Boom, I watched another bunch of films.
14. TerrorVision (1986)Did you know this movie has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 0%? Maybe it's because TerrorVision mocks everything about our 1980s culture, from our failing obsession with sexuality to our conservative military worship to our materialistic consumerism fueled by teenagers to our worship of television. Everybody is on the chopping block to be laughed at and criticized in a film about a hideous alien monster that comes through the TV. That, and it feels like a 1950s B-movie.
There is a difference between something like this and a movie like
Monster in the Closet. That one apes the 1950s style in its entirety, while this one feels more like it's updating the tropes of yesteryear to slam what was at the time modern. And it does it with gooey special effects and tongue firmly in cheek. It deserves better than a 0% from the critics...but then my opinion is most certainly flawed.
15. Bride of Re-Animator (1990)Yes, it's basically
Bride of Frankenstein through the
Re-Animator lens. It's not as good as either of those movies, but that's ok, it still has its weird bit of charm. Basically the characters from the first film try to continue their work, but one is sorting out the mess that are his feelings, while the other is still the same old Herbert West, obsessed with his work and that's all.
What do you get? You get zombies, weird dead things stitched together, and some gore; you get dark humor as well as sometimes goofy special effects; you occasionally get a ridiculous amount of blood. It's not as good as the first, but it's still more watchable than a lot of other crap sequels. Know that if you loved the original, you'll probably still like this one, even if it isn't as memorable.
16. Return of the Living Dead III (1993)Director Brian Yuzna did
Bride of Re-Animator but wasn't happy with how little time was spent focusing on his stitched together undead lady, so when he got his hands on the third chapter of the
Return of the Living Dead series, he made sure to highlight his female zombie as much as he could.
Mindy Clarke takes center stage as a woman who gets killed in a motorcycle accident and brought back by her boyfriend using his dad's top secret military project. Unfortunately, she's dead and wants to eat brains, so she subjects herself to pain to stop it from consuming her...until she gets the chance to feed. Yeah, Yuzna got what he wanted, so if you're into masochistic necrophilia, well, you might just be into this movie. Me, I kinda have a thing for the still living. I never did go watch
Nekromantik.
Still, the zombie effects here are memorable, particularly one guy early on who's face splits off to reveal half his skull. While it isn't Tarman memorable like the original film, it's cool to watch. Also, there are some dudes totally failing to play a Street Fighter II arcade cabinet in this one yet claiming they made it to "level 7." Dude, you guys suck at Street Fighter.
17. Darkness Falls (2003)This is the name of one of my favorite
X-Files episodes. As for this movie...*yawn*. Look, it's a PG-13 horror film from the early 2000s when CG was thought to cure all ills, and the central premise is darkness, so what you can see doesn't look good, but you can't see it anyway.
Look, it's not a bad premise. The Tooth Fairy is an evil lady who attacks folks who see her face and can't stand the light, hence why she comes at night when everyone is asleep to collect your teeth. It's a good place to start. In execution, it feels silly and inconsistent how the light weakness is handled.
That said, the big monster gets killed by a dude lighting his arm on fire and then upper cutting it in the face with his flaming fist, so...not all bad.
18. The Unnamable (1988)The movie could have been called The Unwatchable, because it's bland. Then again, it's a Lovecraft story that was translated into a script in under 7 days, so the stilted dialogue and one-dimensional characters seem like a pretty accurate capturing of Lovecraft's style of prose.
Basically a bunch of college kids who definitely look to be in their late 20s end up in a house that houses a weird demon lady. Two are the most frat-tastic douche canoes you will ever see, and they invite two ladies to come along to try and get laid. One of them is a final girl-type character, so that doesn't work out, and we get an attempted rape scene before the guy realizes what he's doing and instead has a heart to heart with her. The other guys are three friends who accidentally wandered out of
The Dead Poets Society, one of which is some kind of stand in for Lovecraft. He even talks like a Lovecraft character, which is to say that I'm surprised he can walk from all the wedgies I'm sure he got in junior high.
Well, monster shows up, folks run around the house, monster kills folks. End of movie. Also, the Necronomicon pops up. That book gets around like an eager French prostitute during Libération de Paris.
19. The Driller Killer (1979)Do you like your movies with things like pacing and plot? No? Then have I got a movie for you. I told my therapist this morning that I was watching this movie. He nearly sprayed his coffee all over me. This is why I attend counseling.
Look, this is a scuzzy piece of sleaze set in New York about an outsider artist struggling to pay the bills and finish a piece of art while going insane, struggling with his two girlfriends, and putting up with the proto-punk band that moved in next door. When all else fails, he snaps and kills homeless people with a power drill once mutilating a rabbit corpse no longer does it for him. The violent cover art and content (possibly along with a random lesbian shower scene, though it was mainly the VHS cover art) got this movie onto the Video Nasty list in the UK, which is why I tracked it down. Hell, it basically caused the VN list to get created in the first place. As far as the lower budget end of the Nasties list goes, I'm on the fence about whether I like this one; I think I prefer
The Toolbox Murders for these kinds of kills, but it's head and shoulders above
Don't Look in the Basement.
Most of this feels like a music video combined with street people in NYC. At times it's cinéma vérité at its grimiest. Director Abel Ferrera dedicated this movie to the people of New York, "The City of Hope." I like his sense of humor.