Category: Movie Reviews

Earlier this year, I watched Dead Alive aka Braindead for the first time. Before that, I had only been familiar with director Peter Jackson as the mind behind famed Hollywood blockbusters like Lord of the Rings and King Kong, movies which I enjoyed for what they were and can’t fault them that much. My exposure to Dead Alive taught me something important though, it taught me that Peter Jackson doesn’t need more of a budget, he needs LESS of a budget because Peter Jackson with a budget gives us good blockbusters. Peter Jackson without a budget gives us Dead Alive and the subject of our review today, Bad Taste, a movie about aliens attacking a small town in New Zealand.

That up there was pretty much the plot. Aliens attack a small town in New Zealand, and some of the boys show up to help fight them off, absurdly gory action schlocky horror commences. Like many of Peter Jackson’s works, Bad Taste deftly combines multiple genres, blending action, comedy, and horror, freely switching between each genre, sometimes even during scenes. What unites the movie is the sense of fun that Jackson brings to it, not only as a director but also as a writer. And actor. And Producer. And the Special Effects guy. Okay, so Jackson did almost everything, which makes me love it even more. Bad Taste was a labor of love, and you can see that from every lovingly rendered explosion and gore shot, every silly alien design and absurd plot point, these are all to entertain and Bad Taste accomplishes that amazingly well.

It’s tempting to say that Bad Taste is a dumb movie. After all, the gore effects are completely over the top, the jokes are often juvenile, and most of the film is prolonged gunfight sequences. That would be a quick judgment though, because when you move beyond the low-budget limitations, you can look at the writing and see a plotline that is quite unnerving and wouldn’t be out of place in a more serious movie if handled slightly differently. When I look at that in combination with the startling lack of dependence on the three-act structure, I get a picture of Jackson as someone who knew, even then, exactly what his limitations were, what his skills were, and how he could maximize entertainment value even with all those limitations in mind. If that isn’t a reason to watch a movie, I don’t know what is.

I like to highlight the smaller movies as well here, so after a cult classic that launched a career, he’s a movie that no one has ever heard of, Dark Breed! After astronauts return from a secret space mission carrying alien parasites among them, its up to a no-nonsense former astronaut/cop/veteran to bring them to justice and save the world in the process. Most of this world saving is accomplished through ultra schlocky gunfights and explosions on the docks of…somewhere. But hey, at least Jonathan Banks is here! You know…Mike from Breaking Bad. He was in movies sometimes.

Even though this is an intensely schlocky movie, Dark Breed has some charms to it. It’s pacing is pretty good, and I appreciate any movie that has near constant gunfights, car chases, and alien possessors, even if everything else is pretty uneven. What really captured my attention here was the ending, which was completely shameless. I guess they figured that over an hour in everyone had stopped watching, because when the alien monsters finally hatch, they look exactly like the Predator, making the entire climax a laughable ripoff that somehow didn’t lead to immediate lawsuits. Even with that this isn’t the most enjoyably bad movie, though. This isn’t something that I would recommend seeking out for a dedicated ‘bad movie night’ but if you put it on in the background during a party you could cheer when something explodes and not pay attention when anything else is happening.

Before Vin Diesel was leading his own franchises and voicing tree aliens in Marvel movies, he broke into the industry by playing the anti-hero Riddick in the sci-fi action horror film Pitch Black, a character so popular that the first movie’s title was retroactively changed to The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black just to make sure you knew this was the one that had Vin Diesel. Now that Vin Diesel is his own brand, let’s take a look back at where he came from and see if his first foray into space measures up to some of the later adventures he’s now known for.

In a far-off future, a series of catastrophic coincidences results in a transport ship, carrying a series of colorful characters, crashing on an inhospitable desert planet. Among these passengers are infamous murderer Riddick and his handler, who cuts a deal with Riddick by promising he will free Riddick if Riddick helps them get off the planet alive. As this ragtag group explores, they come across an abandoned mining facility, and a horde of bloodthirsty alien monsters waiting to eat them alive when darkness falls.

A lot of Pitch Black is fairly pedestrian, especially the criminally underdeveloped cast that never has anything to do because almost no one is written with a character beyond a broad stereotype. Keith David is completely wasted as ‘the Arab’, a character completely defined by his all-encompassing devotion to the Muslim faith, who only ever says stuff about Allah’s will and never has much to do. Even when it tries to craft interesting characters it gives up almost immediately, especially with the pilot and Riddick’s captor. These two characters have interesting concepts but never grow into what they could be, which is the problem of the whole movie. Everything is mostly competent, barring some weird moments where the screen gets an orange or blue filter, but that keeps this from being either an actual good movie or a fun train wreck, which are the best two types of movies. Without Vin Diesel’s charismatic performance, I doubt this would have made much of an impact. But! If you are a Vin Diesel fan, this is essential viewing, because he is doing all the heavy lifting here.

After the explosive and over-the-top nature of Slither, we’re bringing it down a few notches today with a lower-key film, Alien Abduction. Aside from its thrilling and unique title, what got me interested in Alien Abduction is that it’s a found footage movie, and even though I love that subgenre I haven’t watched one of those in a long time making this a bit of a return to form. The story of Alien Abduction is pretty simple, a real shocker for a found footage movie, and it concerns a family on vacation in the hills of North Carolina who happen to come upon a strange phenomenon that may or may not be related to Alien Abductions. But I mean, come on, it’s a movie, it’s gotta be aliens.

With every found footage movie we also need the explanation for why someone would still be filming even after horrors and scares pop out, and Alien Abduction is no exception! Here in Alien Abduction the camera operator is Riley, an 11-year-old Autistic boy whose object of fixation is his camera…which is a pretty good excuse! Riley is a fairly realistic portrayal of a functional autistic child, and seeing the movie from his perspective does add a lot to the experience. It’s unusual to compliment the cinematography of a found footage movie, but the choice to have a child be filming means that every shot is angled slightly upwards, which makes everything seem a bit more threatening. The standard shaky cam and heavy jump cuts are here, and they do detract from the experience, but there’s an idea in there that I really enjoy.

While there is a lot I liked about Alien Abduction, it also definitely had a ton of limitations, the most glaring being the aliens themselves. I don’t mind the concept of going with the old-fashioned Grays, you know, the naked ones with pale skin and huge heads, but they just don’t look that good here, they look like guys wearing alien costumes. The shaky cam and hard cuts help hide it, but it took me out of the movie a bit to see that, especially when some of the other effects were pretty decent. While this definitely isn’t a movie for everyone, if you don’t mind a lower budget and think that found footage films are interesting, this may be worth a watch. I’ve certainly seen worse movies, and as this is the director’s first feature, I think we can cut a little slack. Available on Tubi.

Before he became synonymous with superhero movies and joined up with DC to head their cinematic universe, James Gunn humbly emerged from Troma Entertainment, the birthplace of everyone’s favorite New Jerseyite, the Toxic Avenger! Between all this superhero stuff, Gunn’s directorial debut would be a bit different, a horror-comedy about alien worm monsters that attack a sleepy southern town populated by a quirky cast of characters who really don’t want to get wormed.

Our main characters here are Grant Grant (not a typo) played by Michael Rooker, and his wife Starla Grant, played by Elizabeth Banks. Before you ask, yes, it actually is an important plot point that there is a massive age difference between those people and it partially sets up the conflicts between their characters. Speaking of worm monsters, the basic plot here involves Grant Grant getting infected by one of these worm monsters, where it slowly changes him in an incredibly disgusting way reminiscent of The Fly. Slither’s most interesting feature may be how open it is with everything that influenced it, wearing all of that on its sleeve, which I really appreciated. The inspiration for lots of moments is obvious, with some references to 80s horror movies, comedies, and even manga/anime series (I 100% guarantee that Gunn read Parasyte and loved it). As a horror comedy directorial debut, I don’t have a problem with that, especially because the characters and writing are otherwise quite good. The characters feel like real, albeit quirky, people who are experiencing a bizarre situation, and their relationships are fun and interesting, grounding even these absurd sequences.

Absurd is putting this mildly though, as the sheer amount of over the top gore and body horror was enough to warm my heart. The lovingly rendered explosions of flesh and gore were truly inspirational, and some effects sequences were so awesome that I don’t want to spoil them at all. While Gunn has largely moved beyond this type of movie, it’s still a fun reminder of how enjoyable silly space monster movies can be. If you can stomach it, you can watch it on Tubi, for free!

Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker 

Spooktober fifth is here, and to finish this no theme opening week I have a real doozy. If you, like most honest god-fearing folk, have never heard of Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker, then you may need to take a seat because it is 100% crazier than what you are expecting. Following the death of his parents as a young child, Billy Lynch lives with his aunt Cheryl, an unmarried woman who has an unhealthy fixation on Billy. Between being the star of the basketball team, with scouts from the University of Denver checking on him, and being a loving boyfriend to to classmate Julia, Billy seems to be slowly pulling away from his aunt Cheryl, which upsets her. So then she murders a man, claiming that it was in self defense. From then on, this movie becomes a bizarre amalgamation of investigative sequences where the world’s worst detective repeatedly tries to assert that Billy is secretly gay and part of a love triangle. 

You might say, wow, that’s a crazy movie plot! Dear reader, that isn’t the movie plot. That is the first 15 minutes. Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker delves deeply into so many bizarre plot points and story elements that it was hypnotic, completely holding my attention even though I started watching it at about midnight. This is naturally a low budget indie feature, because what studio would produce or distribute this in 1981, and that adds an entirely new layer of depth to it. Everything feels slightly off, from the performances to the sets, to entire characters. I can’t say too much more about the movie without giving away big plot points, but just know 2 things. 1) This is more disturbing than most gore movies I’ve seen and 2) I will never ever forget this movie. So if you think you’re hard enough, you can go to the free streaming service Tubi right now and watch this. If you dare. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Demon Disorder

It’s the 4th day of Spooktober and time for another horror movie review! The last new horror movie I covered, Oddity, was a critical darling and told a restrained spooky tale that relied more on implication and creepy imagery – not so much for this one! Among the first things I heard about The Demon Disorder were how great its gory special effects are, and I am kind of a gorehound so I couldn’t resist this Australian splatterfest. The Demon Disorder’s story is very simple, it tells the story of three brothers living in rural Australia, reunited after the death of their father. Their father became very strange in the days before his death, and though his sons thought that they would simply move past the traumatic experience, the bizarre events on the family farm continued, with the youngest son beginning to act like his deceased father.

While The Demon Disorder isn’t the most complicated in terms of plot, it more than makes up for that in terms of visuals, both in the atmospheric nature of the movie and in the awesome gore effects that hit hard and don’t stop hitting once they start. Rural horror has always been interesting to me, and the quiet desperation of the rural poor trying to deal with a bizarre horrific situation when they know no one is coming to save them is more compelling than many realize. Even though the horror is supernatural in origin, the main thrust of what’s scary comes from the isolation and powerlessness of dealing with family situations, and the use of a supernatural aspect to not soften, but translate something like that is a pretty smart move. So many movies try to be about trauma without doing anything with it, but The Demon Disorder tackles this topic in a much smarter way.

The Demon Disorder doesn’t redefine cinema, but it is another good addition to the possession genre that is still doing weird things without just being another ripoff of The Exorcist. This definitely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you enjoy over the top gore and great special effects, this is definitely something you should give a watch.

We’re taking it old school for the third day of Spooktober and dipping into the countercultural realm of John Waters. I’m not too familiar with Waters, I know of him but this is the first of his movies I’ve seen in its entirety, and now I’m even more interested in the rest of his films because I really liked Serial Mom! Purportedly based on a true story and court case, Serial Mom tells the story of the picture-perfect American housewife Beverly Sutphin, whose excessively wholesome façade hides dark secrets – secrets that come out when she begins murdering people in ways that become more and more absurdly over the top. Serial Mom gets even wilder as we venture deeper and deeper into Beverly’s psychosis bringing us to the above-mentioned court case, which is something I will never forget.
 
The cast here is absolutely stacked. Kathleen Turner is excellent as Beverly Sutphin, but her supporting players are just as good. Matthew Lillard and Ricki Lake are fantastic as her weird children, each with their own quirky interests, and Sam Waterston of Law & Order is fantastic as the comedically straight-laced Mr. Sutphin, a mild-mannered dentist. Even the neighborhood ladies are hysterical, with the most memorable played by Mary Jo Catlett, someone who you may not know by name, but you definitely know by voice, as she’s played Mrs. Puff for the last twenty-something years. Everyone’s chemistry is fantastic and even if the script wasn’t as good as it is, then it would still be fun to see these performers play off of each other.   
 
While the comedy is the bread and butter of this movie, Serial Mom isn’t afraid to dig into cultural commentary, a majority of which has to do with how the effects of celebrity and true crime cultures influence each other, among other things. Though true crime has been popular for a long time, the current explosion of true crime movies, podcasts, TV shows, and books plays entirely into Serial Mom’s hands; the issues here haven’t gone away, if anything they’ve intensified, along with the problematic issues of financial compensation brought up at the very beginning of the film. Without giving too much away, Serial Mom takes on a lot of different aspects of society; a desire for control and order, the need for squeaky-clean harmless entertainment, how violence and money intersect, and even how public opinion can sway with the breeze. There’s a lot going on here, and that makes it a fun movie to discuss and think over, even if not every point is perfectly made. I hadn’t heard much of Serial Mom before, but this absolutely needs to make a comeback and is totally worth a rental.