Entries Tagged 'quaaludes' ↓

Day 5: “I’ve never felt like this before.”

It's a wonder to me that Mausoleum and I have both been walking this planet since 1983, yet last night marked the first time we'd crossed paths. Approximately three minutes after I started playing the DVD, I realized that I'd found my one true soulmate. It doesn't matter where Mausoleum has been all my life- the important thing is that we've found each other at last, and we're now destined to walk the earth together!

Whilst visiting her mother's grave, li'l Susan decides she no longer wants to live with her Aunt Cora. She takes off running through the graveyard, stopping only when she hears someone whisper-singing her name. She peeks inside one mausoleum, but then spots another one across the way that's far more interesting in that it features its own weather system.

She enters the crypt, which is all lit up in greens and purples like the finest Spencer's Gifts. We learn that this is the tomb of the Nomed family...yes, NOMED. That's some seriously Nilbog shit, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, a clawed hand rises from the sarcophagus, things that defy explanation happen, and Susan's eyes light up all green and make a laser noise. The girl done went and got herself possessed!

Fast forward! Susan is now all grown up- she's portrayed by ex-Playboy Bunny Bobbie Bresee and she's married to Marjoe fucking Gortner. A charmed life, you say? It's easy to assume so, but there's a dark side to this fairytale existence! See, a woman of Susan's...err, attributes finds herself constantly subjected to the lechy gaze of creepy weirdo peeping tom gardeners and creepy weirdo Dan Haggerty-esque disco patrons.


All Susan wanted to do was go dancing with her husband (yes, Marjoe fucking Gortner disco dances!), but that Dan Haggerty-esque jerk made it so difficult that she was left with no choice but to use her magic green gaze to set his car on fire while he was locked inside.


The next day, the creepy gardener makes a bold pass at Susan while her husband is at work- her eyes get their green on and we know it's time for some demonic justice! But not before we bear witness to an eerily silent montage that clues us in as to just what, in fact, a gardener does with his day after making a pass at his employer:

He puts down fertilizer!


He mows the lawn!


He reads whilst eating lunch!


He takes a nap on the dock!


He sharpens his axe...


...and uses it!

Finally, Susan gets around to launching Operation: Get Back At The Grope-y Gardener: she strolls out onto her balcony wearing only a towel, then sips Riunite as if she's straight from a Jackie Collins novel.

Okay, in reality that's only Phase One of her plan. She continues the seduction approximately 9 hours later, when it's pitch black outside...insert helpful moon shot!

Susan's plan includes actually sleeping with the gardener- boy, this really teaches him a lesson! He suggests they partake in another round, but instead, Susan does her green-eyed thing, turns into some sort of a monster, and kills him with a garden implement. Okay, I guess that really teaches him a lesson.

Soon enough, Susan's victims don't actually have to trespass against her in order for her to unleash the NOMED lurking inside. Poor Aunt Cora, for example, shows up for a visit only to find herself floating around and killed dead thanks to her monsteriffic niece.



One person spared Susan's wrath is Elsie the maid (LaWanda Page...yes, Aunt Esther from Sanford & Son!). Intended as comic relief, Elsie is, in fact, a whopping slice of politically incorrect pie. Yet while she's given to saying things like "Great googily moogily!", Elsie is a rarity in that she's a black character who makes it 'til the end of the picture. When faced with a green fog emanating from Susan's bedroom, Elsie admits there's "Some strange shit goin' on in this house!", yells "No more grievin', I'm leavin'!", and splits.

There's so much more to Mausoleum, but I don't want to give away the whole package, as everyone should be allowed to discover it for him- or herself. Director Michael Dugan has truly given the world a gift! However, a few highlights:

- Susan undergoes hypnosis where she reveals her NOMED nature and corn teeth!

- There's the use of the term "facial fantasy"
- Dialogue includes "Yes...there's a history of possession."
- When possessed, Susan's depravity has no limits- she steals art from the mall!
- Something happens- I cannot reveal what it is, for you must witness it with your own eyes, but suffice it to say, it causes Marjoe fucking Gortner to pull what can only be called a Ridiculous Face of Pre-Death:

- While Mausoleum makes no sense as a whole, the very last shot of the film is so illogical that it actually defies the laws of science and mathematics. Even if you've never seen the film, your guess as to what the fuck is going on here is as good as mine:

- Then we get the end credits, which feature a tender song called "Free Again", written and sung by Frank Primato. It boasts lyrics like "Let's blow the fire dead...that's burning in my head..." and it's every bit as dreadful as you think it would be.

In case you haven't guessed, Mausoleum is a terrible, terrible film. The acting is horrendous, the dialogue atrocious, and the timing between the players is so off that every scene comes across like rejected audition tapes. There's a charm to Bobbie Bresee, but it's one borne of a performance that feels bathed in quaaludes. The sound is awful, as if there's a muted coffee pot percolating somewhere just off camera for the duration of the film. The direction is all but incompetent at times with dull compositions, pointless zooms and pans, and bizarre insert shots. The end of the film, featuring the "exorcism" (I use that term wicked loosely), takes 20 minutes but should only take seven. The creature effects, by genre vet John Carl Buechler, are '80s-style cheesy.

All of that is true, but oh how I loved this movie! I never wanted it to end, ever. On a scale of 1-10, I'd honestly rate it infinity. Lawd help me, it's true- the depths of deliciousness achieved are face-rockingly limitless. Forgive me, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon...step aside, Pieces...there's a new love of my life, and its name is Mausoleum!

monsters in the morning

My mentioning monster cereals and Count Chocula over at AMC* (me me me! pay attention to me!) prompted a bit of a conversation with a MySpace (me me me! add me!) fake cyber-friend about the monster cereal mascots. He asked who I thought Boo Berry was before he died, which got me thinking...who created Frankenberry, and to what end? Who bit Count Chocula and Fruit Brute and turned them into monsters? Who was Fruity Yummy Mummy before he died and who mummified him? Were they all cereal fanatics before they turned and/or shuffled off this mortal coil? They're all just sad, lost souls, really, but that never seems to get them down. I'm totally going to remember that the next time I'm feeling sorry for myself because I hate all of my clothes.

I feel a bit like a hack stand-up comedian saying it ("Remember having toys? What was up with that?"), but come on...how fucking awesome were the monster cereals? They combine three of the greatest things in the world (monsters, sugar, and the 1970s), they leave you with flavored milk when you're done, and even if they made you poop red**, the monster cereals were completely essential breakfast time chow. Aaannnnnd they had the coolest toy prizes inside.


Would I like a free monster disguise kit? Umm...holy crap, YES. I don't know that giving yourself a fang moustache is going to fool anyone into thinking that you're actually a vampire, but it's worth a shot. Undoubtedly, the chances of successful deception would rise exponentially if the fang moustache were coupled with the glow-in-the-dark vampire t-shirt, don't you think?

I was always most partial to Boo Berry, that strange poltergeist who sounded an awful lot like Peter Lorre. Again, who was he before he died? My fake MySpace friend posited that he was a car salesman. The hat and tie really speak volumes, and I'm inclined to agree he was indeed a seller of something or other. He cuts quite a Willy Loman-esque figure, doesn't he? Looking at him with the eyes of an adult (as opposed to those of a kid all cracked out on sugar), it seems obvious to me that Mr Berry was simply overwhelmed by life: he was depressed, tired, done with it all, and most likely addicted to quaaludes.


In later years (the monster cereals all debuted in the early 1970s), parent company General Mills tried to revamp Boo Berry's sad sack image with disastrous results. The late '80s/early '90s incarnation, with the ridiculous Freddy Krueger-esque arms and decidedly "doy doy" expression, left Mr Berry looking a little...well, shall we say a little simple-minded?


And, quite frankly, the less said about the subsequent Casperization of Boo Berry, the better***.


Thankfully this wussy version of Boo Berry didn't last and General Mills issued an order to his troops to return the ghost to his former luuded-out glory, and once again he gazes at us from the box with that classic vacant stare we all love and remember so well.


Frankenberry, that monstrous creation (no, really, which mad scientist wanted to play Notorious G.O.D. and created Frankenberry? And why for the love of Charles Nelson Reilly give him strawberries for fingernails?), was my second love despite his foppish voice. Count Chocula, though undoubtedly the scariest-looking cereal mascot, never did it for me, pitch-perfect Transylvanian accent or no.



My memories of Fruit Brute are vague at best: the cereal was discontinued in 1983, only to be resurrected (HA HA HA) a few years later with the name Fruity Yummy Mummy.


Look at the Fruit Brute box: a coupon for 7 lousy cents off Lucky Charms! Why, 7 cents wouldn't buy you a single yellow moon with today's prices, never mind a blue diamond. Back in my day...gripe gripe gripe my back hurts and why is it so cold in here?

By the late '80s I think the monster cereal craze was pretty much over. F.Y. Mummy was pushing up daisies again by the early '90s, and today it's getting more and more difficult to find the remaining monster mascot triumvirate in stores. Just as TV stations trot out scary movies during October, though, Boo Berry, Frankenberry, and Count Chocula are easier to find come Halloween time.

What gives? Why are the monster cereals, in all their awesomeness, so scarce? Has it been decided that downing a giant heaping bowl of sugar and marshmallows maybe isn't the best way to start the day? I certainly hope the scarcity of monsters in the morning isn't because kids like monsters any less than they did back in my day. I'd like to think that the children are our future, not that they're a bunch of jerks.











* I would just like to point out that even though I said "...except Count Chocula" in the interview, I have nothing against the Count personally. He's rad. I'm simply not a fan of chocolate cereals: I have never, in fact, gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, Fruity trumps Cocoa in the Pebbles department, and Cap'n Crunch can take his Chocoberries or whatever they're called and shove 'em right back where they came from. Regular Crunchberries and the Cap'n's Peanut Butter varieties are, however, the shit.

** Yes, the dye originally used in Frankenberry made kids poop red. You didn't think Stephen King came up with that idea on his own, did you?

*** Everyone knows that Casper is better when Casper is a scary ghost, anyway. Friendly, shmendly.


In totally unrelated I'm feeling all nostalgic now and so I'm looking up stupid shit I remember on YouTube news, you don't even know how much I loved this song when I was a kid. Seriously, if it had ever come out on vinyl, I would have bought 9248675 copies and made it number one with 10 bullets.