Bastards of Horror

Gross Movie Reviews #158

By Tim Gross

 

Attack Girls’ Swim Team Vs. The Undead (DVD) – An Asian horror film from the filmmaker Koji Kawano. I have no clue who in the fuck that is but this horror film is one cool fucked-up horror film. The nursing staff is giving shots to all the teenagers and they all seem to be turning into weird undead things that want to kill. This affects the whole school except the swim team for some strange reason and it’s up to the girls swim team to save the day. This movie has all the girl on girl action, blood and gore, naked women, crazy kung fu fighting/ruler juggling undead teacher who rapes his student and a girl’s taco shooting lasers you could fit inside a low budget Asian horror film. The craziest horror film I have seen since “Dead Alive”! I give this crazed horror film 3 ½ stars.

 

Carny (DVD) – Lou Diamond Phillips plays a sheriff in a small town where a circus freak has gotten loose and it just happens to be the Jersey Devil! I give it 2 stars.

 

Boardinghouse (DVD) – Another great Code Red release of a much unknown 80s slasher film where the filmmaker seen ‘Slumber Party Massacre’ and said, “I could do that”. And he made this odd VHS shot movie about a man who inherits a haunted house and only rents to women who are willing to show their prime 80s boobies and get killed by a mysterious and possibly possessed killer. I give it 2 ½ stars for the cheese it is. But also check out the cool little goodies it as extras.

 

Clay (DVD) – A great independent actor Wes Reid, stars as a character named Clay who is killing people under the assumption it is for his father. Well, his so called father finds a friend in a little girl and shuns Clay which completely upsets Clay and forces himself to make his own friend. A very cool and twisted low budget horror flick that needs to be seen by the masses! I give the movie 3 stars and can be found at www.srscinema.com .

 

Sweet Sixteen (DVD) – An awesome Code Red release of a slasher film from the early 80s that stars Bo Hopkins and Dana Kimmell. The cool slasher film about people connected to a very beautiful teenager who is about to be sweet sixteen are getting killed one by one and she seems to be the one to blame. Another awesome slasher flick worth owning as I give it 3 stars.

 

King Kong (VHS) – Jeff Bridges stars as a paleontologist who wants to go to this mysterious island where a huge oil company wants investigate so they can drill there. Instead, they run into a giant ape and crazy natives who pray to him as if the ape is a god. Yes, this is the 1976 bad remake of the original 1933 film ‘King Kong’. Its horrible but fun to watch over and over as the 70s gas drought problems was used as the backdrop for the film. I give it 2 ½ stars.

 

Way of the Dragon (VHS) – Bruce Lee kicks my man’s ass, Chuck Norris in Rome, Italy! The film is horribly dubbed and the storyline has been ripped off several times (Jackie Chan?) but still a great flick to watch! I give it 3 stars.

 

Robot Wars (DVD) – It’s the future and war has come and gone and there isn’t much left! The very sexy Barbara Crampton stars as a reporter who is investigating ‘old Chicago’ and finds weapons under a school that shouldn’t be there and the new government does not want to listen. Meanwhile, Chinese government agents are busy taking over the last big robot to control whats left of the US! Bad things from the film: Albert Band directs and Charles was off working in the office, Barbara Crampton’s co-star and friend in the film is so much hotter than her if it was possible, and Barbara Crampton wasn’t naked or in S & M gear! Good things about the film: Albert Band directed, they marketed the film at first as a sequel to “Robot Jox” then quit doing it, and it was another Full Moon classic. I give the DVD 2 stars.

 

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Theater) – The film takes you from the beginning of when Logan was a child and how him and his brother stuck together for many years until Logan did not want to be apart of a death squad! The film does a pretty good job of compacting a huge storyline into two hours for the ADD crowd and getting it too the beginning of the first X-Men film. It wasn’t a great X-Men film but a fun mindless watch. To me it just seemed something was missing but a must see if you have watched the other films. I give it 3 stars. But one more thing the movie does leave you with the question, “how does Wolverine get his jacket back off of Gambit?”

 

Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered Volume One (DVD) – An unbelievable collection of interviews of great Italian directors, actors, and actresses who have been in Fulci’s films or have crossed paths with him at one time. They share their uncensored thoughts about the man didn’t for the most part didn’t his due as a great horror filmmaker until after his untimely death back in 1996. Fan or no fan of Fulci this collection makes you want to watch every Fulci film ever made in a whole new light as this misunderstood man Lucio Fulci should be mentioned with the greats when talking great filmmakers! This DVD is limited to 2500 copies but a must have and it needs to be said Mike Baronas is a true fan of Fulci’s and did an absolutely a perfect job covering Fulci. I give this DVD 4 stars.

 

Any comments or questions please send to: GrossMovieReview@aol.com or www.myspace.com/slasherfilmfan . Also you can purchase any of my three horror movie review books, “Gross Movie Reviews Volume One, Two, or Three” at www.lulu.com or www.amazon.com  You can also find other shit from me at www.bastardsofhorror.com and in the movie review section of the past issues of Ultra Violent magazine (www.uvmagazine.com). Remember folks if you are renting from Blockbuster you are not renting from the best! Support your local independent video store! It will keep horror alive………

 

 

 

If interested in purchasing a copy of my books, the lulu.com links:

 

Volume Three

http://www.lulu.com/content/2497428

 

Volume Two Red Cover

http://www.lulu.com/content/738100

 

Volume Two Alternate (black) Cover

http://www.lulu.com/content/751465

 

Volume One

http://www.lulu.com/content/265208

Tim Gross was very good to me on my birthday this year. Yes, he got me the entire Full Moon Archive box set. As I go through this glorious collection I am going to post an accompanying review. Picking the first movie to watch was a bit of a conundrum. I mean seriously, when faced with picking from The Puppet Master, Trancers, and Subspecies series, Dollman, Demonic Toys, and Doctor Mordrid, where do you start. Damn right, Robot Wars! I have to say it’s been a number of years nice I saw this one and it was an absolute frickin’ joy to watch again. When you first see David Allen’s awesome stop motion robots you’re yelling “FUCK YOU TRANSFORMERS!”. When you see Barbara Crampton walking out of the dock terminal you’re yelling “FUCK YEAH TIGHT PANTS!”. The movie also stars a young and gorgeous Lisa Rinna in her 3rd movie and Don Michael Paul, who went on the write Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man.
Directed by Albert Band(Charles Band’s father), Robot Wars was marketed as the follow up to Stuart Gordon’s Robot Jox. It really isn’t. The story is right out of the Cold War(which incidentally was over before the movie came out). 50 years after the Great Toxic Gas Scare of 1993, the US uses an old battle Megarobot to shuttle sight-seers to an old suburban town, fully restored to it’s early 90′s glory. Of course they have to drive through a zone of hostile Centros(Central Americans with gas masks and laser guns) to get there. Throw in some Clod War era tension and treachery with the East and there’s enough story, and Barbara Crampton’s hot ass, to drive the movie along until the big robot fight payoff at the end.
Suprisingly the movie held up for me.    Everything I loved about it when it came out, I still love. Full Moon in the early Nineties was a lot like the Corman studio in the Seventies and Eighties. Everything was shot quickly and movies were finished within weeks. The quality wasn’t the best but they were damn fun to watch. I know there was great attention paid to matching the movement inside the giant robot to it’s actual physical movement, which it being a giant scorpion, was rather jerky. Those poor sight-seers were tossed around worse than the passengers on the S.S. Minow. As near as I can tell, this must be because the megarobot controls fight Hemis(people from the US, Northern Hemisphere…get it…nevermind) like a mother, yet work smoothly for Asian dictators(I’m not giving away too much am I?).

Of course being a Full Moon movie, ya gotta have a Video Zone! Robot Wars is technically only 16 years old(according to IMDB) but when you watch some of the behind the scenes of the effects you get a good understanding of how filmmaking technology has progressed in that time. This is especially true when they get to the monster machine that is the optical printer. What can be done, more or less on any Mac, used to be done for years on soemthing that took up about 1/4 of the room. Watching David Allen work, you also realize how lost the art of stop motion might be. It was also interestingly funny to find out that Albert Band, who was supposed to co-direct with Charles Band, ended up as sole director because his son never showed up.

Robot Wars was the perfect begining to the journey ahead of me that is the Full Moon Archive Collection. Ah hell, I’m gonna go watch it again because, like the Exorcist for Beetlejuice, it just keeps getting better every time I see it.