Color Out of Space

Anybody seen this one yet? It's a visual feast based on an HP Lovecraft short story in which a meteorite crashes onto a family's New England property and some weird shit happens.

The movie is engaging and well made. You've got Rage Cage, Tommy Chong, and some serious The Thing vibes. I think Cage was still in that artsy Mandy mode when he signed up for this one, and while that movie had a lot of the right ingredients, it did absolutely nothing for me. I think this movie has more good things going for it.

The Amityville Horror - Part I

This movie scared the ever-loving hell out of me when I was a kid. In many ways, I consider it the definitive haunted house movie, right up there with Burnt Offerings. I know for some odd reason, it's not as appreciated as it ought to be, but I've always liked this movie even years after being traumatized by it as a kid.

The movie is based on a book and true story of a family who moves into a New York house they got for a great bargain. That's because nobody wanted it after the real-life DeFeo murders that happened in it, in which 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo blew his whole family away with a shotgun in their sleep.

While it seems like a dream home to the Lutz family, things quickly go awry as they are perpetually terrorized by strange occurrences in the house until they end up running for their very lives not even a month after moving in.


This is why I believed in ghosts as a kid. This is why I was afraid to go in my basement when the lights were off. My family had always joked that the townhouse I lived in was haunted because some kid who lived there died, and when a few bizarre similarities struck a chord with me, it made me even more afraid of this movie because of all those "true story" parallels. Today, I can attribute those strange happenings as simply some very unlikely and creepy coincidences, but a few of them still linger with me today.


The Amityville Horror has a few great things going for it. The architecture of the house is inherently creepy. The house used in the film was made to look similar to the real house, only dressed up to make it look more ominous with those windows that look like eyes.

The score for the movie is fantastic. I'd practically shit myself when I heard it as a kid and it always gave me chills.

A movie like this wouldn't work without a good cast and performances. I think Margot Kidder and James Brolin have great chemistry and I've always thought of them as one of the best couples in horror history. As the madness progresses, James Brolin starts going nuts and dreams of hacking his family to bits with an axe, and this predates The Shining movie in that sense (the Shining book was published a few months before the Amityville book though).

Sure, a bit of this movie was glorified to make a better story, cashing in on some popular trends of the era like crosses and holy water stuff and the inability of religion to counter the effects of evil. Real exorcism type stuff, but not nearly as much as in the second movie!

A big draw of this movie is how subtle it is. It knows that showing too much is the absolute wrong thing to do in a ghost story, but tell that to the fucking 2005 remake which shows you everything you didn't need to see and then some. Now that is one god awful movie. If you put that turd in your dvd player, you'll be hitting the eject button saying, "For God's sake, get out!"



What's your take on The Amityville Horror 1979? Do you love it or hate it?

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels

Looks pretty good. If anyone here watches it, please share your thoughts! I don't have Showtime right now, but this looks pretty interesting.

Night of the Blood Beast

The thing about this movie is that it's a lot like The Thing. Or rather, it's a lot like The Thing from Another World's thing, which wasn't a shapeshifting bastard, but a singular weird looking fuck that wanders around bothering a camp of scientists.

The movie begins with a guy crash-landing onto earth after being in orbit. He dies in the crash, but his body doesn't quite show it. The scientists wonder about this while the place experiences electrical/signal problems. They are cut off from the rest of the world as they try to meander about the existence of the weird-ass creature, as well as the revival of the so-called dead astronaut.

One thing that's dumb as fuck about this movie is how judgmental these scientists are. They're supposed to be men of "science", but as soon as they see this creature, they start blasting. Even when they guy is screaming about how the monster isn't hostile and isn't trying to hurt them, begging them to stop, they continue to unload on this thing until it runs away. What the fuck is wrong with these people? If it was considered okay to shoot someone because they were ugly, we would have no Danny Trejo or Clint Howard.

So the main scientist winds up dead with half of his head missing... but this is not shown, nor is any blood shown at all in this movie, because it's more about what's IN the blood that makes this a blood beast... but he is assimilated into the monster, who then learns how to speak and communicate.

With the help of the revived astronaut who has this alien shit in his blood, he tries to communicate with the people to make them understand that he comes in "peace". Together, they come out of their cave (cave's were popular back in the 50s) and the blood beast explains that it would only like to talk with the scientists and come to an understanding. However, the scientists are already planning on blasting it any chance they get.

It's only after they shoot this thing and burn it alive that they wonder if it was the right thing to do. Goddamn scientists ended this movie before it could even begin really, with its mere 62 minute runtime and minimal death and probably complete lack of blood... but it leaves it open for a sequel that we'll never get, because this movie bombed big time. Either way, it was still rather entertaining for what it was.


Fun fact: Georgianna Carter plays one of the assistants, and I thought she had a rather unique look about her, so I looked her up. She hasn't been in much, but trivia shows that she was Jack Nicholson's first love interest.

Dumb & Dumber: Those Basket Case Sequels



What is it with sequels which come in 2's? They're like a couple of asshole twins who think they're special cuz there are two of them. No, you're both weird, and there should only be one of you. Or maybe none in some cases. Like, for example, The Toxic Avenger 2 and 3, where Lloyd Kaufman accidentally films 4 hours of footage, and not to be wasteful, made two sequels out of the intended one. A lot of good that did him. Well, financially, sure, but Toxie was a little twat in both those movies. Or what about Sleepaway Camp 2 and 3? Both filmed pretty close together, I could think of a dozen generic slasher titles that would have been more fitting for either, but no, of course not! They insist on riding the coattails of a good movie. Entertaining at times, but come on! Really? She doesn't even resemble Felissa Rose. And then there's Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case sequels, which probably should have happened in the 80's or not at all. Let's talk about those for a while, I remember it like it was yesterday. 12 year old me starring down at those boxes for the first time in my favorite video store, I considered this very much good news. Because who doesn't love Basket Case, right? And this would be my first (and second) time getting burned by a sequel.

What do I personally dislike about these films? The tone, for starters. Being from a whole different era, the tone, partially due to the camera quality, just couldn't be more different. More on that later. So, how did we get here? Sure did look like Duane and Belial were dead, and now, they're telling us the Bradley twins survived that fall out of Hotel Broslin's third story? Fine, we'll see how it goes. Duane and Belial are rushed to the hospital, and I'd imagine the authorities have some questions waiting for them both, but as usual, Belial has other ideas. Belial enters Duane's mind and gets them both out of there, but is immediately intercepted by a new friend who will soon change their lives.

All Granny Ruth and her granddaughter wants is to bring Duane and Belial back to their place so they can heal without being locked up afterwards. Granny Ruth is an old friend of their aunt, so, they just go with it for now. After they're well enough to deal with some shit, Duane and Belial are clued in on exactly what this place is: Granny Ruth's house serves as a freak sanctuary. This weird lady has a thing for freaks and she quickly invites Duane and Belial to stick around. Belial seems up for it while Duane immediately wants to run away with Ruth's granddaughter, Susan. In their first interaction that we know of, Duane pleads with this girl to ditch the freaks and elope with him, or something. I don't know. That was weird, and only our first clue as to how incomplete this script really is. Belial laughs at Duane's delusions of having a normal life with Susan, which was actually far weirder. I don't remember that thing laughing in the original, or looking anything like it looks now, for that matter.

So, anyway. These freaks are really annoying and unfunny. I'll just say it now. They were an all around bad idea. The flimsy storyline revolves around some tabloid reporter who would be best described as a poor woman's Rebecca De Mornay, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. This opportunistic young woman and her photographer bitch boy catch wind of what's going down at Granny Ruth's freak sanctuary. Mainly the fact that she's possibly harboring a couple of fugitives. Not to mention the other freaks. So, there might soon be trouble, as these two aim to blow the lid off this place for financial gain. Duane feels obligated to put his hardon away and stick around at least long enough to help these retards out. I'm sure Belial is grateful because he really digs this place.

So, it soon becomes obvious these two schmucks have gotten in way over their heads. Actually, the photographer guy gets himself killed pretty quickly by the retard freaks. So, that leaves "Becky" to be dealt with. So, that happens, and within a snap of a finger, we already find ourselves in the third act, which appears to be the entire point of the movie. Looking back, everything else felt like they were killing time until they could get to the point where they can set up the next sequel. That's all the last 15 minutes really is. Duane is given a big dose of reality by Susan and does not take it well to say the least. A now bat-shit Duane makes an impulsive decision involving Belial, which one could easily describe as a dick move. I must admit, this pointless piece of shit actually provided a surprisingly good ending. One of my all-time favorites. 3/10

Now on to what I wouldn't exactly call a worse movie. Definitely more annoying, and unnecessary as all hell, but here it is. And much quicker than we got he first sequel. Nine months later and straight-jacketed Duane finds himself being held in a padded cell somewhere in the freak house. I guess he's been catatonic all this time, but says he's ok now, and ready for pancakes. Yeah, maybe later. The thing is, Duane accidentally caused Susan's death, so, he's still in the doghouse, so to speak. However, Duane is finally let out of the cell. And just in time for the road trip... Oh, and I guess I should have already pointed out, there's this female Belial thing living there, and Belial fucked it in the last movie, so now, it's pregnant with God knows what. The only person Granny Ruth knows and trust enough to deliver this litter lives all the way down in Georgia. So, yeah. Road trip!

Let's just say Granny Ruth knows a guy. This old codger, Hal, who takes care of her freak son for her. And I'm not even sure why "little Hal" is down here away from his mother if she loves freaks so much. Perhaps he thinks she's an annoying, old cunt, and is only able to tolerate her in small doses. Little Hal's a smart boy, which is convenient, as Belial has already ripped original Hal's face off for being a doctor. So, with his eight (or so) arms, little Hal sucks it up and uses his medical know-how to yank a bunch of miniature Belials out of that other thing. A loud, nerve-racking scene, but was it any more insane than a normal woman giving birth in real life?

Seconds after being trusted enough to be let out of his straight-jacket, Duane hightails it and soon gets mixed up with the daughter of the local sheriff. I guess Duane wants the sheriff to help him get Belial back from Granny Ruth. It's not entirely clear what he wants, really. Belial isn't exactly being held against his will, so, I think Duane is a little confused. His confusion happens to cause a lot of problems, later on. Namely Eve getting shot and killed by a deputy. Eve was the pregnant thing, by the way. Maybe it's time for Duane to just sit down and shut up. Oh, but how 'bout a little random comedy relief? Granny Ruth then takes the freaks out to a fast food joint where they go full-on retard and tear the place apart while she orders an outlandish amount of food. This totally overwhelms Casey from the first movie because she works there, now. And Casey ain't got time for that shit.

The freak's feathers have, once again, been ruffled, Belial especially. Now, it's up to him and his normal (looking) brother to save the day for everyone and extract revenge the best way they know how: By having Belial tear people up while Duane stands there like an idiot. At least they got that part right. However, it's too little too late for this overly-cartoonish third entry. Sadly, this was never a Duane/Belial story. 3/10

This is very much a Granny Ruth story, as was the last movie. Sorry, but fuck her. She was horrible for these movies. What was it about Annie Ross that made Frank Henenlotter want to put her in both these sequels, and basically have them revolve around her? And those freaks? I get the intent, but it didn't set well with me. Having a large quantity of freaks, as opposed to just one, does not make up for the lack of ideas of where to go with Duane and Belial. As far as I'm concerned, Granny Ruth and her goofy fuckheads robbed us all of a decent sequel. You know what? Actually everything did, in my opinion. The magic of the original is long gone and it's been replaced with a bunch of nonsense. The original Basket Case was actually filmed in the late 70's, so, it goes with out saying these early 90's follow-ups would not include the same look and feel that made my favorite Horror movie so great. I get it. I just don't like it. In fact, these sequels are probably the main reason I grew up hating 90's Horror so much. However, aside from all that, Basket Case 2 and 3 are really just a couple of wacky, demented Horror flicks which are ultimately harmless and offer plenty of fun moments. So, I'd be lying if I said they've never made me crack a smile before. And in that respect, these movies are a success, but I'd also like to point out that only one out of this trilogy still has people talking. Coincidentally, it's the one without Granny Ruth. Just sayin'.



#Review

Guilty Pleasure Movies

Hey all. Let's discuss guilty pleasure movies. I wanna know your top three. I will think on mine and comment later. Have fun!

Teenagers from Outer Space!

With a title like that, you'd expect some hokey sci-fi piece of crap, but this one was actually pretty good. It's got a shit rating on imdb, but what do they know about trash?

In this story, a bunch of human-looking motherfuckers land on earth and immediately blast a dog with a ray-gun and disintigrate it, leaving only the bones behind and the dog's tag. Derek is one of the more rational ones who considers it in poor taste to annihilate a poor little creature on a planet that is obviously civilized enough to write and tame animals. This prompts argument amongst the crew, who the majority of are in favor of using earth as a breeding pit for gargons, a violent but plentiful food source for them.

When Derek realizes how stupid this is, he escapes their wrath and they send Thor to retrieve him as they lolligag back to their own planet for some reason or another. What ensues is Derek's assimilation to earth, where he meets a nice old grandpa and his granddaughter Alice, all while the irritable Thor searches for him, blasting anyone who gives him lip with his death ray, leaving behind a trail of skeletons as he intends to bring Derek back to the home world before the gargons take over.

One of the instantly recognizable features of this movie is the same stock music used in Night of the Living Dead. That music must have been around for a while.

The movie has a surprisingly good pacing going for it, with the setup, meeting the other characters, a cat and mouse game, a love story, and the eventual battle with the enlarged gargon, which looks like a giant shadow lobster. Somehow, a movie with this concept was given a fair amount of thought and was rather competently made. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Robot Monster 1953 - B-Movie Trash

Oh boy, where do I start with this one? Get ready for some spoilers, because I can't not go into detail about this sci-fi mess of a movie.


The film begins with little Johnny and Carla playing space explorers while out on a picnic. Soon, he stumbles upon a cave with two scientists, known simply as Professor and Roy. When Johnny's mother comes to collect them, everybody seems to get along just fine...
Suddenly, there's a bunch of lightning and lizards are fighting! Dinosaurs are about and the world goes to shit!


Some amount of time seems to have passed and the world is in ruins after the Ro-mans have destroyed all humans. All 2 billion of them. Only five or so people are left, and they live right next to the Ro-man robot monster's cave and he doesn't even know it because they live in an electrical forcefield that renders them invisible to him.

Ro-man is a big monkey looking motherfucker with a clunky tv/scuba thing on his head, and his mission is to destroy all humans. Naturally, he has a hard time accomplishing this because he's a bulky fat piece of shit who can't find the humans that are living right under his nose.

Throughout the movie, he can't find them even when they're simply standing right outside of his cave, complete with two minor pieces of electrical equipment that he seems to utilize because that's probably all the budget could afford.


Professor and his thick accent conspire to destroy Ro-man throughout the movie, all while daughter Alice and leading man Roy are flirting about. Roy talks about milking her and she talks about playing with him and then the two are on about fixing some circuit for some reason or another.

Clearly, they're just poking some busted electronic equipment with some other busted equipment and pretending that they're actually doing stuff, but they're not fooling anyone, and they can't even get it to work. This is all just filler to signify human's persistence or something. I don't know, and they probably don't know either.

Desperate for a truce, they aspire to communicate with Ro-man, but he only wants to speak with Alice. Probably because she's the hot one. However, leading man Roy wont stand for it and ties her up for her own good!



This hour long movie comes with an intermission so the audience could stretch their legs and snap out of their stupor, and when it returns, Johnny runs away just so Alice can be set free to look for him with Roy. Even though he isn't sweating, Roy takes off his shirt and keeps it off for the rest of the movie.

If anyone is sweating in this movie, it would have to be the guy in the big hairy suit who's clearly too out of shape to pose any real threat to those who can easily outrun him. All he can do half the time is shake his fist at people as they run away from him, but that's beside the point.

As Roy and Alice are gallavanting about in search for the stupid kid, they decide to get married, even though they're on a time-sensitive mission to escape from planet earth or some shit.

Everyone takes a break from the dire situation to partake in this dull festivity and Roy and Alice then go on a honeymoon, simply a klick away from everyone else. Meanwhile, Ro-man easily catches little Carla and strangles her to death. Mother cries about it, but nobody else seems to give a fuck.

Roy and Alice encounter Ro-man and fight him for a couple of seconds until Roy is thrown off a cliff and Alice is captured and brought back to the Ro-man cave, getting conflicted thoughts about his orders because he wants to bang this human woman.

Roy returns to warn professor during Carla's apathetic funeral and then he dies of exhaustion or whatever, and that's when Johnny hatches a winning plan to mislead Ro-man as the others rescue Alice and make Ro-man vulnerable, and Ro-man's superior shoots lighting from his fingertips from light-years away and destroys Ro-man and revives a bunch of dinosaurs during an earthquake and the whole world dies again.

In the end, it was all a dream and everybody lives happily ever after. Or do they?!

This was easily one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen. It was so bad that it ruined the director's film career and he tried to kill himself, but he even fucked that up. If you want some mesmerizing garbage, watch this movie that's often considered one of the worst films of all time.

#Review

TE Status Update

In this era of quarantine boredom, I've been drinking a lot. Hasn't everyone? I got so much homework, my teachers felt like it wasn't enough and they started adding more assignments. How fucked is that?

With that said, I haven't made much progress on site stuff, but it's always in the back of my mind. It would be more in the back of my mind if I had some weed, because 4-20 2020 is going to suck without it!
I got some personal stuff beating me down, but I've still been working on a few new site features that I'll be introducing soon hopefully. Some visual gimmicks, some interactive junk, and have I mentioned how drunk I've been getting? 1.75 liters of whiskey just ain't lasting long enough!

I want to talk about movies, but the industry is in a slump. We wont have any summer blockbusters this year, but at least school shootings are at an all-time low!


I'm very disappointed at how dead the site has been lately. Nobody has shit to do these days, and they're not doing shit on TE. People seem to be running amok with covid memes on facebook though, because that's productive, right?

Get your shit together, people! When the world comes back to life, you'll realize how little you've accomplished in all your time off and you'll wish you did something productive. I'd be way more productive with weed though...

Damn, I need a drink...

Trash Challenge IV: Oh, Hi March!



Alright, who's in the mood for some trash?

As always, it'll be one point for every trashy quality below. It doesn't have to be a significant amount of anything. As long as it's there.


Nudity

Gore

Rape

Hardcore Penetration

Incest

Drug Use

Blasphemy

Cannibalism

Intentionally Bad Qualities

Video Nasties - Any movie to ever appear on this list.

SOV - Anything shot-on-video from the 80's and 90's, or beyond, if you know of anything.

Beastiality

Necrophilia

Racism - One point for racist characters, or any type of blatant racism expressed.

Retards - Any characters who appears to be mentally handicapped is good for a point

Garbage Point - One point earned if you genuinely hate the movie and have a difficult time making it through.

FTV (First Time Viewing)


And then, there's the Trifectas. Instead of using directors, series, and actors, the Trash Challenge trifectas are all about the old Exploitation sub genres.

Sexploitation, Blaxploitation, Hixploitation, Nazisploitation, Bikersploitation, Canuxploitation, Ozploitation, Nunsploitation, Rape/Revenge, Lezbo-Vamp, Women In Prison, Jungle Cannibal Epics, Mondo/Shockumentaries, Nudie Cuties, Giallos, Throwbacks


3 in a row from any of the above sploitations will count as a trifecta.

A movie can only count towards one trifecta.

Single Trifecta - 5 points

Double Trifecta - 7 points

Triple Trifecta - 9 points

Etc.


Films must run no less than 40 minutes to count.

This challenge will be for the month of March.

Good fucking luck!


I https://trashepics.com/post/9/105/

II https://trashepics.com/post/9/186/

III https://trashepics.com/post/9/229/