There’re two certainties in life..death and taxes. And unless there’s itemizing going on in Hell, I suspect death is a bit less time-consuming. Yes, it’s tax season once again so that means it’s time to gather those crumpled receipts from the shoe boxes and try to remember how little money you had before you didn’t have any money. It’s kinda like you’re being forced to give a loan to that crazy uncle that says he needs the cash for groceries, but you know he’s just going to blow it at the race track, always betting on the horse with emphysema. Still you hope you might find a loophole somewhere and get some money back: “Could I actually write-off dog grooming?” “Is beer deductible?” “If I get my wife pregnant, can I claim the kid this year?” These are just some of the questions you might ask, but you can take comfort in knowing your cash will go to good use in the community. It will be invested in deserving projects such as the secret underground testing labs where they train monkeys how to open pickle jars. Large portions will go into technology investments like $12,000 coffee makers for Area 51, or eco-food preservation. Maybe they can finally fill in that big pothole they call the Grand Canyon with some of the money that’s left over. I’m counting my receipts and checking them twice because if the IRS Fairy ever does ever visit me at night, I want her to leave me a nice little tax return, and not pimp slap me and steal my wallet again.

Speaking of life-sucking vampires: Mathilda May may have induced many boys into puberty in the mid 80’s when she gallivanted around as a naked space vampire vixen in “Lifeforce.” A giant evil-looking space thistle is discovered in the tail of Haley’s Comet, and instead of just nuking it and asking questions later, a group of curious, dim-witted astronauts decide to go check it out. While inside they find a bunch of giant dead space bats floating around, and 3 naked people frozen in display cases. Is anyone in the crew mildly concerned for their safety yet? Nope. So they decide it’s an even better idea to haul the aliens back to Earth in their cargo hold.

Months later a rescue shuttle from Great Britain’s bustling space program is sent up to intercept the now adrift shuttle. Much to their horror they discover most of the crew burned beyond extra crispy. An apparent fondue party gone horribly wrong. Fortunately, the space nudists are still well preserved in their see-through tanning booths, and they swiftly get hauled down to London to be studied at a minimum security community college. Suffice to say alien shenanigans occur, as the formerly freeze-dried alien girl wakes up and starts making out with strangers, sucking out their lifeforce like soda through a straw. She then goes streaking through the hallways, distracting everyone with her space melons, only being confronted briefly by a security guard with the lure of a potato chip. No one can resist the fever for the flavor of a Pringles. Once free she goes on a London whirlwind hitchhikers tour of soul suck-i-tude, with her consciousness jumping around between bodies in an attempt to recharge her lifeforce batteries.

Meanwhile back in the lab, her first victim, now shrunk up like a used Capri Sun bag, gets up from the autopsy table and starts attacking the doctors to absorb their soul juice. Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback), the only survivor of the doomed space crew, suddenly shows up back on Earth in a mercury escape capsule (he must have been stuck in traffic), and he’s debriefed by a NASA British agent, who learned that he has a psychic connection to the female alien. They decide to hypnotize him to learn of her whereabouts, because that’s what NASA does best. His unique powers give Tom a Google Earth street view of license plate #’s, and he soon learns she’s traveling with a poor sheep herder in a Volvo. It’s as if the DMV suddenly became omnipresent.

Along with a Special Air Service operative and a wormy little doctor named Professor Fallada, they track down the partially possessed people, using them as a sort of compass to her main squeeze, a balding British doctor played by Patrick Stewart. They decide to pimp slap around Captain Picard for a while, and then pump him full of more narcotics than are in Mark Maguire’s butt cheeks, thus trapping the alien’s consciousness in his body. On a flight back to London, the space chick escapes via some nasty nasal discharge, materializing in front of them, and then crop dusting the whole of downtown London with her space vampire electric mojo. Warning: Side effects of vampire mojo may include dizziness, vomiting, and turning into an undead zombie who sucks out human souls.

Your typical zombie plague occurs, putting London in a quarantined war zone, while Caine and Carlsen race to destroy the source, and try to stop the vampire ship that’s attracting souls like flies to a bug zapper. It all leads up to a big showdown in a citadel with naked vampire chick, a Conan sword, and a whole lotta cheap special effects.

Tobe Hooper, after his little stint with “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, decided to make this sci-fi/horror movie, and it never quite decides if it’s an alien film or zombie film. Maybe it’s just an excuse to have a lady walk around naked for a half hour. Either way it’s a win-win. Retroman Steve says check it out and remember, only store your vampires in official Gladware containers. They help avoid freezer burn and lock in freshness.

- Dead space bats
- Giant space thistles
- Soul powered light beacons
- Explodo vampire-zombies
- Freeze dried space bats
- Patrick Stewart pimp slappin’
- Extreme sinus drainage
- Multiple face suckings
- Multiple impalements
- Capri Sun soul bags
- Death by flare pistol

Rated 9.2 out of 10

Lost Highway is proud to partner with Crackle.com in providing you the ability to watch “Lifeforce” online for Free! Check out the link to launch the website and video.

Aeryk is a delicate fondue of Cajun and Viking stock, with all the subtly, grace and refinement of a high colonic. He indulges in all night orgies of sex and violence with the likes of Sex With The Headless Corpse of the Virgin Astronaut. His iTunes library is named Bad Mother F***er despite the fact it has the Bangles Greatest Hits. He reads comic books, writes incessantly and he fancies himself The Lovable Rascal.

Probably most disturbing is his propensity to write about himself in third person, needlessly.

and now Lost Highway is proud to present on a silver platter Aeryk’s review of “The Brain that Wouldn’t Die.”

Tagline: Alive … without a body … fed by an unspeakable horror from hell.

Year: 1962 Runtime: 82 mins

Director: Joseph Green

Writer: Rex Carlton (original story) & Joseph Green (original story/screenplay)

Starring: Jason Evers, Virginia Leith, Leslie Daniels, Adele Lamont

What You Expect:

Science, the kind with a capital S, and not just ‘cos it’s at the beginning of the sentence.

What You Need to Know:

The science side of sci fi is usually worse than the fiction, but this is exponentially more the case when one is talking about 50’s - 60’s movies. In these stories anyone who wears a white coat majored in Science. Back in the Way Back When there wasn’t the specialization that has killed the Scientist today.

What [The Brain That Wouldn’t Die] Delivers:

The movie begins black. A woman’s voice pleads, “Let me die. Let me die.” This flooded me with sweet memories of the day I was born. No, I don’t mean to suggest I remember my birth, ‘cos I don’t. My father filmed the birth, or, more correctly, he thought he was filming it. Actually, he was filming the inside of the lens cap. He did manage to get some beautifully haunting audio of the miracle. Watching it years later, I believe I was 7 or 8, it was much like the beginning of this film.

Unlike my birth, the filmmaker removed the lens cap. It’s to an O.R. with two doctors (father and son) working feverishly to save a patient. Sadly, the operation doesn’t work. Dr. Father says, “I should have known the instant we wheeled him in this wouldn’t work.” This was completely obvious ‘cos there wasn’t any equipment in the O.R. Even Unga Bunga Cavemens™ had incense and herbs and leeches. What did they expect? Where they going to “look” him back to life?

Since the operation was a bust, the son asks if he can do it his way. Uhm, mysterious, but ok. To seal the deal Dr. Son says, “He’s dead. I can’t do any harm.”

To which, Dr. Father sighs, “Fine. Do whatever you want.”

HUH?!? I know people tend to turn a blind eye to things when it’s family, but “do whatever you want?” It’s a good thing the guy died.

After the surgery Dr. Son gets a frantic message that he’s needed at the weekend cottage. Dr. Son and his fiance rush off. The road to the cottage is treacherous, full of slow curves and rolling hills. Along a straight stretch of highway, Dr. Son somehow loses control of the car, launching it off a cliff. Or, that’s what the filmmakers wanted to film, but what actually happens is he meanders slightly to the right, BEFORE the tight curve, and bumps into the guardrail.

Cut to: the rocky cliff they were driving along magically transforms into a soft grassy slope down which Dr. Son starts rolling, having been thrown from the car.

Cut to: Another magic transformation into a different hill, where he comes to a stop. He quickly jumps up and runs AWAY from where he had crashed. Somehow makes it back to the car.

Ah! The power of cheese.

But, wait, it gets AWE-some! When Dr. Son makes it back to the car his fiance’s hand raises from in the burning car, shakes dramatically, then fall back. Dr. Son takes off is jacket and, rather than reach over the side of the car, as it was a convertible, WITH the top down, he reaches through the broken windshield and tosses his coat in. I would have been cornfused, but nothing else made sense. Why should this?

Why would he toss in his coat, you ask? Only to have the best thing ever happen. The writhing hand hands back the coat all wrapped up with something in it. Her HEAD! Yes, her decapitated body wrapped its head in the jacket and handed it back to him. Rather than worry about her death, or spaz, or just die, she used her last few seconds to neatly pack her head and hand it off to the man she loved. They don’t make womerns like that any more.
In the weekend cottage Dr. Son has set up a lab where he’s been using stolen limbs from amputees to perfect his serum, some magical concoction that is supposed to allow transplanted limbs and organs to play nice with one another. In several failed attempts he had managed to graft arms on to his apprentice, only to have them shrivel up into useless claws. His biggest mistake, and the reason he was rushing to the cottage, is the Frankenstein monster he created from all the limbs and organs he’s stolen. When he takes his girl’s head to the house, it’s the serum that allows the head to live in little more than a baking tin full of tomato juice and clamps. It would seem to me that this is a fantastic feat for Science, but what do I know.

Not content with just a head for a fiance, Dr. Son decides to go looking for a replacement. To his benefit this is also the Good Ole Days™ when a trip to the local burlesque show was the place to brought your girl for a romantic date. Or, if you’re single, the burlesque was a great meet up. ‘Cos that’s where all the single ladies were to be found. And if that weren’t enough, the dancers literally fight over you.

When the burlesque doesn’t turn up any winners, and a body beautiful contest only turns up the second best looking body, Dr. Son decides on a pin up model who was disfigured by a former lover, leaving her bitter against all men. By disfigured I mean he mashed some silly puddy on her face, which is easily covered by her hair. A terrible, terrible tragedy.
Blah, blah, blah. Takes her to the cottage. Blah, blah, blah. Slips her a roofie. Blah, blah, blah. Time for surgery. The only thing better than Dr. Son’s Science is his logic. As he’s preparing the body, the head tries to talk him out of his insane plans. Her arguments fall on deaf ears. His retort, “Is it a crime to want to keep you alive? Is it a crime for Science to jump ahead by years?”

UHM? Yes it is, ‘cos you’ve been stealing limbs and body parts for secret experiments and you’re going to kill an innocent girl for her body. But, again, what do I know. I’m not a Scientist.

-Burlesque Show
-Body Perfect Show
-Burlesque Cat Fight
-Bikini Fotoshoot
-Conehead Toxie
-Marble Catching Fire

Check out the trailer for The Brain That Wouldn’t Die

Everybody has to deal with fear. There’s the fear of snakes, fear of fire or dark places, and more people are more afraid of public speaking than actually dying. Strange how someone would rather be the person in the casket than the one delivering the eulogy, but there are a few lesser known phobias that are just as terrorizing. One such condition is Arachibutyrophobia, the overwhelming fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth and causing instantaneous death. There’s also Mulletphobia the fear of mullets and hockey hair. It’s a phobia approaching epidemic levels in certain parts of Canada. Some people also sufferer from Bananaphobia and won’t even be in the same room as the menacing yellow fruit referring to it as the “Devil’s Snack Food.” To them eating a bowl of fruit salad would be a dance with death.

Unfortunately there’s no help for me and my rare condition. I suffer from LaBeoufophobia…….it’s the irrational fear of the actor Shia LaBeouf. Ever since I saw Transformers the guy just gives me the creeps. He’s like a tiny man stuck in a teen body with facial hair and the mere thought of seeing his giant man-boy face on a 30ft screen makes me want to curl up in the fetal position. Even actors that have French sounding names make me feel queasy.

I’ve taken precautionary measures though, so as not to trigger an all out Shia-attack. I  avoid all movies starring giant talking robots. I steer clear of McDonald’s Playlands for fear a tiny Shia is hiding in in the ball pit. He’s well under their height requirement and has ninja like hiding skills. I’ve also put away all my vintage transformer toys into secure boxes for fear they will report back telepathically to Shia with my location and activities. So take heed my b-movie fans, the LaBeouf walks among us and he’s hungry searching for souls to steal. Only then can he remain perpetually 15 years old and still make movies with Megan Fox. It’s the perks of his deal with the Devil or as the unknowing public refer to him as “Michael Bay.”

Speaking of dealing with phobias. Allison (Jillian McWhirter) just signed up for a class in fear headed up by professor tall dark and creepy. After “pissing off” a frat guy by playing some Russian roulette, and threatening campus wide keg bans, Professor Derek pulls an Elvis and fakes everyone out with a staged suicide. This gets the college board of trustees’ undies in a bunch and they force him to conduct private classes in his home as punishment. Allison and her friend Cheryl along with a few others college kids who can’t find a kegger head to his house for some private tutoring. While I was holding out for virgin sacrifices or blood orgies for the extra credit, instead they get to sit around and tell scary campfire stories.

The first story told revolves around a couple out for a birthday celebration that decide to take the scenic route home only to get the inevitable flat tire in front of the spooky mansion. Seems that always happens in horror films. Car warranties should really cover drive by hauntings. They decide its safer to go into the house where there had been a vicious murdering spree rather than wait for a tow truck. The wife disappears upstairs, and the husband who has all the kahunas of a Don Knots starts freaking out, and sword swinging at anything that moves. Sufficient to say heads roll and the birthday bash ends on a big bummer. But hey at least he won’t have to deal with marriage counseling anymore plus he still gets cake.

After the tale of birthday beheadings we get stuck with a story about a bunch of whiny teen girls who haven’t discovered texting or the internet yet. They instead head out for a night of downtown clubbing in their 84′ Chrylser LeBaron. While trying to find a club that allows high school girls dressed like hookers, they get held hostage at an abandoned Gas n’ Go by some guard dogs, and a bum who looks a lot like Tommy Chong. Completely out of their weed stash the girls escape in their “teenmobile” which can easily achieve top speeds in the low twenties. It gives the bum plenty of time to hitch a ride on their roof to go get some snacks for his munchies. Fortunately, the girls innate driving skills slam them into a parked car sending the bum through the windshield like a test crash dummy. The relief that they’ve helped with downtown vagrancy is short lived though as the hungry guard hounds show up and turn one of the panicked girls into a doggie chew toy. The rest of them see that as the perfect time to get away but actually run out of gas, and have to hoof it to an abandoned warehouse instead. In the final standoff of lame they try to outsmart the hungry hounds in a battle of wits and hide and seek. It’s hard not to root for the dogs at that point.

The third and final story is about a  pre-CSI Marg Helgenberger who plays Alex. She’s works at a late night call center hoping around on crutches because apparently nobody had invented message machines in the 80’s. She starts getting crank calls from a psycho with a fetish for heavy breathing, and phone cord strangling who just offed one of her only customers. Alex’s mild apathy grows to terrified victim mentality as the psycho easily takes out her best friend, and uses her as a elevator door stop. Alex starts frantically hopping around knocking out incandescent light bulbs like some sort of photo sensitive jack terrier, and winds up falling down the stair well and impaling a security guard with a wood stake. This eventually leads to a showdown back in the main office. It’s all just an obvious assassination attempt from the phone recording machine industry. AT&T workers probably tell this story to their kids at night.

Back in reality the college kids are now all effectively creeped out and cranked up on caffeine, and Jujubees. A power blackout forces the professor to “check the fuses” in the basement where he gets strung up like a Piñata, and is about to get flame-broiled by the frat boy he had humiliated earlier. But things go sour as frat guy chickens out, and Edward emerges from the flames as an evil skeleton with a hankering for chopping on Greek pledges. Amongst the fiery chaos Allison ditches her friends, and high tails out of the house across multiple movie sets of all the previous stories while professor “Skeletor” is in hot pursuit with an axe to grind. Yeah it started getting a bit weird around then.
“After Midnight” is not one the scarier films to come out during the anthology band wagon of “Creepshow”, and Tales form the “Darkside” but it’s still a pretty entertaining ride. Hard to believe this movie was directed by the same guy that made the Ewoks film.

Retroman Steve says check it out, and never trust a professor who wants you to stop by his place for some “extra credit work.” They inevitably turn into blood thirsty undead skeletons that will try to steal your soul. It’s all right there in the fine print of your syllabus on page 24.

- 1 accidental beheading party
- 1 headshot
- Multiple heads rolls
- Pants wetting
- Homeless joyride stunt spectacular
- Flame broiled attack dogs
- Teenage doggie chew toy
- Professor Piñata
- Body chopping with axe

7.7 out of 10

I believe Shia LaBeouf roughly translated in the ancient french dialect means “Hungry Like the Wolf” or “Shy of the Beef.”

Check out the trailer for After Midnight

I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. Normally I’d attribute it to the 2 liters of Monster Energy drink I normally consume while watching schlocky late night cinema, but I’ve been cutting back on that. So now when I finally do fall asleep I have some really weird dreams. One in particular I keep having is where I’m being chased by zombies in a city and when I try to drive away my car will only go 10 mph. Sure it looks like a Lamborghini but drives like a Prius. Then I realize that I actually have the mutant power of Spiderman and used my web slinging ability to climb to the top of the Sears towers. That’s where I discover Oprah Winfrey perched like a vulture in her pants suit gnawing on a chicken leg. It figures Oprah would be the one person to survive the zombie apocalypse. So she gave me keys to a free car and a Oprah book of the month club membership and I go swinging back to down to my car. It all ends when I try to peel out, and I find my tires have been replaced with large sprinkled doughnuts and there’s a monkey dressed as a bellhop in the passengers seat singing Celine Dion songs. That’s when I wake up in a cold sweat. Sure zombies and a benevolent Oprah I can handle, but not monkeys singing “My heart will go on”. Guess I should ease up on the Chinese food before bedtime.

Speaking of bad dreams. Dennis Quaid plays Alex, a psychic womanizer who uses his gift to predict the future, bet on horses and read girl’s minds. A former associate Dr. Novotny (Max von Sydow) hates seeing him squander his money on effeminate casual wear from the Penny’s catalog and gets him to join his classified government dream project instead. And you know when it’s secret and the government is involved someone is going to die. The military is using psychics to enter people’s dreams all in order to advance military science or in-dream banner ads which ever is more profitable. Alex, when he’s not gallivanting his boney torso around in his Underoos likes to play the saxophone Clinton-style and hit on lab technicians. Jane (Kate Capshaw) plays the queen of the babe lab technicians and works with Alex to sharpen his dream linking skills. They play card games, he reads her mind for a quick lite read and they get right to some train shagging during Jane’s power nap.

Alex starts warming up his dreamcatcher skills through some subconscious marital advising and construction stunt work all leading up to a big snake hunt in some little fat kids head. This was apparently during a time when science didn’t really need a specific purpose. Buddy has been having bad dreams of being stuck in a Tim Burton movie while being pursued by the Boogeyman and it’s been really cutting into his eating time, so Alex plugs his mind into Buddy’s brain and they do battle with a big demonic snake creature who wants to make little buddy into ground round. It’s a sort of Anne Coulter of the subconscious. Buddy succeeds in chopping the creatures head off with a big kill axe while Alex gives it a nice bear hug. I believe Buddy’s been doing a lot of free weights in his spare time.

Meanwhile back in Washington the president has been having nightmares of kids with bad acne jumping out of broom closets while nuclear blasts are going off all around them. The dreams are so bad that the president decides he wants to disarm all the nukes at the next Geneva convention. It’s obviously a plot by bunch of commies, so they must be destroyed, and the president is rushed into the dream institute to have him studied to end this horrible threat. The military dream program is headed up by Bob Blair. One of the most politically evil character’s ever to wear a polyester suit and yet they named him Bob. “Oh no!…tremble before the fear of…. Bob!” But Christopher Plummer can just ooze evil out of any character even if you stuck him in a Barney suit he’d still make children cry. Bob also has a hit squad in rented suits ready to run over phone booths on a moments notice, and his own pet psycho psychic, Tommy played perfectly by David Pat Kelly. Tommy enjoys stuffing his face with food while harassing Alex about whose the better dream-linker, and when he’s really bored he kills patients “Just for the kicks man.” Bob doesn’t want the military machine to stop churning out nukes, so he hires Tommy to try to dream assassinate the president at nap time.

Alex discovers the assassination plot thanks to the cunning investigative reporting by Norm from Cheers but then gets rick rolled out of a moving car before he can get the news back to Dr. Novotny whose already been killed by Bob’s goon squad. There’s a motorcycle road race and Alex gets chased down by Lincoln Continentals at the race tracks narrowly escaping into the back of a horse trailer. That’s a lot of horses a** for one trailer. Alex works his way back to the institute just in time to remote link up with the president who is dreaming he’s on a Amtrak in Hell, next stop downtown Armagedonville. They fight subway zombies, ninjas, and radioactive wolf-beasts while being pursued by Tommy who just impaled the train conductor with freddy fingers and turned into a giant Snakeman. I had that exact same dream once but I was in high school and I was in my underwear. Oh wait… maybe that wasn’t a dream.

Dreamscape’s a pretty fun little 80’s flick with big nods to influencing Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm St., complete with a bad guy sporting Freddyish finger blades, and a giant nightmarish snake creature. I saw this movie when I was 10 years old and back then the Snakeman scared the heck out of me, but this time around I found it rather goofy. Dennis Quaid without a shirt was the most horrifying thing about it. Retroman Steve says check it and be sure to not eat Chinese food before bedtime.

- 1 motorcycle chase with crash and bale
- 2 nuclear explosions
- 2 Snakemen
- Multiple radioactive mutants
- Norm from Cheers cameo
- Steel beam circus acts
- Train shaggin’
- Emergency heart removal
- Lee press on Freddy nails
- Numchuck chucking
- Mutant dogs

7.1 out of 10

“it’s Dennis Quaid-tastic”

Check out the trailer for Dreamscape

I gotta admit I prefer budget lodging in this Michigan economy. Just give me a room with a bed and a TV and I’m living the life of a king. It probably comes from my dad whose idea of a family vacation was going up north with us in the back of the pickup so we’d just slide around like loose change. Apparently he thought we could just go limp if we were in an accident. Luckily we’d only stop for some deer venison jerky or to close up that loose tailgate. Once at our destination he could always find the cheapest hotel in the area. I kept holding out for the possibility of a pool but my dad would just say “They charge you extra for that…I can just spray you down with the hose out back.”

The motel would have signs advertising amenities like “AIR” or “COLOR TV” usually placed over a flickering neon sign with a letter or two burned out. Yes enjoy your stay at the “HO EL” where you too can fall asleep to the gentle sounds of a bug zapper killing it’s prey or play that always popular game of “name that stain.”

The room would usually smell of dank mothballs and your feet would sink immediately into an inch deep matting of wall to wall shag carpet. All this fenced in by your standard issued 60’s wood paneling. I can still feel those walls closing in on me like I was Han Solo in that Death Star garbage room scene. “Wait, there’s something moving in the carpet!” If you were lucky you’d get a bed with those vibrating magic fingers and for a mere quarter you could get your inner organs reorganized or your spine realigned without those hefty chiropractor bills. Now that I have my own kids I too find myself drawn to those roadside budget lodgings but I know to always keep a can of bug spray handy and look for one with a heated pool. So if you’re ever on Lost Highway I suggest Big Marge’s Sunset Motel. The Sunset has clean rooms, great rates, and the morning coffee will put hair on your chest. Marge is proof of that.

Speaking of hotels you don’t want to stay overnight at. The Grand Island Hotel in “Bloody New Year” redefines the term “tourist trap.” A group of middle aged looking British teens after a long day of harassing carnies crash their sail boat on a remote island. There they find a strange Bavarian looking hotel seemingly abandoned and hastily decorated for a New Years party. Turns out an experimental government plane took a nose dive on the island back in the 50’s creating this sort of time rip in space where the dead are stuck haunting the hotel. Sorta like the line at Secretary of State only for the undead so rightfully the spirits there are a bit cranky. At first things seem pretty normal, maids service is sporadic, beds get turned down mysteriously. There’s also open bars and peeping toms, but nothing you wouldn’t otherwise expect at your Hotel 6. Unfazed the soggy group find some vintage clothes left over from a Happy Days rerun to change into and proceed to investigate the rest of resort. Downstairs there’s a B-movie marathon playing on a makeshift theater showing a much more interesting “Attack of the Brain Stem” film but then they cut over to some lame home movies of the hotel instead. “Bring back the brain stems!”

Things do liven up a bit when an Arabian sheik fresh from the set of Aladdin leaps out of the screen and kills Spud “I’m Alrighta” with a scratch to the face. A good reminder to always wash your hands! This horrifying event doesn’t seem to affect the rest of the group which range from apathy to boredom “Oh bullocks Spud’s dead… maybe we should wrap him in tinfoil and poke holes in him.”

The group wisely decide to split up to make the killing go more quickly  Tom and his girlfriend head off to investigate a nearby beach house and try to get in some nooky time. Once inside they they get attacked by a malevolent fish net and a demonic end table that they impale with a fish hook. If only they had learned early on the true horrors of Red Lobster decor!

Meanwhile Rick and his girlfriend head down to the beach front for some afternoon clam digging but are soon drawn to mysterious sounds of laughter in the nearby woods. The sound gets louder as they approach the center of the island and find themselves in an arborist nightmare of giggling trees and laughing shrubs. The chia-pet demons start dive bombing them so they run out of there faster than Mark Wahlberg in a crappy Shyamalan film. They end up at at crash site of vintage WWII action plane where a zombie pilot’s head explodes and ruins Rick’s stylin suit jacket.

But then things get weird…

Like a Scooby Doo episode the carny gang from the mainland appear on the island fresh from their rowboat workout to terrorize those darn meddlin’ kids. People start turning into fondue faced zombies and  carnies get their heads ripped off like twist caps on soda bottles. There’s disappearing maids, dandruff storms, elevators that soak up patrons like big bounty towels and there’s evil furniture banisters with Kung-Fu grip. I think I might have hallucinated that last part but I swear at one point they get attacked by ping pong balls and ride a billiards table like a surf board in a zombie disco. These are just some of the many amenities you too can enjoy at the Grand Hotel island!

The guest list dwindles down as most of them now are Demonites under hotel management. Rick and his girlfriend not wanting a bad case of bed hair or getting disemboweled battle their way back to shore to find the getaway rowboat. Will they discover the secrets of Grand Island? Will they escape the ghosts evil clutches? Was Mr. Bean the only thing funny to ever come out of Britain? All this and more can be answered in “Bloody New Year.”

I was half expecting Bloody New Year  to just be another run of the mill holiday themed slasher but it turned out to be a fun little creepfest with some obvious nods to The Shining..well except without all those pesky things like plot or acting to get in the way. Retroman Says check it out “and be sure to bring a clean pair of Alan Whickers you bloody land lover, or I’ll box yer blimey ears you bugger. Gots No time for Rumpy Pumpy!”

- 1 exploding zombie pilot
- 1 shotgun zombie blast and dismemberment
- 1 neck corkscrew
- 2 banister demon Muppets
- Carnival boat parades
- Peeping tom ghosts
- Multiple arm choppings
- Paranormal furniture movers
- Invisible bed turnover services
- Sheik scratch fever
- End tables demon possessions
- Laughing bushes
- Death by boat propeller
- Attacking fish nets
- Gut punching
- Killer ping pong balls

8.2 out of 10

“ohhh Bullocks.”

Check out the trailer for Horror Hotel (bloody New Year)

It’s not too early to sharpen up your pinball skills. In April Pinball at the Zoo’ returns with all the flashing lights and dinging sounds your senses can handle. Now I wouldn’t really consider myself a pinball wizard. I’m neither deaf, dumb, nor blind… well…. o.k 2 out 3 ain’t too bad, but I do play a pretty mean pinball. I rate my pinball playing skill at a “David Blane” level. It’s lots of hype with no really big payoff. Mostly it’s just  me jumping around and yelling obscenities at the ball. But I can’t help it, I’m addicted to the game. The combination of precise skill shots and random chaos, the lights, the cheesy digital music, the way the arcade owner gives me an evil glare when I tilt the machine on it’s side. It all makes my fingers twitchy just thinking about it.

This year the Zoo’ will have the usual assortment of vendors to buy some cool pinball swag but the big draw has got to be that tournament trophy and 1st place pinball machine. Oh that would look great in my living room right next to that leg lamp Santa brought me. There’ll also be an arcade auction where you too can take home a piece of your childhood memories minus the pubescent humiliations and locker stuffings. Hundreds of arcade and pinball machines going cheaper than what you’d pay for a Playstation, and just like a cheap hooker if you overlook some cigarette stains you can get yourself a good deal. So come all ye pinheads and basement Game Room dwellers. Pilgrimage forth squinting in the sunlight to play with ye balls and flippers. You might just go home with a trophy to impress the ladies or at least a used game. Good luck fitting it in the back of that 83 Pinto.

Speaking of evil silver balls hurdling at your face, Phantasm II continues the fine tradition of flying death spheres ready to impale and dismember. The Tall Man, Angus Scrimm, is back to work digging up corpses and shrinking them down to evil dwarf monks for his army of the dead. Mike (James LeGros) has recently been let out of the insane asylum and is heading back home with his old pal Reggie from Phantasm I. Reg is a balding unemployed ice cream truck driver and ever since the ice cream market tanked he’s been living at home with his family. He refuses to acknowledge the events of the first film ever happened until The Tall Man kills his whole family in a spectacular gas explosion that would make Michael Bay weepy. All those gallons of ice cream lost forever… oh the humanity!! Hungry for revenge and Rocky Road they take a road trip in their Hemi Barricuda searching abandoned towns and dug up graveyards for the evil mortician.

The two take a pit stop in a creepy abandoned town where Mike communicates telepathically with his out of state girlfriend Liz when he sleeps. She’s a squeaky voiced bimbo whose in love with Mike even though they’ve never actually met. It’s sorta like Internet dating only with ESP. Liz’s grandfather just kicked the bucket recently so she’s been hanging out in mausoleum filing her nails, and getting tossed around by the tall man like drinking night at Ike Turner’s house. Soon her recently buried and now zombified grandpa tries out his new door to door sales job on the local town’s priest knocking at his door and giving him a good scare then crawls into bed afterwards with grandma. Dang! Grandpa didn’t get this much action when he was alive.

Liz heads to the mausoleum where grandma’s already been Shrinky Dinked down into a Star Wars Jawa and proceeds to viciously attack Liz’s knee caps. She easily put her down with a china vase to the noggin’. This sort of begs the question, why would the tall man raise an evil army of weak midget monks with thin skulls? Doesn’t seem like the best way to take over the world. Maybe he could have stretched them out instead of leaving them in the oven so long.

Meanwhile the priest catches a bad case of van Gogh-itis losing an ear and gets his head drilled in by a flying Cuisinart. This barely gives Liz enough time to escape into the nearby cemetery tripping over Mike and Reg already hiding out in an open grave. They all run like little girls and barricade themselves in a nearby abandoned house where they make S’mores, sing Kumbaya, and rig up grenades with Budweiser cans. Reggie then puts his moves on the nymphomaniac hitchhiker they picked up earlier whose got a thing for balding hippies who play guitar. Wow what are the odds? While those two are doing the naked lambada upstairs, Liz is left alone so she can be more easily kidnapped through the a convenient plate glass window. At this point she’s probably feeling like she should’ve just stayed in bed.

So it’s back to the mausoleum again where Reg and Mike battle evil henchmen in gas masks with giant chainsaws and shoot up dwarfs for target practice. They also get attacked by more flying drill spheres with upgraded seek and destroy lasers and then wrestle with some pasty white guys in rented tuxes.  Seriously guys some blondes just aren’t worth all this. But they do eventually free Liz from a pre death embalming and get sucked into a cross dimensional gateway…all because Mike had to be all “wonder what this button does?” Turns out the “other side” looks a lot like an abandoned beach in Jersey complete with red skies and mutant dwarfs in toxic waste barrels. One of the baby dwarfs nearly eats Reggie’s face when it’s turkey pop up timer goes off. This all leads up to a big showdown back in the real world with the tall man, a embalming needle, and some sulfuric acid and that’s when you know you got a party.

In typical Phantasm fashion the ending doesn’t make a lick of sense but who really cares. It’s such a fun ride just getting there. Any movie that has four-barreled shot guns, 5 foot long chainsaws, and homicidal dwarfs gets extra bonus points in my book. The director Don Coscarelli really out did himself on this one with some obvious nods to “Evil Dead”, and  ”The Beyond” and it also gave us more of The Tall Man and his evil scowl of creepiness. Phantasm II is one of those rare films where the sequel really out performs the original. Retroman Steve says check it out…. but only during visitation hours. Also be sure to keep your coffins stored in a cool dry place for freshness.

- Exploding house
- Exploding rats
- Ear choppin’
- Embalming-fu
- Chainsaw to the groin
- Corpse stabbing
- Forehead drilling
- Exploding Cudas
- Hand choppin’
- Flame-throwers
- Sawed off double barrel shotguns
- Dwarf tossin’
- Head drillin’
- Embalming acid
- Barrel-o-dwarfs

9.5 out of 10

“it’s Phantastic!”

Check out the trailer for Phantasm II

I was hooking up some new speakers the other night to my pristine 1975 Pioneer amplifiers. Yeah I know your jealous. I was looking forward to a few hours of Skynard’s greatest hits dulling my senses with a freshly made Hot Pockets and Schnapps but all I got out of the speakers was a screeching high pitched squeal. It was sort of a cross between Fran Drescher and a howling spider monkey only less pleasant. So I got behind the stereo with a flashlight and a pair of rusty pliers to check my wiring finally tracing the problem to my vintage CD player. I “jerry-rigged” it with some old RCA cables covered in duct tape a few years back and somehow the player had gone from normal spin to warp death speed and was now creating the banshee howl. The one side benefit is I could listen to all of “Free Bird” in under 4 seconds or saw some fresh timber. I fiddled around with the wire mess, unplugged and replugged connectors and eventually just banged on the amplifier a few times. I imagine it’s sorta like watching a drunk orangutan try to solve a Rubik’s Cube but amazingly the banging worked and Skynard was rockin’ once again. Years of technological expertise  culminating in simply employing the Fonzi method. Now if you’ll excuse me it’s time to dust off that Packard Bell PC sitting in my attic. There’s a copy of Windows Vista just itching to get installed on it. I’m sure nothing could go wrong.

Speaking of evil technology, Dylan “pre-law” McDermott takes on a jacked up toaster oven in 1990’s cult classic  ”Hardware.” Dylan plays “Moses” a soldier on leave in post apocalyptic America, a big desert now thanks to radioactivity full of scavengers and disgruntled taxi drivers and Tusken Raiders. Moses or Mo’ as his burning bush pal like to call him buys some used robot parts off an Outlander while visiting a dwarf junk dealer in a cave (I’ve had that dream once). Mo gives the scrap metal to his artist ex-girlfriend Jill in uptown, mostly just for him just being a schmuck. Nothing says love and please forgive me like the disembodied head of a killer robot. She gives it a Andy Warhol makeover and hangs it on her wall thanking him with some late night shagging. All that whoo-hooing give the robot sculpture enough time to boot up and build itself a cyborg body of killing complete with optional craftsman saw blades and toxic LSD injectors (action McDermott sold separately.)  Mo meanwhile has secretly taken off for the battlefield yet again leaving Jill alone to fight this psychotic Cuisinart. You can really see why she loves him so.

Her peeping Tom neighbor a big slob of a man whose been sweating grease all night while oogling her through infrared binoculars shows up at her door. He tries out his best sleazy pick up lines only to get a howdy hey from the killbot in the form of a giant robo-drill to his belly. With all that deep fat drillin’ there’s just enough time for Jill to hide in her giant walk in freezer away from the robots standard issued heat sensors. “Quick throw the turkey pot pies at it! That’ll stop him!”

Meanwhile back on the battlefield, Mo learns that his gift is actually a killer robot named Mark 13 (Marky Mark for short) built by the government to eradicate humanity through toxic LSD injections. It’s the gift keeps on giving perfect for that special ex in your life. Mo’ frantically heads back to her apartment and calls his drugged out Buddha buddy to try stop this terminator poser. It’s like sending one armed man to a clapping contest, he can’t even figure out how to get pass the apartment’s door security. Mo arrives on the scene while his buddy cowers near the doorstop just in time to blow a couple shot gun slugs into the robot’s chest. The blast causes it to tumble out the window and it pulls Jill along for the ride crashing her down onto a Chinese family dinner below. Because if the fall don’t kill ya the MSG will.

Mo distracted by his girlfriend acrobatics gets shot-up by the robot’s finger syringes and dies in one of the longest tripped out MTV styled death montages ever put to film. His only lasting legacy…perfect hair and nice teeth. Really I think she was doing better before he showed up again. The neighborhood watch patrol in goalie safety gear finally arrive but just end up being more meat for the meat grinder. They get sliced, chopped and shot, It’s like the 3 stooges started a neighborhood association. Jill once again is left alone to fight the seemingly indestructible robot and there’s not a single Austrian actor turned governor in sight anywhere as she gets cornered in with Marky Mark 13 in the shower. What follows is one of the weakest battle finales since Saved by the Bell’s “Screech” fought Danny Bonaduce in celebrity boxing. Turns out the Mark 13 had poor insulation and is susceptible to water. “so sorry the robot apocalypse has been canceled due to rain.” So the robot shorts out in the shower…and Jill is left with a hefty deposit to pay on her demolished apartment.

At least we get treated to some trippy camera work, infrared gazongas, and a rockin’ soundtrack. It just goes to show you can make a movie people will still watch without much of anything really happening you just gotta do it with style!!!! *jazz hands*

Retroman says check it out only if you need to see a killer robot movie that doesn’t have a screaming Christian Bale in it. Just remember to keep your severed robot heads away from children and pets as it may lead to hallucination, injury or possible death.

- 1 self building kill-bot
- 2 breasts (infrared)
- Peeping tom slob-o-vision
- Infra-red red head
- Dwarf tossin’
- Head drillin’
- Exploding kitchens
- Door crushin’
- Arm carvin’
- Bed carvin’
- Extreme McDermott

2.7 out of 10

“what if Johnny 5 was pure evil and tried to kill Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg? Now there’s a killer robot movie worth seeing.”

Check out the trailer for Hardware

I noticed our local community center now offers the aerobic workout class “Pole Dancing 101.” I never realized that this was actually an aerobic exercise or that it required classes. Sure Jazzercise makes sense because you have a lot calories to burn when you have to do all those jazz hands moves, but didn’t expect to see a pole dancing class in the brochure next to the intro to scrapbooking and decoupage for beginners. I wonder do you have to bring your own pole? Does it offer you tips in properly securing dollars bills in your g-string when hanging upside down and not getting you hair wet in the beer pitchers? All legitimate questions any pole dancing beginner should be taking into consideration. Also since this is intro 101 does that mean there’s advanced classes? If so then we could we perhaps see this as an Olympic sport someday and I for one welcome this type of sleazercise to the Olympic stage. It could sure bring in more money for those school fundraisers too.

Speaking of extreme nekkid dancing. Linnea Quigley makes her cinematic mark as scream queen extraordinaire with all her nekkid gyrations on tombstones in “The Return of the Living Dead.” Linnea may have actually induced puberty in many a young boy in 1985 just from that scene alone and even her Ronald McDonald haircut can’t distract us from drooling over the best onscreen tombstone striptease ever filmed. But hold on I’m getting off subject here…there also happens to be zombies too!

This undead brain muncher classic starts off when a group of army brats decide to ship the remaining zombies left over from of the Night of the Living Dead incident to a medical supply room in Louisville Kentucky. In typical government engineering fashion the seals on the tank are about as thick as cheese paper……and soon they start to ooze out some funky fumes. Not a bong in sight the two workers there Frank and Freddy take a forced zombie-flu snooze and awake to find all hells breaking loose. The boss man, Burt is called in to try to help wrangle up the freeze burned cadavers and half dissected dogs who have since reanimated and are tearing up his shop.

Burt whose best friends with Ernie the mortician (Sesame Street lawyers start your letters now) enlists him to help burn the remains in his crematorium so as not to tarnish the shining reputation of his medical business. Yes, a company that already stores zombies in it’s basement but who are we to judge. Burt begs Ernie to burn the chopped up remains so that not even the bones are left and as everyone should know the best way to get people to burn your cadaver is to tell them it’s rabid weasels. Lesson learned.

Ernie tosses them in and cooks them on high causing the oven to billow out a bunch of zombie smoke into the air and leaves behind the fresh scent of pine. Soon the rain starts a pourin’ thanks to before mentioned nekkid rocker rain dance and the toxic smoke rains down on the graveyard. Brain cravin’ zombies start popping up like weeds and thousands of the undead that can run like Carl Lewis take over the cemetery. Turns out brains make the dead feel better and calm their nerves, sorta like Häagen-Dazs for pregnant women. The survivors hold up in the mortuary while a dead oily guy in the basement does some contortionist breakdancing moves stalking the punk rocker survivors.

Freddy’s girlfriend Tina stumbles upon oily face zombie in the basement and locks herself in a locker (ha the irony!) but good old oily face has got some mad MacGyver skills and rigs a crane and pulley system to open the door. She barely escapes when the rest of her punk rocker friends bust in to save here. One of them gets a chunk of his brains chewed out but he never had a decent line in the film anyways thinning the punk rocker herd.

Meanwhile Frank and Freddy who breathed the zombie fumes are looking pretty bad, sweaty, and pale. I don’t think their medical insurance even covers chronic zombification. The paramedics are even called in only to confirm that they’re already dead and then get attacked by a zombie horde on the way out. Worse doctor bedside manners ever!

Frank and Freddy justifiably freak out and are locked in the mortuary’s church while the others try to fend off the zombie herds unsuccessfully. Undead Freddy starts chasing his girlfriend around the place trying to convince her that he loves her for her body and  not her brains but she just douses him with acid. That’s what we call around here “Tough Love.” Tina and Ernie holds up in the attic while Freddy stumbles around all melty face downstairs yellin’ “Brains” and Burt tries to and escape in the a Chevy Malibu. Good luck, those cars have no handling whatsoever when running over zombies and I should know.

Burt in a last ditch effort calls the military 1-800 number on the side of the zombie spam can so the army can do what they do best, blow crap up. Really the best lesson learned from this films… keep your food sealed fresh, never rely on army intelligence, and avoid Kentucky in a nuclear fallout.

ROTLD has all the perfect ingredients for shlocky 80’s horror mixed well and served with a side of satire. There’s brain-chompin’,  head-rollin’, blood-spoutin’, and zombie dwarfism. What more can you ask for? Retroman Steve says check it out. It’s one of my all time favorite zombie film. Just be sure to “send moooore paramedics.”

- Zombie spam cans
- 1 naked punk rocker
- Half a zombie, half a dog
- Brain-munchin’
- Leg-grabbin’
- Acid rain dance
- Pick axe to the head
- Chopped up freezer burned cadavers
- The dreaded rabid weasel defense
- Acid to the face
- Embalming fu
- Zombie-midget-fu
- Kentucky fallout

9.8 out of 10

We’ll be showing “The Return of the Living Dead” on Friday the 13th at Wells Hall on MSU Campus. There’ll be a zombie costume contest and tons of great giveaways. Check out all the details at www.lostmovienight.com.
B.Y.O.B. Bring your own Brains.

Check out the trailer for The Return of the Living Dead

The season of ghouls and things that go bump in the night is upon us once again. This means Lost Highway is digging up another list of some must see horror films to check out when all your trick or treaters have gone to bed. So turn off the porch lights early, blow out the candles in your Jack-o-Laterns, and get your big bowl of left over candy corn to sit down and watch these haunting tales.

Retroman Steve gives his top 5

1. Trick ‘r Treat

Delayed for nearly 2 years and hyped to the hilt as the perfect Halloween film, It was doubtful it was going to live up to expectations or even see any type of domestic release. Well it’s finally here and I can unequivocally say “yes” it’s hype worthy and truly garners a honored place among classics like the original Halloween, Night of the Demons, and even It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. I’m proud to say that Trick ‘r Treat is my newest halloween tradition. Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt comparison aside, it does take it’s own direction with multiple tales of “All Hallows” eve creepingly interwoven. It earns praise more on great atmosphere and wonderful storytelling that outright scares or gore though you’ll find a few moments in it that are downright frightening mostly revolving around a school bus. But I really enjoyed it’s fun matinee horror that I haven’t seen in many films lately.

This is a modern horror fairy tale that understands the true essence of what Halloween is  and that essence takes the physical form of Sam. Sam is a little halloween demon in disguise that defends the holiday’s tradition with dire consequences for anyone that breaks the rules. Freddy, Jason, Pinhead, Leatherface and now we have Sam. You’d think they could have come up with a scarier name. But make no mistake Sam is a vicious little guy that won’t stop until he gets what he wants. My advice keep a bowl of candy always at the ready. This is a pretty recent direct to dvd release with plenty of good reviews around the web so it’s likely you’ve already seen it but for the few of you that have been on volunteer duty in Equador it’s time to get caught up. See it and I guarantee it’ll give you that warm fuzzy feeling like a big jack-o-latern glowing in your heart. Also check out the cartoon extra on the DVD. It’s a hand drawn short animated film that inspired the full length feature lovingly crafted by the director Michael Dougherty . Trick ‘r Treat is a fantastic little piece of halloween horror that should be a part of any horror buff’s collection.

2. Magic

The commercial for this movie played on televison in the late 70’s during some saturday morning cartoons much to the horror of the children everywhere watching it at the time. Parent complaints flooded the TV stations as they were in an uproar over a creepy little ventriloquist doll talking about evil hocus pocus and death while the kids were watching the Smurfs. I fortuntately missed that early childhood scaring opportunity as I must have been watching Soul Train instead. Hey It’s where I learned to dance like the funky white boy that I am, but I did check it out the commercial on YouTube and was very intrigued with what I saw.

Anthony Hopkins in his pre Silence of the Lambs phase shows his early chops as a deranged psychopath/failed magician named Corky. After many lame cards tricks, his newest ventriloquist act with Fats the foul mouth puppet becomes a huge hit. Soon the promise of TV fame comes knocking on his door but fearing his his mental disease may get exposed, he disappears into upper state New York instead. Corky finds an isolated town and his highschool sweetheart/resident crazy lady Ann Margaret renting out cabins. Somehow she’s impressed by his comb over hair and lack of social skills and soon they fall in love. Unfortunately she’s still married and despite him always having his hand up the rear end of a wood doll things get even more creepy as Corky continues his downward spiral into madness. An interesting fact, the doll was actually designed by Disney but that company would cut ties with being involved with the film as it was all too dark and twisted to have their seal of approval. Sure Disney you won’t be associated with that horror film but then you’ll make Herbie the Love Bug. Magic was and is a great psychological thriller but never did well in the box office and missed out on any of that Oscar buzz due to all that early negative press. Definitely some great performances all around as Fats terrifying voice will be stuck in your head long after. Who is really the puppet pulling the strings is never quite clear but this is a very well crafted thriller that I highly recommend.

3. One Dark Night

A pre-breast enhanced Meg Tilly stars in this great 80’s gem about a deceased evil psychic recently buried in the town’s Mosoluem. He’s just waiting around for a group of teenagers that he can zap some brain juice from so that he can return from the dead. Meg’s character Julie is happy to oblige when she decides to spend the night there as part of a highschool gang initiation. Shiny purple club jackets apparently gave you a lot of street cred back then. Little does she realize that a few of her friends are going to crash the party and to give her a good fright including resurrected floating zombies on strings and ineffectual boyfriends on motorcylces who get tossed around like muppets.

Surprisingly a creepy film once the dead start to rise despite their dry cleaned and pressed appearance. Even the Dark Knight himself Adam West makes a cameo sans tights and bat utility belt as an alcoholic husband. Not sure if this was such an acting stretch. Give One Dark Night a try for a good Halloween fright film and be sure to read the full review here.

4. The Burning

How did this movie slip by my slasher radar in the 80’s. My SLASHdar as I’d like to call it, can detect great slashers simply from a quick glance of the back of a VHS box covers from up to 300 ft. away. But “The Burning” had totally gotten by and I only viewed it recently based on some positive talk about it on the Twittersphere. Well Friday the 13th should pay back some royalties to these guys because The Burning does everything right all the way through and in some ways is a better film than Friday. A psychopath on a vengful kiling spree, characters you actually care about, decent acting, and a river kill scene that shocks you to the core. The strength of this film rests on it’s plausibility and sense of impending dread as Cropsy the dark shrowded killer offs these teens in increasingly brutal fasion. You’ll never feel comfortable around a gardner with pruning sheers again…well you’ll feel even less comfortable and the forboding atmosphere is punctuated with a great soundtrack from Rick Wakeman who played in the rock band Yes. Everything hits the right note of perfect b-movie fright and slashertude. Yeah I just made up another b-movie term “slashertude” the attitude of a pefect slasher film. Pass it on.

5. Let the Right One in

One thing I thought we could do with a little less these days was vampire flicks. I think the last good one I saw involved Corey Haim pushing a vampire into a bathtub of holy water. Then came Twilight and all it’s Transylvania 90210 cheesiness and that put the proverbial nails in the coffin for vampire flicks for me. Hesitatingly I gave “let the Right one in” a foreign vampire film a last chance since it was referred to me by @chrisbanzai. Hey the man has got great taste in hats so I was hoping that would translate to great taste in vampire flicks. Ding ding ding we have a winner! Even though it’s from Swedish subtitled and I hate reading my movies this one is is actually quite engrossing (with an emphasis on the gross) and was more of a slow burning horror film that delves a lot into the character relationship rather than just going for the throat which is also does quiet well.

The story revolves around Oskar, a swedish boy who one night meets another neighborhood kid named Eli. Eli is a quiet girl who also happens to be a neck sucking vampire hell beast, but in a kind and thoughtful way. When Oskar isn’t making modular furniture, he’s bullied by kids at school but fortunately his new girlfriend can remove their head with a good right hook and also clean up the mess afterwards. Oh if only I had dated Eli in highschool and I could have avoided all those times stuffed in a locker smelling like a gym bag. The atmosphere in this one is bleak and while the acts of Eli are horrifying you’ll find it difficult not to sympathize with her and the relationship these two have. A good story about growing up and how it can be a pain in the neck..literally. Retroman says check it out.

Drive-in Dan gives his top 5.

1. Night of the Demons

Don’t bother to RSVP for the upcoming remake, and just check out director Kevin Tenney’s horror classic from the 80’s.  You are invited for a get-together at Hull House on Halloween night, so don’t forget to dress up in your favorite costume. Your sexy hostess for the night will be Angela.  But there’s one thing that I should tell you about her: she’s a demon in disguise who has a taste for human souls.  And word has it that she steals souls by kissing.  So if she tries to give you a smooch, just play it safe and go with a handshake instead.  This is a great film to watch on Halloween.  For starters it takes place on the spookiest night of the year.  Then there is the eerie animated opening title sequence that sets the mood for the whole movie.  And I can’t forget to mention a couple of freaky visuals like a possessed Angela floating down the hallway looking for more victims, and scream queen, Linnea Quiggley, doing a magic trick involving a tube of lipstick.  Plus, the director’s brother, Dennis Michael Tenney, contributes a great electro-synth soundtrack that gives what’s happening onscreen another layer of creepiness. Read a full review here.

2. Lighting Bug

Green Graves (sounds like a tv horror host) is a young makeup effects prodigy who creates thrills and chills using clay and latex.  Unfortunately he’s stuck in a pint-sized town filled with small-minded people who don’t recognize or appreciate his creative abilities.  However, things start to look up for Green when he lands his dream gig designing and creating nightmarish creatures and effects at the “Spook House”, a local haunted house attraction where he lives.  Shortly thereafter he meets his first love, Angevin (Laura Prepon), who works at a video store and shares his passion for horror movies.  But soon he is faced with real-life monsters (an abusive stepfather, and a religious nutjob) who are more teriffying than any of his made-up creations and stand in the way of his becoming a makeup effects star in Hollywood.  Will Green survive small town life, or will the misguided townsfolk crush his childhood dream?  I won’t say what happens; you’ll just have to watch the movie to find out.  Director and accomplished special effects artist Robert Hall (”Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) really succeeds in making a heartfelt masterpiece that is at times funny, and at others very distrubing, with his first trip behind the camera.  And from what I’ve read, some of the events in this movie may have been based on Hall’s real life.  This movie does for small towns what “Jaws” did for public beaches.

3. Phantasm

A teenager named Mike discovers that something very distrubing is happening over at the local mortuary, and it’s not how much they are charging for funerals.  Turns out a towering and mysterious figure with Dracula’s sense of style called the Tall Man is snatching the town’s dead from their graves, and turning them into hoodie-wearing half-pints of terror in a desparate attempt to supply workers for the Red Planet he calls home.  Now there has to be a better way to find employees…  Hasn’t this guy ever heard of Manpower?  Anyway, to help carry out his diabolical scheme, the evil undertaker has a floating Christmas tree ornament gone wild that is armed like a Swiss Army Knife and will kill anyone who tries to stop him.  Director Don Coscarelli and actor Reggie Bannister, who stars as the heroic, balding ice cream vendor–also named Reggie, became instant celebrities among horror fans after doing this film.  And Angus Scrimm’s onscreen presence and bone-chilling peformance as the Tall Man makes him one of the most original and creepiest horror villians ever.  A word of warning, though: don’t try to figure out the plot because you’ll probably give yourself an anneurism trying to make sense of what’s happening on screen.

4. Warlock

A time traveling Warlock (Julian Sands) racks up some serious frequent flyer miles trying to track down a puzzle book for his daddy, the Devil, that supposedly contains God’s true identity.  He needs the Big Guy’s real name so that he can undo all of his hard work.  You know that whole “creation” thing.  But Warlock better hurry up and find the book because a 16th century bounty hunter has followed him to the future, and it’s not to tell him that he just saved 200 pounds on his sorcerer’s insurance by switching to Geico.  Now, I don’t understand why the Wiz didn’t just wait and get a copy of the book off of eBay, or from a rare/used bookstore; he could have saved himself a lot of trouble.  The movie contains some cheesy goodness in the effects department; features a dark and campy performance by Julian Sands in the title role; and an effective music score by the late Jerry Goldsmith.  Steve Miner, who directed “Friday the 13th” parts 2 and 3 creates a fun little horror movie with a supernatural theme that should get you in the Hallowen spirit.

5. Nightmare on Elmstreet 3: Dream Warriors

Finally–a sequel that won’t divide the horror community.  Most fans will agree that this installment is as good as the original, or even better.  Wes Craven comes aboard to co-write the script, bringing the series back to its roots, and as a result helps to create one of my favorite ‘Nightmare on Elm Street” sequels and horror movies in general.  The story has Freddy, the man of your nightmares, taking care of some unfinished business by going after the last remaining Springwood children.  But things won’t be so easy for Mr. Burnt Cheeseface because the group of teens are at a pysch ward (Westin Hills), and they have the power to use their imaginations to become Dream Warriors.  Fans will be happy to know that Nancy from the original ‘Nightmare on Elm Street” returns, but can she and the kids finally put Freddy to sleep for good, or will he channel their inner demons and get the best of them?  This installment features creative dream sequences like the one where Kreuger rips a guy’s arteries out and controls him like a puppet.  ”Nightmare on Elm Street 3″ does deliver some laughs as the scarred and crispy one shows his sense of humor by saying some hilarously dark one-liners, but don’t worry–he doesn’t do a stand-up routine like he does in later films.

Before getting his butt kicked by a chick with telekinetic powers in “The New Blood”, or taking a cruise to the big apple in “Jason Takes Manhattan”, Director/writer Tom McLoughlin takes a cue from Dr. Frankenstein and resurrects Jason and the “Friday the 13th” franchise with his entry, “Jason Lives.”

Tommy Jarvis, who’s on a weekend pass from the nuthouse, decides to go visit an old family friend at a cemetery that he hasn’t seen for several years. During the short drive over we find out that the old family friend is Jason Voorhees. Man, he should have gone to Disneyland. There’s no need to worry about Jason; he’s as dead as Vanilla Ice’s rap career. After pulling into the cemetery Tommy jumps out of his truck along with Allen Hawes (Ron Padillo), and they start searching for ol’ Wormface’s grave like they’re on some kind of demented Easter egg hunt. Soon they come across a headstone with the name Jason Voorhees on it, but Tommy, for some crazy reason, doesn’t think he’s found the right grave and wants to make a positive I.D. Seriously? How many people named Jason Voorhees would be buried in the local cemetery anyway? Hawes doesn’t think this is a good idea and throws a brief hissy-fit. But he doesn’t want to risk loosing his ride home, so he and Tommy grab shovels and they start digging “Raiders of the Lost Ark”-style until they reach the top of the coffin. Shortly after popping off the casket lid like a can of Pringles, Tommy gets blind-sided by a childhood flashback (audio only) of him tenderizing Jason’s meat suit with a machete.

Without warning he “snaps” and grabs the nearest metal object and heads back to Jason’s coffin. This is just great! Now we have a crazy guy stabbing a dead corpse with a metal pole during a t-storm in a “Friday the 13th” movie–oh, man–this can’t be good. And before you can say, “Chi-chi-chi-cha-cha-cha,” lighting strikes the metal pole sticking out of the dead psycho’s body, and Jason lives. Hawes sees Jason and pauses just long enough to have a “girl moment”, and then disappears offscreen. I really don’t understand what the big deal is. So what? He saw a walking corpse… It’s not like he just saw Rosie O’ Donnell in a two-piece micro-bikini. Now THAT’S freakin’ SCARY!

Tommy quickly realizes that he has dug up a very big problem (ya think?) and grabs a can of gasoline that I had seen earlier, and starts splashing it all over Jason, who is slowly advancing towards him like he has rigor mortis or something. Tommy then strikes a match and is about to make a “Jason S’more-hees” when–what-da-ya-know–it rains and puts the match out. Now this wouldn’t have happened had Tommy used REI Storm matches. And I can tell by the, “Oh, crap! What do I do now?!” look on his face that he’s fresh out of ideas. Fortunately for him though, Allen returns onscreen with new-found courage and a Plan B, which consists of running up behind Jason while yelling a Braveheart-ish battle cry, and whacking him across the head with a shovel. Now for a second there I thought Jason was going to have to sit out another movie. But aside from a couple of cobwebs getting knocked out of place, ol’ Coffin Breath wasn’t phased one bit. Not the same can be said for a stunned Hawes, who gets killed before the movie’s opening credits. I guess Ron Palillo (Hawes) had to leave early for a “Welcome Back Kotter” reunion.

After Tommy speeds off to the police station to get reinforcements, a lightning-fast Jason makes up for lost time spearing, impaling, crushing, and hacking his was way towards a personal best and franchise high body count. When he’s not having stare-downs and showdowns with Sheriff Garris, he likes to mug for the camera, do James Bond tributes, and enjoy the lakeside scenery while taking power walks through the woods.

Tommy stays busy in the movie getting thrown in jail, falling in love, doing a little B&E (breaking and entering), being suspected of murder, and running from the law. But somewhere during all of this our crazy friend amazingly finds the time to buy and then read a couple of step-by-step books that tell him exactly how to kill Jason. Now this sounds too good to be true, and it is–because the hockey-mask-wearing fiend has already signed on to do five more movies after this one. But I don’t think Tommy knows about this because he and Megan are still preparing for Jason’s big send-off.

Later that night they all meet up at the camp for a wet and wild threesome in the middle of the lake. It’s not what you think… But don’t worry about Jason adding you to his already impressive body count because, trust me, Tommy and Megan are keeping him very busy this time around. So you’re safe wherever you watch the action. And besides, once Tommy drops anchor on the USS Voorhees at the bottom of Crystal Lake, courtesy of some steel chain and a boulder the size of an asteroid, ol’ Jason won’t be going anywhere until the next sequel.

This is your typical “Friday the 13th” movie minus the scares, nudity and gore of earlier films. Director McLoughlin doesn’t even attempt to scare the audience with “Jason Lives.” His installment is about as terrifying as an episode of “Goosebumps.” But I’ll take an un-scary “Friday the 13th” film any day over a ridiculous sequel like “Jason Goes to Hell” that has a body-jacking Jason who eats an evil heart (what???) and swaps spit and Hell Slugs with his victims.

Another bummer is that this movie has zero nudity which means you’ll just have to wait until the next sequel “The New Blood” to see any hot chicks take their clothes off. To me having a “Friday the 13th” film without any nudity is like having Mork without Mindy, or Michael Knight being without his car buddy, KITT. I mean c’mon, this isn’t an episode of “7th Heaven”, it’s a horror movie, so let’s see some skin. The closest it gets is seeing Megan, the very talented Jennifer Cooke, sporting a pair of 80’s jeans that are so tight, the seams can be heard crying “uncle.” And for anyone out there who has a bare knee fetish, you should definitely get your fix whenever Cort appears on screen with his knees falling out of his ripped jeans. The movie doesn’t have a lot of gore, either, except when Jason shows his creative side and does his version of a Jackson Pollock painting using a female counselor’s blood and gooey insides. At least “Jason Lives” has a couple of really cool kills. Like when Maggothead himself gets a three-for-one decapitation using a pimped-out chrome machete. Another one has the undead psycho evening the score with the sheriff when he snaps him in half like a cheap number two pencil after their second showdown. Now that’s what I call a tiebreaker! The next kill reminded me of when I used to pull the heads off my cousin’s Barbie dolls. It involves a female counselor who gets her head ripped off after making the fatal mistake of pouring lemon and lime soda over Wormface’s head. I guess Jason prefers Pepsi.

The cast is fairly bland by “Friday the 13th” standards. Even the usual crop of walking cliches isn’t here. But there is one character named Martin who really stands out. If you liked Crazy Ralph from Parts 1 & 2, and Edna from “A New Beginning”, then you will definitely get a kick out of this crusty caretaker. When he isn’t involved in cover-ups over at the local cemetery where he works, he can be overheard serenading his bottle of hooch, affectionately named Kathleen. Sadly though, while walking home from work one night, Martin meets his end and gives fans a great death scene that has Jason using a broken bottle to tap his neck like a keg of beer. This gives new meaning the old saying “the bottle killed him.”

For a franchise that suffers from advanced sequel-itis, the acting is surprisingly solid. The group of attractive female camp counselors are believable as friends working at a summer camp. Even the sheriff and deputy act like they’ve known each other for years. Thom (I haven’t had an acting gig in years) Mathews gives a credible performance as a troubled young man who still has a major case of Jason on the brain. This sequel has the best production values of any movie in the series. We get some creepy opening shots of fog floating across the lake and crawling along the ground that reminded me of the classic horror movie “The Wolfman.” It’s just a shame that director McLoughlin didn’t build on this atmosphere and create a film full of thrills and chills. However, on a positive note, resident “Friday the 13th” composer Harry Manfredini is back with a brand new and totally awesome sounding score to celebrate Jason’s return. Now, as far as I’m concerned, a “Friday the 13th” movie just isn’t a “Friday the 13th” movie if Manfredini isn’t doing the music.

In the end I still enjoyed seeing the real Jason back onscreen (Roy doesn’t count), but I just like Jason better when he kills you with a machete, and not with humor.

- Extreme swimming in skin-tight jeans
- 3-for-1 decap attack
- 1 Pimped-out chrome machete
- Gratuitous display of knees
- 1 Frankenstein-esque resurrection
- Jason’s James Bond Tribute
- 1 Corpse covered in a “Fear Factor” Party Mix of creepy-crawlies
- 1 Boat propellor to the face
- 1 Power-walking undead killer
- 1 Machete covered in strawberry jam
- 1 Fried and furious undead psycho

Rated 8.3 out of 10

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Check out the trailer for Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives