Sloppy the Psychotic

Year of Release: 2012
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: 5 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 1 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with that feeling that something is terribly wrong? I had that the other night. I was sleeping soundly, fantasising about buying bed linen made from Egyptian cotton, when I was suddenly jerked awake with this feeling of absolute dread. Not two minutes later my phone rang, and there was My Friend The Killer Clown Movie, sobbing on the other end. We’ve been friends for so long, but as usual we haven’t seen one another in ages (in fact, not since all those frat boys were murdered over on Hell Island). I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I told him to dry his clownish tears and get on over to my place ASAP.

That’s some poor judgement right there…

By the time he arrived I’d just managed to throw on some seductively manly pyjamas and make hot chocolate with marshmallows. After a lot of hugs and comforting words, My Friend The Killer Clown Movie was finally calm enough to tell me what was wrong. Turns out this recession has hit everyone pretty hard, and even great movie concepts like my dear friend has had to resort to whatever it takes just to pay the bills. That’s how he landed up starring in Sloppy the Psychotic, a decidedly z-grade movie about a once-lovely clown that goes a tad bit off the rails. He explained to me that, while it looked good when he read the script, when he got there there was neither the acting talent to make it somewhat credible, nor the humour to make the constant barrage of shock tactics even remotely entertaining. Poor guy, I don’t know how much more his dented ego can take.

See? No good will come from buying illegal cigars.

So there me and My Friend The Killer Clown Movie sat, under a blanket with me braiding his neon green hair, and I asked him to give me a run down of this movie that pushed him to the brink; a good friend needs to understand what’s he dealing with before he can provide any kind of help. It’s a simple enough story: Mike was a nice guy with a dream – all he ever wanted to do was be a clown and entertain all the children of the world. Now, times are tough, and the world of clowning is cut-throat. Turn you’re back for one moment and a mime will be trying to take away all your business. But if you love what you do, as Mike does, then none of that really matters. Nothing, until you’re victimised by a group of pool partying white trash that make fun of your life long dream. Oh no, dear reader, that’s when you push a clown one step too far.

Do I really need to explain this?

Just telling me this much got My Friend The Killer Clown Movie all weepy again, so I ran him a candle-lit bubble bath and put some Enya on in the background so that he could really relax while he told me the rest of this movie. At this point I was still on board, but I could see that things were going to take a very sharp downward turn. Oh boy, did they ever. Apparently one bottle of vodka is all that it takes to turn a mild-mannered clown into one that’s shoving a dead hooker in a trunk. And then there’s all those repressed emotions: anger, fear, rejection, sexual drought, and somehow all that’s gotta come out. As is often the case, these feelings manifest with Mike becoming a cannibal, poisoning some small children, barbecuing other small children, running over mentally handicapped individuals, amputating penises, using fish hooks on prostitutes, running a lawn mower over teenagers, decapitating housewives, and doing unspeakable things to men with a very large candy cane. Yeah, that’s what being under appreciated at work will do to a person.

I think that between the hot chocolate, hair braiding, and the bubble bath, My Friend The Killer Clown Movie has just about regained the will to carry on doing what he does best. The important thing is to focus on the good – I reminded him that this movie has a rather epic version of Pop Goes the Weasel playing in the background quite often, and that’s something at least. After he’d toweled himself off we lay in bed for a while reminiscing about all the good times we’d had together, and as the sun slowly dawned on the horizon he decided that he’d best be heading home before the wife knew he was out. She never has approved of our friendship – neither of us can figure out why. This time, however, we promised not to let so much time go by before we got together again.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Coulrophobia in small towns forces many clowns to live out their lives in secrecy and shame.
  
• It’s a risky career move to hedge all your bets on being a clown.
• Any clown company worth its salt has a fleet of vehicles ready to transport loads of emergency rubber chickens at a moment’s notice.
• Recently retrenched clowns and vodka are a deadly, deadly combination.
• Secretly, every woman wants to have sex with a man in full clown costume at least once in her life.
• Hobos have only two natural enemies: hungover clowns and puddles of their own urine.
• Death by anal candy cane isn’t a way that anyone wants to go.
• There’s no length a hooker won’t go to if there’s $500 on the line.
• It’s rude to discuss your sex life in front of a hired clown.

SLOPPY THE PSYCHOTIC TRAILER

BUY SLOPPY THE PSYCHOTIC AT AMAZON.COM

Shredder

Year of Release: 2003
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 4.4 / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0.5 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

There’s a special place for many kinds of movies in my heart: cheesy disaster movies, disastrous monster movies, monstrous 80s horror movies, but there’s also something very special about the early-2000s slasher movie. The harsh makeup, the proliferation of pseudo-lesbionic characters, the jocks with the bleach blonde hair and ebony eyebrows, the strange overuse of animal print – it all makes for a delightful assault on the eyes. Shredder doesn’t disappoint on any of these criteria. It reminds me of another classic I reviewed, Do You Wanna Know A Secret, but on ice. With a soundtrack that would rival the best porno, a decent assortment of sluts and bitches, and such riveting dialogue as “What country are you from?” “Europe”, I would thoroughly recommend giving this a watch if you’re in the mood for a good laugh.

Thank God, I thought I was the only one who bought that hat.

The joys of being a 30-something college student with rich friends: you get to go to deserted ski resorts whenever the mood takes you. This is exactly what Kimberly Van Arx has in mind for the weekend – daddy wants to buy an old ski resort to further bolster the family’s already considerable assets, and she’s gonna go up and check the place out. She sells this to Cole, her boyfriend, as a romantic get away for the two of them, it’s just that two actually equates to seven people. But it’ll be fun! Plus, the more men that go along, the more chances Kimberly has of prancing around in the snow in a high-waisted, leopard print bikini, so it’s all for a greater good. Of course, none of these kids heed any of the traditional warning signs about going on such a holiday – things like all the locals in the bar creepily staring at them, the fact that the resort’s entrance has been bolted shut, and the fact that there’s a lot of brand new ski equipment in the lodge, with no owner around to be found.

I’ll be good! I’ll be good, I swear!

But all of these things are trivial when the main goal is to get blind drunk, high as a kite, and bang more people than a hooker on payday. For Kimberly, the main goal will be to land Christophe, a blonde gentleman of some vague European abstraction that they picked up along the way. Sure, he won’t tell anyone where he comes from, he becomes oddly uncomfortable when the police are around, and he seems to know this area very well, but surely that doesn’t mean he’s up to anything shady, right? Then, of course, there are also the legends surrounding this resort, the story of the young girl who was killed in a snowboarding accident, and now her wrathful, angry spirit roams the mountain seeking her skiing revenge on any snowboarder she finds. But of course, that’s just a myth…

Now take two of these, get plenty of rest, and you’ll be back on your feet in no time.

But if it’s just a myth why are so many people in this little group landing up dead? And not snowboarding accident dead, like murdered by the mysterious skier dressed all in black dead. And apart from him, there’s also some extra kinds of weird going on around here. Like the random skiing chick who likes to ski naked or have men’s hands down her parka while sitting on the ski lift. And there’s her crazy father who keeps screaming on about the dangers of snowboarding. And what’s with all the pamphlets about the proper use of the skiing slopes? To these kids, very little of it matters – there’s sex and some extreme snowboarding to be had, so by the time they actually wake up to the fact that there’s a problem they’re already up to their necks in it. Well, at least the ones that still have necks are. It’ll take all their combined, underwhelming abilities to make it off this mountain alright and, if they’re lucky, one member of the group might just be that right combination of hardcore and bi-curious to get them all to safety.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• When going on a ski vacation, it’s essential that you pack enough bikinis.
• Women peeing needs to be documented for future generations.
• Smart kids carry their own jaws of life with them wherever they go.
• European men speak only in innuendos.
• With enough ass waving and a spare pair of knickers any sheriff will be putty in your hands.
• It’s very dangerous for your blood/alcohol level to surpass 10.kajilion.
• The best way for a man to thank a woman for saving his life is to invite her to a bisexual threeway.

SHREDDER TRAILER

BUY SHREDDER AT AMAZON.COM

Vampire Boys 2: The New Brood

Year of Release: 2013
Genre: Horror
IMDB Rating: – / 10
Level of Awful: Medium
Breast-O-Meter: 0 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Ever since I watched the original Vampire Boys last year it has been my go-to reference for gay vampire horror erotica, and has become one of my ultimate guilty pleasure movies. I honestly couldn’t tell you why (although I suspect the copious amount of 80s inspired synth music may have something to do with it), but every time I watch it I have some of the best laughs ever. When I heard that there was a sequel in the works I obviously had to get my hands on it, and the lovely people over at Ariztical were kind enough to send me an advance screener copy. So, is the sequel any good? Well, it has none of the original cast, the plot’s paper-thin, the acting’s generally appalling, there’s some very dubious sound editing going on throughout the whole thing, and there are 7 gratuitous penis shots. So, the answer is yes! yes! a thousand times yes! I loved this movie from giggling beginning to maniacal laughter end, and I couldn’t recommend it enough to those of you strong enough to withstand the constant barrage of dead-pan faces and naked torsos.

Would you like some side ball with your murder?

It’s been a whole year since the events of the first film, and Jasin and Caleb’s love continues to grow brighter and stronger. Jasin remains the undisputed leader of his peace-loving coven in LA, Caleb’s constantly being told to go off and attend classes and university, and Jasin’s ex, Tara, has moved in with them, making her the world’s possibly first vampire fag hag. It’s a beautiful little set up the three of them have going: Jasin and Tara exchange adult conversation, Caleb and Tara act like two high school girls around one another, and Jasin and Caleb spend the better part of their day naked in bed together. Truly, it is the American Dream gone horribly awry. But is this really paradise, or simply a ticking time bomb of immortal hormones and anger waiting to overflow?

Because naked blood sucking is the best blood sucking.

Obviously it’s a ticking time bomb, and all it needs is a match to the fuse to get it all going. Enter Demetrius onto the scene (and it’s now that I really wish I could broadcast Tropical Mary’s Afrikaans accent over the internet so you can hear how a name like that should really be pronounced). Demetrius is trying to set up his own coven in LA, and has acquired the use of a local boxing rink to help him find recruits. You see, while Jasin and his coven place peace and harmony above all other things, Demetrius really just likes to watch men beat the crap out of one another for sport (and possibly some kinky kind of sex thing, but the movie doesn’t really go into that). If only he could find a member of Jasin’s coven who’s really pissed off and would want to see Jasin and Caleb’s love torn asunder…

It’s Pirate Night down at the gay vampire fight club!

And there, as if from some crack-addled dream, emerges Tara in all her enormous-breasted glory! She’s still new to this whole vampire thing, so she’s easily put under Demetrius’ spell, which allows all her pent-up aggression to be set loose on the world. She’d be more than happy to slit dear little Caleb’s throat from ear-to-ear, but they’re gonna have to trick Jasin into letting his guard down. He can, after all, summon his army of shirtless vampire bodyguards at any time. But if all of this is in the name of revenge, what exactly is Demetrius’ beef with Jasin? Is a bleach-blonde man in a pair of tighty whities really a good choice for a new vampire convert? Why do you have to strip your victim of his pants and underwear before you drain him of all his blood? Just how big are Tara’s boobs anyway? Why does no one own a button shirt with any buttons? Why was there Tang in the pepper shaker at that little coffee shop? These are but some of the questions I had watching this movie, and it managed to answer at least a quarter of them. Truly, this was the best 80 minutes I’ve spent watching a movie in a long time.

Now, Ariztical, let’s talk about Vampire Boys 3…

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Boxing schools were created so that dads can send their sons there to be de-gayed.
• At the end of the day, love will only get you two puncture wounds in your neck.
• Vegan gay vampires feed on stags, but are occasionally known to partake of a beaver. You know, out of curiosity.
• Few people plan to become vampires when they start university.
• Vampires perform community service by draining irritating, yappy dogs dry.
• When a vampire compels you, you suddenly start doing the robot.
• A vampire’s built-in GPS only kicks in when they eat their first human.
• Recently turned vampires want two things: food, and then lots of gay sex.
• A vampire’s first feed is always best if both they and their victim is naked.
• Being a doctor and a vampire usually creates a conflict of interest.
• First rule of gay vampire fight club: everyone come with a lisp and tight pants.

VAMPIRE BOYS 2: THE NEW BROOD TRAILER

BUY VAMPIRE BOYS 2: THE NEW BROOD AT AMAZON.COM

The Collapsed

Year of Release: 2011
Genre: Horror / Thriller / Drama / Sci-Fi / Mystery
IMDB Rating: 3.5 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 0 /5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

Good God I love movies that fail as epically as this one did! Rarely does one find a movie that attempts to mash together as many genres as The Collapsed did, but in its attempt to be a horror-thriller-drama-sci-fi-mystery ultimate combo, it proved that it couldn’t pull even one of those elements off. I’m not a movie snob (as this site will well attest to), but I do believe that if you’re going to make an end of the world movie, you can only really go one of two ways: option one is to have a big budget so you can make it really convincing or, option two, you make it cheesy enough to distract the audience from the lack of budget. Here, The Collapsed does it wrong again: it wants to be a very serious end of the world movie, but with no budget for the necessary mayhem and destruction. Couple all of this with several attempts on behalf of the director to make the film look artsy and all you’re left with are 82 minutes of unrelenting pain and mind-numbing boredom.

A few apartment fires doth not the end of the world make.

So it’s the end of the world; how it’s the end of the world you’re never going to find out, but ‘the government’, ‘conspiracy’, ‘weapons we’ve never even heard of’ and ‘the horror’ are all phrases being thrown around by survivors of this invisible apocalypse. Our story follows dad Scott, mom Emily, and siblings Aaron and Rebecca as they attempt to find safety and supplies in amongst the few apartment fires and the occasional cannibal that are ravaging their generic movie city. Dad has the strangest accent I’ve ever heard come out of a human being (although I imagine it’s quite similar to how a Swedish person imitating a Canadian accent would sound), but despite this inherent flaw in his being he’s decided that the only way he’s gonna keep his family alive is to make a break for the wilderness. Because nothing bad ever happens when you run off into the woods in a horror movie.

Pursued by cannibals, our young heroine stops to shave her legs…

Getting to the wilderness, however, is going to require that the family does a little road trip. This is set up in such a way that it’s as painful to watch as it would be to do an actual road trip with your own family. Thrown in for not-so-good measure is a half-baked plot point about Scott and Emily’s other son, who apparently has gone missing. He’ll be thrown into conversation every now and then, but since we never see him it doesn’t really matter. Along the way the family discovers an abandoned little shop and decide to stop in and pick up some supplies; this is when things start to go very badly for them. While they’re doing a little shopping and Mom’s taking a bath in a sink, a group of heavily armed men wearing gas masks arrive as well. Making a very slow and blundering escape, the group makes for the surrounding woods, hoping it will provide them with a little safety and respite.

Survivalists of the Corn.

Naturally, the woods offer no protection whatsoever. Our family is still pursued by various groups of crazies, supplies are running low, and there are strange sounds and voices coming from the trees. To judge by the musical score, they’re also being relentlessly pursued by a group of poorly trained trumpeters and cellists, but that’s a separate issue entirely. As members of the family are slowly picked off by the different forces out to get them, Swedish-Canadian Dad needs to think of the best way to keep what remains of his family alive until they can escape this wilderness and find the supposedly safer wilderness he has in mind. Of course, not all enemies out to get you are necessarily mortal with a corporeal form…

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Just because it’s the end of the world, it doesn’t mean we can’t have manners.
• Just because it’s the end of the world, it doesn’t mean that feminine hygiene should be any less of a priority.
• Just because it’s the end of the world, it doesn’t mean the risks of teenage smoking should be taken any less seriously.
• Just because it’s the end of the world, it doesn’t mean that grave-digging techniques should suffer.
• Just because it’s the end of the world, it doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate an old-fashioned rifle that doesn’t blow up in your hand.
• Just because it’s the end of the world, it doesn’t mean that revenge still isn’t a dish best served cold.

THE COLLAPSED TRAILER

BUY THE COLLAPSED AT AMAZON.COM

Goth

Year of Release: 2003
Genre: Horror / Thriller
IMDB Rating: 3.4 / 10
Level of Awful: High
Breast-O-Meter: 3 / 5

WHAT IT’S ABOUT:

You really have to love those amazing horror movie collections you can find at your nearest grocery store. They lurk at the very depths of the bargain movie bins and you just never know what you’re going get, but whatever it is you know it won’t be good. Goth comes from just such a collection. Made on a shoe-string budget with a hand-held home video camera and actors who look like they’re freshly flunked out of drama school, this movie goes to show just how evil some directors can be. IMDB’s little blurb tells us that “Goth blurs the boundaries between reality-driven horror and the hallucinatory style of Requiem for a Dream…” It really doesn’t. It may blur the boundaries between reality and insanity (in a ‘I can’t believe I’m watching this crap’ kind of way), but any pretence that this movie attempts to follow in the heels of a well made film is an utter joke. I am proud of myself for watching it, however, because Tropical Mary, Stygian Mole and the Occult Specialist had to turn it off when they watched it together, proving once and for all that I am very hardcore 🙂

Goth, spelled G-A-Y C-L-U-B.

Come along and join us for an evening of gothic delights. Meet Crissy, the most girl-next-door goth you’ll ever meet. Crissy doesn’t say much in the beginning, but that’s because when she opens her mouth nothing but weird shit comes out. She’s going out with her boyfriend Boone, who’s gothic in a gay hipster kind of way. They’re super excited to be going to a concert at the local hell hole (note to the director: 20 drunk emo high school kids in a bar does not a concert make) where they’ll take an assortment of drugs, drink absinthe and have a generally gothic good time. While at the club Crissy meets her newest BFF, Goth. That’s her name: Goth. Why? Because she’s goth. I make the point that Goth is a goth because the movie itself likes to drive this point home every bit as emphatically. Goth is trying to find other goths who are as goth as she is. After saving Crissy and Boone from being mugged Goth gives the pair a drug called White Light and the party really begins to get underway.

Like, OMG! We’re, like, so TOTALLY goth right now!

After accepting a strange drug in a skull container from a complete stranger named Goth Crissy and Boone seem surprised to find themselves waking up in a strange van miles away from the club they started out at. Goth’s van is very goth, with skulls all over the place and a variety of drugs just littered about in old pizza boxes. Now the reason for this minor kidnapping is that Goth wants to see just how goth these two new goths are. This is because there are apparently two types of goths: goths like Goth, who are more akin to Satanists than anything else, and goths that are really just angsty teenagers who wear a lot of black. Goth has several goth rules that all goths should live by, and tonight will be a goth test to see if goth Crissy and goth Boone can be every bit as goth as Goth. You following me? Good. Thrown in at random intervals amongst all this gothness are several flashbacks to Crissy with her sister in a decidedly less goth fashion, just to keep you in suspense.

Mmm, AB negative, my favourite!

The evening begins to take a bit of a downward turn (or a turn for the better, depending on how goth you really are) when Goth decides to go all goth on people and telling Crissy that she needs to kill some people and that Boone needs to have sex with fat hookers. Why? Because that’s the goth thing to do. In essence what Goth is actually getting at is that you need to behave like a petulant child with a sharp knife, but somehow defining this as ‘goth’ will make it a lot more hardcore than it really is. Boone has his reservations about all this, but apparently Goth threatening to kill a room full of hookers is enough to change his mind. Crissy doesn’t question anything and is all game to go along for the ride, timidly chastising Boone whenever he cares to voice a thought. But the flashbacks keep coming at us, and it becomes somewhat clear that Crissy has ulterior motives for going along with all this and Goth (and her red pleather mini skirt) will have to watch out or suffer the wrath of a Crissy scorned.

LIFE’S LESSONS LEARNED:

• Gothic sex tastes better when you have it on a dirty floor.
• Goths are really leading the peer pressure drive when it comes to taking mysterious drugs.
• Punk gothic dominatrixes are really trippy.
• Be on the lookout for gothic drug delivery vans, coming to a neighbourhood near you.
• Becoming a goth requires more intense training and dedication than becoming a Tibetan monk.
• Having a knife poked in your eye and pleather rubbing against you really isn’t a turn on.
• Being gothic is about experiencing true love and learning to tolerate people from all walks of life.
• Embracing the darkness includes having sex in front of a  gathering of goths and hookers.
• You can’t be a true goth if you attempted suicide and failed.
• A goth lesbian’s vagina is a portal to memories of happier times.

GOTH TRAILER

BUY GOTH AT AMAZON.COM