The Horrible Dr. Bones.

“The Horrible Dr. Bones” is another Full Moon pictures production.  The director was one of the directors involved in “The Dungeonmaster” which pretty much means that we can expect nothing short of pure cheese.  Cheese can satisfy sometimes, but it also can lead to experiences like “Shrunken Heads” or anything Charles Band is involved with.  We won’t know how this one will play out until we attack it head on.  So, let’s do this.  It has a wonderfully short seventy minute run time, so, at least that will help.

[...]

[THE DVD I ORDERED DOESN’T WORK.]

Starkwell: Probably for the best.

Lovelock: Thank you, Universe.

[...]

Zero thumbs up.  Too bad the ‘I don’t remember where I bought this’ store has a no return policy.

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?

Zombie Cop.

I won’t lie, I’m pretty psyched to watch this one with Lovelock and Starkwell.  J.R. Bookwalter was the man behind “Dead Next Door”, which was a pretty fantastic, while still being completely fucking terrible, backyard horror film.  Starkwell wasn’t able to get through the whole thing, while Lovelock couldn’t help but marvel at the gore and ridiculousness.  Let’s see where his follow up falls.  I should mention, let’s see where his ZOMBIE follow up falls.  Because his actual follow up to “Dead Next Door” was a movie called “Robot Ninja”, which I think we all can agree is probably amazing...ly bad.

[...]

[Definitely a shot on video film.   The intro is just squiggly lines that look like a Windows ’95 Screen Saver.]

Lovelock: Music by “Porn Music Guy from the Early Nineties”.

Starkwell: Shot in beautiful 4:3 on VHS Camcorders.

[The director used a different name for the Director slot.  Not starting off well.]

Lovelock: Lance Randas?  Between that and the music... Are we sure this isn’t porno?

[...]

[Some “voodoo” priest cuts his arm with some special effects that would embarrass magicians at childrens’ birthday parties.]

Lovelock: So many closeups… of teeth.

Starkwell: If every scene is as unnecessarily long as this one, we are in for some real-

Lovelock: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[...]

Anyways, two cops show up to apprehend Voodoo Priest, and after some terrible acting, one of the cops AND the Voodoo Priest both die in a shootout.  Arguably the lamest shootout ever.

[...]

Starkwell: So the voodoo priest would have pictures of zombies that he printed out on computer paper hung on his wall?

Lovelock: And movie posters?

Starkwell: And he has a subscription to Playboy?

Lovelock: Vood priest named "Death", keeping it real classy.

Starkwell: The ladies must love his pad.

[...]

Anyways, then we are treated to a half decent “Zombie Cop rises out of his grave” sequence.  After some more of the shittiest acting I’ve ever seen, the basic plot is that the “Zombie Cop” wants to recruit his former partner in an attempt to stop Zombie Voodoo Priest Guy from taking over the world?

[...]

[Zombie Cop hits the town looking for information.]

Lovelock: Those two “punks” are easily the lamest looking thugs in the history of cinema.

Starkwell: What the... Ok, I’m out.

[...]

Starkwell walked out because the actor portraying the “INDIAN” convenience store owner was a white guy with brown paint all over his face.  With a towel on his head.  An actual towel.  It is the most racist thing I think I’ve ever seen in a movie.  I honestly wish I was joking.  Then one of the thugs called him “towelhead”.  There are also SO MANY forced horrible one-liners.  This movie is embarrassing.

[...]

Lovelock: At least “Dead Next Door” had blood and guts.

[...]

Lovelock: So the cop also has movie posters on his wall?

[...]

Lovelock: Did that guy just tell the cop to stick his badge “up the rear”?

[...]

It gets worse.  There’s another scene with the fake Indian guy.  This time they didn’t even paint his face brown.  But he does have a bunch of dialogue wherein he speaks in an insanely offensive accent.  Also, he says his name and his name is all “gibberish” and super long.  Then there’s a shot of a guy watching “Robot Ninja”.  Bookwalter gives HIMSELF a shout out.  Man, fuck J.R. Bookwalter.

[...]

Lovelock: The kids playing on that soccer field look really confused as to why there are people with camcorders filming a really shitty and slow chase between a guy in a cop outfit and a guy in a Jamaican outfit.

[...]

You know what else is bad in this movie?  The editing.  The music.  The writing.  The everything.  Just a well-rounded painful turd.   The end.  And by the way, the last scene is another scene starring racism.

Fistful of Brains.

It’s hard to imagine that this is one of THREE zombie films that this writer director has managed to put out.  Granted with the micro-budget that these are likely made on, I can’t imagine any one of them being particularly grand or wonderful.  I don’t know how long the dudes will hang on this time around.  The intro credits play over, what I assume are scenes taken directly from the movie, while THE WORST FUCKING WESTERN SONG EVER RECORDED plays.  It’s kind of like how at the beginning of a porno they show a small clip from each scene and flash the actors’ names.  Like Anita Hardcock or something.

[...]

[Intro credits go on seemingly forever. With the theme song dragging on endlessly.]

Starkwell: I mean, you’re fucking joking right?

Lovelock: Shot on a Nikon Coolpix camera.  From ten years ago.  Edited by a free program that came with Windows Millenium Edition.

Starkwell: I’m waiting for the starwipe.

[...]

[Characters are introduced in a western ‘town’.]

Lovelock: I think I said this last time we watched one like this, but I think this was filmed at the Great Escape in Lake George.

Starkwell: Judging by the buildings, they’re not trying very hard to look authentic.

Lovelock: Those are some fancy light fixtures for the WILD WEST.

[...]

So there’s a snake oil salesman who sells the townspeople stuff.  And the ‘saloon’ is some dive bar with stuff written in permanent marker all over the ceiling and the bar, stuff like “James and Mindy 4 evah”, which all looks and sounds very authentically western, of course.

[...]

[A bunch of zombies eat some cowboys in the woods.  The one survivor tells the sheriff and FLIPS OUT!]

Starkwell: I know this is terrible, but it’s reaching some seriously insanely, near funny, bad heights right now.

Lovelock: Seriously, I’m nearly entertained by just how much of a trainwreck this actually is.

Starkwell: That guy’s a good actor.

[...]

There isn’t much point in documenting this any further.  There were a lot of laughs.  A lot. I doubt this was meant to be a comedy.  Given how painfully bad this was, I can’t help but want to track down the sequel “Few Brains More”… Of course, Starkwell and Lovelock would need some time before they'd agree to watch it.  Don’t believe the IMDB user review claiming this is like 'Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” set in the 1800s'.  I mean I suppose it’s true if you change ‘Sam Raimi’ to ‘High School Drama Club', ‘Evil Dead’ to ‘total piece of shit’ and ‘set in the 1800s’ to ‘filmed in a small town using the local townies as the cast’.  I will say though, the film ends with a girl being thrown off a cliff and has a pretty sweet dummy shot.  A good dummy shot tends to make everything ok, and Starkwell and Lovelock ended up leaving feeling pretty good.

[...]

Lovelock: In a word, TRAINWRECK I CAN’T LOOK AWAY.

Starkwell: That’s more than one word.

Lovelock: This movie could never be described in one word.

Starkwell: Sure it can.  Terrible.

Lovelock: Fair enough.

[...]

This movie is bad in the way that old eighties or seventies movies were bad, which is kind of refreshing.  It looks like a lot of care was put into making it, a lot of time, a lot of effort.  It's kind of fun to see that, even when it is - especially when it is - a colossal failure.  When movies TRY to be 'so bad it's good', it never works.

Death Becomes Her.

Robert Zemeckis doesn’t really need an introduction.  Let’s face it… the guy did the “Back to the Future” movies.  This movie came after that trilogy (as well as after “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”).  The movie that followed "Death Becomes Her" was “Forrest Gump”.  While I hardly feel that this movie will show itself to be the missing link between Marty McFly in the wild west and ‘life is like a box of chocolates’, I hope it will, at the very least, be fun for Lovelock and Starkwell.  They don’t often get to watch movies starring Oscar winners and John McClane with a mustache.

[...]

[We are introduced to Meryl Streep as a hammy musical actor.  The film opens with a musical number from her failing musical.]

Lovelock: Wait, Glenn Close is in this movie?

Starkwell: Every damn time.

[...]

Anyways, no one in the audience seems to be impressed with the play, except for Bruce Willis, who, armed with an almost-mullet and horrible mustache, cheers wildly.  He plays nerdy plastic surgeon Ernest.  Most everyone else has walked out.  Ernest and his fiancée Helen, played by Goldie Hawn, go backstage to meet Madeline (Meryl Streep), the washed up actress.

[...]

[Eventually, Ernest leaves Helen and marries Madeline.]

Starkwell: Well that was… quick?

[Flash forward seven years.  Helen is a fat depressed cat lady with a shitload of cats, and she sits around watching TV and eating tubs of ice cream.]

Lovelock: I’m sorry, but Bruce Willis with a mustache is just not worth it.

[She is CLEARLY obsessed with murdering Madeline, and gets evicted from her apartment and committed to the ol' loony bin.]

Lovelock: What in the…

[Wait… Ernest is no longer a plastic surgeon… instead he is a mortician?]

[...]

Then it flashes forward to yet another seven years later.  Fourteen years and no one has aged AT ALL.  It appears that Ernest and Madeline are no longer happy.  Surprise surprise.  Madeline goes to some kind of super secret spa where the clinicians (?) dress like porn stars and talk like bad actors trying to sound like French people... German people? … Not sure.  Anyways, Helen has lost the weight and has invited Ermest and Madeline to her book launch party.

[...]

[Madeline sees Helen, looking all thin and beautiful, and says it has been “12 long years”… except that we know it has been 14.  Which is weird.]

Lovelock: Some Oscar winner… she can’t count?

[...]

After being rejected by her young loverboy (I assume she cheats on Ernest a lot), Madeline goes to the super secret castle / laboratory that the eurotrash secret spa owner told her about (?).  Meanwhile Helen goes over to Ernest’s house to almost bang him and plan Madeline’s murder with him.

[...]

Lovelock: I would like it if death become her a little quicker.

Starkwell: Nice.

Lovelock: In fact, let's have some death all around.  Please. Now.

[Ernest forgoes the plan laid out with Helen, but instead, throws Madeline down the stairs.]

Lovelock: SWEET. 

[Madeline gets up, all mangled like a pretzel, with her head backwards.]

Lovelock: That, surprisingly, looked fucking amazing.

[...]

They go to the doctor’s office, and it is quite apparent that Madeline is dead, as she feels no pain.  But since she is walking around, she is UNDEAD.  Lovelock and Starkwell rejoice.

[...]

[Dressed like the world’s lamest cat burglar, Helen follows Ernest around.]

Lovelock: Why is she wearing sunglasses at night?

Starkwell: Who knows.

Lovelock: She probably thinks "if I can't see them, they can't see me"... like an infant would think.

[...]

Eventually Helen finds her way back to Ernest’s house and Madeline shoots her with a shotgun, but she ALSO GETS UP.  In what is probably the best line in the movie, Bruce Willis yells out “IT’S ANOTHER MIRACLE.”  It doesn’t sound that funny out of context, but Lovelock and Starkwell replayed it several times.   The movie has been quite boring, I should add.

[...]

[Helen took the same potion, as it turns out.]

Starkwell: So… they both knew about the super secret castle thing?

Lovelock: Well, it is a movie.

[...]

[Madeline and Helen fight for like a minute, but then they make up and are best friends forever.]

Lovelock: So that’s it?

[They force Ernest to make them look beautiful again.]

Starkwell: Might be the lamest zombies ever.

[They bring Ernest to the super castle where they try to give him the potion… he decides not to.]

Lovelock: Dude, why not!?!?!

Starkwell: Watching everyone you love die, eternal loneliness… he makes some solid points.

Lovelock: Whatever dude, I’d totally be Wolverine.

Starkwell: How’s that work?

Lovelock: LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES.

Starkwell: Let me stop you right there.

[...]

37 years later, Ernest died.  He went on to do a whole bunch of amazing things and then the movie basically says the only way to live forever is to live on in the people that you love.  Ain't that sweet?  Then Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn show up, fall down a flight of stairs and shatter into a bunch of pieces. So… lesson learned?  There are a lot of holes in this movie.  They cover up most of them by 'flashing forward' a number of years.  You don't need to explain HOW Madeline found success again, you can just say 'seven years later' and let the audience make up the rest?  What is this, a 'choose your own' adventure book?  Lazy.  As a short film, this movie would have worked.  There just ain't enough meat in there for a full length, in my opinion.  Starkwell agrees.   Lovelock doesn't care.

The Boneyard.

Right off the bat, the DVD looks cheap.  The menu is atrociously grainy looking, which only tends to make us all believe that the movie will look like shit.  Already, from what I have read, this film is a mixed bag of insanity, so a cheap copy should only help make it all the more insane.  The film starts off with some seriously aggressive music, complete with horns that wouldn’t sound out of place during a Clouseau – Kato fight scene.

[...]

[Old dude in a hat investigates a house… silently?]

Starkwell: Not everyone can pull off a bucket hat.

Lovelock: And?

Starkwell: This old dude is ultimately not pulling it off.

Lovelock: He is dressed exactly like Clouseau.  The problem is, he ain’t funny.

[Old Detective has a partner, Young Cool Guy.]

[...]

[Young Cool Guy snoops around a room, and then a creepy chunky woman attacks him, with a pillow?]

Lovelock: Only in movies do pillow fights result in so many feathers.

[...]

Then there was a scene where the chunky lady, that the Young Cop calls ‘the witch’, asks the cops to leave her house and then glances directly at the camera, as if to say “did I do ok mister director?”.  And it was GLORIOUS.  And Lovelock and Starkwell laughed for about a year.  Apparently the Witch is a psychic that the cops sometimes use to help with their unsolved cases.  I should mention that the Witch is one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen.  But in that really AMAZING way.

[...]

Lovelock: This is CLEARLY where “The Medium” got most of its ideas.

[...]

[The Witch has a nightmare about a zombie kid giving her a hug.  It goes on forever.]

Starkwell: This is going to be one dragged out movie.

Lovelock: Why is she letting that thing hug her?  I’d be like “Ew gross get it off”.

Starkwell: I love that the zombie kid hug dream was enough to get her to help the cops with their case.

[...]

As bad as she is, the Witch is starting to grow on Lovelock and Starkwell.  Her acting is terrible, but still, she looks like she is trying SOOOO hard.  That level of failure is phenomenally fun to watch.  The case she is helping with involves some dead children and a Chinese Mortician, who is apparently behind it all… So what do they need her for?

[...]

[They go to the coroner’s office with Witch and meet Miss Poopinplatz.  Yeah.  That’s her name.]

Lovelock: What’s the point of the Young Cop?  He hasn’t had a line yet.

Starkwell: Poopinplatz?!!?

[...]

It’s such a fucking slow moving film.  Holy balls.  But then Witch holds a lock of hair from one of the dead kids and the vision that she has is nothing short of spectacular.  It involves superracist Chinese Medicine Man and MORE zombie kids.

[...]

[Turns out the zombie kids were real, and in the coroner’s office.]

Lovelock: Now we’re talking!

Starkwell: To be honest, the zombie kids look pretty gross.

[Witch tries to go and warn them about the ZOMBIE KIDS ON THE LOOSE.]

Starkwell:  You got to hand it to a movie for going with “overweight tomboy uggo” as their lead female heroine character.

Lovelock: I see where “Push a Novel by Something Something” got its idea from.

Starkwell: Wait, what?

[...]

Witch finds the zombie kids eating a bunch of corpses.  The effects are actually pretty awesome, and sort of scary.  Meanwhile, there is a girl who was dead after killing herself in the bathtub, and about to have her autopsy done by the coroner, who suddenly comes back to life?  No explanation.  Seems like a lazy way to get a better looking love interest for the Young Cop.

[...]

[Zombie kid runs through the air vent over her head and then taunts Witch with a doll.]

Lovelock: Just fuckin’ chop them up with the axe!

Starkwell: How are they making that noise?  It sounds like radio feedback.

[...]

Once this initial wave is over, it takes a while for anything else to happen again.  I should mention that we are about to hit the one hour mark.  It just seems like a shame to have such rad looking zombie kids and not utilize them more.

[...]

[Poopinplatz vs. zombie.  Poopinplatz dumps acid on zombie.]

Starkwell: Hold on… Poopinplatz won?!??!

[Melting zombie pops back up and smears ooze all over Poopinplatz IN THE FACE.]

Lovelock: Not so fast Poopinplatz.

Starkwell: They keep bitching bout the elevator, can’t they just take the stairs?

Lovelock: Dude, Fatty McWitch don’t exactly look like someone who “takes the stairs”.

[Meanwhile, Poopinplatz has been vomiting endlessly into a sink.]

[...]

Then Poopinplatz turns into a HUGE rubber monster and kills the one random black dude that just showed up and the coroner.  She eventually is electrocuted to death.

[...]

Lovelock: The movie should have just been called Poopinplatz.  And Poopinplatz should have been more prominent all throughout.  Less Fatty McWitch, more POOPINPLATZ!

[...]

At this point everyone is dead except the two cops, the Witch and the random Suicide Girl.  But then, Poopinplatz’ poodle, who was running around the coroner’s office, ate sone melted zombie guts and has turned into a super demon, just like Poopinplatz.

[...]

Lovelock: POOPINPLATZ POODLE!

Starkwell: This movie is bananas.

[...]

The Poopinplatz Poodle demon is really just a dude in a demon poodle suit.  Kind of like a gorilla suit but so much more.  Witch ends up one on one with the poodle and blows it up with a pipe bomb that just happened to be lying around the coroner’s office.  The fucker blows up like the DEATH STAR.  And the whole building collapse.  And yet, somehow, they all managed to be out of the building and at a safe distance.  Then the movie ends.  No explanations about ANYTHING THAT HAPPENED.  No explanation about why the girl suddenly CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD.  It just ends with Young Cop and Suicide Girl and Witch and Old Detective hugging and laughing.  Completely fucking insane.

Dead Men Don't Die.

If Starkwell and Lovelock thought they were ready for “Dead Men Don’t Die”, as soon as it started, they IMMEDIATELY knew that they weren’t ready for it.  Nothing could have prepared them for this intro.  The film opens up with a cheesy “funk” song with a montage of Elliot Gould working on his news program.  He is the anchor.  Then it cuts to him witnessing a drug deal gone BAD in a parking lot.  I should mention that it is hard, from a look standpoint, to differentiate between Elliot Gould in this movie and Michael Richards as Kramer.

[...]

[Gould runs into the Haitian cleaning lady who is a horrible collection of racial stereotypes, and then decides to investigate the drug deal he just witnessed.]

Starkwell: Anything for a scoop?

Lovelock: Well, that’s just dumb.

Starkwell: Of course her name is Chafuka.

[...]

The station director is all over them to get juicier stories so that they can get better ratings.  This is followed by a “comical” scene of them giving the news using EXTREME words like “shock” and “hooker”.  Honestly, the dialogue is hammy, but has a certain charm.  The music on the other hand has zero charm and is the worst synth soundtrack ever.

[...]

Starkwell: Filmed in 1990, feels like 1975.

Lovelock: But then those futuristic synth sounds bring you right back to the early 80s.

[...]

In his search for THE BIG SCOOP, Gould gets caught by the drug dealers he was investigating.   Gould tries to run away but the drug dealers chase him down.  He tells them that they have a "shot at the Barcelona Olympics".  Then they kill him.

[...]

[Gould’s co-anchor finds his dead body… WHAT A SCOOP.  She runs away to get her camera.]

Lovelock: Fucking journalists.

[Chafuka takes the corpse, because, obviously, she has been waiting her whole life for a corpse.]

Starkwell: Why is no one upset he’s dead?  Co-Anchor is happy to get the scoop, Aunt Jemima is happy to get a corpse, what the fuck?

Lovelock: Did you call her Aunt Jemima?  That’s way racist.

Starkwell: They started it.

[...]

Chafuka takes Gould to her voodoo layer, hidden behind the lockers in the boiler room to do voodoo on him and sing.  Meanwhile, there’s a goofy detective who has been put on the case of the missing body.  After more singing and voodoo, Gould rises.  Sadly, he is not himself.  He is essentially a monkey.

[...]

[Crappy synth song I can only assume is called “Back in the Land of the Living” (they say it a hundred times) plays while Chafuka drives Zombie Gould to her house on her crappy motorcycle.]

Lovelock: There is going to be an awful lot of DEERRRRRP in this sucker.

[Zombie Gould takes a bath, OH DERP, now he’s wearing a dress!]

Starkwell: You ain’t kidding.

Lovelock: Why does he have an afro now?

[...]

Chafuka apparently intends to be Gould’s zombie master, and make him do the news, and take all of his money.  She is telling everyone that she is his new manager.  It’s really stupid.  Really, really stupid.  Oh no!  The make-up girl has her work cut out for her!  Gould is unable to talk, so Chafuka talks into a voodoo doll, and it makes him say what she says.  So then he reports the news BADLY with a thick Haitian accent.  "Let's be talkin' 'bout dem news" and so on.  Did I mention that this is dumb?

[...]

Starkwell: That is officially the THIRD time that the mic' descended down into the shot.

Lovelock: Sign of a fantastic film.

[...]

[Gould kills the first drug dealer… accidentally?]

Lovelock: He is the worst zombie ever.

[Chafuka voodoos and sings to dead drug dealer.]

Lovelock: And now there are two of them.

[Drug Dealer Zombie #1 kills Drug Dealer #2, who is then voodooed into a zombie immediately.]

[...]

Co-Anchor and the Dumb Detective go around trying to figure out what is going on… I’m not sure why NO ONE ELSE is in the studio except for the main characters, but there’s a lot of dumb shit that happens, including kicking zombies in the nuts, a dude being electrocuted and dancing, zombies dancing, zombies driving, a zombie grabbing the detective in the nuts and a bunch of other crap.  Eventually the film ends with Chafuka and Dumb Detective taking over the news station using the zombies as their puppets.  Might have been good if wasn’t so boring, or so monumentally stupid.  Seriously, you don’t even know.

Shrunken Heads.

I don’t know much about the mid-nineties film “Shrunken Heads” other than the fact that Charles Band (and his Full Moon Pictures) is involved with it.  That COULD mean it’ll be good-bad, or could just as easily mean that it is straight up bad-bad.  The film starts with a bizarre fake movie review show starring two puppets.  It’s a little insane.  The puppets introduce the film, “Shunken Heads”.  Danny Elfman, of “The Simpsons Theme” did the theme for this film… and is apparently the director’s brother.  Weird.  Almost as weird as a puppet movie review show introducing the movie.

[...]

[A gang of bad boy teens led by a guy named BOOGER pushes a nerdy black kid off of his bike.]

Starkwell: Booger?

Lovelock: Is the guy on the bike Urkel?  I hope so.

Starkwell: I think that’s racist.  I’m not positive, but I think it is.

Lovelock: “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

[...]

There’s something about Full Moon pictures releases from the mid-nineties… they have an almost magical quality to them.  And by magical, I mean truly abysmal.  The main character Tommy works at his dad’s corner grocery store, and he and his “sidekick” Bill, as well as their new friend Freddy (Urkel), head over to Mr. Sumatra’s magazine boutique to check out comics.

[...]

[Mr. Sumatra is from Haiti, and gives Bill, a self-proclaimed jelly-bean junkie, some sort of Haitian (I assume Voodoo) jelly-beans.]

Starkwell: I guess no one reminded these kids not to take candy from strangers.

Lovelock: From the looks of Bill, I think we can assume he takes a lot of candy.

[...]

While Tommy, Bill and Freddy read their comics and eat jelly beans (while sitting on what looks like a trash pile), the “gang” from earlier come back… I think they’re called the “VIPERS”.  Mr. Sumatra scares the gang off.

[...]

[Mr. Sumatra blows… pixie dust (?) on the “Vipers” car as they drive away and they crash into a tree.]

Lovelock: It’s hard to look mystical and tough when you essentially look like you just blew them a kiss.

Starkwell: Those New York City streets certainly look empty.

[...]

As Bill and Freddy walk the streets at night looking for adventure, Sally shows up at Tommy’s place and climbs up the fire escape to make out with him.  All the while, Starkwell and Lovelock are wondering where all of the people are on the streets, and why these kids’ parents don’t seem to give a rat’s ass that they are just wandering the New York streets at night alone.  Then the puppet show from earlier interrupts the scene and says “we’ll be right back” THEN COMES RIGHT BACK.  I guess this was made for TV.  This happens every twenty minutes or so for the length of the film.

[...]

Lovelock: I actually could have gone for some commercials right now.  Might have helped with the boredom.

[...]

[Tommy films the Vipers stripping a car and they get arrested, everyone except Vinnie.  Vinnie goes to see the MAFIA.]

Lovelock: Foiled by the comic book kids!

Starkwell: You’d think if they were backed by the mob they’d be doing better than stealing rims off an old lady’s car.

Lovelock: And you’d think they could get more professional looking gang t-shirts.

[The don, named Big Moe, and played by a woman (not sure why), snatches Freddy, Tommy and Bill.]

Lovelock: Alright, I don’t know who’s dying and who’s coming back through Mr. Sumatra black magic, but that shit needs to happen soon.

Starkwell: Why is he Mr. Sumatra?  Wouldn’t Mr. Haiti make more sense?

Lovelock: I think THAT is racist.

[Big Moe tells the Vipers to kill the kids.  They do.]

Starkwell: So they went from pushing a kid off a bike and stealing comic books to GUNNING DOWN CHILDREN.

Lovelock: And still, no sign of ANY of their parents.

[Later at the three-kid joint-funeral, attendance was low, with only Mr. Sumatra, Tommy’s dad and Tommy’s girlfriend Sally showing up.]

Starkwell: Harsh.  No one for Bill or Freddy.

[Then it cuts back to the puppet show for like two minutes and it sucks, even worse than the film sucks.]

[...]

Mr. Sumatran steals the kids from the mortuary, saws their heads off and starts boiling them up in a huge cauldron with a dead cat.  He shrinks their heads, puts on a bad ass cape and uses BLACK MAGIC VOODOO to re-animate their heads, tiny as they are.

[...]

[Mr. Sumatra throws the heads around the room to show them that they can fly… he trains them in… the ways of the force? Then the screen flashes “ONE YEAR LATER”.]

Lovelock: They trained for a year?

Starkwell: So they have mind powers and can shoot electricity?

[By the end of the year, they seem to be acting more like Mr. Sumatra’s slaves.  Then they fly through the city fighting crime.]

Lovelock: Is this fucking happening?

Starkwell: Why does Bill have vampire fangs now?

Lovelock: When they revived, they were themselves… but now they talk like killbots.  DA FUCK?

[...]

This movie makes no sense.  Bill no longer craves jelly beans, but rather eats people and sucks their blood?  Then Tommy goes spying on Sally while she sleeps.

[...]

[The two muggers that the HEADS killed suddenly get back up as zombies and start walking around.]

Lovelock: Now, THAT’s more like it.

[The zombies, instead of eating people, go around cleaning up litter…. And for some reason… farting a lot.]

Lovelock: I retract my previous statement.

[...]

At this point, the heads finally start going after the Vipers.

[...]

[Tommy zaps Sally’s head and shows her everything that he has been through, starting with his murder.]

Starkwell: Why would you want to show her Mr. Sumatra sawing their heads off?

[Tommy flies up her shirt, and rubs himself between her breasts and flies away.]

Lovelock: Classy, Tommy.  Classy.

Starkwell: He’s easily as much of a rapist as Vinnie.

[...]

Sally goes to see Mr. Sumatra and asks to see Tommy.  Then she opens her blouse and lets him fly in and stay there.  And the scene lasts like two minutes.  I believe it was Lovelock who wondered “WHERE ARE HER FUCKING PARENTS!?!?!”  Sometime shortly thereafter some Zombie Vipers come after Vinnie and he fights them, and they fart a lot.

[...]

Lovelock: Best line ever… “Are you ready for capital punishment… Haitian Style!”

Starkwell: Does anyone else find it creepy that Mr. Sumatra asked Sally if she was a virgin, and then asked her to go to his bedroom and dress up in a gown?

Lovelock: It is a touch creepy, yes.

[...]

Sumatra shows up with dressed-up Sally, the heads and a small army of zombies to take care of the remaining Vipers and Big Moe and his/her mob. After some complications and a terribly slow and long car chase (during which Freddy’s head gets run over, and Bill gets blown away by a shotgun) Tommy crashes through the windshield and flies directly into Vinnie’s mouth.

[...]

[Apparently the Zombies will continue to walk the Earth until they dissolve into a brown liquid.]

Starkwell: This movie is a brown liquid.

Lovelock: Nailed it.

[...]

So now, apparently, Sally is a high priestess of the voodoo and owns the flying heads, and she will use them to fight crime from now on...  I think.  The end.

Mimesis: Night of the Living Dead.

This is the fourth film that Starkwell and Lovelock are watching that isn’t “Night of the Living Dead” that manages to have “Night of the Living Dead” worked into the title somehow.  None of them have been good yet, so I don’t expect this one to be.  This one is apparently about a group of horror fans who somehow end up in a recreation of the original film.  Yeah… I don’t know.

[...]

[Farmer in his farmhouse walks by an old TV playing a trailer for “Night of the Living Dead”.]

Starkwell: Soooo the film DOES exist in this universe, they’ve established that…

[Farmer goes upstairs and finds a bunch of zombies eating his wife.]

Lovelock: Wait… what?

[Opening credits are creepy, and show horror fans in costume at a horror con… in slow-mo.]

Lovelock: Cosplay IS fucking scary…

[Sid Haig speaks at the convention, playing himself (?)…]

Starkwell: Sid Haig is in this?  Hasn’t he been in like three or four of the movies that use the “Night” title in the title?

[So he’s not playing himself, I guess he’s playing a director guy.]

[...]

Main characters Russell and Duane get invited to some creepy party by a Goth girl.  Russell, the nerdy guy, is reluctant, whereas Duane, the black cool guy, wants to go and hook up with the Goth girl.  There has been some totally decent dialogue so far, much to everyone’s surprise.  Then they get to the party and there’s dancing and a horrible soundtrack that sounds like it was written by people who only listen to Rob Zombie.

[...]

[Duane passes out while peeing and a voice says “WAKE UP TIME TO PLAY” then it cuts to Russell passed out in a cemetery.  He wakes up next to a girl he met at the party.]

Starkwell: Wait, they’re dressed exactly like Barbara and her brother!

Lovelock: Wake up time to play?  What in the fuck was that?

[Russell is eaten.]

Lovelock: So… he isn’t a main character after all.

[Duane runs into Fake Barbara and joins her in the farmhouse.]

[...]

Duane goes and gets Russell, who is bleeding out, and brings him to the farmhouse.  They’re obviously straying a bit from the storyline, but Starkwell and Lovelock are definitely curious to see where this is going.  Who drugged everyone and dressed them up like the characters in the movie?  What are those things eating Russell?  And Starkwell just realized that Duane, who is basically Ben, is named after the actor who played Ben in the original.

[...]

[They meet a couple with kids and some young dude, hauled up in the basement.]

Starkwell: I’m nervous, because I really like this so far, and I’m wondering how they’re going to fuck it up.

Lovelock: I don’t know, but I feel like it’s around the corner.

Starkwell: Maybe it will involve Sid Haig.

Lovelock: I hope those are real zombies… somehow.

[...]

Duane fights a guy, who looks like the Crow armed with a pitchfork.  He kills him.  Then the bald guy with the daughter hot wires the truck and it explodes.

[...]

Starkwell: The soundtrack is distracting.  They should have gone much more subtle.

Lovelock: What’s with the zombie in clown makeup?

[...]

Anyways, the zombies are in the house now, and it’s all pretty by-the-numbers people surviving, and killing clowns with pitchforks.  They run across a dude in the house who tells them the truth, that there is a group of crazy dudes who like to re-enact horror movies.

[...]

[The dude is killed, tells them that there are six or seven of them.]

Lovelock: Wait, so the zombies are just people, or the crazy people behind this are able to turn people into zombies… or?

Starkwell: This might be the breaking point we spoke of earlier…

[The movie just jumped the shark for Lovelock.]

[...]

[So the zombies are actually just crazy people pretending.]

Starkwell: Wait, even when the zombies were stabbed in the back they just fell over and moaned… like zombies… that’s some serious dedication… and pain tolerance.

Lovelock: They suffer for their art.

[Suddenly they aren’t acting like zombies, they’re just going after Judith who just got thrown out of the house by Duane and Other Guy.]

Starkwell: Also, how did they tear that guy’s arm off… humans pretending to be zombies shouldn’t have super strength... yet somehow... ?

Lovelock: Also, how are they eating people raw and not vomiting.

[...]

[Sid Haig explains what MIMESIS is.]

Starkwell: Wait, they kidnapped Sid Haig too?

[Their plan is apparently to blame the whole thing on Sid Haig.]

Lovelock: I liked it better when we didn’t know what was going on.

[...]

Eventually some of the characters kill all the crazies.  There’s even a scene where Duane stabs a guy in the nuts.  Lovelock was hoping for REAL zombies, not dudes being zombies, but nonetheless, this is LEAPS and bounds above crap like “Night of the Living Dead 3D” or “Reanimation” or “Resurrection”.  As a remake, it is still well below Savini’s 1990 remake, but at least it does something interesting and original.  It gets a lot of points for that.  As a zombie movie, it is, well, not a zombie movie at all, really.  Oops.

[...]

Starkwell: Wait, why was the farmer's wife being eaten at the beginning?