FILM FEST: The Unwatchables - Netflix Edition Vol. II (With a Touch of Redbox).

Part Redbox, part Netflix, all unbearable.  I present to you: More recent zombie SHIT.  I feel bad launching an onslaught like this onto Lovelock and Starkwell, but to make an omelet, you gotta break a few eggs.  In this case the omelet is documenting their conversations and the eggs are their spirits, brains and patience.  The quality ranges from “could only get through five minutes” to “almost able to watch most of it”. 

[...]

[ The Dead Reborn (2013). ]

Starkwell: Wait… is this just three other movies chopped up into one “anthology”film.

Lovelock: Why is the video quality so bad… it looks as though they filmed a TV showing the film.

[Seriously, the first segment is from The Dead Hate The Living, which they already watched (well they started it and stopped in the middle of it).]

Starkwell: So it’s a new movie, but it is just a mash-up of three other movies that are over ten years old.

Lovelock: PASS.

[Has anyone in the world actually ever watched this thing all the way through?  It’s an hour and forty-five minutes…]

[...]

[ Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection (2012). ]

Lovelock: I thought Herbert West was in this…

Starkwell: No you’re thinking of “Night of the Living Dead: Reanimation”.  This is “Resurrection”.

Lovelock: ToMAYto – toMAHto.

Starkwell: More like tomato and NOT a tomato, because it’s not the same movie.

[They did have to admit that, at the very least, a little more love and care seems to have been put into this one.]

Starkwell: It’s actually quite nicely filmed.

Lovelock: It’s like a really good high school project.

[Obviously it’s not exactly faithful to the original, but at least they try to shove some social commentary in.]

Starkwell: If they took this quality and applied it to an actual original idea, they might have something… but attempting to remake a classic… BOLLOCKS.

Lovelock: Agreed.

[Honestly, if this was anything other than a remake, this would have made it out of unwatchable territory, easily.  It would have just been regularly terrible.  Slow moving, and a touch boring.]

[...]

[ Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation (2012). ]

Starkwell: This is officially the third ‘night of the living dead’ that we have now watched, that is NOT the original, and will now likely abandon LONG before the runtime expires.

Lovelock: I can’t wait to see how long into this one we decide to leave.

Starkwell: I’m guessing not long…

Lovelock: Can we at least wait and see Herbert West?

[Mortician guy kills a zombie and some guy in the cemetery.]

Starkwell: Well, the effects here are definitely on par with the rest of this lot.

[One of the characters was watching “White Zombie” on a laptop.  Starkwell threw up everywhere.  Lovelock has fallen asleep and informed us to wake him when Jeffrey Combs arrives.  We ended up waking him up as the Mortician cracked open a zombie head with a shovel.  Then Combs’ character is introduced.]

Lovelock: Hooray!  And he has a sweet mustache!

[Jeffrey Combs with a mustache is in fact probably the highlight of the film.  Then there’s a really lame Sara Palin joke.  Don’t get me wrong, I fucking hate her guts, but it’s a four year old stale joke, and to spend this much time making fun of her is a huge waste of time (she is 100% irrelevant now).  Starkwell puked again.]

Starkwell: I’ll be back later.

[Lovelock went back to sleep, he eventually woke back up to watch the mortuary employees share a joint with a zombie and then the Goth Girl dry humps a corpse to a really bad blues rock soundtrack.]

Lovelock: I should have stayed asleep.

[THIS MOVIE IS FUCKING AWFUL.  They even work in a way to get the Sarah Palin character to the mortuary so she can get killed by a fat woman zombie.  Yeah.  Really.]

Lovelock: If Troma tried even less, this is probably how it would turn out.

[...]

[ Scary or Die (2012). ]

Starkwell: Another fucking anthology film?

Lovelock: If you think I’m sticking around to see the zombie segment, you are mistaken.

[Fine.  I’ll just fast forward to the zombie segment.  Turns out there are two.  One involves a zombie clown that makes other people turn zombie clown, and another about a dead boyfriend coming back.]

Lovelock: Damn straight.  What the hell was going on in that one with the Asian guy?  It looked awful.

Starkwell: What is it with this new wave of anthology films?  They’re not good.

Lovelock: Seriously.  And don’t say “V-H-S”?  More like “SHIT-H-S”.

[Clown from kid’s birthday party bites main character drug dealer guy’s leg.]

Lovelock: Well, that’s something at least.  But why is the clown still acting all clowny and shit?

Starkwell: Why is this segment only like twenty minutes but feels a year long?

[Main Character slowly (emphasis on slow) turns into a flesh eating clown.]

Starkwell: Well that’s different.

Lovelock: They’re trying to make it all dramatic but the guy turned into A CLOWN.  What the fuck?

[The clown makeup actually looks pretty freaky.  They don’t bother watching the last segment.  It seemed to be about a bitch coming back from the dead to catch her man banging some girl in his back seat.]

[...]

[ Potpourri (2011). ]

Starkwell: The movie is about people tripping balls on bad drugs.  Let me guess, some stoners were stoned and were all “if you like translate potpourri it like means ‘rotten pot’ man, so like maybe that’s all potpourri is, like bad weed”.  And the story grew from there.  They may have even smoked some actual potpourri and then wrote the movie.

[...]

The film opens with a pretend vlogger reviewing the movie (so part of the actual film is a guy watching the actual film... I'm guessing they didn't have enough footage for a full length film, so they filled in the holes with this garbage).  Kinda lame.  Anyways, then we have some law enforcement types at the scene of a drug deal gone awry.

[...]

[Cut to a college class.]

Lovelock: Those are supposed to be college kids?

Starkwell: And they’re asking their teacher about “Back to the Future”?  College kids today weren’t even born when those movies were released.

[Seriously, it’s either dumb, or lazy, or both.]

[...]

After a few close-ups of pages of what may or may not be an actual university level physics textbook, Lovelock fell asleep.  Periodically it cuts back to the vlogger… who explains everything, in case the audience couldn’t follow.  That was enough for Starkwell to take off.  I waited a while to wake Lovelock up.  There was a stupid scene of people doing fake drugs, and tripping hard.  There was even a part when the vloggers fast forwarded the movie to ‘get to the good parts’.  Ironic, since Lovelock is now doing the same thing.  There are puppets, medieval forests, musical numbers, cartoons, and all sorts of weird shit.

[...]

Lovelock: So… it’s just a movie about “college” kids getting high and hallucinating?

[...]

To their credit, the filmmakers don’t resort to gratuitous tits and ass.  But if this eclectic and schizo film making style (potpourri-like, if you will) was applied to an actual story, it might have actually been something to remember.  There are zombies, and ample amounts of cheap looking gore, but overall it looks and feels like something Troma would shit out, probably after eating potpourri.  Alright, I think that’s enough torture for one sitting.

Fear No Evil.

Frank LaLoggia burst onto the eighties horror scene with “Fear No Evil”.  Then he disappeared until almost a decade later and then disappeared again.  That doesn’t NECESSARILY mean that this will be a bad movie.  Maybe it’s so good he just never thought he could top it.  Hmmm… maybe not.  Or maybe.  Well, let’s find out.  Or maybe not.  Or maybe.

[...]

[Narrator talks about God and Lucifer and angels and shit.]

Lovelock: God looks like Santa Claus.

[Priest in a rowboat paddles to an island castle.]

Starkwell: Priest looks like Kelsey Grammer.  Except old.

[Priest walks through a gauntlet of hanging dead things, including a naked guy.]

Lovelock: Is the priest staring at his junk?

[Starkwell resisted the obvious joke... then a Possessed girl falls from the ceiling, priest clubs her head in.]

Starkwell: Wait… what…

[Priest chases some shirtless guy with long teeth and huge sideburns who keeps growling at him.]

Lovelock: Is Lucifer humping that tree?

[Lucifer turns into a young girl, and then back to a middle aged man, then the priest impales him.]

Starkwell: What was with the young girl? Why… ?

[Opening credits roll… this is gonna be one nutty ride.]

[...]

After making fun of the bad overdubbing for a minute, Starkwell and Lovelock settle in, ready to watch, and subsequently ridicule, the film.  We find ourselves back in modern times and are following a family as they bring their newborn for his baptism.

[...]

[They baptize the baby, blood starts shooting everywhere.]

Lovelock: That’s why I won’t baptize my kid…

Starkwell: Yeah that’s why.

Lovelock: On a side note, why did they cast two old fogies to play the parents of the newborns?  They’re like seventy-five!

[...]

Anyways, they seem to hate their demon baby, as the demon baby Andrew starts tearing them apart!  Then we flash forward eighteen years and Andrew is all grown up and somehow they’ve remained married.  And they haven't killed the kid.

[...]

[Andrew turns himself invisible and walks down to the dinner table, the parents are all surprised that he is sitting there.  They didn’t see him come down.]

Lovelock: Well, the kid seems pretty evil.

[Husband gets in a fight with his wife over the birthday cake they just dropped.  He punches his wife in the face and then an iron falls on her head.]

Starkwell: Wait, so… is she dead?

Lovelock: The parents don’t need much help from Demon Baby to be fucking horrible.

[Cut to Andrew’s high school class.]

Lovelock: Is that the Boomtown Rats playing?  TELL ME WHY!  I don’t like Mondayssssss…

Starkwell: I’ll tell you what I don’t like.

[...]

Starkwell: The movie.  I don’t like the movie.

[...]

I can’t keep up with them anymore.  There is just so much SHIT going on here.  This is one eclectic, messy and schizophrenic cinematic experience so far.

[...]

[Student pulls something out of his pants zipper and uses it to open a car door, and then he drives away in the stolen car?]

Lovelock: The window was open. Why would he need that tool from his crotch?  That CROTCH TOOL, if you will.

[Just one example of how DUMB this shit is.  Then the bad boy from class Tony slaps his girlfriend INCREDIBLY hard and it looked real.  This was immediately after he banged her in the boiler room.]

[...]

Starkwell and Lovelock seem as confused.  I think that a bunch of the characters are reincarnations of angels.  But, they seem to know who they are?  Or they seem to not know who they are?  But no one knows that Andrew is Lucifer?  Honestly, I’m not entirely sure.  I think the Kelsey Grammer priest is/was their neighbor’s brother?  In a previous life?  Andrew seems to know that he is Lucifer.  If he is Lucifer, that is.

[...]

[After gym class, all the guys hang out naked in the shower and bad boy Tony decides to mess with Andrew by… kissing him… Did I mention that they are all in the shower?  Naked?]

Starkwell: So… much… full male frontal…

Lovelock: This is making me more confused.

Starkwell: Naked men kissing is arousing unknown confusing feelings deep within you?

Lovelock: No, I mean, I don’t understand the point of that scene.

Starkwell: Tony’s gay?  Lucifer is gay?

Lovelock: Anti-gay agendas are bullshit.  Fuck this fucking movie.

[...]

Sometime after dreaming that Andrew sexed on her briefly and then scratched her, Girl wakes up and sees that the scratch is REAL.  More importantly, though, she had a poster of Brian May on her wall, which is way awesome.

[...]

Lovelock: Totally underrated as a guitarist.

[...]

[Kids play Dodgeball, coach throws ball at kid, Andrew makes it speed up, and kid’s insides explode and he dies.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never played dodgeball.

Starkwell: That’s why?

Lovelock:  I was always picked last.  Stupid bullies.

[...]

Now it starts getting even more confusing.  I think Kelsey Grammer Priest is inside of Dream Girl now.  When it comes right down to it, though, nothing has actually happened in the first hour.  And where are Andrew’s parents?  Are they dead now, or… ?

[...]

[Andrew kills a dog, it looks real.]

Starkwell: I’m done.  Fuck this shit.

[I don’t blame him.]

[...]

All throughout, the music has been as all over the place as the plot.  It jumps from shitty early punk to bad pop to badly orchestrated bullshit.  Finally, after a super over acted monologue where he’s shaking and waving his arms like he’s singing a showtune, Andrew starts raising the dead and we get some zombies.  They growl and pretty much look like they have oatmeal all over their faces.

[...]

Lovelock: Better than nothing I guess.

[The whole town is gathered to watch the Passion Play.]

Lovelock: At least they’re all in one place.  Maybe we’ll get some decent carnage.

[...]

Some of the teens venture to the castle and the zombies start eating them.  Meanwhile, the Passion Play, magically turns real and the actor playing Jesus is full crucified and blood starts shooting all over everybody.  Also Andrew’s Dad blows his wife’s brains out for some reason.  Tony opens his shirt and has breasts.  Then Andrew shows up and Tony stabs himself in his new breasts.  Andrew is dressed like a really gay vampire.  Then he turns into a full demon and Dream Girl melts him with her magic staff in a whirlwind of bad special effects and lazy writing.  Sounds bad?  You don’t even know.  YOU CAN'T IMAGINE.

The Swamp of the Ravens.

Actually a Spanish film, this film’s actual title is “El pantano de los cuervos”, which according to Lovelock translates to “The Pants of the Eggs”.  I think he’s wrong.  Hopefully the internet is also wrong about how bad and boring this is about to be for Starkwell and Lovelock, as they enter the Egg Pants.  The film starts and the print is ABSOLUTELY atrocious.  It looks like the film was bathed in mud and left in the sun.

[...]

Lovelock: It almost looks like the colors are messed up, like it’s supposed to be in 3D…

Starkwell: I think that’s just the print.

Lovelock: I think those glasses might help.

Starkwell: I think only a blindfold would help.

Lovelock: And earplugs.

Starkwell: And a power failure.

Lovelock: And a time machine.

Starkwell: To get our time back?

Lovelock: To prevent the making of the film.

Starkwell: And... scene.

[...]

So there is some rogue scientist doing research on cadavers, and interspersed with the chronological events we get scenes from some kind of deposition where he is getting in trouble for trying to do his research.   As Lovelock and Starkwell sat and watched the film, it became clear that the rogue doctor is a complete asshole, and a bit of a rapist.

[...]

[Doctor Guy lies to a sick man, kills him, chops him up and then dumps his body in the swamp.]

Starkwell: What the?

Lovelock: It’s all very scientific, you wouldn’t understand.

Starkwell: That dead guy was breathing. 

Lovelock: Solid acting.

Starkwell: Is that a fetus in a jar?

Lovelock: It’s all very scientific, you wouldn’t understand.

Starkwell: So I guess that is the swamp of the ravens?

Lovelock: It’s all very scientific, you wouldn’t understand.

[...]

Doctor Guy’s girlfriend wants to leave him, so she leaves a mannequin at her apartment in her place, with a tape recorder and a recorded message.  It took him a couple of minutes to realize that it wasn’t a real woman and that he was in fact talking to a mannequin.  “Can’t be a very good doctor…” remarked Starkwell... and then Lovelock high-fived him and announced "BURN"..

[...]

[Doctor tracks down his girl, kidnaps her, straps her down to his operating table, and proceeds to lick on her nipples.]

Starkwell: Obviously.

Lovelock: That’s why I hate doctors.

Starkwell: Yeah that’s why.

Lovelock: Well, that and the condescending attitude.

Starkwell: So... arrogance and forced nipple licking?  Those are your main reasons?

Lovelock: You mean, you like arrogance and forced nipple licking?  Pervert.

Starkwell: But...

Lovelock: Yeah you would like something with the butt too, pervert.

[...]

[Bodies in the swamp start coming back to life.]

Starkwell: Is it just me, or is the Doctor not shocked AT ALL?

Lovelock: It’s all very scientific, you wouldn’t understand.

[Then there was an autopsy scene that I think may have been filmed using an actual dead body and Lovelock vomited.]

[...]

Frustrated at the lack of undead content, the troops are getting restless.  And there is only an hour left…

[...]

[Doctor screws dead girl.]

Starkwell: Do they have to show it for this long?

Lovelock: It's all very scientific, you wouldn’t understand.

Starkwell: Oh FUCK THIS.

[Exit Starkwell.]

[...]

It turns out that Doctor’s helper servant dude is actually a re-animated corpse.  Then, with LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES LEFT the cops close in on him, he burns down his swamp house, brings the dead girl back to life, immediately kills her and dumps her body in the swamp, is stared at by the swamp zombies, who then ultimately just dunk their heads back into the swamp.  Then it cuts to him somewhere else in the world teaching a class at a school and continuing to try and conduct his experiments.  But then the cops (from the other side of the world (?) ) catch him and… arrest him?  THE END IMMEDIATLEY.  The zombies never did anything except stand in the swamp up to their necks and look creepy.  FUCKING WEAK.

Plan 9 From Outer Space.

People can say all that they want that this is the WORST film ever made.  But if that really were the case, it would have simply been forgotten long ago, like so many films that are far and wide much worse than this delightfully bad stroke of genius.  Starkwell and Lovelock have been itching to see this one, and I figured it was as good a time as any to introduce them to Ed Wood and his piece de resistance.  After navigating the INSANELY shitty and confusing DVD menu, I eventually think I get the movie started, but then realize that it’s a preview… for the movie I am about to watch.

[...]

[CRISWELL PREDICTS… a news program?]

Starkwell: So Ed Wood invented found footage films?

Lovelock: I don’t know but this credit sequence is totally fucking LIGHTNING.

[...]

Too much has been written about this film and the infamous director for me to dive too deep into the details, but suffice to say, as the story begins to unfold, they are pleasantly confused.

[...]

[People gather at a funeral, grave diggers start digging the grave.]

Lovelock: Lugosi got old.  That makes me sad.  I wish he could have lived forever.

Starkwell: Wait, that voice is a narrator?  I thought it was someone reading the eulogy…

[...]

I can’t explain how much the ‘cockpit of an airplane’ set made them laugh.  And then the flying saucer shot took it over the top and Lovelock shot milk out of his nose.

[...]

[Vampira comes out all zombie-like and does jazz fingers.]

Lovelock: Who was that screaming?

Starkwell: In the movie?  Not sure.  In this room?  Me.

Lovelock: Scared?

Starkwell: Something like that.

[...]

At least Ed Wood understood that without a narrator explaining EVERYTHING, no one could possibly ever understand what in the Hell is going on.  But Vampira is Lugosi’s undead wife, and Lugosi just died.  I don’t know why she killed the grave diggers, but I assume they were the ones who screamed just before.

[...]

[UFO flies by and knocks everyone over.]

Lovelock: “Places everyone, places!!!  One… two… three… JUMP AWKWARDLY DOWN INTO THE GRASS!”

Starkwell: Why didn’t Tor Johnson fall over?

Lovelock: He’s too fat?

[Then Zombie Lugosi and Vampira jazz finger and cape him to death and Lovelock did a jumpkick.]

[...]

Then flying saucers are seen flying over Hollywood, and they show it for five or so minutes.  They repeat “sauces seen over [blank]” about a hundred times, and they keep showing people reading the same headline.  In case it wasn’t clear enough, the narrator is REALLY pounding it into our heads that SAUCERS WERE SEEN OVER BLABLABLA.

[...]

Lovelock: I’m not sure, did anyone else notice the saucers?

[Repetitive stock footage of army things firing stuff.]

Starkwell: I think they did, and it’s certainly taken them a long time to try and hit them.

[Then the saucers get away.]

Lovelock: Good job STOCK FOOTAGE soldiers…

[...]

Sometime after this, we get to see the aliens!  They’re just humans in shiny clothes.  Then one of the alien actors reads from a script that he holds in his hand.

[...]

Lovelock: Why would the head alien have the symbol of an axe on his shirt?

Starkwell: I don’t know, but the mother ship looks like a huge breast.

Lovelock: Well, it IS the mother ship…

[...]

There’s a pilot guy (and his wife) that the story seems to be focused on, and Lugosi shows up to kill her while he is away flying after the saucers.  Actually, I don’t think it’s actually Lugosi, I think it’s a guy covering his face with a cape trying to look like Lugosi, since Lugosi died a couple of years before this film was made, BUT, it’s the Lugosi CHARACTER that is in fact chasing her into the cemetery.

[...]

[Tor Johnson RISES from the grave.]

Lovelock: Worst movie ever MY ASS, did you see that fucking rise from the grave scene?  SWEET SASSY MOLASSEY!

Starkwell: Yeah but…

[Lovelock wasn’t listening, he was too busy playing air guitar.]

[...]

Then the girl is rescued from the side of the road by a cowboy in a Cadillac with the BIGGEST ASS I have ever seen.  Lovelock actually paused it to marvel at just how tight his jeans were.

[...]

Starkwell: I love how obvious it is that Vampira, Tor Johnson and Lugosi were clearly never filmed at the same time, since all the shots of them are of them alone, and seem randomly placed and totally fucking schizophrenic.

[Cut to a shot of Vampira and Tor zombie walking side by side.]

Lovelock: Ed Wood ONE, Starkwell ZERO.

Starkwell: Whatever dude.  That single shot of Lugosi was in the daytime, and now it’s night again IMMEDIATELY.

Lovelock:  Face it, you just suck dude.  You’re the worst and this movie is the best.

[...]

Starkwell: Someone should tell that Detective not to use his loaded pistol like a pointing stick.

[...]

Meanwhile in the Pentagon, stuff happens, and Lovelock and Starkwell continue laughing at this movie.

[...]

[Zombie Tor Johnson turns on the aliens, starts to choke one of them.]

Lovelock: Wait… how was he on the spaceship?

Starkwell: How did throwing the gun on the floor stop him in his tracks?

[So many questions, so few answers.]

Lovelock: The head alien guy is ALWAYS clearly reading off of something.

[...]

I lost track of the plot, or the Plan 9, if you will.  But when Lugosi comes after the whole gang of characters that appear to be having a potluck dinner, laughter was had by all, especially when the Detective stood up, and somehow his chair FLEW, and I mean FLEW, off the set.  It was magical.

[...]

[Detective unloads his gun on Lugosi.]

Lovelock: Why is everyone else just standing there?  Isn’t that guy in army?

[Some kind of electro signal drops Lugosi like a fly and he turns into a pile of bones.]

Starkwell: Um.

[...]

We still are pretty unclear on the Plan.  What is it?  Why is it the ninth?

[...]

[Tor kills a guy by… swinging his arms near them?]

Lovelock: Did the wind of his swing just blow up his head or?

Starkwell: Maybe he just died of a heart attack at the exact time that Tor swung his arms.

Lovelock: Sounds far-fetched.

Starkwell: Seriously?

[...]

Then they find a flying saucer that, when on the ground appears to be rectangular, and basically a house.

[...]

Lovelock: Man, those aliens ROCK that velvet.

[...]

[Alien says “all of you on Earth are idiots”.]

Lovelock: Awesome.  Dude is AWESOME.

[The alien explains that humans are super self destructive and that soon they will develop SOLAR RAY BOMBS that will explode the Universe.]

Lovelock: Stupid men and their stupid minds, STUPID STUPID STUPID.

[...]

Then it gets really crazy, where the aliens refer to God.   Honestly, I feel like maybe the aliens are good guys at this point.  Screw the Earthlings.  After some explosions and some flaming flying saucers, we cut back to the narrator, who we haven’t heard from in a while, and he says that all of this was true OR WAS IT?  What a wild ride.

The Signal.

A film apparently consisting of three segments, each one from a different director, all telling the same story, just from a different perspective.  Sounds like a cool idea, but considering it looks low budget as all Hell, we’ll see what the can pull off.  The cover looks all high budgeted but that is something (“Hey, the cover looks cool…”) that has burned us many times before.  One of the directors eventually went on to be a part of “VHS”, and the rest all seem to have been involved with other anthology films.  Is the next generation REALLY so A.D.D. that they need all these anthology films?

[...]

[Film opens with a slasher killing people, then the picture gets all fuzzy and looks all scrambled for a solid chunk of time.]

Lovelock: DUDE! You broke Netflix!

Starkwell: What?  Me?

Lovelock: NO not you!  Movie! You broke it, movie.

[Cuts to a TV in a guy’s bedroom showing the scrambled image.]

Lovelock: False alarm!  Still works.  Now if we could just make fast forwarding go smoother…

[Close up on a dude’s ass.]

Lovelock: SCRAMBLE! SCRAMBLE!

[...]

We are introduced to a guy (butt guy, named Ben) and his girl (a married woman, named Maya).  Well the film is trying really hard to develop characters.  You gotta hand it to them, but everyone (Starkwell and Lovelock) are starting to get the impression that, given the film’s slightly longer than usual runtime, that there will be a fair amount of pacing issues.

[...]

[Guy gives Girl a mix CD.]

Starkwell: Who still uses a discman?

Lovelock: And with the headphones that CAME with the discman?

[...]

After leaving the dude and listening to his CD MIX on the way to her car, Maya is confronted by two crazy people with blood all over their clothes.  Also, her cell phone isn’t working right.  The signal seems all crazy and distorted.  She gets home to her husband, Lewis, and his two friends.  It’s pretty clear in about five seconds why she would want to leave this angry piece of shit.

[...]

[Lewis beats one of his friends to death.]

Lovelock: The question isn’t why she would leave him, it’s why she hasn’t left him yet.

Starkwell: To be fair, I’m pretty sure he has gone all homicidal and it’s out of his control.

Lovelock: That’s what I’m saying.

Starkwell: No, but, I mean something is making him that way.

Lovelock: Maybe he was born with it.

Starkwell: Well since everyone else in the building is going around hacking people up, it’s safe to say that something contagious is in the air.

Lovelock: Maybe it’s Mabelline.

[...]

[Girl waits until the coast is clear, puts her discman on and walks out.]

Lovelock: You can’t even put it in your pocket!  Someone get her an iPod, or at least a dollar store mp3 player…

[...]

Anyways, Maya escapes her building and is determined to get to TERMINAL 13 where she is hoping to meet the dude she is banging, not her husband, obviously.  The dude she is banging, Ben, went to find her, and it appears that now, crazy Lewis has captured Ben as he arrives at Maya's building, to NOT find Maya.  Begin… segment two?

[...]

[Segment two is more comedic.]

Starkwell: The problem is, each segment has the same characters and world, so when the vibe shifts completely, it feels a little schizo.

Lovelock: Maybe that’s the point, IDIOT.

[Then Starkwell felt great shame, as Lovelock made a fair observation.]

[...]

[Lewis seems to be crazy with jealous rage, but not sure if he has THE crazy.]

Starkwell: If he is not crazy, why did he beat his friend to death?

Lovelock: Maybe he WAS born with it.

[...]

Anyways, this whole segment is mostly at some house where a husband and wife were expecting party guests.  Then the comedy stuff goes away and it gets all intense again.  I guess there are different levels of the crazy being manifested herein.  In all cases though, it results in people murdering the Hell out of other people.  Onto segment three…

[...]

[Ben is still alive and he shows up and beats the shit out of Lewis.]

Starkwell: Does he have the crazy or… ?

Lovelock: Nah.  He’s just passionate about killing that dude.

[...]

Ben finds out that Maya was heading for Terminal 13 so he and Clark (one of the party guests) heads off to go find her.  It’s pretty obvious that both Ben and Clark are infected, but they keep each other in check pretty well.

[...]

[Ben finds Maya, but guess what, Lewis is alive!]

Lovelock: That’s why I always finish the job.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.  Wait what?

[...]

The end gets all twisty and I think it didn’t do much for Lovelock and Starkwell other than confuse them.  But I’m pretty sure Ben saved the day and now he is reunited with Maya.  Or not?  Seriously, movie, make up your fucking mind.

[...]

Lovelock: Am I supposed to decide what happens next?  What the fuck?  I watch movies to avoid making decisions.  That blows.

[...]

Regardless of the filmmakers refusal to make a choice, they moderately enjoyed this one.

Ghost Breakers.

I can honestly say that I never in a million years expected to be showing a Bob Hope movie to Lovelock and Starkwell.  But, here we are.  Starkwell seems fairly excited.  Lovelock isn’t really sure how to feel and just asked me “if there might at least be some tits in this one”.  That seems like an odd question even from him.  He must be in a bad mood, unfortunate for “The Ghost Breakers”, potentially fortunate for me.

[...]

[Mary is about to venture off to Cuba and the BLACK ISLAND to see some castle that she inherited.]

Lovelock: Why can’t I ever inherit a castle on a tropical island?  What the fuck..

Starkwell: You’d go even with all of the HAUNTED HOUSE stories?

Lovelock: Yeah man, I’m a glass half full kind of a guy, I figure I’d get at least one or two Caspers for every undead flesh-eating demon.

[...]

There’s a big storm outside, I guess to make things creepier.  We see Bob Hope for the first time, and his walking cliché racial stereotyped African American Butler named Alex.  Then the lights go out, and Bob Hope can’t see his butler.  He tells him “you look like a blackout in a blackout.  If this keeps going I’m going to have to paint you white.”  Yes.  That happened.

[...]

[Hope accidentally shoots somebody and then hides in Mary’s room (oh yeah, he ended up in her building), hides from the police in her trunk and ends up on a boat to Cuba.]

Lovelock: Well that’s one way to get to Cuba.

[Somehow Butler Alex ends up on the boat too…]

Starkwell: He didn’t need a ticket?

Lovelock: I don’t think they had invented tickets yet.

[...]

They finally arrive in Cuba, and Hope asks one of the locals about a “negro woman and her zombie son” and then makes a joke at the expense of democrats.  The film is showing its age pretty hard.  Starkwell is appalled, whereas Lovelock is slightly psyched at the mention of voodoo zombies.

[...]

[Bob Hope and Alex head to the castle on Black Island without Mary.]

Lovelock: I think that’s the same castle as in “White Zombie”.

Starkwell: Wait, why are they there exactly?

Lovelock: To make the place safe for Mary, probably in an attempt to hump her.

Starkwell: Fair enough.

[...]

Alex and Hope see a ghost, a well as catch a glimpse of The Zombie.  Then Mary arrives at the island in a swim suit and one of those old style bathing caps.  Neither Lovelock nor Starkwell really know where this is going, but they are still kind of enjoying the ride.  It’s a step above most of the thrown together voodoo comedies from the era.  The actor playing the zombie does a great job at looking terrifying, adding quite a bit of horror to this otherwise fluffy comedic picture.

[...]

[Bob Hope says “something smells” and Alex says “it ain’t fried chicken”.]

Starkwell: Seriously?

[...]

Then there’s this whole insane story where Mary solves a riddle on the wall by playing her organ and they find a secret room, and then Alex saves them from being shot, and then I think Hope and Mary are planning to get married and it immediately ends.  It’s pretty clear that The Zombie was only in there so they could say there was a zombie in there which is a real bummer.  It would be a forgivable offense if the movie were really good… or at least made sense.

Spooks Run Wild.

This was one in a series of films featuring the East Side Kids.  They seem to be something like the Hardy Boys meets the Three Stooges meets a bunch of tough guy greasers from the ghetto meets the Little Rascals (?) .  This one ALSO features Bela Lugosi in his usual role of ‘creepy dude who lives in a mansion and reanimates dead people’.

[...]

[We meet the gang as they go around town and gawk at the local soda shop girl.]

Lovelock: Is his name Muggsy?

Starkwell: Obviously.

[The radio tells them that there is a monster killer on the loose.]

Starkwell: That’s not really clear if it’s a person who kills monster or a killer who happens to be a monster.

Lovelock: Or just someone who kills like A LOT.  Like a monster amount.

[...]

The story seems confused.  I don’t know who all of these characters are.  I’m not even sure what the deal is with the East Side Kids, why they’re in that town and especially, why they’re at a hospital of some kind.  So far the entire dialogue is made up of terrible one liners… Oh wait they’re going to summer camp.

[...]

Lovelock: Best camp movie since “Ernest Goes to Camp”.

Starkwell: Wait… what?  Aren’t they a little old for summer camp?

Lovelock: Aren’t they a little old to be called ‘kids’?

[I guess maybe you need to have seen the other East Side Kids movies to get into it and understand...]

[...]

We see Lugosi for the first time and he seems to have some kind of dwarf assistant and a rad cape, obviously.  We are also introduced to Von Grosch, who is apparently hunting Lugosi and his dwarf.

[...]

[The gang plays in a graveyard and PeeWee gets shot by the grave digger.]

Lovelock:  What the?  Shoot first ask questions later?

Starkwell: That dude straight up shot at a group of kids with a rifle... they were just walking!

Lovelock: They don’t even seem shocked, at all.  Like NOT AT ALL.

Starkwell: His fucking name is PeeWee.

[...]

There are some strange cuts here and there.  The transfer looks and sounds terrible, which is understandable and forgivable, given that this is seventy years old.  So the gang takes PeeWee to Lugosi’s new mansion and Lugosi promises to fix him up.

[...]

[The gang thinks PeeWee is dead.]

Lovelock: I hope he is dead.

Starkwell: Harsh.  Like in real life?  He probably is... jerk.

Lovelock: Hey man, I’m just looking for something to happen.

[PeeWee sits up and walks away without saying a word.]

Lovelock: SweeeeeEEEEeeet.

[The gang thinks PeeWee is a zombie.]

[...]

They knock Lugosi over and wrap his dwarf up in a blanket like a little burrito.  I think Starkwell said something like “well that’s no way to treat your host”.  Then, rather than leaving they explore around like an idiotic Scooby-Doo gang gone (more) stupid.

[...]

[LUGOSI EYES.]

Lovelock: I guess you can’t really have Lugosi and not do a CREEPY EYES shot.

[...]

[The ‘kids’ jump on each other’s shoulders and disguise as a super grim reaper thing and scare Lugosi.]

Lovelock: Skeletor?

Starkwell: Is it just me or did Lugosi phone this one in?

Lovelock: I can’t tell if he’s acting scared or laughing or both.

Starkwell: He's probably laughing at us.  For watching this.

[...]

The cops show up just in time to catch the REAL monster killer, not Lugosi, but the Von Grosch guy from earlier.  PeeWee is fine, he was apparently jut sleepwalking, and Lugosi isn’t a monster or vampire or zombie master after all… he’s a magician, which might be even scarier.  After the cops catch Monster Killer, Lugosi performs a magic trick for everyone… for some reason the girl from the soda shop is there which makes no sense.  Then it ends WAY abruptly after two of the East Side Kids almost kiss each other after beng fooled by Magic Lugosi.   Yeah.