1313: Cougar Cult Ft. Tropical Mary

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 1.7 / 10
Level of Awful: Requires Post-Film Lobotomy
Breast-O-Meter: 0/5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

There are some movies out there that make you want to offer your soul to the devil if it meant getting a slight reprieve from it. There are other movies, however, that the devil himself wouldn’t have, and 1313: Cougar Cult just happens to be one of those. The reasons behind choosing to watch it were numerous – I wanted to watch it because I love Linnea Quigley, I wanted Tropical Mary to watch it to see if even her gay sensibilities could withstand it, but most of all I wanted to watch it without warning the Occult Specialist what it was about and see his facial reactions. While those were funny as hell, it still wasn’t enough to make watching this movie a worthwhile endeavour. Tropical Mary summed it up best: either give us more movie or give us more porn, but don’t leave us in this purgatory where we’re neither entertained nor turned on.

This one looks like he’s missing a chromosome.

Three sisters, affectionately dubbed Overbite Edwina, Flashpoints Victoria and Forever-Lost-Thong Clara, own a gorgeous mansion in some or other unspecified opulent neighbourhood. As three older sisters living together are prone to doing these cougars are on the lookout for young, buff men to help… um… service their needs. By that I of course mean cleaning the pool and cooking them the occasional meal. If a naked, oiled up massage happens then so be it, but it’s hardly a prerequisite for the job. But these aren’t your regular run-of-the-mill MILFy cougars, oh no. These gals are a coven of blood-thirsty witch cougars. They need their young man to feed on / become their mates / offer as sacrifices to their omnipotent feline goddess Calabast. I’m assuming Calabast is the Egyptian Bastet‘s Californian cousin, but I could be entirely wrong.

A 70s disco party is about the break out…

After eating their last pool boy the cougars need to bring in a little fresh meat. Enter Coopersmith, Darwin and Rufus. Each one delectable in their own unique way, they’re only here because they want to earn some money doing a summer job. This will involve undignified levels of shirtlessness, obscenely long shower scenes and unparalleled scenes of the boys sleep-fondling themselves. Occasionally the cougars will be thrown in for good measure, but they seem rather secondary to the tighty whitey-ness of the rest of the movie. There’s some glitter, a candle and questionable cougar effects thrown into the mixture, but all this movie really is is an excuse to watch somewhere between three and six men rubbing themselves along a bed for more than half of it.

So the $1 million budget didn’t go into the special effects?

According to my research the movie was shot in only three days. Believe me, it shows! When you’re not watching young men gyrating in ways that would make Madonna uncomfortable, you’re watching scenes of the Scream Queens that have already happened at least 3 times before. Words cannot actually describe the awfulness of this movie, but if you’re in the mood to see JUST HOW BAD z-cinema can be, then this is the perfect movie to watch. If nothing else, watch it to see the terror in the guys’ eyes, the acne on their faces and their various oddly placed nipples.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Nipples make jets of water go plume.
• Straight guys regularly exchange massaging tips by massaging each other whilst being virtually naked.
• You don’t need soap to have an intensive, all-body wash down.
• This movie proves that some actors don’t have breakout roles, they have come out roles.
• You can only feel a person’s aura if you stand behind them while they’re showering.
• You only need one candle to summon a demon hell goddess.
• Fairy dust works perfectly well as an agent for possessing a person’s soul.

1313: COUGAR CULT TRAILER

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Vampire Boys

Year of Release: 2011
Genre: Horror / Romance
IMDB Rating: 2.5 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Oh dear, watching this back to back with Hookers in a Haunted House really wasn’t my best idea; between the two of them I’m not sure I have a sexual orientation anymore. With such high-profile stars as Jason Lockhart (of Aliens VS Avatars fame) and gay porn star Dylan Vox you can only begin to imagine the ride this movie’s 70 minutes are going to take you on. With all that said, provided you can withstand being constantly bombarded with naked torsos and the occasional penis, this movie is a great laugh; it’s so completely (and unintentionally) over the top you can’t help but roll your eyes and giggle at the sheer ludicracy of it all.

This is not what rock 'n' roll looks like.

Caleb’s just your regular young gay man moving to California to get away from the close-mindedness that is the American midwest. Being a trusting young thing he’s moving in with Paul, another conveniently gay man who just happened to be looking for a roommate. Caleb’s eager to leave his tarnished past as an all-star swimming champion behind and dedicate himself solely to pursuing a degree and finding the ideal spot for drinking herbal teas for hours on end. Paul has other ideas, but a more immediate concern for Caleb is what the enigmatic Jasin has in store for him.

It's just a routine lice inspection mother!

As a sign of the age we live in Jasin is considered an incredibly ancient vampire since he’s about to turn 100. Vampire law dictates that on his centenary Jasin needs to take a life mate, but finding this person is proving to be rather tricky. Up until this point Jasin and his flamboyant coven were convinced The One was Tara, a lovely, if somewhat desperate, young lady. This all changes when Caleb rocks up in town and Jasin starts to have visions (of a sexual nature) of him. Intrigued by this turn of events Jasin decides to court Caleb to see how open to being turned into a vampire he might be.

There I was, minding my own business, when suddenly: penis!

But of course since we’ve introduced all these other characters so we need to do something with them. Caleb becomes instantly smitten with Jasin, leaving poor Paul out in the cold. Not one to simply accept defeat Paul resorts to whining and well placed topless guitar playing in an attempt to seduce his would-be sweetheart. When this and more direct methods fail Caleb storms off and Jasin, sensing his boy toy is displeased, sends the shirtless coven to take care of business. One would hope that this would take care of the problem but soon there is dissension in the ranks. Fighting against gay vampire rights Logan, Jasin’s right-hand fang, insists that Tara should be chosen as The One. When Jasin refuses to listen Logan abducts Tara, hoping to draw Caleb out into the open so he can kill him. Can Jasin save Tara and keep the love of his life? Does Caleb love Jasin enough to be turned into a vampire? Will anyone ever come out fully clothed? You’ll have to watch to find out.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Herbal teas are sometimes the best idea a person can ever have.
• Male vampires do enjoy a spot of synchronised sun tanning.
• Roommates should feel comfortable enough with one another to walk around virtually naked.
• Gay vampire seduction is infinitely more awkward than straight vampire seduction.
• Living in a more enlightened age means that vampires can now freely hunt members of either sex to bolster the coven’s numbers.
• Men just give in to their girlfriend’s requests to have a threesome under a sunflower bush.
• Gay vampires are incredibly worried about disappointing their mothers.
• All star swimming champions are worshipped as gods in the midwestern states.
• Herbal tea has a gargantuan calorie count.
• Stray bullets tend to put a dampener on an otherwise perfect afternoon.
• Vampires communicate with mortals through tongue-on-tongue action.

VAMPIRE BOYS TRAILER

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Fear of Clowns

Year of Release: 2004
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 3.4 / 10
Level of Awful: High

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Oh dear. Words escape me a little with this one. When I reviewed Dead Clowns I made a point of emphasising how slow-paced the movie was because of a lack of story. Well here we are, another movie about a killer clown, but this time it’s long and has far too much story. Not that most of the story actually ties in with what’s happening, but it’s there none the less. The sad thing with this little piece of cheese is that, had it been done properly with actors who could act, it would probably have been quite frightening. Sadly this was not to be and instead we are left with this attempt at frightening and suspenseful that lands up being confusing and a little boring but delightfully cheesy anyway.

PSA: Shivers the Clown encourages you to switch to energy saving light bulbs.

Lynn Blodgett is an up-and-coming artist in Baltimore that has developed a reputation for her pictures that depict the darker side of clowns. A series of flash backs tell us that she has had some traumatic experience with a clown as a child, but the movie doesn’t seem interested in explaining this, and has subsequently developed a severe case of coulrophobia which serves as the inspiration behind her paintings (according to the plot synopsis – movie doesn’t really make this clear either). This fear may also tie in with the trip to the abandoned amusement park that she makes later in the movie (movie doesn’t explain this either). Anyways Lynn has an art exhibition opening at the local Craig Flinner Gallery but, on the day before it starts, the neighbours of the house she’s looking after are murdered by a rather muscular and shirtless clown (apparently based on one of her paintings, according to the plot synopsis, but there are no paintings of him until she does one after seeing him). Lynn does not seem perturbed by this and continues with her plans for her exhibition where she meets Tucker, a roller coaster designer who pays $ 8000 for one of her paintings. Now there seems to be an uncut and longer edition of this movie that I don’t have because one moment Lynn and Tucker are at his office and the next she’s at home telling one of her friends on the phone about the how the evening was one ‘long story’ and she seems a little distressed. Perhaps the longer version would have filled in the blanks. While she’s on the phone Shivers the Clown appears at her door and frightens her so much that she passes out.

Why bother showering if all you're gonna do is get killed?

Where this movie does stand out amongst all of the others that I’ve reviewed is that the amount of time you spend looking at a half-naked man as apposed to a completely naked woman is greatly above the horror movie average: there is only one naked woman in the whole movie and absolutely no sexual content while Shivers is shirtless throughout. Now while our half-naked clown is out murdering people our plot line becomes more involved and confusing when Lynn discovers that her husband that she is divorcing has been out of work for six months and she is later commissioned to do the portrait of a man’s father for $ 20 000. She is conflicted, however, because it turns out that the man’s father was a convicted child molester that got off of some of the charges when there was insufficient evidence against him (I’m not sure how he’s a convicted criminal if this is the case). Absolutely NONE of this, however, has anything to do with the rest of the story and serves as a rare case where a movie creates plot holes for itself where none would have existed if they had been left out.

F*cking creepy Halloween night lights are a bad marketing idea...

As the story plods along and several of Lynn’s friends are killed the police eventually decide to take her seriously when she tells them that a killer clown is after her. The plot continues to become more complicated when it is revealed that her soon-to-be-ex-husband is trying to have her killed (ironically, by having a man dressed as a clown break into her home and shoot her). Somehow the husband also seems to know Shivers and even visits him and, although this does kind of tie into the story, it again serves as even more plot-filler. Eventually, as Lynn and Tucker become closer (despite the implication that he’s actually stalking her – something else that the movie doesn’t care to elaborate on) and the killings get closer and closer to home the two of them must put on a united front in a locked movie theater in order to avoid landing up like Lynn’s friends and being left in pieces all over the lounge floor.

I would like to give the movie credit, however, for the single little shot of a policeman guarding Lynn’s house and reading a copy of Stephen King’s It. It’s just a pity that nobody cared to actually read it and see how a killer clown storyline is done properly.

THINGS I’VE LEARNED:

• You can hear people fainting over the phone.
• $20 000 can buy a lot of bandwidth.
• Research shows that single men with cats are bad news.
• It can still be sunny close to midnight.
• FBI agents always stand in profile when knocking on people’s doors.
• Scary clown art is an incredibly lucrative niche market.
• Blurred vision and blindness are virtually the same thing.
• When victims describe the killer clown that attacked them to the police it is important that they fail to tell them that he is muscular and not wearing a shirt.
• When private investigators describe the killer clown to their clients they can mention everything about them except the muscles and lack of shirt.

Fear of Clowns Trailer