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House of the Living Dead (1974)
Think Hammer, not zombies. But hey, that's marketing.
It starts out really good, with a lot of elements and characters laid out to build suspense and great atmosphere, but by halfway through it narrows itself down to characters seriously wondering if an escaped stallion is behind the murders. Yes, a horse. And it tries to achieve a feel of all Hell breaking loose at the end with some psychedelic lights and crazy acting which both miss the mark. Worth seeing once, but I consider it to be to period-piece Hammer horror films what Space Mutiny was to Star Wars.
Oh, and in a dinner scene about halfway through, our heroine wears an outfit that somehow achieves an insupportable cleavage-to-breast ratio. Science geeks may want to study this scene just to see if they can figure out what laws of physics her corset's breaking. Really. Seriously.
Recently bought this in the Nightmare Worlds DVD 50-pack. Not sure if it's gotten its own release.
Tom Goes to the Mayor (2004)
Mixed Feelings About This One...
One of Adult Swims bumpers called TGTTM, "...the most polarizing s@% of a b!#*$^ we've ever aired", and they weren't just trying to polish a turd by labeling it controversial. I simultaneously love and hate this show. While it was on, I couldn't wait for them to cancel it because I somehow knew that I'd like it more in hindsight. I didn't like it as a straight-up comedy, but it grew on me once I learned to see it as partly horror. The show follows the Tom Peters, the nicest, most normal guy on earth. He's just moved to Jefferton to try and make a living while making the world a better place, in spite of the town being populated mostly by degenerate mutants bent on torturing him to death, his new wife and 3 stepsons chief among them. Other viewers will call "mutants" an exaggeration, but the fact that only Tom was concerned about the town being completely submerged from a broken dam in "Bass Fishin'" makes me think Jefferton was a mid-western Innsmouth. As much as I hated the first season, I respected it for its uniqueness and took in every episode. And since seeing it, I've seen more and more things in everyday life that bring the show to mind, convincing me that it really has captured the zeitgeist, from the nightmare of finding a decent job in suburban America, to the stupidity and pretentiousness of local news programming and advertising in general. It also captures awkward moments without fixating on it like Seinfeld. The funniest parts are little commercials and visual gags, like trough-style breakfast-flavored instant meals, satirizing how fat we're allowing ourselves to get in the States. The basic pattern of each episode involves something terrible happening to Tom, usually the entire town turning on him because he was the only one sane enough to foresee and try to prevent something terrible from happening. The Mayor normally tries to help Tom, either accidentally of intentionally worsening the catastrophe of the week. So the recurring theme of the show's humor is misanthropy. Now, this next statement might only convey that I've been spoiled by living a nice, sheltered life in a first world country, but the reason this doesn't work is that misanthropy is only funny when people are randomly slaughtered left and right (Robot Chicken). The stuff that happens to Tom on the other hand seems so plausible that it's more horrifying than anything. The Porcelean Birds episode in particular put the entire 18-35 demographic on suicide watch for a half hour after it first aired. The show gets the viewer to empathize with Tom so strongly, that in the second season, when several stories see Tom accidentally kill and maim much of Jefferton, it became truly cathartic and hilarious, partly because Tom is the last guy on earth who'd hurt a fly, yet he truly deserves to eviscerate every last Jeffertonian. I actually laughed aloud at "Jeffy" when Tom, piloting a fake sea serpent, crushed several boatloads of people, and later (though not the last episode), we get our happiest moment as Tom is finally granted the sweet release of death, and takes half the town with him. Sure it implies he goes to Hell, but at this point it's been made clear to us that any Hell would be a step up from his life in Jefferton. Since cancellation, "Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job" has shown that their sense of humor is more suited to A.D.D. sketch comedy (Robot Chicken again), though I'm still sometimes at a loss as to whether I want to laugh of just smack them. Still, Tom is so adept at messing with your emotions while mocking our society that it's worth watching once. And if nothing else, it makes other unpleasant but good entertainment more enjoyable. Try watching "New York Ripper" right after an episode.
Hobgoblins (1988)
How to convey just how bad this is...
I can't review this without mentioning MST3K, since even a tenth of the reviews and responses this film has received would not be here if Hobgoblins hadn't been featured in their 9th season. As of this writing, it's still available on DVD in Rhino's MST3K volume 8 boxed set. While there's no official consensus, I believe that this it the only true "Maw of Hell" caliber film they did for Sci-fi channel (see the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide). While most movies in that category tend to come from the the mid 60s (the oily period), this one from the 80s was far more excruciating for me since that was the decade of my childhood. Nearly every positive memory of 80s pop culture was unearthed, beaten with garden tools, urinated on, and then reburied in a humorous position. And I wasn't even one of the badly scarred viewers.
Since there are already over 150 reviews of this film on this site, they probably don't need another synopsis of this movie. To explain just how bad this movie is, I need to tell a story of the second time I saw it with a group of people, in the spring of 2000. I'd already shown these three friends half of Rhino's then released tapes, including Manos, Eegah, and Red Zone Cuba, all Maw of Hell caliber. It was a Friday night, so we stopped after the first quarter to watch Space Ghost, and the second for Gundam Wing, so the wretchedness unfolded upon them slowly. With no show to pause for after the third quarter, I made to fast forward through the commercial, only to be halted by their cries, begging me to stop. The youngest among us was actually curled into a fetal position, shuddering. They implored me to just give them a few minutes to recover, to which I responded, "Oh, well I know it's bad, but I guess I may be a little desensitized since..." Now these people were close friends with whom I had shared much, like confessing attractions to various cartoon characters as 3:00 AM, and my most bizarre substitute for toilet paper I've ever resorted to story. So I had freaked them out routinely in the past, but when I finished that sentence with "...I've already seen this 3 or 4 times.", that was the only time in my life that I have looked into the faces of other human beings and seen genuine horror. If you were just going by their reactions, you'd have sworn I'd said something more along the lines of, "Well, I know live puppies SEEM hard to chew at fist, but after my dog had her third litter..." And this was the MSTed version. I shudder to think of the effects of the uncut version, especially for the MST crew themselves, who had to watch this 10 times in a week. I'm not sure the show completely recovered after this; a little of the love seemed to be gone.
So like I said: read other reviews for a synopsis. The point of mine was to warn all novices to watch as many other MST3K episodes as possible to soften the blow of this one. I've seen evidence of short-term mind-warping in viewers who made this their first MST, and long term trauma in those who actually watched the regular version. Follow these guidelines, and you'll find it a least as funny as it is painful.
The Worm Eaters (1977)
Spoiler Alert, but this dumb movie was already spoiled
Now bear in mind, I love weird and even boring movies. "Big Meat Eater", "Weekend", and "City of the Living Dead" are all ones I've given ten stars to, but not this. "Videohound's Cult Flicks and Trash Pics" summed this one up pretty well: It starts out looking like a slightly gross kids movie, but quickly devolves into pointless dreck. A crazy old man accidentally raises some worms that become radioactive or cursed (I don't care enough to double check this), and 3 lost fishermen who eat them are transformed into worm men: People in sleeping bags covered with shaving cream. Soon they're putting the creepy crawlers in the town's food to expand worm society, and the whole second half of the movie is just extreme close-ups of hot dogs and scrambled eggs with worms in them being chewed. Eventually the old guy is accidentally wormified and tries to crawl into town to stop the madness, only to get flattened by a semi. Now, after the pain of sitting through the whole movie, this ending is indeed a satisfying crunch, but to quote VideoHound again, it "comes about a half hour too late to save the viewer". I recommend not even wasting a rental on this unless you really need a visual appetite suppressant. There is a scene in the beginning of the old guy playing house with his pet worms that was just cute enough that I almost gave "The Worm Eaters" 2 stars, but if this movie isn't total crap, I'm at a loss as to what is. Give me the puke-eater instead, any day!
Hell Rats of the Living Dead (2002)
Says a lot in 9 minutes
Assuming the only way to see this is if you have the 2-sided Hell of the Living Dead/Rats DVD, WATCH BOTH MOVIES FIRST because the documentary contains spoilers for both, especially the incredible secret ending for Rats! I've never heard a director say things of his film career like "I prefer editing over directing", "I go about making movies the same way a cartoonist would", and best of all, "My movies are like my children, but I'd reshoot them all if I could". His attitude of trying to give a flying crap whenever he can was a refreshing bit of honesty. He also seemed to know when to just let his actors improv, the best result of which was a scene stolen by the dark-haired guy in the zombie movie. This also explains why both movies featured a character finding themselves in fancier digs than they're used to, and then deciding to play dress-up. This is one more reason to consider the 2-pack even if you only really want one movie. (I only care about the zombie-movie-of-a-gazillion-titles, but Rats is worth watching once)