Craptastic Horror Flicks - Unworthy Of A Remake?

My good friend Virtual Stranger’s piece made me start thinking about the rampant remakes – and there are certainly more to come. So, given the ridiculous amounts of junk that the ‘80s spewed out, what might never rate the upgrade? For that matter, did they rate the transfer from Beta? Sure, some of them are guilty pleasures that still bring a grin to my face. Did some of them even earn a sequel? Of course, but it was the ‘80s so that’s not exactly a badge of honor – I mean, how many sequels did Chucky get? See where I’m going with this?

Let’s take a look at some crap, shall we?

1. Demons (1985) – Those wacky Italians and their gore fests! Dario Argento, maestro of mayhem, delivered buckets of guts in this outing. And oh, what a lovely mid-‘80s soundtrack – Motley Crue, Accept, Scorpions – those spandex clad butt cheeks alone send shivers down the spine. Oh yeah, and there was some kind of plot, too – centered around a theatre opening in West Berlin, where moviegoers are treated to a horror scene on and off the screen. You see, when a woman in the lobby tries on a “prop” mask, a needle hidden inside gives her a demonic hickey. When that bad dog begins to fester, she turns all toothy and starts a-killin’. Of course, anyone she bites gets a slight case of demonitis, too – cue nonstop slaughter, roll credits. Hey, at least the outbreak didn’t start from a demonic toilet seat…

2. 976-Evil (1988) – Ring-ring… “Yeah, this is Hoax.”
“Hey, buddy, it’s Satan. Listen, I know your nerdy existence is frustrating and lonely. How about you let me possess you and take you on a little killing spree? I PROMISE to get you laid”
“Um…okay.”
That’s the long and short of it. A satanic phone number. Suddenly, that evil toilet seat doesn’t seem quite as preposterous, does it? (Of note: this was directed by Robert Englund.)

3. The Video Dead (1987) - Is there an entire subgenre of horror focused on spooky things creeping out of your TV? If so, this flick would end up sandwiched somewhere between Carol Anne’s TV experience (wait, isn’t that a prog-metal band?) in Poltergeist and The Ring's sopping wet killer brat. Oh, this time it’s zombies from the cable dimension, in case you were curious. (For more things clawing their way out of your flatscreen, check Demons 2.)

4. Dead Pit (1989) – Given Dr. Ramzi’s bedside manner, you could make a case that Mengele was just a bit misunderstood. One would assume that Ramzi’s reign of terror would have ended when he was killed and buried in the basement of a mental hospital. But twenty years later, the magical pairing of an earthquake and a girl with psychic mojo end up unleashing the now undead doc on the world. Oh, and his former “patients” join him for some revenant festivities. Luckily, they brainstorm and decide to start up a zombie day spa with rejuvenating seaweed wraps…Okay, no, they really just kill a bunch of people – but it would’ve been an interesting alternative.

5. Madman (1982) – It’s a horror story told around the campfire – after Madman Marz killed his whole family with an axe, he was captured and hung in the woods. But, as fellas with the nickname “Madman” often do, he escaped to kill again! Now, when his name is uttered above a whisper, Marz is likely to do his best barber impression and take a little off the top – scalp and all. Cue the dumb kid yelling his name, followed by scenes of camp counselors having crazy hot tub sex right before getting massacred. Was this a Friday the 13th rip-off? Sure. But this was a REDNECK supernatural backwoods killer. It’s the subtle differences…

6. Basket Case (1982) – It’s true what they say about two heads being better than one – especially for some bloody carnage. If that second head belongs to your nearly inhuman formerly conjoined twin…bonus! The boys hold a slightly murderous grudge against the docs that separated them and…well, I’m guessing you can figure out the rest, right? You almost feel for poor Duane (the human half of the duo) as he discovers love…at the same time his monstrous counterpart slithers away to kill again. Worst…double date…EVER…

7. Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988) – Ahhh…the title says it all, doesn’t it? The time was the ‘80s, where the women clearly shed their clothes to do everything – it’s a historical fact. “Eeeek! There’s a noise in the basement – let me just strip down to a thong and investigate!” “What, there are zombies outside? I’d better do some nude aerobics to warm up before running away!” Linnea Quigley, scream queen extraordinaire, was the feature bimbette in this cheese fest – which featured a wish-granting imp that had been imprisoned in (I kid you not) a bowling trophy. Somehow, the wishes all have disastrous consequences – and not just to trap you in bowling shoes for eternity, but that’s a start…

8. The Gate (1987) – You know that sneaking suspicion you had as a kid that if you had a hole big enough, it would unleash Hell on earth? What’s that? Your parents told you the hole would just end up taking you to China? Well that’s just silly. This movie shows us what would really happen – when the hole in Glen’s backyard starts churning green smoke and smelling like Dante’s BBQ Pit, demonic misbehaving can’t be far behind. Granted, the addition of Glen’s blood and some light incantations and ouija board summoning don’t help matters - yeesh, it’s like they’ve never seen a horror movie before. In the end, the lyrics of an obscure heavy metal band explain how to get their supernatural pests under control. And here I thought metal was supposed to CAUSE the problems – maybe I should go dig out my old Ronnie James Dio on vinyl just in case. Yeah, that’s probably not the best plan either...

9. Slumber Party Massacre (1982) – Sexy pillow fight, anyone? Wait, let’s check with the slasher of the week… Yeah, he’s okay with it - he’s also open to Jell-O wrestling. Oh, but he’s going to have to kill you all horribly with a power tool after the strip charades. It IS a massacre, after all. The funny thing about this raunchy romp is that it was penned by a feminist activist (Rita Mae Brown) as a parody of the slasher genre – but the producers decided it should be a more “serious” affair, thus the cheese-fest that it became. The first sequel (yes, there have actually been THREE) used INTENTIONAL humor much better than the freshman outing.

10. Night of the Creeps (1986) – What, you think you can find a better movie about alien brain parasites that turn their hosts into zombies? Yeah, I’m looking at you Slither! The humorous parallels between the mindless zombies and the frat boys they infect are lost on no one, and this is ‘80s schlock at its finest. (This one was just re-released on DVD this week, so go grab it!)

Bonus ‘90s Crap
11. Dead Alive (1992) – Nobody EVER believes the story of the cursed Sumatran rat monkey ‘til it’s too late. Suddenly, Mum’s a zombie who’s infecting the populace and you end up having to chop up the neighbors with a lawnmower. Dang, Peter Jackson (who directed) got lucky when he started courting Hobbits and giant monkeys – do you think he put this one on his resume? (Yes, I know I’m going to get crap for putting this cult fave on the list, but c’mon…)

If there’s anything you think might be conspicuously absent from this list, chances are it’s being remade. Yes, even Silent Night, Deadly Night – because who doesn’t want to see a Santa wannabe killing the neighborhood. ‘Til next time, have a gory good time – and Happy Halloween!

Original Sin by Virtual Stranger

Ahhhh, tis the season for infectious disease, random murders, and bone-chilling screams in the middle of the night. I knew what I was getting into when I moved to Los Angeles, though, so it’s too late to start complaining. And it’s not that bad when you get used to it.

Awful truth is, I used to be scared of everything. The dark. Things under the bed. Things in the closet (thank you, Stephen King for “The Boogeyman,” which haunts me to this day). Heights. Blood. Snakes. Monsters. Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton wasn’t even born yet, but I dreaded her coming. I got recurring nightmares from Fantasy Island, Land of the Lost, and even the old Get Smart show. You name it, I lost sleep because of it.

I gradually grew out of my abject terror, but it wasn’t until I met our lovely host in college that I was introduced to the idea of horror as a good thing. El Juano showed me the glory of the gory and the thrill of the thriller.

Alas, most of you these days don’t get to experience the joy of horror, because a lot of what you get has been kind of re-processed and homogenized with a few additives and preservatives. It’s hard to tell one horror movie from another, to be honest. Y’see, Timmy, back in the day before all film studios turned out was remakes, some of us got to see these things called Original Films. You probably know most of them today as remakes, but you don’t really know horror until you’ve treated yourself to some of these gems in their original form.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Little did little Georgie Romero know that he and his buddies were starting a whole subgenre of movies when they scraped together enough cash to make the most gruesome horror movie they could. Before then, zombies were people Boris Karloff hypnotized to work on his Haitian plantation, but within a few years they’d created a new nightmare--the next door monster. Slow, lumbering, almost unstoppable, and its only function is the biggest taboo in human society: cannibalism. Since then people have tried to speed zombies up, smarten them up, and laugh them up, but to this day nothing beats the original for sheer shivers. And a rights screw-up left it in the public domain, so you can even download it and watch it right now.
(Seriously, go here to download it now!)

The Omen (1976)
Rupert Thorne’s adopted son, Damien, has problems. His nanny commits suicide in a truly spectacular fashion at his birthday party. The nice priest that looks like Doctor Who dies horribly just after trying to reveal the secret of Damien’s true parentage. And a photographer has started to assemble an ugly list of coincidences about the boy that could mean bad news for everyone, and I do mean everyone!

Unlike the crass remake that was rushed out because some marketing guy figured out how to read a calendar, this film is all suspense. No creepy things in mirrors. No cheap shots. Not even much of a body count. You can count the deaths on one hand, really. But the atmosphere in this movie keeps piling up and piling up as Rupert sees the photographer’s eerie pictures, they discover how thoroughly Damien’s past has been erased, and by the time they’re prying open tombs in a European graveyard, just a quick glimpse of a few bones can make you shudder. You can drown in this movie! It’s the creepy tale of two men who’ve discovered they’re standing in front of a juggernaut, and nothing they do has a prayer of stopping it.

Halloween (1978)
Even if you never knew the story, John Carpenter’s little film about a guy in a Shatner mask killing folks became an instant icon by tying itself to our favorite holiday. This groundbreaking film (and it really was) took an idea that had been lurking on the edge of the American consciousness and threw it out in the open. What if Michael Meyers, a perfectly normal kid from a perfectly normal family... just went crazy? What if he carved up a few folks and no one knew why? Worse yet, what if he spent his life in an institution, got loose, and decided to pick up with the senseless killing right where he left off? Combined with Carpenter’s revolutionary “point of view” camerawork, an almost real-time script, and a series of gruesome on-screen murders, this film literally changed how horror movies were made. Seriously. Hollywood completely re-geared after this film. The era of sophisticated “adult” horror was gone, and it was now being aimed specifically at teenagers. All because of this movie.

Hey, speaking of aiming at teenagers...

Friday the 13th (1980)
Everyone knows the iconic vision of Jason in his hockey mask. What some of you youngins probably don’t know is that he didn’t get the mask until the third movie in the series. In the second movie he just wore a dirty pillowcase with some eye-holes. Heck, in the first movie Jason was only a minor character. The killer was someone else entirely! Who? Go rent it, I’m not going to tell you everything...

In a way, this series did in the ‘70s what Rob Zombie did in 2007 with his remake. They both tried to copy the original Halloween, but didn’t quite understand what it was about that movie that was so terrifying. Teenagers using drugs? Check! Teenagers having sex? Check! Savage killer? Check! Loads of blood? Check! Friday the 13th just grabbed all the sensational elements of Halloween and ignored some of the deeper subtext... just like Rob Zombie did.
This series created a whole new sub-genre-- the slasher film. It gave everyone the right to call themselves a filmmaker, provided they could figure out creative ways to kill people that sprayed blood a minimum of seven feet. Plus it gave Kane Hodder a career as the man behind the mask.

The Fog (1979)
Carpenter comes back with the story of a wonderful little oceanside town that’s been sitting on a few ugly secrets from the past. Jamie Lee Curtis comes back as the young lady who has to live through it, even though she’s out of her teens. Creepy undead pirates just make us want to come back again and again. This movie gets a lot of mileage out of simple camera tricks, not giving us a good look at the monsters, and that biggest of all nightmares--karma. While it seems a bit unfair at first that the dead things in the fog are picking on this little town, we come to find out the town kind of had it coming. Yeah, we don’t want to see Jamie Lee and her new beau get torn up, but the rest of ‘em... well, the undead have a pretty solid argument in their favor. I say kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out.

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Oddly enough, this early film by Wes “Elm Street” Craven is the American equivalent of Godzilla. The Japanese made a movie about the horrors of the nuclear age, we saw a film about a big dinosaur knocking down buildings. Then America made a film about an innocent (well semi-innocent) group of recluses being mutated by nuclear testing, forgotten, and forced to fend for themselves... and it got remade into a story about brutal cannibals. The real horror of this story wasn’t what these people up in the hills did, it was about what they were. It was this eerie story about how the monster was human and he wasn’t alone. He brought Ma, Pa, Granny, little Joe, and little Becky-Sue with him. The flesh-eating, that was just a side thing.

And if the word on the street is true, this time next year I’m going to have to rant about Evil Dead and Hellraiser, so go see those before they’re torn down and rebuilt.

Go!!

(Virtual Stranger was the inspiration for both the epic poem Beowulf and the motion picture Raiders of the Lost Ark, and is single-handedly responsible for repelling the Martian Invasion of 1936 that occurred in Grovers Mills, New Jersey. He is the author of numerous short stories, the upcoming Ex-Heroes, and an as-yet-undiscovered Dead Sea Scroll. There is compelling evidence that he is, in fact, the Limbergh baby.)

For more of Virtual Stranger's wonderful breed of insanity, check out his ranty blog!

Sink Your Rotting Teeth Into Toronto's Zombie Short Film Festival

Remember when zombies weren’t in vogue, and those of us who loved (and rightfully feared) them were considered a bunch of freaks? Luckily, if they were any more fashionable now they’d be wearing Jimmy Choos as they ripped into your melon to scoop out the juicy brains. MMMM…brains!

To celebrate the undead in style, our neighbors to the North (no, not Vermont you morons – Canada! Now pay attention!) have organized the first (hopefully annual) Zombie Short Film Festival at the Revue Cinema in Toronto, Ontario. So on October 30th, moviegoers from around the world can flock to see brains and viscera and gore…oh my!

The deadline for submissions was October 1st, so any enterprising filmmakers who hadn’t already shipped out their gory best will have to wait until next year to enter. From this year’s myriad of entries, the Zombie Fest crew (led by co-founders Jim Taylor and Cory Laffin) has already whittled the list down to the top 10, which is what will be screened for the lucky audience on the night of the event.

What kind of wacky revenant hijinks can we expect, you ask? Well, from what I’ve seen so far, we can expect a bit of CGI animation, a dash of homeless heroics and a smattering of…zombie on Barbie violence (yeah, you read that right!). You say you want to take a peek? Beware, here are some delightfully demented examples:

So, you'd like to see some silly zombie home movies? Check out The Lonely Squirrel (by Ronni Raygun Thomas) here.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Or how about a glimpse into how a bum may be humanity's best hope for survival in Bum of the Dead (by Geoff Whitman and crew):

Bum of the Dead from Geoff Whitman on Vimeo.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

What, your appetite's still not sated? Fine, how about checking out the tale of two Barbies in love during the zompocalypse in Housewarming (by Lee Marquardt) here.

And the fun doesn't stop there! Just imagine the gooey goodness that awaits you on the 30th. Check out the Zombie Short Film Festival web site for all the details (including the list of finalists) here. Just make sure your passport's ready to cross that border in a couple of weeks, folks - have a splatterific good time!

I’m Finally Ready To Forgive You For Armageddon, JJ…

We’ll call Armageddon a lapse in judgment, Mr. Abrams. That’s the best I can give you, considering the grudge I’ve held for the last decade over that steaming pile of film cells. You succumbed to the pressure of building a Hollywood spectacle and created…well, it was a bunch of space cowboys in a disaster flick with an asteroid. Oh yeah, and you turned Steve Buscemi into a howling madman straddling a nuke like it was his…y’know…”missile”. Ah, and let’s not forget the blame we should all place on JJ for single-handedly turning Aerosmith into a bunch of neutered, whining schlock peddlers!

But Mr. Abrams has been repaying his debt to his audience ever since. Starting with Alias, he was able to transform Jennifer garner into a dimpled, ass-kicking beauty of the small screen. Adding a touch of the mystical to that show made it even more enjoyable, and after five seasons I was ready to forget Bruce Willis in the cheesy astronaut costume. And then came Lost - ah, the plane crash that launched a thousand questions. You brought us such mystery and excitement! Is it a dinosaur out in the jungle? What the hell is in that hatch? How does Evangeline Lilly manage to stay drenched like she'd been in a wet t-shirt contest in every scene? Suddenly, I was able to erase Ben Affleck’s pseudo tough guy routine from my memory.

And 2009 clinched it – his penance can be at an end! You see, JJ started this fantastic little show called Fringe in 2008. The basics: FBI agent Olivia Dunham (played by Anna Torv) is assisted by Peter Bishop (played by Joshua Jackson), a “civilian consultant” with a usefully shady past, and his father Walter Bishop (played by John Noble), who is a genius level scientist who spent a large chunk of time in the loony bin after his experiments – both in human testing and his own ingestion of mounds of pschotropic drugs – made him a bit cuckoo. The trio, along with some help from the FBI and sketchy corporate giant Massive Dynamic, investigate “fringe” science and its consequences. To boil it down: if there’s an unexplainable boogeyman living under your bed, or if you happen to be growing extra organs, chances are good that these will be your heroes.

So, if this show started in ’08, why is ’09 the year of final forgiveness, you ask? Well, while it’s true that the show was a fun ride, it didn’t seem to have a clear sense of direction at first. It could’ve just as easily been X-Files Part Deux, between the mystery atrocity of the week and Olivia’s constantly melancholy “Woe is me” delivery. But in ’09, we started to see all the pieces come together. People were watching the team – if they were people at all. There was the revelation that there is a creepy parallel universe. Olivia’s bum unclenched when they added her sister and niece to the show. Leonard Nimoy returned to TV as science officer Spock...oh wait, no, he's Dr. Bishop’s former partner, Dr. Bell. And of course, there's the whole “Wait, who stole who from another universe to replace their dead WHAT now?!”

And that doesn’t even begin to cover the acting - John Noble’s portrayal of Dr. Bishop is Emmy-worthy at very least. At first, he merely seemed to fill the role of comic relief – feeding drug cocktails to himself and any lab animal that hadn’t already been dissected. But as we start to see that most all of the weekly abominations point back to Walter, he begins to remember why he might’ve been locked away in the first place. His reactions turn from comical to grief-stricken in an instant, and the result is perfection.

The fact that I’ve begun to take Dawson’s Creek alum Joshua Jackson so seriously…well, that’s just another testament to the show’s brilliance. And the masterful storytelling just gets better in season 2 – the conspiracy grows larger, the shape shifters are shiftier, and we say a
permanent goodbye to at least one cast member. I’m finally excited for each new episode of a TV show again. So yes, JJ, I can even forgive you for Buscemi’s phallic breakdown. With the added bonus of your Star Trek reboot being, as my friend Cheryl put it so succinctly on Facebook, “made of awesome”…I think we’re going to be okay. I can respect your work again.

But you might still want to give Aerosmith a call to say you’re sorry – they never quite recovered from being turned into giant pussies.

Brains, Brains, Tasty Brains! It's Zombie Walk Salem '09

You know, people, I can’t protect you from the zombie threat if you’re just going to go and party with them anyway. And that looks like what’ll be happening this Saturday (October 10th), at the 2nd annual Zombie Walk Salem. Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like – people dressed up as zombies, walking a route straight through Salem, MA. Like that town doesn’t have enough problems with witches, now they’ve got the zombie plague – you might as well just hand over your brain at the gate.

And they make it sound so enticing! The zombie-philes over at High Hat Productions are starting this shindig at Collins Cove Field at 3 PM. And you say you want some creepy activities? Well, they’ve lined up such ghoulish games as Capture The Hand and Zombie Kickball to keep everyone occupied ‘til there are enough undead roamers to constitute a proper horde – then the walk begins. To end the tour, the shambling fiends will grace us with…a dance number?! Oh, they’re going to do the Thriller Dance in front of the Lobster Shanty? Well that makes a lot more sense. And for those who haven’t snacked on any gray matter along the way, The Lobster Shanty will be offering free brains (yes, brains, I kid you not) to anyone dressed as a zombie (and to any real zombies, one would guess – I know I wouldn’t turn ‘em down).

There will be a “Best Costume” prize to the top 3 zombies – so bring out your finest rag suits and dresses, and make sure to spread enough blood and viscera around. Oh, and make sure you slouch for the pictures – no one likes a zombie with good posture!

(Click the map on the left for a larger version of the route.)

If you’re looking for more fun after the walk ends, it sounds like a lot of the local faves will be having appropriately themed parties:

- Dodge Street Bar & Grill will be providing the band of your nightmares, Voodoo Screw Machine, at 9 PM. I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys have tried to nosh on a few noggins during their shows…

- Did I mention the brains at the Lobster Shanty? Yeah? Well, I guess there’s an outdoor party attached to the whole frontal lobe buffet – I hear there might even be some Soylent Green wafers…

- Rockafellas is having a Halloween bash that night at 8 PM, featuring The Herland Brothers.

For more info on any of the Zombie Walk activities, check in on our friends at the High Hat Productions web site, or the Walk’s Facebook page. And remember, kids – it’s natural to be curious about the undead. Just keep your succulent brain covered…