EDITOR’S NOTE: Black Roses was on USA Up All Night on February 17 and September 11, 1990 and May 18, 1991.
Growing up, two things both saved and damned me: heavy metal and horror movies. They go together like guitar and bass, guns and roses, beer and weed, leather and denim. Off the top of my head, I can name plenty of bands for whom horror movies are a central element: Electric Wizard, Hooded Menace, The Misfits, Acid Witch, Mortician, Uncle Acid . . . seriously, I could name bands all day long.
But what movies meet the metal grade? Which ones would you be able to put on the back of your battle vest? Also — a tip of the horns to Mike “McBeardo” McPadden’s evil and doom filled tome, Heavy Metal Movies.
You probably remember Black Roses more for its garish VHS case than the actual movie. A 3D standout on rental shelves everywhere, it’s a favorite of many 80s horror fans. Believe it or not, I’d never seen the movie until this year. I was inspired by Acid Witch covering the song “Soldiers of the Night” on their Midnight Movies EP and had to look up the film that goes with it.
The small town of Mill Basin is about to become the first place where the band Black Roses will ever play a show. Up until now, they’ve only been a studio band. And parents are concerned because these guys have taken over the hearts and souls of the town’s kids. But do you blame the kids? Mill Basin reminds me of where I grew up — there’s nothing to do but fuck and do recreational drugs. And if you have bad self-esteem issues, you’re gonna just stay in your room reading comic books, playing guitar, drawing pictures of Leatherface and staring at your Traci Lords poster while listening to Among the Living on repeat. Oh wait — I was wallowing in the past.
There’s one teacher who cares — Matthew Moorhouse, who several of the students believe is having an affair with goody two shoes Julie. He’s stuck in a loveless relationship with an ice queen named Priscilla (Carla Ferrigno, yep, Lou’s wife). And the parents remain up in arms about Black Roses until the mayor calms them, reminding them that their parents hated rock and roll, too. The parents decide to be open-minded and go see the concert, which is the lightest, softest hair ballad cheese that you can ever imagine . . . until they leave and the real Black Roses starts playing and zombifying the crowd.
The kids come back at their parents with knives, just like Charley claimed they would, like a patricide by stereo (Vincent Pastore of The Sopranos), a mother killed by a car, another kid shooting his dad in the face and one watching while her best friend humps her father to death (one of these deaths is not like the other). Even virginal Julie goes astray, killing her lecherous stepfather and Moorhouse’s ex-girlfriend before transforming into a creature that I can only describe as a snaggletoothed fetal pig that makes cat noises.
This leads him to the band’s final concert, where lead singer Damian doffs his hair and shows off his demon dome. Moorhouse responds by setting the demon on fire, killing it. Wait a second — a demon that can be killed by fire? That just seems like poor planning.
So often, if you meet me in person, I get evangelical about movies, selling everyone on how amazing they are. I realize I often make bad movies sound way better than they really are. And when people are not ready for the onslaught of offal that I so often enjoy, they wonder, “Is Sam insane?”
Yes, I am. And if I were to be sitting next to you in person, I’d tell you that this movie is awesome because the lead singer turns crowd members into skeletons and purple zombies. That little dinosaur people that sound like kittens come out of speakers to kill fat dads. That my real dad, Carmine Appice, is in this movie, because his band King Kobra did most of the Black Roses music and that his name in this movie is Vinny Apache, which is the best name maybe ever, except for Sheriff Gene Freak. That Julie Adams from The Creature from the Black Lagoonand Dennis Hopper’s insaneThe Last Movieis in it.
But then you’d watch it and be like, why should I be cheering for the obvious pedophile teacher with a sweater who is trying to set all the kids on fire with gasoline? Why are the creature effects so fucking weirdly bad? Is the film on the side of the parents or the kids? Why is the biggest band in the world playing such a small town shithole? How did they survive to play Madison Square Garden two weeks later and everyone is like, “Oh well” like it means nothing to them?
I should really start sharing disclaimers when I get all excited about movies. But yeah. Purple zombies. Dinosaur cats. Plenty of nudity. Metal lifers playing ridiculous songs (Carmine Appice was also in the solo bands of Ozzy Osbourne, Paul Stanley, Ted Nugent and Rod Stewart, which has to help you in a trivia contest someday). And you know, kids rising up to kill their parents. You can forgive a bad movie for a lot when it has all of these elements.
Director Philip Barantini is known for the British TV show Boiling Point. Here, he’s made one of the best Tubi originals I’ve seen, a tense thriller that feels like it could be happening right now.
Harri (Chaneil Kular) leaves London to dog-sit the family dog Flynn when his parents go on vacation. He doesn’t pay attention to much — he’s an animator so he devotes his mind to one thing at a time — and is shocked when a friend calls to tell him he nearly missed a bombed on the tube. When a camera image of the suspect who set the bomb goes viral, even Harri’s girlfriend jokes that it looks like him. Even worse, an old school friend posts a message that she feels proves that Harri is the terrorist.
This is how easily this happens. Harri isn’t a foreigner. He’s lived in London his whole life. He just looks different.
And it gets worse.
Harry is a British citizen of South Asian descent, but he’s brown. To anyone watching him — even neighbors of his parents who have known him his whole life — he’s the other, an enemy, someone to fear. The tension builds as every message Harri reads paints him as a criminal. Even calls to the police and visits to a kindly old lady next door become nightmarish mirror sides of real life. Then the vigilantes come for him and invade his parent’s home.
Writers Barnaby Boulton and James Cummings have crafted a fable of how far paranoia and the bubble of doing your own research and “I’m just saying, but…” can go when pointed at a target. Kular is really great in this, an everyman faced with a night of terror that not every man would have to live through.
Directed by Timothy Galfas (Black Fist) and written by Jack Laird from a story by Mary Linn Roby, “Die Now, Pay Later” never aired during the original run of Night Gallery. Instead, this and next week’s episode, “Room for One Less” were unaired stories from season 2 added to the syndication package along with episodes of The Sixth Sense. Rod Serling came back to record new introductions for these stories as well as those unconnected stories of the Gary Collins series.
Sheriff Ned Harlow (Slim Pickens) thinks that the death rate in Taunton, Massachusetts is increasing because of the January clearance sale of funeral director Walt Peckinpah (Will Geer). According to Harlow’s wife, Peckinpah has relatives in Salem and may be a relative of a warlock who was burned after the witch trials. But after getting all excited, Harlow’s wife calls the funeral home and yells at him.
The sale continues with the sheriff perhaps being a customer.
This is, as you can guess by Laird being involved, an episode of low quality. Why it’s a half hour is beyond me. Ah well — we should probably just enjoy the good stories and not be so sad about the rough ones.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare was on USA Up All Night on December 29, 1990; August 23, 1991; March 14, May 29 and September 4, 1992 and June 18 and October 15, 1993.
I’m 2:25 into this movie and I’m already screaming at the TV in glee. A farmhouse, somewhere that feels like Canada, with a mother — who has hair that feels like the 80s — is making eggs and calling everyone to eat. Then, a scream, to which her husband replies with all the intensity of someone answering a telemarketer. He opens the stove to a skull-faced demon and screams as his son watches.
Cue the credits — it’s time for Rock ‘n Roll Nightmare! This film stars Jon Mikl Thor, who Wikipedia tells us is “the first Canadian to win both the Mr. Canada and Mr. USA titles. During his bodybuilding career, he has achieved over 40 titles around the world. As a musician, he is the frontman for the heavy metal band Thor, billing himself as “The Legendary Rock Warrior.” Thor used to appear in the back pages of 80s metal mags like Hit Parader and Circus, but no one I knew had ever heard any of his albums (here’s the video for 1977’s “Keep the Dogs Away“). You may know him from this insane clip of him dancing and singing that the Found Footage Festival has uncovered:
Getting back to the movie, the credits sequence ranks among the longest and worst shot credits I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It’s even worse than the credits in fellow Canadians Bob and Doug McKenzie’s Mutants of 2051 A.D. It’s shot after shot of pre-Go Pro footage of a camera racing along a dark house, as if we are to find some terror in the accouterments and candles and bric a brac.
What follows next can only be described as fetishistic shots of a white custom van — complete with DUCKER license plate — as it grooves and grinds and rocks its way down the highways and byways of Canada, complete with the ever beefy Thor at the wheel. I’m writing this at 5 AM and my reality is always a bit skewed, but these shots go through more than one song, which is like a wrestling match lasting three commercial breaks. It just isn’t done. If the director’s intent was to show us how remote the farmhouse they’re traveling to is, he succeeded with three and a half minutes of watching a white van slowly drive. I’m shocked we didn’t get a slow-motion scene of turn signals going on and off or break lights slowly being depressed. These are the moments in genre films where you wonder: am I watching an auteur or a complete hack…and do I even know the difference any longer?
Just when you think that this will be an entire film of all establishing shots, the band emerges from the van to learn that they’ll be staying at this farmhouse for 5 weeks of recording. It has gas. It has electric. It doesn’t have a phone or TV…but it does have a 24 track recording studio! The band has grown soft in the city and needs Toronto to make it happen — no hot tubs or Dynasty! After a “comedic” sequence about what bands have been to the farmhouse, I have been led to wonder if this is what life is always like in Canada. Keep in mind — my brief time in the Great White North has not debased me of my belief that everything and everyone is from SCTV and Kids in the Hall.
You know how in most films, they’ll do a brief cut to something ominous to change the tone? This film has these cuts lasting two to three minutes — dark skies, Omen-like choirs, more dark skies and wind. These scenes stretch off into eternity.
Rod, Max, Stig and Thor — and their respective lady friends — have a meal with awkward toasts as we get to know all about them. But now, it’s time for them to tune their weapons and play us a song. Also — their manager has cooked from them and is wearing a paper burger hat (he also had on a sweet Archies leather jacket earlier, so for some reason he’s the 1950s element of the band).
Instead of the band playing, as would normally follow such a setup, we’re presented with the manager and girls doing a synchronized dishwashing scene. Thor emerges outside to tell them they’re almost ready. For some reason, he’s changed into his stage clothes, exposing his pecs in a costume that can only be compared to the High Energy garb of Canuck superstar Owen Hart.
If you loved the long musical sequences in, oh, let’s say Son of Dracula, you’re in for a treat here. “We Live to Rock” is played in its entirety while band groupies get angry, a band wife sews and a weird flesh/sockpuppet pukes in a cup of coffee. A broken drumstick later and manager Phil has to go to the basement to get more. Phil is like if Harry Anderson wore pork pie hats and did competitive improv. Lynn, Stig’s groupie, meets him and comes on to him.
Lynn takes her top off in the most awkward, unsexy manner that I’ve ever seen in a film. Seriously, she gets he outfit stuck and it takes a really long time for her to get it off. One wonders if perhaps a second take would have improved this scene. The chemistry between her and Phil can only be described as impalpable. She takes a huge bite out of his shoulder and Phil’s gone. So’s the van. It looks like Triton is totally trapped in Toronto!
The band retires to their bedrooms. Thor’s girl can’t get him to stop reading lyrics. The keyboard player comes to talk to the guitarist. but he passes out on her. The married couple is making out. And Stig rawdogs Lynn, yelling “As usual, the best!” before going to “drain the dragon, baby! Yeah! I’ll be back!” He then goes to the bathroom where he speaks in a combination of Arnold and Australian, making me yearn for his death. I’m rewarded as a blood puking zombie gives him a clawhold, which possesses him and makes him a better lover. Zombie Stig goes back and the noises of their lovemaking wake up the whole house.
Just then, groupies arrive to the strains of a ripoff of the theme to Phantasm. They’re let into the farmhouse by Phil, who we all thought was dead. He tells them that the band is tired from all the cocaine, but it’s 2 AM and they’ll be down in twenty minutes, so it’s time for them to “whip out those breasts, girls.” He yells at them that they need to cut the cocaine, scream in the crowd and keep the clothes looking good — there are positions to fill! They run off into the b roll night as we slowly — ever so slowly — pan to Phil’s zombified hand. To quote Jack Chick, “HAW! HAW! HAW!”
The married couple is washing dishes, but they’re quickly taken by a zombie. I was thinking, would this director be so bold and/or stupid to have the zombie’s hand come back in frame to shut off a boom box? I was rewarded with a hearty fuck yes, he would.
The first 44 minutes of this movie feel like 44 weeks. Would another music video performance help speed things up? Of course not. Allow me to share the lyrics for the song “Energy” with you:
I live by one simple rule I don’t let nothing get by I sometimes act like a fool But that has kept me alive
I set my goals and I pace myself I land out of all of my needs And when I’m ready to just give You give something I need
YOU GIVE ME ENERGY THAT’S WHAT YOU DO YOU GIVE ME ENERGY YOU GET ME STARTED EVERYDAY
Have you ever seen a couple and thought, “I hope that I never have to watch these people have sex?” Prepare to say that again, times three, as the various couples break off as yet another Thor tune blares onto the soundtrack. Seriously, for those of you who love Thor — I know that at least one of you found the hidden SEO/SEM codes I wrote in here — this is your boner fuel of a movie.
Stig and Lynn go to a very private part of the lake, where a demon claw emerges from his stomach, just as she quickly gets naked and instantly covers up. Too late — that claw grabs a knocker and she’s a goner. Then, the keyboardist and guitar player have a romp that’s about as sexy as eating a Pop Tart. Seriously, this makes the Showgirls hot tub scene look like Last Tango in Paris by comparison. Thor’s woman also gets him to take a shower with her to the strains of Thor’s “Somewhere Rises the Moon.” Thor makes love like some kind of lizard man — he kisses with the tip of his tongue, not his lips. He also moves like some kind of robot. And not the sexy fembot kind of robot. No, like a 1950s Robot Monster kind of robot. Meanwhile — in the midst of the sex scene — the camera moves to give us a clear three second shot of the shower head. No sex — just a showerhead doing its job. I have no idea what the fuck kind of directorial choice that was, to be honest.
Hey! Remember that little kid from the beginning? Me either. He’s back, though and breaks up a romantic moment between the guitar and keyboard couple. For some reason, pan flutes start playing louder than the dialogue at this point. Oh man — just what this movie needs. A precocious child. Actually, he’s another demon, which the couple finds out after giving chase. Man. Thor’s gonna need a new band at this rate. Only he and his girl are left, as nobody else shows up for dinner.
Just because the script says that Thor is going to do the dishes does not mean we need to see him do the dishes. But that said — the next scene is Thor doing the dishes for nearly a minute. Narrative flow doesn’t mean shit in the world of Rock ‘n Roll Nightmare. Thor also acts like someone who constantly reminds you they are acting. When he needs a Coke in a scene, he says, out loud, “I need a Coke. Gotta get a Coke. Yeah. A Coke.” Meanwhile, a piece of chicken comes to life and tries to bite his hand. Luckily, he’s so focused on that Coke!
He sits down to write lyrics while his girl is attacked upstairs, but he’s got his own problems. A penis-like monster with an eyeball where the peehole should be is stalking him (look — I can write mellifluous prose and use my vocabulary and come off as well educated at times, but when a penis demon looks like a penis demon and when it has an eyeball in its peehole, you have to call a penis demon a penis demon). Another demon, this one looking like a plucked bird, attacks just in time for Thor to drop his pen. Somehow, this movie has gone from horror to slapstick. Finally, his girl comes back to tell them that everyone is dead in a demon voice. HOLY SHIT! Now she’s a demon! And she commands an army of penis demons!
Here’s where this movie decides to blow my mind. Thor keeps ignoring the demon, calling him bub, then starts telling him all of his real names. Turns out that no one else in this movie was real, that his entire band and the girls were all shadows that Thor created, based on horror movies, to draw out Beelzebub. “I AM THE INTERCESSOR!” yells Thor, revealing his full stage majesty, all chain, a cape and bare chest and wind machine aided hair. He then makes the same faces I do when I’ve eaten a lot of cheese and can’t properly go number two. “I AM TRITON THE ARCHANGEL!”
Have you ever wanted to see a claymation demon battle a jacked up dude in a metal bikini? Then have I got the movie for you!
Thor defeats the demon, who leaves when a roman candle goes off in front of him. He then goes to a graveyard, where he says, “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. If you’ve died in vain — I, His messenger — have avenged your deaths.” We then cut to a totally different house as weird music plays. Roll the credits.
Wow.
I was wondering, what kind of maniac makes this movie? John Fasano, that’s who. He also made Black Roses, along with writing things as diverse as one of Tom Selleck’s Jesse Stone movies and Another 48 Hours. Well, this is a veritable masterpiece. I daresay you’ve never seen a film quite like this. Watch it and be forever changed.
PS – There’s a sequel called Intercessor: Another Rock ‘N’ Roll Nightmare. I’m not sure that I’m ready to watch it yet, but I will.
SLASH Filmfestival 2023 has five carefully curated programs and various shorts before features bring a total of 48 short films from all corners of the world to Vienna.
With over 34 World, International, European or Austrian premieres the 14th edition of SLASH Filmfestival has its largest short film lineup ever and sees the festival take new initiatives to celebrate the short form in its own right.
In addition to program mainstays Fantastic Shorts Competition Chapters 1 and 2, SLASH is delighted to bring back My First SLASH to continue guiding young viewers and families on their first steps into the diverse world of genre cinema. Fantastic Futures has matured into its own program that celebrates promising film school students while SLASH is also excited to treat viewers to the first-ever Fantastic Flings, a sidebar which will become an annually recurring ‘hook up’ that sees SLASH collaborating with an international film festival for a co-curated program that explores relationships through a genre lens.
For its inaugural edition of Fantastic Flings SLASH is proud to get into bed with Italy’s TOHorror Fantastic Film Fest.
The competitions
With three competitive sections, SLASH continues to reward short film excellence.
A total of 10 shorts make up the Fantastic Shorts competition with what we believe are the freshest and fiercest genre short films from the past year. As always, the winner will be chosen by our most diligent judges – the SLASH audience – and takes home 1,000 € in prize money. Highlights include the Austrian premiere of Liam LoPinto’s The Old Young Crow, a singular ghost story that embraces a hybrid form to celebrate multicultural identity, darkly satirical social comments in the guise of a children’s game gone horribly wrong in Joséphine Darcy Hopkins’ Sweet Tooth, a run in with post-colonial Leatherface in
Bangladesh-set Foreigners Only (Nuhash Humayun), and the Austrian premiere of Hole (Hyein Hwang), the runner up of Cannes’ Cinéfondation competition.
A total of 8 shorts comprise the Fantastic Futures competition, which puts an exclusive spotlight on talented student filmmakers and collectively offers a mouth-watering taste of how fantastic the future of genre cinema is. The program sees the uniquely apocalyptic On the 8th Day taking its world premiere bow in addition to the European premiere of Nathan Ginter’s The Third Ear, a surreal and probing look at self-image. Also in the mix are Austrian premieres of Shengwei Zhou’s nightmarish paper animation Perfect City: The Bravest Kid and the Austrian premiere of homegrown The Hand That Feeds by
Helen Hideko.
Juried by SLASH (the) Industry experts Todd Brown (XYZ Films) and Tania Morissette (Fantasia International Film Festival/ Frontières), the winner will receive 500€ in prize money on top of being awarded a full certificate for Final Draft screenwriting software.
Playing across the aforementioned five programs, SLASH attendees will also discover six Méliès d’argent contenders, which include a colorful clash with inner demons that embody fear of commitment (Amok), a narrow escape from food processing (Remove Hind Legs Before Consumption) and the international premiere of hyper-sensual giallo tribute La Vedova Nera, which has the honor of being the opening night short of SLASH Filmfestival 2023.
All six films are in the running for being crowned best European fantastic short under 25 minutes at SLASH 2023. Doris Bauer (Vienna Shorts) and guest of honor Brandon Cronenberg will decide who wins the Méliès d’argent and is then in the running for the main prize – the Méliès d’or – at Sitges.
The trailer
Our killer short film trailer edited by Joana Gil-Rico should get you in the mood for films that find unique ways of channeling the past, coping with the present and envisioning the future as they take viewers on a surreal, darkly comedic and horrifyingly visceral ride.
To learn more:
SLASH Film festival – general info
SLASH Filmfestival is Austria’s largest event dedicated to Fantastic Cinema. Founded in 2010, it quickly grew in size and scope, attracting close to 15.000 visitors over its 11-day run. Each year’s program is comprised of 50+ Austrian, European or international premieres of highlights from the field of fantastic cinema, ranging from crowd-pleasers to hot docs, from fiercely independent films to heritage revivals.
Last weekend, Bill and I watched Mirror, Mirror and Burnt Offerings with Coma White and Justin Lockwood. This was one of my favorite shows that we’ve done. You can watch it without staying up until 5 a.m. like we did.
Hurry and grab issue #25 of Drive-In Asylum on Etsy!
Vivvy got hers!
At long last, the new issue of DIA is ready! Issue 25 features Armand Mastroianni, director of 1980 slasher classic He Knows You’re Alone and also a profile of Stevan Mena’s Malevolence trilogy with comments from the director himself. Film reviews include Starship Invasions, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, Race with the Devil, Ghoulies,Pulgasariand Blood and Lace plus profiles of director Renato Polselli — hmm, who wrote that? — and actor Tristan Rogers. Also, AC Nicholas is back with more grindhouse/drive-in memories.
Drive-In Asylum is a 60-page fanzine, 8.5″ x 5.5″ black and white with some colored pages.
If you love movies, old ads and the joy of reading about them, get an issue today.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Caveman was on USA Up All Night on February 18, 1989; January 19 and 20 and September 22, 1990 and September 20, 1991.
hot in caveman language and filmed in the Sierra de Órganos National Park in the town of Sombrerete in Mexico, Caveman is one weird movie.
It was directed and written by Carl Gottlieb, who wrote the first three Jaws movies, as well as The Jerk and Dr. Detroit. He only directed two other movies, the short The Absent-Minded Waiter and the Penthouse Video, Son of the Invisible Man, Art Sale and Peter Pan Theatre segments of Amazon Women On the Moon. This was written with Rudy De Luca, who went on to direct and write Transylvania 6-5000.
Yet I was so excited to see it as a kid, because it starred Ringo Starr as Atouk!
Atouk is a caveman who is bullied by tribe leader Tonda (John Matuszak, Sloth from The Goonies), who has the hottest of all mates, Lana (Barbara Bach, The Spy Who Loved Me, Black Belly of the Tarantula, Short Night of Glass Dolls, Street Law, Island of the Fishmen, man, I’ve seen so many movies with Barbara Bach). He and his friend Lar (Dennis Quaid) get kicked out of the tribe, where they battle a T. Rex, meet Tala (Shelley Long) and also are nearly killed by an abominable snowman (Richard Moll).
Speaking of dinosaurs, they were all created by Jim Danforth, who left the film when the Directors Guild of America wouldn’t give him a co-director credit. You can also see his work in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Clash of the Titans, They Live, The Wizard of Speed and Time, Ninja 3: The Domination, Commando and so many more movies, most often as a matte painter.
When the movie starts it says that it was set on One Zillion B.C. – October 9th. That would be John Lennon’s birthday.
At the end of the movie, Atouk ends up with Tala instead of Lana. But in real life, Starr would marry Bach and they’ve been together since then.
I saw Caveman as a nine year old kid obsessed with dinosaurs at the Spotlight 88. I’m not sure what movie I saw it with. It could have been a reissue of Bob Crane’s Superdad but I’d like to think that I saw it with Super Fuzz.
William Girder died in a helicopter crash while scouting locations in 1978. If that hadn’t ended his life, who knows the heights of lunacy he would have achieved?
This had to have been the first movie about the loss of Earth’s ozone layer. Who knew that it would drive everyone nuts, including animals? Certainly not the hikers in this tale who turn against one another and try to survive all of the animal assaults.
Steve Buckner (Christopher George, who is fighting with Michael Pataki and George Eastman for most appearances on this site) has a dozen or so hikers who are about to go to Sugar Meadow for a nature hike, even though Ranger Chico Tucker (former NFL player Walt Barnes) tells him that the animals have been acting strangely.
Along for this nature trail to hell are anthropologist Professor MacGregor (Richard Jaeckel, Grizzly), a married couple named Frank and Mandy Young (Jon Cedar, who in addition to being a recurring Nazi on Hogan’s Heroes was also the co-star, co-screenwriter and associate producer of The Manitou and Susan Backlinie, the first victim in Jaws), rich Shirley Goodwyn (Ruth Roman from The Baby!), her son Johnny, teenage lovers Bob Dennins (Andrew Stevens, who was in the Night Eyes films) and Beth Hughes, a former pro football player dealing with cancer named Roy Moore, a magical Native American guide named Daniel Santee (Michael Ansara, Killer Kane from the 1980’s Buck Rodgers series as well as the voice of Mr. Freeze), a television reporter named Terry Marsh (Lynda Day George, always ready to scream “BASTARDS!”) and finally, a frenzied Leslie Neilsen in the role of his career as Paul Jenson, an ad executive who acts like every account guy I’ve ever had to deal with in my 24-year-long ad career.
Before you know it, wolves are attacking people in sleeping bags, vultures circle overhead, hawks knock women off cliffs, Leslie Nielsen goes beyond bonkers and kills a dude with a walking stick and threatens to assault women before wrestling a bear and getting his neck torn out, rats attack the sheriff who decides to eat before trying to figure out how to deal with this emergency, dogs turn on the people they loved, rattlesnakes bite people and the military dons hazmats suits to deal with all of it.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, this movie is stupid. And awesome. It’s stupid awesome. And if you only know Nielsen from his later comedic roles, take a look at him in this movie. I love this movie. I don’t care what you think of me.
Here’s the drink I’ll be bringing to the drive-in.
Tentacle Painkiller
2 oz. Kraken spiced rum
4 oz. pineapple juice
1 oz. orange juice
1 oz. cream of coconut
Dash of nutmeg
Pinch of salt
Pour rum, pineapple juice, orange juice and cream of coconut into a cocktail shaker with ice. Mix it up.
Pour into a glass filled with ice. Drop in salt to give it the taste of the ocean and then top with nutmeg.
Can’t make it to the drive-in? You can watch this on Tubi or get the blu ray from Severin.
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