VHS Review: American Gothic (1988)

By Brian
4/5

American Gothic is great horror/ slasher movie about a bunch of youths who get stumble upon a conservative Christian family on a remote island.  The youths renounce their evil ways and become devout Christians who go to church and drink Jesus' blood and all that weird stuff Christians do.  Nope, just kidding, the crazy family is made up of Ma, Pa, and their three adult children who have been brain washed to believe they're still little kids, and the five of them attempt murder the sinners.  The first part of the movie is very Texas Chainsaw Masacre-esqe in that its about a murderous backwoods family, but unlike every other horror movie where a single chick barely escapes only to tell the tale, the survivor decides to take revenge by out-crazying the crazies and mercilessly killing the entire family.  Had to ruin the plot a little bit, but only in order to make the point that American Gothic is basically two horror movies in one.  If you were to only watch the second half, the film would be about a serial killer who murders two elderly parents taking care of their mentally disabled children.  American Gothic has good murders but no tits.  The creepiest part is when one of the adult children coddles a decomposed baby corpse, which she calls her child.  Watching adults talk in baby voices was a little obnoxious, but I was so pleasantly surprised by the way the survivor out-crazies the crazies, that I let it slide.  American Gothic is makes up for being not super brutal with its pure creepiness, 4 decomposing baby corpses out of 5. 

VHS Review: Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970)

By Brian
4/5

Hatchet for the Honeymoon should have been called "Meat Cleaver for the Honeymoon", because there are no actual hatchets in the movie.  The film is about a rich and handsome fashion designer of wedding dresses, who kills babes in order to find out what happened to his murdered mother when he was a youth.  All John (the main character) wants to do is bang and murder hot chicks, but his bitch wife keeps bothering him.   An interesting twist to this film is the ghost wife aspect.  After John kills his bitch wife, she reverse haunts him, that is, everyone can see her ghost except John.  I had never seen a reverse haunting in a movie before, and it added a fantastical aspect to the movie which kept it interesting and separated it from your ever day thriller/slasher.  Although slow at times, the characters and plot in this film were unique and original.  The murders were not that brutal, but ever time John kills a nice broad, a little more of the mystery is unraveled.  When the big reveal happened, I have to say I was actually surprised.  Hatchet for the Honeymoon is a solid thriller, full of twists, turns, and complainey wives that wont even leave you alone after they've died, 4/5.

VHS Review: Clownhouse (1989)

by Brian
2/5

Clownhouse is about 3 brothers who have the misfortune of running into 3 escapees from the local mental hospital, who have dressed themselves up as circus clowns.  This film invoked in me the memory that clowns actually ARE disturbingly creepy, and there's no one on this planet that enjoys clowns anymore.  Anyway, these phycho clowns spend about half the movie sneaking around these little kids without actually trying to kill them, which was frustrating because I wanted to get to the actual clownhousing.  The phycho clowns turn out to be really easy kill, and are easily thwarted by the 3 young boys.  One thing that I noticed about Clownhouse is the 3 kids, Randy, Casey, and Geoffrey, say each others names about 20 times a minute, so much so that I remembered their names without looking it up.  Clownhouse does not score high on the brutality scale, the kills are mostly bloodless, and are few and far between. Watching this movie was a clownhousedly bad time,  I nearly clownhoused my pants when it was over, 2 whorebortions out of 5.

VHS Review: The Hunger (1983)

By Brian
3/5

The Hunger is a super-80's horror/romance film NOT staring David Bowie.  I love Bowie, his music is awesome, and his persona and mostly everything he does can only be described as the paramount of coolness.  Unfortunately, Bowie is only in a third of the movie, and after he dies, the movie gets dull.  The opening scene is a song performed by Bowie cut with people getting killed and sexy images.  After that it goes really down hill.  Everything else you need to know about this movie can be easily summed up in this graph I made:

 The Hunger is sexy, but not much else.  The ending spared this movie from a 2/5 score, too much romance, not enough horror, 3 references to Ludes out of 5.

Tuesday Review: Shame (2011)

Brian's Two-Cents:
This was one of those "fuck it, lets just see any movie" weeks because Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was sold out and we couldn't just cancel movie night.  Shame was exactly as terrible as I thought it would be, of course achieving its NC-17 rating by just showing a lot of peepazools (dicks) wagging around.  Shame is a boring and awful movie devoid of any semblance of plot or purpose.  Shame is about a sex addict who spends his time jerking off on toilet seats and dreaming about banging his sister, which sounds cool, but isn't because it's just long shots of Micheal Fassbender's stupid face with crappy pussy music (that's the only way I can describe it) playing behind it.  I felt like I was watching the sequel to Drive, especially since it had frumpy actress Carey Mulligan as the female lead.  I would have walked out on this movie if it wasn't so cold outside.  Shame has almost no plot, and it hurts to watch, the only good thing about this movie is that it's only 99 minutes long, even though it felt like I was watching Fassbender make googly eyes at chicks on the train and crying for hours. Fuck this movie, 1 cum-stained toilet seat out of 5.

Ryan's Retort: 
I whole-heartedly agree with my movie crew counterpart, Brian. This movie was incredibly boring and way too artsy for its own good. Basically, it's just Magneto crying and jerking off for 99 minutes. Sometimes he even does both at the same time. Don't get me wrong. I totally understand what this movie is about and what the director, Steve McQueen, was going for. It's a character study. Cool. I can respect that. But I don't give one single shit about anyone in this film. I mean the main characters are a perverted freak, a slutty loser, and a douchebag boss. There was one scene towards the beginning of the film that I actually really liked though. In said scene, Magneto is making googly eyes with this one chick on the train and she seems pretty into it but then gradually becomes more and more sad for no apparent reason. Then there's this awesome reveal of her wedding ring that explains everything. The fact that this is such a powerful scene despite there being absolutely no dialogue is kind of awesome. Kind of. The acting in this movie is phenomenal, but its really not worth sitting through this snooze-fest of a film. If you like watching less than moderately attractive women sing entire Frank Sinatra songs as slow as humanly possible, then this is definitely the movie for you.

Overview
Rating: 1 out of 5 peepazools
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: Almost!

VHS Review: I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

By Brian
3/5

This is another movie that would make my mom cry.  I had no idea that when I slipped this greasy pig into my VCR, I would be thrown into an hour long rape scene.  I Spit on Your Grave is about a city slicker lady writer who goes into the country to get some work done on her novel.  Even though she is really nice to everyone in town, four dudes, including one half retarded gentleman, decide to capture and rape poor Ms. Hills just for some action.  The fully graphic rape, double-rape, triple-rape, and quadrupal-rape (in three different scenes) are really hard to watch, even for someone as desensitized as me.  When all the rape is finally over (a little more than half way through the movie) Ms. Hills decides its time for revenge.  This movie has a lot of rape and not enough murder.  I'm hypothesizing that the directer really wanted to drive home the fact the 4 men were awful human beings but I think someone holding you down so someone else can rape you is reason enough for murdering them, they ALL didn't have to go for it.  The half-retarded, goofy, nerdy guy in the movie is supposed to provide comedic relief, but its hard to make someone laugh in the middle of their third graphic full-bush rape scene of the movie. Ms. Hills also feigns niceness before she murders all her victims, which added suspense and some positive weirdness to the movie.  Her behavior also led me to the conclusion: "Never trust someone after you have raped them."  Too much gang rape, not enough murder 3 out of 5 inappropriate comic relief characters.

Nicolas Cage Movie Review: Vampire's Kiss (1988)

by Ryan

The only reason I even know about this movie is because of that video of Nicolas Cage freaking out for 5 minutes. This is the movie where he's walking down the street screaming "I'M A VAMPIRE. KILL ME, I'M A VAMPIRE" in the middle of the fucking day. Now, I love Nicolas Cage. Probably more than most people. I know he can be a horrible actor sometimes, but I don't mind it because it's god damn hilarious. And that's the only reason I was able to make it through this entire movie. Nicolas Cage is so fucking bad in Vampire's Kiss that it's hard to believe that you're watching an actual movie. Like somebody paid him to be in this. There's a part in the movie when he's crying and he literally screams "BA-HOO". Twice. And it's the best thing I have ever seen. Basically, Vampire's Kiss is about Nicolas Cage thinking that he's turning into a vampire but in actuality he's just really really crazy. Kind of like George A. Romero's Martin, except it's horrible. It all starts one night when Nicolas Cage is macking it to this chick and a huge ass bat flies in through the open window. The next day, Nicolas Cage is talking to his psychiatrist and he confesses to her that when he was fighting off that bat it made him feel strangely aroused for some reason. Soon after, this mysterious vampire woman starts showing up and taking her shirt off and biting him on the neck. She does this at least three times throughout the movie. Eventually, Nicolas Cage has completely lost it. He's jumping on desks at work, chasing his secretary down the street, reciting the entire alphabet, and raping people. It's ridiculous. This was not a good movie by any means. I was tempted to turn it off multiple times whilst watching it. But Nicolas Cage is just so mesmerizingly bad that you can't help but watch the entire thing. You keep thinking to yourself, "This can't possibly get any worse." And then it gets worse. Also, Nicolas Cage makes some of the best faces I have ever fucking seen in this movie. Here's an example:

It doesn't get much better than this.

If you love Nicolas Cage, watch this movie. If you love to hate Nicolas Cage, watch this movie. If you like good movies and do not want to waste an hour and forty minutes of your life, do yourself a favor and forget this movie even exists.

Rating: 2 out of 5 BA-HOOs.

Tuesday Double Feature Review Part Deux: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Watch the trailer here


Jelani's Take:
Having not read the highly acclaimed book, I didn't know what to expect with this one. The trailer didn't explain anything at all, and I was a bit apprehensive about even seeing this movie at all. Now that I have experienced the lurid head-trip that is The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I will never again write off a film before I see it. This one was epic. The story revolves around Daniel Craig whose career is fucked, and who just can't catch a break as he is locked in a legal battle in which the odds ore stacked well against him. He is chosen, with the help of some sleuthing by Lisbeth, (AKA The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo) to investigate a cold case; the ancient 40 year old murder of this old guy's neice. He offers in return, some dirt on the douchebag that is running Mikael (Danny Craig) through the mud in court. Of course he accepts! But this is just the surface of this deeply engrossing film. As it turns out, Lisbeth, a young computer hacker, is having a hard time as well. She is a ward of the state, and is dealing with the most deranged and creepy social worker ever for allowance and limited freedoms. From the get go, it is hinted that Lisbeth is a total badass. Throughout the film, it is firmly asserted that she is indeed the coolest female character ever. She is tactful, ruthless, and brilliant, and her emo/punk rock look throws off everyone as to how deep her skill sets go. She saves Mikael's ass throughout the film, once she teams up with him to investigate what turns out to be a terribly fucked up family. The entire film is merely a backdrop to the life of the tattooed Lisbeth (hence the name.) She exploits every shred of the bleak situations around her and ultimately comes out on top all by her lonesome. The movie was a thriller all around. It was a thoughtful, sexy, disturbing and uniquely imagined tale of suffering and triumph in this fucked up world that we all live in. The entire cast was fantastic, and the scenery, solitary and empty as most of it was, added tension to every scene throughout. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was a great film! I would definitely see it again, although now I will probably never read the book. For telling one hell of a convoluted story with such tact, this one gets a perfect 5 out of 5 from me.

Brian: I think Jelani summed this one up pretty well, but I wouldn't call this a perfect movie, so I give it 4/5.