Tag: B-Movie

Frankenhooker (1990)

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Today’s review is the cult horror comedy “Frankenhooker” from 1990. I’m a fan of the genre, but for some reason I’d never gotten around to this one. This is directed by Frank Henenlotter, who also co-wrote it along with Robert Martin. Henenlotter is most famous for another cult horror comedy, “Basket Case” from 1982. Music is by Joe Renzetti, who previously scored “Child’s Play”, “Dead and Burried” and even John Carpenter’s “Elvis” movie (The non-Elvis parts, obviously). This was made for $2.5m ($6m by today’s money), making it a low-mid budget horror. Basically this is a deliberate B-Movie, an intentionally B-like movie, but made to a slightly higher budget.

The movie stars James Lorinz as young mad scientist “Jeffrey Franken” and Patty Mullen as “Elizabeth Shelley” aka “Frankenhooker”. I think you can probably get the references in the names. A classic romance story. Boy meets girl. They get engaged. Girl accidentally kills herself with a remote controlled lawn mower. Boy keeps girls head in a freezer. Boy makes a load of hookers explode with super-crack and then re-animates girl using their body parts. Girl becomes partially possessed by her hooker body parts and runs off looking for Johns. Boy chases after girl. Will they end up happily ever after?

Piece by Piece

Well, this is certainly a silly movie, but I can’t say it is particularly hilarious. It is amusing in places though and in some cases possibly unintentionally. Elizabeth is meant to be overweight, apparently from a pretzels addiction. But the actress clearly isn’t overweight and so they basically got her to fully do up her outfit and stuff it with what I assume is clothes or paper. It looked ridiculous. That made me laugh more than the rest of the film, but I have no idea if that was intentional or they genuinely thought it would work. There actually wasn’t much need for her to be overweight either since she’s reduced to just a head shortly after the intro.

This is one of those movies that have nothing to it outside of the concept and what you see in the trailer. I wasn’t sure quite how much to cover with the synopsis. What I described is the entire first two acts, but that’s the basic premise and it’s all in the trailer. The movie takes a long time to get around to re-animating Elizabeth. It’s a typical horror built around a gimmicky concept, Quite often with these movies they don’t know what to do after the concept is activated (At least within their budget), so they pad out the build up instead. Still, thanks to James Lorinz wacky portrayal of Jeffrey Franken, the build up is just as amusing as the the actual Frankenhooker rampage.

Conclusion

Once we finally have our Frankenhooker loose in the red light district, the humor is about what you’d expect. It’s a brief pay off for the build up. I do have to give it to Patty Mullen for her portrayal of the monstrous prostitute. She gets a little repetitive but it’s an amusing routine. It is Lorinz that has to hold the film together though and he does a good job. What lets the film down is it seems to run out of ideas just as it gets going. I also got a little bored of people blowing up. It’s sort of one trick comedy gore here.

Ultimately this is a moderately amusing horror comedy that comes across a bit dated in both plot and execution. I enjoy horror comedies more than most, so this is a disappointment. It’s not a total disaster though and I can see why it achieved cult status. If you enjoy comedy horrors based just on ridiculousness then this could be for you. For me though I can only give it a strong 5/10. Best viewed with lots of beer.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (2021)

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I watched and reviewed the first Wyrmwood movie for a previous October Challenge. If you read that review, you will know that I liked the film and gave it a recommendation. It was surprisingly innovative and very impressive for the shoestring budget. I found out about the sequel right away, but I held off watching it until this year’s October challenge. So here we are. Like the first film this is written/directed and produced by Kiah Roache-Turner and stars Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradey and Luke McKenzie. Tristan Roache-Turner assists with the writing. Cinematography is by Tim Nagle and music is by Michael Lira.

The movie picks up an indeterminate amount of time after the first film. Brooke (Bradey) and Barry (Gallagher) are travelling with another sibling pair of Grace (Tasia Zalar) and Maxi (Shantae Barnes Cowan). Grace is a hybrid, like Brooke but without the power to control other zombies. After some kind of incident between them the groups split and Grace is captured by Wasteland loner Rhys (McKenzie) and delivered to a research center where they are supposedly researching a cure. Rhys is beginning to doubt the researchers methods and goals and turns on them, teaming up with Maxi, Brooke and Barry.

Mad Max Vs Zombies

This is a grindhouse style zombie movie. There are a lot of grindhouse zombie films because it’s very easy and cheap to do and the stories largely write themselves. More upmarket zombie films may feature social commentary (All Romero’s movies), great special effects (Like in Return of the Living Dead) or a focus on human survivors (See, every Walking Dead show and spin off). Grindhouse zombie films are much more straightforward. The focus is on having some fun and not thinking too hard about it. As these goes, probably the best you are likely to get is “Planet Terror” (2007), from the double movie feature called “Grindhouse”. But the original Wyrmwood (2014) came pretty close. Introducing a Mad Max aesthetic to the genre and the idea of Zombie fumes fueling those Mad Max vehicles.

Apocalypse, follows on directly from that story and presents more of the same. This is both it’s strength and it’s biggest flaw. Although it does a relatively good job it doesn’t have the originality presented by the first film and it doesn’t move the story forward in any meaningful way. Ultimately there was no reason to do a sequel, at least not a direct sequel. The good aspects, the Mad Max stuff, the zombie fuel and the returning characters are all things we’ve seen before. In many ways this is a very safe sequel. The plot itself is mostly a duplication of the previous movie too. None of it is actually bad though, it’s just unimaginative.

Conclusion

Much like the previous movie, the acting is solid and a lot better than you usually expect for a low budget zombie film. It’s almost the same cast as the previous movie, but the quality in general seems improved. To be clear, no one is winning Oscars here, but it’s above average for grindhouse horror. The soundtrack is pretty solid and the effects work well. The cyborg zombie introduced late on does look pretty cool. The switch of roles for Luke McKenzie is another thing that works well and Rhys’ base camp and lifestyle are the closest this movie comes to an original idea. But it doesn’t last long and the focus mostly returns to re-doing the first film.

Overall, this is an okay zombie sequel. You need to watch the first Wyrmwood movie to understand it as it doesn’t really explain anything. If you have watched that and you did enjoy it, then you probably will enjoy this one. It is less innovative and doesn’t really add much to that story, but is perhaps a bit tighter and more polished production. I do like Kiah Roache-Turner as a writer/director. I’ve seen four of his movies, all were interesting and none were bad. The first “Wyrmwood” and “Nekrotronic” (2018) were actually quite good. This one is weaker, but above average overall and a solid 5.5/10. Recommended, but only if you enjoyed the first film.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Black Roses (1988)

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Heavy Metal Horror, “Black Roses” is directed by John Fasano. At this point in his career he was a relative unknown. Later he would gain some solid writing credits and become a popular Hollywood script doctor. Back in 1988 he had only one directing credit to his name. That was for another Heavy Metal themed horror called “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare” (1987). Writing credits for this one went to Cindy Cirile (John’s now ex-wife). John was obviously a metal head and by the late 80’s that’s no surprise. This was the era where metal was mainstream. So heavy metal themed horror was inevitable and there are many examples of it throughout the 80’s.

Heavy Metal was also highly controversial in the 80’s. It was linked with the Satanic Panic and Court cases had been brought against the likes of Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne for allegedly encouraging suicides. In our story the band “The Black Roses” want to open their first US tour with an appearance in the small town of Mill Basin. Despite local opposition the band play a series of gigs, but they have a secret. The band actually are demons here to corrupt the youth. The only person that can stand in their way is local school teacher Matthew Moorhouse (Played by John Martin).

Ready To Rock

This is a movie I would describe as “Fun trash”. The budget for the movie was reportedly one million dollars. The directors previous heavy metal horror cost a mere $52,000 and ended up a big success. It’s notable that what made it work though was it’s trashier aspects. Many critics said it was unintentionally funny. So upgrading the budget for a similar film could have been a recipe for disaster. It’s hard to say if the film was financially successful. While it was originally due a theatrical release, it ended up going direct to video. In the 80’s however that market was booming. That inflated budget mostly went towards creature effects, which is one of the films strengths. These effects look dated by today’s standards, but they aren’t terrible.

Not all the budget was spent on effects though. A great deal was put towards providing the songs for the soundtrack. The band “The Black Roses” was made up mostly of members of King Kobra. This was former Ozzy Osbourne Drummer Carmine Appice’s band. While most of the songs on the soundtrack are by this group, there are also tracks from Lizzie Borden, Bang Tango and a few others. The movie makes sure to give you the time to enjoy each song, which makes it all the more unfortunate the tracks aren’t particularly good. Still, they do the job and the band are the villains anyway, so maybe the music didn’t need to be great!

Dirty Demons Done Dirt Cheap

When it comes to plot, this movie keeps it as straight forward as possible. It doesn’t waste much time or hold much back from the viewer. In the very first scene we see the band in full demon form (Notably different looking to when they transform later) and see the kids at the concert similarly transformed. We do get time to get to know some of the characters and while it’s very bare bones it does what it needs to. Things fully kick off fairly early (Compared to a lot of 80’s films) and they really do showcase a great variety of hellspawn. None of it really seems to have much purpose though and the truth is the kids are far more effective threats before they transform.

That is the big dilemma for this film. The creature effects are its strength but the lack of mobility for those beings really makes them seem almost comical and not a threat at all. This isn’t helped by the way Matthew manages to defeat all The Black Roses demons entirely by himself in a room full of monstrously transformed teenagers. So this is why we are back at “Fun trash”. You really have to shut your brain down a bit and just enjoy the ridiculous visuals. A few beers should make that pretty easy. I’m going to be generous here and give this one a 5.5/10. What can I say, I’m a sucker for movies that mix horror and metal!

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Bad CGI Gator (2023)

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Yes, you read the title correctly. It’s time to dive into the world of modern B-Movie horror with this ridiculous horror comedy from Full Moon Features. If you know the name, you will know this is Charles Band’s company, so this is a studio (In one form or other) that have been making low budget horror (and some sci-fi) since the 70’s. They know how to get the most out of the budget and how to make movies quickly. That doesn’t make this movie sound any less silly of course! This feature is just under an hour in length and is directed by Danny Draven (Also taking composer duties) and penned by Zalman Band (Charlies son).

There is some controversy with this film. The makers of “Bad CGI Sharks”. Obviously they feel their idea was ripped off. It’s worth considering though gimmick shark movies aren’t exactly original either, so maybe it’s fair game maybe not. You can decide that one for yourself. There’s certainly no doubting they stole the “Bad CGI” idea, the only question is, does that matter? Personally I’m not sure, but I do know at this budget level there is a lot of band wagon jumping in general. Anyway, let’s get back to the Gator and see if it has any teeth!

A Reptile Dysfunction.

The synopsis for this one is short. It’s a 1 hour horror comedy B-movie, what did you expect? A group of friends (Well four friends, one sister and a guy dragged along apparently to set him up with the sister), head to a lakeside cabin for spring break. The nearby lake has an alligator living it, though the friends aren’t aware of this. One of the girls, a tik-tok “Influenced” wants to throw the groups college laptops into the lake for a video (Because “The college will just replace them”). After the stunt they return to their cabin, however the laptops electrocute the lakes alligator transforming it into…. Uh, BAD CGI GATOR! Yes, that happened.

It’s worth reminding you, this is meant to be a comedy, so don’t expect anything to make sense. Anyway, the now CGI Gator starts attacking the friends picking them off one at a time until only the sister “Hope” (Played by Madie Lane) and the non-friend “Sam” (Michael Bonini) remain. Sam and Hope are also quickly developing feelings for each other after Sam romantically stalked her instagram account. Between them they must find a way to escape from this gator, which by the way can also fly and after consuming a bluetooth speaker, grow in size because that’s how it works now.

Bad CGI.

Okay, so this is a ridiculous plot. But for a horror comedy it isn’t really a problem as long as the film is funny and fortunately this is. I laughed out loud several times and in a movie that is less than an hour in length that is a win. Honestly the film probably could do with being a little longer, especially as the ending is a little on the quick side. That said, something like this being too short is probably better than being too long. The effects are what you’d expect and despite the severed limbs I wouldn’t really describe it as “Gore”. Indeed the severed limbs are mostly used for comic effect and quite effectively. There’s also some nice ironic elements with the corpses, which I always approve of in horror films.

The bad CGI gator is of course bad CGI, which you would expect. One issue with this though is the quality of CGI is actually no worse than I’d expect in a low budget horror anyway and case in point, even before the alligator is transformed it is bad CGI. My criticism here is they probably could have made the transformed version a bit worse! It would have been a nice touch to have had it “clipping” into the scenery and stuff on occasion too. For example they could have had it unable to pursue people at some point because it’s tail has clipped into the ground and so it is stuck. Missed opportunity.

Spring Break.

The characters and acting is around about what you’d expect for a low budget B, but there are definitely three tiers to it. Effectively you have three couples (Though the lead pair aren’t a couple until the end) and each couple is about on par for acting talent. One pairing is notably bad, especially the girl’s dialogue delivery, but the movie helps us out here by making them the gators first victim. The next tier are actually in some ways the most fun characters in the film. Both characters are shallow college kid stereotypes, but the actors go all in on the roles and that really helps the comedy. When we are introduced to them I rolled my eyes, but since they provide most of the comedy it was almost a shame to see them killed off.

The final pair is our two leads, Sam and Hope. As actors Bonini and Lane are better than you would expect at this budget level and with the right breaks could probably go a lot further in their careers. It’s always worth remembering just how many big Hollywood stars started out in low budget horrors (Maybe not always this low, but sometimes). Demi Moore for example was in another Charlie Band produced movie “Parasite” from 1982. So they are worth keeping an eye on. Not that this was an Oscar level performance or anything, just better than I expected.

Conclusion.

So overall, this is actually a lot better than most people would expect a movie called “Bad CGI Gator” to be. The plot barely exists, there is bad acting and bad effects, but the movie is fun, funny and in it’s own B-Movie way, clever. Some of the acting is better than you’d expect at this level and some of the characters you’d expect to hate turn out to be the most entertaining. Overall, while it’s not going to get a high rating, when I put this on I figured I’d be lucky to get a 4/10 but instead it’s a high 5/10. Not the best, but higher than I’ve rated some Hollywood horror movies. If you love your B’s, you’ll get a kick out of it.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Blood Diner (1987)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Well that’s it, the final review of my 2023 October Challenge. This is the low budget horror comedy “Blood Diner” from 1987. The movie was the third of four movies directed by Jackie Kong in a short career likely only made possible by the VHS boom of the 80’s. The movie was written by Michael Sonye, who has had a reasonable career as an actor but only has writing credits for six movies. This is the highest rated on IMDb at 5.3/10. His lowest is rated at 2.8 out of ten. This is one of those movies where much of the cast have only appeared in this one film and many of the ones that have been in other things use shots from this movie as their bio picture on IMDb (Or have no picture). This gives you hint of what to expect!

Bon Appétit.

The plot of the movie revolves around a pair of cannibals and their “Vegetarian” diner. Two brothers and their dead uncle (Now a brain in a jar) are planning to perform an ancient ceremony to resurrect the ancient Lumerian goddess Sheetar. To do this they have to make a number of preparations that mostly involve killing young women, preparing a cannibalistic stew that will make those that consume it turn into feral zombie like cannibals and prepare the sacrifice of a virgin. On their tail are a pair of tough yet bumbling police officers, investigating a what appears to be a serial killer targeting vegetarians.

Junk Food.

Okay, so I’m just going to say it: This is a bad movie. Whenever I review a fairly average movie I usually say “It’s not terrible but…”, well this one is terrible and there is no real “But” to that. There are some good ideas, but the execution of them is so poor that most viewers likely won’t even give it that much credit. It is poorly acted, poorly scripted, badly paced (Rushing from one joke/murder to the next without giving any of it room to breath), music that seems absent half the time it is needed and overstays it’s welcome when it is not, the gore was so comical that it lost all impact and worst of all, it just wasn’t funny.

Most of the humour falls flat. Most of the jokes are either casual but cartoon like violence or general gross out stuff. There were three scenes that were sort of funny. One was the intro, specifically the radio broadcast about the psycho. Another was where one of the brothers has to keep running someone over before he actually dies and another where a woman having seen her friend being chopped up goes to run away, but then runs back because she forgot her handbag. That was it. The rival chef’s ventriloquist dummy could have been funny in theory, but didn’t really work in practice. It felt out of place and just came across as pointless and dumb.

So Bad It’s Bad.

The acting is especially bad. I’ve watched a lot of low budget B-movies, so I have a pretty good tolerance for bad acting, but this was next level bad. Pretty much all the actors playing the police were dreadful. The worst of the bunch was Sheba Jackson as “LaNette La France” and it’s no surprise to see this is her only credit on IMDB. Max Morris was almost as bad as the Police Chief and joins Sheba in the “This is my only acting credit” department. Fortunately Rick Burks and Carl Crew, who played the two cannibal brothers were just regular bad, though the script they had to work with didn’t do them any favours. Drew Godderis also managed a tolerable performance as the brain in a jar psycho uncle, though he is helped by just being a voice actor.

I get the impression half of the joke here is meant to be that the film is really bad. This kind of thing never really works for me. Things being intentionally bad always fail to reach that “So bad it’s good” category. Most humour works best when played straight, most funny low budget movies work best when the makers treat it seriously, no matter how crazy the ideas they are working on are. Here it seemed they spent too long laughing at their own jokes. Really a lot of this plays like a series of sketches haphazardly thrown together, with most of it adding nothing to the overall story.

Concussion.

Ultimately, this is one big fail. The concept could have worked, but not with this director, writer and most of these actors. Some people may be able to get a kick out of it and I think being drunk and/or high will help. But coming in dry, it’s just plain bad. I give it a few points for trying to be fun and for the half decent concept, but the most generous I can be with this one is a low 3.5/10. On a side note, I like the trailer. It’s better than the movie. That’s all. Happy Halloween and whatever your viewing tonight (If anything), I hope it’s better that this!

Rating: 3.5 out of 10.