A Thin Layer of Sleaze

 Seeing how we're still fairly new to this we thought it would be a good idea to keep things fresh, ya know sorta throw a little something different in here now and then, cause if you've read our epilogue you'll already know that we have a long way to go and it's way too early to start letting this get stale. Now for this week's review we're going into exploitation territory with the 1978 Cameron Mitchell vehicle "The Toolbox Murders".

Our film opens with a moody urban-decay type  night shot of the inside of a car driven by an unseen occupant down the streets of what could very well be NewDenvAngelesYorkLasChicago or whatever. But our drive is suddenly interupted as we freeze frame while the scream of a crashing vehicle assaults our senses and we begin to see intercuts of a car accident and it's interveening stages(paramedics load a body,police inspect the car's damage, girl in accident dies at hospital) ,all of this shown in a luscious Didn't-add-eneough-KoolAid powder-to-the-water orange tinge.(oh yeah, that's car crash orange mama).

Although the car crash scenes reek of the 1970's, this scene is actually handled really kinda well, taking a neat ,quiet nontraditional way of establishing the perverbial tragedy that runs through this film and drives the actions of the film's antagonist.Without beating us over the head with a loud or obnoxious execution of an already hackneyed scenario, the film in a way suggests it, just puts it there quiet and compact but with a good amount of effect and sense and then moves along.

Now if you haven't gotten it from the bloodred title card or the little "antagonist" slip from the preceeding paragraph, this IS a sleazy slasher exploitation flick and (oh, no shit) the phantom driver is our killer, driving to his kill.His killing grounds are a seedy, swinging shag-carpeted and particleboard adorned apartment complex filled with the best throw-away assortment of drinky,smokey ,man crazy and bathtub-masturbatin' 70's ladies you could ask for,and perfect targets for our skimasked killer and his giant toolbox of fun and games.In the first ten minuets we are privvey to four of the coolest,most mean spirited day-glo bloodiest killings, along with some very not bad nudity and a little goofeyness, not yet equaled in the first ten minuets of most movies.

The killer does his thing and moves along, making way for the harried police and their off the mark theories about why the women were killed all this while they confer with the apartment super(played with great underwhelmed relish by Cameron Mitchell).As the police chase their tails and exhaust ideas, the killer strikes again, this time sparing his victim and kidnapping her instead,sending the girl's brother to the aid of the police in an attempt to zero in on the killer and the girl alive. The brother decides to find his sister himself gathering information from his friend (who just happens to be the landlords nephew) He runs around in circles until he gets end up getting himself killed. Leaving the sister to fend for herself.

The basis of this story were actual evens in the late 60's and its really a impressive dramatization of the events.
the Girl was eventually found and spent time healing in psychiatric institute. Finally moving on to live her life.

Are YOU having a Tommy Jarvis moment?

Dear Horror Fans,
Are you suffering mental brake down from being Corey Feldman as a child?
Are you haunted by a serial killer that  killed your whole family(and your dog)?
Do you carry around random masks to each halfway house/mental institution you visit?
Do you like to dig up graves just to mutilate the corpse because you have Jason issues?
Do you kiss with your eyes open? (extremely rude if you ask me!)

If you answered yes to any of these questions you maybe Tommy Jarvis.... Sniveling little puke that has plagued not one but three Friday the 13th movies. At the end of Jason V they hint at Tommy picking up where Jason left off and hence becoming the new "Jason". When he is in the hospital and finds the (ahem, wrong) hockey mask in the dresser only to put it on and crash out the glass window letting the credits roll.

Cut to a few years later(now the beginning of Jason Lives) Tommy Jarvis and his friend ,friggin Horshack, are driving out the the cemetery where Jason is buried to you guessed it. Dig up Jason! (super smart plan there Tommy) Once they open the casket Tommy has one of his moments and starts to stab the corpse with a metal spike. (during a thunder storm) Lightning hits the pole and reanimates Jason.(nice friekin' play, Shakespeare)

The town of crystal lake has apparently moved on and changed there name to Forest Green and are opening the camp again. fulled with the usual camp staff but this time 90's style complete with crimped hair, sweat pants and suspenders for that classic camel toe look. Little do they know that Jason is coming back.

Now this Film takes a different formula than the other classic films where you have the teens away from any adult that can possibly help them. Here they have adults to help, well in the last half of the movie they do. Not only that but we have a few characters that you can feel an attachment to and don't want to see die. (but if they have to die you want it to be EPIC)

The movie defiantly had a great feel as well and a good story progression. It tried to be a little but more comical than the other movies but still hold true to the mythology that was set down by the first four movies. I will say go ahead and watch it, perfect end of summer, date movie, or first time horror flick.

And then there was those two crappy movies...... yeah sorry about that!

Yes... we all knew it would come,eventually, to this.But then again any discussion of horror films in any capacity 
always has to come down to the "Friday the 13th" films. Knowing that reviewing these films can make or break your opinions about my tastes in "Classic or Iconic Films" I really have gone through great lengths to take the film in with an open mind and through various viewpoints. Cleverly coming up with logical reasons why the films were taken in these directions, how they worked, and how they failed.

Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning(1985) -Starting with what I've been told is the absolute lowest point in the series' history, begins with Tommy Jarvis (the little kid from the fourth movie) all grown up and being transported from a mental institution to this half way house.  Here they introduce all the regular assortment of cast. The fat one, the pretty one, The jock, the Loser, and the sex fiend. This movie kind of  drags at first kill.The fat one pisses off the mean one and the mean one kills the fat one thus the high point of the movie comes and goes before we even get to the point(i use that term loosely). The local police and medical officials report to the scene to blah blah bloobloo and we get the feeling something is off here as upon viewing the body of fatty fatty fat fat(God i hate the fat kid) he casts a shifty glance menacingly somewhere off camera, and while we get an idea that this guy will have something to do with something somewhere down the line because the whole thing is so transparent(Fatty Deadshit is the ambulance drivers son) we as the audience don't see the backhanded result that bookends this movie. So with that out of the way all the folks we've seen so far begin to die one by one by either Jason himself or a Jason copycat,as the inter cut town officials and police speculate about , further sabotaging any chance of letting the movie keep it's rotten little trick secret, as the story limps along at an uninteresting and redundant pace.The story finally eeks to the final showdown of between "a" Jason and black Elliot(watch it and you'll see what i mean), the guy who gave Indiana Jones his hat and a woman who wears high-heeled cowboy boots in the woods,resulting in Jason falling from a barn and galling on a bed of spikes, thus revealing the so far indestructible killer as...Roy the ambulance driver from the fat kid scene who has taken it upon himself to become impervious to bullets,bulldozers and a myriad of injury without so much as a peep all the while masquerading as Jason Voorhees.Yep, this film does NOT have Jason in it but it exists in the Friday the 13th film series anyway, and although the film is hated universally,usually for only that reason, it is as a film a confounding mess that should be avoided at all costs.

Now in some fairness i can see what direction they were attempting to go with this by trying to go in a different direction and put in something fresh, but it was all handled so damn badly that if unless you can get past the pain in your head this movie and everything about it gives you you're never gonna see that. It's painfully inconsistent, ignores any preexisting groundwork or mythology that could easily be referenced but is not through what seems like pure laziness and is such a damn mess that it's central character(besides not even being it's ACTUAL central character)basically has no right to exist within the parameters the film portrays him within,but exist he does and furthermore without any logical explanation as to why an EMT with a smoldering grudge can withstand the punishment and beating he takes without so much as a groan.And,yeah yeah, the same could be said about Jason himself, but we're not talking about Jason,the icon of horror who we can't even to ourselves explain why we love him and regard him in such an iconic and endearing position. No we're talking about Roy the fucking EMT, being seen as Jason, being fought as Jason, surviving and killing and as far as we know until the last ten minuets being Jason,but he's not.He just isn't, and it's cheap and mean and we have to put up with a lot of crap to get a whole to get what we get.But i digress, ya get the point.So if you've found this helpful in anyway then stay with us as we review what seems to be the producers way of making it up to us for this turkey "Friday the 13th part 6:Jason Lives"coming soon

I survived "Sole Survivor"

Eager for the challenge of reviewing some good movies I glanced over the titles all lined up perfectly on the shelf of my living room. With 300 titles it took about 20 minutes before I had seen all the titles and picked out the first movie to watch.

"Sole Survivor" (1982)

Sole Survivor was put on video by Vestron Video based out of Stanford CT. Written and directed by Thom Eberhardt. With the Running time at 85 minutes and a rating as R, this movie seemed like a good place to start.

The box art (as seen in the picture above) The cover depicts a Airplane Radar with a scull and some ghostly hands . The radar comes in to play in the movie in a great way showing how less can be more in filming when done right.

We start this movie with some interesting cut scenes of a plane taking off and a women in her bedroom having some sort of episode to really annoying screaching music. Finally suspense builds as we cut to the air traffic controllers and the radar as they we follow the plane and it disappears off the radar. Cut to panning over limbs and dismembered bodies as we focus on out main character, Denise Watson. shes just sitting in her chair stiff as a board (we can only assume that she was the only one who had there tray table up and there chair in the upright position) As she gets brought to a hospital she mentions that the other weren't dead that some of them were moving.These exclamations are dismissed by the hospital officials but seem to hold very real significance to Denise, as they are the beginnings of odd feelings that slowly find their way into Denise's awareness.

Ghostly specters seem to follow Denise, always staring creating suspense for the viewers, as well as causing paranoia for Denise. The Doctor assumes the she is just suffering from "survivors syndrome" and the police think she is a whack job. The only person who believes her is a crazy actress who claims to be psychic . The actress tries to explain to Denise that death wont stop it will chase her until it finishes its job. Thus Denise and anyone who figures this out must die.

A dead man brakes in to Denise's house later that night and ends up killing the neighbor and things start to pick up until everyone is dead and in the morgue. The coroner putting the pieces together starts to document the events when you notice in the background a body sit up as the credits roll.

The movie was really more suspenseful than scary but it really worked well in a creepy way because no one likes to be stared at. I attribute that to a bit of the animal in us all where we feel challenged or threatened by a person just staring at us. Defiantly a movie to watch if you can get your hands on a copy. I couldn't help but notice a similarity to the final destination series from 2000 as well as a movie called "soul survivors" (2001) with the actress Elisa Dushku, as the plot idea was very similar. Both of these films have the same idea based off this original, some one cheats death and now death wont stop until it kills them. But nothing compares to Original source material.

Next up lets take a look at a summertime classic ..........lets take a bite out of the Jason franchise with Jason V 

It came from beyond...well, more like Connecticut.

When I started dating my wonderful partner He warned me he had a hobby. Me being me didn't think much of it every one has a hobby and are better for it.
Then I saw it!........ Huge!............. monstrous!

and in TECHNICOLOR!

Yes his hobby is collecting Horror movies, More specifically VHS horror films dating from "Phantom of the Opera" starring Lon Chaney (1920's) to the recently updated "The Wolfman" on DVD (2009). He has collected over 600 different horror titles. So many movies and over 95% I have never even heard of, and like the Killer Tomatoes or the Great Mogwai uprising it just keeps getting BIGGER! (seriously my living room has been taken over.)

One fateful night in a way to grow closer to my man I decided I would attempt to watch the entire collection and take these bizarre,gruesome and sometimes absolutely ridiculous journeys with him. Starting with the VHS. Having around 300 VHS titles I needed a way to keep them all organized. As well as document my experiences , blogging fit that perfectly.

So come join me on my voyage in to the abyss that is the HORROR FILM!