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J.T.

By J.T.
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Curt McGirt

Curt McGirt

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Lair of the White Worm needs to be on constant El Rey late night rotation. 

Let us know how Rabid stacks up because I recall it being the least interesting Cronenberg film next to Scanners (which was just horribly acted, besides Michael Ironside being Michael Ironside. Also, how badass of a name is Michael Ironside? I know a woman actually birth-named Danielle Outlaw and that is only the second most badass real name I've come across). 

While we're on the topic, did anyone like Cosmopolis or Maps to the Stars? 

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FluffSnackwell

FluffSnackwell

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I wanted to see Lair Of The White Worm for years from either seeing snippets of it peeking around the corner while my dad was getting baked watching it in the next room and full-page ads in magazines. I finally saw it on EPIX a few years ago and it knocked it out of the park on all fronts: camp, mythology and of course erotic horror comedy. Lady Sylvia is my favorite on-screen vampire second only to Mr. Barlow.

Never seen Rabid before. Either I always got it confused with Shivers which I have seen several times or read the plot and decided it wasn't different enough from Shivers to even give a go. Scanners played on TCM Underground this past weekend (along with some hospital thriller called Coma starring Michael Douglas. Rip Torn and Richard Skidmark) so it's OnDemand for the next week. I've probably only seen it once and didn't really give two shits about it one way or the other; perfectly watchable for the exploding heads but nothing worth owning. Gonna check it out again since it's something I'm not overly familiar with like The Brood, Videodrome or The Fly.

 

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J.T.

J.T.

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10 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Lair of the White Worm needs to be on constant El Rey late night rotation. 

Let us know how Rabid stacks up because I recall it being the least interesting Cronenberg film next to Scanners (which was just horribly acted, besides Michael Ironside being Michael Ironside. Also, how badass of a name is Michael Ironside? I know a woman actually birth-named Danielle Outlaw and that is only the second most badass real name I've come across). 

While we're on the topic, did anyone like Cosmopolis or Maps to the Stars? 

Rabid is pretty standard for Cronenberg.  Not spectacular but nothing really blown either and it is an interesting take on the vampire story.

It has the infamy of being the mainstream movie debut of porn star, Marilyn Chambers. 

She does a pretty good job of being both vulnerable and menacing at the same time.  She's topless for a lot of her screen time. 

Normally you would think that's exploitative, but Ivan Reitman (who cast Chambers in the role over Cronenberg's objections) said that the nudity was strategic because he wanted Rose's sensuality constantly on display.  Again, this is pretty much a vampire movie. 

Rose is a predator, but she uses her physical attractiveness as bait.... just as a vampire uses glamour to snare its victims.

The premise is still pretty ludicrous:

Spoiler

Rose receives horrible burns after being in a motorcycle accident and somehow receives a retractable appendage in her armpit after a round of experimental plastic surgery that uses her own cloned tissue.

The stinger paralyzes and drains blood from her victims when she holds them and her cells mutate so that she cannot eat solid food anymore.

Her stinger transfer a mutagen to her enemies that turns them into rage zombies (ie. they are "rabid.")  who in turn attack and infect other people or outright kill them.

So yep, she's a vampire and her victims are vampiric thralls.

but as a consumer of B-Horror for all of these years, I've certainly seen worse.

One comforting thing is that the movie still has Cronenberg's trademark unapolotgetic style as there are one or two scenes that are really brutal, but body horror is such an interesting genre because the afflictions play no favorites and anyone (men, women, children, old and young people) can be a potential monster.

That's the quality about zombie movies that George Romero found interesting.  The idea of someone you know or love suddenly attacking you and being blissfully mindless about it, while you are engaged in a physical struggle trying to avoid being eaten and also engaged in a mental struggle trying to shake off the emotional attachment to the thing attacking you that used to be someone you cared about.

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J.T.

J.T.

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I've always loved Lair of the White Worm.  As I said in my post about Rawhead Rex.  Lair is a remarkably self aware movie. 

I thought Cosmopolis was pretty good, but it is not what you'd expect from a Cronenberg movie (ie. it is a psychological thriller with no body horror elements to speak of).

I'd recommend reading a review or two or better yet, reading Don DeLillo's novel before watching it so you'll know what you're getting into.

I've heard good things about Maps To The Stars but I haven't seen it yet.

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S.K.o.S.

S.K.o.S.

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http://theplaylist.net/the-20-most-exciting-horror-films-to-coming-2017-20170131/

Two that caught my eye that I hadn't already heard of:

Housewife: The director of Baskin is making an English-language movie.  He says "If you say Baskin is like my Carpenter and Stephen King homage, this is going to be Argento and Fulci."

Mohawk: From the director of We Are Still Here.  He calls it “a horrifying home invasion film where the home is North America itself.”  And Luke Harper is in it!

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Curt McGirt

Curt McGirt

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I think that Baskin director got translated wrong because that movie is damn sure an homage to Fulci and Argento in several ways.

Me and a friend tried to watch 31 by Rob Zombie (apparently for the third time, for him -- he works ten hour shifts and him and his gal drop any time they put on a movie) the other night but fell asleep after trying to polish off a bottle of Jim Beam Bonded. I will say, the intro is awesome, and I dug the carnies (Meg Foster! Even though she looks like she's 90). We crashed right when the carnage started so maybe that's for best?

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FluffSnackwell

FluffSnackwell

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The killers or "heads" (as they were called) seemed to only serve the purpose of being silly ass jokes (including chainsaw clown brothers one of whom a buddy and me jokingly kept trying to guess if he was actually played by anybody notable....I guessed Dustin Diamond and my buddy Daniel Stern; it was actually the guy who got an ATM dropped on his head on Breaking Bad). That is up until the final boss who may be Zombie's most iconic creation yet; even if his motif was totally cribbed from and supposed to evoke The Joker. I will say that the early preliminary joke round villains did provide one pretty gruesome moment....

Spoiler

.....which was by far more gruesome and mean-spirited than any of the chainsaw kills in the recent TCM remakes/reboots. I also totally bought the Hitler midget jumping from around the corner the way he did (perched off something) being able to ambush somebody that way and it reminded me of those ugly little bastards from The Brood and how they pounced on their victims.  

 

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Roman

Roman

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Poltergeist III was an abominable shitbucket. Horrible story, retarded characters and some of the most atrocious acting I've ever witnessed. The worst part is that about 15 minutes of that movie were quite good. If it had been all bad, it was easy to dismiss it as just that, a really bad movie, but those few moments made me think that they had something there, however minute, and fucked it up.

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J.T.

J.T.

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Urgh.  In the shitty tradition of Annabelle spinning off from The Conjuring, there will be a spin-off from The Conjuring 2 focusing on the nun incarnation of the demon, Valac, the primary antagonist.

The film will simply be entitled, The Nun.

I will probably end up skipping that just like I skipped Annabelle.

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Curt McGirt

Curt McGirt

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Two David J. Schow books (you might remember him from screenplays for The Crow, Texas Chainsaw III, Texas Chainsaw The Beginning, part of Nightmare on Elm St. 5) have arrived in the mail so my at-hand level of snarky, gory horror makes it unnecessary to revisit Rob Zombie's ass again. I prefer the printed form in this case. And somebody REALLY needs to try and film "Not From Around Here" but they'd probably ruin it. 

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Technico Support

Technico Support

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19 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

I think that Baskin director got translated wrong because that movie is damn sure an homage to Fulci and Argento in several ways.

Me and a friend tried to watch 31 by Rob Zombie (apparently for the third time, for him -- he works ten hour shifts and him and his gal drop any time they put on a movie) the other night but fell asleep after trying to polish off a bottle of Jim Beam Bonded. I will say, the intro is awesome, and I dug the carnies (Meg Foster! Even though she looks like she's 90). We crashed right when the carnage started so maybe that's for best?

 

18 hours ago, FluffSnackwell said:

The killers or "heads" (as they were called) seemed to only serve the purpose of being silly ass jokes (including chainsaw clown brothers one of whom a buddy and me jokingly kept trying to guess if he was actually played by anybody notable....I guessed Dustin Diamond and my buddy Daniel Stern; it was actually the guy who got an ATM dropped on his head on Breaking Bad). That is up until the final boss who may be Zombie's most iconic creation yet; even if his motif was totally cribbed from and supposed to evoke The Joker. I will say that the early preliminary joke round villains did provide one pretty gruesome moment....

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.....which was by far more gruesome and mean-spirited than any of the chainsaw kills in the recent TCM remakes/reboots. I also totally bought the Hitler midget jumping from around the corner the way he did (perched off something) being able to ambush somebody that way and it reminded me of those ugly little bastards from The Brood and how they pounced on their victims.  

 

So is 31 any good?  I'm a fan of Zombie and most of his movies, though Halloween 2 can eat a dick, but his white trash aesthetic can be grating when he pushes it too far.

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J.T.

J.T.

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On 2/3/2017 at 8:28 AM, Technico Support said:

So is 31 any good?  I'm a fan of Zombie and most of his movies, though Halloween 2 can eat a dick, but his white trash aesthetic can be grating when he pushes it too far.

31 is a very polarizing movie.  It is obviously trying to build on the Firefly family universe, but Devil's Rejects is a hard act to follow and it is a far divergence from Zombie's most recent movie, Lords of Salem.

Lords of Salem was no Citizen Kane, but I enjoyed it because it looked like a sign that Rob Zombie was trying to do something different thematically while still retaining the retro 70's exploitation movie vibe he seems to love.

Surprisingly, my main criticism of 31 is that while there is plenty of blood, there is precious little gore.  I am no gore hound, but if ever there was a movie that had the feel that gore would actually be contextual instead of exploitative, it's this one.  I was a little disappointed by the lack of visceral scenes.

If you a lover of bizarre cameos, this is the movie for you.  The cast includes everyone from EG Daily (Pee Wee's Big Adventure and The Rugrats cartoon) to Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (Welcome Back, Kotter) to former porn star, Ginger Lynn.

I thought it was an acceptable addition to the Zombie Firefly-verse, but that's not saying much and this movie is nothing I'd feel like revisiting for a while.

 

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Roman

Roman

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Train to Busan was an entertaining enough zombie flick. Pretty standard overall, but fun for what it was. I wasn't a fan of the strange soldier reasoning at the end, though, and the comeuppance of the obligatory 'selfish asshole' was very unsatisfactory after all the shit he pulled.

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Technico Support

Technico Support

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On 2/4/2017 at 3:19 AM, J.T. said:

31 is a very polarizing movie.  It is obviously trying to build on the Firefly family universe, but Devil's Rejects is a hard act to follow and it is a far divergence from Zombie's most recent movie, Lords of Salem.

Lords of Salem was no Citizen Kane, but Ienjoyed it because it looked like a sign that Rob Zombie was trying to do something different thematically while still retaining the retro 70's exploitation movie vibe he seems to love.

Surprisingly, my main criticism of 31 is that while there is plenty of blood, there is precious little gore.  I am no gore hound, but if ever there was a movie that had the feel that gore would actually be contextual instead of exploitative, it's this one.  I was a little disappointed by the lack of visceral scenes.

If you a lover of bizarre cameos, this is the movie for you.  The cast includes everyone from EG Daily (Pee Wee's Big Adventure and The Rugrats cartoon) to Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (Welcome Back, Kotter) to former porn star, Ginger Lynn.

I thought it was an acceptable addition to the Zombie Firefly-verse, but that's not saying much and this movie is nothing I'd feel like revisiting for a while.

 

Cool, thanks a lot for the info.  I'll probably check it out next time I'm in a strange city for work with nothing else to do.  I really enjoyed Lords of Salem as well.  The plot was pretty thin but it was heavy enough on style that it didn't feel like I wasted my time.  Rob's gotta stop casting Sheri Moon in his films, though, unless in a minor role.  She's just not an actress and can't carry a lead.

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