Pulp Fiction: Messenger By Edward Lee

I'm a voracious reader, and Horror has been one of my favorite genres of fiction since I was old enough to read. I'm kind of sick of writing about movies for minute, so as a change of pace, I'll be throwing in reviews of the juicier, pulpier stuff I've been polluting my brain with lately.



Disclaimer: the review I am giving this book is not on the same rating scale as all literature. This is so out there, you couldn't review it with the same rating system as say, Moby Dick. That would be like stacking up The Toxic Avenger against The Hurt Locker . The only thing these works have in common is their medium, so I've decided to rate this book on its merits as a work of Pulp Horror alone. And in that arena, this book kicks serious slimy demon butt.

Ed Lee has a reputation in the literary horror world as being the most intense, most grossest, most disgustingest writer there is. Apparently his mass market novels published under the Leisure Books imprint are somewhat toned down when compared to his small press, hard to find work. If this is Ed Lee toned down, I can't even fathom what his 'hardcore' stuff is like. I mean, how much more intense and nasty could fiction possibly be? Are his small press books printed on poisonous paper that burns your fingers when you turn the page? Is the copy printed in a font that eventually makes your eyes bleed? Does the book explode when you close it? The only way any book could be harder and nastier than this book is if it did those things.

Back in 2006, when my discovery of the works of Brian Keene, Jack Ketchum and Richard Laymon stoked my post Stephen King interest in horror fiction, I picked up Ed Lee's newest novel, The Backwoods . I figured 'hey, if all these authors I love love this guy, he must be awesome.' The book sucked. Really hard. In fact I couldn't even get more than about 80 pages into it. It was embarrassingly bad. Since then I've never picked up another book by Lee, until the other day when I was doing laundry. I forgot the book I was reading at that time at home, so on the way to the laundromat I stopped into the local library. I picked up this book, read the summary and the first page and decided to give old Mr. Lee a whirl. I read the first 70 pages in the laundromat. I wonder if the little Mexican kids there thought I was weird, this big bearded dude reading some creepy looking book with his eyes bugging out of his head, turning the pages as fast as he could.

The premise is pretty silly sounding: The Messenger, a mysterious demonic figure possesses postal workers in a small Florida town and uses them to carry out his heinous acts. Lee takes this idea, and basically pumps it full of steroids, LSD, crack and demon blood and lets it loose. This is one king-hell, rip-snortin' beast of a horror novel. Its also very well plotted and actually has a soft tender side that doesn't beat itself over your head, but is there enough so that you actually care about the main characters.
I think that's the book's greatest feat. Combining mayhem, gore and violence that goes as completely over the top as it definitely does here with characters you actually care about is not an easy feat, and Lee pulls it off seemingly without effort.

The Messenger is an amazing villain, as well. I don't want to go into too much detail into what he does and how he does it, as I don't want to give away too much and ruin this book for someone brave enough to read it. Lets just say that he's one of the most nefarious bad guys I've come across in a horror novel, and I read tons of horror fiction. The level of nastiness is cranked up to 11 here, and all because of this one bastard.

Also there are some deliciously clever twists towards the end that will seriously take you by surprise.

Basically, if you like pulpy horror, you have an iron stomach and are brave enough, give this book a try. You won't be disappointed. (But it may make you question your own sanity for reading these kinds of things.)

Esham Puts Out Awesome Horror Album

Esham, the rap kingpin of Detroit, isn't for everyone. The only other person as bizarre as he is in hip hop is probably Kool Keith, and Keith is probably even more bizarre, but they are very different. (Keith and Esham collaborated on Keith's classic album 'Spankmaster'.) Esham is pretty straightforward, a straight gangsta rapper, but his natural eccentricity comes through on all his projects. The beats are on some other, other, other isht and Esham raps alot about demons, ghosts, evil spirits and so on. I haven't peeped too much of his stuff in recent years, mainly because he aligned himself with the ICP crew... though he recently made an album dissing ICP and distributed it at the Gathering of the Juggalos, which is pretty awesome and ballsy. ICP would be the first to admit that they wouldn't exist without Esham. I know to most people that probably makes Esham sound somewhat terrible by association. Esham's first album "Boomin Words From Hell" came out in 1990, when Esham was like 13 years old. I have it on cassette. You can't really blame him if some lame people were influenced by him. I mean, Eminem was influenced by him. So, he was one of the very first 'Horrorcore' rappers, he's from Detroit, one of the scariest places, period, and he has just released a horror concept album. Each track is about a different horror icon/theme and this has to be the only rap album to ever sample "Ichi The Killer". Its pretty obvious that I love it. Its pretty amazing. Who else besides Esham would make a rap song called "Attack Of the Blob", where he rhymes about being not only the blob, but a crime kingpin. Yeah, he's got the whole city covered, so he's the "Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah blob!"?!
Then there's a song called "Evil Dead", where one of Esham's boys with a wicked cool accent raps about being Ash and he takes it right from 'Evil Dead' through 'Army of Darkness'.
Then there's "Freddie Krueger" where someone named Dr. Hustle rhymes "I'm Freddie Krueger with a brand new Ruger/leave that ass stinkin like a pile of manure". Horror nerds would argue that Freddie would never just shoot someone, but I think that's a pretty good rhyme.
Then there's "The Invisible Man", which is, of course, about what the Invisible Man would do in a strip club. Seems like a wacky premise, but remember, Esham is from Detroit. This is a family oriented blog, so I won't go into some of the racier details, but a guy at the bar says "Yo, who just drank my drink?!" and Esham says "The Invisible Man!" Awesome.
This is a very entertaining horror-rap album. It kind of tries to be serious at the same time as being 'creepy', which might turn some people off, but for me it just kind of made it more fun. My favorite horror-rap album of all time is Kool Keith's turn as Dr. Dooom: "First Come, First Served". Keith's brand of horror-rap is more like a totally over the top Troma movie, so out of control that it is impressive but doesn't actually scare you (although some of the tracks reach such a level of dementedness that they actually are pretty disturbing.) This is more like a gangsta guy that loves horror movies paying homage to the genre. Might not be for everyone, but I like it. If you like hardcore rap and horror movies, you'll probably like it too.

The Toolbox Murders

The once-great Tobe Hooper remade this little 1977 psycho potboiler a few years ago and his interpretation sucked. I always thought the original looked cool. Guy in a ski-mask, power tools being not used for their intended purposes, a blurb from Stephen King on the cover, probably written back when he was awesome and had a major drinking problem. I like how King calls it "one of the 10 scariest movies on video cassette." You get the feeling that there were only 20 horror movies on VHS when he wrote that.

The film's opening is great. There is about a half hour straight of nearly non-stop carnage. Easy-listening music is used wonderfully as young ladies are power-drilled, screwdrived and nail-gunned. The direction is kind of weird and artsy, sort of Giallo- American style.

(Minor Spoilers Ahead):
If you couldn't figure out by looking at the back of the DVD case that Cameron Mitchell is the killer, guess what? Cameron Mitchell is the killer. He kidnaps a 15 year old girl and ties her up, making believe that she is his deceased daughter. There are many genuinely scary and disturbing moments where Mitchell sings to her, feeds her and asks her what it was like to die.

It turns out that Cameron Mitchell's nephew is in on the whole thing and he has to kill some people as well to cover his uncle's tracks. The film's strongest sequence is the first third, it slows down considerably in the middle, and the ending is just okay. Overall it is a fun little piece of 70s shlock slasher horror, with extra points for intense creepiness. It is also about 10,000 times more fun that the 2003 remake.

Don't Go In The House

I currently have Fridays and Saturdays off. This leads to some strange Thursday nights. All my friends have to work on Friday, so Thursday night is usually a little pocket of solitude to kick off my weekend alone. 1:30 a.m., Thursday night: the girlfriend is asleep, the beer is cold, and I am scouring my shelves for something to watch. I need something sleazy, degraded, preferably from the late 1970s or early 1980s. It needs to be exploitation, but not too cheesy. I need something dark, something bizarre, something that stands the test of time but is so of its time that it takes me away from these foul times we inhabit. The answer is found with the "Grindhouse Psychos" box set and "Don't Go In The House".

This film is much better than any other film that I've ever seen with a title that begins with "Don't". Yes, it is even better than "Don't Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood", but that's sort of an apples and oranges comparison, isn't it. This particular "Don't" concerns a young man named Kohler, who lives with his mother in her giant, creepy house. We learn through flashbacks that she would burn his arms over the gas stovetop as a boy to "burn the evil" out of him. He now works at a giant trash burning incinerator plant. The film opens with a fellow worker of Kohler's tending the raging fire, not noticing a highly flammable aerosol can, presumably placed in the incinerator by the intently observant Kohler. The can explodes, dousing the worker in flames. Kohler does nothing but stare at the writhing, burning man. The fire effects are excellent and look way better than today's CGI cartoon blazes.

Kohler's superior berates him for not helping the man, calling him a "faggot" in the locker room. Kohler's buddy, who could easily be played by Michael Showalter if they ever remade this film, tries to get him to go to a bar after work to talk about the situation. As they stand outside the incinerator plant on a cold New Jersey or Long Island winter night, I realized that this film boasts some excellent photography. The darkness and swirling snow really captures the lonely weirdness of the small town Northeast winter experience. The winter setting also creates an interesting contrast to the fire that burns inside of Kohler, the fire which later manifests itself when he starts chaining up girls in a fireproof room and setting them ablaze. First, though, there is the matter of Kohler's mother.

He returns to work to find her dead in her chair. He is sad at first, then the voices in his head tell him that he is free at last. So he starts partying, turning his music up loud, smoking cigarettes in the house, jumping on the furniture. The voices goad him on. The sound of his mother screaming at him put his party to an end.
The whole look of the film is really great for what it is, a disturbing little psycho potboiler. But the house looks genuinely creepy, his room looks like what a disturbed man-child's room would look like, and so on. Once he fireproofs a room and buys a fireproof suit from an Army Navy store and starts convincing attractive young women to accompany him back to his house, often to see his "sick" mother, the film takes off. We watch his already damaged psyche erode as he kills the girls and keeps their scorched carcasses in a special room upstairs.

The psychology is right on the money, as far as the serial killer model goes. Child abuse is the first and foremost creator of serial killers, and this film really captures that. This is a non-exploitative exploitation film that had my eyes glued to the tube all night. There are genuinely frightening moments and the whole thing keeps a sustained tone of creepiness that will keep you watching intently. Definitely excellent viewing material for a late night beer session.

And the Crap Goes On....

So I had just about worn out my 100 movie "Bloody Nightmares" box set, when a look on amazon revealed something terrifying and interesting. Pendulum Pictures and Mill Creek had released TWO more 50 movie box sets recently. I bid on them and unfortunately won both on ebay.... I dived into the first set to arrive in the mail, "Mortuary of Madness".
50 more terrible, mostly shot on home video horror movies. How long, o Lord, how long....


Kill Syndrome This youtube quality ripoff of "The Devil's Rejects" was the first flick I watched from the "Mortuary of Madness" box. I was going to try and watch all the movies in the box in sequential order, but so many of these are completely unwatchable. If one of these flicks winds up on this blog, even if I tear it to shreds, it was better than some of the other films in these sets. I'd say two out of every five of these movies are completely unwatchable. This movie concerns a demented family that kidnap people, then torture and kill them in a storage unit. They film their nefarious deeds then sell the tapes to a snuff dealer. The bad guys are creepy looking and gross, but the endless scenes of ugly girl victims screaming and being tortured are extremely boring. I watched most of the torture scenes in fast forward. Some of the already boring and long torture scenes are shown in slow motion, only drawing them out further. This movie manages to feel very long for its 50 minute running length, maybe because its boring as hell. The ending is beyond lame and leaves the possibility open for a sequel. Yay.



Dead Teenagers Yet another film from Brain Damage studios. I went to their website and was surprised to see that a huge amount of their films are included in these Mill Creek box sets. In this film, a student in the library finds a notebook with 4 horror tales written in it. He reads em, and we watch em. The first one is called "The Boo Men", and though it is decently shot and pretty well put together, it is way too short and ultimately makes no sense. The second one is called "Full Moonlighting", an okay little werewolf story. Again, this one could have benefitted by being a little longer.
The third is a pretty bland haunted house story called "Skeleton Keys". The fourth and best story is called "Suckers". This one takes place in a real movie theatre, so it must have had the biggest budget. Its about Brian, a nerdy guy who works at the theatre with a very funny black kid named Kevin. Kevin is played by Joe Bahar, a young guy that should stick with acting. He's effortlessly funny. Kevin and Brian find a creepy old film reel in the theatre and strange things start happening. This story is the best out of this anthology because the people in it are interesting. Overall this was a decent, watchable horror anthology. The guy who made it, Chris LaMartina, must be pretty cool, because he thanks Mike Watt in the end credits.

I watched two more of these things today, so this shall be continued soon....

The Crap Keeps 'Splodin'! Straight to Video Mind Torture Continues.

As my ankle takes it time healing, I continued to wade through the dark underbelly of the sub-film sewer known as the Pendulum Pictures 100 movie set "Bloody Nightmares"...


Dead 7 Contrary to the horrendous cover art, this was actually one of the more technically competent movies I've seen so far in this box set. Once you get past the retarded intro by a severely annoying punk rocker in a leather jacket, this one is surprisingly okay. There is a frenetic style of camera work here, most likely influenced by early Raimi and Peter Jackson. The acting, is as usual, very bad, but there is some surprisingly good gore. The story concerns an evil meth dealer who kills an underling and dumps him down a mineshaft. A strange boy who lives in the woods witnesses it, so the bad guy tosses him down the shaft as well. For the rest of the movie, we witness just how much of an asshole the villain is (he strangles his girlfriend for getting fingerprints on a Steely Dan CD!). Towards the end, a mysterious person starts killing all his friends. Take a wild guess who it is. Anyways, this was somewhat enjoyable.


Dr. Shock's Tales of Terror
This collection of four zero budget horror tales comes from Ohio based Aftershock Studios. What is it with the mid-west and no-budget horror movies? The opening credits and the wacky host, Dr. Shock, are painfully lame. The short movies themselves are pretty fun, however. The first is an okay Mob/Vampire tale called "Bullet for the Vampire". Okay gore, and decent video quality and production values, in comparison to most of the other trash I've been watching. The 2nd is called "The Town That Loved Pizza", basically a Texas Chainsaw rip off about two hulking inbred brothers that kill people and put them on pizzas. Fun and stupid, without pretense to be anything more. The 3rd would be "The Garden Tool Murders", my favorite out of the four because it has the least story and the most gore out of all of them. A landscaper kills people with different garden tools. Thats it. The 4th and worst one is called "Demon's Day". There is a prostitute in this one that for the life of me I couldn't identify as a man or a woman. This one was pretty painful and retarded. Not like anyone reading this will ever watch it anyway. This flick was overall a somewhat entertaining experience.


Hell's Highway
This was definitely one of the best movies that I have seen so far on my excursion into the depths of straight to video crapfests. It even has a big star in it: Ron Jeremy! He's in it for all of 2 minutes, but he gets his dick bit off, so its pretty memorable. This one is about a stretch of highway in Death Valley where an evil hitchhiker kills people trying to pass through. There is plenty of impressive gore and even a totally bizarre surprise ending that I didn't see coming a mile away. Oh, and everyone is drinking Mickey's Malt Liquor the whole time, which I liked. Definitely a cut above most of the crap in this set.


The Invitation
This started out promisingly enough. The video quality and direction is decent and the girls are actually pretty good looking. It actually succeeds in being creepy, which is saying something. A group of kids accidentally kill a kid they don't like when they are little. 14 years later, they get an invitation for a reunion at a country resort. Then a bunch of ghostly mayhem begins. I would have liked this more if it was a straight ahead slasher flick, as cheesy ghosts don't do anything for me. In fact, I wrote in my notebook: "Ghosty Borey". The film completely falls apart towards the end and has an extremely lame ending.


Las Vegas Blood Bath
I'm extremely surprised to find that this sells for $31.98 used on VHS on amazon! This is basically a plotless rip off of Maniac, with some dork named Ari Levin trying to be Joe Spinelli. Its from 1989, and has many unintentionally hilarious things on display. Ari's wife cheats on him, so he cuts her head off and rides around killing women and talking to her head on the Vegas strip. Just as you are starting to enjoy this movie, there is a pointless, half hour long scene of a girl's baby shower. I know they were just trying to pad out the running time, but this is truly ridiculous. There are also scenes of oil wrestling by "B.L.O.W.", the "Beautiful Ladies of Oil Wrestling". This film is so incredibly inept, stupid and sleazy that it gets my recommendation, if only to see just how bad a movie can be. The end theme song, by Chris Crump and David Royal Dalton, is incredibly funny, as well. Phew, I need to go wash my brain now.
The amazing end theme:

The Straight to Video Crap Explosion Continues...

I really thought I could never watch another crappy straight to video, shot on video film.... then I sprained my ankle. I was given a prescription for magic pain pills which make these utterly retarded "films" somehow strangely watchable. These reviews are a continuation of an earlier series about this gigantic diarrhea explosion of a boxed dvd set I was stupid enough to buy...
Aided only with prescription painkillers and my natural sadomasochistic viewing tendencies, I forged ahead....

Mayhem Motel
I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was shot on film. That's about where the pleasant surprises ended. If I had known the cover art looked like this, I would probably have liked the film significantly less. Its not a horror film by a huge margin, and this artwork makes it look like one. The movie is a bunch of vaguely connected vignettes that revolve around one hotel and range from unpleasant to disgusting to strangely hilarious.
One of the first images in the film is an overweight, hairy man getting into a bathtub. He leans forward and pukes into the water. It looks completely real. Then it cuts to another scene. The movie proceeds like this, showing you something disgusting then cutting to something "hilarious" like two mimes having sex. There is tons of disgusting sex humor, and I ain't gonna lie to you, some of it made me laugh. The movie ends with some good ole necrophelia, then a guy randomly shooting himself. This movie made zero sense and was very disgusting, but it kept my attention. I gleaned some interesting information from the closing credits:
"Some characters and concepts from Matt Biancaniello's one man performance 'purge'" Wow, that must be an incredible one man show. The cheesy nu-metal end theme song was by "Pleasurecrush" which is almost as cheesy as a name for a band as "KandleKrush" from Tom Goes To The Mayor.
And, most telling of all: "Special thanks to all of the motels and thier owners... ... they had no clue." Their misspelling is thiers not mine.


Next on my brain punishing double feature was "Dead Body Man" by some dude named Ryan Cavelline who made a bunch of the crapfests in this set. This one is basically a horror comedy about a wacky serial killer named Willie who wears a Freddy Kruger sweater and kind of looks like Bam Margera. The movie opens with a retarded guy picking up a hooker. Guess what? He's not really retarded, he's Willie the serial killer! He chops up bodies and sells them as meat, and all for God, who lives in his closet and tells him to kill. The movie turns out to be a ripoff of "Basket Case", as Willie has a deformed twin brother attached to his side. Although seemingly endless and pointless, there are some things that deserve a little bit o praise. Eddie Benevich's extremely over the top performance definitely kept my attention. He has some golden dialog, like when he tells a captive victim "You've never had sex till you've had sex with a chicken!"
There is basically zero special effects and the gore is extremely lame and amateurish. I would never recommend this to anyone in a million years, I'm just trying to keep you people abreast of what I'm doing with my life so that I don't lose my mind. I was surprised to see that there are TWO sequels to this already out.

Uncle Jesse and Vanity Versus Tranny Gene Simmons

Click on pic to see the entire Turkish cover.


Wow, where do I start? As the extremely lame titular theme song plays and the credits roll, I sit, my mouth agape, my eyes hollow orbs. Even the Rubinoff bloody mary I am sipping cannot bring me back to reality after this insanity. My first emotion is that I feel that I've been cheated by not knowing about this movie already. I mean, it was released in 1986. That's 23 years that I have been walking around, with no idea that this movie existed. I guess that's a good thing, however. If I had seen this when it came out, back in 86, when I was 6 years old, I can say that it definitely would have altered my development as a person. Maybe for good, but I imagine it would have severely screwed me up and I would now be a tranny nightclub performer, like Gene Simmons as "Ragnar" in "Never Too Young to Die", today's movie.
(That was a roundabout way to introduce this movie, I'm no Dana Hersey, I suppose.)

Uncle Jesse, known to some as Mr. Jon Stamos, plays Lance Stargrove, a champion gymnast that has his own theme song sung by someone named Tommie Lee Bradley that goes "Stargrove! Stargrove!" His mortal enemy is the man/woman that killed his father, Ragnar. Ragnar lives in this big Mad Max looking desert fortress and kills people with his giant Lee Press On nails. I didn't think it was possible, but this is an even stranger gymnast action movie than "Gymkata."
Vanity is some sort of secret agent who lives on a farm. We first meet her as she is being accosted by two large Mad Max biker looking bad guys. She beats them up and forces one guy's face into a pile of horse doodie. She says "Eat shit." God, that woman has so much class. To give you an idea of how bat-shit insane this movie is, let me try to list what happens next:
Vanity shoots a bad guy. He goes flying into a wall and knocks a gas can down. The gas, for some reason, starts a fire in some hay, right next to a box clearly marked "Grenades". She grabs Jon Stamos and they jump out of the barn while it explodes. All this happens in the span of maybe 8 seconds.

Vanity spends alot of time scantily clad, which is always a good thing. All I could think about while watching her was the Motley Crue band autobiography, "The Dirt". Around this time she was dating Nikki Sixx, who said she smoked more crack than anyone he had ever seen in his life. That's saying something, coming from Nikki Sixx. She looks mighty healthy, however! Vanity and Stargrove go to a gross tranny bar to see Ragnar's gross tranny nightclub act and there, when asked by a gross tranny waitereress what he wants to drink, Stargrove says "I'd like a Lube Job." Of all the things to order from a gross tranny server! His order excites the tranny. Vanity orders a Bloody Mary and a cigar. Who the hell ever smokes a cigar and drinks a Bloody Mary? Weird combo. I don't recommend eating during this scene, because Ragnar's cabaret act is so gross and creepy and weird, its liable to make you nauseous.

The whole movie seems like it was made in a cocaine blizzard, with everyone but Stamos overacting in the extreme. Then there's the fact that the movie pretty much makes zero sense and you get the idea that cocaine, or at least crack played a large roll in the making of the film. Every single frame of the movie is completely ridiculous and I really couldn't even begin to list all of the insane crap in here. If the idea of Gene Simmons as an evil tranny versus Uncle Jesse and Vanity gets your dander up, I say seek this one out. I guess its pretty rare, but they have for rent at Hollywood Express in Somerville. Oh, I should also mention that I was drinking Rubinoff bloody maries during this film on a snowy, rainy, crappy day in Somerville. Rubinoff is made in Somerville at Allan's LTD, where most fine spirits originate. Even through my spicy bloody mary mix I could taste that slight antifreeze flavor of Rubinoff. Oh yeah, and there is brief Vanity nudity in the movie!

Straight to Video Crap Explosion

Back in September or so, I found a Border's gift card under the seat of my car. I have no idea where the card came from, but it was worth $30. I decided I would spend it on something really stupid. I found what I was looking for in a boxed set of 100 horror movies called "Bloody Nightmares". This set combines two previously released 50 movie boxes: "Decrepit Crypt of Nightmares" and "Tomb of Terror". Mill Creek has been releasing these 50 movie DVD packs for awhile now, and for the money they are a good buy if you are a crap movie addict with just a touch of sadomasochism in your mental ingredients. Many of these films, even in some of the "better" collections like "Chilling Classics" and "Drive In Movie Classics" are definitely in the "so bad they're good" category. But this one hundred movie diarrhea explosion of amateur level horror movies takes a special kind of viewer. A viewer who loves pain, and drinks heartily to quench that pain. A viewer with iron resolve, iron will and an iron beer gut.
All 100 of these films represent below the bottom of the barrel video swill. Some of them are so amateurish and crappy that they make movies I made with my friends in my backyard when I was 13 look like Cecil B. DeMille. I will say that basically none of these movies merit recommendation, but I will share my experience for future generations of self destructive film critics and also to show my readership exactly how very serious I am about my art and how ready I am to suffer for it. This is the ultimate in cinematic self sacrifice, the film critic's version of kamikaze.
(Author's Note: This entry will be added to as I wade my way through this sea of cinematic sewage, new entries will appear as I continue to torture myself with these horrendous movies.)




The Traveler
The very first film I watched out of this buttload of crap films turned out to be one of the best. As it started, I sighed with the usual "why am I doing this to myself" feeling of regret as soon as I saw the cut-rate video and sound quality. Strangely enough, however, the film grabbed me. The pacing is decent, and it turns out to be a very sick and disturbed little chunk of homemade horror. The gore effects are extremely well done for the seemingly non-existent budget. Some of the stuff in here was actually so gross that it made me feel nauseous. If you are stupid enough to buy the "Tomb Of Terrors" box set, this is the best film in there. And, while it is horrendous, it stands head and shoulders above the rest of the garbage it is packaged with.

Demon Sex
This is unwatchable crap about a demon strain of alien DNA or something. It stars a bunch of fat dorks and a bunch of strippers and Brinke Stevens. The demon stripper girls can only get turned on when they see blood, sounds like an entertaining premise, right? No entertainment is to be found here. This is horrible.

Soul of the Demon
This one turned out to be a goofy bit of early 90s/late 80s fun. Definitely of the "so bad its good" category. The main characters are a bunch of lame rockers who have some amazing dialog. There is one awesome broham who gets killed way too early. He has some amazing lines and has to be heard to be believed. He walks in late to a seance party his mulleted friends are having with a six pack and some pizzas. He says "Did you guys conjure up any evil spirits? Pinhead? Jason? Chucky? If they had known we had pizza, they might have stayed and partied with us! Brew-ha anyone?" Incredible. Definitely one of the most entertainingly bad films to be had in the "Tomb Of Terrors" box. Actually has some good gore, as well.

Redneck County Fever
This film contains no gore, no hot girls in bikinis screaming in prison and basically nothing to make it stand alongside the other splatterfests it is packaged with. Well, maybe the fact that it was shot on a camcorder and is really bad makes it a suitable addition to the "Tomb of Terrors". This film is about two jerks in Zubaz who get lost in a rural Texas town. The film is neither funny or exciting in any way, but for some strange reason is sort of palatable. At only 60 minutes, it doesn't outstay its welcome, but unless you are really hungover and have nothing to do, like when I watched it, those 60 minutes will most likely feel like they were robbed from you.

Slasher (1987) This is a strangely re-edited version of "Blood Cult".
This movie was considered Z-Grade when it was released in 1985. Compared to the newer swill in these box sets, it looks incredible. This version of the 85 film is from 1997, and among the many crappy re-edits that are supposed to hide the fact that it is in fact an older movie, the sound cuts out for the last half hour. Not that it was that good in the first place. This is a crappy re-edit of a crappy film and thus is extremely crappy. A couple good gore scenes and somewhat professional looking camera work make it look impressive in comparison to the other crap fests in this box set.

Kill Them and Eat Them

More unwatchable crap, this time about mutants terrorizing street people. The theme music is good, and there is some cool old school looking animation, but overall, this is a snooze-fest.

Purvos

More unwatchable crap, this time about a perverted serial killer clown named "Purvos". This one amazed me by how unattractive all the women were. I passed out within an hour of putting it on.

Garbage: The Wizard of Gore (2007)

This remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis's cheesy 1970 gorefest is a completely horrendous piece of shit. I don't want to waste too much bandwith talking about it, it already stole nearly 2 hours of my life from me. Its basically an example of everything wrong with modern filmmaking, from crappy CGI, hipster shilling ("Featuring The Suicide Girls!"), horrible music and nonstop hooks. A movie just can't be one thing anymore, it has to be 20 things. This film had 5 producers, and I imagine that had something with its scattershot, try for everything and fail at everything style. I will save my review of Korbel Brandy for another review, because I honestly don't want this piece of garbage taking up too much space in my blog. I will say that Crispin Glover is the only reason to watch it, but even he isn't in it enough. Easily the worst film I've seen in a long, long time. Insulting to fans of the original and fans of Crispin Glover. It sucks that the genius who did this would lend his talent to such a inferior film.

Ninja 3: The Domination and the Dominant 40 Ounce

Author's note:  This is the first Fermented Film entry written on my fancy pants new laptop.  Its a Mac Book and it cost me a smooth $1300.  I also wanted to note that I keep several loaded guns on me at all times, and that this Mac Book is equipped to play "Living La Vida Loca" at top volume endlessly if it is ever stolen.  So keep that in mind while you contemplate making the trip all the way to Saskatchewan to steal this fancy pants ass Mac Book.  Also, writing a Fermented Film review with my fancy Mac Book poses problems.  As I don't write these things in an academic setting, 

it will be resting on my lap while I imbibe.  This poses

some challenges.  I really don't want to spill anything on this damn thing.  Well, we'll see.  I might have to go back to writing these things on my Game Boy.  That is all, now enjoy the

 blog.  

Ninja III: The Domination.  1984, Rated R.  Directed by the Venerable Sam Firstenberg.  

Olde English 800.  40 Oz.  $2.25 at Woody's Liquors, Somerville, Saskatchewan.

Olde English is THE 40.  Delicious, smooth and packs that malt liquor punch.      This heady brew is responsible for the lives of millions of my brain cells.  Baseball has Babe Ruth, Wrestling has Hulk Hogan, Weed has Cypress Hill and Malt Liquor has OE.  The 40 for all seasons.  

   I settled down to finally view the infamous "Ninja III: The Domination" and enjoyed the unmistakeable hiss of my 40 of OE as I cracked the top.   

Word to the wise: if a movie is from the years 1983, 1984 and 1985 and its a Golan-Globus production, there is a nine in ten chance that it will be incredible.  This film continues the Golan-Globus tradition of excellence and improves upon it.  It is quite simply one of the most bizarre, entertaining films I have ever seen.  I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself by declaring that right now.  But before I can even begin to delve into this mind blowing viewing experience, I have to get that out of my system.  This movie is the balls.  

It opens with an Asian American guy in a business suit walking into a cave.  He opens a glowing rock and it is full of ninja weapons.  He suits up and heads to a golf course.  The first ten minutes of this movie can only be described as completely amazing.  A yuppie guy, apparently a politician, is out golfing with his ladyfriend and a squad of security guys.  He slices and hits the ball toward some bushes.  The ninja steps out, picks up the golf ball and crushes it in his hand.  He beats the hell out of a security guy and thus begins a display of mayhem that rolls for a solid ten minutes.  I can't even begin to describe all the great things that happen here.  You're better off just watching the clip on youtube.  If you can watch this and then not want to see the full movie, you're damaged:

I like how the cop calls in a 10-20, is that cop talk for a ninja massacre at the golf course?  Thanks to Jack Melcher for that observation.  In fact, Jack, my roommate, walked into the living room midway through this insanity and said he could only watch a couple of minutes of the movie.  I rewound it back to the golf ball crushing and he wound up rooted to his chair, watching nearly the entire movie with me.   

Meanwhile, hot to def 80s lady Lucinda Dickey (the white girl from "Breakin"!) is nearby, working on a phone pole (!).  The dying ninja runs out and basically shoots his soul into her.  I really don't want to give too too much of this movie away, as it is some of the most damn fun you'll ever have watching a movie.  I really mean that.  This movie is one of the pinnacles of modern American cinema.  You've got the beautiful Dickey possessed by the spirit of an evil ninja.  I can give that much away.  Beyond that, the film is pure Gonzo B Movie lunacy, which each scene more absurd than the last.  This is a ninja/cute 80s girl/slasher/exorcist/haunted house action horror hybrid that kicks more ass than a donkey.  

If I were to do a scene by scene breakdown of all the ridiculous shit in this movie, this review would be the size of War and Peace.  

I would hate to sound like I am condoning drinking, as some of my very good friends are sober and have had problems with the hooch in the past.  But, do yourself a favor.  Find a copy of this movie (which is hard, this classic isn't on Deev yet!  It really should be.), settle down with some good friends and plenty of your beverage of choice.  I recommend a malt liquor beverage in a large glass jug.  Pop this baby in and enjoy the ride.  If you know me, hell, even if you don't, get in touch and I will gladly watch this and drink with you.  Utmost thanks go to Danny Cashman for letting me borrow this gem from him!  Once again, THE king of crap movie collecting has proven his dominance.  Mr. Cashman, I salute you.  

In closing, this film is incredible, and is a Holy Grail of 80s junk cinema. 

The Honeymoon Killers (1970) [R] Directed and Written by Leonard Kastle

Popov Vodka($8.99 750 ML) and Polar Tonic ($ .89 1L) with lemon slices

I picked up a VHS copy of “The Honeymoon Killers” at good old Mystery Train Records in Amherst, where the owners recognized me and even remembered when I had a broken leg! (That’s going back almost 9 years now! Holy shit, I’m old.) I loved Mystery Train so much that I had the Umass Special Transportation van bring me there. Its weird that I look back on a winter I spent on crutches at Umass as one of the best times of my life, but I really had a good thing going there. I couldn’t go anywhere, so people came to me. My room became a salon in the Owl Farm Kitchen sense. People of many backgrounds could stop in and enjoy the site of me controlling everything in the room with a crutch, drinking 40s, peeing in 40s, and more. Man, that’s incredible that was that long ago. Fuck.
Well, what better way to celebrate getting old, the crashing economy and political incompetence at every level than to buy a bottle of Popov and a bottle of tonic and a lemon and settle in to watch an unbelievably dark and disturbing movie? I use run on sentences, but I do it with impunity, because no editor with a lick of sense will publish this goddamn thing, and no one reads it but my friends. So, fuck the Style book, I’m writing my own! Writing my own Style book, that is. Shit, maybe I actually need an editor. Where is my Jann Wenner, or better yet, Larry Flynt? Or Jill Kelly? (She used to be the “Publisher” of “Fox” Magazine. I found this out while spending a winter on crutches at Umass.)
Tonight’s movie and drink pairing was a study in contrasts. The Vodka Tonic is a summery drink. The look and taste of it brings to mind sultry nights and care free days. Or in my case, hung over, sweaty days spent doing hard labor. The kind of sweaty, hung over labor that can raise a man’s thirst, a thirst that can only be slaked with Vodka Tonic. And so the cycle repeats.
The film, on the other hand, is a dark, demented, depressing, disturbing film noir. The look and feel of it is like a winter spent on crutches on Cape Cod, yet somehow even worse. Probably because it all really happened! A ominous blurb at the beginning tells us that the film is based on a True Story. The film is from 1970, but has the look and feel of a 1950s film noir. It was shot in black and white, on somewhat grainy film stock, and the music is by Mahler.
The film is shot very interestingly, making great use of the contrast between black and white. The pacing and editing is excellent, as well. From my viewing notes: “Movie is so weird and atmospheric that its hard for me to take notes. Don’t want to miss anything.”
The story concerns Martha Beck and Ray Fernandez. She is an overweight, lonesome nurse who lives with her mom in Alabama, and he is her New Yorkian romantic pen-pal in a lonely hearts correspondence program. Ah, the days before the internet. Now, I can get hit on by latin men and think they are 18 year old girls the entire time! Or I can start up a hot relationship with a stunning webcam girl because her friend told her about my myspace page. Well, this film shows that true, horrendous evil has always been around, even before this age of computerized lust and lies.
Ray comes to Alabama to visit Martha and she falls head over heels in love with him. They give her mom a sleeping pill and make implied love with her in the room. Gross. He leaves her the next day, and we see him chuckling and counting her money on the train. He is a con man who has multiple relationships with women all over the country through this correspondence program. He beds em, promises to wed em, and takes their money. Martha calls him and says that she will kill herself if she can’t be with him. She comes to New York, and there is an amazing scene where she abandons her aging mother in Alabama. He shows her what he has really been up to and he is pleased to see that she still loves him and would kill herself if she couldn’t be with him. He tells her that he can get money from another woman if he weds her.
He takes Martha along, with her as his “sister”. They rip the new fake wife off. Ray is shown as the weaker of the two, with Martha being the strong arm. The fake wife leaves with her life. Lucky for her.
Their M.O. is in place. Ray seduces a lonely lady, goes to meet her with Martha posing as his sister and they rip her off and flee. The next fake wife poses a real problem, as she really wants to sleep with Ray and Martha is insanely jealous. Ray makes his fake wife sleep with his fake sister. The acting by Shirley Stoler as Martha Beck in this scene is amazing. She just looks so damn ugly, fat, scary and evil looking. They make the fake wife take a bunch of pills. There is an excruciatingly heartbreaking scene where Ray forces her on a bus to Little Rock and takes her money, as she is all fucked up on pills and still wants to be with him. She dies on the bus.
The next victim is a rich lady in Pittsfield, MA, who runs the Tanglewood. She attempts to make out with Ray at a lake and Martha sees it going down. She screams “YOU PROMISED! YOU PROMISED!” then tries to drown herself. This fake wife also gets away, its never explained, but I guess she told them to get lost.
I don’t want to give too much more away, but I will say that they keep repeating their M.O., and it gets worse and worse. You get to see lonely widowers sadistically lied to, mislead, then killed and robbed. Its fucking horrible. And, they start to like it. I have yet to research the actual case, but at the end of the film it says that they were both electrocuted in Sing Sing in 1951. As the credits roll, you will say “wow”. The sign of a great film. Definitely not for everyone, but as a film about a horrific string of real murders, this is well done, non-exploitative fare. One of the best true crime serial killer films I've ever seen.  

Tony Lo Blanco and Shirley Stoler as Ray Fernandez and Martha Beck

{Author's note:  sorry about the tangential start of this post.  I hadn't drank for a couple days and I hadn't written one of these in a while.  I was sort of scared of writing about this movie, as it was disturbing as hell.  I don't mean what I wrote about the Style Book.  I actually own one, and the Grammer Book, too.  I just like to act cool.  I should also mention that Dan Cashman recommended that I buy this film, and that is why I bought it.  Thanks, Dan!}

I couldn't find a trailer for this film on youtube, so here's a video by the band The HoneyMoon Killers: