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.

Night of the Living Dorks.

I used to think that a movie whose title is simply a play on another movie’s title would automatically be disqualified from actually being cool.  However, then there’s “Shaun of the Dead”, a play on Romero’s “Dawn” and an exceptional movie.  So maybe they aren’t all inherently horrendous.  Since Lovelock and Starkwell are about to watch a night of the living “dorks”, I can’t help but hope that this 2004 German film doesn’t allow my original prejudice to rise from its grave.  You see what I did there?

[...]

[You really can’t watch the dubbed version.  It really weakens the film.]

Lovelock: Subtitles?  Awww… boooooo!

[...]

[In Haiti, zombie attacks family, grandma kills it with a flamethrower.]

Lovelock: Off to a good start.

[Someone steals the zombie ashes until they end up on the German version of eBay.]

Starkwell: Why Germany?

[Kid wakes up with a huge boner.  Mom tells neighbor girl about it.]

Starkwell: Germany… Why?

[...]

Philip and his two weenie friends, named Weener and Konrad, drive to school in a shitty VW MiniBus and talk about humping girls.  Philip likes the most popular girl in school, and OBVIOUSLY doesn’t realize that his neighbor, the Goth Girl, clearly likes him.  As soon as he gets to school, he tries talking to Popular Girl and, as a result, Philip, Weener and Konrad all get punched in the face by the Popular Dudes and Philip gets a wedgie.  This sparks a conversation between Lovelock and Starkwell about when the last time they saw a wedgie in a movie was.  As they discussed this, they didn’t miss a whole lot, other than being introduced to every character in the cookie cutter high school comedy book.  Oh, and it turns out the Goth Girl’s other Goth Buddy is the one who has the zombie ashes.  I feel like something bad is gonna happen.

[...]

[Weener Gang go to the cemetery with the Goth Gang and try to raise the dead using the zombie ashes.  Ashes end up all over Weener Gang.]

Lovelock: Goodnight, Sweet Prince.

Starkwell: Nice.

[...]

Then the Weener Gang get in a car crash and die, and they all wake up in the morgue, with their toes tagged, dead, but still themselves.  Starkwell and Lovelock weren’t saying much.  Most of the jokes worked relatively well, and the story was enough to keep their interest.  I think they were anxious to see where this was going.

[...]

[Apparently, as zombies they have x-ray vision?  Well, at least Konrad looked at a classmate’s ass and immediately her jeans disappeared and he saw her bare ass.]

Starkwell: Wait… can he actually see naked girls under their clothes… or is it just like when a cartoon character is hungry and looks at someone and they turn into a turkey?

Lovelock: I’m not sure, but I think either way the answer is “Director likes showing teenage ass”.

[...]

Weener and Philip seem to be acting relatively normally, but Konrad is going crazy… biting girls’ asses in class, eating raw meat in the cafeteria refrigerator and trying to get revenge on everyone in his “nerd” diary (apparently he kept a document of all the times he has been bullied, and who has bullied him). Philip and Weener try to talk some sense into Konrad, which annoys Lovelock who says “let him get his revenge!”  He always roots for the vigilante zombie underdog.

[...]

[Weener Gang play rugby against the Jocks and win!  And they plan on throwing a party at Philip’s house! Popular Girl kisses Philip!]

Lovelock: Nerds win!

Starkwell: Part “Revenge of the Nerds”, part “Shaolin Soccer”, part German… mostly bad.

[Konrad goes to the gym teacher’s office, he is clearly a pedophile and has posters of naked schoolboys… Konrad eats him after Gym Teacher tells him he has a big fat sausage to feed him…]

Lovelock: Umm...

[...]

They locked Konrad up so he wouldn’t eat people anymore… they gave him an old-school Gameboy for when he gets bored.  He looked at the cartridge, and said “Barbie’s Supermarket Adventure?” seemingly disappointed, but then follows it with “But I’ve played it three times already!”  It’s a good joke, but something about it struck Starkwell as REALLY funny and we had to pause it for a while so he could catch his breath.

[...]

[Four dudes have a jerking off contest… ???]

Starkwell: What the fuck dude?

Lovelock: Eurotrash.

[...]

Starkwell almost walked out during the gratuitous boob portion of the film, especially when they showed one of Philip’s testicles falling out of his pants and Weener stapling Philip’s penis back onto his body.  Lovelock was intent on staying too, although it made him feel all woozy and I think he may have blacked out for a second or two.  He woke up during the Konrad “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” dance scene… which only confused him more, especially since the music wasn’t ACTUALLY Jackson.

[...]

[Konrad kills King Jock Dude.  Weener and Philip bitch him out.]

Lovelock: Why must they try and suppress his awesomosity?

[Philip and Weener throw dead body down the stairs and hide it in a freezer.]

Starkwell: Solid stunt, whoever that actor was.

[...]

Anyways, Philip ends up at Goth Girl’s place with the Necronomicon, and his stomach growls while he stares at her boobs and butt.  

[...]

[He ends up burning the book when he knocks a candle over.]

Starkwell: Where is it written that in order to do Goth Shit you need to have nothing but candlelight? Fucking turn a light on and shit won’t get burned.

[...]

Anyways, they work with Rebecca Goth Girl to try and figure this shit out, which basically translates into a montage of them interrupting baptisms, asking girls in town if they are virgins, cleaning the house before Philip’s parents come home, and of course, making a potion!  So basically the potion works and all is back to normal.  The end.

The Face of Marble.

Known in the industry as William “One-Shot” Beaudine, Starkwell and Lovelock know him from their encounter with his earlier moving picture “The Living Ghost”.  Since that was hardly a pleasant experience, Starkwell already has said “let’s see if he’s William ‘One-Shit’ Beaudine, or if indeed, he took many shits and called it cinema.  William "One-Shot / Many-Shits" Beaudine.”  Off to a good start.  Lovelock thinks maybe John Carradine can help this one suck less.  This was filmed sometime in the 1940s, likely in a day, after Beaudine had the opportunity to make a movie centered on Bela Lugosi in a gorilla suit, but long before he shot episodes of "Lassie".  Exactly.

[...]

[African American Butler(?) comes to inform Woman of the House, Elaine, of some strange things going down.]

Starkwell: The year was 1946, and racism was alive and well on the big screen.

Lovelock: Did she just say “let the boy speak”?

Starkwell: I feel really uncomfortable.

[...]

The quality of the print was worse than atrocious.  The dialogue was muddled and gross sounding and, for some reason, the image on the screen was shaking continuously.  It would be interesting to imagine that this was done on purpose back in the 40s, but clearly it’s just a shitty copy of a film that likely barely exists anymore.

[...]

[Woman interrupts the Men Doctors doing science.]

Starkwell: Clearly, science is a man’s world!

Lovelock: Did he just tell her to “leave us, like a 'good girl'”?

Starkwell: I feel really uncomfortable.

[...]

Turns out the two Doctors stole a dead body off the beach from a shipwreck.  They’re seemingly only SLIGHTLY worried whether or not the authorities will be upset that they STOLE A DEAD MAN.  But then they revive said dead guy momentarily, and claim that he has a “face of marble”.  Then he re-dies, and the doctor says “he’s dead, QUITE dead.”  Lovelock and Starkwell laughed hysterically.

[...]

[Scientists talk about ‘Maria the Help’ and her “crazy jungle mumbo jumbo”.]

Starkwell: I repeat. I feel really uncomfortable.

[...]

It’s clear that Woman actually is in love with Young Doctor David, instead of her husband, Older Doctor Charles.  Maria the Help has been putting Voodoo Dolls under David’s pillow, trying to curse him into loving Elaine… I think.

[...]

[David drops Voodoo Doll into acid, Maria the Help faints and falls down the stairs.]

Lovelock: BEST. STUNT. EVER.

Starkwell: I wonder how much they paid that old woman for that…

Lovelock: Not enough.

Starkwell: Thankfully he’s William “One-Shot” Beaudine, otherwise Maria the Actress would be dead.

[...]

[Dr. Charles killed the dog Brutus, in order to try to revive him.]

Starkwell: WHY in the FUCK would he KILL THE DOG?!?!?!

Lovelock: “Now now, I could try a mouse, or a rat, or, Hell, even a raccoon from the yard, but no, doggone it, let’s try with my wife’s beloved dog.  It worked so well on that sailor yesterday… oh… wait… oops.”

[It doesn’t work… or does it?  They suddenly hear Brutus barking.]

Lovelock: Might be the earliest incarnation of the zombie dog.

Starkwell: He seems mean as Hell.

[Dr. Charles shoots the zombie dog, but he doesn’t die!  Then he JUMPS THROUGH THE WINDOW WITHOUT BREAKING IT, like a ghost.]

Starkwell: A couple of things… why would he have a gun?  Also... walking through walls?

Lovelock: So… super powered zombie dog?  He isn’t harmed by bullets and can traverse through walls.  Eat that, “Resident Evil” dogs.  Also, eat that, “Kitty Pride”.

[...]

[Elaine gives Dr. David a huge wet kiss for his birthday, but then his fiancée shows up, and then Elaine gets all sour and bitchy.]

Starkwell: Awkward.

Lovelock: So, Elaine is a bit of a whore… Am I right, guys?

[...]

The cop informs us that it turns out the zombie dog has been killing farm animals by biting their throats and draining their blood.  I believe Lovelock’s reaction was “fucking amazing. Walks through walls, can’t die, bloodsucker.  Best dog of all time.  Scooby-Doo?  You know what, fuck Scooby-Doo.”

[...]

[Maria the Help tries to kill Fiancée, but ends up killing Elaine instead.]

Starkwell: I love how they aren’t even curious about who killed her.

Lovelock: Hey, all that matters is that now they have a new dog and/or woman to try their SCIENCE on.

Starkwell: Seriously.  Why aren’t they like “HEY WHO KILLED ELAINE”?

Lovelock: When life hands these guys lemons, they make zombie dogs.

[...]

Eventually they revive Elaine, and, obviously, she has THE FACE OF MARBLE just like the dead sailor.  "Whatever that means", says Lovelock.  What makes no sense to Starkwell or Lovelock is why they thought it would work at all.  They haven’t changed anything about their formula.  Two days ago they failed to revive a sailor, then they turned a dog into a zombie bloodsucker, now they think WITHOUT CHANGING THEIR FORMULA, that the results will change.

[...]

Starkwell: They are the worst scientists ever.

Lovelock: Says you… ZOMBIE DOG for the win.

Starkwell: I don’t feel like I’ve won.

[...]

[Zombie Elaine and Zombie Brutus, apparently now under Maria the Help’s control kill Dr. Charles… by stabbing him in the back.]

Lovelock: Ummm… I was lead to believe that there would be throat tearing and blood sucking…

Starkwell: Wait… so was it the experiment that revived her or voodoo?  What about Brutus?  This is all a real mess…

Lovelock: I feel cheated.  I want my Zombie Dog action.  Fuck you, Beaudine.

[...]

What pisses Starkwell off even more is that Elaine wakes up and seems perfectly normal the next day.  So the experiment doesn’t work, then it does on a dog, but turns him into a killer, but then it works on Elaine when combined with Voodoo, but she's being controlled by Maria, but then all of a sudden, so is the dog?  Garbage.  After a HILARIOUS scene where David punches a cop, eventually the Starkwell/Lovelock laughter died down, only for them to realize that the movie had ended.  Apparently Maria killed herself and Zombie Elaine and Zombie Brutus walked into the ocean.  Yes, for real.  Considering that "Face of Marble" was just something that Dr. David said a couple of times, but had absolutely nothing to do with anything, it seems like an odd choice for the film title.  But then again, Ol' Billy "One-Shot" likely wasn't known for making good choices.  Or ones that made any sense.

Beneath the Surface.

For so long, budget films would go the horror root.  This is generally because sometimes the cheapness actually enhances the overall experience.  Within that lower budget realm, there is also an alarmingly large number of zombie films, especially in recent years.  Occasionally there’s an indie film that tries to do something a little different, give the zombie idea a little spin.  This can sometimes work really well, or, more often, fall on its ass.  Let’s see where Blake Reigle’s “Beneath the Surface” ends up. 

[...]

[The two main characters are apparently planning to dig up a course.]

Lovelock: It’s nice to see a movie about high school kids where the actors actually look the right age.

Starkwell: I guess… but, when it sounds like it was written by high school kids, and looks like it was shot on a camera they got for Christmas 2004… it's all a little less nice.

[...]

They’re poking fun at it, but regardless of the no-budgetness of it, it already is slightly more compelling than most of what comes out of a studios like “Full Moon” or “The Asylum”.  But OUTSIDE of the two main characters… all of the actors are pure garbage.  Starkwell feels that they make the dialogue sound worse than it actually is.  But no, seriously, the acting is horrifying.  It sounds like they are reading the lines for the first time without having any sense of the character or the story.  AT ALL. Those are Starkwell’s words.  I’m paraphrasing.

[...]

[“Dude falling in love with girl” montage, between main character, Ethan, and his lady friend, Kayla.]

Starkwell: SOOooooo… unnecessarily long…

Lovelock: What was with that fucking shot of that fucking guy with a pacifier in his mouth dancing for a million fucking years?

[The troops are getting restless.]

[...]

The “jock” character vowed to cover Kayla in his SEX SAUCE tonight.  And then, Starkwell bailed.  Very quickly.  Lovelock is sticking around because he’s pretty sure that most of these chumps are going to die.  Unfortunately the first death was Kayla, who overdosed, and it happened at the tale end of a very uncomfortable date rape sequence.

[...]

Lovelock: It’s fairly obvious that all of the “adults” in this movie are actually related to the people in this movie. Either that or they’re robots.  It’s the only way to explain how horrible they ALL ARE.

[...]

[We are thirty minutes in, and nothing has happened, outside of the whole Kayla death.]

Lovelock: TAKE FOREVER!

[...]

They finally cut back to the two main dudes robbing Kayla from her grave and doing some kind of voodoo shit on her to try and wake her up from the dead.  The next morning, she actually wakes up, and Ethan’s reaction is, how did Lovelock put it? ...“The worst acting, maybe ever.”  After saying that he went to go take a dump and said “DON’T PAUSE IT.”  I didn’t… I actually fast forwarded a lot, to avoid staring at this confusing mess for too much longer.

[...]

[Twenty minutes of  Ethan and his buddy trying to make zombie Kayla act normal.]

Lovelock: This movie has no business being longer than ten minutes.

Lovelock: [Imitating Starkwell] This movie has no business being longer than NO minutes.

Lovelock: [As himself again] Nice.

[...]

[Music video of some band.]

Lovelock: Right… because the movie already TOTALLY had no filler AT ALL.

[Lovelock then dry heaved.]

[...]

[Kayla is suddenly under a spell, where she becomes, basically a ninja, and is off to kill the person who wronged her.]

Lovelock: So… basically, it’s “The Crow” without the action, the good directing, dialogue, the good actors, the good soundtrack, the budget, the ET CETERA FOREVER!

[...]

Anyways, she finds the dude that killed her, and shoves an exacto knife down his throat and slashed him up with a machete.  It was actually fairly gruesome and effective.  Lovelock just said “TOO LITTLE TOO LATE” got up and left.  I tried to tell him that there were ten minutes left but he was long gone.  He missed, in the last ten minutes, about five million different twists that happened at the end.  None of them made sense.  Having nothing happen for so long, and then bombarding the viewer with a whole shitload of shit, seems shitty. Oh by the way, to answer the question I asked at the beginning... THE TOILET.  That's where "Beneath the Surface" ends up.  FLUSH.

Black Demons.

You may remember Umberto Lenzi from such films as “Nightmare City” and nothing else.  Regardless, Starkwell and Lovelock had a rip-roaring good time when they atched that, so, expectations are through the roof for “Black Demons”, one of the infamous director’s final pieces of movie.  It’s Brazilian Voodoo time.

[...]

[Main man Dick FREAKS OUT the local drum kids.  In turn, Dick is freaked out.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never pick up sea shells with weird paintings on them during a group of street kids’ drum and dance performance.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.

Lovelock: I love that one of the local voodoo kids is sporting a Batman shirt.

[...]

Starkwell: Dick disappears, and his sister decides the best course of action is to bang the British dude all day?  Her brother might be named Dick, but she’s the dick.

Lovelock: I don’t know, if anything, British dude is the dick.

[...]

Since clearly having any backstory is unimportant to Mr. Lenzi, we don’t know why Dick is obsessed with Voodoo, or why any of them are even in Brazil in the first place.  The acting is also BEYOND atrocious.  The main girl actually fumbles her lines in a couple of takes, and Umberto didn’t even bother to re-shoot them.  This bugs Starkwell, Lovelock doesn’t care stating that “it doesn’t matter how we get there, as long as we get there.”  When Starkwell asked where ‘there’ was, Lovelock just shook his head and said “if you don’t know, then you’ll probably never get there.”

[...]

[Enter Jose and Sonia.]

Starkwell: Who goes “hiking in da’ woods” in a jean skirt and a jean jacket?

Lovelock: I don’t know, but Jose is shaping up to be my favourite character.

Starkwell: I don’t know… did you see the way he ordered the housekeeper around?  He seems like kind of a dick.

Lovelock: Pretty much everyone in this movie is a dick, except, well, Dick.

[...]

Dick then goes and plays voodoo music, off his tape recorder in graveyard.  And then graves burst into flames, tombstones bleed and zombies start emerging from the ground.  Simultaneously, without taking their eyes off of the screen, Lovelock and Starkwell high-fived each other.

[...]

[Sonia hears a noise and goes to investigate.  Outside. In her Underwear.  Then she is surrounded by zombies.]

Starkwell:  I bet she feels pretty stupid now for not having put pants on.

Lovelock: I don’t know, lack of pants might make her more agile and nimble

[Zombie crowbars her eyeball out.]

Lovelock: Scratch that.

Starkwell: Yeah… Agility does not seem to be her forte.

Lovelock: Wisdom neither.

[...]

[Jessica goes wandering on her own.]

Starkwell: In keeping with the theme of missing clothing Jessica decides to not wear a bra.

[She sees a zombie.]

Lovelock: Well she got away.  So what have we learned?  No pants – death.  No bra – life.

Starkwell: This film – DUMB.

[...]

Outside of the laughs that the bad acting got out of Lovelock and Starkwell, there wasn’t a whole lot going on, and they were getting CRAZY bored.  At one hour in, the zombies just claimed their SECOND victim.  This is insane considering that “Nightmare City” had a death count of about a million in the same amount of time.  The zombies in this film seem to prefer spending their time popping up into the screen holding axes and crowbars and staring menacingly.

[...]

Lovelock: Well, on the bright side, the zombies seem to like crowbarring peoples’ eyeballs out.  So the movie has that going for it.

Starkwell: When making a film’s pros and cons list… if the pro column only has “crowbar to eyeball deaths”, you’re in trouble.

Lovelock: Funny… I was going to say WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED!?!?!?

[...]

[British Kevin drives car into side of the road.]

Lovelock: Slowest crash ever.

Starkwell: Almost as slow as the pace of the film.

Lovelock: Nice.

[...]

Dick kills Jose and Jose displays some of the worst acting anyone has ever seen.  Lovelock and Starkwell re-watched his death about ten times.  It kept getting funnier and funnier.  Anyways, then eventually Stupid McGee and British Dumbfuck figure out Dick has gone evil.  Throw in a few explosions, a rip-off of Jack Nicholson hacking through the door in “The Shining”, some early nineties Mom jeans, and Dick’s eventual death, and you’ve got yourself an ending.  Not good, not the worst, but, it’s an ending.

[...]

Lovelock: Apparently zombies are like walking sticks of dynamite.

[...]

Now imagine “Nightmare City” if the zombies were explosive.

Erotic Nights of the Living Dead.

The year was 1980, and with every Italian director under the sun putting out their own zombie splatterfest, seasoned pornographer Joe D’Amato decided to take it up a notch with his “Sexy Nights of the Living Dead”, and include hardcore sex scenes in it.  As we all know, when most people think rotting flesh and cannibalism, they think EROTIC AND SEXY.  This one will be a challenge.

[...]

[Funky music plays while creepy guy wanders through asylum, following nurse.  He finds her banging a dude, and then starts furiously jerking off.]

Starkwell: I’m giving this movie five minutes before I walk.

Lovelock: Hey, at least they haven’t shown penis yet.

Starkwell: When the best part of a movie is that it hasn't shown me a penis, it's time for a new movie.

[...]

Then two floozies went into a shower with a dude and his floppy dong and once it was clear that D’Amato was going to focus a lot of screen time on this floppy ol' dong, Starkwell left and assured us that he would not return.  As he was leaving, a guy was eaten by a zombie.  I think Lovelock asked him to reconsider, but Starkwell said something along the lines of “I can’t do it… dude, I just can’t do it.”

[...]

Lovelock: They focus on the zombie for five seconds, but then we have look at this guy’s fucking taint for ten minutes?  Jesus, are those warts?  I’m gonna be sick.

[...]

Lovelock left to go vomit up the feta cheese he was eating, but he said he would be back.  I told him to take his time, since it looks like we are heading towards several more sexual interludes, at least one involving Moustachio McWarty Taint.  

[...]

Somewhere just past the thirty minute mark, Lovelock talked a little about how nothing at all was happening, and that so far the movie could have been edited down to about thirty seconds.  Then a girl popped a champagne bottle open with her vagina and he had to leave to throw up again. 

[...]

[Moustachio McWarty Taint tells girl that he wants to screw again, she says “Not again”.]

Lovelock: Shit, I know exactly how she feels.

[...]

There were frequent random shots of a cat, that seemed to be living in the Captain’s mind, and it really freaked him out.  Lovelock couldn’t resist the urge to say “They sure do show a lot of pussy in this movie.”  He said it right before a lesbian scene, which made it hit home that much harder.  Then the DVD started skipping, and Lovelock said if it stops, he’ll take it as a sign from above that he shouldn’t have to finish this awful film.

[...]

Lovelock: Forget “Sexy Nights of the Living Dead”… It should be called “Non-Sexy Nights of Moustachio McWarty Taint’s Dirty Balls”.  It’s been over an hour, we’ve only seen two zombies.  We've seen as many testicles as we have zombies.  I should never be able to say that about a movie.

[...]

At one point some things, let’s call them zombies, emerged from the jungle, and the Captain scared them off with a stone that looks like it came from a hotel gift shop.  With about twenty minutes left in the movie, we finally start seeing some zombies, also, an awesome CAT ATTACK!

[...]

[Zombie is stabbed, creamy brown liquid comes out.]

Lovelock: In Italy, zombies have café latte for blood.

[...]

[Moustachio’s dong is bitten off by evil spirit girl.]

Lovelock: Well, at least we won’t have to see it anymore.

[...]

Lovelock fell asleep during an INFINITY long sequence of people rising from graves and slowly walking after our characters.  He woke up screaming saying something like “THE BALLS ARE COMING.”  But then he realized the film was over and was overwhelmed with relief.  Half of the movie was basically a bad porno, half of it was a bad zombie movie.  Unfortunately for Lovelock, when you put those two halves together you get an awful fucking movie.  One of the worst ever.

Zombie Nightmare.

"Zombie Nightmare" is infamously terrible.  A rocking soundtrack, Adam West, Jon Mikl Thor, and to top it all off, I recently learned it was filmed around where Starkwell and Lovelock grew up, in the West Island of Montreal.  No more waiting.  Let’s rock.  Oh yeah, randomly, Tia Carrere is in it.

[...]

[Fat Dude fights street toughs.]

Starkwell: Is he supposed to be married to that old bag, or is that his mother?

Lovelock: How did he instantly bleed from the mouth like that?

Starkwell: Maybe he had a jelly donut in his mouth.

[...]

[Thor prevents a robbery.]

Starkwell: Why would he wear a tanktop that doesn’t cover his nipples?

Lovelock: Maybe he is about to run a marathon and wants to prevent nipple chafe.

Starkwell: I wonder if he’s ever been mistaken for a woman with that hair and those hooters.

[...]

[Thor is hit by car.]

Starkwell: How did he move from the sidewalk to the street like that?

Lovelock: Probably the same way that those two guys managed to wear the same outfit.

Starkwell: Seriously, what’s with the denim?  What are they in prison?

[...]

And only a few minutes later, Starkwell cried out “I’M BOOOOORED”.  Lovelock shushed him and told him that he was sure that Thor wouldn’t let us down.  Failing that, I reminded them both that it’s a short movie.  They both laughed hysterically when the Haitian Priestess had her big scene.  “Nice voice”, said the pair.

[...]

[Thor is revived.]

Starkwell: They cut his hair after he died?

Lovelock: TAKE HIS LIFE, BUT DON’T TAKE HIS HAIR!

[...]

[Two of the punks playing tennis.]

Starkwell: Rebel punks by night… Tennis players by day?

Lovelock: Holy shit!  I know that place.  That’s where my old gym was!

Starkwell: Did Thor kill people at your gym?

Lovelock: Sadly no.

[...]

Starkwell: If I was Tia Carrere, I’d be pretty embarrassed.

Lovelock: If I was Tia Carrere, I’d be FUCKING PUMPED.

[...]

[Adam West as a police Captain.]

Lovelock: Batman has a moustache!

Starkwell: Didn’t help his acting career.

Lovelock: Well, by the mid-eighties that type of moustache was reserved for porn stars.  Mostly the gay ones.

[...]

[Punk tries to rape girl in garbage pile.]

Starkwell: The garbage bags outside of an ice cream place can’t possibly smell very erotic.

Lovelock: I’m surprised that they can just leave the bags out like that.  What about racoons?

[...]

Starkwell and Lovelock talked for several minutes about how much of a dick the detective is.  And how annoying the coroner’s voice is.  And how much they wish Thor would hurry the fuck up and end this thing.

[...]

Starkwell: Why did they bother showing Thor as a kid witnessing his dad’s murder?

Lovelock: Because that’s how the hero was born.

Starkwell: No… voodoo witch made him.

Lovelock: No.  It was his Dad’s death.  Just like Batman.

Starkwell: It’s not like Batman at all.

Lovelock: That’s probably why they got Adam West, since this is basically a remake of Batman.

Starkwell: There are many levels of wrong in your statement.

Lovelock: Fucking Hollywood, and all these remakes.

Starkwell: This is the eighties... in Canada... and it's not a remake!

Lovelock: Same Bat time, same Bat Channel...

[...]

[Thor smashes guy’s head on car.]

Starkwell: You could clearly see him spitting blood at the car before his head hit.

Lovelock: Maybe he ate the same jelly donut that the fat guy at the beginning ate.

[...]

[It turns out Adam West killed Thor’s father.  And the near rape girl was actually the witch!]

Starkwell: Well I’ll be damned.  They brought it all around full circle.

Lovelock: See, now aren’t you glad you stayed all the way until the end.

Starkwell: Not particularly.

[...]

Then an impressive looking zombie flew out of the ground and killed Captain West.  It almost saved the whole film.  As the movie came to a close, Starkwell and Lovelock were partially homesick after seeing all those snippets of where they grew up.  But mostly, they were just regularsick, from having seen such a terrible movie.

Snake People.

Boris Karloff stars in this film that manages to currently sneak its way into virtually every one of those zillion movies in one DVD box sets.  I kid you not, I think I have three versions of this film.  All of them are of the piss poorest quality, and feature no real menu or information about the film, except for a short synopsis, none of which seem to describe the same film.  But they all say Boris Karloff.  Starkwell, Lovelock, prepare yourselves.

[...]

[Opening shot of a map, and a guy talking about voodoo.]

Starkwell: I guess they want to establish where we are going, you know, geographically.

Lovelock: Couldn’t they have afforded a nicer map?

[...]

Lovelock: Why is it all voodoo masters wear a top hat and those weird little round sunglasses?

Starkwell: Maybe they all meet up and agree on a uniform.

[Then they really chopped the head off of a chicken and there was blood and it was kind of fucked up.]

[...]

Then the credits rolled over a still shot of what we are all assuming is Colonel Sanders, or possibly a young Orville Redenbacher, and Starkwell noticed an absurd amount of actors in this movie that have just one name, like JULISSA, SANATON, URINAL, FARFLE II, MARTINIQUE or like, you know, Cher.  Ok, some of those weren’t real.  There is a lot of randomly placed narration, here and there, assumedly because without out it, none of this would make any sense, what with the belly dancing, steel drum players and close-ups on skeleton crotches.

[...]

[Introducing Karloff, as CARL VON MOLDY.]

Starkwell: Holy shit... his pants are pulled up high.

Lovelock: Wait, Boris Karloff invented KFC?

[...]

[Von Moldy tries to move a mirror with his mind.]

Lovelock: So “Snake People” invented the force?

Starkwell: I don’t see the connection, really…

Lovelock: I’ll tell you what, Karloff is too old, too old to begin the training.

[...]

[Main Character Vincent McOpenshirt is tranquilized.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never hang around caves full of crazy voodoo people.

Starkwell: Yeah that’s why.

[...]

With little to no character development, no clear hero, no clear bad guy, no real story, and no real reason to want to continue watching, Starkwell and Lovelock were struggling.  I think the highlight for them was when, as Starkwell said, “the girl finally took that stupid hat off.”  There was a pretty good laugh in the room when Lovelock said to the main character “Hey dude, you missed a button or two there.”

[...]

[Mini Baron Samedi watches Snake Lady violate Hat Girl with a snake, presumably into her crotchal area.] 

Starkwell: Well, at least they didn’t actually show it.

Lovelock: I’m not sure that the out of focus close-ups of weird Mini Samedi’s face are any better.

Starkwell: Yeah... it’s better.

[...]

[Lesbian kiss, involving Hat Girl, some sort of vision of herself and a snake.]

Lovelock: It was all just… a dream?

Starkwell: I wish me watching this was just a dream.

Lovelock: If it was, I’d be pretty pissed off at my subconscious.

[...]

Starkwell, Lovelock and me all left the room then, and came back ten minutes later, to some kind of weird bar makeout scene.  And then these zombie girls ate a guy.  While it was a welcome addition to the film, as Starkwell noted, “It seems a bit out of place.”  The insane close-up of a guy furiously playing the cowbell, on the other hand, was perfectly at home in this completely incomprehensible film.

[...]

[Scarf Guy tries to get sexy with yet another zombie girl, and Snake Lady turns her to dust, with her eyes.]

Lovelock: Why couldn’t the movie just be ninety minutes of that?

Starkwell: Why couldn't the move just be over already?

Lovelock: Good point.  Want to rewind and watch that scene again?

Starkwell: No.  No, times a zillion. 

[...]

And then, in perhaps the biggest twist of the whole move, Vincent McOpenshirt was actually wearing a closed shirt, and was covering his entire chest.

[...]

Lovelock: There should be a version of this movie that just shows Snake Lady melting the zombie with her eyes, followed by Scarf Guy being eaten, and then Von Moldy being set on fire.

Starkwell: A bit short for a director’s cut.

Lovelock: It’s more like an audience cut.

Starkwell: You could cut out Vincent McOpenshirt altogether.

Lovelock: I might keep some of the belly dancing, just for the opening and closing credits.  You know, to set the mood.

Starkwell: I’m in the mood to stop watching this.  Wait... how do you know Von Moldy will be set on fire?

Lovelock: Dare to dream I guess.

[...]

Moments later the film ended.  Nothing really made any sense, but the important thing is that when the Mexican General fell into the fire, he exploded everyone into oblivion.  Except Hat Girl and McOpenShirt, who were somehow already outside of the cave.  And roll credits, and goodbye.

Zombi 2.

“Zombi 2”, or “Zombie”, or “Zombie Flesh Eaters”…  Whatever you should choose to call it, you must certainly call it amazing.  Lucio Fulci’s original undead splatter fest was often imitated, never duplicated.  Although made to cash in on the popularity of Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead”, “Zombi 2” ended up being something so much more than a coat tail riding blood soaked exploitation spectacular.  Well, it still is a coat tail riding blood soaked exploitation spectacular, but it’s such a good one!  This DVD from Shriek show has a second disc full of special features.  I know I’ll never actually watch them, but it’s nice to know that they are there.  After Lovelock and Starkwell enthusiastic reception of Fulci’s “The Beyond”, I’m curious to see what they will have to say about this one.

[...]

[Body Bag sits up, shot in head.]

Lovelock: I think I’m already in love.

Starkwell: You're sort of easy...

[...]

[Cops board sailboat, cop is eaten.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never board an abandoned sailboat.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.

Lovelock: Well that and the pirate potential.

[...]

After the incredible intro scenes, the movie slows down a little as we are introduced to the characters more, and find out that West, the reporter, and Anne, the doctor’s daughter, are traveling to the islands to find out just what happened to her father.  Starkwell appreciated the character and plot development, I believe Lovelock said “I should be bored, but for some reason I’m not.”

[...]

[Then they randomly stop the boat so that Susan can scuba and photograph stuff underwater.  Naked.]

Starkwell: Why in the hell would she scuba dive naked?

Lovelock: She’s not naked.  She’s wearing one of those old fashioned bathing caps with the flowers.

[...]

Then a shark goes after Susan, but wait, that’s no shark.  It’s a zombie shark.  Then there’s an underwater zombie that attacks her.  Then, there is a zombie vs. shark fight, filmed with a real shark, and, honestly, quite possibly a real zombie.  Starkwell and Lovelock high fived and played air guitar.  This continued until it randomly cut to a scene of The Scientist’s Wife showering (with several mirrors placed around the shower, presumably so that we can see both her front and back simultaneously) with a zombie outside her window.  At this point, they stopped and resumed paying attention to the film.

[...]

[THE GREATEST EYEBALL GAG EVER FILMED.]

Starkwell: …

Lovelock: Why don’t they do that in every movie?

Starkwell: You mean every zombie movie?

Lovelock: No. Every movie.  Imagine how it would improve any movie.

Starkwell: You can’t have that in any movie…

Lovelock: Name a movie.

Starkwell: I don’t know… “The Horse Whisperer.”

Lovelock: ScarJo flies off the horse, and when Redford tries to catch her, she accidentally jams a screwdriver into his eye.  BAM! He wears an eye patch the rest of the film.  Totally improved.

Starkwell: Wait why would she be riding a horse with a screwdriver in her hand?

Lovelock: Look, do you want the movie to make sense, or do you want it to be better?

[...]

As the movie presses onwards at a deliberate pace and more is explained, we find out through flashbacks what the opening scene was all about.  Lovelock said it’s “even better the second time”.  Starkwell is noticing that the film manages to sprinkle a little bit of everything into the mix and that “if zombie movies were bagels, this movie would be an EVERYTHING BAGEL”, whatever that means…  Then they showed a group of zombies feasting on Eyeball Gag Girl and I think Lovelock wept a little.  Tears of joy, of course.

[...]

[Peter and Anne make out, in the dirt.]

Starkwell: So all of what they just saw put them in the mood?

Lovelock: Well-

[Zombies pop out of the ground all around them and grab them.]

Starkwell: Holy shit, those are real maggots!

Lovelock: I just got a boner.

[...]

As the zombie horde closed in on them, bunkered down in the church, one couldn’t help but notice how disgustingly scary Fulci’s zombies are.

[...]

[Zombie bites off Science Man’s face.]

Lovelock: Not much meat on the face… Kind of a dumb zombie if you ask me.

Starkwell: No one asked you.  Ever.

[...]

[Brian kills zombies.]

Starkwell: So wait, he shoots one in the chest, and then realizes that only a head shot kills them, but then makes the same mistake three or four more times?  Just shoot them in the fucking head, Brian!

Lovelock: Seriously.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me three times, go ahead and eat the girl I’m trying to save.

Starkwell: It hardly seems fair that she pays for his inability to learn…

[...]

[Zombies have overrun New York City.]

Starkwell: Why would there still be so much traffic on the bridge if the zombies are everywhere?

Lovelock: Look Fulci’s awesome, but I doubt he could get them to shut down the bridge just for that one shot.

Starkwell: Regardless, it’s still an amazing shot.

Lovelock: Oh shit, THE END!

[...]

Before the credits even finished rolling Lovelock was off in a corner somewhere making “Zombi 2” wallpaper for his bedroom.  Starkwell sat quietly, wanting more.  More Fulci, more McCulloch, more Zombi, more everything.  Unfortunately, we already know that “Zombi 3” won’t deliver the good stuff.

The Serpent and the Rainbow.

Best known for inventing Freddy Krueger, horror titan Wes Craven took a stab at old school zombie folklore in his “based on true events” / “based on a dude’s book” film venture “The Serpent and the Rainbow.”  This one stars Bill Pullman, who you might know as the president from Independence Day or that guy I always confuse with Jeff Daniels.  Starkwell and Lovelock are intrigued by the possibility that any of what they are about to watch actually happened, and eagerly wait for me to press play.

[...]

[Haiti, 1970s.]

Starkwell: Haiti doesn’t look all that happy.  People steal dead bodies.

Lovelock: I don’t know, that guy in the top hat looks pretty happy.

Starkwell: Yeah, he’s waving a gun, I don’t think we’re supposed to like him.

[...]

[Professor Pullman takes magic potion.  Wakes up being chased by a panther and some scary dead people.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never take strange potions from witch doctors.

Starkwell: I think he’s a shaman, and yeah, that’s why.

Lovelock: I think if I had a spirit animal, I’d want it to be a monkey.  No, a giraffe… actually, let me think about it some more.

[...]

[Pharmaceutical company sends him on a mission.]

Starkwell: It’s always the pharmaceutical companies.

Lovelock: Well, yeah… They’re called BIOCORP.  You can’t trust that shit.

[...]

[Professor Pullman meets a zombie.]

Lovelock: Wait, that’s a zombie?

Starkwell: I think that this movie is more grounded in reality than you’re used to.

Lovelock: Reality blows.  Bring on the flesh eaters.  If I wanted reality I’d be at work right now.

[...]

Starkwell watched the story unfold with great enthusiasm.  Lovelock was less enthused, but every time he wanted to make a comment like “where’s the action?” or “where’s the beef?” Starkwell would shush him like a librarian on crack.  Is there any other kind?  However, they both make fun of Professor Pullman’s philosophical narration every chance that they get.

[...]

Starkwell: This movie already has had at least two too many of those “thank goodness, it was only a dream” moments.

Lovelock: Can you really ever have too many of those?

Starkwell: Yes.  Yes you can.  This movie does.

[...]

[Really long sex scene.]

Starkwell: Apparently waterfalls and a large crowd put Professor Pullman in the mood.

Lovelock: She certainly seems to be enjoying it.  In slow motion.

Starkwell: Who has sex in a cave?

Lovelock: Probably cavemen.

[...]

[Professor Pullman cons the con man.]

Starkwell: He’s a doctor and a magician?  No wonder she couldn’t resist boning him in a dirty cave.

Lovelock: Plus, his hair is phenomenal.

[...]

I was unable to follow their conversation for a little while, because I passed out when the crazy police drove a huge nail through Professor Pullman’s scrotum.  I think I faintly heard Lovelock saying “good luck doing it cave style now” before I blacked out.  When I woke up, they were repeating the line “hey, it just went through the scrotum, right?” over and over again, since, as it turns out, Professor Pullman is a pretty hard dude.

[...]

[Another dream sequence followed by dramatic wakeup shot.]

Starkwell: That’s the sweatiest wakeup yet.

Lovelock: Hey, I mean, it just went through the scrotum, right?

[Finds severed head next to him.]

Starkwell: I think I would prefer the nightmare…

Lovelock: Hey, I mean, it just went through the scrotum, right?

[...]

[Back in Boston, Professor Pullman is attacked at a dinner party by the hostess.]

Lovelock: Voodoo or not, I think that’s how I would react to that boring ass conversation as well.

Starkwell: Wow, he just bails on the party?  She’s still seizing and screaming.  What a dick.  Considering this is all his fault, the least he could do is stick around and see if she’s ok.

Lovelock: They put a wallet in her mouth, she’ll be fine.

[...]

[Zombie powder blown in face.  Pullman is pronounced dead.  Eventually, he comes back.]

Lovelock: Man, they stole that shit from “In Like Flint”.

Starkwell: It’s not really the same thing.

Lovelock: Purple alert!

[...]

The ending of the movie was pretty spectacular, full of historical facts, supernatural terrors, and nail in scrotum payback.  But Starkwell and Lovelock didn’t really react at all.  They said they were waiting to see if there would be another shot of him waking up, all sweaty, thinking “thank goodness, it was only a dream.”  It never came.  Good news for Haiti, but bad news for his scrotum.

King of the Zombies.

It seems that a lot of older zombie films involve people ending up on a weird island full of spooky ghouls and zombies and crazy people.  Apparently 1941’s “King of the Zombies” is no different.  Lovelock wants to meet the actual King of the Zombies and thank him for the awesome movies based on his peoples.  Starkwell tried to tell him that there was no actual King of the Zombies, but Lovelock interrupted him mid sentence with a well placed armpit fart.  This is another one of those Million-Movies-on-One-Disc type of deals, so I’ve already warned them that the quality of the picture will be less than ideal.

[...]

[Intro credits.]

Lovelock: Am I the only one who feels like we’re about to watch a “Looney Tunes” cartoon?

Starkwell: Yes... okay, no.

[...]

[CLEARLY a Model Airplane landing in CLEARLY a Model Forest.]

Lovelock: I miss playing with toys.

Starkwell: It's only a model.

[...]

[Jefferson Jackson cracks wise!]

Lovelock: I can’t tell if I find Mantan Moreland’s performance offensive or hilarious.

Starkwell: How about both?

Lovelock: Maybe it’s best if we don’t think about it too much.  

Starkwell: Or talk about it.

Lovelock: Nice hat!

Starkwell: Should we be talking about this?

[...]

[They find a mansion on the otherwise uninhabited island.]

Lovelock: I can see where “Lost” got all of its ideas.

Starkwell: Dude, you’ve used that one before.

Lovelock: “Gilligan’s Island”?

Starkwell: Whatever.

[...]

[The Black servants are zombies.  Jackson sees them.  The White lame people don’t believe him.]

Starkwell: Pretty edgy social commentary for 1941…

Lovelock: Do you think they knew what they were implying when they filmed it?

Starkwell: I sincerely hope so.

[...]

[Tuxedo Pants introduces the guys to some kind of rich white girl zombie.]

Starkwell: Wait, that’s his wife?  They’re commenting on both racial AND gender inequality in the 1940s?  Insane!

Lovelock: Rich white men are sucking the life out of women and ethnic groups and controlling them like mindless meat puppets to do their dirty work.

Starkwell: I’m proud of you.

Lovelock: Not to mention, it’s becoming quite clear that the two wooden white guys, parading around in Hugh Hefner gowns, are just there for show, and Jackson is the real hero of the picture.

Starkwell: I’m really impressed… you’re really getting into this!

Lovelock: Actually, I’m bored as shit.  When are the Black servants going to start eating people?

Starkwell: It was nice while it lasted.

[...]

The movie crawled forward like molasses on an uneven kitchen floor, but still managed to hold Starkwell’s interest.  Lovelock, on the other hand, said “snoozers” out loud at one point, after which Starkwell punched him in the nuts.  Eventually there were some awkwardly offensive “Voodoo” things happening on screen, and then, an eventual zombie uprising.  The dialogue confused everyone and really just left a lot of unanswered questions.  One thing is for sure, Mantan Moreland steals the show here.  After the insanely abrupt ending, the credits rolled, and Starkwell got up slowly, nodded his head and said “Powerful stuff.”  Then Lovelock got up slowly, nodded his head, and said “Also, dull as balls.”  Different strokes for different folks.

[...]

Lovelock: “Temple of Doom”.  “Temple of Doom” totally got its story from this.