Expelled Grey Matter

I really wish more people were familiar with Paul Bartel.  Most are familiar with one of his most well-known films - Death Race 2000  - but he directed and appeared in numerous movies throughout his career, often with friend Mary Woronov.  If one wasn't aware that Bartel was openly gay at a time when that was rare one would assume that he and Woronov were truly husband and wife, as they played the role often in his and other's films.  This is probably the most famous of these. Made on a shoestring budget, this dark comedy send-up of conservative America, Los Angeles swinger culture and slasher films was almost constantly in rotation on HBO in the early 1980s.  It's not exactly what one would call a mainstream film, but it developed an audience outside of the cult following it was destined to receive and managed to straddle the line between the mainstream and the controversial films John Waters had been making up to this point.  Strangely enough it was at a time when Waters

Even though they rarely represented the movies at all, one of the best things about browsing through the horror and action sections of a video store was looking at all the covers.  Even in my younger days I didn't expect to see anything that the poster offered, often looking at the back of the video box to see the few scenes they put on from the actual movie, occasionally getting an eyeful of the nubile actresses that made up the cast.  It was definitely not the puppets in Puppet Master II   that caught my eye, for instance.  There were those rare times when the movie itself was better than the cover.  Chopping Mall is one of those.  The art promises a slasher, only in a mall instead of in the woods.  It's a good title, but doesn't seem to offer anything one hasn't seen Jason, Michael or Freddy do already.  One would expect a masked killer, some Scooby Doo type nonsense and the required amount of blood and breasts - unless some "concerned parent" organization

I had no advanced warning when all of a sudden a movie called Cocaine Bear showed up in my Facebook feed in early 2023.  At first I thought it was a joke, but soon found out it was real, with a finished trailer and everything.  This is just the sort of thing a b-movie fan gets excited over, especially if the movie doesn't appear to be self-aware of its own silliness and marketing - think Snakes on a Plane - or self-referential to past films.   One of the reasons I thought it was a joke at first was because I had some passing knowledge of the real incident, which was a comically stupid death for the drug smuggler (pretty much recounted as-is, with slight embellishment, in the movie) and a tragic death for the bear that ingested a lethal dose of cocaine.  Instead of going on a drug-fueled rampage, it did what a human would do after consuming a Scarface -level amount of cocaine in one sitting, which is promptly earn its just reward, which hopefully in this case was a Jellystone full

I was surprised to see Cannon Releasing as the company behind this, as I usually think of that company as a vehicle for Menahem Golan and Yoram Golus to release cheap horror, sci-fi and action films in the 1980s.  However, they were aroound long before, formed by Dennis Friedland and Chris Dewey, and specializing in low-budget films of all types.  One of those was this film, which lingered in obscurity until Elvira dug it up and brought it to light, as it had become public domain after its drive-in and theater run due to a failure to properly register it.  Although pretty much a forgotten film it has a lot of interesting names associated with it, one being co-producer Lloyd Kaufman, who is now famous for his own company, Troma Entertainment.  Another is Mary Woronov, who was married to director Theodore Gershuny at the time.  She was not the only Andy Warhol alum to appear in the movie, with Ondine, Candy Darling and others playing guests and asylum inmates in a flashback scene toward

Despite all the silly controversy, Silent Night, Deadly Night was a rather good thriller.  I know most people consider it a slasher, but the rampage that Billy (Robert Bryan Johnson) goes on doesn't come until the end.  He is triggered both by wearing a Santa suit - something that one shouldn't do to a kid who, even at 18, still has trauma from seeing his parents murdered by a guy dressed as Santa Claus - but also by seeing his coworker's attempted rape.  This leads to him going around town, punishing the naughty, and making sure to say "Punish!" and "Naughty!" while doing it.  The end of Silent Night, Deadly Night  finds Billy returning to the orphanage where he was raised to kill the abusive Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin), only to be shot down by police before he can finish the job.  The death also happens in full view of his younger brother, Ricky, who appears to immediately take up Billy's crusade to rid the world of the "naughty". 

The roots of Triple Trouble reach all the way back to 1972, so it's appropriate that this movie go hand-in-hand with the Residents' 50th anniversary.  The band is currently on tour and the movie is part of the concert experience, being presented prior to the Residents going on stage.  It had limited theatrical release, mainly special showings arranged by the Cryptic Corporation, but it has recently had a regular Blu-Ray release and is available on YouTube for those who are curious.  The reason I say it goes back to 1972, although most of the filming for Triple Trouble was done during the pandemic, is because of the Residents' original movie project Vileness Fats .  The story takes place in the town of Vileness Flats, a town governed by a mayor named Steve, who happens to have multiple personality disorder.  He is also Lonesome Jack, the leader of a band of outlaws called the Bell Boys that are besieging the town of Vileness Flats and stealing all their meat, forcing the inh

While the movies that followed Child's Play embraced the more humorous aspects of the story, the first managed to play it straight.  That's no mean feat, because the idea of a killer doll is ridiculous on paper, and most attempts to copy the formula have either gone the horror comedy route or become unintentionally hilarious.  In hands other than writer Don Mancini and director Tom Holland this probably would have fallen flat on its face.  Part of the surprise of this film is that it is as good as it is. Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) is a single mother working in a department store in Chicago.  Her son Andy (Alex Vincent) is a fan of a cartoon series called Good Guys , and has his hopes set on getting a Good Guy Doll for his birthday.  His mother, however, is unable to afford one, but as luck would have it a homeless guy near the store has one for sale.  She takes it home and Andy is overjoyed. Unfortunately, the doll has a little something extra, which is Charles Lee Ray (Br

Perhaps the laziest type of slasher is something based on a holiday.  Sure, Black Christmas , Halloween and even Silent Night, Deadly Night got away with it, but that was only from the beginning to the peak of the slasher craze.  Other horror movies, particularly ones more based in fantasy, have succeeded, but for the most part it seems like beyond putting something interesting on the box to trick people into buying or streaming it there is no real thought except making a few bucks.  Jack Frost is no exception.  It's as boring as most other holiday horror films, and it tries to add a monster on top of the slasher, but it's little more rip-off of Child's Play and  Shocker , except with snow.  Even worse, the Jack Frost monster on the box looks great, in a cheap sort of way, and not something that would have busted the budget to make.  I just wish this is the creature the movie delivered.  Serial murderer Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald) is on his way to be executed.  There'

I am not going to use a phrase that gets has been repeated to the point that it no longer has any meaning, but there has been a trend in recent years to try to erase much of American cinema.  It's disturbing because although quite a number of movies, especially the further back one goes in the 20th century, are going to naturally have things that don't fit in modern society.  While in many cases no one thought twice about what they were portraying on screen at the time, many of the directors and actors later on were quite aware of how things came across, even as early as the 1970s.   Writers, directors and actors in the past were not completely oblivious to the changing times.  John Ford, John Wayne and most of the cast of The Searchers would not even be considered liberal for their own time, and definitely many of their personal views - mainstream in the 1950s, and quite out of step within the two decades following - are definitely shocking today.  Still, outright dismissing a

Lucio Fulci's horror films are a strange mix of cool scenes combined with thin characters and plots that rarely stay on track.  If watching one of those specials that counts down the scariest or goriest moments in horror history, chances are scenes from one or more of Fulci's movies will be included.  Even if not having seen Zombie in its entirety even passing horror fans will be familiar with the splinter-in-the-eye scene or the sequence where a zombie fights with a tiger shark.  First it must be stated that, despite the Italian title, there is no Zombi, or it could be said more truthfully that this is actually Zombi .  That was the title given to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead when Dario Argento re-edited it and distributed it in his home country.  In typical Italian form the studio immediately wanted something linked to Romero's film, as it was successful, so they threw a "2" in the title for the domestic release.  In the U.S., however, there was no at

I have no idea why at some point I thought this movie had Vincent Price in it.  I wonder if there was some later trailer where he did a voiceover, as I remember this being advertised either for some late, late show or other horror-related release on television.  It's possible someone was doing an imitation when advertising it, since the original trailer's narrator doesn't sound a bit like him.  I had wondered down the years how Bob Clark got Price to star in an early low-budget picture of his. He didn't, of course.  This was a project he worked on with lead actor and co-writer Alan Ormsby, who would himself go on to direct the movie Deranged , one of a number of films based on Ed Gein.  Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things  was supposed to be a bit of a horror comedy rather than a serious fright film, and whenever I've seen it pushed over the years it has been treated like some sort of forgotten classic.  Since Clark's early career forays into horror - D

Batman was a roll of the dice for Warner Bros.  The only successful superhero movies prior were the first two Superman  films, as much of the Marvel and DC catalog sat around in development hell.  Tim Burton had two hits under his belt, but Batman was his first blockbuster.  There was also doubt that Michael Keaton was a good fit for the role.  It went overbudget and suffered a number of problems while filming in the UK.  In the end, strong performances by Keaton and Jack Nicholson made the movie a worldwide hit.  Burton, and the set designers that helped him realize his vision, added a unique take on the Caped Crusader. Inevitably a sequel was planned.  Originally the romance with Vicky Vale was supposed to continue, but Batman would face new foes in the form of Catwoman and the Penguin.  Burton, however, had no intention of making a direct sequel, preferring to make a standalone film that acknowledged the original.  For his part, Keaton wasn't excited to reprise the role, but wa