VHS Review: Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990)

By Brian
5/5


Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor is everything one could ask for in a science fiction horror.  Metamorphosis is about scientists working on a sample of an extraterrestrial life form handed down from the government to a private company.  At first the scientists create a couple of silly animatronic abominations by mixing the alien cells with common earth creatures, but then all hell brakes loose as one of the monsters bites a scientist, causing him to go through a grotesque, pink, bloody, squishy metamorphosis.  The scientist enclosed in his alien cocoon continuously writhes in pain and screams while his entire physical structure is changed down to the cellular level.  After a few weeks, a giant bloodthirsty alien penis dragon emerges from the former scientist and proceeds to brutalize everyone and everything it can get its penis mouth around.  The gore in this movie is fantastic, nothing can stop the dick dragon as it bites off heads, throws around sexy teenagers with its tendrils, and shoots spiky, poison laden projectiles.  If animatronics aren't your cup of tea, there is also some sweet claymation as the alien wiener monster shambles around on its four awkward legs.  Metamorphosis is written and directed by the same guy, Glenn Takakjian, who deserves the highest of fives for creating such a great horror scifi film.  I was also pleased that there was a character named Brian who didn't die in the film, even though I am pretty sure all the characters in the film died from cancer a few years later (watch the film to find out why!)  Finally, the movie was funny, featuring not one but TWO Star Trek references and the classic rambunctious teenagers with their awful dialogue: "It ate some guy!", there was even some mostly accurate hard science thrown in there.  Awesome. Fucking. Movie. 5 tendril flinging, poison spike pad launching, dripping uncircumcised toothed dong dragons out of 5!

This guy had it coming

VHS Review: The Lift (1983)

By Brian
2/5

I've seen a lot of horror movies about a wide variety of evil inanimate objects, but an elevator was a new one for me.  The Lift is about an elevator mechanic who is assigned to the task of finding out whats wrong with an elevator which is acting very evilly.  Fortunately for the characters and unfortunately for the viewer, the evil elevator totally sucks at killing people, sometimes I felt it wasn't even trying to murder.  The first 30 minutes of this movie is awesome, including a sweet decapitation (the highlight of the film) but then for 45 minutes or so, you are forced to sit through an entirely murderess investigation, where the antagonist goes around talking to scientists and college professors building up the entirely self-explanatory plot until I was ready to just fast forward through the talking parts..  Only about five or six people actually die in this movie, because you have to get pretty close to an elevator for it to actually get you, it can't exactly walk around and find its own victims.  Instead wasting your 90 minutes watching this whole tape, I would recommend watching of the decapitation part on youtube and then moving on with your life, 2 evil gooey microchips out of 5.

VHS Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

by Brian
5/5

After watching the dismal failure, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, I wondered if there were any good sequels in the Freddy franchise at all.  A.N.O.E.M.S.3:D.W.  is almost as good as the original.  This time, Freddy is going after a group of kids in a institution for sleep disorders, and its up to Nancy Thompson (the chick from the original film) to save them.  Unlike Nightmare 2, where Freddy just slashes everyone (booring), the murder scenes in this movie are actually creative and super fantastical.  In one scene, Freddy is a giant evil snake, then he's a TV monster, and then... well I don't want to give them all away.  The animatronics in this film are some of the best I have EVER seen.  As a special treat, instead of the kids being just scared wusses in their dreams, they get powers which they try and use to defeat the demon child-murderer.  Dream Warriors also reveals Freddy's super fucked up origin (*cough* nun-rape) as a male doctor in the hospital tries to set Freddy's soul to rest, skeleton fighting ensues.  This movie has delightfully bloody murder scenes, and does not hold back when it comes to brutality.

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.

VHS Review: Alice Sweet Alice (1976)

By Brian
3/5

Alice Sweet Alice was lent to me by fellow horror VHS enthusiast Chi, who usually has great taste, but this movie was only good, not great.  Alice Sweet Alice starts out with a little girl getting brutally strangled and then set on fire, all in a church during her first communion.  The victim's sister, Alice, is immediately blamed for the murder.  Alice is a creepy, deranged 12 year old who collects huge water bugs and tortures the morbidly obese landlord downstairs, who she calls Fatso.  The first half of this movie is great, Alice looks and acts like the kind of child who grows up to be a serial killer, she even kills a poor little kitty cat.  However, about half of the way through the movie, Alice is all but completely cut out of the movie, and there's just a lot of the dad, the detective, and the priest, who all look exactly the same.  The second half of the movie is really boring, and mostly just women crying and a superfluous romance that I didn't care about whatsoever.  The murder scenes and the creepy little child actress who plays Alice keep this movie above the 2 star line, but just barely.  This is one of those movies without any main characters and its super confusing, you're better off just watching Friday the 13th Part 2 again.

VHS Review: Red Planet (2000)

By Brian
2/5

Red Planet is about a bunch of dudes and Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity from The Matrix) who are on the first manned mission to Mars.  Their job is to figure out why their terraforming projects on Mars have failed.  Although Moss is a lot hotter in this movie that The Matrix, this movie felt a lot like a "fix the ship" episode of Star Trek, which means it was boring for all you non-trekkies.  Red Planet is all over the place.  Its not about killer robots or aliens, but somehow those both got sneaked in there.  While I watched this movie all I could think about was how stupid everything was.  I felt like this movie should have focused more on the science, but instead its not focused at all.  Sure the astronauts get stuck on Mars and have to try and find their way out, but the characters are too shallow to care about.  The only good part of this move is the end where Val Kilmer says "Fuck this planet!" and gives it the middle finger so that the planet knows how Kilmer really feels about it.  Why did they bring the militarized robot? What are those stupid fucking bugs doing on Mars? and what kind of a first name for a dude is Val? These are questions that were unanswered by the end of the film. LAME!

VHS Review: The Blob (1958)

By Brian

3/5

The Blob is a classic horror film starring the coolest guy ever, Steve McQueen.  In The Blob a meteor containing a big old booger lands on Earth in a small town and proceeds the start consuming people.  The best part of this movie is the stop motion jello that they push around to represent the alien being.  The problem with this movie is that there just isn't enough blob in it.  Most of the movie is about Steve running around town trying to convince people the blob is a threat but he keeps getting laughed at, getting caught up with the law, etc.  Also Steve McQueen is supposed to be 17 in the movie, but he was actually 28 when it was filmed, and it is really fucking obvious this dude is waaaay to old to be in high school.  He so old that when he says things like "Please officer no need to get the dads involved" its just plain ridiculous.  Other than those flaws, the movie was generally entertaining.  When the blob gets big and starts really absorbing people on a large scale, it gets interesting and exciting.  The Blob is also delightfully 50's, the characters saying things like "Shucks!" and "healthfully", and the stop motion special effects have low-budget charm that new movies don't, not to mention the bad ass cars.  I liked this movie but it was a little too much Steve running around town, and not enough blob blobbing it up.

VHS Review: Drunken Master (1978)

By Brian
5/5

I don't watch many Kung-Fu movies, but I think that's about to change.  Drunken Master is the movie that made Jackie Chan famous, its so old that he is actually credited as Jacky Chan (wonder why he changed it.)  From the first scene, where Chan takes a dudes hat off and plays keep away while beating him up, you can clearly see Chan's amazing ability to mix humor into his Kung-Fu.  The first scene had me giggling even though I was sitting at home alone.  The story of the movie was a little hard to understand because I have a crappy old vhs with heavily Italian-accented dubs, but it didn't matter because the movie is almost all action. What I did understand is that Drunken Master is Jacky Chan trying to save his rich daddy against an assassin named "Thunderbird" whose best line is "I'm going to kick your ass off!"  In order to defeat Thunderbird, Chan has to train with an old drunk to learn his drunken techniques.  The old master kicks ass, the dude must be pushing 80, but he fights like a pro.  Chan and the old master are stellar at kicking peoples asses with chairs, sticks, bottles, and everything else they can get their hands on.  Contrary to popular belief, Chan can also pull off Kung-Fu comedy without props, especially while using his "Lady Style Technique."  This movie was a perfect mesh of comedy and action, and at only 80 minutes, kept me at the edge of my Paxton the entire time. This was a flawless movie, so I'm giving it a flawless score of 5 out of 5.

VHS Review: Stage Fright (1987)

By Brian
3/5

Stage Fright is a horror film about a troupe of actors who face a world of trouble when one of them accidentally takes a deranged psychopath back to her theater.  What stands out the most in this movie is how the psychopath wears a creepy giant owl mask the whole time, never talking or revealing his face. The murders in Stage Fright are brutal, yet not original.  The killer uses your usual power drill, chainsaw, knife, etc. to kill his victims; some solid murders being a chainsaw bifurcation and an axe-to-mouth (yeah, I really wanted to write that.)   Personally, my favorite murder was when the psycho kills a chick on stage, right in front of all the other actors, who merely look on thinking it's part of the "intellectual musical" they are performing.  Other than that, the movie was almost entirely made of horror movie cliches, including: bad omen cat, raining really hard the ENTIRE time, oblivious cops, "Killer-Vision", super 80's soundtrack, and of course, the one chick who ACTUALLY manages to fend off the killer for longer than two seconds.  While these cliches don't necessarily take away from the film, they don't add and extra bonus points either.  The boob action in Stage Fright is also weak, only a couple pairs and shot from weird angles.  This movie lost another point for a crappy ending, which lasted way too long and didn't make a lot of sense. For being a solid, yet a little too cliche horror film, Stage Fright gets an admirable 3 oblivious cops parked right outside out of 5.

Why is it always raining in horror movies but never windy?

VHS Review: The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998)

By Brian
4/5
Silly as fuck, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit is about 5 hilariously stereotypical Latinos who each chip down 20 bucks to get a this brand new white "Ice Cream" colored suit.  Four of the men are regular hard working stiffs, but the fifth is a really really dirty homeless dude, who everyone knows is destined to ruin the suit for everyone else.  In the film, each man gets two hours to wear the suit.  The suit is fucking magical and glows and when you wear it, people around you start singing, and bitches fall all over you.  Is my favorite actor Clifton Collins Jr. in it?  Yeah he is!  Also, it's written by sci-fi master, Ray Bradbury!  This movie was really funny because all the actors talked like Cholos, and call each other taco eaters and stuff.  I know Blacksploitation, but Hispanicsplotation? that's some whole other shit.

VHS Review: "The Black Cat" (1934)

by Brian
4 pajama suits out of 5

This classic horror film harkens from a simpler time, when people were classier, and movie soundtracks didn't include hip-hop.  The Black Cat is about two young lovers who find themselves trapped in a struggle between good and evil.  When their hilariously old timey bus flips over, the young couple, along with a mysterious dark stranger and his servant, find themselves in the house of a super creepy looking satanist who built his house on the site of a bloody World War One battle just because he's THAT brutal.  This movie was certainly a classic, the characters are deep and interesting, and there's plot twists every five minute.  Every dude in The Black Cat wears suits everywhere and fights old timey style...by wrestling and trying to dramatically strangle each other with their bare hands.  One comical aspect relating to when this film was made is how all the chicks in the movie keep screaming and fainting whenever something scary happens.  More funny still is how one of the main characters, Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a big, brooding, not-taking-nothing-from-nobody dude has a "Intense and absolute all consuming horror....of cats!" Werdegast looses his shit every time he sees a little kitty cat, and hes always breaking stuff in his fits of terror.  I enjoyed this movie because even though it is super old, its totally about Satan and the supernatural, which must have been pretty controversial at the time.

VHS Review: Classics I Should Have Seen Before: The Shining (1980) By Jelani

Jelani is Late to the Party:
Hey folks! I have a little confession to make. For some reason, I have huge, gaping chasms in my movie repertoire. I must admit, that I am always that guy; the one who has not seen "that movie." ("like, really? you've never seen The Godfather!?! WTF?" *SLAP!*) I have missed many great classic films throughout my life. I am rectifying this obvious character flaw by the most obvious of means, and I plan to let you know exactly what my impressions on these classic films are! So, without further adieu,

THE SHINIG IS AWESOME. (But you knew that already didn't you?) This horror/thriller is the pinnacle of greatness when it comes to the medium of motion pictures. Kubrick creates a masterful collage using every aspect of filmmaking. The result is an eerie horror thriller that could not possibly be presented in any other form. The eerie and foreboding soundtrack, the meticulous attention to detail in camera angles and lighting, the superb acting, and the immaculate location and setting all add up to a rollicking, suspenseful masterpiece. The cabin fever horror with a twist approach is the perfect way to tell this story; the sickening spiral into madness that none other than Jack Nicholson delivers. He is a fucking nut! As seen in his entire career, good ol' Jack plays one hell of an insane bad-guy. He really shines in this one though, as his vivid hallucinations and twisted rationale make for an almost relatable character, regardless of the fact that he is totally batshit fucking crazy. As far as child actors go, the kid was a treat to behold as well. His acting was spot on. Hell, the entire four-man main cast was spectacular. The crazy scenes of horrific hallucinations were great as well, adding to the overall demented package that is shoves through your face holes. This is a classic for a reason; it rules. I really should have seen it earlier. It is rare these days that there is a perfect marriage between all of the aspects of production, resulting in nothing less than movie magic. The story of a small family being driven insane in a big hotel could not be told as effectively in any other medium than on the silver screen, and it  is because of this that The Shining really shines as movie gold. The entire experience is cinematic in every way, shape, and form.. Every scene has class and style and intrigue, and the simplicity of it all is astounding. It is creepy as hell too. The only thing I can say to every character though, is: "what the fuck? have you never seen a single episode of Scooby Doo!? Don't build on fucking indian burial grounds! They will obviously haunt the shit out of you!" *Face Palm* Way to go though. You used the most cliche'd plot device to enormous effect. I tip my hat to you. 5 stars.

VHS Review: RUN LOLA RUN (1998)

Brian's 2-cents:
3 unce unces out of 5
On a fine Sunday around college student breakfast time (2 pm), Jelani, Shiro, and I sat down to watch the only German movie ever made.  Run Lola Run is about a super hero with the power to run great distances and shatter glass with her voice.  However, these powers come with a cost, every time she runs, crappy 90's techno music plays around her. After her boyfriend idiotically looses his sack on the train, Lola has to come up with a way to get 100,000 doll hairs downtown to him before he shoots up a supermarket.  It takes her a few universes to get it right, because people in Germany can't drive for shit and keep hitting important characters with their cars.  Watching this movie was a pleasant break from the usual style of movies I watch, and went great with a big cup of coffee and a fat bowl of oatmeal-cereal.

Jelani's Take:
Run Lola Run was a pretty cool romp through three alternate universes that all corresponded to the initial mistake of literally losing $100,000. Now, bad choices aside, The film was highly entertaining. If you sit and watch this hungover on a sunday and tell yourself to ignore the obviously skewed decision making throughout, you will find yourself strung along a fun movie trip. the characters lacked any depth whatsoever, but it was somewhat fitting that such shallow characters are present within the shallow plot. There is definitely a foreign twinge to the film, as you are constantly reminded that this would never see the light of day in the US of A. In no respect was Run Lola Run bad. On the contraire! It was a high-energy, techno-filled film that succeeds in that it never takes itself too seriously. I can understand why it is so popular, as it has many similarities to the ever-popular crime film genre, with many unique twists of its own. And FYI: It reeks 90's throughout. For being a fun movie ride overall, this quirky German flick gets 4 out of 5 from me.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

VHS Review: Boogie Nights (1997)

2/5

When I bought this tape for $1.08 at the Goodwill, I was thrilled because it had one of my favorite people of all time in it, John C. Reilly.  In this movie, Reilly plays Reed Rothchild, a porn star just trying to make a living boning chicks and acting silly.  One day Rothchild is just chilling at his bosses sweet ass pad with a pool and hot chicks when some new dude comes along and drinks margaritas with him.  The new dude has a big dick or something and ends up co-staring in a action/porno with Rothchild.  2 hours later, Rothchild realizes he just wanted to do magic tricks the whole time, and quits porno, the end.  This movie was way too long, the first half of the movie having no conflict at all.  When the conflict (some guy who's not John C. Reilly gets addicted to drugs) finally happens, its predictable and not that interesting.  Oh did I mention you get to see Reilly shred some sweet guitar and Don Cheadle's there.  For your Health

VHS Review: House of the Dead (2003) by Brian

1.5 poop shirts out of 5

At first I though this was just a straight to tv movie, but apparently Mike G saw this one in theaters (poor guy).  This piece of shit is based on the arcade game "house of the dead", and is about a bunch of douche bags who try and go to a rave on the really creatively named "Isle de Muerte".  When they get there, they discover all the ravers have turned into super wimpy zombies.  Luckily, the seaman who brings them to the island is a gun smuggler, which leads to the only alright scene in the movie, a 20 minute or so zombie shooting montage cut with shots of the crappy graphics from the video game.  Its not clear whether these were science zombies or magic zombies, but they were lame as shit and not scary at all.  The best character in the movie is the dude who gets trapped in a porta-potty, but when rescued refuses to take off his poop stained shirt, until he eventually is killed in it.  I couldn't get over why this dude wouldn't just take off his poop shirt, he was clearly wearing another shirt under it, and there's no way zombies couldn't smell that a mile off.  The only exciting part of this tape was a preview for some Insane Clown Posse based movie called Serial Insane Clown Killer (S.I.C.K), I wished I watched that one instead.

VHS Review: "Lock Up" by Brian

4 sweet ass cars getting destroyed with bats (out of 5)
Lock up is one of the five thousand action movies Sylvester Stallone made when he was in his prime.  In Lock Up, Stallone's character, Frank, is in jail for the second time after a daring escape from prison in order to see his dying father one last time.  With only 6 weeks to go, he is taken from nice prison and put in a shitty prison called "Gateway" run by Donald Sutherland, who Frank dicked over in the past.  Sutherland continuously tries to provoke Frank into trying to escape from jail again so he can fuck with him forever in brutal prison.  Frank is really determined to get out of jail and be with his super hot girlfriend, so he tries to resist the urge to escape.  This movie had a couple of good prison fight scenes, and two montages: and a heart-warming "fix the car" montage and a sweet "playing prison football" montage.  Stallone had a couple of hilarious one liners including "Thats Italian" (after he kisses his girl) and "Rape This" (right before he punches a dude in the face.)  However, the best line in the movie doesn't go to Stallone but to John Amos for his line: "I'm going to shine my boots with your face, you fat fuck!"  This movie was fun to watch, especially because you know Frank is going to attempt another escape, and you get to watch Stallone pretending to go crazy in solitary confinement.

Head to Head VHS Review: "Merlin vs Excaliber" by Brian

Both of these movies focus on the story of King Arthur so I decided to double up the review.  Merlin was actually a TV miniseries, but I didn't realize that until I researched the film.  Merlin starts all the way from the beginning, from the conception of Merlin, how he grows up and learns magic.  Merlin stars Sam Neill, the poor man's Kevin Costner, who just want to go hang out with his love Nimue, but always has to go save the world from douche bag kings who always think with their little heads and not their big heads.  Excalibur is a much more brutal and interesting movie, and it even has my boy Patrick Stewart, being a total badass as usual.  In Excalibur, Merlin isn't all pussy and righteous, and helps out others for his own gain.  Excalibur definitely wins this head to head because all the characters wear crazy spiked shiny full plate everywhere! they even fuck in full plate!  Excalibur has some righteous super long medieval battle scenes, but goes a little too long.  The costumes make this movie.

Final Ranks:
Merlin- 3 out of 5
Excalibur- 4 out of 5