982). The students say random things like "there's nothing better than smoking pot and fucking on a water bed". Kendell (Ian Sera) a winter wonderland sweater sportin moppet and his nerdy pal Goggles (or sometimes Swartz) help solve the case. The teachers are totally inept and the shrimpy Dean played by Edmund Purdom seems the one least likely to handle a chainsaw and lug around garbage bags full of mangled body parts, but just wait!

I'm holding this for a friend I swear!

Kendell works with Mary (Lynda George), who goes undercover as a tennis instructor, for what reason I have no idea! She does run into a fake Bruce Lee impersonator and almost gets pummeled to death! Mission accomplished!

I suspect it was Colonel Mustard in the conservatory 

   If you like busty girls in leotards who get naked and than immediately die in the most hideous way, this is the movie for you!! There's an over the top waterbed murder that boils down to the entire slasher genre in one scene, a misogynistic orgy of cathartic violence and catholic repression. Lucio Fulci accused Friday The 13th of that crime before anyone and he was right. Simon however mentions in the DVD interviews, that he was more influenced by Mario Bava. In the early 80's the film was accused of hard edged misogyny and people wrote "sexist pigs" on the poster in lipstick, Simon mentions this in the DVD extras interview. Pieces is impossible to take seriously because the splatter is thick with irony!    

Dusty old bones full of green dust

   So after each murder the killer assembles another piece in his rusty old jigsaw puzzle that he had as a child. When they finally reveal the killer, I was flabbergasted! I mean there's no way he could hack and dismember with such force, using those frail boney hands and fingers (don't worry I'm not spoiling it this time, for those who haven't seen the big reveal). Lynda Day George howling in an awkward fashion BASTARD! is made for a goofy Youtube moment! I also love how after everything is wrapped up and solved, a dick grabbing Franken-corpse pops out of the closet and turns Kendell from man to female!  
The director J.P. Simon in the Grindhouse interview extras mentions that after SuperSonic Man (which just recieved a Rifftrax treatment), he hooked up with producer Steve Minasian and they exploited King Frat together in the Spanish market! 
Available to stream on Huluplus and Buy the DVD, which is packed with tons of vital extras
Remember, You Don't Have to Go to Texas, but you can't stay here (or whatever that tagline was)! 
WATCH HERE 
OR BUY
   

Slaughterhouse

Slaughterhouse Directed By Rick Roessler Starring a bunch of people who were never seen or heard from again. (1987).
What's worse than a remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a reboot or that last 3D Chainsaw flick? A fake Texas Chainsaw! In some cases when done right, it turns out brilliantly, like say Motel Hell (which is almost a separate entity concerning "Gein-esque" lovable inbred cannibals). Meet one of the least memorable poseur Leatherface type characters ever to grace the screen since Stitcho The Clown, Buddy Bacon! He looks like the turd baby of Cal from Sanford and Porkins from Star Wars!

This Cal not appearing in tonights feature

   He wears chains and eyeliner like an 80's WWF wrestler and sleeps with hogs in a pig pen. The credit music sounds like something out of a Sherwood Swartz production and there is authentic pig butchering footage (don't get too excited, because it's all downhill from here on out)!
   This is one of the most exhausting films, I've seen in recent memory, it's just soul crushing and miserable! None of the forty year olds pretending to be high school kids add any development to the storyline, as they drive around, hang out in restaurants and cause trouble for the local sheriff, ZZZZZZ, I'm getting sleepy as I write this!
   There's a wacky DJ who periodically hams it up (Gawfaw, get it)? He promotes his generic dance party for the grand finale at the Big Pig Out! The teens do make it over there and start gyrating to fake REO Speedwagon tunes, Oh Joy! This film is weak as shit!
   The premise of former meat packing plant titans: The Bacon Family, whining about automatic butcher machines forcing them out of a work is pretty slim, even for a low budget dull slasher flick! Eventually the meat hooks start piercing flesh and bone and the men trying to take over The Bacon factory all go down one by one. The pacing is like a wanna-be Friday The 13th and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone to identify or care about in this flick. They all deliver the most atrociously wooden acting skills and sadly none of them die creatively (at least in a real slasher movie, that's something to look forward too)! If Roessler had successfully ripped off TCM, he might have been as wealthy as Rob Zombie (who's made a killing out of stealing from Tobe Hooper's seminal classic).
I was completely bamboozled by the misleading trailer which made it look like Cannonball Run with a tubby Ed Gein behind the wheel.
   Chas wrote about it in Deep Red, as an attempt to create some buzz, I have the feeling he'd support almost anything "Chainsaw" related, case in point HollyWood Chainsaw Hookers being in the catalog. I can't fault the man for that, Leatherface hadn't been put through the ringer just yet! And even though it looked stupid, sometimes you gotta put on the blinders and bite the bullet, especially if someone you trust convinces you. Roessler really shelled out some bucks for the promotion machine (check out this clever No Smoking Ad).

Roessler, Joe Barton who played Buddy Bacon and everyone else involved fell off the face of the earth and were never heard from again, lucky us!
This film should join other forgotten filth in the landfill of rarities no one should unearth or bother to remember. Totally unrewarding, migraine inducing slop, save your eyeballs and watch anything else!
Use As A DoorStop!