Tag: Death Scenes

Guilty Pleasures: Happy Birthday to Me

by Saintmort

I’ll confess right off the bat. The biggest reason that I picked this particular film was because yesterday was my birthday. But I do love this movie even though it’s one of the most ridiculous slasher films of the 80’s (and trust me that’s saying something).

You see in the 1980’s Slasher films EXPLODED. While you had plenty of great franchise films like Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street you also had plenty of one shot slashers mostly cashing in on a holiday. These films varied in quality from the intentionally good (The Prowler), unintentionally good (Sleepaway Camp) and painfully bad (Splatter High). Now obviously with Happy Birthday To Me they’d run out of holidays (by this time Halloween, Friday the 13th, April Fool’s Day, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Graduation had already been claimed).

This movie is absolutely ridiculous but we’ll get to that in a minute let’s start off by explaining the plot a bit.

You see the movie follows Ginny a pretty & popular high school senior. She’s part of the “Top Ten” which is a group of the richest, smartest and snobbest students. Someone is killing off the various students. And man, do they ever kill them off.

The movie was advertised with the tagline “6 of the most bizarre deaths you’ll ever see” and that is not a false advertisement. I won’t spoil these glorious deaths (however the producers already spoiled one by making it the poster).

After killing almost all of the Top Ten Ginny begins to believe she may be the killer. She comes home on her birthday to find all her friends dead bodies sitting around a table and an exact look-a-like of herself.

Almost as if it were an ending to Scooby Doo the doppelganger removes her mask revealing herself to be one of Ginny’s friends Ann. Ginny kills Ann just as the police walk in. The audience never finds out if Ginny is arrested for the murders or able to prove her  innocence.

This is what makes the movie shine where other films from this time failed. Not only is it beyond outrageous with it’s murders and the way the killer is revealed only to end on a dark and tragic conclusion. Unlike most slasher films where there’s always someone there to witness the survivor killing the masked murderer the films also pretend that ‘life moves on like normal’ (this excludes franchises like Scream that follows the survivors over a span of films). The reality is that you were just surrounded by various dead bodies and most of the people you know and love have been killed, there’s no happy ending regardless if the boogeyman is dead or not.

Hmmm that was kinda darker than intended.

Anyway my point is that it’s blend of dark humor and intense death scenes make this film more entertaining than some of the other 80’s slasher one-offs. Go check it out, it’s October damn it!

Guilty Pleasures: Leprechaun 2

by Saintmort

This week we will be celebrating Saint Paddy’s day. So it’s not like I had a choice to NOT do a Leprechaun film this year. It’d be like not doing a Silent Night, Deadly Night film come Christmas Time. However the question is each film should I pick?

Let’s go back to how I define a guilty pleasure. For me the best definition was in Chuck Klosterman’s book Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs when it was defined as ‘something you say you like ironically when you legitimately enjoy it’. Furthermore we have to remember  that everything I cover comes from my massive collection of DVDs and CDs (most of which would embarrass the average person). So right off the bat I must remove Leprechaun, Leprechaun in the Hood and Leprechaun Back 2 the Hood as they managed to get 28% and higher freshness on rottentomatoes. No I must dig deeper to Leprechaun in Space or Leprechaun 2… both with a 0% rating. Most people enjoy Leprechaun in Space since it’s just ridiculous enough to be entertaining, so that leaves Leprechaun 2 which is personally my favorite of the entire film series.

Leprechaun 2
A Classy DVD Cover if I ever saw one

Leprechaun 2 (also known as One Wedding and Lots of Funerals… I can’t make this shit up) begins on St. Patrick’s day 1094, on our titular character’s one thousandth birthday. On this day he can pick any woman to be his bride, he chooses the daughter of his slave. In an act of fatherly love he stops the Leprechaun from completing his spell. The Leprechaun declares that in 1000 more years he will enslave the next child in the blood line before killing his slave.

Well it seems the Leprechaun was one hundred years early in this declaration as the film takes to 1994. The Leprechaun immediately finds the youngest in his old slaves bloodline Bridget Callum and kidnaps her. It’s up to her boyfriend Cody and his alcoholic uncle Morty to rescue her.

The movie is packed with plot holes, bad acting and stupid twists. So why is it my favorite Leprechaun movie? Two Words. Death Scenes. When it comes to horror the more interesting, innovative and sometimes funny the death scenes are, the better the movie.

Two of my favorite death scenes in any film appear in this b-level sequel. The first one involves a boy coming to seduce Bridget. Using his magical powers the Leprechaun creates the illusion of Bridget naked begging the boy to kiss her breasts (and what lovely breasts they are, kudos to the stand-in). As he leans in to kiss them the breasts turn into a pair of lawnmower blades that promptly tear his face to shreds.

Later in the film drunk uncle Morty makes a deal with Leprechaun where he’ll set him free if he grants him a wish. For his wish he asks for the Leprechaun’s Pot of Gold, and he gets it. The pot of gold begins to grow inside of his stomach. It’s a pretty interesting special effect where you see his stomach grow like the Octomom. He begs the Leprechaun to take the Gold out of him, so he slices open his chest and removes it.

Leprechaun 2 Stomach
It's like straight out of Wishmaster

The Leprechaun films should always be taken with a grain of salt. It’s hard to sit down and watch one of these films with high expectations, you pretty much either get what you expected and enjoy yourself, or you find yourself extremely bored.

Leprechaun 2 hits the right horror notes (which is rare for a Leprechaun film) and hits the right comedy notes (which is rare for early 90’s horror movies).  Unlike the previous film it plays up the gore and the comedy, however the future films focused too much both of these elements that the films lose some of it’s appeal. Due to the the fact that film just barely broke even box office wise, this was the last of the Leprechaun films to get a theatric release.

With cameo’s from Tony Curtis and Clint Howard and a sequence involving a bar full of midgets dressed like Leprechauns you know this is a worth at least one viewing.

Tell us about your favorite Guilty Pleasure in the official Guilty Pleasures Thread.

When he’s not watching some of the worst sequels of all time Matt Kelly can be found tweeting, hosting his podcast The Saint Mort Show and writing in his blog Pure Mattitude.