Hellraiser: The Ultimate Movie Marathon

Another epic evening, another entire franchise of horror movies covered. The entire team (myself, Tropical Mary, Stygian Mole and The Occult Specialist) gathered for this one. With 9 movies ahead of us, it lay quite comfortably between the perhaps-overly long Friday the 13th marathon and the rather short Nightmare on Elm Street one. Plus, if I’m honest, the four of us are more than a little depraved and the prospect of spending the next 15 hours watching Pinhead-style torture was more than a little exciting. Couple that with the fact that we’d all taken a 3-day weekend and we were good to go 🙂

The day began as so many Ultimate Movie Marathon days do. We landed at Tropical Mary’s house at 10 hundred hours with a planned commencement time of 11 hundred hours. The fridge was stocked with many a litre of Coke, the snacks were in bowls and several of Tropical Mary’s amazing blankets were at hand to ward off the ravages of a Cape Town winter. With a few libatory coffees in us, we sat down and began the great trek through 24 years of Pinhead madness, blood spillage and what I think is one of the best horror franchises out there.

HELLRAISER

Year of Release: 1987
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 7 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

And so we begin with Pinhead’s first adventure, and from the very get-go the movie was incredibly gooey. In the beginning (or the 80s), there was The Cube, and Frank Cotton wanted it. Not content with mundane regular sex and pleasure, Frank wanted to explore the absolute extremes of pleasure and sensation. Little did Frank know, however, that such delights really only equated to having inter-dimensional chains fly out, bore into his skin and rip him to shreds before being dragged back into the other dimension by a pin-headed man with a serious leather fetish. Perhaps not the auto-erotic evening he had in mind, but it does set the tone for the movie delightfully.

Later on we meet the other Cottons: Frank’s brother Larry, Larry’s wife Julia, and Larry’s daughter Kirsty. Larry and Julia are moving into the old family home where, unbeknownst to them, Frank was torn to shreds and drained into the floor. During the moving process Larry cuts his hand on a razor-sharp nail head and bleeds all over the new / old floors. This somehow revives a somewhat juicy Frank and, when Julia discovers him dripping all over the attic, it brings back memories of their passionate affair and epic chin snogging. The usually ice queenish Julia is now filled with blood rage and brings Frank a never-ending stream of victims that he can use to rebuild himself.

Kirsty, being super intelligent by virtue of the powers vested in her by her epic hair and mom jeans, knows that something really bad is going on but struggles to come to terms with her gooey uncle running around the house. A problem arises when Pinhead and the other Cenobites (affectionately dubbed Lips McCoy, Tracheotomy Girl and Phat Morpheus) realise that Frank has managed to escape them, and they’re prepared to take him back by any means necessary. Butterfingers Kirsty will have to watch herself or be strung up in yet another of the Cenobites’ sadomasochistic experiments.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• In the 80s the phrase ‘the higher the hair, the closer to God’ was taken to scary and ridiculous extremes.
• The circle of life now includes an extra resurrection cycle.
• Clive Barker doesn’t believe in spending money on extra lighting.
• Nothing says class like a set of ninja star earrings.
• Tears are a waste of good suffering.
• If Jesus weeps your house will bleed.
• You know Cenobites are coming when Daft Punk lighting appears in your walls.

I love Tracheotomy Girl so much!

HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II

Year of Release: 1988
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 6.3 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

After a quick recap of the first movie Butterfingers Kirsty wakes up in a psychiatric hospital. The doctors want to help her and the police want to know what happened that caused her house to destroy itself so Kirsty, like a genius, tells them what actually happened. Shockingly the doctors are more inclined to believe that Kirsty is a nut job rather than that her dead uncle came back as a gooey corpse and was aided in rebuilding himself by her evil stepmother while the two were being hunted by sadomasochistic demons from another realm. She is handed over as a loon to Dr Channard without any ceremony to be kept under watch until she regains her senses.

At least that’s the story she’s been given. Channard actually knows all about the Cenobites and has been dying to find a way to get in touch with them. Before he does that, however, he steals the mattress that Julia died on in the first movie and uses one of his more deranged patients as a blood bank to resurrect her. Like Frank before her, Julia is very gooey, and the good doctor takes her back to his white, white house and puts her in a white, white outfit to take some time and recover. A few choice victims later Julia is decidedly less juicy and ready to help Channard come into contact with the Cenobites.

To do this they will need an expert puzzle solver, and as luck would have it they have Tiffany, a catatonic puzzle solving prodigy just sitting around the hospital. She quickly figures out how the puzzle box works and summons Pinhead, Lips, Phat Morpheus and Tracheotomy Girl. Channard and Julia enter The Labyrinth, home of the Cenobites, while Kirsty and Tiffany go in to try and find Kirsty’s dad and bring him back. When the good doctor does become a Cenobite and attempt to usurp Pinhead’s position, Hell’s in for a big showdown and the Cenobites are forced to remember the only thing that can defeat them: their own humanity. I’d like to say that it’s up to Kirsty to save the day, but since she’s frequently outwitted by rusty pieces of cutlery, it’d be more safe to place your bets on Tiffany.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Music boxes to hell entice people like an ice cream man entices children.
• The best kind of policeman belongs to the ‘shoot everything to hell’ school of thought.
• The particularly mental wing of an asylum doubles up nicely as a giant maintenance cupboard.
• You’re quite the stud if you can get to 2nd base with a juicy walking corpse.
• Beware the pimp slap of justice.
• Everyone should have an orgasmic tunnel installed in their basement.
• Incest is best – IN HELL!
• In hellbound relationships it’s usually the woman that wears the skin.

Do you need a Kleenex for that?

HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH

Year of Release: 1992
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 5.2 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

Things haven’t been going so well for Pinhead lately. When hell imploded on itself at the end of the last movie he and a Lament Configuration (the puzzle box) became trapped in a beautifully crafted, if somewhat disturbing, pillar. Completely drained of power he’s been unable to move. His luck turns around, however, when the pillar is bought by J.P. Monroe, owner of the greatest hole-in-the-wall nightclub, The Boiler Room. As people are prone to doing around Pinhead, J.P. bleeds on the statue, somewhat reviving him and setting us up for another round of gruesome torture.

This movie has no actual continuity with the first two, so we have to meet a whole new range of characters. Joey’s an ambitious young television reporter looking to find that one big story that will define her career. She thinks she may have found it one night when she sees a young man being ripped to shreds by hooked chains apparently acting of their own accord. If she were to have spoken with Butterfingers Kirsty she’d know that this was Pinhead’s general MO, but dear Joey’s gonna have to figure it out herself with the help of Terri, J.P.’s slutty (and seemingly underage) ex-girlfriend.

At this point in the long strand of time that we call eternity Pinhead’s decided that he’s sick of playing by the rules. Lips, Tracheotomy Girl and Phat Morpheus are dead, he’s been a statue for 4 years and Hell’s in need of some serious rebuilding, so screw the rules of the game. Lying and deceiving people to get what he wants, Pinhead plans on taking over the entire world and wreaking pain and havoc as he sees fit. Unfortunately, as is often the case, our worst enemy is often ourselves, and Pinhead’s human form is now alive and well, albeit in limbo. The revelation that he was once human in movie 2 has split Pinhead in half, and the human version is intent on bringing the Cenobite half down.

This movie has a death count that’s virtually off the charts and enough blasphemy to make your dear grandmother cry, which is why I think I liked it so much. Also, Joey’s far more intelligent than Butterfingers Kirsty and does battle beautifully with a DJ Cenobite. I’ll agree that it’s not as great as the first two, but it’s definitely still a great addition to the franchise.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Nothing says hardcore like a guy in a self-bedazzled leather jacket.
• True love means walking into madness for someone.
• Pinhead’s a modern killer and fully embraces the use of new technology.
• Pinhead strongly disapproves of stained glass windows.
• There’s nothing quite as relaxing as a mind trip to the luscious grasslands of Vietnam.

Blasphemy, blas for you, blas for everyone!

HELLRAISER IV: BLOODLINE

Year of Release: 1996
Genre: Horror / Sci-fi
IMDB Rating: 4.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Low

Sadly, this was the last movie in the Hellraiser franchise that Clive Barker wanted anything to do with. As the other reviews will show, his input is really what made this franchise work. Bloodline was the first dip in the series. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s very clear that by this point they were starting to run out of ideas. The movie’s perfectly watchable, but it never really grabs you in the same way the first 3 do and its ending was more than just a little anticlimactic. As a general rule, if you need to take it into space, consider calling it a day with the franchise.

The year is 2127 and Paul Merchant is trying to rid the world(s) of Pinhead and the Cenobites once and far all. Why ‘don’t open the damn box’ never seemed like a plausible solution is a mystery to me, but anyway. In the process of trying to destroy the Lament Configuration Merchant is taken captive by a group of soldiers who storm the space station he’s on, demanding to know what he’s up to. Held captive by an Hispanic Hilary Swank in space, he is forced to tell us the Cenobites’ story from the very beginning.

Over 400 years ago Paul’s ancestor was a poor toy maker commissioned to make a box for a wealthy French magician. The man has no idea that what he’s built is the very first Lament Configuration. The magician uses the Configuration to summon a Cenobite slave, Angelique. Through a process very similar to how we make chicken McNuggets today Angelique is poured into the skin of a woman the magician and his apprentice, Jacques, killed. Before Jacques and Angelique kill the magician he is warned that a demon must only obey its master until you stand in hell’s way. Not heeding this warning will come back to bite Jacques in the ass later. The two later kill the toy maker as well, discovering that he was trying to build the Elysium Configuration, a device that would keep the Cenobites trapped forever.

200 years after the first Lament Configuration was built John Merchant, another of Paul’s ancestors (the original toy maker’s wife was pregnant when he died), is essentially building an Elysium Configuration without knowing it. Angelique learns of this and comes to America to stop him before her and her kind are banished from the human realm. Pinhead’s none too pleased about any of this either and joins in the fight, bringing with him Cenobite Rottweilers and creating The Siamese Twins, the second coolest Cenobite lackey after Tracheotomy girl. They manage to kill John but are sent back into the Lament Configuration by his wife. All while John’s son is watching.

Back in the future Paul has EVENTUALLY figured out how to make the Elysium Configuration work. Either it was a very tricky design or this family just really isn’t all that great when it comes to higher brain functions. Having made a robot open the Lament Configuration to let Pinhead and the others loose it’s now just a matter of keeping Pinhead busy long enough to activate the Elysium Configuration (wow, never thought I’d use the word ‘configuration’ so often in one paragraph) and trap the Cenobites once and for all.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• The future is astonishingly lacking in its use of technology.
• Despite being a vacuum, it’s really noisy in space.
• French people communicate with one another through slutty moaning.
• It’s not necrophilia if the body’s still warm.
• Many female demons are pillar-sexual.
• Security guards double up as expert door identifiers.

♫ ‘Cause you got me, and baby I got you. Babe. I got you babe. ♫

HELLRAISER: INFERNO

Year of Release: 2000
Genre: Crime / Horror
IMDB Rating: 5.5 / 10
Level of Awful: High

Wow, talk about a terrible downward spiral! After 3 awesome movies and one so-so one, we were suddenly lurched into this piece of crap. In itself this isn’t a bad movie, but it’s not a Hellraiser movie. After suffering through about 30 minutes of it I was pretty convinced in my mind that this was originally a spec. script and Dimension had simply shoved Pinhead in somewhere where he really didn’t belong. Turned out I was spot on. It has a good concept and an absolutely brilliant ending, but it isn’t worth suffering through to find out what it is.

The movie follows Joseph Thorne, a rather shady and incredibly corrupt policeman, as he goes about his days being a general asshole and philanderer. Out on a routine investigation to look into a gruesome shredding of what might have once been a human body, Thorne discovers a Lament Configuration that’s been turned into a candlestick holder. As any other corrupt police official would do, after stealing $300 from the dead man’s wallet, Thorne steals the aesthetically pleasing Configuration and decides to play with it a little after banging a prostitute.

As one might expect tinkering with the Lament Configuration opens up a direct portal to hell. First the hooker’s dead, then Thorne’s ice-cream man / cocaine dealer / paedophile informant is killed, then he’s being chased by the Wire Twins and half a Lips. All of this seems to be tied to a man called The Engineer, and Thorne makes it his personal mission in life to try and stop this man. Not for selfish reasons, of course, but rather to avoid getting his own flesh ripped apart or licked off with an acidic tongue.

At one point Tropical Mary was actually considering killing me and the rest of the gang to try and liven things up while this movie was on. It has every miserable stereotype in the book, the characters are loathefully unlikeable, it takes forever to get anywhere with its storyline and you barely see Pinhead at all. It also wanted to redefine the Cenobites in that, rather than simply being other-worldly beings who took their love of whips and chains to strange and gruesome extremes, they are now actually demons out on some moral crusade. Maybe that works for some people, but it just left me cold.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Spines make really juicy noises when you rip them open.
• Some movies are as exciting as eating tofu on a rice cracker.
• Walker Idaho Rangers are nowhere near as cool as their Texan counterparts.
• It’s possible to make a movie with only internal monologues and sighs.
• Nothing says badass-criminal like a pair of ‘coon chaps.
• There are few people you want to hit more than a coked-up, smarmy, asshole, magician policeman.

Well, here’s the problem: you have two Cenobites embedded in your chest!

HELLRAISER: HELLSEEKER

Year of Release: 2002
Genre: Horror / Thriller / Mystery
IMDB Rating: 4.9 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

And we’re on the up again, which was a very pleasant surprise after the last one. I don’t know if any of us could have taken two Infernos back-to-back with one another. Pay attention Dimension Films: if you must shove Pinhead into a script that wasn’t meant for him in the first place, this is the way that you should continue to do it.

Kirsty’s back! Having taken some time off to relax and improve her mental capacities so that she can at least match wits with the rusty cutlery, her and her husband Trevor are out for a little drive to rekindle their love. It’s all sweet and lovely until one particularly passionate session of neck nomming distracts Trevor long enough to put their car in the path of an oncoming truck. Trevor’s quick reflexes allow him to manoeuvre the car out of the path of the truck and throw it off a bridge into an icy-looking river instead. Trevor manages to haul himself out the car, but sadly for Kirsty and her recently improved mental capacities, Pinhead never cut her a pair of gills and she drowns when she can’t get her door or window open. Maybe the rusty cutlery would still win after all.

When Trevor wakes up in the hospital he’s pretty much fine except for some minor amnesia and the inability to tell fantasy apart from reality. This will result in some difficult times for him, like when he coughs up a live eel. Meanwhile Kirsty’s body has disappeared from the car and a search has yet to find where she drifted off to. This results in Trevor becoming the prime suspect in Kirsty’s suspected murder, an investigation headed up by the most condescending policeman to ever grace the small screen. With strange things happening all around him, the people he knows turning up gruesomely murdered and Cenobites at every turn, Trevor will quickly need to figure out what’s real and what isn’t before Pinhead gets to him.

This movie was everything that Inferno wanted to be. It has a tremendous ending that will make you rethink everything you’ve just watched, but at the same time the rest of the movie manages to convince you that what you’re watching is really happening.

By this point in the evening this movie spawned one of the best comments of the whole marathon. Wondering why Trevor was such an absolute slut magnet, I voiced this statement: “His amnesia brings all the sluts to the yard.” Stygian Mole, who doesn’t say a lot but is tremendously useful for his quick one-liners, promptly responded: “And he’s like, ‘what the fuck are all of you doing in my yard?'” Perhaps you had to be there to truly appreciate it, but we laughed ourselves silly for about 20 minutes at that.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Only in ridiculous movies does a man wear white shoes.
• Pinhead doubles up as an apartment-cleaning magician in his spare time, and is well versed in the Dead Hooker Be Gone spell.
• Very few people actually understand what amnesia does to a person.
• No matter how hard the sex against the vending machine is, that thing’s never gonna give up a free pack of Lays.
• Morgues should be stored at the centre of the Earth so that the soul has less distance to travel when it goes to Hell.
• Technological advances mean that Lament Configurations can now be more rounded in shape. This also makes them more child-friendly.

Acupuncture for the guilty soul.

HELLRAISER: DEADER

Year of Release: 2005
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.5 / 10
Level of Awful: Low

And we’re on a dip again, although not too bad a one. Deader isn’t necessarily a bad movie, it’s just one of those films where you could always see what it was trying to do but it never quite got there. Based on yet another spec. script (how many of those damn things does Dimension own?), it again puts Pinhead in a story that he doesn’t really blend in with completely, although it’s still a far better attempt than Inferno was.

By this point in the franchise Hell has become a prime location for the hip and trendy, with everyone wanting a piece of the pie. Enter the Deaders, a little cult in Bucharest led by a man who can hold back death and grant his followers eternal life, albeit with giant chunks of themselves missing. See, in order to become immortal you have to die first, at which point the cult’s leader, Winter, will bring you back. Everyone chooses to kill themselves in the most gruesome manners. Why no one thought a bottle of pills with a nice glass of wine in a bathtub wouldn’t be a better choice the Lord only knows, but this is what’s apparently happening in Eastern Europe when we’re not keeping an eye on them. Investigative journalist Amy Klein is on the job and tracking the story.

Now, Pinhead’s not loving this little cult one bit. He’s the only one that should be allowed to come and go from Hell as he pleases, and it ultimately all boils down to these people choosing Winter as their master over Pinhead. Amy, being the smart girl that she is, manages to find a Lament Configuration in a run down crack house. Literally prying the thing out of some poor, dead crack whore’s hand, she takes the thing home and solves the puzzle. Along with many, many chains, Pinhead appears in the middle of Amy’s lounge, but this time he’s in a far better and more helpful mood than usual. He warns Amy about what’s happening, and tells her to be careful and that he’ll be watching.

In order to push the story forward, as well as force some kind of continuity between this movie and the rest of the franchise, we are told by Winter that he is a descendant of the Toymaker who created the original Lament Configuration. Despite having the skills to bring people back from the dead he has been unable to solve the Configuration’s puzzle (it really doesn’t look that complicated: feel it, run fingers in a circle, click down and voila!), and his back-from-the-dead followers have all been an experiment to try and find someone to open the box so that he can travel to Hell and take command of the Cenobites. Like Pinhead’s gonna let that happen…

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Nobody really needs the other half of their brain.
• In the crack whore version of Bridget Jones’ life, she lives in Romania and only gets eaten by one Alsatian.
• Nothing says class like a plastic bottle of gin.
• Romanian trains are a more hedonistic form of transportation.
• ‘Romania’ is a suitable answer to any confusing moment you may have while watching this movie.

I hate that spot on my back! You can never quite reach the damn thing!

HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD

Year of Release: 2005
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 4.2 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

The end is in sight people! Finally, three movies later, we happen upon an entry in the franchise that isn’t based on a spec. script. Granted, the short story it’s based on wasn’t written by Clive Barker either, but beggars can’t be choosers. Although I’d seen most of the Hellraiser movies over the years this one, for whatever reason, was the one I remembered the most vividly, so it was kinda cool to watch it again. Definitely not an all-time classic, but fairly decent watching nonetheless.

If you’ve watched all the Hellraiser movies back-to-back in one caffeine-fueled evening the one thing that you will probably notice is that Pinhead isn’t afraid to move with the times, and it really shouldn’t be surprising that at some point he’d embrace the use of the Internet in tracking down today’s more tech-savvy victims. Welcome to Hellworld, an online MMORPG based on Pinhead’s adventures that have, over the years, been granted the status of urban legends. Some people who become a little too engrossed in it may land up apparently committing suicide, but you really can’t put a price on a good game.

Let’s meet Chelsea, Derrick, Mike & Allison. These guys are the best of friends and LOVE playing Hellworld. Their friend Adam doused himself in petrol and set himself alight two years ago because of playing it, but that hasn’t stopped them. A true fan is a true fan. For the purposes of this movie, the four plan on attending a special Hellworld party held in a remote mansion by a strange billionaire recluse. Not that this is at all dodgy or possibly dangerous or anything. They’re joined by their estranged friend Jake, who never quite got over Adam’s death.

And the party’s underway! Oh, what an evening of debauchery and hedonism this will be! Anonymous sex with strangers (anonymity ensured because everyone’s wearing a mask and has a special cellphone provided by the man hosting the party), excessive drinking, possible drug abuse, minor orgies breaking out all over the place… Mmm, the air is rife with slut, and these kids like it. Well, Chelsea doesn’t, but that’s because she’s been pegged to be the heroine from the very beginning, but that’s fine, because she and her skin-tight latex pants (even the Cenobites’ leather outfits aren’t that tight) are locked in a bathroom.

Naturally, with all this pleasure going on and so many people having opened digital Lament Configurations, this is the perfect opportunity for Pinhead to reap a soul or two, which he does very effectively. All in all this is a good movie, although the ending may leave you a little cold. For a truly gratifying experience turn it off about 10 minutes before the credits roll and you’ll be left thoroughly satisfied. If you don’t that’s also fine, but you may be left thinking “Well, that was great and all, but why make it a Hellraiser movie?”

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• In this modern age, if Jesus weeps he will be deemed a sissy.
• Never let people into your house – they just want to touch all your stuff.
• Every rich billionaire has a secret Pickled Babies R Us store in his basement.
• There’s nothing quite as scary as seeing a dead man denoming [to denom, verb: the act of wearing an all-denim outfit].
• True friends help no one while getting a blowjob.
• Latex pants will really slow down a decent escape.
• Private Number is an asshole.

And Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ video concept was born.

HELLRAISER: REVELATIONS

Year of Release: 2011
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 2.9 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy

And then there was this crock of shit. Even if me and my team hadn’t been high on caffeine, nicotine, sugar and saturated fats, even if we hadn’t been watching movies for over 13 hours, and even if we had been in the mood to watch a movie that would make us rather have Pinhead do what he felt like to us rather than be forced to watch it, EVEN THEN we would not have been prepared for Revelations. Dimension made this so that they wouldn’t lose the rights to the franchise you say? IF THEY MADE THIS THEY DON’T DESERVE THE FRANCHISE!! Right, that’s my little rant over 🙂 But seriously, don’t watch this, it’s crap.

So Steve and Nico are best friends who, like many other spoiled American teenagers, just feel that mommy and daddy don’t really understand them and that they need to get away from it all for a bit. They decide to road trip down to Mexico for a bit of fun, a few drinks and one or two prostitutes here and there. It’s all harmless fun really, at least until the two go missing one day.

A year passes by and still no one’s heard from the boys. Back home their respective parents are worried sick, and Steven’s sister Emma makes Kirsty seem like a Nobel Prize laureate. You know those mouth breathers who drag out the last syllable of every word? Yeah, she’s one of those. Emma, sadly, looks to be the brains of this little outfit and, whilst rummaging through her brother’s room and finding his video camera, learns that her boyfriend (Nico) casually murdered a hooker while banging her in a bathroom. What ever is a distraught and mournful girl to do? Seduce Nico’s dad in front of his mother, that’s what!

But she’s not gonna do any of that before she plays with the Lament Configuration in her brother’s bag, which shoots a blood-covered Steven back into our dimension. Following this secrets are revealed, the movie will try and shock us with things like incest, shotguns and couches covered in a horrendous floral print, there’s a showdown of some sort, Pinhead (who apparently has really let himself go in recent years) will pace back and forth in someone’s garage while stringing together incomprehensible sentences, families will be drawn into the garage / Hell and, if you’re fortunate enough to make it through all of that, the movie will end. You will never be the same and will be sorely tempted to throw heavy objects at the TV, but it will all be over and you can go on with your life.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Tijuana is now pronounced ‘Teechwaaana’ (with the ‘ch’ making the sound it does in German).
• Tijauna / Teechwaaana is located somewhere in Mexicamerica.
• Pinhead now has a five-head.
• Pinhead does an amazing duck face.
• It’s only ever a bad lie if it’s a filthy, filthy, lice-infested hobo lie.
• It’s rare to see a plot that thickens with whore juice.

And they really thought no one would notice the difference?

FINAL THOUGHTS

We were doing so well up until Revelations, which really just pushed us completely over the edge. 5 more minutes and there would have been a Lord of the Flies situation on our hands. That aside, this marathon rocked. On the whole the franchise is really strong if you consider that (in our collective opinion at least) only 2 out of the 9 movies were actually bad, and only 1 out of those 2 was abysmal. Compared to many other franchises, which tend to start out strong and then slowly go down hill, this really is quite something.

And then there’s Pinhead. I’ve never really been that invested in the Hellraiser movies so I didn’t know that much about the franchise’s main antagonist until this marathon, but he truly is a god amongst movie killers. What I liked so much about him is that he’s intelligent; unlike many other killers from movies that came out around the same time as the original Hellraiser, Pinhead isn’t some brute out on a rampage. He’s an articulate, highly intelligent creature that operates within very well-marked boundaries. If you open the Lament Configuration you’ve made a deal, and that’s all there is to it. At the risk of sounding like a highly deranged individual, the methods of killing his victims are also just plain awesome. Yes, Jason has the machete and yes, Freddy has the knife glove, but the chains and sheer calm brutality that Pinhead uses are what really make him a terrifying figure. And that’s just one (albeit the most important) Cenobite. Looking at his lackies and seeing what has been done to them makes the viewer wonder which is worse: suffering an agonising death at the hands of the Cenobites, or suffering an agonising eternity by becoming one of them.

And now, for the part we’ve all been waiting for, the death and breast counts. In total, the 9 movies gave us roughly (Stygian Mole did his best, but sometimes the deaths were just coming too hard and too fast to keep track) 579 kills. Whilst this is truly impressive, they’re spread very unevenly, and around 400 of those took place in the 3rd movie alone. When it comes to breasts we didn’t do so well (much to The Occult Specialist’s disappointment, since I had made him the official Breast Counter for the evening) with a total of 22 across the whole franchise, most of them coming in the later movies. This gives us a final death-to-breast ratio of 26.3:1

I loved this franchise, and I now rank some of these films as my best of all time. We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming, but I must give a huge shout out to my team, without whom these marathons would not be possible, and an equally big shout out to all the people who tweeted us and helped keep us sane throughout the process. Follow us on Twitter to see what madness we’ll take on next! Until next time 🙂

BUY THE HELLRAISER MOVIES AT AMAZON.COM

A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Ultimate Movie Marathon

Wherever Tropical Mary, Stygian Mole and I go you know the madness simply won’t stop! Following on from the pure, unadulterated epicness that was the Friday the 13th marathon we decided that our next mission, in light of Freddy VS Jason, was to take on the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. This time we felt a little more prepared: with a little experience under our belts we knew that we could hold out in the face of movie after movie after movie, and this time there would only be 7 films as opposed to the previous marathon’s 11. Sadly we were lacking our Occult Specialist for this one but the 3 of us decided that we were going to tackle these movies head-on anyway.

Working from what is admittedly a good system we piled into Tropical Mary’s lounge with a variety of snacks, many litres of Coke, several boxes of cigarettes and the necessary money to do a pizza top up later on. Sadly, in my opinion at least, this series of movies simply could not live up to Jason and his never-ending killing spree. Equally sadly our pizza was not delivered by a guy named Freddy, which just seemed an enormous let down after a Jason delivered our last batch. Join me now as my Elm Street Retrospective comes to a computer screen in your city this morning / afternoon / evening / weekend 😉

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

Year of Release: 1984
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 7.4 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

And we’re off with Freddy’s first adventure! It’s the mid-80s, flannel isn’t as abundant as it once was and Johnny Depp was a fresh-faced young man ready to break into acting. Elm Street falls in the beautiful suburban town that is Springwood but, in amongst these idyllic little houses and perfectly trimmed rose bushes, the children living on the street are about to experience something strange and horrifying.

Our main girl is Nancy, a plain little thing with the emotional range of a plank of wood, and, while her face would never give it away, she’s been experiencing some terrible nightmares. Nightmares about a horribly burned man in a dirty jumper with knives on his fingers. Nightmares that the other children on the street seem to be having as well. Nightmares that, if you get hurt or injured in them, then you’re hurt in reality as well. Nightmares that have Nancy’s friend Tina being dragged across the ceiling and ripped to shreds after a riveting around of premarital sex with her boyfriend Rod. Sadly for Glen, Nancy’s boyfriend, there will be no premarital sex that night.

In the face of a killer that stalks their dreams, parents that believe they’ve lost their marbles and the unbearably orange and never moving face of Nancy’s mother the kids will have to find a way to either stay awake for the rest of their lives or make battle with a monster that has a taste for young children and is out for revenge.

So the franchise got off to a reasonable start. It’s not without its faults and Heather Langenkamp really couldn’t act, but given that it was done on a fairly modest budget credit has to be given where credit is due. Plus Freddy Krueger’s just brilliant in a really disturbing kind of way.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Pants are for the weak!
• Teenage girls will be crapped on by their fathers for going to school, their friend’s houses, visiting friends in prison and virtually anything else you can think of.
• Burns can be migratory.
• Judging by their output bedside lamps in the 80s were nuclear powered.
• Running in ’84 was still being properly developed.
• Marshmallow floors are just impractical.
• Cupboards are the perfect temperature for storing booze.
• Apple cider melts skin beautifully.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART II: FREDDY’S REVENGE

Year of Release: 1985
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 5 / 10
Level of Awful: Low

And we’re a go for Part II! In what seems to be a pattern in these franchises the second movie takes us on a bit of a dip. This one is a beautiful example of being able to see what they were going for, but then there’s what they actually did with it. I propose that the name of this movie be retroactively changed to ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Bitch’, which is far more in keeping with what the story is actually about.

We’re 5 years down the line from the last movie and, since Nancy has apparently gone nuts after the death of her mother, 1428 Elm Street went on the market and a new family has since moved in. Our main character in this film is Jesse, a boy with an oddly shaped chest who appears to live his life in a constant state of sweatiness and tighty whiteys. Freddy appears to be a little weakened at the moment and needs a host body through which to perform his dirty work. Since Jesse has conveniently moved into Nancy’s old room he’ll do just perfectly.

To begin with it’s all fun and games as Freddy takes out people who Jesse doesn’t particularly like, such as his leather-clad gym teacher. With delightful dialogue such as “he’s inside me, he wants to take me again” and “he owns me”, combined with the constant state of tighty whitey-ness that Jesse lives in, there appears to be a definite homoerotic undertone to the whole movie. Jesse, along with his would-be girlfriend Lisa, will have to battle their way through their nightmares, Jesse’s possession and a pool party gone horribly wrong if they are ever going to live out the rest of their lives in peace.

The main problem with this movie, and one that becomes apparent across the franchise as a whole, is that it can’t live up to the characters it creates. Freddy, as always, is disturbingly brilliant but doesn’t appear as often as you’d like because we need to deal with everyone being awake for so long. While Jesse isn’t perhaps the most memorable character he plays the disturbed teenager very well but the whole pseudo-possession storyline neither does his or Freddy’s character much justice. The biggest waste, however, is Lisa. The Sydney Prescott of her time, Lisa will beat the crap out of Freddy with any available object at any given time but the storyline is just too weak for this character to stand out.

Despite these many problems this movie did bring out what is perhaps my favourite comment from Tropical Mary for the whole evening: “For a lesbian-headed, dyke-looking woman she’s very romantic.” Watch the movie and see if you can spot who this applies to 🙂

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Off-road school bus rallies are a  lot of fun.
• The art of egg making hadn’t been perfected in the mid-80s.
• Your liver can function as a heart.
• Running was still in its infancy in ’85.
• Feeding your bird cheap seed will cause it to burst into flames.
• 80s parenting meant being constantly aloof.
• Like running and making eggs, kissing also hadn’t been perfected in the mid-80s.
• The power of love will lead to internal haemorrhaging.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS

Year of Release: 1987
Genre: Horror / Fantasy
IMDB Rating: 6.3 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

And we’re on the up again! Freddy’s back and ready to take on a mental asylum full of sleep deprived children. This was Patricia Arquette’s debut role and, in my opinion, she’s the glue that pulls it all together.

Kristen Parker has a mother who isn’t very sympathetic (and, by the movie’s implication, a whore) to her night terrors or the fact that she’s waking up with her wrists slashed by Freddy. Convinced that she’s just out for attention her mother locks Kristen in Westin Hills, the psychiatric hospital we would see again later in Freddy VS Jason.

Along with Kristen the other misfits at the hospital are Joey (who doesn’t say anything), Phillip (a would-be sculptor who shows a little promise), Jennifer (who dreams of becoming an actress), Will (this movie’s answer to Artie from Glee), Taryn (an ex-druggie) and Roland (the stock black kid with behavioural issues). These guys are the last of the so-called Elm Street children, children of the adults who murdered Freddy. So locking them all up together really is going to make Freddy’s job a whole lot easier.

Thankfully help is on hand. In her spare time between growing up and losing her mind Nancy somehow managed to become a doctor and specialise in sleep disorders. She herself is now taking Hypnosil, a dream suppressant that helps keep Freddy at bay. She will be aided by Dr Neil Gordon, the hospital’s resident psychiatrist, who in turn is aided by Sister Mary Helena (Handbasket).

This movie serves as Freddy’s origin story, explaining how his mother Amanda used to work at this very same institution. Back then the hospital used to house people who were far more insane, and Amanda managed to get herself locked in with the mental patients. Raped repeatedly by the 100 patients in this wing over a prolonged period of time, she fell pregnant and gave birth to Freddy at Westin Hills. Being the bastard offspring of 100 deranged lunatics (a medical impossibility, but we’ll run with it) is what made Freddy so evil.

But Freddy’s in for one hell of a fight this time round. Kristen has a remarkable ability to pull people into her dreams, allowing the rest of the group to follow her so that they can do battle as a group rather than being picked off one by one. This power, coupled with Nancy’s experience in Freddy hunting, will pave the way for one amazing showdown between Freddy and the last of the Elm Street children.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Tricycles are creepier than wheelchairs.
• By ’87 wearing polka dots to a funeral was out and normal attire was in.
• Sleep therapy in the late 80s comprised a blend of hypnosis and induced epileptic fits.
• You can go from high school senior to doctor in the space of 6 years.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER

Year of Release: 1988
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 5.3 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium

And we begin our downward spiral. To give credit where credit is due, I think the movie makers behind this one must have realised that they were eventually going to run out of Elm Street children and needed to somehow tie them into new characters. I can see what the overall plan was, although I may have blinked and missed some important bits since I’m still not 100% clear on who / what the Dream Master is. Nevertheless, the marathon had to continue and we girded our respective loins and dived head first into our next instalment.

Kristen’s back and she’s doing quite well for herself. Not only have her and her surviving friends been released from Westin Hills but her face has also morphed from that of Patricia Arquette to that of Tuesday Knight. Naturally someone needs to be nervous about Freddy coming back so why not let it be Kristen? Living in a state of perpetual panic and paranoia she often pulls Joey and Kincaid into her dreams. The dreams, however, are sitting quite comfortably at room temperature so Joey and Kincaid reason that Freddy must still be dead. He will be, until a dream dog with resuscitating flaming pee digs him up and lets him loose on the world again…

Joey and Kincaid are killed off reasonably soon into this little adventure to make way for a new group of people: Rick, Kristen’s never-before-heard-of boyfriend, Alice, Kristen’s friend, Dan, your stock studly jock whom Alice has a crush on and, last but not least, Debbie, a friend of Alice who epitomises virtually everything that was wrong with the 80s.

With Freddy back one of the first people he’s going to after is obviously Kristen. Panicked at being brought face to face with him again she accidentally pulls Alice into the dream, bringing her to Freddy’s attention. Kristen is killed by Freddy trying to defend Alice, but she manages to transfer her power to Alice right before Freddy swallows her up as a little soul food.

Admittedly there are some interesting methods of death in this movie, including being utterly deflated, an interesting take on being a karate kid and the art of getting an invisible ass whipping, and teenagers being turned into cockroaches. After doing a little reading I’ve seen a lot of things about different gates, different guardians and absorbing different powers, resulting in Alice and Freddy becoming supernatural guardian mortal enemies, but if any of that actually happened I genuinely missed it.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Over time boiler rooms tend to become more and more chainey.
• As a year 1988 was a lyrically desperate time.
• You can dedicate entire closets to shoulder pads.
• Vegetation is not a meal.
• The real problem with Freddy is that he wants to dance with someone (who loves him).

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD

Year of Release: 1989
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 4.8 / 10
Level of Awful: High

And then there was this. The Dream Child is this franchise’s equivalent of Jason Goes to Hell. Freddy, supposedly dead, has to be brought back some way and made to be even more threatening than before. While the story and concept are weak in themselves the movie’s main problem is that it takes itself seriously. This could’ve been played so differently and, had it been done with tongue planted firmly in cheek, it probably would have been a lot of fun. Even Freddy seemed to be fighting against the movie at times, but his delightfully disturbing humour just wasn’t enough to save this.

Nothing says ‘this is going to hurt’ quite like an opening credit sequence that doubles up as the movie’s first sex scene. Alice has returned and she and Dan are enjoying many rounds of passionate premarital sex. With all their friends dead Alice has also had to expand her social circle and make new ones (for Freddy to butcher) but her first priority now that she’s graduated from high school is to go on a little whirlwind tour of Europe with her beloved. That at least was the plan until Alice starts dreaming about a baby Freddy climbing into his old grownup clothes and somehow regenerating himself, being stalked by Freddy while she’s awake, chatting with the spirit of Amanda Krueger (AKA Sister Mary Helena Handbasket) and having Dan die on her in a rather epic (but admittedly painful) fashion.

Now the $1 million question is how Freddy is stalking Alice while she’s awake. To be honest I was more curious as to where the hell her body was hanging out for the 4 hour blackouts she was experiencing, but Tropical Mary said I shouldn’t get distracted and just watch the movie. The answer to that question (which also justifies the movie’s title) is that Alice is with child. Since children in the womb apparently spend a lot of their time dreaming Freddy can attack through the baby’s dreams without having to wait for the grownups to eventually go to bed.

Trying to beat Freddy this time will involve Alice not only using her supernatural powers once more but also trying to reason with the dream consciousness of her unborn child. What part of ‘this could be amazingly funny’ the people behind this movie didn’t see I’m not sure, but again they decided to take themselves terribly seriously. Freddy’s dealt with many things in his time but he’s never taken on a mother trying to protect her child so he’s in for a very big fight. Throw in the ghost of his own mother with a bone to pick with her son and the stage is set for the biggest family feud you’ve ever seen.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• As the 80s drew to a close polka dots at funerals decided to make one final, desperate stand.
• As the 80s drew to a close the art of running had STILL not been perfected.
• Shirts are for the o’ wedgie (like 20 to llama llama, this came as the mind was starting to go).
• You can be just a little pregnant.

FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE

Year of Release: 1991
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 4.6 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium

Finally! Someone had the brains to realise that they could take the piss out of this series, and it really paid off. This was my favourite movie of the day, mainly because it seems like this was the point that the morbid humour of the franchise’s antagonist and the movie’s plot finally decided to align themselves. Had some of the humour of this movie been injected into the series about 4 movies earlier I may have enjoyed this marathon a whole lot more than I did.

Freddy’s been a very busy boy since the events of the last movie. 10 years have passed and he has successfully managed to kill off all the children in Springwood, leaving the once-beautiful suburban town a shadow of its former self. The only surviving teenager, who can’t remember who he is, is being sent on a special mission by Freddy (although he doesn’t know that). Freddy can’t leave Springwood, with the city limits acting as a barrier that he cannot cross, and there’s someone very special on the other side that he wants brought to him.

Through a little retconning and some imagination from the audience we are informed of the fact that Freddy is actually a dad, just another reason why The Dream Child was utterly unnecessary. His child is floating around out there in the big bad world somewhere and he wants it back. Where on earth could it be? Surely not at the home for troubled youth that our dear John Doe has landed up at? Surely our little gang of street waifs – Terry (sexually abused by her father), Carlos (beaten by his father and now partially deaf as a result), Spencer (“former” drug addict) – and their psychologist Maggie couldn’t possibly be candidates to be Freddy’s offspring? That’s just crazy.

But is it crazy enough to work? Through a series of amazing coincidences (and after coming face to face with a wild and possibly rabid Roseanne Barr) the five of them land up in Springwood and strangely cannot seem to find a way to leave. Could Freddy be behind this? Could he be the one making people’s heads explode? Possibly. Turning people into some 8-bit gloriousness and beating them up? Yeah, sounds like something he’d do. Re-enacting The Wizard of Oz and throwing people onto a bed of spikes? Definitely sounds like something he’d find fun.

The movie also addresses the greatest question of all: how the hell does Freddy manage to keep coming back? The answer: dream demons, that’s how. These demons are inherently malevolent and granted Freddy his power on the night when the parents of Springwood initially burnt him alive. We’ve retconned a child, so let’s retcon some malevolent tadpole dream demons while we’re at it, anything goes here. Prepare for the ultimate father VS child showdown as we see just which generation of Kruegers deserves to wield the knife glove.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Blowing up the garage will get you a lot of attention.
• Intense daddy issues are intense.
• Throwing yourself on the floor doesn’t make a sound.
• It’s very important that you ignore any and all ominous omens in disturbing situations.
• Despite being an immortal dream demon Freddy gets the crap beaten out of him quite regularly.
• Synapses fire in technicolour.
• The fact that Freddy was a ginger kid explains virtually everything about his character.

WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE

Year of Release: 1994
Genre: Horror / Fantasy
IMDB Rating: 6.3 / 10
Level of Awful: High

You know what? I can totally understand a fan base calling for another sequel to a film franchise they love that has supposedly come to an end. I myself would do many things to see another Halloween movie that had nothing to do with the two bastard offspring of Rob Zombie. But was this really what the fans wanted? I remember seeing this movie for the first time a few years ago and thinking it was utter crap. Watching it as part of this marathon did nothing to change my opinion. Again, I can see the concept and I think it was a very interesting one, but the execution left me cold and bored stiff.

Since Freddy was (supposedly) killed once and for all in the last movie we need to do something completely different to bring him back round this time. So what if he had never been around at all? What if the last 6 movies were just that and nothing more? That’s the path that New Nightmare wants to take us down, so let’s all go for a little walk.

It’s been 7 years since Heather Langenkamp last portrayed Nancy, but she’s a mother now and needs to think carefully about the kinds of rolls she decides to play. She’s happily married, lives in a beautiful (if somewhat earthquake prone) neighbourhood in a lovely house. She’s still friends with Robert Englund and many other people from the films and is currently doing a few promo gigs to discuss the franchise’s 10th anniversary, life after Elm Street and being a mother. But someone isn’t prepared to let the franchise go quietly into that good night; someone is stalking Nancy and making threatening phone calls to her. Someone who sounds remarkably like Freddy.

Already on edge, Heather’s state isn’t helped when her husband dies tragically in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel, his chest sliced with mysterious claw marks. In the aftermath of his death their son has also begun to behave very strangely, saying that he can’t sleep without his pet dinosaur to protect him from the bad man who comes out of his dreams to get him. But this isn’t a movie, so how can Freddy possibly be coming for Heather and her young son?

Wes Craven, that’s how. It would seem that, after writing the script for the initial movie, it began to dawn on him that Freddy was perhaps a little more than a simple character on paper. What if he were an ancient malevolent spirit that needed a means to gain access to our world? Well, that’s what he is and that’s what happened, with this demon using the Elm Street movies to play himself out but, while the franchise kept going, his thoughts were trapped in the scripts and unable to hurt anyone. It would seem that the demon enjoys being Freddy and isn’t quite ready to let the character die just yet. Heather’s going to have to reprise her role as Nancy one more time if there’s any hope of finally laying Freddy to rest.

If only she could have managed to do it without an hour going by where nothing happened it would have been so much less painful than it actually was. This was not worth the nearly two hours it took to watch it. While the concept was interesting, it was also the movie’s main weakness. Because it was brand new it took a long time to develop on screen, time where very little else was happening and the audience just sits and watches a child become gradually creepier and creepier.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Good hygiene practices are entirely unnecessary in a morgue.
• You can just leave corpses littered around the hospital halls at night.
• TVs don’t need to be plugged in to work.
• 90s programming had a lot of subliminal Freddy messaging.
• ICU is a perfect place to keep a person with a sleep disorder.
• In new age fairy tales a trail of bread crumbs can be replaced by a trail of sleeping pills.
• Ferns are evil and must be punished.
• Freddy is a genie, you gotta rub him the right way.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Right, I’m just going to come out and say it: I didn’t enjoy the Elm Street movies. I love Freddy Krueger and think he is an absolutely brilliant and disturbing character but these movies simply did not do him any justice and, at times, seemed to actually work against the primary character they had developed. While the concept of him as a killer that stalks dreams makes him particularly frightening and difficult to defeat it also creates the problem when it comes to people being awake. Freddy can’t kill people when they’re awake, meaning the times that the audience would have to worry about seeing him were very defined, which takes away a lot of the suspense. Attempts to rectify this through the dreams of an unborn child were not very successful.

Although we didn’t rewatch Freddy VS Jason during this marathon the memory is fresh enough that I can say that I think Freddy’s character was best suited to that movie. A more powerful presence in the waking world, his disturbing character can run a little more wild. That’s the Freddy you want to see, and that’s the Freddy that’s missing from this franchise.

Perhaps it’s also a sign of the times we live in when we expect more gore and brutality at regular intervals, but this franchise’s total death count of 38 across 7 movies with a Breast-O-Meter reading of only 3.5 just seems a little depressing. Freddy has just been so built up over the years that you expect so much more, yet in some movies he killed a grand total of 3 people. You’re constantly waiting for this murderous rampage that simply never comes.

Perhaps one day Tropical Mary will be able to give us her thoughts on our marathons, but until then I leave you with my little musings. I’m sure I’m in a minority when it comes to my feelings on these movies, and I’d really like to hear from people who did enjoy them. Good to get some different perspectives. Let me know in the comments below.

We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming of trashy horror movies reviewed by myself with the occasional guest appearance by Tropical Mary. Follow our ramblings on Twitter for the next Ultimate Movie Marathon!

BUY THE NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET COLLECTION AT AMAZON.COM

Cannibal Hookers

Year of Release: 1987
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 2.2 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy

MUSIC!

Jan Sterling – Angel Fire

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

I don’t know why, but usually when I have a great idea of some kind I end up regretting it deeply. The idea here was, as the last review for 1987 month, I had to go all out; there had to be at least one ‘Requires Post-Film Lobotomy’ review so that I could say this little experiment was a success. If that idea ever occurs again I hope someone will have the strength of conviction to take my laptop and beat me over the head with it because THIS WAS HORRIBLE! It has earned the high distinction of being one of the absolute worst movies I have ever seen, and the joke is it was only 67 minutes long. Whereas some movies, say Aerobicide for example, were painted with the 80s, in Cannibal Hookers the 80s walked in and threw up over everything. It’s just one gigantic mess from beginning to end and words cannot actually describe the true awfulness of this movie. But without words there would be no review, so I’m gonna give it a try anyway 🙂

By the gods, someone rip my eyes out and throw them in bleach!

Hillary is a rebel with an overbearing WASP of a mother who disapproves of her friends and the awful influence they have on her. All of these friends are actually only Deedee, a young lady who looks like a rebel but is actually quite quiet and sweet. Both girls, however, feel that they need some independence and as we all know the only place you’re ever gonna find that kind of thing is by joining a sorority house. But this isn’t any sorority house mind you, this is Gamma Zeta Beta, the sluttiest sorority on campus! Where this campus is we’re apparently never gonna find out, but if there’s a sorority house I assume it has to be attached to something. Because Hillary and Deedee rocked up to the initiation meeting (at the house of the head sister’s grandmother by the looks of things) late they have an extra special task to perform before being allowed in: they have to pose as hookers and attract a client. When they get the client and bring him back to another house they’ll be let in.

This place is an 80s mess! Clean it up NOW!

If running this blog has taught me anything it’s that nothing involving a sorority initiation will ever work out well, and why should Gamma Zeta Beta be any different? There’s a reason these ladies are so slutty and willing to go home with anything: in addition to being highly intelligent students at a leading university they’re also a blood cult. How this all works is a little hazy but it involves a lot of thongs, a lot of saggy asses, an occasional axe, the head sorority sister sleeping with a skull on her crotch and a mentally touched ogre named Lobo. Anyways Hillary and Deedee are out on the street and having some difficulty attracting tricks so they manage to sucker some of Hillary’s boyfriend’s friends into playing along so that they can get into the sorority and then go home. One thing leads to another and one of the friends lands up having his heart ripped out of his chest and smeared all over a woman’s breasts. Of course the story wouldn’t be horribly convoluted enough if we didn’t throw one last little thing into the mixture: while the women of this cult only want the internal organs of men to feast upon, biting another woman helps to spread the quasi-vampiric disease that’s affecting them. Will Hillary and Deedee manage to escape from the clutches of this terrifying cult? How many sleazy lives will be lost in their pursuit for eternal beauty? Does any of it really matter? No, no it doesn’t…

I couldn’t find a trailer for this movie so instead I’m including a clip from it. Might just give you a little insight into the horror that is Cannibal Hookers!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• An axe handle fits quite comfortably in a hooker’s crack.
• A man will put up no resistance when a hooker bites his finger off.
• Being the sluttiest sorority on campus takes hard work.
• There’s no difference between a sorority and a whore house.
• Being unpopular is no different to being gang raped by nazis.
• For some people sex involves nothing more than remaining completely clothed and rolling your head around a lot.
• Anything that happened over a week ago is ancient history.
• Hookers are violently territorial and will resort to disembowelment if necessary.
• It is necessary for hookers to wake up seductively.
• Advice to new hookers: stay away from bisexuals, watch out for pimps and always charge extra for blowjobs.

CANNIBAL HOOKERS: HILLARY & HER MOM

Creepozoids

Year of Release: 1987
Genre: Horror / Sci-Fi
IMDB Rating: 2.8 / 10
Level of Awful: High

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

No 1987-themed month would be complete without throwing in a little post-apocalyptic sci-fi gem and I think the devil himself might have sent this one up just to play with me a little. Thankfully Satan and I can have a good laugh about these things so when he tripled dared me to watch Creepozoids starring Linnea Quigley I told him it was on! And so I sat for 70 or so minutes with highly processed butter-flavoured popcorn at the ready and watched with great amusement as this little movie tried to limp itself along to a place called ‘something half-decent’. Sadly it never quite made it to its destination and all that remains is the rotting corpse of half-a-dozen people’s acting careers.

If you need this explained to you, you shouldn't be reading my blog.

The year is 1998 and, in the wise words of Crow T Robot, we’re trapped in our old future. 6 years have passed since the outbreak of World War III and planet Earth is in a very sorry state indeed. Playing on what I imagine must have been the fears surrounding the USSR the Super Powers of the world have declared all-out nuclear warfare, devastating the planet and leaving enormous parts of it completely uninhabitable. Apart from the obvious problems like trying to secure a reliable food source most parts of the world are now being ravaged by highly caustic acid rain that destroys absolutely everything it comes into contact with. To keep the war going the US, whose centre of government is New Los Angeles (no word on what happened to the old one), simply drafts people into the army and sends them to the frontline. Those unwilling to fight are lined up and shot. This is kind of where the storyline takes off and we are introduced to 5 military deserters making their way through a ruined city of some sort. They need to stay low to ensure that nobody catches them but, unfortunately, they find themselves right in the path of a rather nasty acid storm, whereupon they seek shelter in one of the many abandoned buildings around them. While they are hopelessly trapped in there until the storm passes they seem to have been in a little luck as the place is quite well kitted out with all of the essentials: food, clothing, bedding, electricity and, most importantly, a two-man shower (see photo). To begin with everything seems to be absolutely perfect but, as is always the case in a b-grade movie, this building holds a very dark secret of its own down in its cave of a basement.

Cujo and the Hulk should never have had that one-night stand...

As it turns out the reason this building is so well kitted out is because it used to be a military seat of operation where they were carrying out some experiments that may not have been entirely ethical. In an attempt to make the ultimate soldier the scientists based here were trying to make it so that their human guinea pigs could synthesise their own amino acids, meaning that the soldiers would no longer be reliant on a food source because they could make everything they needed in their own bodies. The side effect of this little experiment is a hideously deformed and violently territorial creature living in the basement who occasionally pops up through the air conditioning ducts to attack someone with its enormous mandibles and razor-sharp, see-through teeth. It doesn’t necessarily seem to want to kill anyone but rather inject them with the same serum it was. It would appear, however, that second-hand monster serum has some troubling side effects of its own and anyone infected starts to blow up like a balloon and ooze blood and bile from everywhere. In a toss-up between that fate or being slowly melted by the acid rain our intrepid little band of deserters needs to find a way to kill the beast before finding the password to the highly advanced computer system and playing a game of Pong.

This movie was shot in 15 days in an abandoned warehouse on a budget of $150 000. Now by 1987 standards that’s not necessarily bad money, but then make a slasher. This movie needed special effects, not some guy in a plastic bug suit and harness suspended from the roof (58 minutes in – take a look).

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Despite the complete collapse of society and acid rain everywhere electrical equipment will remain perfectly functional for decades.
• Having World War III break out in 1992 tragically means that computer technology will never have the chance to develop to any useful stage.
• “Let’s shag it!” is not a good general catch phrase when all you really want is for people to move quickly.
• In troubled times an open air vent will provide some lonely soul with the only answers he’s ever had.
• During troubled times and an imminent attack by mutant rats women just want to have a quick shower.
• A 286 DOS computer requires years of expert training in order to use it properly.
• The armies of our old future will be filled with soldiers who can never hear when danger is coming.

CREEPOZOIDS TRAILER

The Video Dead

Year of Release: 1987
Genre: Horror / Comedy
IMDB Rating: 4.9 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium – High

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

I’m rarely at a loss when it comes to deciding how bad a movie is, but this one had me stumped. Judging by its IMDB rating I was under the impression that this one was going to be good (because I have low standards and most things over 4 are quite watchable in my opinion). It wasn’t. I’m not sure if ‘good idea’ is quite what I’m looking for, but it certainly was an interesting idea. Where did it go wrong? Sometimes you get movies where the actors have all the acting capability of a plank of wood but in The Video Dead the planks of wood were outperforming the actors and sadly it wasn’t the kind of bad acting that you can make fun of. At the end of the day it’s not a good b-movie, but it’s not bad enough to make you squirm with discomfort.

That was one helluva party!

When the dead come back to haunt the living there’s always an Institute for Studies in the Occult involved somehow. This time all these people have done is place their trust in a delivery company that haven’t the foggiest idea how to deliver a parcel, but when you’re dealing with zombies and demons and ghosts (oh my!) you really need to have your ducks properly in a row. The delivery company is currently in possession of a haunted TV that appears to be a portal to the dark side but, instead of delivering it to the Institute for Studies in the Occult they obviously read the address incorrectly and delivered the TV to an alcoholic writer in a leafy suburb instead. Now bear in mind we have travelled back to 1987, a time before coffee cups had to come with warnings that stated ‘contents of coffee cup are hot’, so the haunted TV certainly doesn’t carry any kind of warning sign or advisory label saying that it contains 6 or 7 cannibalistic zombies. Our dear writer is not amused with the TV because all it seems to play is this random black and white zombie movie that never wants to end so he turns it off and walks away. The TV’s persistent though and wants to play its movie, even if you pull the power cable out of the wall. Being the rather devilish TV that it is as soon as you turn your back it starts getting up to mischief, spewing out zombies left, right and centre who killing our poor writer.

Hi, I'm from The Dead with a special TV offer for YOU!

3 months later and with all that murderous unpleasantness behind us we get to meet Jeff and Zoe, two young siblings who move into the old writer’s house to get ready for when their parents come back from overseas. Now, as a warning to all my readers, neither of these kids is particularly good-looking and this movie makes excessive use of close-ups so you might want to start looking away after the first 30 times. Jeff, being the younger and more inquisitive brother, discovers the TV in the attic when it whispers through the dark that it wants to do some terribly PG-13 things to him and moves it into his room. This time, instead of channeling zombies, it channels a demonic naked blonde woman who tantalises the young boy before disappearing right back inside. You see it can’t channel the zombies because the zombies never went back inside after they killed the writer, which means that they’re still out frolicking somewhere in the woods surrounding the house. When these undead hooligans start to make a nuisance of themselves a strange man named Joshua Daniels rocks up at Zoe and Jeff’s house to help them out before they land up becoming a light snack.

DO NOT fuck with the zombie bitch with a chainsaw in her hand!

Now this is the point when you really have to put your concentration cap on and pay attention because you’re about to be schooled in zombie psychology. For a mobile decomposing corpse these zombies are remarkably complex creatures that experience a surprising array of complicated emotions. Jeff isn’t the brightest spark out there and Zoe, being a woman, shouldn’t be out chasing after zombies so to defeat this horde of the undead you need to know exactly what you’re dealing with. Firstly, put mirrors up everywhere. Zombies are very self-conscious and don’t like looking at their own reflection to the point that they’ll run away from it. Secondly, zombies don’t like it when you express any fear since they themselves cannot express emotions so keep a constant grin on your face. Thirdly, zombies like to think that they’re still alive so treat them in the same way you would treat any living member of the human race and they might be a little less inclined to eat you. Lastly, a zombie is very good with a stick so avoid dangling from a tree with a chainsaw that they can get hold of and use against you. Follow these simple rules and you might just survive an attack of the video dead!

Speaking of The Video Dead, as a technical point, at no point is there a video, be it Beta or VHS, anywhere in sight but, at the end of the day, that really is the least of your worries walking into this one.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Younger brothers often walk like the dead.
• Women take their degrees in aerobics and music videos very seriously.
• Skunks don’t like to mate with poodles.
• Poodles are kinky and like being sprayed on by skunks.
• Zombies have a very simple but strange sense of humour.
• Zombies can only die when they think they’re alive. In this way when you attack them they will think they are injured and convince themselves that they are actually dead when they really aren’t because they can’t experience pain. They will remain ‘dead’ because they’re fooling themselves into thinking that they are until someone points out to them that they’re not in which case they’ll get back up and try again.

THE VIDEO DEAD TRAILER