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

Arachnoquake Ft. Tropical Mary

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Sci-Fi / Horror
IMDB Rating: 3.4 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0/5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

After the joy that was Piranhaconda and Alien Tornado I felt that Tropical Mary had to be roped in at some point to join in the fun. This one, admittedly, was a mixed bag of tricks. At points it felt strangely competent for a Syfy movie, but at other points was on the brink of embarrassingly amateur. All of that said and done, though, a movie about blind, fire-breathing spiders from the depths of the earth can be nothing but fun. It also brought out a very bizarre mothering instinct in me whenever the baby spiders came streaking onto the screen; there was just something incredibly sweet about their little squeals…

AMERICA!

It’s a beautiful day in New Orleans: the sun is out, the hookers are packing up from a hard night’s work and the remnants of Katrina have just about been cleared away. Katelynn and her kids, Justin and Anabell, are about to take a tour of the historic city while husband Charlie drives a female baseball team back home. A small earthquake struck the city the previous night and has left small portals to hell littering the streets, but this isn’t enough to dissuade anyone from undertaking a little sight-seeing. Mom and kids are being taken around the city by bus driver Paul who, although being threatened with death by his father Roy should he screw this up, is clearly very hung over. That’s nothing a quick adrenaline rush can’t take care of though, which he and the other passengers get when spiders ranging from a few centimetres to Irish Wolfhound start coming out of the ground.

Mama!

Now these are particularly nasty little spiders. They’re very fast, they use echo location to find you, they’re very good jumpers, they lay their eggs in people, they drain your eye juices for food and shoot fire at you when they’re pissed. Paul gets the group away from this particular lot of spiders (despite being seemingly unable to identify exactly what it is he’s driving), but to be honest Paul’s a bit useless and it doesn’t take long for the spiders to catch up to the group. Insect repellent doesn’t do an awful lot to slow them down, although a tin of canned peaches to the forehead will take out a little one. Deciding that running is a better option, Paul takes those members of the tour group that weren’t eaten back to his father and sister Petra to see if they can come up with a new and better survival plan.

Hijacking Spiders from the Centre of the Earth.

It was at this point that Tropical Mary thought it would be a brilliant move if the bigger spiders grabbed a few of the smaller ones and used them to do jazz hands, but sadly this never happened. Instead, through a series of unfortunate twists and turns, the group finds themselves running through a forest trying to save themselves. Turns out escaping by boat isn’t a viable escape plan when the spiders are part Jesus and can run on water. Why subterranean spiders would evolve the ability to walk on water is another story, but this is bringing logic into a situation where none is warranted. The army’s called in to try and eradicate the problem, but Katelynn (because she’s an 8th grade biology teacher) cuts one of the spiders up and realises that they don’t have brains. If that’s true, what exactly is controlling the hordes that are busy rampaging through New Orleans, and will the army be able to kill it?

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• It’s never a good idea to be drinking and tour guiding.
• 30-year-old men can’t run to their dads every time they’re being attacked by giant, fire-breathing spiders.
• Certain spider species make Hanna-Barbera sounds when they fly through the air.
• People native to New Orleans are biologically incapable of stepping on a spider.
• Any rudimentary knowledge of high school biology qualifies you to lead a military campaign to eradicate giant insects.
• New Orleans albino spiders are huge fans of mariachi music. This explains their highly developed vocal chords.

ARACHNOQUAKE TRAILER

Alien Tornado

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Sci-Fi / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 3.2 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0/5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

After the joyous time I had watching Piranhaconda I decided that I wanted to indulge in some more Syfy Original goodness. Turns out I had quite a few lying around and, because it’s the height of winter right now, dived into bed, blasted the heater and turned on Alien Tornado. This one wasn’t as heavily advertised as some other Syfy movies, but it’s definitely a lot of fun. If there’s a little sci-fi nerd living deep inside you that doesn’t really care about wafer-thin plots so long as there are shiny things in the sky then you’ll absolutely love this. And if the shining lights fail to grab your attention, maybe you can be tempted by tornadoes that shoot out funnel hands and scoop people up (so that they can be probed, I assume).

Only the power of the new iPhone can capture this in HD!

No movie about marauding alien tornadoes could conceivably begin without a troubled father/daughter duo, so let me introduce you to Judd and Kelly Walker. They live on a farm in a little town in the middle of Who The Hell Cares, USA. The day started out perfectly normally for the two: Kelly continued to be a blonde genius from the sticks and Judd spent his morning grooming a horse. Things take a mysterious turn when, from out of nowhere, a very shiny and sparkly tornado appeared and started ripping up the farm in a remarkably coordinated attack for a mindless wind funnel. Father and daughter escape any serious kind of harm, but the farm’s been badly damaged. In the aftermath we also learn about Kelly’s dead mother and how Judd squandered his daughter’s college fund, setting us up with daddy issues that will see us all the way through to the end.

I’ll chase after it and I’ll see you there in a few days.

We’ll come back to Judd VS Judd in a moment but first we need to meet Gail Curtis, an amateur storm chaser who runs a blog. This blog has somehow gained her a level of notoriety, which for me raised a few questions. At the risk of it sounding like sour grapes, how exactly does one become famous from running a storm chasers blog? And do amateur storm chasing bloggers really have the enormous number of groupies that this movie suggests is possible? But I digress. Gail notices that, whilst there are a number people reporting these strange tornadoes, neither the news or weather stations have said a single thing about them. Being the bright and clever female storm chaser she is Gail also thinks that it’s a bit strange that these tornadoes only touch down and destroy major utility buildings or areas of military importance. Maybe, just maybe, these aren’t your regular run-of-the-mill tornadoes after all…

Positively nerdgasmic.

Gail’s suspicions are also raised when the FBI, apparently led by Beverley Leslie, arrive to investigate the tornadoes. Co-incidence brings Gail and Judd together, and Kelly just happens to be a huge fan of her blog. Kelly also managed to record a very strange sound that came on the radio when one of the tornadoes touched down, a sound that seems remarkably similar to a kind of code. By pissing the guys in the FBI off enough Judd and Gail manage to find out that the Earth is, in fact, being invaded by aliens that use the weather as their biggest weapon. Despite the FBI’s flamboyant best efforts the future of mankind (and Chicago) will lie in the hands of a blogger, a grizzly farm owner and a blonde high school student. What could possibly go wrong with that?

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Young women should be made to bale hay to earn their keep.
• Amateur storm chasers need to pass a master class in ‘oh my God, what is that?!?’ faces.
• There is no father daughter crisis so terrible that it can’t be turned into a so-so country song.
• Fat people aren’t reliable storm chasers.
• Farmers are ready to form a lynch mob whenever the words ‘the city’ are uttered.
• Abducting humans is the alien equivalent of grabbing a toy bear in a claw machine.

ALIEN TORNADO TRAILER

Piranha 3DD Ft. Tropical Mary

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Comedy / Horror
IMDB Rating: 4.4 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy
Breast-O-Meter: Off the charts

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Let me start off this review by stating the obvious: aaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!! I’m a great fan of the Piranha movies. I liked them when they were eating people in the 70s, I liked them when they learned to fly in the 80s, and I even thought that Piranha 3D was a lot of fun. This was not fun. Not even having Tropical Mary to watch it with me could undo the damage that this movie inflicts on a person. Made to cater to the absolute lowest common denominator, Piranha 3DD takes all the things that should make it fun (boobs, a water park and thousands of ferocious man-eating fish) and somehow manages to make it both horribly painful and tremendously boring to watch. If you’re a really randy 14-year-old boy who hasn’t quite figured out how internet porn works yet, then this is probably the movie for you. Anyone else, steer the hell away from this one.

It’s an underwater Christmas Tree decoration farm.

A whole year has passed since the tragic events at Lake Victoria. The lake has had every conceivable poison dumped into it to eradicate its piranha population and the whole area has been declared a disaster zone. Captain Obvious’ wife does a little voice over work as a news caster reporting on the incident, asking the audience that if this tragedy could happen here, could it happen somewhere else? It’s as though God himself heard this question and, to spite us little mortals, takes us to another lake where two farmers are trying to drag the corpse of a cow out of the water. The corpse is littered with piranha eggs falling out of every possible orifice and these are released when the farmers accidentally blow up the corpse. After a quick snack on the farmers the piranhas begin their journey to discover a new source of food.

Taking the concept of getting down on your knees for Jesus to a whole other level.

Spending time watching farmers and dead cows, of course, leaves us dangerously without gratuitous shots of naked females, something that this movie simply will not stand for, so we are now taken to a water park called Big Wet. Big Wet is owned by a man named Chet who plans to fill the park with water certified strippers and a gated-off adult swimming pool mainly aimed at those wanting to participate in a quick orgy. Maddy, Chet’s stepdaughter, isn’t overly taken by this idea, but she’s not the majority shareholder in the park so she just has to shut the hell up. When two of her friends mysteriously disappear and she herself is attacked by a group of piranhas in a nearby lake she takes it upon herself to find out what the chances of them rocking up at the water park are. We’re told something about sulphur dioxide in the lakes and the chlorine in the pools and suddenly it’s obvious where the fish will be heading next.

This speaks for itself.

Of course the chlorine in the pool is the least of their worries when it becomes apparent that Chet has discovered a better way to fill the pools in the park. Why pay for water when you can drain an underground lake? Maddy points out the obvious piranha problem that these underground lakes have, for which she is forcibly dragged away by her policeman ex-boyfriend who’s been taking bribes from Chet. After some poor homages to A Nightmare on Elm Street and Planet Terror, as well as a piranha eating a man’s penis, the park is suddenly inundated with these little fuckers. David Hasselhoff proves to be of little use in fighting the fish off, and the only thing that temporarily slows the little buggers down are the drains in the pool (which appear to be more powerful than the vacuum in outer space). By this point it all becomes such a confusing mess you couldn’t give two shits who makes it and who doesn’t; you’re just so busy praying to the heavens above that the end credits will roll soon.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Confession before fornication is a sign of a good Christian lady.
• Being a 49% shareholder in anything means you should sleep in a prison cell.
• ‘Fade to lake’ is never going to take off as an effective way to move between scenes.
• You really don’t want to know the things a young man can do with a water pump.
• A woman’s vagina is a perfect incubator for fish eggs.
• You deserve a Darwin Award if you can’t get out of a paddling pool.

PIRANHA 3DD TRAILER

BUY PIRANHA 3DD AT AMAZON.COM

Friday the 13th: The Ultimate Movie Marathon

Welcome to a tale of joy, a tale of wonder, a tale of murder, friendship and redemption in the aftermath of terrible tragedy. I’m talking, of course, about the ultimate movie marathon: all the Friday the 13th movies back to back. I thought the idea up a while ago when it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen all of them. No horror fan worth their salt should have to say that. The plan evolved over time: originally I was going to do it solo, and then it was only the first 9 movies. When I mentioned the idea to Stygian Mole he was thrilled and wanted to join in. Now, as the old saying goes, where there’s a Stygian Mole there’s a Tropical Mary, and now both of them were going to join me for this movie marathon. Word got out a little more and before I knew it one of my cousins got involved. Lacking a Twitter name, he will simply be referred to as the Occult Specialist. Because he’s a goth.

The plan came together beautifully and we all assembled on the chosen day. Armed with mattresses, blankets, 16 litres of Coke, many bags of snacks, money for pizza halfway through the evening and several boxes of cigarettes we were ready to take on the monumental task that lay before us. We started at 10:30 in the morning; Tropical Mary and I would alternate between movies when it came to the live tweets. About 3 movies in it was decided (and instigated by Tropical Mary) that we should watch Jason X and Freddy VS Jason as well, just to make it a complete adventure. At times it got very frightening and we went through a rollercoaster of good scares, funny one liners, horrible outfits, good movies, terrible movies, you name it, we saw it. It came to an end at 5 the next morning; +-18 hours and 11 movies later we had finished what we set out to do. By this point most of the movies had just blurred together into one giant slasher fest, but it was completely worth it. This will be the first of our Ultimate Movie Marathons and, while we decide on which horror series to tackle next, I will give you a brief rundown of each of the movies 🙂

FRIDAY THE 13TH

Year of Release: 1980
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 6.3 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

Where it all began, back in the day when flannel was all the rage and Kevin Bacon was running around in a speedo with absolutely no shame. It doesn’t feel right to compare this movie to the rest of the series since Jason is nowhere to be found. Long before the supernatural Jason that simply wouldn’t die there was poor little Jason who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake when the camp counsellors weren’t looking. To avenge the death of her little boy Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother, stalks the camp and kills anyone who tries to get it going again. The tragedy has led her to develop a split personality with Pamela and Jason taking turns at controlling the body. The Jason personality is out for revenge and the kids will have to try and survive a storm and make it through the night if this series is going to reach the ridiculous heights it eventually does.

The franchise’s first entry owes a lot to Psycho and is a good example of a simple slasher movie done right. Failing all else it should be seen as a valuable history lesson to any young and aspiring horror fan. Also, while this movie doesn’t have Jason in it in any serious way, it did begin the wonderful Friday the 13th tradition of having someone predict the horrible DOOM! that awaits the series’ various horny teenagers.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• At some point in the 80s the world was struck by a debilitating shirt famine.
• Watching Kevin Bacon prance around in a speedo is guaranteed to make you feel like a pedophile.
• Butchering a snake is a sure-fire way to make yourself feel manly.
• Evidence from a crime scene should always be handled senselessly.
• Peter Stuyvesant is the perfect after action satisfaction.
• When all your friends are missing and you’ve found a bloody axe you should definitely go check the generator on your own.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART 2

Year of Release: 1981
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 5.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Low

The first dip in the series. After our bowl-haired heroine beheaded Pamela Voorhees in the first movie the powers that be needed to introduce a new killer to keep the series going. Enter Jason Voorhees, the slashing madman who would go on to become synonymous with this series of movies. It’s still early days and Jason doesn’t have superhuman strength and power and the hockey mask isn’t anywhere to be seen. This movie also began the second great Friday the 13th tradition of having a flashback to the previous movie before any of the action begins.

Bowl-Hair has been brutally murdered after discovering Pamela’s head in her fridge. It turns out that Jason didn’t actually drown all those years ago and, having witnessed his mother’s murder, has come out of hiding to seek revenge. Five years later another bunch of kids is trying to re-establish Camp Crystal Lake. Like the kids in the first movie none of our new characters wants to hear about the DOOM! that awaits them on the seemingly tranquil shores of Crystal Lake. Jason, meanwhile, since he’s not the sharpest machete in the shed, is incapable of understanding that these kids had nothing to do with his mother’s death and is taking them out one-by-one. This becomes particularly amusing when a kid in a wheelchair gets an axe to the head and takes a little ride down a flight of stairs. This, unfortunately, was not enough to dig this movie out of snoresville. The main problem is that, by the time the end comes around, you feel like you’re only halfway through. The story wasn’t developed enough and you don’t particularly care who makes it and who doesn’t. The four of us were actually a lot more emotionally invested in the puddle with a rock in the middle of it that cropped up from time to time. Quite honestly I feel that the puddle actually deserved a place in the end credits.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• While 1980 had a great shirt famine, 1981 experienced a terrible Kevin Bacon famine.
• Hair care products really weren’t a very big deal back in the 80s.
• Ginger kids do not, in any way, look good in shorts made from their mom’s kitchen curtains.
• Before engaging in sex playing a harmonica is a great way to get both yourself and your partner in the mood.
• Placing your back to an open window is never the best place to hide.
• Hippies, despite their calm demeanour, can be remarkably resilient in a crisis.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART III

Year of Release: 1982
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 5.2 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

Ah, the first of so many things. This movie was definitely a step up from the last one and marks the first appearance of Jason’s hockey mask. The machete still isn’t the weapon of choice but we can let that slide. It was also the first time a movie in the series was available in 3D. I sincerely wish I could’ve watched this movie in a theatre with the old red and blue glasses 🙂

We’re not gonna take years to pick the story up again so this movie takes place the day after the second one. Jason’s alive and kicking and in need of some new clothes. Two dead people and the unexplained fate of a cute rabbit later and Jason’s all decked out and ready to go. Elsewhere a girl named Chris is getting ready to take a holiday at Crystal Lake. A few years before that (a made-up flashback tells us) she was attacked by a mysteriously deformed stranger and this holiday’s geared towards her facing and overcoming her fears. She’s accompanied by her friends that’re the usual bunch of idiots, nerds with a Jew fro, jocks and sluts. Along the way they also end up with three uninvited members of a bike gang, all of which Jason’s gonna have a lot of fun with. None of the horror that’s about to unfold would have happened, of course, if any of the kids had listened to the local town drunk that warned them of the DOOM! they’d come across around Crystal Lake.

This movie established the archetype Jason that was used in the rest of the movies; since the four of us all had our idea of what Jason should be like (based on more recent developments in the character) this made the movie a lot more enjoyable. While the pace was even slower than the second one the killings were far more in line with the Jason that we’ve all come to know and love.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Wearing hair rollers automatically turns a woman into a nagging hag.
• A ‘Thriller’ outfit is only truly complete when you attach a racoon’s tail to it.
• Horny teenagers are known to juggle apples and oranges despite many sayings advising against similar practices.
• The Jason Voorhees is a well-known ambush predator native to camp-based territories.
• There’s something wrong with a group when the hippies make the final surviving four.
• Jason will not be defeated by a simple spade.
• Jason – creating one mental patient at a time.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER

Year of Release: 1984
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 5.4 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium

Now we’re at the point where the series started to get cheesy. We’re also at the first concluding chapter of the series 😉 After an all-encompassing flashback that recapped everything we just watched, followed closely by some exploding credits, our story got under way. After a clean up crew has picked up the littered bodies from the third movie and taken Jason to the morgue our mask-bedecked psycho slasher comes back to life and kills a few hospital staff members before making his way back to Crystal Lake.

Given that movies 2, 3 & 4 all take place within a matter of days it’s absolutely amazing that yet another bunch of fools would want to take a little holiday up at Crystal Lake but, lo and behold, we have another group of stupid teenagers on our hands. To mix things up a little we also have a mother-daughter-son combo living across the way from the stupid teenagers. Far too many of their names start with the letter ‘t’ to make remembering them possible but one thing remains the same: teenagers are always in the mood for a little slutty premarital sex. When not engaging in slutty premarital sex they spend most of their time thinking about having slutty premarital sex (and trying to pass off having a stroke as dancing). With Jason becoming angrier and angrier as time goes on be sure to look out for one of the best deaths yet: harpoon to the groin! This movie introduced the character of Tommy Jarvis to the series’ canon and it’ll be up to this remarkably capable child to bring down a killer. It says something about people when a 10-year-old can succeed where fully grown adults can’t…

The movie ends with Jason being violently hacked to pieces with a machete, supposedly bringing the series to a close and ending Jason’s reign of terror once and for all.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Nurses are known, at times, to wear their dignity around their ankles.
• There were still no hair care products in 1984.
• 10-year-olds usually have the necessary qualifications and expertise to become car mechanics.
• A screwdriver can fix most of the problems your car’s engine may experience.
• Pants are for the weak!
• It’s completely normal to allow strange men you picked up on the side of the road to take your 10-year-old son up to his room unaccompanied.
• Your friends’ corpses double up as effective force fields.
• Jason disapproves of your crass, homophobic humour!
• Erectile dysfunction was a necessary ailment for men to wear 80s shorts.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING

Year of Release: 1985
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.2 / 10
Level of Awful: High

Our sanity was still intact but sadly the quality of the series was about to take a drastic downward turn. As the people behind the scenes clutched at a few more straws to come up with a story line the level of gratuitous breast shots went up and flannel, which had been in a steady decline since the first movie, decided to come back with a vengeance. If you pay careful attention you’ll notice that the majority of the kills in this movie are simple rehashings of Part III. A New Beginning is also the second movie in the series to not feature Jason as the killer. While this may have been the new beginning it would take a lot of glossing over in the movies to come to wipe these events from our minds.

4 years after the last movie 10-year-old Tommy Jarvis has SORASed and looks to be somewhere in his early 20s now. Traumatised by the death of his mother and Jason’s attack on him and his sister he has spent the time since then being shunted from one mental institution to another. On this particular day he’s being taken to the Pinehurst Halfway House, a little secluded spot in the woods for troubled teens. The idea is that those that live there must work to earn their keep and learn how to become productive members of society. That plan’s all well and good until one of the kids with anger issues takes an axe to the back of the weird kid obsessed with candy bars. It also doesn’t help that two of the kids have this constant need to go off and have filthy premarital sex in the corn field next door. The farm belongs to as trailer a hick as you could possibly imagine and her son (who, by the looks of it, would probably fit in at Pinehurst just fine) and this woman’s determined to shut this special haven in the woods down right away.

And then the killings start. The killings are good (man, tree, belt, face, pressure) but the movie isn’t paced very well and most of the kids are painfully irritating so the balance is a little off. With Jason dead Tommy becomes the natural suspect. After all, the killings started up right after he arrived. The truth, however, is far more lame. With very little imagination or thought expenditure our little group of 4 guessed who the killer was (mainly because he’s creepy and focussed on a lot more than his character seemingly deserves) so there’s no suspense in waiting for the revelation or clever twist to make it all worth it. All in all, a very disappointing 90 minutes.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• (Plumber) crack is whack.
• There is no dignity in dying in an outhouse.
• Stew always tastes better when you add just a hint of human blood.
• Black kids don’t scream.
• Chainsaws are a lot more effective weapons when you fill them up with diesel.
• Paramedics have to undergo intensive insensitivity training before they’re given the job.

JASON LIVES: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI

Year of Release: 1986
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 5.4 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

After the progressive downward spiral of the last two movies myself and the assembled company were really glad to see that this movie turned things around. Sadly this wasn’t to last but Jason Lives was one of my personal favourites of the day. With A New Beginning being the utter disaster that it was there was a need to bring Jason back as the killer, and it’s in this movie that he becomes the supernatural homicidal maniac that we’ve all come to have a great big soft spot for. This also seems to be the point where the series stopped taking itself seriously and decided to have a little fun with Jason’s character. Also, 6 movies later, one of the many camps we’ve been subjected to finally had children in it!

Tommy Jarvis is back and he has a lightning rod! Freshly escaped from the loony bin and the memory of A New Beginning forgotten Tommy’s gonna dig up Jason’s corpse, pour a gallon of petrol over it, set it alight and rid himself of the memory of the 4th movie. This plan backfires a little when Jason, who was very dead to begin with, is stabbed with a very long metal pole by a rage-filled Tommy. A storm appears out of nowhere and lightning strikes the metal rod, re-animating Jason’s corpse. A new and improved Jason is born and he’s out for revenge and murder!

The town of Crystal Lake is now known as Forest Green, an attempt by the locals to forget the horrors that have occurred there and bring a little more tourism to the area. Jason, however, will never forget his way home and, luckily for him, yet another bunch of fools has gone and reopened the original Camp Crystal Lake. Tommy makes his way into town to try and warn people but, when his story about bringing the rotten corpse of Jason back to life falls on deaf ears, he teams up with Megan, the sheriff’s daughter, to try and save as many people as he can. Tommy has to outrun the cops and become an amateur expert in the occult in order to (once again) bring Jason’s reign of terror to an end – this time by tying a noose round his neck, tying it to a rock and dropping him to the bottom of the ever-infamous Crystal Lake. Full circle and all that.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Grave digging is a brilliant way to gain a little closure in the aftermath of a tragedy.
• Dumb white boyfriends will be the downfall of their smart white girlfriends.
• Despite being a little corpsey Jason has some really tight buns on him.
• Manly gingers are known for their intense exercise routines.
• It can be difficult to tell the difference between two people having sex and two people having a simultaneous fit.
• Gas stations are great for picking up milk, eggs and manuals on the occult.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD

Year of Release: 1988
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium

And thus the roller coaster of quality in the Friday the 13th franchise begins again. At least we were being offered some cheesy goodness with this one; it was a nice warm up to prepare us for the unrelenting hell that would be Jason Takes Manhattan. While the killings became slightly more gruesome in this one (it does, after all, have the infamous sleeping bag scene in it) and Jason becomes even more of a rotten corpse, the inclusion of telekinesis and girls with age-old daddy issues just seemed to be clutching at even more straws. This was also the point for me where reality and film began to blur, most likely the effect of over 12 hours of movies and near-toxic levels of sugar, caffeine and nicotine in my blood stream.

Little Tina Shepherd is a troubled girl. Living in an abusive household, she’s frequently subjected to hearing her mother being beaten by her father. One night is one night, however, and Tina’s had enough. After rowing out into the middle of the Crystal Lake (where Jason just happens to be floating around) and tapping into her raw, limitless psychic powers, she causes the pier her father is standing on to collapse, along with its roof, sending him into the water with enough extra wood to pin him down there. Tragic, so tragic.

Daddy issues make women scary and volatile at the best of times, but throw in some uncontrolled telekinetic powers and you just know all hell’s gonna break loose. Tina, along with her mother and doctor, have returned to Crystal Lake 10 years later to help her overcome her crippling guilt over killing her dad. Next thing you know Tina’s sent out some crazy psychic vibrations in the wrong direction and, Bob’s your uncle, Jason’s alive again. Luckily for him there’s a whole group of randy teenagers also renting a house nearby and the air is rife with booze and premarital sex. It’s gonna take Tina, all her psychic powers, a loveable jock and the penitent spirit of Tina’s dad to send Jason back to the bottom of the lake.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Even as the 80s drew to a close hair care products were an unheard of luxury.
• Grammar are grammar like woods is woods (side thought: told you we were losing it by this point).
• Wearing an all-denim ensemble is guaranteed to result in your death.
• Whilst still a member of the mullet family, the toplet mullet is a distinctive style with its own brand of awful.
• Sedans don’t function well as off-road vehicles.
• Having telekinetic and pyrokinetic powers doesn’t automatically mean that you’re useful in a difficult situation.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN

Year of Release: 1989
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.1 / 10
Level of Awful: High

If the sounds of an animal dying a particularly harrowing death could be interpreted in cinematic form it would take the appearance of Jason Takes Manhattan. A more appropriate title for the movie would have been Jason Takes a Small Boat, a Back Alley and a Sewer System. By this point I had virtually lost all touch with reality and this little gem wasn’t doing anything to help me out. You can completely see why unleashing Jason in late-80s New York sounded like an amazing idea, but rarely has a great concept been so utterly screwed up as it was in this movie.

So, after the events of the last movie, Jason is once again stuck at the bottom of Crystal Lake. Two teenagers, caught up in the steamy passion that is premarital sex, don’t notice when their boat’s anchor snags an underwater power line, electrocuting the entire lake and once again bringing Jason back to life. After killing the two teenagers and procuring a new hockey mask Jason sets out to begin a new reign of terror. Fortunately for him Crystal Lake has developed a tributary system that lets the water out into the ocean. Arriving at the sea Jason grabs hold of a boat full of graduate students heading for Manhattan, and you just know there’s gonna be lustful premarital sex going on in those wood-paneled cabins. Prepare for yet another round of DOOM!!!!

This story focuses on Rennie, an awkward girl suffering from unexplained anxiety, who mysteriously begins to have visions of Jason drowning as a child. The purpose of these visions (which occur with irritating regularity) is never really explained, nor is a reason for Rennie having them in the first place forthcoming. Nevertheless, while Rennie may or may not be suffering the side effects of drug experimentation, Jason’s killing people. Jason keeps on killing people until the boat eventually docks in Manhattan, whereupon he starts killing even more people. Let loose in a city full of neon graffiti, punks and angry, drug-addicted hippies, it’ll take Rennie, her odd visions, her meek boyfriend and Manhattan’s entire population simultaneously taking a dump to take Jason out this time round.

As a side thought this movie inspired Tropical Mary and I to come up with a new Friday the 13th movie – Part XII: Jason VS the New York Ho. Now there’s an ultimate showdown for you!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Polony nipples are the devil’s playground.
• Stephen King wrote his original manuscripts with an ink pot.
• There’s a good chance that Jason is the kid from The Grudge.
• There was murder on the dance floor but even that didn’t kill the groove, DJ.
• Jason was rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.
• No one in 80s New York had the faintest idea how heroin worked.
• Jason disapproves of premarital rape.
• Never let a woman high on heroin drive the escape vehicle.
• With great moustaches come great responsibility.
• Toasty fried Voorhees – Just the way mama used to make it.

JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY

Year of Release: 1993
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.1 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy

And the dance of death for this franchise continues. Unlike previous movies, however, this one’s not even going to try and explain how we got from part 8 to here. Jason’s back and that’s all you need to know. By this point I think the people behind the franchise were so desperate to pit Freddy and Jason against one another they would do just about anything to make that plotline feasible. Sadly this was the best they could come up with. To think that, until Jason X was released 8 years later, fans had to deal with this as the concluding chapter makes me more than just a little sad.

So Jason, by means unknown, is back. The FBI, in the 4 years since his ‘rampage’ in the New York sewer system has also set up a special task team to deal with him. They hire their bustiest agent (one who just looks like she’d be ready to have premarital sex at the drop of a hat) to lure him into a cabin in the woods before the snipers blow him to kingdom come. But evil runs much deeper than the shell it inhabits and, when the coroner discovers Jason’s heart is still beating, the essence / soul / spirit / demon / black corn syrup of this demented killer unleashes itself and begins possessing people.

To drive this plot along it turns out that Jason has a half-sister that, surprisingly, has never been mentioned until this very day. Through her Jason also has a niece. In order to be reborn he will need to possess one of them and morph their body back into his. The malevolent twist in the tale is that, while he needs to possess one of them, they are the only ones capable of sending him to the inner most circle of hell. Jessica, the niece, will do this with the help of a mysterious mystical dagger which one member of the Voorhees family managed to come into possession of in a time that isn’t mentioned. In amongst all this she’ll have to save her baby, face issues surrounding her divorce, deal with the fact her boyfriend is trying to kill her and realise that a demon can enter a corpse not only through the mouth, but also through the vagina. Failure to overcome all these obstacles will result in certain DOOM!!!!!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Some thongs become so buried there’s no point in ever trying to dig them back out.
• Soul smears can be used to test for the presence of pure evil.
• A fun weekend includes smoking pot, having premarital sex and getting slaughtered.
• 20 to wonder llama and stroking pods (again, this was very late into the day and our ability to comprehend the English language was going into decline).
• Mouth to mouth soul regurgitation is a tricky, but highly effective, skill to learn.
• Prophecies sneak up on you from out of nowhere.
• Before shooting someone policemen often drop it like it’s hot.
• The aliens will eventually send Jason to hell.

JASON X

Year of Release: 2002
Genre: Horror / Sci-Fi
IMDB Rating: 4.3 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

Ah, the movie that inspired this day of Jason madness. You can read my full review for this entry here. In my opinion this is one of the best movies in the series, and, since me and my loyal crew had been glued to the TV for over 12 hours at this point, it was definitely a welcome break after the mind-numbing awfulness that was Jason Goes to Hell.

FREDDY VS JASON

Year of Release: 2003
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 5.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Surprise!

A hush fell over the room; was it possible that we were only one movie away from finishing our epic movie marathon? Had we really been going for around 15 hours doing this? Yes, yes we had. I’ve seen Freddy VS Jason a number of times, but I was ready to go into it with fresh eyes (figuratively – in a literal sense my eyes felt like sandpaper and I think I’d lost the ability to blink at this stage) and see how the series had led to this point. It was 10 years after the release of Jason Goes to Hell for the franchise and one epic day for us, but Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees were finally going to have their showdown.

We’re not at Crystal Lake any more kids! After the events of Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare and Jason Goes to Hell the movies’ respective killers are both trapped in, well, hell. Jason, not being much of a bright spark, probably doesn’t notice, but Freddy’s pissed off as hell (see what I did there?). The parents of Springwood have figured out a way to keep him out of their children’s dreams (and if it requires some mind altering drugs and forced detainment then so be it). Freddy needs to find a way to make the kids afraid again, and Jason’s just the psycho to do it. Disguised as Jason’s dear sainted mother Freddy convinces him to return to life and pop over to Springwood for a little murder spree. If people start to think that Freddy’s doing it, Freddy can make his come back.

Everything’s going fine until it turns out that Jason’s very greedy when it comes to his killings. He wants to kill everyone himself, and neither him nor Freddy is really prepared to share. Trapped in the impending chaos are Lori and her friends and, a bit later, her boyfriend Will, who’s been locked up in a mental asylum for a few years now. The dangers they face are astronomical – they can’t sleep, no where in town is really a Jason-free zone, their parents are after them and there’s hardly any free time to squeeze in a round of premarital sex. Prepare yourselves for the ultimate movie bad guy showdown!

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• The exposed breast 100m dash is a gruelling athletic event.
• Women will trip on anything, even things that aren’t there.
• If your girlfriend’s a smoker you should only kiss her after she’s had a menthol.
• Clever kids will run out the house in a group after discovering one of their friends has been brutally murdered.
• Kids have more blood in them these days but it’s a thinner consistency.
• If you love your kids – drug them.
• Smug parents should be rated 1 – 10 on the Eric Roberts scale.
• The glam rhythm will get you.
• Conversations about your enforced convalescence at a mental asylum are awkward.
• You can get good distance with a glam kid.
• Jason disapproves of premarital porcine sex.
• The alarm clock is mightier than the horse tranquiliser.

FINAL THOUGHTS

And thus it all came to an end. Somehow the four of us had gone from watching the first 9 movies to watching all 11. While Stygian Mole and the Occult Specialist were familiar with the franchise I realised I had only seen parts 1, 3, Jason X and Freddy VS Jason, while Tropical Mary had only seen Freddy VS Jason. The two of us have been friends for many years now but this experience only cemented the very strange and highly dysfunctional bond between us. The sugar come down the next day was a bitch, but it was well worth it. At the end of the day Michael Myers will always own that special place in my heart reserved for your favourite fictional serial killer, but Jason is special to me as well now. When the going was good it was great, when it was bad it was downright abysmal. But how many people can say they dedicated an entire day to watching all the Friday the 13th movies back to back with one another? Probably quite a few, but it makes us feel hardcore anyway 🙂

One last time I’d like to give a very big thanks to my three crew members; I don’t think I could have done this alone and they certainly did make it a day to remember. Thanks to Stygian Mole, the final death and breast scores were 177 kills and a Breast-O-Meter reading of 23.5. This translates to a death-to-breast ration of roughly 4:1.

Of course, the problem that came in after we had finished with this movie marathon was what we were going to do next. Well, some of us are a little sketchy on the events of A Nightmare on Elm Street, and it would bring the final movie of the day together nicely were we to watch the other franchise that led to it being made. Maybe, just maybe…

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