Re: the video dead review

It's been almost 3 months since I said I would review The Video Dead. Here's the thing: I've lost all interest in doing it. I'll get around to reviewing it someday, just not anytime soon. I do have more content for this blog in the works though. See you then!

Who Killed Captain Alex? (2010) mini-review

(Yeah I know I said my next review was going to be The Video Dead but life got in the way of that. Sue me. It's still going to come out I'm just putting it on the backburner.)


 Not only does the titular question never get answered but the writer/director doesn't even know who killed Captain Alex.


Plot synopsis (taken from IMDB):  The brother of Richard (leader of the Tiger Mafia ) is killed in a shootout, prompting a revenge attack on the army camp. But when troop leader Captain Alex is killed during a raid, a violent war escalates between the two sides. The captain's brother takes matters into his own hands, while mafia henchmen take to the skies to bomb Kampala. Narrated with energy and wit by 'Video Joker' Emmie, ultra-low budget thriller Who Killed Captain Alex became an international viral sensation when its trailer first hit YouTube. Self-taught film-maker Nabwana Isaac Godfrey Geoffrey produced, directed, shot, wrote and edited the film from his home in the slums of Uganda (a.k.a 'Wakaliwood') for under $200.



Who Killed Captain Alex? is objectively speaking the greatest film ever made. That's right, it's better than Citizen Kane, better than Taxi Driver, better than Godzilla vs. Gigan and all those other films widely regarded as the cream of the crop when it comes to cinema. If Black Panther was made by Wakaliwood Studios it would have actually deserved the best picture nomination. You think I'm exaggerating for comedic effect? Tell me, did any of those movies have a Video Joker cracking jokes about eating German tourists and screaming about how the movie is on? What do you mean you don't know what a Video Joker is?


In Ugandan cinema halls, a Video Joker or "VJ" is someone who talks over Western language films via a mike to ostensibly narrate what's going on. But really they just talk shit the whole time and occasionally point out key plot points. At least that's what VJ Emmie does. All jokes aside, Who Killed Captain Alex? is interesting in that it straddles the line between genuinely being so bad it's good and being intentionally silly.
Thanks Emmie, I thought I was watching Star Wars this whole time.

On the one hand the actors in the film play it completely straight and on the other hand Nabwana Isaac Godfrey Geoffrey (try saying that 3 times fast) makes sure his movies come with their own riffing. I've been talking about VJ Emmie a lot because he honestly steals the show. At first I thought he was annoying but then he started to grow on me. Emmie's rapid fire non sequitur filled commentary has most of the films' funniest lines and spawned almost all the memes associated with Wakaliwood. But I've been talking about VJ Emmie for too long so let's move on to other things.

 I know, I thought Industrial Light and Magic did the effects at first too.


Calling the characters paper thin would be an insult to paper. Only two characters (Richard and Captain Alex) are named at all during the actual film. Shit, the main character doesn't even get a name until the end credits. Who Killed Captain Alex? has less plot and characterization than the average episode of He-Man and The Masters of the Universe. Everything is just a set up for the next batshit insane action scene. The action here though is extremely impressive given the budget was lower than that of the average Asylum flick and it was filmed in the slums of a third world country. The effects are fucking awful and the acting is over the top (From what I can tell. I mean, it's not in English) but these were amateurs trying to make the most out of the situation they were in.
More insightful commentary from VJ Emmie.
.
I've been avoiding spoiling too much of the movie for 3 reasons. 1: It's an hour long flick you can watch on YouTube for free, 2: there's barely any plot to spoil anyway and 3: I consider this film highly entertaining and I give it my highest recommendation. There's never a dull moment to be had and underneath all the high octane fight scenes, crappy CGI explosions and narrators screaming about dinosaurs is a lot of heart. If I'm going to be honest, this movie is kind of inspiring to me. Isaac Nabwana Godfrey Geoffrey not only managed to make a movie in a part of the world prone to floods, power outages and having no running water but managed to kickstart an entire film industry. Who Killed Captain Alex? might be a ridiculous low quality piece of shit it's a ridiculous low quality piece of shit with passion, soul and most importantly riffiablity. If you like bad movies or just genre films in general you need to give this flick a watch.

Rating: 4/4. Highly Recommended!

But don't take my word for it, watch it for yourself!

An Apology and an explanation

Remember earlier this year when I said I'd post more regularly? Well I haven't fulfilled that promise and for that I apologize. The reason for this is that I've been having computer problems. I promise I'll have a new review sometime soon. The next review is of 1987's The Video Dead. See you then!

Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (1993) mini review

Drinking game challenge: take a shot every time I type out "Jason".

Even the poster for this flick is an ugly mess.

Plot synopsis (taken from IMDB): Jason Voorhees, the living, breathing essence of evil, is back for one fierce, final fling. Tracked down and blown to bits by a special FBI task force, everyone now assumes that he's finally dead. But everyone assumes wrong. Jason has been reborn with the bone-chilling ability to assume the identity of anyone he touches. The terrifying truth is he could be anywhere. Or anybody. In this shocking, blood-soaked finale to Jason's carnage-ridden of terror, the horrible secret of his unstoppable killing instinct is finally revealed.

I'm gonna tell you the truth: this was originally going to be a recap review but I accidentally deleted my notes so I had to do a mini review for this unholy pile of shit film. Whoops.

With that out of the way, let me tell you another truth: If a horror franchise goes on long enough it'd eventually go full retard*. Whether its Busta Rhymes giving Michael Myers an electric shock to the balls, Freddy Krueger using the Power Glove to kill someone or literally everything that happens in Texas Chainsaw Massacre after part 2,  any horror franchise that goes on long enough will eventually get stupid at one point or another. Some franchises redeem themselves, some don't. Horror fans have been conditioned to accept this.

But I don't think any horror fans in 1993 were prepared for how bad Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday turned out to be. I don't knock what people were expecting back then but I feel like it wasn't this:


You're not hallucinating this folks. This is a scene where a coroner chows down on Jason's heart thus allowing Jason's spirit to possess him via a special FX lightshow. Remember when this series started off with a lady slaughtering teens at a summer camp? But wait, it gets better! According to this film Jason is a demonic body hopping worm that can be reborn by possessing a blood relative of his, which is convenient because Jason somehow has a sister despite the first movie clearly stating Pamela Voorhees only had 1 kid. Why New Line Cinema decided to turn the esteemed Mr. Voorhees into a hodgepodge of Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers is beyond me but they did it.

Now I'm going to list some of the many reasons why Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday should be more accurately labeled "Viewers Go To Hell: The Final Insult". Why not? If the movie's not coherent, why should I be?

-This film says that Jason can only be killed by a blood relative. If that's the case how did Tommy Jarvis kill him in part 4?

-For a flick that was pretending to be the grand finale of the Friday the 13th series, the actual Jason Voorhees is only onscreen for maybe 10 minutes. Since the J man is going around possessing people the whole time you never really feel like it's iconic slasher villain Jason Voorhees running around slaughtering folks and not just random people running around slaughtering folks.

Though given how shitty he looks here maybe its a good thing we didn't see more of him.

-Most of the exposition for the film's lore comes from a bounty hunter named Creighton Duke (Steven Williams). While Steven William's performance is 1 of the few highlights of this dirge, at no point in the duration of this movie do they bother explaining how the hell Creighton knows any of the crap he does. Seriously Duke knows literally everything about the whole body shopping family bloodline nonsense and they never tell you how he knows all this.


-There's a scene where Jason straps one of his victims to a table and shaves him before possessing him. This is a real thing that happens and I didn't make it up as a joke. According to the documentary Crystal Lake Memories this was done to add some male fanservice since they thought there was a double standard with all the female fanservice in this series. Putting aside the fact this scene isn't sexy at all this is pretty hypocritical considering this movie has titties in it too.


-The opening scene shows us an FBI operation to take down Jason. Have the feds known about him the whole time? Why didn't they do something about him earlier? Do they know he's a reanimated corpse and not a regular sicko? If so, why aren't they more shocked by irrefutable proof of the supernatural? I wouldn't be asking these questions if this was a movie I liked. In honesty though this was the best scene in this film. it's all downhill from here.



Cool ending. Too bad Freddy Vs. Jason didn't come out until a decade later.

-Oh yeah this a film that reveals Jason Voorhees was a body jumping magical worm monster the entire time and takes this information dead seriously.

With all that said, was there anything I liked? Well I said earlier that I liked the performance of Steven Williams. His character is batshit insane and nothing he does makes sense but Steven acts his ass off with the shoddy material he's given. Most of the acting is solid but Williams is the only standout. Also the special effects and makeup in this flick is genuinely great, some of the best in the franchise. Other than that though this is the worst Friday the 13th film and that's saying a lot considering the next one takes place in outer space. Save your money and watch this highlight reel instead.


Rating: 1 out of 4 stars.

2020 Texas Gladiators (1983) mini-review

What better time to do a new year's tie-in review than near the end of February? Happy new year, I guess. Also this poster seriously had the balls to put the words "road warrior" on it? Come on!

Plot synopsis (taken from IMDB): "In a post-apocalyptic Texas, a band of warriors fight against a fascist regime that is trying to take control of all surviving population. "


Man, Italy sure fucking loved Mad Max during the eighties. Between 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Warriors of the Wasteland, Interzone, Raiders of Atlantis, Exterminators of the Year 3000, Warrior of the Lost World and today's feature you could argue that shitty Mad Max knock-offs were a genre in of themselves. Speaking of today's feature, 2020 Texas Gladiators was brought to us by the dynamic duo of and Joe D'Amato and George Eastman. Joe D'Amato was the director of such classics as Porno Holocaust, Zombie 5: Killing Birds, the second Troll 3, and Papaya, Love Godess of the Cannibals. George Eastman was the guy who played a a fetus eating monster in D'Amato's film Anthropophagus.
The esteemed fetus chewer not only co-directed the film but also wrote it and had a supporting role in it.



The Village People protagonists of our film. No I can't tell them apart either. 

That's pretty much all the info I could gather on this flick so let's just jump straight into the review. I'll get this out of the way first: I thought this movie was boring as all hell. You wanna know why this review took so long to write (outside of my ADHD and procrastination problems). Because I honestly had trouble coming up with anything to say about this movie. This movie is completely lacking in originality or creativity. Almost every cliché of 80's post apocalyptic films is in here.  An offscreen nuclear war? Check! A fascist regime who wants to take over for the fallen government? Check! It's Mad Max rip-off 101.

The first 20 minutes of this movie focus on this guy. He's unceremoniously killed off and then hardly ever brought up for the rest of it.


It'd be 1 thing if this movie was an unoriginal knock off that was really entertaining but alas that's not the case. There's not a whole lot of the gore, nudity and batshit insanity you and I want from exploitation films.  A movie called 2020 Texas Gladiators that has no gladiators and was shot in Italy shouldn't take itself so seriously.  This film has a lot of elements that should push it into so bad it's good territory: oiled up beefcakes with bad perms and poorly dubbed voices, native americans played by Italians in dollar store wigs and dodgy face paint, characters named "Catch Dog" and "Nisus" and action scene after action scene. Unfortunately the only part of this movie that I found really entertaining was the opening scene. Let me tell you: I was really excited to watch this movie when it opened up with dudes getting stabbed and nuns getting crucified. Unfortunatly it's all downhill after that and the rest of the picture is merely average.

There's a 10 to 15 minute stretch of this movie that takes place in this mine. It has no baring on the story and is never mentioned again after our heroes escape it.



This movies' not god-awful though. It's only 86 minutes long, there's a lot of action and there was nothing about this movie that made me angry. Honestly though that's another knock against it. It's one thing to be a bad movie, it's another to be a mediocre movie. In conclusion, you're not missing much if you don't watch it but you're not going to be miserable if you decide to check it out. God I really wish this review wasn't as short as it is but 2020 Texas Gladiators didn't give me much material to work with. I literally only picked this movie because it happened to take place this year. Sorry.

You know, all of this leaves me with 1 burning question: If I end this with "Happy New Year" would it be too late or too early?

If these guys are Native American than I'm the emperor of Japan.


Rating: 2 out of 4 stars.

New Year, New Content

We're almost a week into 2019 and If I had more than 1 follower they'd probably notice what a fuckin ghost town this blog is. I've been here for a year and I've only posted 3 reviews and spent more time reposting stuff I've uploaded to other sites. It's been months since I've written anything longer than a paragraph, let alone a review. There are various factors for this: Personal issues, a few months where I didn't have a working computer, my ADHD but there's a big problem that's been keeping me from writing: doing a comedic recap/review is harder to do in a written format than a video format than you'd think. I have no idea how sites like Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension and I-Mockery did it back in the pre-YouTube days.

Because of that, I'll be focusing on shorter reviews. Don't worry, I'll still try (and fail) to be funny since these types of movies aren't exactly the ones that require critical examination of their themes and character development. I unfortunately can't promise when the first review of 2020 will drop but I can promise you the subject of said review. Trust me, it's a fitting one....

Jingle Jangle Jukebox vol 4: It Came From The North Pole

Jingle Jangle Jukebox vol 4: It Came From The North Pole from plan9fromouterspace59 on 8tracks Radio.

Here's this year's Christmas mix and here's the 8tracks description:

Christmas time. The only time of year I drink egg nogg, watch Christmas movies and un-ironically listen to August Burns Red. It's time for the annual Christmas playlist. Lots of variety in this one: Everything from John Williams to 45 Grave. It's also the longest one yet at 25 songs. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Tracklist:

Intro: Excerpt From Die Hard

1: Christmas at Ground Zero by Weird Al Yankovic

2: The Warm Side of the Door by Lee Montgomery

3: Patrick Swayze Christmas by the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000

4: Home Alone Theme by John Williams

5: The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) by Twisted Sister

6: Things I Want by Tenacious D/Sum 41

7: Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) by Joey Ramone

8: Christmas For Everyone by Halford

9: X-M@$ by Corey Taylor

10: Flurries by August Burns Red

11: Island of Misfit Toys by the Misfits

12: Yuletide '88 by Bart Graft

Interlude: 80's McDonald's Christmas Commercial

13: We Three Kings by the Reverend Horton Heat

14: What Does Christmas Mean To You? by Phaserland

15: Christmastime is Here Again by Helix

16: Jingle Bell Rock by Gary Hoey

17: Last Christmas by Leo Moracchioli

18: Deck The Halls by Oni Logan/Craig Goldy/Tony Franklin/John Tempesta

19: It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year by Tin Idols

20: Christmas Jam by Trans-Siberian Orchestra

21: Another Christmas Beer by Fear

22: Joy To The World by Orion's Reign ft. Minniva

23: The Snow Miser/Heat Miser song by 45 Grave

24: Ode To Joy by Michael Kamen

25: Gonna Have A Rockin' Christmas by Thor

Outro: Home Alone Trailer

Jingle Jangle Jukebox vol 3: Yuletide Madness

Jingle Jangle Jukebox vol 3: Yuletide Madness from plan9fromouterspace59 on 8tracks Radio.

This is my 2018 Christmas mix. Here's the original 8tracks description:

It's the holiday season again. There's a chill in the air, houses are covered in lights, Krampus is dragging naughty kids to hell and you need tunes for your Christmas party. Start up the fire, grab yourself a glass of eggnog and listen to the third installment of my annual Christmas playlists. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Tracklist:

Intro: Excerpt from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Track 1: A Winter's Tale by Queen

Track 2: Christmas Is The Time to Say "I Love You" by Billy Squier

Track 3: Goth Christmas by the Ornamentals

Track 4: Mistletoe Fantasies by Timecop1983

Track 5: This Christmas Day by Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Track 6: Christmas Films Again by Belly Of The Steel Beast

Track 7: White Christmas by Paul Di'Anno

Track 8: Let It Snow by Anti-Nowhere League

Track 9: Gothic Christmas by Within Temptation

Track 10: Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer by August Burns Red

Track 11: Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight) by the Ramones

Track 12: Winter Wonderland by Stryper

Track 13: Wherever I May Roam by Santa Claws and the Naughty But Nice Orchestra

Interlude: Holiday McNuggets Commercial 

Track 14: Deck The Halls by Orion's Reign

Track 15: Wonderful Christmastime by Helix

Track 16: Naughty Christmas by Lacuna Coil

Track 17: Merry Metal Xmas by Doro and Tom Angelripper

Track 18: Scrooged theme/Terrorist Attack by Danny Elfman

Track 19: You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch by Grave Robber

Track 20: I Am Santa Claus by Bob Rivers

Track 21: Rock This Christmas Down by Lita Ford and Cherie Curie

Track 22: Darkest Carols, Faithful Sing by Christopher Lee

Track 23: The Battle on Christmas Dawn by Love Cinema Vol 6

Track 24: Christmas Medley by A Hero For the World

Outro: Merry Christmas Intermission Ad

Jingle Jangle Jukebox vol 2: I've Got Christmas Fever

Jingle Jangle Jukebox vol 2: I've Got Christmas Fever from plan9fromouterspace59 on 8tracks Radio.

This is my 2017 Christmas mix. From here on out there's no changes to any of the x-mas mixes. This and the 2018 one haven't been touched since they came out. Here's the original description:

Another mix of atypical Christmas tunes for those of us who are sick of the same old same old shit. Lots of variety on this one: Everything from heavy metal to synthwave to classic rock to punk to even comedy. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Tracklist:

Intro: M&M's Holiday Candies 1992 commercial

Track 1: Get Into the Spirit by Halford

Track 2: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Twisted Sister

Track 3: Another Rock and Roll Christmas by Paul Di'Anno

Track 4: Mistress for Christmas by AC/DC

Track 5: Carol of the Bells by Jaunter

Track 6: The Night Santa Went Crazy by Weird Al Yankovic

Track 7: (It's Gonna Be a) Punk Rock Christmas by the Ravers

Track 8: Silent Night by The Dickies

Track 9: Run Rudolph Run by Keith Richards

Track 10: Come On Christmas by Cheap Trick

Track 11: Little Drummer Boy by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

Interlude: TMNT VHS 1990 Christmas Commercial

Track 12: Thank God It's Christmas by Queen

Track 13: Merry X-mas Everybody by Slade

Track 14: Dead by X-mas by Hanoi Rocks

Track 15: Wizards In Winter by Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Track 16: Christmas Ride by Fight

Track 17: Heavy Christmas by 220 Volt

Track 18: Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End) by the Darkness

Track 19: Frosty The Snowman by August Burns Red

Track 20: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town by Dokken

Track 21: No Presents For Christmas by King Diamond

Track 22: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Ronnie James Dio/Tony Iommi/Simon Wright/Rudy Sarzo

Outro: Pepsi Nintendo Holiday Game 1989 Commercial

Jingle Jangle Jukebox vol 1: Halloween on Christmas

Jingle Jangle Jukebox vol 1: Halloween on Christmas (FINAL Version) from plan9fromouterspace59 on 8tracks Radio.

Since 2016 I've been making annual Halloween and Christmas mix tapes. I first got the idea to do this from some site called "Unwinnable.com" that used to do the same thing. Back in October I wanted to share my Halloween mixtapes with you and give my thoughts on the tracklist and shit like that but life got in the way so instead I'll share my Christmas mixes with you.

The thing both my 2016 Halloween and X-Mas mixtapes have that makes them stand apart from the ones that come after it is that I've been tweaking them for years before finally refining them in 2019. The Halloween one I remade outright but this one I just kept shuffling the original tracklist around and adding/subtracting other songs to make it longer. This is the final version of Halloween on Christmas. If the title's in green that means it was on the first version of this back in 2016.

Tracklist:

Intro: Silent Night Deadly Night tv spot

Track 1: All I Want For Christmas is Halloween by Happy Fangs

Track 2: Monster's Holiday by Bobby "Boris" Pickett

Track 3: Here Comes Krampus by Gary Roadarmel

Track 4: 12 Days of Cryptmas by The Cryptkeeper

Track 5: X-Massacre by Irving Force

Track 6: What's This? by Pellek

Track 7: Christmas with the Devil by Spinal Tap

Track 8: Halloween on X-mas by the Coffin Caddies

Track 9: There Ain't No Sanity Clause by the Damned

Track 10: Santa Claws is Coming To Town by Alice Cooper/Billy Sheehan/John 5/Vinny Appice

Interlude: Excerpt from Silent Night Deadly Night

Track 11: Silent Night Deadly Night by the White Coffin Terror

Track 12: Hail Santa by Wagoner Bros.

Track 13: Jingle Hell by Christopher Lee

Track 14: The Gremlin Rag by Jerry Goldsmith

Track 15: Red Water (Christmas Mourning) by Type O Negative

Track 16: Making Christmas by Rise Against

Track 17: Black X-mas by Venom

Track 18: Christmas by King Diamond

Track 19: Buried for Christmas by Wednesday 13

Track 20: Merry Creepmas by Sam Haynes

Track 21: Christmas Evil by The Krypt-Keeper 5

Track 22: New Year's Evil by Shadow


Outro: Silent Night Deadly Night 2 tv spot

Trash O Rama episode 37: The Force Is Strong In This One

TRASH-O-RAMA! FILMED IN SHOCKING TRASHOSCOPE!

Welcome one and all to Trash-O-Rama, my 40-60 minute series of themed video mixtapes inspired by the likes of Forbidden Transmission and the Hypnotic Eye. For those unaware a video mixtape is the "best parts" of movies, tv shows, music videos, commercials or whatever edited together in a certain fashion.

Today's theme? Star Wars! Expect droids, fan edits, Weird AL, ewoks, commercials, heavy metal, crossover fan films and Snoop Dogg murdering someone with a lightsaber! May the force be with you!

Trash O Rama episode 36: Superheroes Again

TRASH-O-RAMA! FILMED IN SHOCKING TRASHOSCOPE!

Welcome one and all to Trash-O-Rama, my 60 minute series of themed video mixtapes inspired by the likes of Forbidden Transmission and the Hypnotic Eye. For those unaware a video mixtape is the "best parts" of movies, tv shows, music videos, commercials or whatever edited together in a certain fashion.

Today's episode starts off the second season of Trash O Rama (where all episodes are an hour long) and what better way to start off than rehashing someone we've already done before?

Today's theme is superheroes. Expect fan edits, heavy rock, Zeller's, Burger King, tokusatsu and the obligatory Stan Lee cameo!

Trash O Rama Episode 35: 2019 Halloween Special

TRASH-O-RAMA! FILMED IN SHOCKING TRASHOSCOPE!

Welcome one and all to Trash-O-Rama, my 40-60 minute series of themed video mixtapes inspired by the likes of Forbidden Transmission and the Hypnotic Eye. For those unaware a video mixtape is the "best parts" of movies, tv shows, music videos, commercials or whatever edited together in a certain fashion.

It's time for the annual Halloween special! Expect gore, nudity, jack o lanterns, Vincent Price, Michael Myers, heavy metal, monsters and the scariest Halloween monster of them all: Vanilla Ice!

Happy Halloween!

31 Movies of October

This is a list of all the horror films I watched this October and what I rated them. I know I said I was gonna rate them trick, treat or almond joy but things change, ok?

October 1st: Trick or Treat: good
October 2nd: See No Evil 1 and 2: bad for both
October 3rd: Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood: ok
October 4th: Friday the 13th remake: good
October 5th: original Amityville Horror/Hellraiser 3 Trick, treat or almond joy: treat for both
October 6th: Killer Klowns from Outer Space: good/House of 1000 Corpses: ?
October 7th: Devil's Rejects: good

October 8th: Tales of Halloween: good

October 9th: Nightmare on Elm Street: good

October 10th: Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein: good

October 11th: It Chapter Two Trick, treat or almond joy: good

October 12th: White Zombie: good

October 13th: Hell House LLC: good

October 14th: Scream: good

October 15th: Candy Corn: bad/Haunt: good

October 16th: Dracula's Daughter: good

October 17th: Sleepy Hollow: good

October 18th: Dog Soldiers: good/Ginger Snaps: good

October 19th: The VVitch: good

October 20th: Child's Play (1988): good
October 21st: Psycho (1960) : good

October 22nd: The Cabin in the Woods: good

October 23rd  Halloween Pussy Trap, Kill Kill: good/The Barn: good/Halloween At Aunt Ethel's: ok

October 24th: Tourist Trap: good/Rocky Horror Picture Show: good/Hills Have Eyes: good

October 25th: C.H.U.D.; good /C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D.: so bad it's good/Basket Case: good

October 26th: The Mummy's Hand: good/The Mummy's Tomb: good/The Mummy's Ghost: good/The Mummy's Curse: bad

October 27th:  Halloween 3: Season of the Witch: so bad it's good

October 28th: Halloween: good/Halloween II: good/Halloween 4: good

October 29th: Trick: ok/Trick 'R Treat: good

October 30th: Ernest Scared Stupid: good/Creepshow: good

October 31st: Halloween 2018: good/ Night of the Demons 1988: good/Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark: good

A quick and spooky update

My readers (all 1 of you) would have been wondering why it's been months since I've written anything on here if I didn't take incredibly long hiatuses all the time. For once I actually had a good reason: my computer crapped out and I had to get a new one.


My original plans for this blog's 2019 October celebration was to watch at least 1 horror movie a day for the whole month and write a short review at the end of each week of what horror movies I watched and what my thoughts on them were. Obviously that's not going to happen but I am still doing the 31 Days of Halloween movie challenge. On Halloween I'll provide a list of all the movies I watched and whether I thought they were a trick, a treat or an almond joy (i.e. just ok).

See you then!

Trash O Rama Episode 34: Jumping the Shark

TRASH-O-RAMA! FILMED IN SHOCKING TRASHOSCOPE! Welcome one and all to Trash-O-Rama, my 40-60 minute series of themed video mixtapes inspired by the likes of Forbidden Transmission and the Hypnotic Eye. For those unaware a video mixtape is the "best parts" of movies, tv shows, music videos, commercials or whatever edited together in a certain fashion.

 

Today's theme? Sharks! Expect sharknadoes, street sharks, mega sharks, mecha sharks, ghost sharks and that one episode of Happy Days!

Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) Recap/Review

He's only on Monster Island for one scene.

Before the Legendary Pictures movies started coming out the name "Godzilla" to Americans conjured up images of cheaply made sci fi crap full of silly moments pandering to the little kiddies. That doesn't accurately describe 90 % of movies in this series...though that absolutely 100 % accurately describes today's film. Godzilla vs. Gigan (originally released in the states with the bullshit title "Godzilla on Monster Island") is a movie that's mostly remembered for introducing the villain Gigan, who went on to become 1 of the most popular kaiju amongst fans...and for not being very good.

(Yes I realize this is my first recap since February. No I don't know when the next 1 will be. Yes I know nobody cares since no one knows this blog exists.)



Recap:

We open with our protagonist Gengo (Hiroshi Ishikawa) showing off his ideas for a new comic to the head of a comic book company. Since said ideas involve children's hatred of homework getting telepathically beamed into outer space and creating an evil monster of homework, the meeting goes about as well as you'd expect.

  Gamera movies wouldn't even use this as a monster. Purely for budget reasons though.


He bitches and moans to his girlfriend for a bit about not getting the job  before she tells him to apply for a job at "World Children's Land", an in construction amusement park that's working on building a tower of Godzilla. Because what better mascot for your amusement park than one of the multiple
giant monsters that routinely turns Tokyo into burning rubble? Also of note about this scene: Our protagonist calls his girlfriend "A real hard bitch" which I only bring up because there's no way in hell you'd see that in a kids movie nowadays.


Anyway he goes to World Children's Land and we learn that they're simultaneously working on a monster museum and completely dedicated to bringing peace to the whole world (because amusement parks are obviously known for their humanitarian work), a concept so ridiculous that even Gengo with his moronic ideas about homework monsters questions it. But he immediately changes his tune when the head of WCL likes said moronic ideas (Which is frankly the most unrealistic thing in this flick about giant monsters fighting other giant monsters from outer space over the fate of the planet) and gives him a job.

Then completely out of nowhere Gengo says "What about Monster Island? All the monsters in the world live there!" before the WCL guy tells him that they'll destroy Monster Island after they build the museum. OK 1: What did Monster Island have to do anything they were talking about? B: Why does a supposed amusement park have the power and authority to blow up an island? 4: Blowing an island to bits and killing all its inhabitants doesn't exactly sound very peaceful.

 Nothing screams "world peace" quite like a 50 meter tall radioactive lizard who shoots atomic energy from his mouth.



The next day Gengo bumps into a woman on his way to the WCL office. The woman runs away before she can explain anything but not before dropping a tape on the ground. Later that night Gengo is confronted by that same woman, who is demanding the tape from him. He refuses to say anything (because WCL told him they were enemies of peace) but faints when a hippie holds an ear of corn to his back like a gun thus causing him to faint.

...That's a sentence I just typed out, isn't it?

 Yep, this is the 70's alright.


The woman and the corn guy are Machiko (Tomoko Umeda) and Shosaku (Minoru Takashima) respectively. They explain to the now awake Gengo that Machiko's brother got a job at WCL, disappeared and the higher ups aren't talking. Conveniently though, her brother wrote down this message in his journal: "Their plans are diabolical! The tape will reveal everything!". Gee, woulda been nice if you wrote those plans in your journal instead of this cryptic message.


Even though Gengo has no reason to trust these weirdoes, he believes everything they say and gives them the tape. They turn the tape on and it plays a noise that Godzilla and Angurius hear on Monster Island.

...Before I go on I feel like I should warn anyone who's currently drinking something while reading this to stop, let you spit it out in disbelief.

Godzilla and Angurius...talk to each other. And I don't mean they make monster noises to each other, I mean they speak English. In case you don't believe me here's the clip:

 Minilla talking in Godzilla's Revenge was bad enough. Now Godzilla has to sound like a drunken mental patient?

.Angurius and Godzilla talk to each other throughout the film but only 2 scenes have them speaking English like this. I have to ask...why? It's not like either of those scenes were so complex that the minds of the audience members couldn't possibly comprehend them without dialogue. The really bizarre thing is this was in the Japanese version too only with word bubbles instead of spoken words. Just shit.

Speaking of shit let's talk about the Godzilla costume used for this movie. While Angurius and all the other monsters look fine Godzilla looks like he's literally been through the wringer. At the time Toho had been using the same suit for years and the wear and tear was incredibly obvious at this point.



 This is a gif I found of a scene from later on in the film. You can literally see the King of the Monsters falling at the seems!

Godzilla tells Angurius to check out the noise so Angurius leaves Monster Island (which the monsters can just do whenever they want, I guess) and swims to shore. Even though at this point in the series Godzilla and his allies were firmly the good guys, the military shows up and drives him off.


Back with our heroes protagonists, they learn that the bad guys are holding Machiko's brother prisoner in Godzilla Tower, so they head off to rescue him. They get there and Gengo and his girlfriend stop him from getting executed but get caught by the villains.
We learn that the people behind World Children's Land aren't people at all, they're actually cockroach aliens from the Space Hunter Nebula M galaxy who want to take over the Earth and have sent King Ghidorah and Gigan out to destroy Tokyo. Why they pretended to be running a children's amusement park or why they hired Gengo in the first place are predictably never explained.

 "Gigan, did you remember to turn the sink off before we left?"


Usually the scenes of monsters destroying the city are highlights of kaiju cinema but 90 % of the destruction scenes here are just clips from the previous films. Not only that but all of those previous destruction scenes took place in broad daylight while all the monster scenes in this movie take place at night which gives me flashbacks to the rapid day to night shifting in Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Actually like 50 % of Ghidorah's scenes are just clips from the previous movies. Toho straight up had to rebuild the costume since it was in even worse shape than Godzilla's and they had to cut corners with the new suit since they didn't have the FX budget or the crew necessary to make it as movable as it was before. Because of this Ghidorah barley does anything in the original footage and didn't show up in another movie for 19 years. It really makes you wonder why they even went through all the trouble.

Angurius and Godzilla show up to fight the duo. While this is going on Shosaku and Machiko help our trio escape and they drive off, leading the space cockroaches to use Godzilla Tower to fire a laser at their car and kill them. Except they weren't killed because they had actually pushed the car out and hid in the forest even though none of them knew the tower could do that so I guess they all have really good foresight.


Back to the monsters, Godzilla's getting his ass kicked by both Gigan and Godzilla Tower's laser beams (the stock footage of Ghidorah is helping too) and Gigan actually causes a massive geyser of blood to erupt from Godzilla's shoulder. Angurius doesn't fare much better as Gigan's stomach blades causes Angurius to spurt enough blood to hit the camera! I wish more family films had this much blood in them.

 Rated G!


Back to the boring humans, they manage to blow up Godzilla tower by hiding explosives in a life size black and white portrait of them (where the hell did they get that from?) with the help of the military (the military doing something right in a kaiju movie? What madness is this?). This only works because the space bugs are dumb enough to mistake it for the real thing and shoot at it.

With the tower destroyed Godzilla and Angurius beat the ever lovin' shit out of Gigan and Ghidorah and cause them to retreat. The Earth is saved, everyone's happy, the end.

Review:

Godzilla Vs. Gigan has all the hallmarks of early 70's Godzilla: Bad English dubbing, gratuitous use of stock footage, random weird moments, shoddy FX and a plot about aliens trying to take over and/or destroy the world (this was the 3rd movie to use this plot and literally every other Godzilla movie in the 70's followed suit). The fight scenes that were actually made for this movie are pretty fun to watch though and I'd be lying if I said I didn't find this flick's shittyness relentlessly entertaining.


But let's talk about Gigan. You know, that guy whose name is in the title? It's funny to me how a hilarious dumpster fire of a movie gave us 1 of the most interesting looking monsters in the franchise. Gigan stands out amongst Toho's kaiju for the fact that he doesn't obviously look like something. Let me explain: Ghidorah looks like a dragon, Anguirus looks like an armadillo, Biollante looks like a plant, Megalon looks like beetle, but Gigan doesn't resemble anything from Earth. OK he sort of looks like a chicken but that's only in a really superficial way considering chickens aren't exactly known for having horns, mandibles, scales, sharp things for hands and belly chainsaws.

Gigan's unique design is the reason why he's in almost all the video games and has tons of merchandise despite only appearing in 2 movies after this one. Hell the next movie he was in was so bad it made this 1 look like the first movie.



Rating: 3/5. It's hilarious!