Tag: Guilty Pleasures

Guilty Pleasures: Elvira Mistress of the Dark

by Saintmort

Okay kiddies, back in the days before internet and DVD burns Hollywood was threatened by the VCR. Their fear was that people could record any movie off television they wanted and thus would have a reason to enter a movie theater again. It was a completely unrealistic and absurd fear.

So when I was a kid I taped Young Frankenstein off Television (commercials and all). It was one of my favorite movies for a few reasons. Firstly because it was one of my grandfather’s favorite movies, another reason is because it’s a hilarious and well made movie. So why am I telling you this?

The first time I ever heard of Elvira was from that tape. Every single commercial break was a 15 minute ad for the television premiere of this movie. I’ll always remember hearing the line “looks like Gumby on Steroids” repeatedly and not have any clue what it meant. But I was curious what this movie was about. I don’t know why my parents decided it was okay but when I was about 8 I saw Elvira Mistress of the Dark for the first time. I really loved it (despite the fact that the movie is a giant sex joke that went right over my head) however this was the first time I’ve seen it in a quite a few years.

Elvira was best known for two things. Her Television show and her Charles Addams style morbid comedy. Admittedly most of her gimmick was stolen from Vampira (who unsuccessfully attempted to sue her in the 80s) but for a brief period of time she was  a genuine star. Making a theatric feature for her was not an unrealistic place to take her character and despite it’s many flaws the movie still remains a good cheesy 80’s good time.

Elvira is sick of hosting her horror show and dreams of starring in her own Vegas stage show. However she’s just quit and needs $50,000 to get the show off the ground. In a stroke of great time she gets a letter informing her of the passing of her great aunt. At the will reading Elvira expects to gain lots of cash and get her show off the ground but instead she inherits a house.

Elvira is disappointed but hopeful she can sell the old mansion for the money she needs. While the whole ultra conservative town manages to keep her from getting a job or selling the house, Elvira’s uncle keeps asking her for an old family recipe book instead the house. Elvira promises to find it and sell it to him. She finds the recipe book and discovers that it’s actually a spell book and she’s part of a long line of witches.

Elvira uses her new found magic to fight her evil uncle, win over the town and gain the money neccessary for her Vegas show. The show is complete insanity filled with half naked muscle men dressed like demons, a rap song and tassel dance. Here’s the video (NSFW I suppose)

The film was released to lukewarm reviews and even earned Cassandra Peterson (that’s Elvira if you didn’t know) a Razzie award for worst actress. However I feel like the the things that made this movie dated (possibly as early as 1989) are part of the charm. The film literally OOZES the 80’s (rapping, a flashdance parody and even a Scooby Doo reference). I also am a sucker for the few practical effects that appear in the film specifically the casserole monster.

One thing I never really noticed is that everyone who meets Elvira immediately wants to rape her. It’s like watching Teeth. I’m not sure what their attraction except for possible her big beautiful eyes.

The film eventually got a sequel that no one has ever watched and last year Cassandra retired the character forever at the first Comikaze so it’s safe to say that the heyday of Elvira is gone. It seems that the days of any ‘late night horror shows’ are over with. I miss my Joe Bob Briggs, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Elvira and I can’t wait for it to come back one day.

Well that’s all I got. Enjoy your Halloween.

Oh I almost forgot to mention Elvira has huge tits.

Guilty Pleasures: Popcorn

by Saintmort

Last week I discussed 80’s slasher movies specifically with My Bloody Valentine. Popcorn is one of the films of the late 80’s/early 90’s that are frequently looked at as the nail in the coffin to the slasher genre until Scream in 1996. What’s ironic is that Popcorn isn’t a bad movie at all… in fact it’s satirical look at slasher films almost makes it Scream before there was a Scream (although you could also categorize Student Bodies and There’s Nothing Out There in that category).

Popcorn follows a group of film students who’s program is looking like it’ll be closed down unless they find some funding. One of the students (Toby) proposes hosting an all night horror show screening various horror films with different gimmicks (3D, Oderama and Shock-o-Vision). Meanwhile another student Maggie finds herself haunted by a strange image of a man every night, the character is the inspiration for her current screenplay.

While setting up for the festival they find an old lost film called Possessor. The strange avan garde film involves a man (ironically the one from Maggie’s dreams) yelling Possessor, the film suddenly cuts. Their teacher explains to them that the film is made by the cult leader/film maker Lanyard Gates. After the screening of Possessor he killed his family on stage and set the theater on fire killing all who inhabited it.

While clearly shook up by the event the students move forward with their film festival. It proves to be a huge success and they pack the theater with attendees. However behind the scenes a strange killer is slashing up each student (using the gimmicks to his advantage a few times). A nice twist to this particular film is that our killer makes masks of each one of his victims faces to allow him to move unnoticed from one victim to the next. Ridiculous? Yes. Kinda awesome? Hell Yeah.

Finally we’re down to Maggie and Toby. It’s revealed that Toby is the actual killer (duh) and Maggie and he are siblings. Furthermore their father is non-other than Lanyard Gates, both survived the Possessor screening however while Maggie was unscarred Toby is actually badly burnt up under the mask he’s been wearing. He decides to complete his father’s vision. However a gimmick malfunction kills him before the audience (who cheers at his death not realizing it’s not part of the show — kind of like Scream 2).

My favorite aspect of this movie is the film festival itself. Director Mark Herrier and writer Alan Omsby did an excellent job of writing cheesy films that properly represent their time period. My favorite being the ultimate campy 3-D fright flick Mosquito.

Despite all it’s short comings the film is a good fun time. There’s some awkwardness (since the movie was shot in Jamaica all the kids listen to Jamaican music), and some jokes fall flat but in general the film is genuinely one of the better slasher films (so long as you shut your mind off on the ridiculousness of the whole ‘mask’ thing).

If I could be involved in remaking any horror movie it’d be this one. I would however do it much like Chillerama. I’d get 3 other directors to film the short films screened at the festival and then another director to film the wrap around story.

If you’ve never seen this underground little slasher classic you’re in luck. A special edition DVD has been announced (although no clue when it’ll be out) with a retrospective documentary and commentaries.

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: Saturday the 14th Strikes Back

by Saintmort

If you’re my around my age (22-31) you grew up in a magical time where channels like HBO, Showtime and Cinemax were a new and exciting channel. Like many of us who grew up in those days you would see some weird movies on those channels. Due to being a new channel they could only get strange movies at first. Movies like Killer Klowns From Outer Space, Re-Animator, Freaked and Little Monsters.

There was one particular film I always remembered but the title escaped me. All I ever remembered about the movie was that (a) smoke rose from the house, (b) a couch ate someone and (c) the kid gets nailed into a coffin. When the internet first started to become a viable source of information I’d search website after website for some clue as to what this mystery movie was. It wasn’t until one day on the badmovies.org forums when I finally got a lead. Someone said it was either Saturday the 14th or it’s sequel Saturday the 14th Strikes Back, but they warned me that they’re pretty terrible.

Now I’m not going to say this particular movie is “good” but it’s certainly better than the original. The film doesn’t follow any characters or plot points of the first Saturday the 14th but instead is a random and slapsticky comedy/horror in the same realm as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

Our main character is 16 year old Eddie Baxter. His family moves into a new house that they inherited from his uncle. The house has cracks in the basement where smoke is constantly rising. Eddie realizes that this smoke contains various evil demons with in it. These demons possess his family members as well as bring random pieces of furniture to life and allows various monsters to reside in the house. Eventually Eddie is the only member of the family left without being possessed. It’s up to him to save the family (and the entire world).

You know that when the biggest names in your horror film are Ray Walston and Avery Schreiber that you’ve got a movie that’s 90% comedy and 10% horror. Sadly 90% of that comedy fails to actually provide laughs. However there are also points where the absurdity levels reach a point where you have no option but to chuckle at the straight faced way that they deliver the more insane moments.

This is definitely a film that basically survives strictly on nostalgia. If you watch this movie having grew up with it you’ll know that it’s bad but you’ll be overwhelmed by the memories of the film. You’ll know it’s bad but you won’t care.

The film isn’t completely terrible though. There’s some cool looking puppets as well as entertaining stop motion throughout. There’s something moderately charming about the fact that the film never takes a second to stop. It’s one bad gag and bad joke after another. While the film doesn’t hold the same level of “so bad it’s good” praise that a Troll 2 or Plan 9 will receive it’s probably the only film where you get to see a werewolf spy on an olympic gold medalist in the shower.

Guilty Pleasures: Return of the Living Dead Part 2

by Saintmort

If you placed a gun to my head and asked me to name the greatest zombie movie ever made, with very little hesitation I’d say Return of the Living Dead. In a recent episode of my podcast Reddit Horror Club we reviewed this very film. The fact is most of what you know about horror movies stemmed from this “parody” more than the classics like Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.

It was Return of the Living Dead that first introduced the concept of zombies eating brains, it was also in this film that you first see zombies that can run (for better or for worse). But that’s not why I love that particular film, I love it because it’s a fun movie with some of the best looking zombies ever committed to film. If you consider yourself a zombie fan and you’ve yet to see it, this must be fixed.

Now… let’s talk about Return of the Living Dead Part 2

One can almost argue the film is a reboot more than anything. So many elements of the movie are similar (including many characters from the first ROLD returning as similar characters with similar dialogue). It’s basically a kid’s friendly zombie film, the MPAA was going to give it a PG-13 rating if not for one particular sequence involving a zombie getting cut in half. For whatever reason the director refused and decided to stick with the R (which good for him because the effect is one of the best ones in the movie).

Being that it’s a kid friendly film instead of following a group of 8 punk rockers in a grave yard we follow a young boy named Jesse Wilson. Jesse becomes friends with two bullies who take him to their club house. While there they discover a barrel of Trioxin (which turns you into a Zombie). The bullies lock him in an old mausoleum while they tamper with the barrel eventually spraying themselves (and the entire graveyard) in the deadly gas.

As expected the dead begin to rise leaving Jesse one of the only people that totally understands what happens.

The film currently holds a 0% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes. This movie is bad but it’s fair from 0% awful. The audience reviews were a 46^ which I think is at least slightly more fair.

There are elements that movie does a little incorrectly. They push the comedy heavier than before and while the original was funny is a slightly satirical way this film focuses on more slapstick humor as well as a Michael Jackson/Thriller Zombie. The silliness is just that silly. Nothing is laugh out loud funny in the film to the level that the original would make you laugh. Despite having directed a few horror films before and afterwards director Ken Wiederhorn hated horror movies which would explain his constant desire to stay away from the horror and play up the comedy. Most of the cast seems to have disliked his directing style and have negative memories on the whole experience.

Despite all the issues with silliness the movie is still extremely fun. While they play every  piece of horror with their tongue firmly in their cheek they didn’t skimp on the zombie effects. Be it puppets or make up each zombie has their own unique design and personality.

I love this movie to death and I’m sure a big part of it is because it literally oozes 80’s. They will never make a movie like this again (probably not a bad thing) but despite the fact that everyone involved hated the experience it looks like they’re having fun and that definitely helps make the movie a fun experience.

Go rent this and the original, turn your brain off and enjoy one of the greatest zombie movies ever made and a film where they shamelessly kill various bullies and turn them into zombies as well.

Guilty Pleasures: Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion

by Saintmort

This past January American Reunion was released. The film immediately forced me to come to terms with the fact that my 10 year reunion is only a year or so away (it also forced me to admit that I enjoyed some of the direct to DVD American Pie Movies). What I guess my biggest fear is that I won’t be interesting enough. Whenever I tell anyone this they also respond with “Just tell them you invented Post-it Notes”.

I feel bad even including this as a Guilt Pleasure. Most people who have seen it have liked it, it made enough money for a shitty Made-For-TV Prequel and it’s got a 69% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes. To be fair, I only really picked it because I do love this movie more than natural and I thought I could tie it in with the new movie Bachelorette (because you know it’s about people who were ridiculed in High school… okay I admit it, it’s a bit of a stretch).

When Romy and Michele hear about their 10 year reunion they’re extremely excited to see their old classmates. Since graduating the two have moved to Los Angeles where they’re both single and living a life full of parties and fun. Michele is unemployed while Romy is a cashier. In an act of desperation to put an end to their ‘nerdy’ high school background they decide to create a fake life for themselves as successful business women.

Their lie is that they invented Post-Its. Their ruse lasts only a brief period of time at the reunion. They remain being mocked by the same people that harassed them previously. However the people who truly appreciated them for the unique people that they are show them the love and respect they never had in High School. Former popular girl turned Vogue Magazine associate fashion editor praises the clothing Romy and Michele made themselves and with a loan from another successful classmate create their own clothing line.

Romy and Michele could have been a painful failure of a comedy. The characters could have been obnoxious and annoying but Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow made them adorable and likable. Furthermore Janeane Garofalo gives her funniest film performance ever has the miserable goth girl Heather Mooney (correction: Second best I almost forget Wet Hot American Summer existed).

The story of their redemption from High School losers to success is a touching one. The flashbacks to their high school days are genuinely heartbreaking. Even if we weren’t the one’s picked on like them, we saw the people who were like them.

The final message of the movie in my eyes is that you have to be true to yourself. While it’s nice that Romy and Michele end up having a successful clothing store. I’d have been just as happy if the film just ended with the two of them realizing that success isn’t how much money you made or the jobs you have but how happy you are with your own life.

I guess I got a little too preachy on this Guilty Pleasure didn’t I? Let me throw in some curses to bring it back to it’s normally low-brow caliber. Fuck Penis Shit Balls.

Guilty Pleasures: Amityville Horror II: The Possession

by Saintmort

The Amityville movies are in general pretty terrible. This would be because they’re based on a hoax (theoretically) and adapted from a book that wasn’t very good. I recently took the time to sit down and read the Amityville Horror and it’s a terrible read, yet a very interesting read at the same time.

After reading the book I wrote a short essay on my opinion of the book as a whole in my blog Pure Mattitude. You can read the whole thing if you want but I’ll give you a quick exert from my essay.

I’m not going to lie, after reading it I’m convinced that the events of the book really happened. I say that in the sense that no one could fabricate something this fucking boring and try to sell it as exciting unless it really happened.

The books “paranormal activity” involve “Windows breaking during a storm”, “car trouble” and “going to the same bar as the person who murdered his family a few years earlier”.

This awful and dull book lead to a feature film and 8 sequels. They are all pretty bad to the point of painfulness. Sadly due to the fact that pretty much all the movies are terrible people don’t really recognize the only one that’s moderately interesting; Amityville Horror II: The Possession.

You see while the first Amityville Horror is based on a very potential hoax and all the other sequels are simply made-up stories Amityville Horror II is the only thing based on a proven event, the DeFeo murders.

Now for the sake of creative liberties the names were changed to the Montelli family but the film is based on Murder in Amityville by Hans Holzer. The book (later renamed Amityville: Fact or Fiction?) tries to propose that Ronald Defeo Jr was possessed when he murdered his family.

The movie enters some dark and demented elements like a violent and abusive father as well as an incest filled relationship between brother and sister. But we’ll get to that in a second. First let’s go through the plot a bit.

When the Montelli (aka the Defeo’s) family moves into the Amityville house thinks get weird right away. Windows start opening and closing, paintbrushes come to life and paint hateful messages on the wall and eldest son Sonny starts hearing messages in his walkman.

Dolores asks the local priest to bless the house but his driven away by the abusive and violent husband Anthony (played extremely over the top by Burt Young). While the family goes to church so Anthony can apologize their eldest son Sonny (Son… Sonny… ugh) becomes possessed. HIs first act as a now demon possessed teenager is to bang the shit out of his sister (who is played by Diane Franklin aka Monique the French exchange student from Better Off Dead so really… who can blame him?).

As Sonny falls deeper into the possession his face begins to take on a more demonic appearance (because hey, it worked in The Exorcist). Eventually he’s driven to murdering his entire family on his birthday.

The young priest from earlier takes interest in Sonny an believing that he is possessed decides to exorcism him. While he may not be cleared of his murder charges, Sonny will be able to be himself again. The film ends implying that the priest is now possessed, if he is we won’t ever find out because the next sequel was a 3-D film about a demon living in the basement.

These final 30 minutes is what I find most interesting in this film. The demonic make-up is top notch during the final exorcism sequence. Sonny is caked in slime, contacts and rotting features. While the exorcism isn’t on the same level as other famous exorcism sequences (aka The Exorcist), it’s still quite good. While much of the sequence where Sonny’ becomes possessed is pretty absurd, the special effects and makeup remain quite impressive.

All in all the movie’s not terrible. There are some slow points and some of the performances leave something to be desired. Burt Young’s performance of the violent, abusive and cruel father for instance constantly walks the line between frightening and hilarious. The first scene in which he bites the youngest child and then beats Dolores when she tries to protect them is genuinely disturbing. On the flip side (just 10 minutes later) when he’s beating a child and screaming at the priest the sequence is so outrageously cruel that you find yourself chuckling a little.

On the opposite end of the spectrum Jack Magner’s performance of Sonny Montelli is quite energetic and well done (particularly given how ridiculous the possession sequence was shot). Sadly his only other performance was as “young serviceman” in Firestarter. I don’t even know if he is still alive as his IMDb page has little to no information on him.

In one of the more ridiculous moments of cinema history stemmed from the resolution of a lawsuit. George Lutz (the real life ‘victim’ of the first Amityville Horror) intended to have the sequel be based on the book Amityville Horror Part II. The book by John G Jones has the tagline “The terrifying true story continues” but then has a disclaimer stating “This book is a work of fiction, the author created this story”. When producer Dino De Laurentiis went with in a different direction Lutz attempted (unsuccessfully) to sue. However Lutz did win the right to put posters in theaters informing everyone this film has “no affliction with George and Kathy Lutz” (because you see an Amityville horror film for them and not a possessed and demonic house).

While the movie had mixed and negative reviews some critics (shockingly enough Roger Ebert) did see this as an improvement on the original (because it is). However the movie debuted at #1 it’s opening weekend and opened the door for Amityville everything (including possessed clocks and dollhouses). The Amityville Horror series is undeniably the worst horror franchise out there, but you still shouldn’t write off this particular sequel.

Guilty Pleasures: Scooby Doo

by Saintmort

In 2002 (aka 10 years ago) the movie opened #1 in the box office despite negative reviews. It’s success indirectly lead to a sequel as well as other kids movies based on old cartoons (Josie and the Pussycats came out first but it was far from a box office smash). So is Scooby-Doo really that terrible?

No. It’s not. I mean it’s not good. But it’s far from awful. What I see this movie I can see two movies battling to be the superior. James Gunn has been very open about the fact that his script was definitely a PG-13 adaptation (like The Brady Bunch and Josie and the Pussycats before it) contains such elements as Shaggy being a stoner as well as Velma and Daphne being secretly lesbians (and by very open I mean I think I heard him say that on Doug Loves Movies once) and then there’s the PG movie that Warner Bros wanted. This was confirmed by Sarah Michelle Gellar who reported that after all the cast signed on the script was made more family friendly.

There are definitely elements in the film that got to stay in the final product. One of my favorites being a joke in which upon Shaggy’s meeting of a girl name Mary Jane replies “That is like my favorite name ever” as well as his introduction being him grilling to the song “Pass the Dutchie” by Musical Youth. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The movie opens on the infamous mystery solving team (Mystery Inc)’s final mystery. After solving the case of the Luna ghost the group of extremely old meddling kids break up over various egos (specifically Fred, Daphne and Velma). Shaggy and Scooby remain optimistic that they will reunite again. And they do… 2 years later when they’re all summoned to solve the mystery of Spooky Island.

Park owner Erine Mondavarious (Rowan Atkinson) informs the group of his theory that an evil curse is being placed on his guests. The wild partying college kids leave sober and super aggressive.

While trying to solve the mystery old wounds are reopened. Velma still feels pushed aside for being dorky and less attractive than Daphne. Her obviously crush on Fred gets in the way of her crime solving and Fred is as womanizing always.

The gang eventually overcomes their differences and solves the mystery. Mondavarious isn’t Mondavrious at all but infact Scrappy Doo in disguise. Scrappy has invited the gang there to get revenge for them abandoning him (ironically due to HIS ego).

This was James Gunn’s third script having previously written the Specials and Troma’s Tromeo & Juliet (which Gunn claims in Lloyd Kaufman’s book Make Your Own Damn Movie is the film that got him Scooby-Doo). Gunn is a true horror fan (as evident in his scripts Dawn of the Dead and Slither) and while I don’t know if he had much influence on the casting of the film, I’d like to believe it was his choice to give Miguel A Nunez Jr (Return of the Living Dead, Friday the 13th Part V) a small role.

Regardless of who did the casting they should be rewarded. Every actor is perfectly cast (specifically Matthew Lillard who doesn’t get enough praise for his perfect performance of Shaggy). They also managed to make the ordinarily gorgeous Linda Cardellini a believably dorky and overlooked Velma.

It’s the elements of the PG-13 script this movie almost was (a few of the scenes found in the deleted scenes of the DVD) that make this movie worth watching. The film could have been hilarious. I’ve mentioned it a few times already but since Josie and the Pussycats has been covered previously in this column I’ll say that ideally that’s what this movie could have been.

A few of the elements added to make it more kid friendly make me chuckle (specifically Shaggy and Scooby’s farting contest… juvenile yes but I love a good fart joke). However in the long run the kid friendly aspects lack the same charm and entertainment level as what Gunn was clearly intending to do.

My other complaint has to do with the special effects. This was the same year as Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and while they obviously didn’t have the same $94 Million Dollar Budget Jackson had, I wish Scooby, Scrappy and the other monsters had the texture of Gollum and little less the cartoony look of Jar Jar Binks.

All in All the final product isn’t terrible. It’s just a mediocre movie that you can tell could have been much better. The sequel Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed received a five word review from Leonard Maltin who simply said “It is what it is”. Just a fun fact to leave you on.

Guilty Pleasures: Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits

by Saintmort

If you read comics in the 90’s there’s a few ads that are possibly engraved in your mind. Aliens Action Figures, Maximium Carnage the Video Game and the Saturday Morning Cartoon’s Greatest Hits album are all vivid memories.

Producer Ralph Sall fucking loves Cartoons. In the linear notes of this record he discusses his absolute love of the 60’s Saturday morning Television. With great Power comes great abilities I suppose because as Ralph Sall grew as a record producer he decided to use his connections to give us a 90’s Alternative Rock album packed with covers of these infamous TV show songs.

Cover albums are rarely respected records. More often than not they’re just something that we pick up for cheap out of curiousity and listen to once or twice. While bands like Me First and The Gimme Gimmes have perfected the art, most of the time when a band does a cover album it gets two listens and are quickly forgotten. Tribute Albums are rarely much different (this obviously doesn’t include Musicians Celebrate Jim Henson which will be released through Geekscape and Dollar Monday Promotions in the fall… but you didn’t read about that here).

Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits however is different. While it seemed pretty ignored (despite having an impressive collection of Alt-Rockers and Constant Advertisements in Comics), this CD has been in my CD rotation a decade and a half.

The album can almost be split in half between super faithful covers (Tra-La-La; Josie and the Pussycats; H.R PufNStuf) and bands doing their own thing with music (Happy Happy Joy Joy; Hong Kong Phooey; Underdog).

At the end of the day this record isn’t going to grow to have a cult following any time soon. Cartoon purists are going to be disappointed by it not sticking to the structure while Alternative fans aren’t going to feel the covers are different enough. Regardless of that I’ve always loved this record and always play it for friends, rarely do they love it the same way I do.

The album starts off with Tra-La-La as performed by Liz Phair and Material Issue, it sticks to the original structure and is in general a fun sing-along song, a drastic change from the next track. When Sponge decided to cover Speed Racer they really decided to let their Alternative/Grunge flag fly in the cover. Covers of Sugar Sugar (Mary Lou ord with SemiSonic), Scooby Doo (Matthew Sweet), Josie and the Pussycats (Juliana Hartfield & Tanya Donelly) and The Buggalos (Collective Soul) follow. The songs stick so closely with the original arrangements that they end up being ultimately forgettable.

However when Butthole Surfers tackle Underdog you know you’re about to hear something a little different. This is where the record gets interesting to me. Specifically When punk bands like The Ramones (Spiderman), Face to Face (Popeye the Sailor Man) and Wax (Happy Happy Joy Joy) pop in and completely turn 30 second theme songs into 2 minute anthems.

However the stand out tracks are found from Tripping Daisy (who’s lead singer later formed Polyphonic Spree) and Reverend Horton heat. The former covers The Sigmund and the Sea Monsters theme songs (including the Titular song as well as Friends) in a beautiful blend that just brings memories of summers past to the forefront of your mind.

Reverend Horton Heat also does a mash-up covering the instrumental Johnny Quest theme song. Heat’s fantastic guitar playing is given a chance to shine as he plays the bizarre theme song. Eventually the song transforms into the rock-a-billy sound that RHH is known for as they cover Stop That Pigeon.

If you love and miss Saturday Mornings spent in front of the TV, Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits WILL bring back some memories. If you spent your Saturdays switching between cartoons and MTV… this will DEFINITELY bring back some memories.

Guilty Pleasures: Bunny Whipped

by Saintmort

How was everyone’s Easter? Did the bunny give you quality eggs and chocolates and marshmallow peeps? In honor of that big fluffy guy I decided that the newest Guilty Pleasure should be on a film that’s hard to find in stores but available on DVD for $0.25 new. 2007’s Bunny Whipped starring Joey Lauren Adams and Esteban Powell (whoever he is).

I heard of this movie when the mom and pops video store I worked at received a copy in the mail. I’m pretty sure I was the only person to ever rent it and most likely the only person that would have enjoyed it anyway.

Released straight to DVD a year before Marvel released Kick-Ass and three years before James Gunn made the brilliant Super (but 13 years after Blankman) comes Bunny Whipped, your typical everyday man becomes superhero movie. While Kick-Ass and Super try to show the realistic aspects of becoming a superhero, Bunny Whipped just uses it as an excuse to show off some weird side-characters.

This is not a good movie. I’ll admit it, but here at Guilty Pleasures we take the good with the bad (not unlike the facts of life). Bob Whipple is a sportswriter (never shown writing a column or going to an office building) who decides to become a super hero after white rapper Cracker Jack is murdered under mysterious circumstances. He becomes The Whip. Not only is his superhero name not creative but he goes on TV repeatedly as ‘Bob Whipple AKA the Whip – Superhero/Sportswriter’. It kind of defeats the purpose of an alias.

Bob is played by Esteban Powell who is so painfully bad in this role there are points I wondered if he wrote and directed the movie as well (it’s clearly an indie film so that wouldn’t be the least bit shocking). He did not however, those titles both belong to Rafael Riera who has yet to make a follow up film.

While the filmmaking and acting is shabby and rough at best, the movie is actually entertaining and better than it had any right to be. The best humor being all the rap related battles whether it’s Cracker Jack (who is murdered in concert while singing his song I’ve Been Shot so the audience doesn’t realize he’s killed til later), the Rick James look-a-like Kenny Kent (who’s song Lonely at the Top (the wah wah wah wah song) is getting terrible reviews) or Cracker Jack’s best friend Dirty old Skank’s tribute song to Cracker’s memory ‘Tap Dat Ass’ the jokes are better than the actor’s rap skills (which admittedly isn’t hard).

Elements of the movie are trying too hard to be quirky (like the beauty model ‘Miss Most Awesomely Awesome’) it mostly hits more than it flops.

Finally much like Chasing Amy the film manages to make you fall in love with Joey Lauren Adams even though her face looks 30 years older than the rest of her and she sounds like an 80’s cartoon character. However when Joey Lauren Adams is the biggest name you have in your movie, you know you’re working on a tight budget.

Guilty Pleasures: American Pie – Naked Mile

by Saintmort

American Reunion is coming out this weekend and I couldn’t be more excited. I love the American Pie movies. This is nothing new. Most people love the American Pie Trilogy (or at the very least the groundbreaking original). I can already hear Shane O’hare going… “oh man his newest guilty pleasure is American Pie? What’s next Star Wars?” (Suck my dick Shane). You see, my love of AP surpasses most. Most people don’t own all seven American Pie movies.

Yes that’s right seven.

Now I can’t defend them all. Band Camp (part 4) and Book of Love (part 7) are pretty terrible while Beta House (Part 6) is enjoyable enough but Naked Mile (Part 5) is a legitimately fun movie.

Erik Stifler has a difficult life. He’s a senior in High School, he’s a virgin and he’s a Stifler. The name gives him a reputation to uphold. Erik has been dating Tracey for two years but she’s not ready for sex.

Erik’s best friends Cooze and Ryan decide to make a trip up to his cousin Dwight’s in Michigan for his college’s Naked Mile event. Tracey gives Erik a ‘Guilt Free Pass’ to get sex out of his system and his friends have ever intention of making him follow through on it.

At it’s heart Naked MIle is a good teen sex comedy (which typically doesn’t have a very high standard anyway). In fact if it has any fault at all it’s that it tries too hard to be part of the American Pie canon. You could easily have created the same movie without calling him Erik Stifler and in 5-10 minutes establish a family history of bizarre and plentiful sexual history. But let’s face it you don’t watch a sex comedy for the story lines (which has a hall pass plot line 4 years before the movie Hall Pass came out), you watch it for the nudity.

Naked Mile has without a doubt the most nudity of any American Pie film (not surprising since Naked is in the title). So in that respect it’s cheaper than buying a porno and it’ll remind you of your junior high years of jerking off to Fast Times At Ridgemont High (or maybe that was just me).

Eugene Levy appears in the film (because let’s face it, he’ll do anything for a paycheck) and he’s hilarious (when isn’t he). His character (as he has been throughout the whole Direct-To-DVD series) continues to drop us little pieces of info about Jim and Michele, in this film he says that he’s now a grandfather (and the trailers for American Reunion show Jim and Michele with their kids).

Do jokes fail? Sure plenty of them do. But many of them are quite funny. Some of the performances are pretty rough but Steve Talley’s performance of Dwight Stifler is pretty solid and the reason why the decided to follow these characters a second time in Beta House.

The movie had Eugene Levy, Midgets, shit tons of nudity and a drinking game that killed a guy you get exactly what you pay for with American Pie Presents: Naked Mile.Suck in the films gloriousness.

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.

Guilty Pleasure: In The Land of Women

by Saintmort

The first time I heard of In the Land of Women was from my best friend Jeff. He had randomly mentioned that he had seen it. Now he and all of our friends would go to the movies every weekend so I asked who he went with and he shamefully said ‘I went alone.’ Jeff was a very open O.C. fan so he saw it because he loved Adam Brody and was too embarrassed to tell anyone that he wanted to see it. He and I would rent and watch shit like Must Love Dogs and Elizabethtown without shame… but In the Land of Woman was too much for him to admit he wanted to see.

I can understand why though. The film was so poorly advertised that it looked like a bad romantic comedy along the lines of Sweet Home Alabama (except that movie made money). In reality, the film is a fun coming of age film with an awkward love story intermixed like Garden State or Chasing Amy.

The film follows two different people who end up in each other’s lives due to a series of random events. After his girlfriend Sophia leaves him, Carter Webb (Adam Brody) decides to take a break from LA and stay with his grandmother in Michigan for a bit. Meanwhile, Sarah Hardwicke (Meg Ryan) has discovered a potentially cancerous lump on her breast and tells her daughter Lucy (Kristen Stewart) who doesn’t really react to it at all.

Sarah and Carter become friends and Sarah tries to convince Lucy to hang out with him sometime. Carter and Sarah become closer and closer and eventually share an awkward kiss. Shortly afterwards Lucy asks Carter out and they too share an awkward kiss. Carter backs away from the family as Sarah is angry at him for kissing Lucy.  They work out their issues and Carter moves back to Los Angeles.

I love coming-of-age dramedies. In the Land of Women is a fantastic entry in this genre, filled with hilarious one liners and sincerely touching moments. Adam Brody is a fantastic actor with a genuine personality and has great delivery throughout. Kristen Stewart is better than you’d expect from her (without expecting much) and Meg Ryan is the most charming she’s been since the early 90s. Regardless of all of this, the movie has a rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes and most people don’t even know it exists.

John Kasdan’s sophomore film The First Time is creating lots of buzz since it premiered at Sundance last month so I can only hope that the positive reviews will make people re-discover his delightful debut feature film.

Editor’s Fact for Matt Kelly: The movie opens and closes at the counter of the 101 Cafe, where I had your parents surprise you for your birthday this year. You’re welcome.

Guilty Pleasures: Just Friends

by Saintmort

Well, it’s February, a month we mostly connect with Valentine’s Day. So for the next few weeks I’ll be defending a few poorly reviewed rom-coms. This week’s romantic comedy was released in 2005 and currently holds a 42% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a familiar Christmas themed rom-com called Just Friends.

Just Friends tells the story of Chris Brander, a successful record producer living in Los Angeles. When he was in High School he was an overweight kid in love with his best friend Jamie. After an embarrassing graduation party, Chris moved from Jersey to Los Angeles and never came back. Until one day his plane to Paris is forced to land with his newest client (and former girlfriend) Samantha James. While in Jersey, he’s forced to face old demons. Once again Chris tries to get out of the friend zone, while Jamie starts to fall for the formerly geeky Dusty Dinkleman.

What makes Just Friends work is that almost every guy can relate to the friend-zone concept. Even the world’s biggest ladies man has experienced the pain of rejection at least once in their life. Ryan Reynolds is at his most believable in the beginning of the film as the overweight version of himself. He’s funny, pathetic and charming but none of it ever seems forced. 

Amy Smart is as beautiful as ever in this film. While watching this I realized how rarely I’ve seen her in movies lately (outside of Crank 1 & 2 of course). It’s not hard to see how anyone could fall head over heels for her.

 

The film works best when it’s over the top. This mostly means anything involving Chris Klein’s performance of Dusty Dinkleman, the perfect boyfriend. Be it in the beginning when he’s attempting to perform a song but gets too nervous to get past the first few notes or later in the film when he’s playing Christmas carols like he’s Yngwie Maimsteen, he creates a much needed sense of surrealism to this film.

Anna Faris’ performance of Samantha James, the ex-girlfriend from hell, is a mix of hilarious, annoying and terrifying. A direct inspiration of pop-star train wrecks like Britney Spears, she represents the way we see the young pop-star who gets whatever they want. She’s obsessed with public opinion, things going her way and her ‘vegetarianism’.

But the real star of the movie comes from Chris Marquette’s brilliant performance of Mike, Chris’ younger brother. Mike is lovable and funny but still slightly evil, mostly thinking about himself and his desire to have sex. 

All these elements build towards what you want the most out of a romantic comedy. You want likable characters, you want a happy ending, you want to relate to the movie and most importantly you want to laugh. Just Friends does all those things, it even kicks the movie off with one of the funniest openings in Rom-Com history.

Never has lip-syncing been so funny and so depressingly relatable (for me at least, but I refuse to believe I’m alone in this). At the end of the day, Rom-Com’s are almost always a black sheep with critics (not unlike slasher movies). If you hate romantic comedies, this movie won’t change your opinion, but if you’re a fan, you will love this film and probably be surprised by it.

 

When not watching shitty romantic comedies Matt Kelly is hosting the Saint Mort Show (this week’s episode features Mitch Donaberger, Kyle K and Sonal Shah of Scrubs Fame) as well as tweets and writes in his blog Pure Mattitude.

Guilty Pleasures: The Guyver

by Saintmort

 

After my write up on Dirty Work Jonathan has asked me to do a more detailed Guilty Pleasures. So unlike previous guilty pleasures I’ll be discussing content of the movies, so I guess that means spoilers. Be warned!

 


Don’t be fooled by the cover. Luke Skywalker in tact does not play the Guyver

 

THE GUYVER

 

When I was a child I used to watch A LOT of cable television. I don’t know if that’s considered good parenting or brilliant parenting but it meant I saw a lot of weird shit (in my blog I even discussed the time that I accidentally watched Re-Animator and had many a sleepless night). On one particular moment of unsupervised television viewing I saw two monsters boxing and one crushed the other’s head and I was freaked out and turned off the TV.

 

Later, as if by some type of twisted torture (or a moment of divine intervention) that weekend, I stayed at my friend’s house and he had rented a movie called The Guyver. The film began with a long text scroll and voice over. This is always a good sign. I mean, Star Wars had text scrolls and that movie was good. In reality though, this means that the film is too complicated for someone to understand it ‘off the street’. The Guyver was no exception. The text explains how Aliens created humans (the scientologists were right) but gave some humans the ability to transform into super monsters. However to even the playing field the aliens created a device called “The Unit” which gives no advantage to this super monsters but can turn the average human into THE GUYVER (hey that’s the name of the movie).

 

Immediately after the text scroll, it shows an Asian scientist running from Jimmie Walker, a fat Russian dude and Michael Berryman. I remember in my brain thinking ‘oh shit, this seems familiar’. Then the Asian and Michael Berryman transformed into Monsters and started boxing ‘oh no, this is the scene I saw earlier this week! I can’t act scared in front of my friend.’ Luckily the scene was nothing in reality and I was able to enjoy the film.

 

It turned out that that the Asian scientist was supposed to meet up with a detective (overacted by Mark Hamill). He witness the murder from afar (thus he didn’t see the monsters) and informs his daughter about it. Her boyfriend Sean Baker follows them (thinking that something is going on between them) and stumbles onto the unit and through a humorous mishap of falling into The Unit turns into the Guyver.

 

Meanwhile Detective Skywalker and Asian girlfriend are kidnapped. Sean goes through a 30 minute or so battle only to lose and die (or so we think). The evil head of the monsters is giving Asian daughter a tour of the labs where they meet Dr. East (played by Jeffery Combs; apparently cast in the role because in Re-Animator he plays Dr. West). Despite Sean dying, the Guyver tries to clone itself and brings Sean back from the dead. Why? Because in cinema the laws of logic take a backseat to the laws of convenience. Sean saves the day and walks off into the sunset.

 

The Guyver was a direct to video release by a first time director. This basically means it’s already set to fail from the start. Add in the fact that it’s also based on a beloved manga and there wasn’t much of a chance for this movie to begin with. However, it became one of my favorite movies at the time and I’d constantly show it to people (almost all of them hating it).

 

I can understand why people would hate this movie. For starters, Mark Hamill over acts like there’s no tomorrow. His character is like Sam Spade without the charm, wit or likability.

 

Beyond that there’s a massive amount of monster characters in this film, most of which are there as comedic relief. They’re so overly animated though that all the humor (for the most part) falls flat (although I thought it was hilarious as a kid). They actors walk around throwing random shit across rooms and it feels like your watching a Ghoulies movie with actors playing the titular characters instead of puppets. The only one who brings in a slightly enjoyable performance is Jimmie Walker. Most of the humor of his character though is driven on the fact that he’s a walking ball of rapping and jive talking stereotypes.

 

 

The fight sequence in the middle is so extended and hard to follow that there’s a clearly ADR-ed line of dialogue in which a character says ‘Oh Good, The Whole Team is Here Now’. This dialogue exists strictly because it’s hard to keep track of exactly HOW many monsters there are and this is truly a shame because the best element of this movie (and the reason I still love it) is Screaming Mad George’s creatures.

 

Screaming Mad George might be ass at directing, but he’s an incredible effects man. Before directing this he did the creature effects for Arena, Predator and Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master. In the latter, he did the infamous cockroach death scene considered by many fans to be the best death in Freddy history. His quality in effects continue in the Guyver which legitimately contains some impressive transformation sequences.

 

The original intention of this film was to be a modern American Tokusatsu film. In that, it’s more successful in it’s goal than say 1998’s Godzilla remake. For those of you who don’t know, Tokusatsu is an Asian film genre in which people in rubber monster costumes fight. It has even inspired a wrestling federation (Kaiju Big Battel). However, Screaming Mad George’s mistake is going too far in the real of Monsters. He’s trying to make Destroy All Monsters but instead he should have aimed for Godzilla Vs. King Kong. What made Destroy All Monsters work is that over the years we had gotten used to these various monsters and cared about some of them (mainly Gojira). In the Guyver, we have so many different monsters and our hero that we barely have time to get to like them (even the villains, we hardly get to enjoy the creature design).

 

The Guyver was followed by a sequel Guyver: Dark Hero which was much more well received and while I enjoy it, it will never hold the space place in my hear that the original head-squishing Guyver has.

 

 

When he’s not watching poor Americanized adaptations of classic Japanese manga Matt Kelly is found tweeting, writing in his blog Pure Mattitude and hosting his podcast The Saint Mort Show.