Frightmare.

Lovelock and Starkwell don’t have that much experience with Troma, but what exposure they have had has not left them hopeful that anything with Troma attached to it is going to be all that satisfying.  This one is actually one that WASN’T Troma originally, they just picked up the rights to release it on DVD.  So, that gives us hope to the two who, let’s be honest, don’t want to have to sit through another “Poultrygeist”.  Troma’s not all bad.  But it sure ain’t all good.  Alright.  Come on.  Horror star!

[...]

[DVD has some opening introduction with Lloyd Kaufman.  It’s like a hundred million minutes long.]

Lovelock: No.  NO!  Start the movie.

Starkwell: Why is this so long?

[Honestly, we almost lost them before the fucking movie started.  Classic Troma.]

[...]

The story seems to revolve around an old actor, a Vincent Price / Bela Lugosi type of guy that I will, from here on out refer to as, Draculactor.  In the opening scene he straight up murders a director that he has a disagreement with.  Then they show him at some kind of “Inside the Actor’s Studio” type of deal and he passes out.  Some girl does mouth to mouth on him and revives.  Then he goes home and some fat guy tries to kill him but LOOK OUT Draculactor kills fat guy instead.

[...]

Lovelock: I’m starting to think he just faked passing out so some young student would do mouth to mouth on him.

Starkwell: He is remarkably spry when he wants to be.

[...]

After killing the fat guy Draculactor gets out of bed, plays his organ and then… climbs into a coffin, closes it, and apparently dies.  Lovelock and Starkwell are looking a little shocked and confused, and someone said “dude knows how to make an exit”.  He also filmed his own farewell and it was shown at his funeral.  Anyways, then some eighties punks, big fans of his work I guess, break into his tomb and steal his body.

[...]

Lovelock: Is this basically “Weekend at Bernies”?

Starkwell: I have a feeling something is gonna revive him.

Lovelock: So it’s “Weekend at Bernies 2”?

Starkwell: If that helps you.

Lovelock: It doesn’t.

Starkwell: It’s actually feeling more to me like “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things”.

Lovelock: I slept through that.

Starkwell: And yet you remember both "Bernie" movies.

[...]

The movie is boring.  But eventually after a cheesy séance and some loud sound effects that washed out most of the dialogue, it appears that Draculactor is back from the dead and killing the punks with all of his telekinetic abilities.  Admittedly, at this point, the movie starts being a bit more fun.  One highlight, for example, was when Draculactor stared at a woman in a bathrobe and made her burst into flames, at which point, I believe Lovelock said “burn baby burn”.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer all that much else, and gets boring again real fast.  Eventually Draculactor kills everyone, even his widow when she comes to visit his tomb.

[...]

[The movie ends with Draculactor talking to the screen / the audience about how Hell isn’t that bad.]

Lovelock: Wait, what?

Night of the Creeps.

Considering Fred Dekker wrote “House” and “Night of the Creeps” in the same year, and later went on to pen “The Monster Squad” the next year, it’s pretty strange and kind of heartbreaking that after such a strong start, he’s only been involved with a handful of other projects, one of which was the third “Robocop”.  Also “Ricochet” with Denzel Washington?  Bizarre.  Let’s let Lovelock and Starkwell enjoy his best known work.

[...]

[Chase scene involving naked alien midgets.]

Starkwell: For such an advanced species, with all the space travel and whatnot, you’d think they’d have pants.

Lovelock: I’m thinking nudity is the next evolutionary step.

Starkwell: No.  Wrong.  Please pt your pants back on.

[...]

The movie gets going pretty quickly, in black and white, in the fifties.  There is a story circulating about a psycho killer on the loose.  Two teens go to investigate something that flew down from the sky.  Something happens to Johnny when he finds the thing from the sky, and the psycho killer kills the girl.  Then we flash forward to the present day (a.k.a. 1986)… and let me tell you, the eighties are in full swing.  We are introduced to our team of nerds (the good guys) named J.C. and Chris.  Chris is “in love” with the girl, Cynthia, that he just saw for the first time ever.

[...]

[Chris decides that if they join a fraternity, he might have a chance with her.]

Starkwell: For nerds, they’re not very smart.

Lovelock: Good at math, dumb at girls.

[...]

The frat brothers ask them to steal a corpse.  They manage to get into a super secret lab where they have Johnny’s corpse cryogenically frozen.

[...]

[They thaw out dead Johnny.]

Lovelock: So, they’re not only able to get into a super secret lab, but they figure out how to thaw out the science experiment.

[...]

They discussed how dumb this was, for a while, but then we are introduced to Tom Atkins’ character and his “THRILL ME” tagline.  Lovelock stood up and said THRILL ME and did a roundhouse kick with a huge smile on his face. Zombie Johnny stumbles upon Cynthia’s sorority house and then his face splits open and a bunch of slugs shoot out of his body and slither away.

[...]

[All in the span of five seconds we get everyone’s last names… Cynthia Cronenberg, Chris Romero, James Carpenter Hooper, and Detective Landis…]

Starkwell: Five references just like that?

Lovelock: Makes me want to start over and see if we missed any.

[The janitor is named Miner, as in Steve Miner, as in the guy who directed “House” that Dekker wrote.]

[...]

Cynthia goes to find Chris and J.C. and tell them that she saw the dead body up and walking.  Meanwhile, the outbreak is in pretty full swing, and more dead bodies with exploded heads and slugs start cropping up.  Then J.C. gets SLUG POSSESSED.  Also, apparently Tom Atkins killed the psycho killer back in the fifties and buried him.

[...]

[Psycho Killer erupts from his burial through and old woman’s floor, still wielding his axe, and kills the old woman.]

Lovelock: That.  Was.  Awesome.

Starkwell: Admittedly, that is one of the strongest rise from the grave scenes I’ve seen in some time.

[Atkins goes to the old house, shoots the Zombie Psycho Axe killer in the head with a shotgun and his head explodes into slugs.]

Lovelock: I can’t help but wish for longer zombie content.

[They then show sorority girls showering and washing their boobs, getting ready for the formal.]

Starkwell: More boobs than zombies?  Pretty weak, if you ask me.

Lovelock: I wasn’t asking you.  Still, while I appreciate dem boobs… yeah, I wish the Axe Zombie had a longer run.

[...]

J.C. left Chris a message, detailing that he was possessed, that heat or fire seems to kill the slugs, and that he was heading to the furnace to incinerate himself.

[...]

[Chris finds dead J.C. with a bunch of charred slugs.]

Lovelock: Wait… he’s fucking dead?

[Lovelock cries.]

Starkwell: This movie just got real adult real fast.

Lovelock: I’d like it go back to juvenile, with zombies and boobies… I don’t want J.C. to be dead.

[...]

[Tom Atkins goes to get a flame thrower from the department.]

Starkwell: The cops have flame throwers?

Lovelock: There’s a dead dog walking around shooting slugs into peoples’ mouths.  I think we can buy a little policeman flame thrower.

[...]

Then Chris teams up with Atkins.  They find zombie Brad, shoot his head and flame throw the slugs as they explode out of his head.  It’s fucking amazing.  The sorority house is surrounded by zombies, and Chris, Cynthia and Atkins fight them off.  Atkins spouts out some SERIOUS one liners and Starkwell and Lovelock high five and then Lovelock does a spin dance move and then the splits.

[...]

[Chris kills a zombie with a lawnmower.]

Starkwell: And here I thought that “Dead Alive” did that first.

Lovelock: You learn something new every day.

[...]

Atkins finds the slug hive and blows the whole fucking place up, and sacrifices himself.  Following this, Lovelock let out a somber “thrill me” while bowing his head.  The movie ends with a burnt zombie falling over next to a cemetery exploding slugs towards the graves… and a huge spaceship surveying the are.

[...]

Lovelock: So… to be continued?

Starkwell: No one noticed that enormous spaceship?

Lovelock: The aliens were like, midgets… maybe the spaceship is really small.

Starkwell: You’re offensive.

[...]

Great movie.  Consider us all thrilled.

One Dark Night.

I knew I recognized that name!  The guy who directed this later went on to direct the sixth installment of the “Friday the 13^th” films!  Regardless of what you may or may not think of what that film brings to that series' table, this is something entirely different, and involves a  girl trying to get into a club called (rather generically) THE SISTERS.  The Sorority Sisters? No just Sisters.  The picture looks alright on the print, but the sound is aggravatingly grainy.

[...]

[Coroners remove multiple dead girls, and one dead old guy, from an apartment.]

Lovelock: It’s like a really creepy Playboy mansion.

[Old dead dude shoots lightning from his hand.]

Lovelock: And… that’s normal to the coroners?

Starkwell: They certainly don’t seem very shocked.

Lovelock: "Hey Jonesy, we got ourselves another lightning hands!"

Starkwell: " Just a typical Tuesday in the life of... A CORONER!"

[...]

We are introduced to a bunch of high school mean girls that plan on ‘initiating’ main girl, Julie, into their ‘sisters’ club.  Meanwhile, it turns out the old dead Hef was some kind of Russian magician or something.

[...]

[Adam West escorts Russian Magician Daughter (?) out of the funeral service.]

Lovelock: Holy Lightning hands, Batman!  You married Magic Man’s daughter!

Starkwell: You get one.

Lovelock: One out of ten?

Starkwell: One Adam West joke.  You're done.

Lovelock: You're done in the cupcake wars.

Starkwell: I hate you.

[...]

Julie and her boyfriend, Steve, share a love montage at the arcade.  Playing video games, and taking pictures in the booth and all that shit.  I should mention that the high school kids all look to be well into their twenties and thirties.  Maybe it’s just the clothing, and lighting, and acting.  Then a journalist visits Magic Daughter and Batman to explain to them that he really was able to move things with his mind, due to bio-energy.

[...]

Lovelock: Psychic vampires!

[...]

So now, because Julie stole Robin’s boyfriend Steve, Robin and the sisters (consisting of only two other girls) are sending Julie to spend a night in the mausoleum as initiation.  Why any girl would want to join a three person club that badly, especially one that consists of your boyfriend’s ex as the leader, is beyond anyone.  But Julie accepts, because she is an idiot, obviously, and she is then locked in a huge building with a bunch of dead people.  It has taken nearly forty minutes to get to this point.  Slow moving would be putting it mildly.

[...]

[Julie explores the mausoleum.]

Lovelock: We get it.  It’s a mausoleum.  There are graves.  GET ON WITH IT.

[Her flashlight won’t light so she runs to the chapel to get a candle.]

Starkwell: Why wouldn’t she just set up her sleeping bag in the chapel where all the candles are?

Lovelock: Probably for the same reason that she wants to be in a club with people she hates.

[...]

The SISTERS are on their way to the mausoleum that night to ‘scare’ Julie.  Steve goes looking for Julie and can’t find her.  Luckily, he happens upon Leslie, who was just kicked out of the SISTER MOBILE for having second thoughts about this whole SISTER INITIATION thing.  Anyways, they all end up at the mausoleum, and after over an hour of NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENING, Starkwell and Lovelock all end up at BOREDOM.

[...]

[The grave of Magic Man is cracked, it glows red and makes stuff happen in the mausoleum.]

Lovelock: Fucking WEAK.

[Did I mention that we just passed the seventy minute mark?]

[...]

Finally one of the coffins poops out of it’s grave (yes, I meant to say poop), opens up and reveals a slimy-eyed undead grandpa of some kind.  It’s a rise-from-the-dead scene that makes the “Blind Dead” zombies' rise from their graves look fast moving.  Eventually, the corpse runs / floats / is-wheeled-towards-them-on-a-skateboard and Lovelock lets out a half cheer.

[...]

[Really fake looking Magic Man corpse erupts from his grave, shoots lightning from his eyes and reanimates the mausoleum’s population.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never have slumber parties in mausoleums.

Starkwell: You have slumber parties?

Lovelock: You know what I mean.

Starkwell: I’m fairly certain that I don’t.

Lovelock: TICKLE FIGHT!

[Starkwell then promptly slapped Lovelock in the face.]

[...]

While a bunch of floating dead bodies surround two of the SISTERS, Lovelock sings the Phil Collins slow jam “One More Night” replacing ‘more’ with ‘dark’ and putting an emphasis on how he 'can’t wait forever'.  This movie feels like forever. Get it?

[...]

Lovelock: One dark night.  One dark night.  One dark night… movie sucks balls takes forever.

[To that tune I mentioned.  Go on, give it a try.]

[...]

[Sister Kitty suffocates under a pile of dead bodies.]

Lovelock: Imagine filming this?

Starkwell: “Ok, we’re going to lob a bunch of fake dead bodies on you and… GO!”

Lovelock: “Did we mention we covered them with slime and maggots? No? Too bad. ACTION!”

[...]

Eventually Magic Man’s daughter shows up and flashes a make-up mirror in his face and his head melts and all the floating bodies drop.  Who needs explanations when you have no story, I guess…  And then the film ends.

C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud.

The mid to late eighties had a few horror genre “sequel in name only” releases that took their namesakes and blew them to smithereens.  “House II”, “Return of the Living Dead Part 2”, Hell even “Creepshow 2”.  “C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud” is no different, and promises to be an absolutely miserable film.  I can’t wait.

[...]

[Robert Vaughn is some Colonel presiding over the hearing where they are discontinuing the C.H.U.D. research.]

Lovelock: “CHUD 2” and “Zombi 5”?  This was definitely his golden age…

Starkwell: Did that woman say the "C.H.U.D. enzyme"?

Lovelock: Who knows, I've already stopped paying attention.

[...]

Then there’s a "CHUD" that escapes his bed and runs around in the lab until they capture him by freezing him with fire extinguishers.  I think Colonel Vaughn intends on setting the "CHUD" loose in some small town.  On Halloween?  Not sure.  We were all busy bitching at how the "CHUD" isn't a "CHUD".  Then it cuts to the high school and we are introduced to Rebel Steve and Nerd Kev.

[...]

[Steve and Kev accidentally push a dead body on a stretcher out the delivery door at the school.  It rolls down a hill onto the highway.]

Lovelock: What high schools have unsupervised and fully uncovered dead bodies sitting in the storage room?

[They go to the hospital and steal a body.]

Starkwell: I’m guessing one that's run by the same people that run this hospital and leave a frozen Military-Owned "CHUD" unsupervised in a local hospital.

Lovelock: How did they get past the guards?  How did they get in the "CHUD" room?

Starkwell: How did they get out?

Lovelock: Wait… is this “Weekend at Bernie’s”?

Starkwell: Also, no one ever found the original dead body?  The one they left rolling down the highway?

Lovelock: Maybe it's still out there, rolling from town to town, getting into adventures.

Starkwell: Like "Weekend at Bernie's"?

Lovelock: "Weekend at Bernie's" mixed with "The Littlest Hobo".

[...]

Steve and Kev reanimate the "CHUD" in the bathtub.  He gets out of the tub and slips on the floor.  DEEERrrrrrRRRRrrrrp.  Anyways, then Lovelock and STarkwell got into another lengthy venting session about how this “CHUD” is one hundred percent not a “CHUD”, but instead is just an undead dude walking around groaning like a monkey and/or Tim the Toolman.  Don't smell the dog food, silly "CHUD"!  Uh oh, the "CHUD" is chasing after the dog!  Now the dog’s a "CHUD".  DeeeerrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRp.

[...]

[There’s a “Bud the Chud” theme song playing over a montage of people getting all "CHUD".]

Lovelock: Every time they refer to one of these non "CHUD"s as a "CHUD", I think a little piece of me dies.

Starkwell: I’m done.

Lovelock: Me too.

[...]

This movie sucks.  I’m fairly certain that no one involved with this hunk of shit actually ever SAW the original film. The guy who wrote this, Ed Naha, also wrote “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” the same year.  He used a different name, M. Kane Jeeves, for this one.  I don’t blame him.  I wouldn’t want anyone to know I wrote it either.  The ironic thing is that he also wrote the original “Troll” movie, a movie that had one of the most famously bad “sequel in name only” films ever produced.  “Troll 2” has no trolls in it, and let me tell you, if you’ve ever seen “C.H.U.D.” you know, this film has no "CHUD" in it AT ALL. Hate is a strong word.  And Starkwell and Lovelock agreed that in this case, it isn’t strong enough.

Night of the Comet.

Halley’s Comet caused quite the commotion for a while, and, rightfully so, because comets are pretty hardcore.  But perhaps the best thing it did was spawn a whole counterculture of comet enthusiasts (it didn’t, but we can pretend it did… maybe it did).  Might even be what led to movies like the early eighties zombie comedy starring hilariously eighties clichés (who knows if there is any connection… I don’t, nor do I really care, I just needed to introduce this lesser known gem).

[...]

[We are introduced to main character Regina who works at a trashy theater and FULLY OWNS at video games.  She’s playing an arcade instead of doing her job.]

Starkwell: Every man’s fantasy.

[Regina notices someone took the sixth spot in the top ten, so it’s not ENTIRELY made up of her initials.  Who is ‘DMK’?]

Lovelock: I’m in love.

[Regina calls her little sister Samantha and then talks to her step mother and tells her to FUCK OFF basically.]

[...]

So then, after Samantha fights with her step mom, she goes to her room.  Regina, on the other hand, is busy banging her boyfriend in the projector room at the cinema.  Everyone else is busy watching the comet, which seems to be making the sky turn red.

[...]

[Samantha wakes up to find no one else around except for dust piles and people’s clothing.]

Lovelock: I made my family disappear?

Starkwell: I guess…

Lovelock: I MADE MY FAMILY DISAPPEAR.

[...]

Regina and boyfriend wake up, boyfriend goes out to find his buddy, and is clubbed and killed with a wrench by what looks to be a homeless zombie.  Then he goes after Regina, but she defends herself and drives off on a motorcycle.

[...]

Starkwell: It’s actually pretty amazing that they managed to get shots of her driving in downtown L.A. looking THAT deserted…

[Regina gets home, finds Samantha and tries to explain the situation to her.  She is dressed as a cheerleader, for some reason.]

Lovelock: A cheerleader and a video game nerd who loves movies… they REALLY knew their target audience.

[...]

When they can’t reach anyone on the phone, they realize that the radio is still broadcasting, so they head to the station to find people.  Turns out that the DJ is just a recording, and they end up meeting Hector instead.  Hector explains to them that there are ZOMBIES going around killing people, eating cats and et cetera.  Regina figures out that everyone that has survived spent the night inside some kind of steel cage.  Sam had the tool shed (?), she had the projector booth, and Hector had the back of his truck.

[...]

Starkwell:  So people either turned to dust, or are zombies and slowly turning to dust?

Lovelock: That’s why I sleep in a steel coffin.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why…. Wait… WHAT?!?!?

[Some kind of military facility is monitoring them at the radio station.]

Lovelock: Oh also… GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY!

Starkwell: What does that have to do with sleeping in a steel coffin?

Lovelock: Shut up you face.

[...]

Hector and Regina get pretty chummy pretty quickly, especially since her boyfriend Larry JUST FUCKING DIED.  And she JUST met Hector like two hours ago. They're practically singing "Endless Love".

[...]

[Zombie kid runs after Hector.]

Starkwell: So, there are people who think “28 Days Later” started the whole running zombie thing.

Lovelock: Most people in the know think that it was “Return”…

Starkwell: Fair enough, but here we are a full year before “Return” and this kid is acting EXACTLY like the little girl at the beginning of the “Dawn” remake.

Lovelock: Nerd.

Starkwell: But you were just… Aw fuck you.

[...]

[The girls go on a shopping spree in downtown L.A…and a bizarre 'NOT Cyndi Lauper' version of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” is playing.]

Lovelock: I mean, it sounds close… but… it’s definitely a bit off.

[Hooligans watch them on the surveillance cameras, and then go after them.]

[...]

The hooligans just seem to want to kill them, not interested in the more expected capture-and-rape scenario, which is often popular in these types of movies.  This leads to a discussion between Lovelock and Starkwell about how the film is actually quite wholesome and yet still radically entertaining.  No gratuitous tits and ass, no sex scenes, no needless gore… and yet it is still completely holding their attention.  That’s quite an accomplishment, ESPECIALLY for an eighties film.

[...]

[Hooligan plays Russian Roulette with Sam and Regina, until a group of military researchers come to their rescue.]

Lovelock: What was with that hooligan’s face?  He was grotesque.

Starkwell: Wait how did they know where to find Sam and Regina?

Lovelock: They heard them on the radio station… but… yeah I don’t know.

[...]

The hooligan was grotesque because he was turning all zombie.  He must have been exposed.  The military research team seems intent on doing research on Sam, Regina and Hector.  The Female Doctor injects Sam with something.  Lovelock and Starkwell do not trust them. AT ALL.

[...]

[Wait, the injection KILLED her.]

Lovelock: Are you serious?!?!?!?

[They want to wait for Hector to kill him too.  Then Female Doctor pulls out her piece and kills the other doctor.]

Starkwell: What exactly is her plan?

Lovelock: So Sam is coming back… right?  RIGHT?

[...]

Then the Female Doctor goes back to the radio station, waits for Hector, and then injects herself and dies.  Lovelock is still confused and still waiting for Sam to come back.  Hector reads the note that the doctor left, then goes to save Regina.  TWIST Sam is alive and in Hector's trunk.  The Female Doctor just knocked her out.  I guess she was a good guy.  Or gal.  Lovelock cheers, cries a little and then plays air guitar to the rad synth soundtrack playing as Hector and Sam plan to BUST… Regina… out!!!!  They get out, they blow up a car full of bad dudes, and then get away.  Then it rains and washes away the virus?

[...]

[There’s another dude survivor and he picks up Samantha in his cool car and they drive off into the sunset… license plate reads ‘DMK’!]

Lovelock: So wait, EVERYONE ELSE IS DEAD?  Bitchin’!

Starkwell: Really?

Lovelock: DMK! Dis Movie Kills!

[...]

Cheesy eighties pop plays over the soundtrack and you can’t help but fall in love.  Starkwell and Lovelock dance and cheer.  This is the most wholesome zombie movie I’ve ever seen.  Totally gore-free, it accomplishes ten times what most do.  A real classic, that is, quite honestly, fun for the whole family.

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.

Strange Behavior.

Another mad scientist pick from the eighties, this one revolves around kids being turned into killers.  It’s been done a few times before, and a few times since.  The issue, usually, with this type of premise is that kids are usually terrible actors and annoying to watch.  So movies, even with a good story, end up being a mixed bag.  I’m sure this will be no different.  I’m pretty sure this may not have a good story either.  The movie opens with a teenager at home alone.  The lights go out and someone kills him, I THINK.  We only see it happening in a shadow. It is the cheesiest looking and sounding death that Lovelock or Starkwell have ever seen and heard.  This is really setting the stage for one wild affair.

[...]

[Single dad and his son, Pete, do their morning routine together and have breakfast.]

Lovelock: Who stands naked in front of their dad like that?

Starkwell: What’s with all of the first person view shots?

Lovelock: Is that old woman the maid?  The place is filthy!  Fire her.

[There were more questions, but I’ll stop for now.]

[...]

As is usually the case with cheap and shitty eighties films, the high school students appear to be played by mostly actors in their twenties and thirties.  Maybe even forties.  I guess there goes my concern about 'annoying kids'.

[...]

[Students watch a creepy film with a scientist who controls a chicken.]

Starkwell: What the hell kind of high school class is that?

Lovelock: Home economics?

Starkwell: They’re not cooking the chicken.

[...]

Then the ‘kids’ go to a costume party at someone’s house, and they all dance to a shitty imitation E.L.O. song.  FOR A REALLY LONG TIME.  There’s even a choreographed part.  It’s kind of creepy to be honest.  In between dancing shots, it shows a hand grabbing a knife from the kitchen drawer.

[...]

Starkwell: Still dancing.

[...]

Lovelock: Still dancing.

[...]

[Dude in a creepy mask kills some teens with a big ol’ knife.]

Lovelock: Obviously where the “Scream” movies got ALL of their ideas.

Starkwell: Uh… ?

[Dude takes mask off after he gets away, it’s the guy from the opening scene that was ‘killed’.]

Lovelock: Wait… is that the guy from the beginning?

Starkwell: No, I think that’s the guy that killed the guy in the opening scene.

Lovelock: I’m confused.

[I’m confused.]

[...]

So Pete apparently works part time at some kind of research lab where they make little kids ride exercise bikes and then play pinball if they pedal for long enough.  He’s there to be a test subject for experimental drugs.

[...]

[Pete takes a behavior modification drug that will enhance his senses and make him a super human.]

Lovelock: It’s like that Bradley Cooper movie, except not as bad.

Starkwell: Harsh.

[...]

Then we get back story on Pete.  He goes on a date and seems to have SUPER SENSES.  Then he bones the girl.  Then some old maid lady finds a dead boy at the house she’s looking after.  But wait the killer is still there!

[...]

[The killer, some young girl this time, that we have never seen, kills the maid.]

Lovelock: Why was she cutting the boy’s hands off?

Starkwell: I’m sure we’ll never find out.

[I’m confused.]

[...]

[Pete goes back to the lab, and they’re injecting him with some shit, and strapping him in  a chair “Clockwork Orange” style.  They inject him IN THE EYE.]

Starkwell: Why would this lab even exist?  Without anyone calling the POLICE?!?

Lovelock: The answer is MAKE BELIEVE.  Anyways, I’ll forgive all the dumbness due to that fantastically gross eye gag.

[...]

Then Pete wakes up and I ASSUME he doesn’t remember anything, since he seems quite calm and not wanting to call the cops.  If he does remember the eye injection and is acting this calmly, then he is, as Starkwell noted, “the biggest idiot in maybe the whole world”.  There’s a whole side story about Pete’s dad, who is a police chief, and APPARENTLY the mad scientist is some kind of super villain that Police Dad had hunted in the past.  Really.

[...]

Starkwell: WHAT A CONFUSING MESS, FUCK YOU, MOVIE.

[Pete pees blood, they show it.]

Lovelock: I don’t feel so good.

[Lovelock passes out.]

Starkwell: Confusing and uncomfortable mess.

[...]

[Police Dad finds a casket in the foundation of his house.]

Lovelock: Why was he looking for that?

Starkwell: I’m certain that I don’t know.  I’m not entirely sure that the film makers know either.

[...]

We do finally get the back story.  The Dad’s girlfriend explained the whole thing to Pete.  Pete seems to understand, I sure don’t.  I guess the Mad Scientist from the chicken video killed Pete’s mom years ago, while she was working for him.  The casket is still not explained.

[...]

[The drugs take hold of Pete, he follows his dad to the lab, and helps the Mad Doctor capture him.]

Starkwell: Why do we care, what the hell?

[Lovelock didn’t say anything.  He’s so confused that I think his brain is actually broken.]

[...]

So under the Mad Scientist spell, Pete cuts himself a couple of times.  Then Mad Scientist orders Pete to kill his father and, THEN PLOT TWIST, Pete stabs the Scientist and says “YOU ARE MY FATHER”.  So I guess Police Dad’s wife was a cheatin’ bitch and this movie plain sucks.  The end.