Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave.

The film opens with a shot of Bruce Lee’s grave.  Then, there’s a very quick shot of LIGHTNING FLASHING.  Then a Bruce impersonator explodes out of the ground in front of the “Bruce Lee” gravestone.  Cut to a title shot that, for some reason, has a very ‘Star Wars’-ish font.  Then there is a still shot of some kind of painting of Bruce Lee uppercutting some kind of half man half gargoyle with a scantily clad woman watching.  This whole thing lasted twenty seconds.  Lovelock and Starkwell re-watched it twenty-five or so time.

[...] 

[After the Gargoyle Punch Painting shot, it cuts very abruptly (the music even completely changes) to an airplane flying.]

Starkwell: Is it Bruce Lee on board?

Lovelock: Is he out for vengeance?  

[Honestly, we never find out.]

[...]

After that, they agreed there wasn’t any point in watching the rest of it.  Honestly, they didn’t miss much.  The rest of the film is pretty standard low level seventies chop-socky.  I’ve seen Dragon Lee films with better fighting, better acting and a more comprehensible story.  Ask me if I like Dragon Lee films.  Also, I’m not even sure if the character is actually supposed to be an undead Bruce Lee or not.  We the audience don't know, and I don't even think the character in the film knows.  He doesn't refer to himself as Bruce Lee, doesn't really seem to be on a vengeance quest, really, and if he IS undead Bruce, he shouldn't be teaching Tae-kwon-do.  There's also a Chuck Norris impersonator at one point who gets all rapey pervert with a girl.  If there actually was a film that featured an undead Bruce Lee coming back from the grave, the first thing he should do, is go after all of the people that tried to cash in on his death and make a quick buck imitating him with lookalikes who, for the most part, couldn't even fight or act.  Horrifying.

Virgin Among the Living Dead.

Often referred to by it’s other title “Christine, Princess of Eroticism”, this Franco cult 'classic' is almost certain to make Starkwell leave and Lovelock scratch his head.  And yet, both seem so eager and excited to watch the movie.  Such is the mystery that is Jess Franco’s body of work.  The opening credits are as schizophrenic as any I have ever seen.  I should mention that the film is in French.

[...]

Lovelock: If this music is any indication of the style of movie we are about to watch, then we are about to watch musical diarrhea.

Starkwell: Or the weirdest porno of all time.

[...]

The terrible acting and badly overdubbed French dialogue has informed Starkwell and Lovelock that the young Miss Benton is heading to Monteserate’s Castle.  Apparently, no one ever goes there…  Locals say that the people there are dead.  Not haunted, not just weird people, straight up dead people.  I’m sure we’ll soon find out what the deal is.  First she is going to stay the night in a shitty hotel.

[...]

[Miss Benton has a nightmare, squirms in bed, wakes up.]

Lovelock: You think Franco says to these women “sound scared but also, mostly aroused”?

Starkwell: Something like that.

Lovelock: Of course she walks around the hotel in her silky transparent underwear.

Starkwell: That's his next guideline, generally.

[...]

Apparently Moneserate’s Castle is actually her family’s castle… so she is very much intent on still going there.  She doesn’t believe for a second that everyone’s dead.  Then she gets a ride out to the castle, and there’s a long scene where Miss Benton waxes philosophical.  It’s her voice reciting a nonsensical poem while shitty jazz fusion plays over canned jungle sounds.  Lovelock almost pissed his pants.

[...]

[Uncle Howard plays piano.]

Lovelock: That is the worst fake piano playing I’ve ever seen.

[Miss Benton walks up a staircase and hears female moaning sounds.]

Starkwell: What the Hell is going on?

[Black Haired woman sits alone in a room at a desk drawing crosses in red paint.]

Lovelock: What?

[Some woman dies, they have a funeral, Uncle Howard sings, the rest of the family sings along.]

Lovelock: I don’t think they’re singing the same song.

Starkwell: The dead girl totally moved her eyes.

Lovelock: Why would Miss Benton stay here?

Starkwell: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

[...]

Lovelock and Starkwell speak French, and yet I still think something is being lost in translation.

[...]

Lovelock: Of course she sleeps fully naked.  Over the covers.

[...]

[The weird mute guy groans at Miss Benton, or Christina as she is now being called, and waves a dead rat in her face, she runs back into her room.]

Starkwell: Well that didn’t really serve any purpose.

Lovelock: Good thing she was naked before it all happened.

Starkwell: I bet the dead rat waving and groaning thing usually works on the naked ladies.

[...]

Anyways, we get some back story about Christina.  She never knew her Mom or Dad.  The people of this castle are apparently her Dad’s family, and she’s expecting inheritance of some kind.  I guess that’s why she’s there.

[...]

[Christina goes for a walk in the forest.]

Starkwell: She certainly likes wearing green.  She camouflages with the forest.

Lovelock: She isn’t all that big on wearing bras, on the other hand.

[She finds a pond, so obviously she gets naked and jumps in.]

Lovelock: Obviously two creepy old dudes watch her from the bushes.

Starkwell: Is something going to happen in this movie, I mean other than Christina walking around in various levels of undress?

Lovelock: "Virgin Among the Living Dead"?  More like “Boredom Among the Sleeping Audience.”

[...]

Then Christina goes back to the castle, gets a slap in the face from Uncle Howard, finds dead bats in her bed, and then walks in on Clemenze (a girl) and The Lazy-Eyed (?) Cousin (also a girl) having some kind of lesbian pube trimming session, complete with sucking blood from a fresh cut on the boobies.  The scene goes on for like three whole minutes.

[...]

[Christina wakes up scared and tries to escape the castle, in her nightgown.]

Lovleock: She is certainly well equipped for the jungle, what with the whole being naked and confused all the time.

Starkwell: So let me get this straight… She sees one of her cousins or whatever nakedly sucking booby blood from an equally naked cousin… and she goes downstairs to eat some dinner… but a little nightmare sends her running for the jungle?

[...]

[Lawyer comes and reads the will, everything goes to Christina, but she tells the weirdoes that they can all stay.]  

Starkwell: Why would she let them stay?  Euuuuhhh….

[Uncle Howard plays piano and Clemenze squirms around half naked on the floor.  This lasts several minutes.]

Lovelock: That’s pretty entertaining… maybe that’s why.  Maybe CHristina likes a little crazy.

[...]

Starkwell: If you have to ask “WHICH ONE” when someone mentions a scene where the main character wakes up naked in bed, chances are that you have too many.

Lovelock: True… but this time she wakes up to find a huge black dildo/vase on the ground.  It has balls!

[Christina smashes the cock vase, and this apparently is going to bring a curse on her head.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never smash cock and ball vases.

Starkwell: Do you have a cock and ball vase?

Lovelock: No, but I think you can get them at the Pottery Barn.

[...]

[Mute Guy strangles Lazy-Eyed Cousin.]

Starkwell: Was it really necessary for her to get naked right before he strangled her?

Lovelock: To get the part?  Probably.  I can’t imagine what Franco put these girls through.

Starkwell: That didn't make any sense.

Lovelock: Your face doesn't make any sense.

[...]

Anyways, Christina keeps seeing her dead dad, and starts following him around, because CLEARLY that's what you do when you see dead people.  But then Uncle Howard and the gang show up to fulfill the curse… The curse of the big black cock and balls!  Apparently to fulfill it, they need to tear her clothes and gnaw at her thighs, for a while.

[...]

Lovelock: Not that I want them to be, but why wouldn’t the dudes ever be naked too?  I mean, if this is one big naked fest...

Starkwell: The fake cock and balls of the vase was enough for me thanks.

[...]

Then there was some strange sacrifice scene involving naked women straddling each other and her undead dad leaking blood out of his mouth.  Then Christina woke up delirious in the hotel from the beginning.  After that I think it like flashed back to the night before… I think.  The whole family, Christina included, drowned themselves in a pond out behind the castle and claimed to be returning to the river Styx.  Definitely a happy ending.

Zombies On Broadway.

While one could argue that a lot of early zombie films have some elements of comedy in them, whether intentional or not, Gordon Douglas’ 1945 “Zombies on Broadway” sets out to be just that, from start to finish, a zombie comedy, starring the comedy duo of somebody and somebody else.  Well I have a comedy duo of my own that I intend to put to work, by having them watch the very film I just mentioned.

[...]

[Gangster advertises his new theatre that features a real live zombie!  Opening this weekend!  Turns out our Comedy Duo, hired to provide the zombie, is actually trying to pass off a regular dude as a zombie!]

Lovelock: This is unrelated, but the expression “hate you like poison” is pretty tits.

[...]

After visiting an old scientist, the Duo decide “screw the Gangster” and decide to run away to California, instead of trying to figure out how to get him a zombie.  But Gangster catches them, and so, they’re going to San Sebastien to find a guy named Dr. Renault and provide Gangster with a zombie for his show!

[...]

[Music Man of the Island plays a song on his guitar and sings to the Duo about the island.]

Lovelock: I can’t help but wish the whole film was in song.

Starkwell: That would get a bit annoying.

[Enter Dr. Renault, played by Bela Lugosi.]

Lovelock: Man, if Lugosi sang his lines, he’d be even hammier!  I think I’d die.  Of happiness.

[...]

We see our first zombie, and he’s terrifying.  It’s a local native with crazy bug-eyes.  Starkwell and Lovelock aren’t sure if they are his real eyes or not… but either way Lovelock just dry-heaved.  The Duo meet a Dancer Girl and team up with her to find a zombie.

[...]

[Zombie watches the Dancer get changed through her window.]

Lovelock: Maybe that’s how he got his bug-eyes… by being a Peeping Tom and peeping REAL HARD.

[...]

As if Lovelock and Starkwell weren’t already massively uncomfortable from the basic racism on display here and there, one of the Comedy Duo tried to blend in with the crowd of natives by smearing grease all over his face, creating the infamous Black Face.  Lovelock asked Starkwell “is it racist to watch this… or?”  The Dancer was captured by a zombie and brought to Lugosi, who wants to make her go all zombie.  There was a moment where Lugosi, talking about the doctor who sent the Comedy Duo to the island, said very bluntly “I HATE HIM”.  I only mention the line because Lugosi delivered it with such ferocious passion that Lovelock and Starkwell re-watched it five times.

[...]

[Lugosi and his Assistant make the Duo dig their own graves.]

Lovelock: You would think they would catch on when the guy asked him to lie down so he could measure the size of the whole to dig…

Starkwell: Well, now where’s the humor in that?

[...]

Then Lugosi kidnaps the fat one of the Duo, Fat Mike, and turns him into a zombie.  He tries to turn the other guy, Jerry, into one as well, but he gets away thanks to the Dancer Girl, a little helper monkey and, eventually, the zombie Kolaga, who for some reason turns on his master.

[...]

[Jerry, Dancer Girl and the Monkey sneak past the Natives by pretending to be zombies after seeing Fat Mike walk past them no problemo.]

Lovelock: The little monkey had his arms up!  Oh now that’s just the most adorable thing ever.

Starkwell: Wait, so Fat Mike is just a zombie now… like forever?

Lovelock: A definite improvement.

[...]

[Right before the show, Fat Mike turns back into a regular human when he sees a girl bending over.]

Lovelock: So that’s all it takes?

Starkwell: If that were true, then wouldn't Kolaga have un-zombied when he watched the girl change earlier?

Lovelock: If logic was something worth worrying about... yes...

[...]

Anyways, apparently someone lifted the syringe with the zombie serum off Lugosi before he got axed because at the last minute Gangster Boss gets injected and turns into a zombie!  Just in time for the show!

[...]

[But wait!  Jerry just sat on the needle!  He’s a zombie now too!]

Lovelock: Sharing needles is not a laughing matter.

Starkwell: The more you know.

Lovelock: At least Dancer Girl just has to bend over or show some skin to turn him back.

[...]

The end.

The Plague.

This is sort of along the lines of a “Village of the Damned” sort of a thing… it’s all basically been done before… but has it ever starred DAWSON?  James Van Der Beek stars in Hal Masonberg’s straight-to-DVD picture “The Plague”.  Alright, here we go.  It was produced by Clive Barker, so, obviously, his name is on the cover in bigger writing than any of the actors.  Might even be bigger than the film title.  It is, however, Hal Masonberg’s only film credit…  ALWAYS a good sign.

[...]

[Ten years ago, every kid in town (possibly the world?) seems to have fallen ill… woken up with a frothy mouth, eventually they all had seizures and then become vegetables.]

Starkwell: If it looks straight to video, and it sounds straight to video, than the acting might suck.

Lovelock: You say that now, but just wait until Dawson shows up.

Starkwell: Is that going to help?

Lovelock: It will help prove your theory.

[...]

So it turns out THERE ARE NO CHILDREN in the entire world.  All kids are born dead, or, well, in a coma-dead.  It’s actually pretty fucked up.  The kids from ten years ago are all still alive, but they’re all in comas and kept in huge High-School Gyms turned Hospital.  Then Dawson makes his grand entrance, walking around a ghost town of rusty playgrounds and closed schools.  The youngest functional people in the world are 19. All the Coma Kids have seizures every day at the same time.  Dawson is an ex-con.

[...]

[Dawson visits his brother and ex-wife.]

Starkwell: Of course there’s an ex-wife.

Lovelock: What’s a movie without sexy complications?

Starkwell: It doesn’t seem very sexy.

Lovelock: Man, I just want the damn Coma Kids to wake up and start strangling people.

[Coma Kids all stand up and rip out their IVs.  Nurse is attacked.  Meanwhile, Dawson's nephew attacks his Dawson's brother.]

Starkwell: Ask and ye shall receive.

Lovelock: I guess… but they didn’t SHOW the nurse being strangled.

Starkwell: Dawson doesn’t seem very shocked considering he just found his bro with an exploded head and he just threw his nephew out the window.

Lovelock: Yeah but his hair is fantastic.  Sexy complications?  Likely so!

[...]

So then Dawson and the ex-brother-in-law go to find the ex-wife (not his brother, his brother's dead, he met up with his ex-wife's brother).  She’s a nurse (obviously) and works at the high-school gym where all the Coma Kids are being held (obviously).  Starkwell and Lovelock didn’t have much to say.  The movie is fairly cookie-cutter horror, part “Village of the Damned”, part “The Crazies”, part bad over-acting, and with a sprinkle of shitty dialogue.

[...]

Lovelock: Considering it’s likely that all of the Coma Kids in the world probably woke up, you would think there’d be a more interesting place to focus on than a shitty high-school in a shitty small town.

Starkwell: On this movie’s budget?

Lovelock: True…

[...]

There are some pretty good shots of people shocking themselves at their ability to bludgeon teenagers to death.  It still leaves Lovelock wanting more, though.  Then there’s a pretty dragged out scene of the ex-wife treating her Bro’s broken leg.  This leaves Lovelock wanting less.

[...]

Starkwell: Of course they’re hunkered down in an old church.

Lovelock: Well, yeah.  That way they can cut to random shots of Jesus.  And Mary.  And Bible.

[...]

The Coma Kids all seem to have a collective mind.  They take people’s souls and learn all that they know… together.  Also, now they have guns.  In the end, I think Dawson ends up offering his soul to them and making them disappear.  But then they’re back and Dawson is probably one of them now.  Great work, Dawson.  The end.

Zombies vs. Strippers.

Not to be confused with any other zombie films in the last few years that have the words “zombie” and “stripper” in the title, this one sets itself apart by being “Zombies vs. Strippers” as opposed to “Strippers vs. Zombies”.  Look, I know that sounds thin, but I was just trying to find ONE nice thing to say about this total turd before I fling it directly at Starkwell and Lovelock’s respective eyeballs.  “Full Moon” is really giving “The Asylum” a run for their money for the title of 'Kings of “we make shitty movies all of the time, deal with it”'.   That title sounded more positive than it should have.  It’s not a good thing.

[...]

[Disturbingly long credits, with shitty music and distorted shots of boob/ass/zombies.]

Starkwell: When your movie is only 75 minutes long, and your opening credits last almost four minutes… it ain’t a good sign.

[...]

[Dude named Spider runs a shitty failing strip bar.]

Starkwell: Of course his name is Spider.

Lovelock: There is no way that a shitty strip club in the middle of nowhere that is FAILING would have a girl that would even look somewhat CLOSE to that good.  And she doesn’t even look that good.

Starkwell: Not to mention, there aren’t any customers… so why would he need a bouncer, a bartender and four strippers on hand?

[...]

The film is trying real hard to develop characters.  Here’s the problem: They all suck and the acting sucks and it’s so stupid.  Anyways, then a girl named Bambi strips in front of two guys that have obviously become zombies.

[...]

[One zombie eats the other zombie’s hand.]

Starkwell: Well now that just doesn’t make any sense.

[...]

There’s a black girl named Vanilla and she is literally a textbook of bad stereotypes.  Then there’s a super long scene where Spider tells everyone he’s closing the bar and the characters go on and on about their shit.  And then they throw a party or something.  It’s honestly like a ten or fifteen minute long scene, and it ends with a customer coming in and offering them a bunch of money to keep the bar open for him.  He kind of looks like a cross between Carrot Top and Adam Ant.  It all sucks.

[...]

Starkwell: Ok, I’m out.

[...]

Lovelock: So, they’ve definitely established the Strippers portion of “Zombies vs. Strippers”… What with the fact that we’ve seen a million boobs and only two zombies.

[Zombies finally show up at the club, saying “brains” repeatedly.]

Lovelock: Yeah… ok… I’m out too.

[...]

It didn’t get any better.  Because, you see, once they took care of those zombies, that was it for another twenty minutes at least.  I’m glad they left before they could see just how bad it kept getting.  I think Vanilla said “This is your brain on drugs” at one point.  Also, there was a Michael Jackson “Thriller” zombie that did Jacko dance moves and grabbed his crotch.  Also, it’s one of the slowest moving films ever.  Seventy five minutes feels more like infinity hours.  It’s like they thought by casting porn stars, and then sprinkling a booby and an ass here and there we’d forget that nothing happens and that none of it makes any sense and that it all sucks and that it's the worst.  Guess who ain’t buying?

Zombie 5: Killing Birds.

“Zombie 5” was a film released in 1987, before “Zombi 3” and “Zombie 4”,  the two 'previous' films in the fabricated series of “Zombie” movies (which start with “Dawn of the Dead” somehow).  Obvioulsy at the time, they didn't KNOW it was the fifth installment yet.  How could they?  The third hadn't happened. If that isn’t already enough nonsense, this one involves birds.  It is safe to say that “Killing Birds” was not Robert Vaughn’s finest hour (and a half).  No doubt said hour (and a half) will feel quite a bit longer to the unprepared Starkwell and Lovelock, who are going into this expecting the wacky shenanigans of parts 3 and 4.  Man, are they ever in for a letdown.  How bad is this movie?  Joe D’Amato is an uncredited director.

[...]

[Some kind of Johnny Rambo returns from war only to find his woman in bed with a man, that he then kills.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never date soldiers’ wives.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s… wait what?

Lovelock: Or soldiers.

[He kills her next.  Then he kills the two neighbors.  He spares their baby.  But then the birds peck out his eyes.]

Lovelock: And that’s why I’m afraid of birds.

Starkwell: No one is forcing you to keep like a hundred falcons on your porch.

Lovelock: I’d like to see them try!

[Soldier Boy is treated at the hospital, and then given back the baby, which I guess is his baby now (???).]

Starkwell: How did he get to the hospital without any eyes?

Lovelock: I’m sure the ambulance came to get him…

Starkwell: They didn’t notice the four dead bodies, his bloody knife and clothes… they didn’t ask about the birds?

Lovelock: It’s probably not legal to have that many hawks and falcons in cages with those little hats.

Starkwell: Also, what kind of hospital just says “Here you go, guy with no more eyes and a bandage around your head who appears to be bloody, mute and homeless… take this tiny infant and be on your way.   Godspeed.  It is your baby right?” ???!?!?!?

Lovelock: The kind of hospital found in terrible movies.

[...]

They talked for a while about the different birds, and just how many holes in the plot this one scene had already created.  They decided that this might be the laziest, most irresponsible and incompetent writing they have ever come across.  They missed a whole mess of other garbage, including some of the worst acting anyone will ever see, while they compared it to other horrible movies.

[...]

[A mish-mash of eighties clichés and bad actors make up a group of bird watchers, journalists and photographers that will be going to watch birds… I guess at Blind Rambo’s house.]

Starkwell: No… I can’t do it.

[Starkwell leaves.]

Lovelock: I’m staying, but mostly for the music, and to see Robert Vaughn.

[Enter blind, mangled, Robert Vaughn.  He is a bird expert and two of the students interview him for his… knowledge… I think.]

Lovelock: Well, I’ve seen Robert Vaughn.  So what, they’re looking for a special bird… or?

[...]

Then there’s a bunch of bird footage and a dude fake-playing a harmonica.  The teens all smile at one another and have a great time filming what looks to Lovelock like “the same four birds over and over again”.

[...]

[They find an abandoned truck with a decomposing corpse in it.]

Lovelock: Aww… just a plain corpse… I guess it was too much to hope that there would be zombies in a movie called “Zombie 5”… somewhere in the first hour or so.

[...]

Running scared from the corpse, the teens come across an abandoned old house that they then decide to explore, seemingly unaffected by the fact they just saw a dead body.  It’s clearly the house where Robert Vaughn killed those people all of those years ago.  It takes them like ten minutes to explore the house, find nothing and have nothing happen.  Then randomly one of the teens starts FREAKING OUT and seeing zombies.

[...]

[Dude sees his girl crucified… but it was all in his imagination.]

Lovelock: He sure is scared of that blind guy.  Also, he sure is sweaty.  Also, I sure am bored.

[...]

Then one of the characters whipped out a gigantic late eighties laptop and Lovelock spent the next ten minutes talking about how far technology has come.  He almost ends up missing the first actual zombie attack.

[...]

[Blonde girl has her head smashed in.]

Lovelock: Hooray!  Good luck stopping the zombies with your big laptop and floppy disk!

[I honestly don’t know why he would say that.  This is one of those moments that would have left Starkwell bewildered.]

[...]

Nothing is ever explained.  At one point a dude spontaneously combusted and Lovelock laughed so hard that he threw up a little.  But that was really the highlight for him.  Well, that and the part where the girl’s head is sort of pulled off.  Pound for pound, this movie truly sucks.  As bad as you think it is, it’s worse.  Also, where did the baby go?

[...]

Lovelock: More like "Zombie 5: Killing the Series".