Dreams In The Witch House

There's a Showtime series called Masters Of Horror, and I have to admit, I'd heard of it, but I'm way to cheap to buy the service to actually have seen any of these short movies, and after seening Stuart Gordon's Dreams In The Witch House, I'm rethinking that decision!

First of all, I'm a little predisposed to liking Mr. Gordon's work, Re-Animator is one of my all time favorite movies, and I may be the only person to see Robot Jox when it was in the theatres...yes, I was there that day! So, I had high hopes for Dreams In The Witch House, which were well rewarded.

This adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story is the story of Walter. Walter is a student of Miskatonic University, working on a physics project about different planes of existence overlapping. Well, when he moves into a decrepit old house, Walter discovers that his room has an intersection of universes right inside it! And not only that, but it's been there as long as the house has stood...three hundred years. Well, when Walter starts having dreams about a rat with a human face, he begins to think something else may be going on...which it is!

It turns out an evil witch has been using the intersection to lure men to her and use them to make human sacrifices to keep her alive. And, with a young lady and her baby right next door, Walter is in a prime position for her to use him!

For having a running time of less than an hour, Dreams In The Witch House is one of the best "twilight zone-ish" movies of it's type and it really makes me want to see the rest of this series as it's release on DVD! And, with a price of around $10, it's not out of the realm of possiblities either!





This is well worth the price of admission...actually, it's worth that and a little besides!! If you have the chance Dream In The Witch House couldn't be a better movie! I give it my highest rateing 4 fully lit cigars, burning brightly!!! So, until the next time, when we'll try to figure out what the H.P. in H.P. Lovecraft stands for...and I'm sure it's a dirty joke, remember that the best movies are bad movies!

Gigli

Everytime someone asks me about being the Bad Movie Guy, the same movie comes up over and over and over, Gigli. Have you seen it? What did you think of it? Is that what that scar is from? The same questions over and over. Well, the answer until a day ago was NO, I didn't see it, for two reasons, J-LO and B-Aff! Two of the most overrated "actors" in the business today, who the hell decided that this unholy combination would put butts into theatre seats?? I'm thinking that whoever green lighted this picture, is probably selling oranges by the freeway, even as I write this.

So, after holding out as long as I could, I cleared my mind and opened it, after all, people hated Ishtar and I didn't think it was all that bad, so maybe Gigli was the same, not as bad as people said it was. So, I grabbed my drink and my snack and popped that baby into the DVD player! What followed was two hours of, how can I say this? HELL!! The story here is what is supposed to be a love story. Ben Affleck plays a mafia hit man (Strike One!), who's not as tough as he thinks he is. When he's assigned to kidnap a mentally retarded boy who's the brother of a Federal prosecutor who's trying a mafia boss in New York. Well, since Ben isn't such a reliable hit man, the local boss hired Jennifer Lopez as a back up hit woman (Strike Two!!). Jennifer's job is to make sure that Ben doesn't screw up the job. The trouble comes when Ben makes a move on J-Lo, and is rebuffed because she's a lesbian (Strike Three!!! This Movie Is Outta There!!). The minute that J-Lo makes this revelation the movies turns into some kind of weird Kevin Smith movie. There's tons of what is supposed to be intelligent banter, a lot of shirt sleeve philosophy and so little sexual tension between the two stars that I felt as uncomfortable as Ben Affleck looked through most of the movie!

I found myself wondering how in the world the company got fifteen hours of movie on a single DVD! First, Ben Affleck as a hit man?? Who thought that one up? Probably Ben. As a Jersey sounding tough guy in Miami, Ben has all the credibiltiy that Keanu Reeves could bring to Hamlet, you can't make yourself suspend the disbelief! And then Jennifer Lopez as the lesbian hit woman who constantly spouting some half-assed philosophy made me wonder who wrote the script. First, no one could possibly believe that J-Lo is any deeper than the layer of concealer on her face and whoever wrote these rambling horrible lines, is like a Kevin Smith, only not as funny and probably a bit slow!

Gigli is that rarest of things, a vanity picture that we were all supposed to want to see because Ben and J-Lo were an item at the time, the problem that the producers over looked was that, apparently no one cared! And, now, after both stars have gone their seperate ways, this movie only serves two purposes, one to embarrass both stars when it's brought up in interviews, and two to annoy people like me. If you're looking for a funny, romantic movie, then look somewhere else! If you're looking for a torture device that I'm sure is being shown to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, then Gigli is for you.



I give this movie a stubbed out half a cigar that's not only out, but has been floating in a public toilet for about a day and a half! And that's being generous, because after sitting and watching this thing for two hours, I felt like I was part of some bizarre scientific endurance test, the pain was incredible, but I was determined to get through it...and I did, but what the permanent damages are, have yet to be determined! So, until next time, when I'll once again throw myself in front of another oncoming video in order to save your sanity, remember that the best movies are bad movies!

The Wizard Of Gore

They say that if you don't know history that you're doomed to repeat it and if that's true I think there needs to be a campaign to send the 1970 movie, The Wizard Of Gore to as many current day film-makers as we can! We certainly don't want this repeated.

Now, I'm sure to take a ton of heat about this, because The Wizard Of Gore is beloved as a classic gore movie by horror buffs the world over and, in a way, it should be. This Herschell Gordon Lewis movie is one of the very first gore movies ever made! Here's the plot, there's a magician, Montag, who's a bit of a hack, but in every performance he features some way of horrifically disemboweling a woman. After the trick, the woman appears fine only to turn up dead later that night from injuries that seem strangely like the injuries from Montag's illusion! This scenario is repeated a number of times, so that we get to see women killed in a multitude of ways (which is kind of the point of the whole movie). There's a loose plot here that has a TV reporter and her boyfriend trying to find the killer, which ultimately leads them to Montag and an unusual twist ending.

As a movie, this is pure exploitation, as a piece of movie history it's a bit more important. You see, in 1970 it really was unusual for gore to be on screen, and this has gore galore! Even if the blood is a bit too red and the effects are pretty primitive by today's standards, you can see that this probably shocked the pants off of audiences when it was released. You can, sort of, compare it to The Planet Of The Apes, to sci fi geeks this is a great movie, but when today's kids watch it, it seems archaic, The Wizard Of Gore is like that, archaic by today's standards, but without it, there probably wouldn't be a Jason or a Freddy!



So, I give this movie two and a half fully lit cigars, for historic value only, because if you haven't seen it, gird your loins, my friend, it's gonna be a long movie! So, until next we meet, when I'll call on all of you to boycott any Tom Cruise movies, at least until he frees Katie Holmes from her brain-washing, remember that the best movies are bad movies.

Santa's Slay

Remember the good old days when you could pick any holiday and there wasn't any sort of movie associated with it? You could celebrate Halloween without Michael Myers, Friday the 13th would come and go with no mention of Camp Crystal Lake and Christmas was still a holly jolly holiday? Well, treasure those memories, because we all know they're in the distant past! It's fairly easy to take Halloween or Friday the 13th and make them into scary ideas, because they're not far from that now, but Christmas??

When I first saw Silent Night, Deadly Night, I figured that that had to be it. This was a truly goofy movie, but Christmas would be safe again, right? Not so fast, because former professional wrestler Bill Goldberg has put on a Santa suit to try again to turn the Cool Yule into a Scary Festivus. The biggest problem here is Bill's acting, I've seen ironing boards that were less stiff.

The story here is simple, thousands of years ago, Santa was a minion of evil. During an altercation with an angel a bet was made. If the angel won, Santa had to be good for a thousand years, if the angel lost he had to report to Hell. If you can't see where this is going, then you might be a bit thicker than I tend to be, but just in case, the thousand years is up, Santa's evil again and he's out for blood. This (non)scary movie is played mostly for laughs, but I don't think that they all realize that we're laughing AT them, not with them! And in a bizarre pre-credit sequence, James Caan appears!! James Freakin' Caan!!! What? Did that Godfather money finally run out?? Did he lose a bet?? This is a sad day for the professional actor when someone of Caan's stature is lowered to this level. But, back to the movie, the inevitable happens, Santa faces off with the angel again, he loses and is sent back to the North Pole until...I guess the sequel, God Help Us All.



If you ever had any love of the Christmas holiday then you'll avoid this at all costs, Santa's Slay is the worst holiday based movie I think I've ever seen, and I've seen them all folks! I give this movie a lowly half a cigar that's been stubbed out on a Christmas bulb! So, until next time when I'll pitch my idea for a President's Day Horror Movie where Washington and Lincoln return from the grave for revenge on today's Congress, remember that the best movies are bad movies!

Cheese To Come

I seem to get behind on these things, but I promise that over the weekend I'll be catching up on movies that have been piling up on me! Here's a quick glimpse into the future for the Ol' Bad Movie Guy!





Santa's Slay starring professional wrestler, Bill Goldberg! Need I say more, we've all seen Hulk Hogan's movies so we know what great actors wrestlers make!



The Wizard Of Gore by the original gore master Herschell Gordon Lewis. I've seen it, but it was about 20 years ago and, let's be honest, gore all seems to run together after a while (Pun Intended!). I decided that this would be fun to revisit, so that's on the DVD stand too!



Stuart Gordon's Masters Of Horror episode, Dreams In The Witch House. Combining an H.P. Lovecraft story with Stuart Gordon's horror sensibilities is almost a definitive winner (remember Re-Animator anyone??!!). This was being pushed at the Chicago Weekend Of Horrors that I attended (see this month'sRogue Cinema.com for a more detailed story about the convention). I actually ran into Mr. Gordon in the hallway of the hotel, and got the chance to shake his hand and say hello..it sounds strange, but I was honored to meet the man who made Re-Animator and told him so!

So there's three movies that are all sitting on the old DVD stand waiting for my purusal. I promise that it won't be long, I've just got to prepare myself, get the proper snacks, have someone standing by in case I pass out from the mental pain, and, oh yeah, a beer and a cigar always help! So, stay tuned friends, I'm still here and looking forward to watching all those movies that you walk right past in the video store!! Remember, the best movies are bad movies!

Posting From My Palm

Alright,this is really just a test to see if I can update the blog from my palm. But let it also be a reminder that King Kong has already been made...TWICE!!! So, why am I supposed to plop down $20 for a DVD just because Peter Jackson likes CGI? The answer is, quite honestly, I aint renting or buying a movie that's [to quote a great American] "third generation don't give a fuck"!!!

Live Freaky Die Freaky

As an avid viewer of the b, cult and, what's popularly known as, the bad movie I come across some very unusual stuff. Let me give you a little premise: It's the far future and in a post-apocalyptic world the only thing to survive are a few humans and a copy of Helter Skelter, and, in a bizarre twist, when the book is discovered, it's treated as a Bible, and Charles Manson becomes the god of a new future. That's a very general outline of Live Freaky Die Freaky, sounds like an interesting start of a movie? Well, if you thought that, like I did, you'd be very seriously wrong!

Live Freaky Die Freaky is basically the Helter Skelter story told with clay-mation. And while I don't mind the clay-mation, it seems that that took up most of the film makers time, not actually writing a script. The story is really just Helter Skelter, except the dialogue is changed to be "outrageous". When a movie goes for the shocking, simply to be shocking, it really doesn't work, it's not shocking, it's juvenile. It's alright to shock or scare me, and, at first I was shocked by Live Freaky Die Freaky, but once the shock wore off, I was a little bored. I saw this story before when it was a great TV movie in the 70s. The only difference in Live Freaky Die Freaky is that it seems that the writer had a huge love of dirty word. Now words don't offend me, don't think I'm being a prude here, because I'm a huge supporter and user of most of the "bad" words you can think of, it's the way they're used that offended me. It felt like a teenager who just learned these words and couldn't wait to use all of them as often as possible! That, my dear friends, is just NOT entertainment. And, not to pile on the writer here, but couldn't we have come up with a better way to disguise the names of the characters. I guess that we thought it was clever by changing the first letter of every last name to the letter 'H'. So, Charlie Manson becomes Charlie Hanson, Sharon Tate becomes Sharon Hate and so on and so on...to ultimate boredom.

Then, as if this movie weren't just bad enough, it's a musical. That's right, my friends, you read that right, Charles Manson Sings! I guess that since we hired, almost exclusively, rock stars to voice these clay-mation characters, we ought to use their real talents since we're paying them and all. But, sadly, no amount of talent could have saved this movie! I give this movie a lowly half cigar, and that cigar had probably been laying in the gutter for a week or two before being lit.



It's called Live Freaky Die Freaky and I dare you to sit through it and actually stay awake...it's just not do-able! So, until next we meet, when I'll be talking about my clay-mation movie where I'll re-do the Jeffery Dahmer story, only I'll call him Jeffery Hahmer and it'll basically be the story of a misunderstood chef, remember that the best movies are bad movies!