Entries Tagged 'VHS rules' ↓

Grindhouse, the brainchild of writers/directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, didn't exactly perform up to expectations at the box office. In fact, it was a bit of a flop- sort of like that scene in Pee Wee's Big Adventure where Pee Wee goes over to Francis's house in search of his bike and Francis is "having his bath" in, essentially, a pool. The two man-children tussle, and at one point Francis does a big belly flop and slides along the floor; it's not only disturbing (he squeaks), but it looks painful. Yeah, Grindhouse was kinda like that. Or not. Look, all I know is that I saw my tape (yeah, tape) of Pee Wee's Big Adventure on the shelf when I fetched Planet Terror last night, so I've got Pee Wee on the brain. I really love that movie, but I usually forget about it until I start thinking about it (I know, that's, like, the way the brain works)- then I think "Aw, man, I love the Alamo scene...oooh, Morgan Fairchild...Mr Buxton's jumpsuit!" and the fever builds until I have to watch it. So, excuse me for using a clunky Pee Wee simile, but, you know, they can't all be gold.


First up on the Grindhouse double bill is Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, an ooey-gooey zombie flick that's 105 minutes of pure, unadulterated fun.

As can be expected, the Army's tinkering with biological and chemical weapons results in green gas filling the skies over the Texas countryside, which in turn transforms the populace into hideously deformed, pus-oozing, flesh-eating monsters. A band of plucky survivors, featuring world-renowned badass Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), one-legged go-go dancer Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan), BBQ maverick J.T. (Jeff Fahey), and lesbo-style doctor adulteress Dakota (Marley Shelton), fights its way through the body parts and goop as they try to last the night.

As I said, there's no denying the fun of this movie. The colors are luscious, the action is over-the-top, and the gore flies freely- it's as if rather than trying to recreate a true Grindhouse -style movie (which would have about 1/1000 of Planet Terror's budget), Rodriguez created a pastiche of everything he loves about those films. With its perfect synth score and liberal use of lights and smoke, this flick is akin to an American reinterpretation of an Italian interpretation of a John Carpenter movie. It's truly an outrageous sight to behold, and if you're not wearing a big, goofy grin when Cherry Darling flies through the air in front of an explosion and launches rockets out of her rocket launcher leg, then I have to wonder what kind of movie would give you a big goofy grin.


My biggest complaint with Planet Terror is Rose McGowan, who...well, I'm not sure exactly if her performance is so stilted purposefully (this is, after all a Z-grade movie on a big budget), or if the countless Restylane injections have not only frozen up her face but also her acting abilities. With that machine gun leg, Cherry Darling has the potential to become a real action/horror movie icon; with McGowan's flat performance, however, she's just a girl with a machine gun leg. Which, I'll admit, is still pretty fucking awesome. I just wish she'd been a little less self-conscious and a bit more fun, like the rest of the cast.

If I never see "The Crazy Babysitter Twins" or Quentin Tarantino in a movie again, though, it won't be too soon. Or it will be too soon, or however the saying goes when I mean that they were all fairly irritating.

Scenes to watch out for: "You'll blow your own head off!" and The Death of Fergie, which oddly enough got me thinking about Lamberto Bava's Demons...definite 80s Italian vibe.




On to the much-maligned Tarantino-helmed half of the proceedings, Death Proof. A bunch of obnoxious girls spouting obvious Tarantino dialogue* head off for a weekend at a lake house, stopping several times along the way to drink margaritas, pound shots of Wild Turkey, talk about sexy times, and smoke up. Enter the nacho-loving Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a man who likes to use his "death proof" stunt car to terrorize and/or kill obnoxious girls.

A big complaint about this film is that all that dialogue and yammering gets in the way of the action, and sure, it does. Tarantino isn't simply paying homage to the Grindhouse movie here, he's making one. Check out Unhinged, or hell, even Halloween: horror movies of yore were largely dialogue and yammering. Girls talk...and talk...and talk, and then 40 or 50 minutes in, something happens. Keeping this in mind, I was totally on board with the first half of Death Proof. Tarantino lays out all the hallmarks of the slasher film (weekend getaway, etc), epitomized in the scenes where Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito) keeps noticing this creepy black car that seems to keep noticing her. That shit is straight outta Halloween y'all.


In related news, Vanessa Ferlito is pretty fucking terrific in this movie.

When everyone decides it's finally time to head out to the lake house for reals, things get cooking. Pam (McGowan again, just as horribly one-not as she was in Planet Terror) makes the mistake of getting into Stuntman Mike's car and suddenly he transforms from sorta-weird has-been to totally-weird homicidal has-been and it all goes to hell.

Exhilarating hell. Once Stuntman Mike gets his death proof on, the car crash is phenomenal and, as pointing out in the script for the film, decidedly not CGI. At this point, Death Proof absolutely lives up to its tagline: "A white-hot juggernaut at 200 miles per hour!"

Sadly, though, all that promise comes to a grinding halt in the second half of the film when the action shifts from Texas to Tennessee. As all of our protagonists died in Mike's assault, we're introduced to a new group of girls, even more obnoxious than the first. As they're all involved in the film industry, they sit around once again spouting obvious Tarantino dialogue about their lives and their jobs and sexy times and how rad Zoe Bell is.


In the parking lot of a convenience store, they catch Stuntman Mike's eye. The girls take a Dodge Challenger for a test spin, which not only allows for Zoe Bell to act like Zoe Bell, but also for Tarantino to list off some muscle-car films we should all seek out immediately. Stuntman Mike catches up to them and engages the girls in some vehicular terrorizin', then the girls turn the tables. Mike wimps out, the girls beat the shit out of him, the end. Literally.

The car chase is fantastic and again, CGI-less. It's filmmaking of a type you don't really see on screen anymore- there are no frenetic edits. Tarantino goes for lengthy shots that up the tension, and again, it's exhilarating. It's too bad, however, that this fantastic sequence is mired in so much bullshit.

It's obvious that Quentin became enamoured with Zoe Bell on the set of Kill Bill, so he decided to build a movie around her and her abilities. That's fine, I suppose, she's great and all, but someone already built a movie around her: the 2004 documentary Double Dare. When Death Proof should have been riding the momentum gained from that magnificent wreck that concluded the first half, it became mired in too-long stories about Zoe Bell's exploits, and that's a real missed opportunity.

Death Proof would have worked better, I think, as a type of rape-revenge film. It is, of a sort, but there's no "rape"- for the ass-kicking/potential murder of Stuntman Mike to pack the wallop it needed to, the stakes needed to be much higher than a game of chicken where no one got hurt. If Tarantino had spent less time at the shrine of Our Lady Zoe of the Bell and more time, say, offing one of the second half's protagonists, the end would have been far more cathartic than it turned out to be. Why not have Mike, I don't know, run over Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) or something? She was completely inessential to the story anyway, and it would have provided a believable impetus for revenge.

All of that said, damn, Tarantino really knows how to shoot a movie. The first half, wherein he kept up the Grindhouse conceits (scratched "film stock", etc), was spot fucking on. I'm not sure why he chose to present the second half in pristine DV, but it was a disappointment regardless.

All of that said, the Grindhouse conceits in both Death Proof and Planet Terror are a bit maddening, for all their "authenticity". They're made to look like films from the '70s, but both also feature modern conveniences like cell phones. It simply doesn't jive or make sense: if these are meant to be "lost films" of a bygone era (I wish this was the intent, but I doubt it), then get rid of the cell phones. If they're modern films in the style of the bygone era (more like it), then why is the "stock" so beat up? It's akin to a CD player made to look like a record player: essentially pointless. Get a GD record player and spin vinyl, or play your CDs on an appropriate device.

Still, I admire the obvious love and nostalgia going on here, and if nothing else, the work of Rodriguez and Tarantino has brought about a revival of Grindhouse flicks- for better or for worse. Anything that brings Pieces to the masses, after all, is fine by me. Unfortunately, I think the ultimate failure (relatively speaking, natch) of the project indicates that the days where audiences would gladly sit on questionably-stained seats for two features and trailers galore are pretty much over. The geeks will still sit for hours on end, sure, but attention spans and "movie culture" have changed, no matter how much some of us may wish otherwise.

Really, though, where were the tits?



*Let it be noted that I don't necessarily mind Tarantino dialogue, unless it simply becomes a list of what QT likes. I mind that all of his characters, male or female, sound alike. The onus is on the actors to make them individuals, and only some of them succeed.

----------------------------
Film Club Coolies, y'all!
----------------------------
The Dark Side Critic
The Agitation of the Mind
Gorillanaut
Fade In
Video Updates
Margarita Salt
It's Dark in the Dark
Movie Chunks
Exiled from Contentment
Movie Moxie
Acheter et entretenir sa tronconneuse: Planet Terror / Death Proof

Have you been pulling your hair and wringing your hands, wondering when I'd be back? I know I have! Then I remembered that the power of posting at Final Girl rests in my very hands, so here I am.

I've been jacked up on my beloved Dunk's for several days now, and yesterday I found a little used bookstore that had a VHS copy of Satan's Cheerleaders waiting just for me. So far, this trip rules!

Anycoffee, I wrote a piece about killer plants and trees over at Ye Olde AMC, which is now up for your viewing pleas---well, your viewing, at any rate. Killer plants and trees are pretty sweet and a great way to celebrate the season, don't you think? Baby Jesus would be proud.

Okay, I don't even want to know what exactly a lady-shaped gun would shoot.


From the coolest box art for the worst effing movie department:


Wait...so there's no time to scream, but then I'm silently screaming which isn't even possible to begin with? Quit messing with my head, Silent Scream!

Kitties are "lusting" for humans? Really? Eww.


Okay, yeah yeah, I get the whole mind-Stockholm Syndrome thing. But turning her body against her? What, did they make her punch herself in the face? "Stop hitting yourself..."


I need to see this RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. This casting is way too good to be true.

Uh, yes...yes, it is. Just ask that bitch who almost beat me at Clue that one time...oh wait, you can't. She's dead. Here's the solution: Final Girl in the den with her fists!

That fate is obviously being trapped within a never-ending series of Halloween masks.

So...the jitters are like herpes? Suddenly everything makes sense!

From the "Cheap VHS knockoff? How dare you, madame! I never...eh. Yeah, you got me" department:


How many halves does this thing in the pit have, exactly?

From the Holy Fucking Shit, I Need To See This Movie RIGHT NOW Department:

Eh. You oughta see what's living inside my George Foreman Grill! *ba-dum-tish*


"Take that, pool of blood-shaped woman!"


Please tell me I'm not the only one who can see them- the visible invisible dead.


With that tagline, this movie could also be about farts. I am just saying.


The most frightening cover art ever? Is he a giant, or is she smurf-size?


This almost looks more irritating than anything else: "Quit fondling my face, bloody ape!"


Is this a now-live dead person having fun at a party, or is it a formerly-live person who died whilst having fun?

This cover for Body Shop is one of the greatest examples of the lurid nature of VHS box art. It goes without saying that the movies are rarely as hardcore as the box leads you to believe they are. Browsing the horror section in the video store back in the day was a head trip- everything was so seedy! It all felt forbidden and naughty, and if you dared to rent one of these puppies, surely you'd go mad with terror or your head would explode after witnessing all the depravity!


Umm, if this isn't the perfect companion piece to Killer Workout, I don't know what is. Does anyone own a drive-in?


What the hell is going on here, Endplay? "Gripping until the bizarre end- then it all falls apart and you'll be bored...to death!"

From the "Cheap VHS knockoff? How dare you, madame? I never...eh. Yeah, you got me" department:


How many halves does this thing in the pit have, exactly?

From the Holy Fucking Shit, I Need To See This Movie RIGHT NOW Department:

Eh. You oughta see what's living inside my George Foreman Grill! *ba-dum-tish*


"Take that, pool of blood-shaped woman!"


Please tell me I'm not the only one who can see them- the visible invisible dead.


With that tagline, this movie could also be about farts. I am just saying.


The most frightening cover art ever? Is he a giant, or is she smurf-size?


This almost looks more irritating than anything else: "Quit fondling my face, bloody ape!"


Is this a now-live dead person having fun at a party, or is it a formerly-live person who died whilst having fun?

This cover for Body Shop is one of the greatest examples of the lurid nature of VHS box art. It goes without saying that the movies are rarely as hardcore as the box leads you to believe they are. Browsing the horror section in the video store back in the day was a head trip- everything was so seedy! It all felt forbidden and naughty, and if you dared to rent one of these puppies, surely you'd go mad with terror or your head would explode after witnessing all the depravity!


Umm, if this isn't the perfect companion piece to Killer Workout, I don't know what is. Does anyone own a drive-in?


What the hell is going on here, Endplay? "Gripping until the bizarre end- then it all falls apart and you'll be bored...to death!"

The greatest VHS box art ever? Quite possibly.

VHS "Week" continues with one of the most memorable episodes of The Twilight Zone: "Living Doll"! Can I get a "Righteous!" up in here??

Telly Savalas (Kojak, y'all- holla!) is Erich Streator, a real crank of a guy who practically flips out when his wife and stepdaughter return home from a shopping trip wherein they have been so bold as to have made purchases. Amongst these purchases is Talky Tina- a large doll that can move a little and talk, "My name is Talky Tina and I love you" being her favorite phrase...

...until she starts talking to Erich, who's a big bully.


It doesn't take Tina long to get from "I don't think I like you" to "I think I could even hate you" with Erich, and at first he thinks it's his wife having one over on him. When Tina starts winking at him (seriously creepy) and won't say mean things in front of anyone else, he decides to get rid of her and tosses her in the garbage.

The phone rings and it's Tina: "My name is Talky Tina," she says to Erich, "and I'm going to kill you."

This episode is so awesome!

Throwing Tina away won't work- she manages to get out of the garbage can- so Erich takes to drastic measures: he puts her head in a vice, but she won't squish! He takes a blowtorch to her face, but it won't stay lit! He tries to cut her head off with a power saw, but it cannot pierce her eeeevil doll "flesh"! Erich is naturally freaking the fuck out, but Tina just giggles: "I can take it if you can!"


This episode is SO AWESOME!

Is Tina really capable of murder? Is she actually threatening Erich, or is he simply going all nutcake? This is The Twilight Zone, folks, so what do you think?

June Foray provides the voice for Talky Tina, and she also provided the voice for Chatty Cathy- that's so deliciously twisted. How many parents grew wary of those dolls after this episode aired?

June Foray also provided the voice for Witch Hazel, which is kind of beside the point...although I bring up Witch Hazel whenever I can because she's one of my favorite Looney Tunes characters. So there.

I found a copy of this on VHS (along with 3 other Twilight Zone episodes), but you can watch all the righteousness yourself courtesy of The Internet:

Living Doll: Part 1
Living Doll: Part 2
Living Doll: Part 3

In related news, the best part of The Twilight Zone's title sequence is when the bewigged artist's mannequin goes flying by.

I don't think I'm supposed to like Humongous quite as much as I do.

The main arguments against this 1982 film, director Paul Lynch's follow-up to Prom Night, are that it's boring, derivative, and devoid of scares. I can see how those would be valid criticisms or how one might end up with that opinion of Humongous, and yet- that's not how I view the film at all. Does that make any sense? It's a bit like seeing Fabio and thinking "Yes, I understand how people might find him attractive, but I myself do not."

In related news, I wonder whether or not anyone's been able to convince Fabio that the delicious, cholesterol-free, buttery spread he so enjoys is not, in fact, butter.

Back on topic! Humongous. It opens in that most predictable way: with a rape. It's Labor Day Weekend in 1946 and a drunken reveler forces himself on a young woman whose family is hosting the party. Her trusty German Shepherds come to her rescue and attack the attacker; she finishes him off with a rock.

I was checking out some reviews of the film earlier, and virtually every one railed against Lynch for shooting the rape scene from the victim's POV. Apparently this technique makes viewers uneasy. Uncomfortable during a rape scene? Good. Why is that a problem?

36 years after that night, a small group of...err, teens, I guess, are leaving a house where I...uh, guess they were staying all summer and they're boating to...uh...well, it's all a little vague. Listen, picky, all you need to know is that this is a horror movie and all the major food groups are represented: the nice guy, the final girl, the slut, the nerd, and the jerk. The nice guy (Eric), the nerd (Carla), and the jerk (Nick) are siblings; the nice guy and the final girl (Sandy) are dating, as are the slut (Donna) and the jerk. Carla, meanwhile, is considerate enough to sport glasses in keeping with the film's title. I do so love a theme!

Whilst slowly navigating through heavy fog at night, our gang comes across Bert, whose motorboat has given up the ghost. They take him on board and when dogs begin to howl in the distance, he tells them the tale of The Weirdo Old Lady of Dog Island. It seems there's a mysterious woman who's secluded herself on an island and lives with a gazillion dogs. The locals don't know much about her- she only heads to the mainland twice a year for supplies, and no one dares set foot on the island for fear of her dogs.

Hmm...I wonder who she could be? Though we, the audience, know that The Weirdo Old Lady of Dog Island is the rape victim from 36 years back, the telling of the tale is spooky. It's creepy. What can I say? I get sucked in easily.

A few plot contrivances later and our gang's boat goes boom- man, the jerk is such a jerk- and everyone swims for...wait for it...the shores of Dog Island! It's all so very unpredictable...and as such, you probably know where all this is headed, right? The rape victim had a baby, the baby grew up to be humongous, Mr Humongous is deformed and hasn't been socialized, Mr Humongous kills teenagers for food- you know the drill.

As I said earlier, I'm not going to argue that Humongous isn't terribly derivative (one crucial scene apes Friday the 13th Part 2 like nobody's business); somehow, though, I find it effectively derivative. Lynch utilizes odd camera angles to disquiet the viewer and- for better or for worse- keeps Mr Humongous almost completely hidden throughout the film. This has the curious effect of making the film one about survival rather than one about killing. The focus is on the teens, who are trying to find a way off the island. While exploring the ol' Humongous Homestead, they come across photo albums, diaries, and dessicated corpses and they get their Scooby Gang on, piecing together the puzzle to figure out what they're up against. They even develop a grudging sympathy for the lurking monster, and so do we. The characters are, unfortunately (yet expectedly) drawn too thin to really care about, but it helps that the performances, while not spectacular, are rather understated for a slasher-style film. They're essentially stereotypes, but they're not broad caricatures.

The biggest shame about Humongous is that it's so damn dark...I mean really, really dark. So much so that you can't figure what's going on for...oh, I'd say at least 1/4 of the movie. It's definitely a problem, and some viewers may not have the patience to endure it. As for me, I plan to buy up all the Our Lady of Guadalupe candles in the Spanish food section at my local Ralph's, light 'em, and create a shrine with the hopes that this will bring about a DVD release of Humongous- a nice, cleaned-up-n-brightened version so I can see what I've been missing.

I like this movie. I honestly enjoy it, and not in an ironic way- although there are plenty of early '80s chunks of cheese (headbands, dancing, cassettes, and...uh, using one's bare boobs to keep someone warm) sprinkled throughout. I like the exploring of the run-down house, I like the stalking sequences, I like the atmosphere...I just like Humongous. Your results, however, may vary, as the 2.3/10 rating on imdb suggests.

As you may have noticed, I review a lot of movies here at Final Girl. Some of these movies are made of awesome, some are made of lame...this is to be expected. You take the good, you take the bad...you take them both and there, my friends, you have the facts of life. It's a rare film that crosses my path, however, that is so bad that I want to go back in time and stop myself from pushing play on the VCR. Even more rare is the film that makes me want to go back in time and stop myself from seeing the movie on the shelf...or further back in time so I can stop the filmmakers from beginning production. Or even further back so I can prevent the filmmakers' parents from having "intimate" "relations" so I can ensure the film will never get made.

This is how I feel about the 1987 Creature from the Black Lagoon wannabe Demon of Paradise.


Blah blah blah legend of prehistoric underwater lizard-man Akua blah blah oh no, he's really real blah blah blah let's follow the standard animal attack movie formula: we can't cancel the annual Parade Festival blah blah blah the scienceologist will save the day blah blah fucking blah.

Trust me, that description is way more exciting than what happens on screen. What happens on screen? NOTHING. So much nothing that when I looked over at one point and my viewing pals were asleep, I thought that maybe I was actually the one who fell asleep and I was having the most boring dream ever dreamed.

Let's take a look at some of the things I wrote whilst taking notes for this review:

• Reporter = die, please
• nothing happens. nothing happens some more. badly acted nothings happen.
• music = horrendous, always inappropriate
• more nothing happening = kill myself
• testing my resolve as a human being to overcome adversity and boredom
• why won't it end?
• hell = this
• when will it end?
• PLEASE END

Finally, it did end and I was left feeling like I'd just completed ten tours of 'Nam. Demon of Paradise was so bad then when the credits finally rolled I nearly went apoplectic, ranting and flipping it off so hard I'm surprised my middle finger didn't explode. There's no doubt that in those few moments, I could have legally been deemed a fire hazard- such was the white-hot intensity of my rage. I'm only shocked that lasers didn't shoot out of my eyeballs.

Oh, how Demon of Paradise angried up my blood! Why did Satan himself have to shit this movie into existence? Why did I have to see it in the 3-for-$5 bin at Video Hut? Why did the filmmakers not realize that a man in a rubber suit popping up out of the water every once in a while to wave at people off camera does not induce terror? Why did it have to be so boring that I couldn't even laugh at the waving monster?

Clearly, Demon of Paradise hates me as much as I hate it.

Originally, I didn't even want to bring the tape home with me: I really, really don't want this movie in my house. Since last night, however, I've reconsidered that stance and I think some good may actually come from this steaming pile of dook.

Some outreach program should take Demon of Paradise to all the Ebola clinics of the world and show one-minute clips to patients. Then they can say "See, Ebola patient? Your internal organs are liquifying and your face is being eaten away, but at least you don't have to endure the other 86 minutes of Demon in Paradise!", to which the Ebola sufferers will say "Hooray! I may have Ebola, but clearly my life could be a lot worse!"

That right there, friends, is radness in a clamshell. Yet again I fell victim to the doesn't describe anything description on the back of the box and figured I was in for an over the top slasher flick. Instead, I was treated to a sublime gothic take on Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla with director Vicente Aranda's The Blood Spattered Bride (1972).

Yes that's right- much to my shame I had no idea what this movie was about until I popped it in the ol' VCR. Bad horror fan! Bad! Go sit in the corner and think about what you've done!

Now that my shortcomings as a walking horror encyclopedia are out of the way, let's get to it. Carmilla is, of course, the 1872 novella that spawned a genre: the lesbian vampire tale. From Blood and Roses to The Vampire Lovers to Daughters of Darkness and beyond, there have been numerous cinematic interpretations of Le Fanu's work over the years with varying amounts of blood and smut. The Blood Spattered Bride falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum- though the blood flows, at times, copiously, the film is never as lurid as its title suggests; though there's ample (body-double) nudity on display, the movies's most erotic moments happen off-camera; and though you may roll your eyes at the thought of yet another lesbian vampire movie (though I can't imagine who would!), The Blood Spattered Bride is an intelligent take on feminism and sexual politics that's got atmosphere to spare.


Newlyweds Susan (Maribel Martin) and her nameless husband (Simon Andreu) honeymoon at his ancestral estate after an aborted stay at a modern hotel- Susan was understandably uneasy there after she...endured? suffered? indulged in?...a violent rape fantasy. She becomes only more high-strung after they arrive at the sprawling mansion, mostly due to her husband's boorish behavior. He is continually (and I really do mean continually) in lustful pursuit of his young bride, so much so that Susan attempts to lock herself away from him. Her sexual anxiety reaches critical mass when he follows her into the woods, grabs two handfuls of her hair and lifts her off the ground, then tries to coerce her into fellating him. I can't imagine why she'd be reluctant!

Susan begins to have dreams of a woman in a bridal gown who gives her an ivory-handled dagger. Eventually she finds a faceless painting of the same woman tucked away in the basement; Susan's husband relates the story of a distant relative, Mircalla Karstein, who murdered her husband on their wedding night when he wanted her to perform "unspeakable acts". The husband then proceeds to open Mircalla's crypt, conveniently located right on the estate grounds. Is Mircalla the woman in Susan's dreams? If she's only dreaming it all, why does Susan now possess the ivory-handled dagger? What does it all mean? According to a psychiatrist, it's simply a typical case of a woman's excitable nature- the only cure for which is a series of injections and a big dose of bedrest, during which she's more than welcome to stare at the yellow wallpaper on the walls.


The husband decides to dispose of the dagger once and for all; he buries it on a remote beach where he encounters (in what has simply got to be one of the strangest character introductions in any film in the history of ever) a mysterious blonde woman (Alexandra Bastedo). Naturally, he takes her home.

As you may have guessed, the mysterious blonde woman (who remembers nothing but her own name, Carmilla) is the same woman who appears in Susan's dreams. She disappears from the mansion the next morning, but she and Susan continue to meet each other- at the crypt, in the woods- anywhere so they can engage in neck biting, sexy times, and plenty of kill your husband pillow talk.

Events escalate to a bloody, bizarre, and ultimately downbeat ending that leaves plenty of questions hanging in the air: is Carmilla a vampire, or does she simply fancy herself to be one? Is she the reincarnated spirit of Mircalla, or is she simply, as Susan's doctor puts it, a "dominating lesbian" and a "paranoid pervert"?

Questions regarding plot aside, The Blood Spattered Bride also raises more political questions for the audience as the focus shifts during the course of the film. There's no question we're meant to sympathize with Susan early on- her husband is a callous jackass who is quite possibly the most annoying person on the planet. He knocks her around, teases her, and all but forces himself on her until she finally admits that she hates him. Once Carmilla enters the scene, however, and her relationship with Susan blossoms into something resembling love, the men of the film become the protagonists, hunting down and ultimately destroying the women. Are the filmmakers endorsing the patriarchal order by eliminating the feminists? Do the filmmakers really consider homosexuality to be "perverted", and thus heterosexuality must win out in the end?

Or is this just a lesbian vampire exploitation flick? I guess it's up to you to decide.

Regardless of how much thought you want to put into The Blood Spattered Bride (or how much though you think went into the making of it), there's no denying that the film looks and feels gorgeous. Aranda opts for slow tracking shots and long takes, imbuing the film with a sense of the gothic and an atmosphere that's positively languorous and unsettling. Bride meanders along as dreams and reality intertwine, and the pace of the thing will undoubtedly make it or break it for you. The cinematography is fantastic, and it's impossible to grow weary of gazing at Susan and Carmilla.

Though I caught this on VHS (duh), it's currently available as a bonus on the 2-disc special edition of Daughters of Darkness, released a couple of years ago by Blue Underground. If you dig gothic tales of lesbian vampires (and who doesn't, duh), I highly recommend it.

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, exactly, from "the best horror movie of 1982" (that's Night Warning, folks), but whatever it was I expected...I'm pretty sure I didn't get it. Actually, I do know what I was expecting- some sort of slasher flick. After all, part of the lengthy description on the back of the box reads as follows:

Numbed by this deadly chain of events, each person seeks to escape the mounting terror, only to find they're racing headlong toward the guilty party.

Yeah sure, it's a bit vague, but still, it gives one a certain slasher-y impression. Had I seen the box art for this movie under its original title Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker, however, I would have had a far more accurate impression of what the film would entail.

Well, no matter. It just goes to show, you simply can't trust a wily VHS box!

So, Night Warning. It's a bit like Mommie Dearest on crack with a bloody twist of Psycho- in other words, it rocks! I knew it would rock within the first fifteen minutes, when young Billy's parents drive off, leaving him in the care of his Aunt Cheryl (Susan Tyrrell), only to die in a car accident moments later. This wasn't any old car accident, though- this was a low-budget Final Destination-style sequence de resistance! The brakes go out, then Billy's dad is decapitated when the car rams into a logging truck, then the car pitches over a cliff, then it explodes- all ensuring that Billy's parents are wicked dead. Consider my mouth open and my cheeks slapped in a decidedly Home Alone fashion!

14 years later, Billy is all grown up and Jimmy McNichol-ized. He's still living with Aunt Cheryl, who creepily and consistently crosses the line into don't ever do anything like that with your nephew territory. When Billy wants to have a girl over for his birthday dinner, Cheryl says no, insisting she'll be his date. She watches him sleep and wakes him by purring in his ear and scratching his back like a perverted cat. It's all very unsettling, and it's only the beginning.

I swear, it's like Cheryl thinks she's Judith Light of television's Who's the Boss in the made-for-TV movie Too Close to Home (also starring Rick(y) Schroeder of television's Silver Spoons), the way she does anything and everything to keep Billy in her home and her clutches. When simply trying to convince Billy that he won't make it in college ("It's for rich kids and people with brains- you wouldn't fit in!") doesn't work, Cheryl drugs his milk so he passes out at the big basketball game and ruins his chance at winning an athletic scholarship.

Things heat up when a TV repairman pays a visit and Aunt Cheryl puts the creepilicious moves on him...or rather, things don't heat up, much to Cheryl's dismay. He deflects her gropings and come-ons until he finally relents and suggests she give him a blow job. Despite the fact that she's agreed to do "anything", Cheryl flips out and stabs the repairman to death. Billy walks in and ends up covered with blood, clutching the knife. This can't be good, right? Right!

Cheryl fully admits to killing the repairman, claiming that it was self-defense as he was attempting to rape her. Detective Carlson (Bo Svenson) is unconvinced, however- he's sure Billy is the murderer. And the motive? Psychosis homosexualia, of course! The repairman was actually bisexual and was having a love affair with Billy's basketball coach- and Carlson just knows that Billy was the c-squared to their a-squared and b-squared. It's a murder most Pythagorian! And gay!

Yes, gay. 1982 was a year when homosexual characters started inching their way out of the celluloid closet (see also: Best, Personal). Carlson is a homophobe and a rascist painted with a wide, wide brush: he uses the word "fag" the way the Smurfs use the word "smurf". "Are you a fag? I bet you're a fag. He's a fag. Fag fag faggity fag. PS: fag!" Aunt Cheryl is no better: when Billy continues to treat his coach like...like...like a human, she quips "Do you know that homosexuals are very sick?" Eh. At least all the homophobes are kookadooks.

Eventually, Aunt Cheryl goes completely off the rails, by which I mean "completely off the fucking rails". She cuts her hair off a la Jodie Foster in The Accused, she kills everyone who gets between her and Billy, she kills everyone who comes close to discovering her secret, she has a secret which may or may not involve a corpse in the basement. Susan Tyrrell gives an unbelievable, balls out performance that simply needs to be seen. She. Is. AWESOME.

Though it wasn't at all what I thought it was going to be, Night Warning was absolutely a delight- even if I still have no clue what exactly a "night warning" is. Man, Susan Tyrrell! She fucking owns this movie. There's a DVD release rumored for later this year so you can check it out for yourself- this is a real VHS gem, an underrated psychological horror flick. The only thing that would've made it better is if it'd been Kristy McNichol in the lead instead of her brother Jimmy. Sure, that would've added a whole 'nother layer to the psychosexual drama, but that's okay. Kristy McNichol makes everything better. Even the Gardenburger I had for dinner- delicious as it was- would have been tastier if Kristy McNichol had made it for me. It's, like, totally a fact.