Shane Watches a Bad Movie on Facebook with Friends: The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes

1955 sci-fi horror movie

Rating: 4/20 (Libby: 4/20; Fred: 6/20; Josh: 7/20)

Plot: A really dysfunctional family of three living on ranch with a mute ranch-hand have their unhappy lives disrupted by an alien.

The most interesting thing about this movie for me was Chester Conklin who plays Ben, an elderly neighbor. His performance stood out in a mostly boring movie because he acts like he's only seen silent films with every expression and gesture exaggerated. I was entertained and looked him up. Turns out he was in over 300 movies from 1913 to 1966 including a role in The Great Dictator where he's shaved by Chaplin to Brahms' Hungarian Dance. This movie hammers home the family-sticking-together theme, hammers so hard that it's painful. For the first half of the movie, they really are as dysfunctional as a family can be, so much that it's actually a little uncomfortable. The mother, played by Lorna Thayer, is an especially abrasive character. Paul Birch plays the dad, stoically. He can't make his ranch work, probably because he spends all day driving around, but he sure becomes an expert on this alien invasion really quickly. I think the makers of this--director David Kramarsky was allowed to direct nothing else while screenwriter Tom Filer only had one other movie [The Space Children] to his name--decided that they were running out of time and had to rush things along at the end. Something like that must have happened with the title of this thing, too.

MGM executives: Hey, guys. We need a title for that science fiction movie. We need to start advertising that sucker.
Kramarsky: Hmm. What should we call this thing?
Filer: Don't look at me! This is the only thing I've ever written.
MGM executives: Hurry, fellas, or we're not going to let you make anymore movies.
Filer: Umm. Uhh. The Beast! Call it The Beast!
Kramarsky: Yeah, that's good. It's got three eyes, too. Let's go with The Beast with Three Eyes!
MGM executives: The Beast with Three Eyes? That ain't gonna sell. We need more eyes!
Filer: How about a hundred?
MGM executives: Ehh.
Kramarsky: A thousand?
MGM executives: Hmm. That's better.
Filer and Kramarsky: A million! The Beast with a Million Eyes!
MGM executives: Fellas, we've got a hit on our hands!

They make you wait for that titular beast. Wait, wait, and wait some more. When you finally get to see the thing, you're disappointed that it's a monster with two eyes with one eye superimposed over it. They show it for about thirty seconds, presumably because it's too ridiculous to show for longer. The best effect, by far, is during a couple bird attack scenes when fake birds (I hope) are thrown at a car by somebody off camera. The monster or the brainwashed birds (or dog or cow--those are the "eyes," I guess) aren't nearly as creepy as the mute who doesn't have a name until they decide to give him one at the end of the movie along with a back story. This is a movie that manages to make very little sense but still seems derivative, and that combination is no easy feat. And this is a strong contender for worst dialogue to end a film ever [Spoiler Alert!]:

[Characters see and almost shoot an eagle.]
Wife: Allan, wait. Have you ever seen an eagle around here before.
Husband: No, what's that have to do with it?
Wife: Let it go. Don't kill it, Allan. I wonder where it came from. And, Allan, there's something else. What killed the creature in the ship?
Husband: Where did the eagle come from? Why do men have souls?
Wife: If I could answer that, I'd be more than human. I'd be. . .
Husband: Yes.
[End of movie]

What?

Hillbillys in a Haunted House

1967 horror comedy country western musical

Rating: 3/20

Plot: The titular hillbillys [sic] have car problems on the way to something called a jamboree and have to stay the night in the titular haunted house. Songs are performed. Spies and a gorilla harsh their mellow.

So in the first shot, they're traveling in Boss Hogg's car with slightly more ornamentation, and they're singing a song about being "on [our] way to Nashville, Tennessee." I should have taken it as a warning, ejected the dvd, and hurled it at a chicken. If you like bland old-timey country and western music, you're in for a treat. There's really about 30 minutes of movie here, and the rest of it consists of musical performances. In fact, the final 20 minutes of the movie is the jamboree, so it's just a series of songs that have nothing to do with the haunted house. You get to hear Ferlin Husky, the guy who plays Woody, sing "Livin' in a Trance," a song which sounds like it was recorded in a cave or something but is at least more awkward than it is terrible. Some random people then show up to tell the hillbillys [sic] that they never come near the house even though they are standing inside the house while saying that, and they perform a couple impromptu songs because the movie's plot wasn't quite ready to get started. They do "The Cat Came Back" which features two gitfiddles, a couple guys just standing around, invisible drums, and a guy hitting a small shovel with a brush before complying with the woman's request for a love song, a song that has her twitching in a way that made me wonder if she was reaching orgasm. That gal--Boots, played by a very fetching Joi Lansing--gets her own random song later during a fantasy dream sequence. "Gowns, Gowns, Beautiful Gowns" might be the most pointless things I've ever seen. Later, a character watches television, and Merle Haggard gets a song. There are probably over 15 songs in this motherfucker! And if you don't like country and western music or don't enjoy laughing at terrible film-making, there's nothing for you to see here. I've seen this on a couple "Worst Movie Ever" lists, and it probably deserves to be in consideration. It's very poorly written. I believe this chunk of dialogue is supposed to be humorous:

Woody: Where are we?
Gas station guy: Sleepy Junction.
Woody: Sleepy Junction.
Boots: Where are we?
Woody: Sleepy Junction.
Boots: Oh.
Jeepers: Hey, Woody, we're in Sleepy Junction.

Jeepers is an actual name of a hillbilly, and he's played by Don Bowman who was the host of some country music countdown show. His only other acting credit is the movie this is apparently a sequel for--The Las Vegas Hillbillys. He plays "Don Bowman" in that though, and not Jeepers. As Jeepers, he gives a performance that manages to still seem like one of the worst performances ever even though the movie is a complete disaster anyway. That first shot with the hillbillys [sic] singing in the car? He isn't singing, merely sitting in the back in what seems to be an illegal way. And he can't even get "just sitting there" right! He looks bored. That's actually the best he gets in this movie, too. Most of the time, he looks like he's got ADD or is some kind of tweaker. He spends most of the movie twitching and squinting, but he does get a moment to shine when he starts yelping about seeing a "weirdwolf" in the closet. Oh, and he does get his own song during the jamboree--"Wrong House Last Night" and it is a thing of beauty, one of those things that has to be heard to be believed. Bowman can't even sit still during a fifteen or so minute scene where he just needs to watch television. That, by the way, is one of those "What the hell?" moments as the country music he's watching is interrupted by the faces of Carradine, Chaney Jr., Rathbone, and Ho--the four bad guys. Why their faces start appearing on the television screen to stare at Jeepers is beyond me. Speaking of those guys. You would probably never expect Lon Chaney Jr. to be any good, and he isn't. Neither is Basil Rathbone, though he's the best of the bunch. John Carradine might be the worst of them all, but somebody named Linda Ho isn't far behind. Her acting consists of reading lines phonetically. I did like this conversation:

Woody: We're entertainers.
Ho: What kind of entertaining do you do?
Woody: I sing and pick a guitar.
Ho: How nice. (With this absolutely disgusted look on her face that I'm not sure was supposed to be there.)

The best performance is by George Barrows as Aniatole the monkey. John Carradine's character really hated that gorilla. It was never actually explained why these spies traveled with a gorilla, but I've never been a spy and don't know much about how these people operate. I guess having a gorilla around would make perfect sense. Anyway, George Barrows is the guy who plays one of my favorite movie monsters of all time--Ro-Man in The Robot Monster. Ro-Man is a gorilla suit from the next down and a deep sea diver's helmet for a head. Barrows has one of those acting careers I love looking at. He acted in 108 titles, and he played 16 gorillas. At least! Some of his roles were just names, and those might be gorillas, too. He also played Monstro in a movie and Slouchy McGoo in the Adventures of Superman television series. And he played "henchman" a lot. Barrows and his suit (I'm going to go ahead and assume he owned his own gorilla suit) are actually the best special effect in the movie. Some wobbling skeletons, bats on strings, and the "weirdwolf" mask are nothing short of embarrassing. There are also some lightning effects in a night sky when the action is clearly taking place in daylight and a couple visible boom mics, but if you have problems with that, you're nitpicking. I almost feel bad criticizing something that I'm sure was made by very nice people for very nice families to sit around and enjoy, but it's one of those works of art where everything just came together so imperfectly to make something so magical and deserves to be seen by connoisseurs of crappy movies, even those who don't like gorillas or country and western music.

The Brainiac

1962 Mexican horror/sci-fi hybrid

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The titular baron del terror, if you go with the Spanish title, is burned in 1661 for being witchy and generally foul. He finds himself in 1961 via comet where he gets his revenge by killing off the descendants of those who executed him. Some astronomers try to stop him.

This gets a 15/20 from me because it's the most ridiculous monster that I've seen in a very long time. See that thing on the poster? That's not the drawing of a child who stumbled upon this movie on cable and then drew a picture of the thing. That's actually what the guy looks like! Those rubbery finger things move a little like lobster claws, spongy lobster claws. And his face, very obviously a mask, inflates and deflates, almost as if somebody is pumping air into it to make it look more alive or something. And that forked tongue ludicrously extends in a way that I assume is supposed to be menacing. This picture doesn't quite do the thing justice:

So the special effects aren't very good. Just check that burning baron in an opening scene and, after way more astronomy than you're likely to need, a comet. Or when the comet lowers a giant rock to the ground with a visible string. Or the use of what seems to be a flashlight turned on and off while pointed at the baron's face--when he is in his human form--to make him seem hypnotic since he's supposed to be, you know, hypnotizing people. But there's just something special going on here. There's a great atmosphere created, mostly with the lighting. Early on, there are people in black hoods against a backdrop of almost nothing, just a few fake trees. It reminded me of the setting for a Universal monster movie. There's also a great scene with the monster's shadow on a wall as he approaches a victim in a sheer nightgown. And despite the goofy look of the monster, you've got to appreciate his modus operandi. There are so many awkward silences during which the baron in his human form and a character who is about to die just stare at each other. And when he doesn't have a living human handy, he's got a goblet full of brains to snack on. There's also an actress I really enjoyed watching in this--Rosa Maria Gallardo. Boy, oh, boy. In a lot of ways, The Brainiac is just your typical B-movie; however, it's one of those type of movies I won't forget about which makes it stand above the others. Director Chano Urueta might have been going for cheap thrills here, but he accidentally stumbled upon something nearly magical.

Oasis of the Zombies

1982 zombie movie

Rating: 4/20

Plot: Nazi zombies try to prevent treasure hunters from getting their riches.

Also known as The Treasure of the Living Dead, but you really could call it anything you want. It wouldn't magically transform the movie into anything that anybody would want to watch. The poster's way misleading. That's a movie you'd definitely want to watch. Leggy blonds in skimpy denim cut-offs being groped by Nazi zombies emerging from the sands? That would probably be something. To be completely honest, that might have happened in this movie. I was put in a daze early on and watched the majority of this in a boredom-induced trance. I did see zombies though. They were cheaply grotesque. The action's dopey, the plot's almost nonexistent, and the direction feels disinterested.

I probably should have picked a different Jesus Franco movie to end my trilogy tribute with.

Shane Watches a Bad Movie with Friends on Facebook: The Slumber Party Massacre

1982 horror movie

Rating: 5/20 (Eric: 7/20; Libby: 6/20; Fred: 5/20; Bryan: did not finish)

Plot: A guy with a drill massacres guests at a slumber party. Come on. You couldn't get that from the title?

I want to know if there's a record for the most false scares in a single movie. You know what I mean by "false scare," don't you? The moment's intense, the music suggests something is going to happen, and then there's a cat or the completely harmless neighbor you met earlier in the movie. This movie has more false scares than real ones along with the gratuitous nudity and brassiere-free and sometimes pantsless "teenagers" you'd expect in a movie like this. I was surprised that this was both written and directed by women. I wonder what it means that they gave the killer such an obvious phallic symbol for a weapon. There's got to be some feminist subtext there. My pals enjoyed it slightly more than Bee Girls although it's derivative and has humor that just doesn't work at all. I was enamored by Jean Vargas who played a telephone repairwoman and victim. Unfortunately, this was her only movie. I'm not sure fans of the serial-killers-at-a-slumber-party genre would like this one very much.

The Awful Dr. Orlof

1962 Jesus Franco movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The titular awful doctor and his deformed henchman Morpho abduct women in order to use their skin to repair his daughter's scarred face.

This was the first of a trio of films I decided to watch after the passing of the normally-pervy Jesus Franco. Here, he's Jess Frank and in this, one of his first movies, there are only signs of the future perversity. That would come later when he uses any of these pseudonyms:

Joan Almirall, Rosa M. Almirall, Clifford Brawn, Clifford Brown, Clifford Brown Jr., Juan G. Cabral, Betty Carter, Candy Coster, Terry De Corsia, Rick Deconinck, Raymond Dubois, Chuck Evans, Toni Falt, Dennis Farnon, Jess Franck, Adolf M. Frank, Anton Martin Frank, Jeff Frank, Wolfgang Frank, Manfred Gregor, Jack Griffin, Lennie Hayden, Frank Hollman(n), Frarik Hollmann, B.F. Johnson, J.P. Johnson, James Lee Johnson, David Khune, David Khune II, Lulu Laverne, A.L. Malraux, Jesus Franco Manera, J.F. Manner, Roland, Marceignac, A.L. Mariaux, Preston Quaid, P. Querut, Lowel Richmond, Dan L. Simon, Dave Tough, Pablo Villa, Joan Vincent, Robert Zinnerman, C. Plaut, and James Gardner.

This is fairly straight-forward 60's horror with some weird editing, askew camera angles, and cool cheapo black 'n' white photography. It's got plenty of atmosphere, and it's got Morpho who would have ended up an iconic horror film character if this was the only horror movie ever to have been made. And it's got Howard Vernon as the awful doctor, and the more Howard Vernon you've got in a movie, the better your movie probably is. There's also a great soundtrack with some psychedelic percussion music and other bits of creepiness that add to the atmosphere. The storytelling isn't great, the main plot borrowing heavily from Franju's Eyes without a Face or Teshigahara's The Face of Another. There's awkward backstory, and there's some of the worst dubbing I've ever seen. The awesome falling dummy near the end makes up for that though. This isn't typical Franco or a terrific horror movie, one that is about as scary as the Universal monster movies that came around 30 years earlier. But it does have a nice feel and is interesting viewing just to see how much potential this director had.

The Invisible Man Returns

1940 sequel

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The titular invisible man sort-of returns. Actually, it's a different guy who needs to turn invisible in order to clear his name and save himself from execution after being framed for murdering his brother.

Vincent Price's first horror movie, but you don't get to see him until the final thirty-seven seconds of the movie. He doesn't quite sound like Vincent Price to me either, and there's a scene where he laughs that shows he had a ways to go before perfecting his Thriller laugh. The story is not all that strong, sort of like The Fugitive except for the lack of one-armed men and a protagonist who is invisible. The cool invisibility effects, topping the ones in the original, make this well worth checking out though. You get headless robed guys, Vincent Price's capillaries, and a really neat sequence involving a door opening, stuff being pushed aside, the impression on a chair cushion, and a telephone call being made. The best moment in the entire movie, however, is Forrester Harvey's character Ben Jenkins and the reaction he has to seeing (well, not seeing) the invisible man's eyes, a "Jumping Johosephat!" with some of the most over-the-top blinking you'll ever see.

I watched this on Svengoolie, a Chicago horror movie television show. The puns were difficult to endure.

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell

1968 space vampire movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: After the sky turns red, a plane crashes in the middle of nowhere. Space-age bloodsuckers launch a fiendish attack that dooms the entire universe! Ok, so I ripped that off directly from the above poster. What's going to happen? The makers of Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell are going to sue me?

Bonus points for a sweetly bleak ending. Oh, and another bonus point for the cool title. I don't know where "Goke" comes from because, as I recall, that name isn't mentioned in this one at all. The titular hell is actually just generic outer space, too. There is some body-snatchin' going on though, so I guess it's all good. This is a weirdo horror movie from Shochiku studios, and although its plot, characters, or really anything else aren't anything special, there's a strangeness to the proceedings that keeps you interested. Start with the effects. The shot of the airplane swimming through this red sky are really cool even if they make you think the color's all messed up on your television which makes you wonder how you even change the color on these new televisions. There are glowing orbs, forehead gulches, and cheap avalanches. For such a simple plot, there sure is a lot going on. None of it makes much sense and all of it is pretty goofy, but for a movie that isn't bad enough to be funny or good enough to be really stand out from similar movies about body-snatching or vampire aliens, this is actually fairly entertaining. It might be worth it for the Blob-esque face attacks that leave slightly embarrassing facial scars alone. And it does have that stunning ending that puts a morbid capon all the goofiness.

Tarantino borrowed a shot from this for Kill Bill Vol. 1.

And Now the Screaming Starts!

1973 horror movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Newlyweds are traumatized by a curse involving a ghost and a severed hand.

Why the hell don't I have a Patrick Magee tag for this blog? He plays a doctor here. Love that guy. Peter Cushing is also in this. I don't really have much use for these creepy period horror movies aside from the architecture and the wonderful cleavage. This has some nice artwork--portraits that sometimes have ghostly eyeless figures popping out of them. There's also some sideboob, severed hand strangulation, gyrating paintings, and some maddening zither. Seriously, if you're one of the oddballs who doesn't like the zither action in The Third Man, the score for this will likely annoy. There's also this great scene where a guy shows off his hands, a scene that was stretched comically. This isn't a terrible movie, but it's not one that is going to be all that memorable unless cheap-looking severed hands does it for you.

This movie is one of the rare ones with a title that both has punctuation and makes a complete sentence although starting a sentence with a coordinating conjunction would most like make the screaming start in most English classes.

The Old Dark House

1932 haunted house horror-comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: On a dark and stormy night, some travelers get stuck at a house inhabited by lunatics, pyromaniacs, drunkards, and bearded ladies.

Is it just me or is this a really weird movie, especially for 1932? It's got a weird rhythm that is that 2930's rhythm but different. It's a lot of fun when stuff's going on, but the character development and the interactions between the characters are useless. It was hard not to turn this off during an opening scene with a car in the storm. The overacting and dialogue are both excruciating. There's also barely a story here, and it's not told very well. Still, just the odd flavor of this thing makes it worth checking out. You get to see Boris Karloff as the drunk butler, scar-faced and mute. His "speaking" cracked me up every time, and I'm still wondering what that coming-down-the-stairs-hand-trick thing was. You also get to see Gloria Stuart before she got really old and ruined Titanic with her wrinkles. She looks much better here, especially when changing into a nightgown during a scene which would probably give Leonardo DiCaprio the strangest erection he's ever had. Charles Laughton's odd here, too, with a big movie laugh and a melodic ode to roast beef. There's Raymond Massey imploring everybody to "Have a potato" and Lillian Bond cackling, "No beds! You can't have beds!" Loved watching Bond eat in this, by the way. There's "Are you interested in flame?" followed by storytelling session oddness, a character making shadow finger puppets, and, of course, the old lady with hair glued on her face (Elspeth Dudgeon) playing an old man and saying gems like "At any moment, you might die if you're as old as I am" before laughing maniacally. Everything in this movie--the acting, the dialogue, the characters' movements--is completely unnatural, and as one of the first attempts to mix horror and comedy, it really isn't humorous or scary. Still, it's a pretty nifty early-30s oddball of a film that is worth seeing. The house is cool, too, if you're into movie architecture.

Keyhole

2011 Guy Maddin movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Gangster Ulysses Pick and his gang take refuge in Pick's home. The police have the place surrounded. Accompanying Pick are a tied-up and gagged young man and a drowned woman. While his men bicker, Pick and the two companions venture through the house in search of his wife. They talk to some ghosts and see a penis or two.

Even a bad Guy Maddin film is going to have enough originality and cool visuals to make it worth the time. This is a clash of all kinds of ideas, but it never feels very complete or even all that coherent. It's more like thumbing through Maddin's notepad which is fun in spots and frustrating in others. It's definitely a weird movie although Maddin claimed it was his effort to make "pure narrative." The nods to silent cinema are still present, but this is shot more traditionally and has a lot of dialogue. I think the less dialogue in Maddin's movies, the better. Anyway, there's a ton going on--a noirish gangster tale, a ghost story, a psychological investigation, a surreal dream playground, light science fiction, and maybe the retelling of a myth. It's a lot to take in, and most people are going to think it's just a little too pretentious. But it's a silly pretentious, not a stuffy pretentious with Maddin his usual playful self. In this, you get naked old guy genitalia, backwards talking, weird moving lights, characters speaking to each other in different languages, undergarments with phallic doodles, wallpapering, symbolic green bowls, a bicycle-powered electric chair, a crowded tub, secret tunnels with a "Cyclops ahead" warning turning out to be a glory hole, old man stump licking, weird antique toys, wallpaper love, Mexican banditos, Kids in the Hall alum Kevin McDonald attempting to sodomize a ghost, and a narrator who says cool things like "You don't even recognize your own son, Ned--Milk-drinking Ned." Oh, and a guy in a closet who plays Yahtzee. A lot of the dreamlike visuals are really cool, but that can only take you so far and this ends up dragging a little and frustrating a lot. It's not where I'd start with Guy Maddin's work if I were you.

Oprah Movie Club Pick for August: Bride of Frankenstein

1935 comedy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: This filmed version of Mary Shelley's lesser-known sequel to her horror classic is about a monster's search for love and friendship. A perverse evil scientist who dines in tombs for some reason dreams of stitching together the titular bride for the big guy while he stumbles around and works on his social skills.

There's no way that I saw this as the brilliant black comedy that it is the first time I watched it way back when I was a kid. It seems like a daring decision by the Universal people--making a comedic sequel to their successful film based on classic literature. It works so well though. The movie still has scenes that create ominous moods and are borderline creepy. I like how the various castle rooms look, and the mist-drenched cemetery is a great set despite Karloff stumbling around and knocking over obviously fake statues. I also really liked the climactic "She lives!" scene, the stormy montage that shows off all that scientific equipment, a couple kites, and odd-angled close-ups of the two doctors' faces. And Dr. Preposterous says cool things like "Raise the cosmic diffuser!" [Note: If I ever write another song, that'll be it's title.] during that scene. I just love the look of this movie so much--each and every gnarled tree, cobweb, shadow, slimy step, gray fog blanket, and stone wall. There's also a scene where an old woman dummy is thrown into some water while a bemused fake owl looks on. I liked the owl the first time they showed it blinking, but I fell in love with it the second time. It's actually the most realistic animal in this movie other than the very real sheep; a lone fake bat looked like a elementary school student's art project.

But directly after the first shot--a wonderful zoom that leads the viewer into a mansion where the trio of British Romantic authors are hamming it up--the tone is tongue-and-cheek. Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) really overdoes things here, trilling those R's like he thinks it will help him get in Mary Shelley's pants or something. The montage that gives necessary the necessary background of the first story is really cool, some shockingly beautiful imagery there. And then we meet Millie who, if this was a straight horror flick, would singlehandedly ruin the entire experience. Millie's played by Una O'Connor, and she's a character who, during her initial scene where she's digging on some fire, you just know is not going to stick around the movie very long. What the hell is she doing with her voice in these early scenes? Or her eyes? It might just be because this is a Frankenstein movie, but she really reminded me of Marty Feldman. There's a moment where she tells another character to cross herself before walking out of the picture for what you just know has to be the last time since no director in his right mind would put this actress in multiple scenes in this movie, and I'm not sure how she didn't pull a muscle doing it. She crossed herself like she thought it would help her get in Lord Byron's pants or something. But then, the viewer discovers that Millie is a real character, like the sixth or seventh one on the cast of characters. She just keeps finding her way into every scene. There's one scene where she "washes her hands" of the monster stuff and leaves only to randomly pop up and start screaming in the next scene where they carry a body in. Millie's freakin' ubiquitous! And annoying, almost in a good way. And suddenly, there's a big chase scene with a lynch mob armed with sticks and wooden rakes, and there's Millie again, all ready to cackle and be louder than everybody else. I do like how she says "burgomaster" though.

Millie's not the only goofy character. I couldn't stop laughing at Dr. Pretorius's antics. And I love how he said "tissues" during the "You think I'm mad?" scene after he showed Henry his little people in bottles. What the hell's going on there? Let's have the mad scientist show off his little people in bottles and then suggest to Henry Frankenstein that they do something completely different from that. And I loved how Henry didn't seem amused, interested, surprised, or really anything while looking at the little people. I bet Dr. Pretorius was a little disappointed in that. I wouldn't mind having my own little ballerina in a bottle, by the way, and I'm adding it to my Christmas list. I also liked how Ernest Thesiger's Pretorius said "wizard," and his toast "to a new world of gods and monsters" is something I'm going to steal if there's ever an opportunity for me to make a toast. Henry's expression after that toast is priceless. "What? I ain't drinking to that!" You just know that Dr. Pretorius can't be trusted. For one, he's a total pervert. You know he's only interested in making a bride for the monster so that he can watch them do it. Now I'm not saying I wouldn't do the same thing if I had a laboratory like that and a couple of kites, but there's just something wrong with using science to create your own elaborate pornography. His creepiest line: "I hope her bones are firm." I'm not sure it's the words there as much as it is Thesiger's delivery. Pretorius also has Gene Wilder's hair. Oh, you also can't trust Pretorius because you catch him in a fib in this movie. He tells Frankenstein that alcohol (I think gin) is his only weakness and later tells the monster that cigars are his only weakness. You're not fooling me, Dr. Pretorius.

Of course, Karloff gets to play the funniest character. Every single scene in which he tries to interact with other characters is just hilarious, all grunting and awkward arm waving. The scene with the blind hermit shifts from touching to comic and back again. The monster learns the word "bread" and then takes a giant bite which disappears about three seconds later. And wine? You show me a human being who can watch the monster drink without laughing. And then smoking? This blind hermit is certainly a bad influence on the monster. There's a great bit of comedy when a couple lost guy's walk into right before the blind hermit and Frankenstein's monster are about to make love. One of the guy's says, "He isn't human! Frankenstein made him out of dead bodies! The hermit says, "This is my friend," and the other guy responds with, "Can't you see? Oh. . ." What's with Frankenstein's vocabulary, by the way? He seems to learn words awfully quickly, doesn't he? I fully expected the big guy to say, "Do you have bolts on your nipples or are you just happy to see me?" when he meets his bride. She's terrific by the way with all those jerky motions. The camera angles capture the titular bride's sexy charms, and I enjoyed watching the doctors raise her table up with her in that form-fitting gauze. And that hair! The meeting between monster and mate actually reminded me of when I met my wife:

Guy monster: Friend?
Girl monster: (bird squelch noise...head jerks)
Guy monster: Friend? (weird hand motions)
Girl monster: (screaming)
Guy monster: She hate me.
Girl monster: (a lovely wet hissing noise)

Who puts a self-destruct "leever" in their laboratory anyway? That seemed like a poor choice.

One more thing--the music in this is really too much, but I liked it anyway. It gives simple moments this grandiose theatrical feel, like the rising notes when Dr. Pretorius's shadow comes into the room after we first meet him. There are a few moments where the music almost seems inappropriate though, most memorably during the scene where Pretorius is giving the monster some wine in the tomb while they're checking out some bones. That, friends, is not a euphemism.

Barry picked this classic horror-comedy for us to watch, so you can thank him. I'm glad he did because it had been a very long time for me.

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)

2011 sequel

Rating: 8/20 (Mark: 18/20; Amy: 13/20)

Plot: A sexy parking attendant with a disturbing obsession with The Human Centipede (First Sequence) decides to make his own human centipede out of people he's crowbarred in the head at the parking garage. All he needs is Ashlynn Yennie who played a character in the first movie. Luckily for Martin, she's got nothing else going on with her career.

Thank God this was in black and white. There was a lot of this that I just did not need to see in color--an unfortunate scene with a baby and a scene featuring lots of fecal matter. Well, pretty much all of the scenes. Actually, there was a lot of this that I didn't really need to see in black and white. It's true what they say--what has been seen cannot be unseen. The first movie was a piece of work itself, but it had a fun performance by Dieter Laser as the bad guy, a little bit of style, and some very dark humor. As you'd expect, this has a lot in common with that movie. There is a filthy style to this. The film's got this greasy look to it that fits. The centipede-maker, an obese loner named Martin, is played creepily by a guy named Laurence R. Harvey. His body shape, masturbatory method, weird eyes, bad hair, smile, and everything else--his physical performance really is a good one--builds this character you wouldn't want to meet in your dreams. The character's not played for giggles like Laser's guy in the first movie. There was almost no background on Dr. Heiter in the first movie, at least that I can remember. You just knew he wanted to hook three people together to make a pet centipede. Here, we get enough background about Martin to make him a little more human and a lot creepier. And this second installment of a series has some humor although it's very very sick humor. This movie completely fails, however, because it doesn't know when to stop. After a while, it's like somebody telling you the same joke over and over, each time repeating the punchline a little bit louder. You'd just want to cover your ears and tell that person to go away. You almost want to do the same here. Director Tom Six, likely in an effort to top the shock or raise the torture porn bar, just doesn't know when to stop. The best horror movies work because of the subtleties. Six grabs the back of your head by the hair and shoves your face in the horror, and he does it over and over again. I don't recall seeing a trailer for this movie, but I imagine the voiceover said, "Now with more nudity! More blood! More shit! More bondage! More screams! More graphic surgery scenes! And yes, Human Centipede fans--more centipede!" My brother, who loves these movies, covered up his eyes and refused to watch some parts of this. I'll give him credit though. He ate Hardee's food before this, knowing that he was going to watch this movie. It takes a real hero with a real hero's stomach to eat Hardee's food in the first place. I know veterans of WWII or the 9/11 firefighters are often referred to as heroes, but they've got nothing on my brother. I almost regurgitated Hardee's food, and I didn't even eat any of it. A movie that can make you vomit somebody else's food is some movie, and that's just the type of movie this is. The sequel's concept may have had potential, and I really did like Harvey's performance, almost in a way that makes me feel guilty. Unfortunately, this is a movie that almost begs its audience not to like it. I obliged.

If I give a "Best Beard" award this year, Bill Hutchens will likely win it. He played a perverse psychologist. Martin's mother was played by Vivien Bridson who might find herself with a Torgo at the end of the year. It was one delightfully batty performance. Technically, Harvey could win the Billy Curtis Award for little people because he is called a midget in this by two different characters. I'm not sure whether he's eligible or not and will have to dig up my rulebook. And despite my brother's promise that this movie has the "greatest masturbation scene ever," I don't think it beats the one in Borat's new movie.

By the way, if you were an actor or actress in this movie and played a part of the centipede, would you tell people? Would you put it on your resume?

Oh, and Hardee's representatives, you can thank me for the product placement with cash. I do not want coupons because your food, at least the last time I ate any of it over twenty years ago, is garbage.

The Wizard of Gore

1970 horror movie

Rating: 4/20

Plot: The titular magician has a gratuitously violent stage show in which he dismembers, decapitates, and disembowels female volunteers from the audience before magically putting them together again. It's really stupid. Later that night, the volunteer's wounds reappear which is even stupider. And the fact that nobody can put the pieces together and figure out what's going on? That would be stupidest. A writer--a female one, of course--is intrigued enough to investigate.

If Herschell Gordon Lewis was more well known (read: more infamous) outside B-movie/gore circles, this is the movie that would have given him his nickname. He could have gone down in cinematic history as the Wizard of (Cheap and Gratuitous) Gore. It's easy to see that Lewis had absolutely no budget at all to work, and all the funds he did have (fifty bucks?) was used to purchase meat and tomato juice. The stage show violence is so over the top that it crosses the border between Scaryland and the Continent of Goofy and then continues all the way around the world like a squelchy perverse Magellan so that it can scoot over the border another time. The goofiest thing about these scenes is that they're shown multiple times. So you'll see the saw going through a woman's abdomen, then a shot of the audience looking rather bored, then Montag digging around in the woman's viscera, then another shot of the audience, then a shot of the woman's abdomen without any injury at all, then a shot of Montag's face, then a shot of her being sawed again. It's awkwardly edited. It's the same with the spike-in-the-noggin scene and a scene featuring a guillotine. Movies with guillotines, by the way? Automatically more awesome. Orson Welles wishes he had some guillotine action in Citizen Kane, and according to an unauthorized biography I imagined and then pretended to read, that was his biggest regret. Montag is played by Ray Sager, a guy with an arguably respectable career. Here, he's predictably terrible, but straight from the get-go, it's almost like he's lost his faith in the words he's been given. It's hard to say, "And you were expecting a mere handsaw!" in a way that makes you look like a real person. At one point, he mispronounces his own name. He's such a talky magician, going on and on and on about. . .well, magic, I guess. The audience doesn't know how to act during these scenes, so they just randomly gesture. I didn't take the time to verify, but I'm willing to bet the same extras were used for the audience members. Sager's bad, but the auxiliary actors might be worse. There's one guy who discovers his wife dead in bed and shows off what might be the worst acting ability ever. And the delivery of the line "Craig, Craig! Look at your hand! Your hand is bleeding!" is pure classic B-movie bliss, a line that I would have quoted endlessly with my brother if we had seen this as kids right along with "Give me back my hand!" or "Oh no! A bimbo with a gun!" Screenwriter Allen Kahn, whose only other writing credit is the Lewis-directed The Year of the Yahoo, throws a Shamalamadingdong-esque twist into the climax which, on the surface at least, seemed kind of cool until I thought about it a little more and realized I didn't even understand what happened. And maybe that's my fault, but I'm just not ready to take the blame.

Two more notes: 1) I really liked how there was plastic on the floor of a restaurant where the sawed-in-two lady falls apart. "Yes, you can use our restaurant for your stupid movie, but we're putting plastic on the floor so that you don't mess up our carpet." 2) "The guy's no magician. He's just a hell of a technician." It's 1970, and some white dude invents rap music in The Wizard of Gore. Little known piece of trivia there.

Frogs

1972 enviro-horror

Rating: 4/20

Plot: All this wheelchair-bound rich old guy wants to do is throw a party. The wildlife on his island is sick of people, however, and decides to get rid of them. Several people croak.

This is far from the movie about mutant frogs killing people that I thought it would be. No, this is more like just-regular frogs standing around watching other animals kill people. Would I lose all credibility as a movie blogger if I told you that I kind of expected this to be a hidden gem? I mean, it's got Sam Elliott in it, and surely he wouldn't be in a crappy movie called Frogs that isn't really even about frogs, right? The cast in this is terrible, almost bad enough to make it seem like they're all competing for some kind of Worst Actor of the Year award. Adam Roarke, as "Clint" (that's a name I almost always put in quotes unless I'm talking about Eastwood), doesn't even try, especially any time his character is on a boat. When he asked Sam Elliott near the beginning of the movie, "How are you at badminton?" I could have sworn he was high. But his performance might be topped by Ray Milland, a guy who's acting like he wants everybody to know that he's a master Thespian (note the capital T) even though he's in a movie about killer frogs. Want thrills? You're not finding them here. This one's about as suspenseful and/or horrifying as a trip through your average zoo's reptile room. Les Baxter's knob twiddling synth score doesn't help at all. The makers of Frogs didn't really need a famous name like Les Baxter to do the music for this. A baby or a drunk chimp could have handled the score for this one. Or a frog! The death scenes are really silly. In a preview of this movie, it shows a lady in quicksand, but the scene wasn't in the movie. I investigated and found out that they cut the quicksand scene because they deemed it too silly. That was too silly? The scene were the guy Plaxico-Burresses himself in the leg isn't too silly? The woman with the butterfly net turning blue seconds after a snake attack isn't too silly? The superimposed birds that are only slightly better than the special effects from Birdemic: Shock and Terror aren't too silly? The death by turtle and crab isn't too silly? I still don't know how a slow-moving turtle manages to kill a woman actually. I will say this: the last five minutes featuring a character and (finally!) a bunch of frogs is actually really good. Shots of stuffed animal heads, a frog-filled library, some amphibian record scratching. It's good, and so are the credits, silent except for a bunch of ominous croaking. Of course, croaking was omnipresent throughout the story.

If you're in the mood for a lame horror movie with an environmental message from the 70s, I'd recommend Day of the Animals before this one. That one's got Leslie Nielson's nipples in it.

The Last Broadcast

1998 horror mockumentary

Rating: 8/20

Plot: A documentarian attempts to get to the bottom of the gruesome murders of some public access show hosts looking for the Jersey Devil. It's horrifying!

I want to get settled right off the bat--the only thing that this movie has in common with the far superior Blair Witch Project is that they both have a lot of trees in them. Only a small portion of this is found footage stuff. The rest is complex and gimmicky with all kinds of television trickery and those big sound effects you hear when you're watching those television expose things. The guy making the documentary got on my nerves and misused the word "ironic," and the acting from the rest of the cast was just not good enough to carry this thing. Things get repetitious and tiresome, and there's not a single moment of this where there's any real tension or scares. By the time we get to the big twist at the end, things stop making sense almost entirely. Not only that, it confuses matters by breaking its own pseudo-documentary rules. If anything, this made me appreciate the brilliance of Blair Witch even more. The simplicity of that one, and Paranormal Activity as well, is what makes that one successful. The makers of this one bite off way more than they can chew, and they end up with a big mess.

13 Ghosts

1960 horror-comedy with really hard-to-see ghosts

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A family inherits a haunted house with 12 of the titular 13 ghosts. Luckily for them, they also inherited some special glasses that will allow them to see the ghosts. Then, Scooby Doo comes along and eats everything!

I wish William Castle was my grandpa. I don't even know why I want him to be my grandpa, but I do. 13 Ghosts starts with some of his goofball narration about the whole ghost-viewer gimmick, Illusion-O or whatever it's called. It's these glasses things where you use the red part to see the ghosts or the blue part to make the ghosts disappear. Or vice versa. I didn't pay much attention because I didn't have a ghost viewer. And that made it annoying when the words "Use Viewer" or "Remove Viewer" flashed on the screen. I could sort of see the ghosts at that time, but I had to squint, and I really only like squinting when I'm watching Clint Eastwood movies. I could hear the ghosts a little, too, despite any special ghost hearing aides. They sounded like cartoon chipmunks. The opening of this movie starts promising enough with some splashy paint effects and a picture that looks a little like Voldemort. The best part of the movie is about seven minutes in when a telegram guy (David Hoffman) slides on screen. It's easily the creepiest part of the movie. The housekeeper is played by the Wicked Witch herself, Margaret Hamilton, and although she's got the ears for the part, she looks bored out of her mind here. I did get to learn all about the Ouija Board in this. Yes, it's got one of those cliched Ouija Board (here pronounced Wee-Juh; have I been pronouncing it wrong all this time? It's not Wee-Gee?) scenes. Anyway, I did get to learn the etymology of Wee-Juh and the rule that it won't answer if you ask it a silly question. As a whole, this thing is weak on plot and gimmick and isn't successfully funny or scary.

Octaman

1976 movie with a title you have to put [sic] after when typing

Rating: 2/20

Plot: Scientists in Mexico discover half-people/half-octopi and piss one of them off. It responds in the only way an octaman [sic] knows how--tentacle slapping.

"How can I believe that there's a creature with arms of a sea creature that walks like a man?"

See, in Octaman, they don't make you wait to see the monster like in a lot of 70's B-monster-flicks. No, the guy in the rubber suit is all over this one, so the audience gets to be disappointed within the first ten minutes of the movie. I imagine some movie theaters would even give a person his money back within the first ten minutes of the movie, right? I thought I recognized the director's name--Harry Essex. He seems to have had a nice Hollywood writing career, but didn't direct very much. Octaman, as you'd guess from its quality, is the last movie he was allowed to direct. There's a David Essex acting in this movie, and this is his only movie credit. I'm just going to imagine that this entire movie was made because it was David's dream of being in a movie and Harry wanted to help him out. I really liked during the opening credits when it said that the movie, which is called Octaman, is "starring The Octaman." The rest of this thing doesn't disappoint. You get a liberal use of what I imagine was referred to as Octa-cam, lots of really awkward shifts to found footage, day-night continuity errors galore, and what might be the worst special effect featuring an octopus baby ever--the moving of an octababy that was actually Rick Baker's work. I'm sure it's not something he includes on his resume. There's a colorful crew of characters including some Mexicans who sing the exact two songs that you'd have them sing if you didn't know anything about Mexico but wanted your characters to seem Mexican. Go ahead and take a guess at the two songs they sit around and sing. I'll give you some time to think about it. Did you guess? You're right! "Cielito Lindo" (Aye-yi-yi-yi) and "Jarabe Tapatio" (The Mexican Hat Dance song). My favorite character might be Fake Cowboy #3 though, a guy who talks about King Kong as if nobody would have ever heard of that movie ever. Of course, with any monster movie, the real fun is watching the monster wreak havoc on its victims, and you get plenty of that here. Well, if you call flailing around action. And then there's a scene in which the titular beasts both slaps and squeezes, and it's double the mayhem. My favorite scene, and a scene that has to be the best use of a dummy I've seen in a long time, is when the man in the rubber suit throws a guy off a cliff after slapping his eye halfway out. But that's not just a flash in the pan bit of genius. You get Ernest P. Worrell giving a speech about environmental responsibility and saying cool things like "I don't savvy all that talk." Twice. Essex must have really been proud of that line. There's also a really cool scene where a guy is carving a little figurine out of a chunk of wood. Another character says, "You have talent, Evido," probably because they're all waiting around for the monster to attack again and have nothing else to talk about. But you have to see the carving that this guy made. A two-year-old with a knife could make what Evido did. But oh, that monster. See, a lesser director would realize that his monster looks completely ridiculous and that people are going to laugh and make sure to not include too many scenes with it, all in the name of building suspense or something. Not Harry Essex. Here's a guy who understands the potential for comedy and includes the Octaman in nearly every scene. You get to see him fight an alligator or crocodile or whatever the hell they have in Mexico, and you get a terrific scene where he slaps an RV and makes it bleed. There's also this inexplicable moment where he walks past a half-decayed cat. Just a terrifying monster. Well, until you realize that all you have to do to save yourself from his vengeance is yell "Back! Back!" Highly recommended if you enjoy stupid crap.

Curse of the Swamp Monster

1966 Larry Buchanan movie

Rating: 2/20

Plot: A crazy scientist conducts experiments on the indigenous people who live down the swamp (by the way, I think this takes place in Texas, but these natives are a pretty primitive people), attempting to make himself a pet Swamp Thing. Hey! That's kind of like the guy in Human Centipede actually! Some folks come looking for oil and interfere with his plans.

Forget the Human Centipede Halloween costume idea. I'll just go as this Larry Buchanan monster that he apparently uses in multiple films. This is the same creature that was in my Manos Award Winner It's Alive! from a couple years ago. Well, it's similar anyway. Thing is, I'm pretty sure I could put together the costume easily enough, too.

Larry Buchanan is fast becoming one of my favorite directors, and this one was no disappointment. The scientist, played by Jeff Alexander (crazy scientist in Buchanan's Zontar, too), is really great. I really didn't know what a head could look like his, and he reminded me of a cross between James Taylor and John Malkovich but more jovial than either. He's got himself a greenhouse with alligators (or crocodiles, whatever lives in the swamps of Texas) swimming in what appears to be milk. He also gets really scientific things to say, ramblings about "gill transplants," "acute congestion," how his "dear Mrs. Wesley" will be a "perfect subject for the new derivatives" and be an "instantaneous transformation." He also wears his sunglasses inside which might make him the coolest mad scientist ever. Speaking of inside, all the interior shots contain the shadow of a ceiling fan. I'm not sure if that's a Buchanan stylistic touch or an accident, but I liked it. Who puts a light over a ceiling fan? The sound effects are especially bad. There are times when the scientist and Richie are talking when it seems like Richie is a couple rooms over. There's also this incessant jungle drumming that maybe explains why the scientist is so batty to begin with. Richie's death scene is one of the best I've seen in a while, by the way. And Richie, you were just warned five minutes early to stay away from the quicksand, weren't you? Loved his weakly yelled "Help me" while he sank though. Richie's also the character who abducts one of the natives (one wearing jeans and tennis shoes during a really lengthy dance sequence) and gets the line of the movie, one delivered breathlessly: "I've been watching you dance. Be good, baby. There's nobody here but us chickens." Although, Alexander's delivery of "My beautiful indestructible fishman" is also nice. Indestructible, by the way? These things actually seem to die pretty easily. I also got a kick out of this bit of dialogue:

Doctor Bald Head: How can you locate oil without equipment? Seismographs?
Oil Guy: [Sigh] It isn't easy.

This movie's got some of the most awkward pacing you'll ever see with lots of extended shots of random snakes, guys staring at lizards, guys smiling at lizards. It's also got some bitchin' fight scenes. I could have sworn during an early fight that one of the characters had this expression on his face that asked "Hey, shouldn't we choreograph something like this?" About eight minutes later, there's a weird motel room fight scene that repeats sound effects and features a guy with his pants tucked into his boots. That's right, folks. If you're looking for an action-packed Larry Buchanan movie to enjoy this weekend, Curse of the Swamp Monster is worth checking out.

Funny Man

1994 horror-comedy

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Max beats Christopher Lee in a poker game and wins himself a mansion inhabited by a mischievous guy wearing a rubber mask and a ridiculous codpiece. The titular funny man begins harassing the new owner and his family and some random hitchhikers, including Velma and a black Yoko Ono, who show up.

First off, Christopher Lee's name might be on top of the poster, but he's in this movie for about five total minutes. So if you're going to check this out because you're some kind of weird Christopher Lee completist, be warned. The bulk of Christopher Lee's work is at the beginning during a poker game, my favorite part of the movie. Not only did it have a line that is one of my favorite things to say at the poker table ("Shit or get off the pot."), there was a bit of dialogue that I'm going to start saying in every single poker game I find myself in--"I've seen amputees with better hands than this." In my opinion, by the way, Max gets what he deserves in this movie because he slow-rolls Christopher Lee in the hand where he wins the house, and you just don't slow-roll Christopher Lee. The jester demon thing that inhabits the house is irritating. I did like his entrance--all loud percussive music ending in a thumbs-up of all things. That was pretty awesome. Funny Man isn't funny at all which makes the title not only misleading but an outright lie. He urinates on a van and plays soccer with a severed head, so sure he's the type of troll-faced demon jester you'd want to have at your parties, but he's more obnoxious than he is funny. And he repeatedly breaks the fourth wall which I'm sure the makers of Funny Man think is clever. The violent gags probably wouldn't please fans of the genre, although I did sort of enjoy seeing the character dressed as Scooby Doo's Velma get hers. The story seems pieced together, just gag stapled to gaggy gag, choppy and poorly paced.