Lewis Gilbert made a literal ton of movies — more than forty over six decades — including Sink the Bismark!, Alfie, You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker and Educating Rita, Here, he’s doing an adaption of a James Herbert novel. You may know the writer from his multiple books dealing with plagues of rats which were turned into Deadly Eyes. Actually, you probably don’t. I kind of get obsessed about things no one else cares about.
David Ash (Aidan Quinn) is an American parapsychology professor at Oxford who was motivated by the death of his twin sister Juliet to discredit the existence of ghosts. Ms. Webb asks him to travel to Sussex, where he’s met by Christina Mariell (Kate Beckinsale) and asked to intervene in some ghost-related sightings. He’s really been called by the withdrawn Nanny Tess (Anna Massey, Peeping Tom) who notices even stranger things happening between Christina and her brothers Robert and Simon (Anthony Andrews and Alex Lowe).
Of course, David has fallen for Christina. I mean, 1995 Kate Beckinsdale (actually, we don’t need to put a year on her). But she’s a bit way too close with her brother Robert. You know — British horror movie close. Once they finally make love — I’m talking about David and Christina — he wakes up the next morning to an empty house and finds a grave that claims that the whole family died in 1923. That’s because their mother saw all three of the siblings having sex, drowned herself in the lake and then their nanny locked them in a room and set the house on fire. Oh British upper crust — you’re the best.
Haunted isn’t discussed much when it comes to ghost movies. But hey — it’s worth checking out, particularly if you like strange British people. Because my sole experience with British people would be the movies of Hammer and Amicus, I know no other kind.
Empire Records may not be a musical, but without music, it wouldn’t really have much of a story, would it? It does fit into the main prerequisite for this week: it was a total bomb on release before finding an audience that was ready for it years after it was actually made. This coming of age and battle against the corporation film may have just been too much for 1995, but in 2019? It fits right in.
Writer Carol Heikkinen supposedly worked at a Tower Records store (IMDB claims that it was store #166 at Phoenix’s Christown Mall) and used tons of stories that she had experienced while working there.
This is the story of 24 hours in the life of Delaware’s Empire Records, an independent music store. It starts when Joe (Anthony LaPaglia, The Client, Annabelle: Creation), the store manager, allows Lucas (Rory Cochrane, Dazed and Confused) to close the store alone for the first time.
That’s when he learns that Music Town, a national entertainment big box store, is buying Empire Records. To keep its spirit of independence alive, he takes all $9,000 from that day’s sales and sets out to quadruple it in Atlantic City. Sure, he doubles it, but Lucas’ luck could never hold out.
The next morning, a decimated Luchas is found by A.J. (Johnny Whitworth, who ended up being Blackout in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance before anyone cared about superhero movies) and Mark (Ethan Embry, Pete on Sneaky Pete). He tells the two of them of his plight as they try to keep him away from Joe, who is looking for the missing deposit once the bank and the actual owner call.
The real heart of Empire Records lies within the kids that work there, like Corey (Liv Tyler), Gina (an impossibly young Renée Zellweger), the suicidal and soon-to-be bald Deb (Robin Tunney, The Craft) and her hanger-on boyfriend Berko (Coyote Shivers, who was married to Liv Tyler’s mom at the time, former groupie Bebe Buell).
The truth of it all is that Joe had wanted to become co-owner all along and had hoped to use that $9,000 to make it happen, keeping the store independent. Meanwhile, all hell is breaking loose because the store is dealing with Rex Manning Day.
Yes, former 80’s pop star Rex Manning (Maxwell Caulfield) is coming to the store, which has a line of older women and gay men ready to greet him. The store employees and even Rex’s assistant (Debi Mazar, who continually wins me over in small roles) openly hate the singer, but Corey has been planning to give him her virginity. He blows her off and ends up sleeping with her best friend, Gina, as all hell breaks loose.
So much of Empire Records really does hold true to the hijinks ensue manifesto. It’s an episodic account of this one big day in the heart of a record store, complete with shoplifters being converted into employees, a mock funeral for Deb to cheer her up, an all-night benefit to “Save the Empire” and love winning against all costs. Oh yeah and Gwar shows up.
It’s amazing that this movie even made it on the screen, as it was severely edited in post-production, with three significant characters and 40 minutes of footage ending up on the cutting room floor.
Reviewers said things like the movie was a “soundtrack in search of a movie,” “deserved a bullet to put it out of its misery” and it was a “lost cause.” That said — the soundtrack album peaked at #63 on the Billboard charts and The Gin Blossoms’ “Til I Hear It From You” and Edwyn Collins’ “A Girl Like You” made it into the top 40.
Today, a film that only made $300,000 on initial release plays revival houses and has enjoyed several home video re-releases. April 8th has now become Rex Manning Day to so many people now.
Sadly, this movie may not mean much to kids today, as music stores have disappeared. Yes. even the big stores like Music Town.
BONUS: Listen to Becca and I talk about this movie on our podcast.
Another Stuart Gordon H.P. Lovecraft (based on his story The Outsider) project, Castle Freak is not for the weak of heart or stomach. It’s a slasher and splatter freakout shot in the vacation home of producer Charles Band. But what would you expect from the people who brought you Re-Animator and From Beyond?
John Reilly (Jeffrey Combs, deranged and demented as ever), his wife Susan (Barbara Crampton, who is producing a reboot of this film) and their blind teenage daughter Rebecca have moved to Italy to live in a 12th-century castle complete with a castle freak in the basement.
Susan and John are at odds since the drunk driving incident that cost the life of their son and the eyes of their daughter. And the freak has been trapped in the basement for decades because the Duchess who once owned the castle is tormenting him because she can’t torture her adulterous and absent husband.
Everything gets gory and bonkers when John brings back the town prostitute and loses her to the freak, who eats her anatomy in the worst of ways. And then, the freak comes for Rebecca. Trust me — this is not a movie to watch with the kids, even if Full Moon put out an action figure of the lead character.
You can watch this for free on Tubi or on Shudder with or without commentary from Joe Bob Briggs.
Paul Andolina, whose writes the site Wrestling with Film, may love Russian and Mexican films, but today he’s here to talk about a movie that features an Irish legend. Good to see you back on the site, Paul!
The great thing about the Leprechaun film franchise is each entry offers something a bit different than the last. Even the Leprechaun in the Hood films are different from each other. Of the 6 films Warwick is part of it’s almost impossible to pick a favorite for me, however, after a lot of stressing about it, I have decided to cover Leprechaun 3 next.
Leprechaun 3 is set in Las Vegas and follows Scott, a young man on his way to college and his misadventures in sin city. He encounters a young lady, Tammy, stranded on the road and takes her to her job as a magician’s assistant at the Lucky Shamrock Casino. He begs her to let him in the casino and she agrees as long as he doesn’t gamble. He doesn’t listen though. Before we are introduced to Scott, we meet Lucky, an amputee who has dragged a bag into a local pawnshop. He pawns the statue of a leprechaun with a medallion hanging from it for $20 to the owner, Gupta, while warning him to never touch the medallion.
Gupta removes the medallion, the leprechaun comes to life, and proceeds to make poor Gupta’s life a living hell for what little of it remains. Scott loses all his money and heads to the pawn to sell the watch his grandfather gave him. He finds Gupta dead and after calling the police, finds one of the leprechaun’s coins and wishes he was back at the casino on a winning streak. He is magically transported back and the leprechaun follows him because he needs his last shilling.
The thing that makes this film so unique is that Scott is bitten by the leprechaun and begins to transform into a leprechaun, it’s one of my favorite aspects of the movie. I’ve been known to lovingly refer to it as Leprechaun 3: The Leprechauning on multiple occasions. This entry really plays up the humor that is here and there throughout the films. It takes the humor to an entirely different level than most of them, in that it is extremely well done. It’s not just goofy for the sake of being goofy. In fact, the director Brian Trenchard-Smith understands the silliness of a killer leprechaun and uses it to make a highly enjoyable story.
There is some exposition with a CD-Rom of folklore giving us all we need to know about the lore of the leprechaun in this particular film. The lore concerning the leprechaun, his gold, and his weaknesses changes wildly throughout the franchise so this really is a neat way to set up the rules of this particular movie’s universe when it comes to the evil green guy. The movie has amazing practical effects, probably more so than the rest of the franchise. When Scott transforms into a leprechaun it looks horrendous. Green bodily fluids are splattered around as well as copious amounts of the red stuff. There’s a body horror moment where a casino worker explodes after her wish to be beautiful again goes awry with the help of the wee person.
This film is one I often think about often when the Leprechaun movies are brought up. It has a great setting, excellent humor, and the characters are fun to watch go about trying to fulfill their most wanted desires. It’s full of rhyming, comedic timing gold and if I had to show someone only one film that best captures the spirit of the franchise it would be this one. My favorite part is probably when Scott realizes how much he enjoys potatoes in all forms of preparation when he begins transforming into a devilish leprechaun. Give this one a watch if you’re a fan of the more silly than scary Nightmare on Elm Street movies or just want to see Warwick Davis do his best Elvis impersonation.
From 1969 to 1974, then in syndication forever, the Brady Bunch presented the clean and fun adventures of a blended family. Personally, I loved the 1990’s The Bradys TV show, because it tried to inject massive gravitas into a show that never came near it. Regardless, twenty years after the show went off the air, Betty Thomas directed this tribute to the show.
Real estate developer Larry Dittmeyer (Michael McKean, always a welcome bad guy) has sold every house on the block except to one: the Bradys. The family is the same as you remember them and by that, they’re stuck in 1974 while the rest of the world has moved on. I love that this is never explained. People just move on.
The other joy of this film is that it references nearly every major plotline from the show. And many of the cast members show up, like Florence Henderson as Grandma Brady, Barry Williams as a music producer and Christopher Knight as a gym teacher. Maureen McCormick, Susan Olsen and Mike Lookinland’s scenes were all deleted. There’s an awesome inside joke here as Ann B. David shows up, but not as Alice the maid. Instead, she plays a truck driver named Schultzy, which is the character she played on The Bob Cummings Show. Only Eve Plumb refused to participate and sadly, Robert Reed died three years before the movie was made.
Even Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, and Peter Tork of The Monkees show up, as well as RuPaul, David Leisure and Jean Smart. And kudos to Gary Cole (shoutout to anyone who remembers his show Midnight Caller) and Shelley Long — as well as all of the kids — for being perfect in their roles.
This movie is a great introduction to the Bradys or a great remembrance of them. Sure, it makes fun of them, but it never feels rude or mean. It feels like it really loves its subject matter.
Cruel Jaws has been released as Jaws 5 in many countries. It has nothing to do with the Jaws series of films other than ripping off footage from the first three films, as well as Deep Blood and The Last Shark. In fact, it goes so far to be Jaws that it rips off Hooper’s dialogue about what we know about sharks with some minor differences: “All they know how to do is swim and eat and make baby sharks, and that’s all.”
This one comes from the demented mind of Bruno Mattei, who also brought us crowd pleasers (if you consider me and my dog in the middle of the night a crowd) like Shocking Dark, The Other Hell and Rats: Night of Terror.
Dag Soerensen looks like Hulk Hogan, but he’s really the owner of the worst Sea World ever. His wife died in an accident and his daughter is in a wheelchair as a result, but even worse, he’s now behind on the rent. Greedy mobbed out real estate dude Sam Lewis is ready to shut him down, but Dag thinks he can capture the shark and save his little dolphin and seal mom and pop (well, until mom died) attraction.
It turns out that the shark in this one is a tiger shark engineered by the Navy to be a superweapon, yet it is now killing people all over Hampton Island. Dag and his family team up with Bill Morrisson, who desperately wants to be Hooper (even getting the stolen line mentioned above), to take out the shark with — you guessed it — explosives.
Most of the shark action — including the windsurfing scenes and the shark getting blown up — were ripped off completely from The Last Shark. Mattei also rips off Deep Blood and shark footage from the first three Jaws films, turning this into more of an exercise in sampling than an actual film. Yet I love it — where an American film would only hint at the bodies that wash up from an attack, Mattei revels in showing us gory bodies. I also adore that Mattei used the mafia subplot from the original novel that Spielberg took out of his movie. I’m certain he didn’t even realize what he was doing, which makes the end results even more entertaining.
There’s a windsurfing battle scene here — again, like I said, it’s all ripped off from The Last Shark — where one character says to another, “You’re a piece of shit. You’re vomit. You’re nothing.” while synthesizer beats bleat out of the screams of the crowd. Between that dialogue, the obvious cuts back to Castellari’s film and the fact that the two main windsurfers aren’t even moving as they race, I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier with an action sequence in a movie.
As part of this week of shark infested cinema, I tried to watch modern films that came out in the wake of Sharknado and couldn’t finish a single one of them. They all ape the Troma style, letting you in on the fact that they’re basically comedies. Screw that — I’d rather watch an inept film like this, with amateur American actors being unleashed upon dialogue stolen from other films while an Italian auteur (never has that word been applied to someone who exemplifies it less) barely puts together a coherent film.
Let me state my case one more time: Bruno Mattei used the music from Star Wars in this movie. Is this a hidden comment on how blockbusters destroyed the art and promise of the New Hollywood? Of course not. That said, I was so happy when the John Williams refrain played over dudes chumming the waters that I poured a drink over my head.
Shout! Factory almost released Cruel Jaws on a split blu ray with Exterminators of the Year 3000 in 2015, before realizing how much of the film is taken from other movies. “It came to our attention through several of our fans that Cruel Jaws had several scenes in it of unauthorized footage from Jaws 1-3 and other Italian-made shark films that makes it impossible for us to release this in the U.S. & Canada without risking legal ramifications. We gave serious thought about editing out the material of course, but it’s quite a bit of scenes to remove and we knew ultimately that doing that would not satisfy the film’s fans or new ones we wanted to attract.”
If you want to see it for yourself, Revok and Cult Action have it.
In case Piranha wasn’t enough for you, Roger Corman produced this 1995 Showtime movie that’s a shot for shot remake of the original. It gets better — or worse — because instead of shooting new special effects for the film, Corman recycled the special effects and the screenplay from the original minus the humor. If you listen to the commentary of the original film by Joe Dante, it’s obvious how little he enjoyed the remake.
Alexandra Paul (Christine) takes over the role of Maggie and William Katt (Carrie) is Paul as they investigate the disappearance of a young girl. Yep — it’s the same movie you’ve already seen, minus Barbara Steele or even the role she played, Dr. Mengers. Punky Brewster herself, Soleil Moon Frye, shows up and future star Mila Kunis had her first role in this picture. And hey! There’s James Karen from Return of the Living Dead!
There’s not much else here for me to recommend, because this is so close to the original but missing all of the parts that actually make Piranha a much better movie than it ever deserved to be. Maybe this was just to try and hold onto the copyright to the title, but it’s really not fun at all.
Sometimes, I’m a glutton for punishment. Other times, my acid reflux wakes me up at 3:30 AM and I stay awake watching 1990’s direct-to-video horror. This would be both of those things at once. Imagine a movie that rips off both Shocker and A Nightmare on Elm Street at the same time, but also has voodoo and a bad guy made out of sand.
Seventeen years after slaughtering all but one member of Griffin’s (Jay Underwood, Bug from Uncle Buck) family, The Sandman is finally set to be executed. But just like Horace Pinker, he has an escape plan. The minister who delivers his last rites is really a voodoo priest who transforms him into a man made of sand. Now, the Sandman must find Griffin, who he has a connection to, and kill him.
Look, here’s the spoiler, because no one should have to suffer through this film like I have. They’re brothers. Are there any other reasons to watch this? Ken Foree from Night of the Living Dead is in it. He’s also in Death Spa and Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge, if you want to further go down the rabbit hole that is 1990’s video store horror.
Come for the Sandman, stay for the Mexican gang subplot, stick around for the voodoo, fall asleep before the end. I guess the Sandman lives up to his name!
You can watch this on Amazon Prime, if you have also have an upset stomach and can’t sleep.
Day 11 of the Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge is 11. That Soundtrack Though. One where the soundtrack is more impressive than the movie itself. And while I really love Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, I can also admit that I think the soundtrack is way better than the movie it plays during.
Unlike the HBO series and Amicus film, this story isn’t based on an EC Comic. Instead, it was intended to be Tom Holland’s follow-up to Child’s Play, then it was passed on to Pumpkinhead writer Mark Carducci, Pet Semetary director Mary Lambert and Charles Band’s Full Moon Features. finally, it was optioned by Joel Silver as one of three Tales from the Crypt spin-offs (the other two, Dead Easy and Body Count were never made).
Due to its low budget, two versions of the script were written — one with and one without demons! In the non-demon film, the Collector was a Bible salesman with “killer yuppies” as his henchmen. Luckily, that one never made it to the silver screen.
One night in the desert, The Collector (Billy Zane, chewing the scenery like no one else) is chasing after Frank Brayker (William Sadler, one of my favorite character actors). After a car crash, Frank escapes to a deconsecrated church turned boarding house thanks to town drunk Uncle Willy (character actor par excellence Dick Miller). And that boarding house is filled with even more great acting talent for such a small film: owner Irene (CCH Pounder), Wally the postal clerk (Roger Rabbit himself, Charles Fleischer), ex-con Jeryline (Jada Pinkett Smith), prostitute Cordelia and Roach, the cook (Thomas Haden Church, again, another incredible character actor).
Meanwhile, Sheriff Tupper (John Schuck from TV’s McMillan & Wife) and his deputy Bob meet The Collector near where he crashed. He convinces them that Brayker is a dangerous thief and that he needs their help. It seems Brayker has an important artifact, but when the cops confront him, they arrest both men for stealing cars. The Collector responds by punching the sheriff through the brain.
Brayker uses the key to drive The Collector outside the boarding house, so our antagonist uses his own blood to call upon demons. Now, everyone is trapped and must wait out the night. He then tells everyone in the house exactly what is going on: After God created Earth, demons used seven keys to steal the power of the cosmos. That’s why God created light, which scattered them and their keys across the galaxy. However, the demons have six of the keys now, with the artifact that Brayker holds being the last one they need to reclaim their power. At the Crucifixion, God had a thief named Sirach fill it with Christ’s blood and become the first guardian. Each guardian remains immortal while they hold the artifact, refilling it with their blood when they die. As proof, Brayker explains that he’s been alive since World War I, when his commanding officer passed the artifact to him.
What follows is a night of terror with the Collector pitting everyone against one another. At the close, there’s a new protector of the artifact and a new Collector, who walks away whistling the theme from the HBO series.
At the end of the closing credits, the Cryptkeeper returns to announce the next film, which ended up being Bordello of Blood, which has nothing to do with Demon Knight other than a scene where the artifact appears.
You know, Demon Knight isn’t horrible — it’s a cable TV late night watch, but the promise of a new Tales from the Crypt movie was ruined by having this be only one story (although the Crypt Keeper does interact with a slasher played by an uncredited John Larroquette).
But hey — enough about the film. Let’s discuss the soundtrack!
With Pantera’s closest thing to a single “Cemetery Gates” to “Hey Man, Nice Shot” by Filter, you get two songs nearly everyone knows. But then the soundtrack expands to include industrial stuff like Ministry, heavier metal from Biohazard, Sepultura, Megadeth and all over the map stuff like the Melvins, Rollins Band and the Gravediggaz. It reminds me of the great soundtracks to Spawn (which took the Judgement Night trick of combining metal with another genre, here with metal vs. techno, giving us Filter with the Crystal Method, Marilyn Manson with Sneaker Pimps, Slayer with Atari Teenage Riot and more) and Escape from L.A. (a movie I actually like, but the soundtrack boasts appearances by Tori Amos, Ministry, Clutch and the Deftones).
Becca and I have a new rule for movie days. We have so many movies that sometimes, it takes forever for us to choose a film. That’s why we now each pick a movie and we’re not allowed to debate it. I picked Remo Williams. She picked True Crime. No one won.
Mary Giordano (Alicia Silverstone) is a Catholic high school senior whose deceased father was a cop. She loves mysteries and detective magazines (which are seriously some of the creepiest magazines out there since the Apter wrestling magazines stopped featuring apartment wrestling). Now, she’s doing her own detective work, investigating the death of a classmate’s sister.
Detective Jerry Guinn (Pittsburgh’s Bill Nunn, Radio Raheem from Do the Right Thing) is her mentor, trying to keep her away from the dark world of being a cop. However, police cadet Tony Campbell (Kevin Dillon) is too willing to bring her along as they try to find the killer.
This film feels giallo-esque in storyline, if not in tone. There are red herrings galore, plenty of sex, lots of gore, hands being hacked off, carnival freaks…it has a lot going for it. And it squanders it all at every single opportunity. This is a rough film to get through, but one that I hung on and made to the end.
I’d recommend you take whatever running time this film has and use it to better yourself. Have a great meal. Read a book. Learn how to paint. Anything but suffering through this.
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