Mansion of Madness

1973 horror movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A guy's sent to a mental institution to figure out what's going down there. What's going down is that the inmates have taken over the asylum. Shenanigans!

You would have trouble accusing this movie of at least not being interesting. Director Juan Lopez Moctezuma is one of Jodorowky's pals, and the source material is from the same Poe story that Svankmajer used in Lunacy. This movie's got chickens and chicken men, continuing in what I've decided is the Summer of the Chicken, and there are other surreal touches--mice in a cage, a man who apparently lives in a furnace, a hat and beard painted on a beard. Those details add dream color to the proceedings, keeping your eyes interesting even when the story seems to be going nowhere at all. The lovely ladies, occasionally sans clothing, do a fine job of that, too. Throw in some vegetables, perverse ventriloquism, Lady Godiva-esque horseback riding, simulated sex with a giant chunk of meat, this wacky music played during cheap-looking chase sequences, and a really sharp musical number at the crazed doctor's table. I don't know what else Moctezuma did, although it was apparently only five movies, but you can't say he had a lack of ideas. It'd be interesting to see what he would be capable of producing with a much bigger budget than he had for this, his first movie. Without it, he's still able to create a nice atmosphere although this isn't quite the horror movie that it's labeled as. It's one of those difficult-to-label movies actually.

Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon is an alternate title.

Shane Watches a Bad Movie on Facebook with Friends: Alien Predator

1987 science fiction horror comedy

Rating: 5/20 (Fred: 14/20; Libby: 4/20)

Plot: Three college kids vacation in Catalonia in a Winnebago and run into the some trouble from another world.

Dune buggy chase scenes, nose bleeds, the Spanish John Ritter, eviscerated bulls reminiscent of Taun-Tauns,  the dude from Breaking Away, alien harvesting, massive squelchiness, bulbous oozing goiters, a lack of aliens, a lack of predators, half-doll/half-chickens, dead old people, seventeen mentions of "Hollywood's number one driver," shooting up horse serum, bullfight music, rubber horror, windshield wiping, and a broken boobies streak. This movie, in case you want to look for it, is also known as The Falling, but if you're a 1987 movie that wants to call itself Alien Predators in an effort to capitalize on the success of two popular film franchises, I'm not going to argue. Fred enjoyed the bullfight music, but called this "very possibly the worst movie we've seen on bad movie club." He's wrong though.

I think I could probably make that poster up there using nothing but clip art and word art in PowerPoint, by the way. Not that I'm bragging or anything.

Four Lions

2010 terrorist comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Four inept Jihadists in London go through terrorism training and plan for a headline-making suicide bombing.

Four Lions is the kind of movie that had to have been made on a dare.

"Hey, Chris Morris. I bet you can't make a comedy about suicide bombers."

"I could."

"Oh yeah? Well, I double-dog dare you to!"

This is darkly hilarious look at a topic that isn't really all that hilarious. And I'm sure that some folks accidentally stumbling into the theater to see this watched with mouths agape and were a little bit offended. The best kind of comedy offends sensibilities anyway, right? This movie is just stuffed with one liners and funny slapstick, and the payoff at the climax featuring the terrorists in mascot-type costumes makes me giggle just thinking about it. The dialogue's spoken with thick English thug accents and is filled with all this slang that made catching all the jokes problematic. I think that just means that I have to watch this again soon. I really liked the actors in this, especially the guy who played the leader. The lions' rapport was great, almost like they've been working on stage for years before filming like the Marx Brothers or something. I'm not sure how much of this was improvised, but it's got a little Spinal Tap feel, and although it's not quite that faux-documentary style, it's got a camera style that does make you feel like you're watching a true story unfolding naturally. Well, except it's really really silly. Funny stuff, and you should see it if you get the humor in acts of terrorism.