Drunken Weekend Review Challenge

This weekend, Karl and I will be working together to both view and review some films for the ol' site here. We may even get around to 'shopping up some images of our new Treehorn awards.

I have issued the challenge to both of us to quickly review the films right from the couch as the credits roll. We may sacrifice some quality for quantity here, but hell... the site's been pretty slow recently.

Oh and we're drinking, too. Did I really need to clarify that? So don't expect expertly crafted metaphors or AFI quality critiques. The next few days will probably see the site populated with Mr. Skin-esque assessments. C'est la vie.

One Eyed Monster (2008)

From the Netflix synopsis:
“Stranded by a storm, the cast and crew of a porn flick fall prey to a vicious killer when Ron's (Jeremy) dismembered member is possessed by a bloodthirsty alien. Now they'll have to destroy the slithering monster before it spreads its deadly seed across the world.”

Now that sounds like a perfect Dudes of Horror movie, and the title suggests nothing less than 5 George potential. But sadly, as with most things which seem to be too good to be true, this movie disappoints on almost every level.

It starts with the typical horror movie setup, a bunch of people (porn movie crew) heading to a remote area (mountaintop lodge) that becomes even more isolated (snow storm, no cell phone reception), and introduction of a threat (Ron Jeremy’s detatched alien-possessed hog).

It progresses in typical fashion, the space wang killing each person as they become separated from the rest of the crew (The separate member killing each member separately?), and finishes in a final confrontation (death by Kegels).

So we have an interesting story, standard setup, but here is where the movie loses its footing. There is almost no blood in this movie. 8 people die by an E.T. dongmonster and there is nary a significant splatter to be found, of any bodily fluid for that matter. (Well OK, there is one dribble on a woman’s shoulder just before it attacks her from the rafters.)

I guess they either blew all their budget (shot their wad?) on their cast (all virtual unknowns, with the exceptions of porn icons Ron Jeremy, Veronica Hart, and character actor Charles Napier) or they just didn’t know any good effects people. There are a few effects (a few people get choked out by Ron’s shillelagh), but they are very few and far between. Charles Napier does have a pretty good monologue in the movie about his time in ‘Nam and a previous scrape with a killer schlong, so money well spent on him at least.

The other blatantly missing factor is flesh. In a horror movie which takes place at a remote porn set, all women in the movie should be naked multiple times. That is just a motherfuckin’ fact. OEM has one actress get nekkid. Once. By herself. Briefly.

This movie struck me as something that should have been made by Troma. This sort movie is very much in their purview (perv-view?). They could have supplied what this movie needed in buckets: gooey, gross, bloody, naked, and funny. Without that it stands as merely another example of wasted potential.

1 George and a Flaccid Treehorn

Question for the Dudes (and Dudess)

Should the Jesus request that her mother send her copy of Deathbed for an August gathering? (I believe there was some talk of Jeff visiting in early August, but the Jesus will be sadly unable to attend.) A Karl's birthday / HoPoTo gathering could be fun.

I promise to work on my Captivity review, but I need to make a phone call first.

These Vampires Don’t Sparkle.

Let the Right One In.

Here's what Netflix has to say about it: "Twelve-year-old Oskar, the constant target of bullies, spends him time plotting revenge and collecting news items about the grisly murders plaguing his town. Things change for Oskar when he meets new girl, Eli, a misfit vampire who steals his heart. As a serial killer continues to prey on teen boys in the village outside Stockholm, Sweden, Eli helps Oskar find the courage to stand up to his tormentors."

My favorite line of the Netflix review "a misfit vampire steals his heart." Really, Netflix, that's what you're going with? Are you trying to curry the favor of the 'tween crowd searching for a new Bella & Edward. Ugh. It's Monday, and I really don't have the energy to rustle up the righteous indignation the Netflix review needs.

Let the Right One In is unlike any vampire movie I've seen. In fact, I learned a few new "facts" about vampires. I also think it's mislabeled as a horror movie. It's a beautifully shot, sweet and tender coming of age story, where one of the lead characters just happens to be a vampire.

Oskar hasn't had it easy, his parents are divorced, his dad is probably gay, Mom isn't around all that much. Added to this stew is the fact that some bastard kid has decided that Oskar is the perfect kid to kick around (let's pause for a moment to question why Oskar - the Bully's minions cry the entire time they beat Oskar up? Why not get some different minions and beat your old ones?). Furthermore Oskar gets some new neighbors and some freaky shit starts to go down around town.

Oskar's new neighbor Eli hangs around in the snow without a coat, smells funny sometimes and doesn't go to school even though she's the same(ish) age as he is. Eli implores Oskar to stand up to his bully and he makes something of an effort. Emboldened, Oskar & Eli play in the school basement, Oskar decides he wants Eli to be his blood-sister, slices his hand open and his new friend freaks out and starts licking the blood puddle on the floor. Oskar begins to question his new friendship, especially her "tastes."

Eli's keeper, having gone all Two-Face is no longer in the picture and she now has the place to herself (roommates can be such a bother). Oskar & Eli hang out in her apartment, she shows him her treasures and he questions her taste for blood. Once he comes to terms with the fact his new friend is a vampire, he wants to protect her from all who wish her dead.

The final five minutes of the movie elicited an audible "awww" from The Jesus.

I'm curious to hear what Karl has to say about the movie (Karl, the Jesus and another aficionado each received a copy from Netflix within a few days of each other) upon his return from the hinterland.

I give it 3.5 George's - though it doesn't have really any "George" worthy qualifications, the story, though it worth it.

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

This is a actually a mystery/thriller, not a horror movie per se... but since it appeared in the FearNet section of Comcast's OnDemand service (and since I am trying to recover from a dearth of posts) I'm reviewing the damn thing. It starred Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Raul Julia, and Brad Dourif who were all directed by Irvin Kershner (Empire Strikes Back ring a bell?) So that's how I was suckered in, anyhow.

In hindsight, I probably should have re-watched The Virgin Witch.

John Carpenter has yet to make me his fan, and this story didn't help. To the Eyes of Jeff Horror, this seemed like a lame Hitchcock attempt... minus the clever Hitchcock ending. That being said, there is a truly creepy performance by one of the actors in the end (I'm avoiding serious spoilers.) I dug the music by Artie Kane who also scored Devil Dog, Hound of Hell (a film released on television in the same year.)

On the musically negative side we find the featured song, "Prisoner", by Barbara Streisand. It was a perfect choice of song topic for the film's audience (I wanted to be freed) but I truly can't stand that bitch. One of the producers was dating Streisand at the time and bought this script for her to star in, but she declined. Thank George for that. I could stomach Tommy Lee Jones getting busy with Faye Dunaway... but Streisand? Ugh.

The titular character, a career photographer, is cursed with seeing through the eyes of a serial killer in her nightmares. She turns a negative to a positive by using these images in her work which becomes both sensational and extremely lucrative, two adjectives that I doubt applied to the box office release of this movie. (Ok, so the film made money- but it was no Star Wars.) Her photographs are much in the same vein of those by Helmut Newton, which makes sense because many of the photos used in the movie were taken by Helmut Newton.

I slagged though this film curious to see a young Brad Dourif in his usual role as creepmeister and curious to see if the nude photographer plot device would pay off with some high grade nudity that the Eyes of a Dude could take in. (High quality, indeed, but too brief. You're much better off with Hostel.)


Brad being hot.
I had to keep my sights on the puerile aspects of the film because it wasn't doing too much to engage me as a thriller through its plot. A lot more tension could have been built by having the protagonist see herself though the eyes of the killer during a few scenes. It would have been more affecting- at least to this viewer- than multiple murder scenes composed similarly from a shot of an icepick approaching the victim's eye cut to a close-up of the eye surround by a few dabs of theatrical blood. Meh.

Two Georges for moderate levels of creep, decent production value, and a smattering of fashionista flick-tips on screen. Negative points awarded for inflicting Barbara Streisand during the credit sequences.

Habitat (1997)

I hesitate to post this here as this movie doesn’t entirely qualify for this site, but I felt compelled to, as I was led astray by the brief movie description that Netflix had for this “gem” from the 90’s. I also wanted to review this as Jeff had mentioned the dearth of horror movies from that decade in a conversation I had with him recently.

Netflix’s description of the film:
“With the Earth's ozone layer completely depleted, people must remain indoors, safe from the sun's deadly rays, in this sci-fi horror flick. Scientist Hank Symes (Tcheky Karyo), however, thinks he has a solution: a genetically altered ecosystem. But when Hank's bizarre experiment mutates both he and his family into otherworldly creatures and transforms his house into a living, breathing monster, no one is safe.”

The category that www.imdb.com has the film under is sci fi/fantasy, hmm.

Well it took waaaay to long to get to the horror elements of the movie. The movie starts as the main characters (the Symes family) are moving to a new home in a new town where scientist/hippie visionary dad can set up his new lab and hippie mom (Alice Krige) can support him and prance around in her see-through clothes.

Well, day one of moving in and dad’s new lab in the basement goes all cablooie and dad gets absorbed (literally!) into his work and becomes part of the ecosystem the house develops after the lab meltdown. The house goes all primeval forest-like. Everything is wet, and not in a good way. And dad is a swarm of bugs or something.

Well junior can’t seem to settle in, no thanks to the jerk-ass gym/boxing coach and his jerk-ass student protégés who fancy themselves the school bullies. Well they suck at it, as do just about all of the actors who aren’t the protagonist family in this movie. But he does have the hots for the coach’s daughter (Laura Harris, the snotty hottie in Dead Like Me and a lead in The Faculty), which pays off with a nice skinny dipping scene late in the movie.

So anyhew, the snooping jerk-ass locals start getting all tresspassy and affected/attacked by the dad-o-sphere jungle. Sure enough, the authorities get called in and attempt to capture/contain the problem. This does not go well. The few comparatively decent gory/horror scenes happen during this sequence. Mom gets absorbed by the house and becomes a magic swarm of flies like dad and they fly off together. Junior and coach’s daughter get immunified against the harsh effects of the ozone layer-free sun (thanks to dad-jungle) and run off to have adventures and shit, like Cain in Kung-Fu.

This Canadian production spent most of its budget on the house-jungle, which was actually semi decent. There were some CGI effects but they looked about 10 years out of date for the year in which it was made. A large portion of the movie was a crappy high-school drama. The storyline of the movie came off as a message/lesson type, but by the end of the movie, it trails off into nothing.

So on the down side you have a plethora of crappy writing, bad acting (and not so bad its good), painful CGI, and on the up side you have a pretty neat dad-jungle set and Laura Harris’ breasts.

2 Georges

Jeff's Sinister Six

Hey! It's My One Hundredth Post! What better way to celebrate than to respond to the call for an official Dudes of Horror "top ten" list? As one sixth of the crew I would only be able to vouch for about one and two-thirds films (or one-point-666) if we were to attempt some manner of official consensus. Screw that. I'm just listing mine and I'll let them list theirs. That's how we do things around here!

Furthermore, you're not getting ten out of me! Instead, I'll make the assumption that six is a nice number to settle on for the genre at hand. These are my Six Sinister Selections and I don't give a George's Ass if you don't deem them "classic" enough- I like 'em! Here they are:

Return of the Living Dead
Pumpkinhead
Evil Dead II
The Abandoned
Janghwa, Hongryeon (aka "A Tale of Two Sisters")
The Vampire Lovers

If I had to program an emergency horror fest from my private collection of DVDs that showcased what I feel are some of the best out there, these Sinister Six would be in the forefront of my mind. Have I weighed every horror film I have ever seen against one another and then consulted a complex subjective matrix of requisite qualities to determine the winners? No. Neither did I draft a panel of notable blogosphere "experts" to vote and subsequently arrive at a list that anyone with a passing interest in horror could have constructed on their own. I just made a list, man. These are films I dig and have repeatedly enjoyed watching.

Six films are a lot to sit through in one go, so if I had to squeeze my selections into one day's viewing then either "The Abandoned" or "Two Sisters" would have to sit it out. These two selections tread on some similar ground in their presentations and I don't think either one would be done justice if it had to follow the other.

Once upon a time I proposed a daily programming formula to Karl for our beloved Hopoto festivals. Each slot had a distinct place in the evening and attempted to complement the arc of events as a fine wine complements a fine cheeseburger. Or something to that effect... Anyhow, if I applied this time-tested programming methodology to my Six Sinister Selections, the main night would work something like this:



We'd start off before dark with a somewhat accessible film that anyone breezing through the viewing room might enjoy. Something fun, yet substantial. An appetizer, if you will. "Return of the Living Dead" is some of the most fun I have ever had in horror. It also works well as an introduction to the genre for any uninitiated who may be in attendance. With scares, laughs, boobs, gross outs, and a new take on an old tale, this film pretty much has it all covered.

Once the initiation had taken place, we'd move further into the dark haunted woods of horror. With the sun now set, the tone could now likewise transit from light to dark as horror fans supplant horror groupies and ready themselves for action. A solid film with atmosphere and story is required... but not necessarily something that demands your undivided attention. After all, you still have plenty of partying to do and the crowd could very well be noisy and over-jubilant. No need to be a Nazi... yet.



"Pumpkinhead" certainly takes more than a few steps into haunted woods. This oft-overlooked gem of a film is serious in tone and hefty on the creature effects, being a pet project of veteran creature-creator Stan Winston. Although it eventually (and briefly) sort of lapses into the tired eighties serial killer routine, the ride is creepy and fun to watch. This is absolutely one of my favorites if only for the atmosphere of the witch's shack and the pumpkin patch. To me, it screams Halloween. Light a bunch of candles and eat candy when you watch it.



The third film is meant for the hardcore. This is the showpiece- the bearer of high expectations by a discriminating audience of horrorphiles. No sissy films will be tolerated here, and the audience is asked to be attentive. Loud films- and especially those with quality sound presentations- belong in this slot. That being said, it's hard to find a better candidate than "Evil Dead II." Having the distinction of carrying the only Full George rating yet at The Dudes of Horror, it demands your full attention and won't disappoint!

The fourth film is in a unique position: it aims to please hardcore (and still awake) attendees who want more horror goodness but at the same time hopes to settle the senses somewhat as sleep approaches. As if those requirements weren't difficult enough, it additionally must face the reality that whichever viewers haven't already passed out yet are probably about to. A proper selection for this slot is one which is heavy on imagery over narrative. Such a film stands a better chance of conveying its content to those folks who find themselves consciousness impaired.



Out of my six selections, "The Abandoned" would fare the best here. Lulling you into a dreamlike state with its wonderful scoring and ghostly imagery this movie can deliver the horror goodies regardless of whether you are following its twisted storyline. In my opinion it was the best film exhibited during the original "8 Films to Die For" event and remains a solid contender in the much larger world of horror.

In the final programming slot, a quieter and more visually pleasing (read "lots of skin") film is placed for brief viewing in between tossing and turning sleepily on the couch. You don't want this selection to have the potential to scare the living shit out of you if you quickly wake up from a nightmare that was already scaring the living shit out of you. This is where the "Po" in "Hopoto" (aka the HOrror POrnaThOn) would generally find itself, but this is also where "The Vampire Lovers" finds itself in my programme of horror film favorites.



This Hammer Film is wonderful to wake up to and pleasantly conducive to falling right back asleep again. Although The Virgin Witch has much greater potential to deliver the bare necessities to sleepy-eyed patrons, "The Vampire Lovers" is by far the superior presentation. A large castle containing large... assets... and more period costumes than you can shake a stake at. Just the kind of thing you'd naturally encounter on late-night television in times of yore, without the edits and commercials.



Attentive readers will note that I haven't yet placed "A Tale of Two Sisters". Aha! This film properly belongs in the middle slot where it was effortlessly usurped by the Evil Dead. Its complex plot and masterful Dolby Digital EX soundtrack demand center stage and its subtitles certainly require an attentive audience. If the screenings of my six films could take place over two nights, it would be center stage during one of them. I would refrain from screening this film during the same session as "The Abandoned" because it also relies on atmosphere and runs nearly two hours long. The running time is well worth it, though. A lush production and deep plot matched with superior scenes of horror make it a feast for the true aficionado.

So there's my list and I can finally get some sleep. Perhaps I'll queue up that Hammer Film...