Classy Classic Hollywood



Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Before I totally trash this movie (and believe me I'm gonna) I'd like you all to meet the cuddle boy of my life and the reason I can keep my cool and my head more times than not. Every time I think of him the song Your My Best Friend by Queen goes through my head. His name is Max, and the time we get to spend together is time I never thought I'd get. See, a chemical in a common flea collar made him gravely ill. We were sure since he lost his sight completely, half his body weight and any interest in eating or drinking that we pretty much had lost him. That was several months ago. 

My underweight, blind and cuddliest boy in the world.

His eyes are... a horror movie in themselves. They need removed but at his age we're not sure he'd even survive the surgery. So he's adjusted very well to the blindness and miraculously (no credit given to the vet - he just about killed him) has regained his appetite, drinks plenty of water, and cuddles on the table with me while I do my reviews. That makes it extra hard to type, but puts a smile on my face anyway. However many days he has left I will cherish every single one of them.

How did we get this HUGE place so cheap? Hmm...

Now... If you're thinking oh, she's doing a classic movie that was soooo scary, sorry my dears, this movie sucked on such a major level I literally got a massive headache by the time I was done with my notes and my fast forward button. This shouldn't have been either, because actually it is a classy type movie, set in the beautiful (in 1968 anyway) building The Dakota in New York, being written and directed by Roman Polanski and produced by William Castle (his last and the crowning achievement of his career) along with the superior talents of both actors and actresses who made it work. 

The Dakota, called The Bramford in the movie...

In other words, this should have been terrific. It bored the hell out of me. The tag line is "Pray For Rosemary's Baby". It should have been "Pray you don't fall asleep after spending your money watching this drek".

I feel like the devil himself has been all over me...

Yes, it's not an outright shriek-your-head-off horror film, but more of a psychological thriller. I just thought they could get this story done much better and so much faster than 136 minutes. Over two hours of Mia Farrow going out of her little mind and constantly whining was not my idea of entertainment. This is supposed to be a scary movie about her baby and what happens to it, right? What happens to it anyway? You're not going to find out, 'cause they don't even show the little brat. It's implied that it is the spawn of the devil, but do we get to see it? I mean hey, don't we deserve a payoff for sticking with this pile? I guess not...

Drink this or I'll get naked again...

Not that this thing wasn't popular to the max and produced a ton of Farrow lookalikes with short-short hair, and it made a huge amount of  money, but phew, what a stink. It was made for 3.2 million (that's $21,052,631.58 today) and made over 33 million in the US ($219,706,750.00 in 2012 dollars), all for the privilege of watching Mia Farrow lose her pretty little mind very, very slowly.

You can't blame me for selling the baby,
look what you did to your hair!

Rosemary (called 'Ro') wants a baby very badly. Her husband, an actor, wants a better career very badly. So when the tenants in their new building, which apparently has a nasty history of witches, baby eating (Baby eating? Now if they'd shown a little of that...) and other sordid happenings, make a deal with him to secure his career and he says okay (stupid bastard) we get a rather hazy scene of a naked and doped up 'Ro' being painted with what we assume is blood by a bunch of old, naked people (ewwww) and more hazy scenes of a devil, uh, sealing the deal with her. And that's all the excitement you're gonna get. Really, that's it. She wakes up with a bunch of scratches and seems to totally forget what she faintly knew was happening. The rest of the movie is her being a victim, getting suspicious but not being very proactive about it, in fact for a 60's type of woman she's a real wuss. Women in the 60's were starting to feel their empowerment, realizing they were equals to their male counterparts.... 'Ro' just whines and takes her nasty medicine even though she supposedly doesn't want to, which turns out to be some sort of herb to further along her, uh, demon seed (yeah I know that's another movie, probably better too).

She does ask a couple of people for help, but they all mysteriously die soon after - she doesn't get the hint. Or a clue. Or the courage to get the hell out of there. Or kick her bastard of a husband out. Or.... fill in the blank, there's a million things she could have done but no, we continue to watch her whine. She does find out  (thanks to her soon-dead friend) that the old dude who's wife has been feeding her the icky stuff is the progeny of a rather nasty witch that got the New York witch treatment (And that was what exactly? And wouldn't he have been a warlock?).

Like an idiot, instead of going to her original doctor and simply saying she thinks she's being mistreated and please give her shelter she goes on about the witches and nasty herbs so he (an understated performance by Charles Grodin) of course thinks she's nuts, calls her husband and doctor and she's right back where she started. Finally the birth begins and she's given something to knock her out. When she wakes, they tell her the baby's dead, which she doesn't believe for a second (doesn't do anything about it either). 

MY BABY IS A GINGER!!!

FINALLY she gains access to a secret room located on the other side of her closet (please don't ask, the whole building was supposed to be a maze of rooms and... yawn) and finds a room full of people, a black covered bassinet and the sound of her baby crying. She looks at it and we get this great reaction shot, but that's it. Supposedly the thing has weird eyes, hands and feet but you don't get to see it. She finally does spit in her husband's face, the only reaction she's given to him over his 'you can have another, we get so much from giving them this one' speech. She slowly (and I do mean slowly) starts to rock the bassinet and...

KABLAM!!!! SMOKE AND NASTY HORRORS AS SHE PICKS UP THE BABY AND WITH A WILD YELL TOSSES IT AROUND THE ROOM LIKE A FOOTBALL, BLOOD SPURTING EVERYWHERE...

Nah, that doesn't happen. Nothing happens. Except the credits of course, and our time is up - at least <shudder> until the sequel...

Classy And Classic Hollywood

Chamber Of Horrors (1966)

Seems 'tis the season of musicals and wax museum movies. I came across this one by pure accident, thinking it another of Vincent Price's masterpieces but no, this is another House Of Wax, except a totally different story and a gimmick worthy of the great William Castle himself. As the movie starts, we get a 'warning' about the extreme scariness of the picture (narrated by William Conrad) - already funny. As a 'visual and auditory warning' of the 'Four Supreme Fright Points' you will see the 'Fear Flasher' (mainly red flashing nauseatingly over a scene) and hear the 'Horror Horn' (very VERY irritating). It goes on to instruct that when this occurs, you must cover your eyes or turn your head away..... FUNNY!!! Even funnier is that it is NOT a William Castle picture, nor does it star Vincent Price.

It's 1966 and I'm STILL the old guy?

We instead get a cast including Patrick O'Neal, Cesare Danova, Wilfrid Hyde-White,Wayne Rogers and Laura Devon. As another gimmick there are several cameos - the only one I knew was Tony Curtis (a 10 second part at best) but apparently also Suzy Parker and Marie Windsor. This, although being incredibly tame by today's standards (and thus the 'warnings' being so damn funny) was made for television but considered 'too intense' and so released in the theaters. There is so much to giggle about in this movie I had more fun pointing out all the errors and silliness - even the hubby got into it, stating that the 'dead' girl with the cat on her chest could clearly be seen breathing as the cat moved up and down...

'till death do you... uh, wait...

So we have Jason Cravette (Patrick O'Neal looking pretty handsome I must say), a rather interesting psychopath who kills women then marries them. Kills, THEN marries them. Hmm. Anywho he is caught in quick order despite it being set in 1880's Baltimore (mostly because the preacher he forced at gunpoint to perform the 'marriage' promptly squealed) and he is convicted and sentenced to hang. On the train headed to the penitentiary and his final destination he is cuffed to a wheel outside the car while the cop gathers their things (FLASH FLASH FLASH REE REE REE REE!!!!!) and we have our movie sign... oops that's MST3K, sorry, we have our first warning. Of course a hatchet is within Jason's grasp and he takes it and chops... the wheel. Huh? That was scary? He gets the wheel off and dives into a river they're passing over. Now in the water weighted down, he must take the hatchet and... we assume, nothing is shown, hacks off his hand. As the hand and some of his clothes are all that is found, he's presumed dead.

You are a very VERY lucky woman...

Enter our House Of Wax, run by two apparent amateur criminologists, the suave Cesare Danova and voice of reason Wilfrid Hyde-White. Meanwhile Cravette got down to New Orleans and found a Chinese Tattoo Parlor that also apparently does superior prosthesis work. By a guy who had neither a Southern accent nor was he Chinese. Oh he was dressed in the pajamas and hat with a long ponytail but... nope. This isn't a particularly enlightened movie - he also finds an, ahem, lady willing to do anything for cash to be his 'lure' to get the men he plans to kill. Cravette has lured the judge to his parlor so to speak (FLASH FLASH FLASH REE REE REE REE!!!!!) and here's number two - also a dud. Nothing is shown but the fact that one of his prosthetics is a cleaver. Wayne Rogers is the cop in charge, but he soon goes to the House Of Wax for advice after a headless, armless body is found and they don't know how to identify it... well, the note left makes it pretty clear the body is of the judge who pronounced Cravette's sentence. They deduce Cravette is not only alive, but back in town and getting revenge. He next wants to get revenge on the doctor who examined him. Why? Because HE WASHED HIS HANDS AFTER HE EXAMINED HIM like he was 'filthy'. No, that's just... you know what? Never mind. So anyway (FLASH FLASH FLASH REE REE REE REE!!!!!) would you cut that damn stuff out - I'm getting a headache! To get back at him again it's implied and not shown but he cuts off the doctors hands. Hope he washed afterwards.

You DO know I get paid by the micro second, right?

The two from the House Of Wax are getting nervous - it was their deduction that helped find Cravette's hiding place after all - what part of his cadaver Frankenstein is he saving them for? The now-sergeant played by Wayne Rogers is determined to (FLASH FLASH FLASH REE REE REE REE!!!!!)... Sigh. All right, that's four so KNOCK IT OFF! Yes, the poor officer ends up on the dead list after Cravette somehow shows up with a prosthetic wax hand with a pistol underneath that shoots him. What was that? How was the trigger pulled? I dunno, go ask Sons Of Guns or something, sheesh, I just do movies.

So we've got four seizure producing warnings so it's over, right? Nope. He's got to fight with the handsome Cesare in a final battle to the death inside the wax museum - and keep that warning away, you've had your four. Despite their claims of scary scenes, this is the ONLY scene where they show the actual violence - after a protracted battle, Cravette falls against the wax figure of himself holding a sword and is pierced through. Not very possible or plausible, but it got the job done and the movie is over... until the two would-be detectives find that a real woman has been placed inside the Iron Maiden and then... oh geez, were they planning a sequel or series or something? Oh well, didn't happen, so we're done. REE REE REE KNOCK THAT OFF!!!

Life, The Universe And Everything


Trying to keep up on movies for reviews takes a whole lot of time, something I haven't had a lot of lately and I apologize for that. I do have a list of movies for this week, including one that should be just hilarious which was a request from a reader (that will come very soon) but again, time, illness, my cat's illness and just plain everyday circumstances have gotten me a bit behind. I've watched quite a few movies, just none you really want to see a review on. 

I've been seeing how many movies I can find with the word 'paranormal' either in the title or the description and having a ball laughing my butt off! I tell you what, I saw PA2 and couldn't believe people paid money for 1 hour 20 minutes of what was obviously repeated camera views (there were items such as coffee cups that were in the exact same spots night after night) just for a couple of minutes of things moving (duh) and a big BOO! (which was not surprising or scary) at the end. THEN I found PA3... what a massive pile! Just how many movies can you watch of doors sloooowly opening, 'footsteps' sounding above your head and 'AH! What was that?' as some shadow zooms by. Way too funny! I was laughing so hard, mostly at the thought of a theater full of people hiding their eyes... c'mon, really? Paying $12 to $20 (depending on if it was in 3D and you had to have your popcorn, soda and candy) to watch a grown man play 'Bloody Mary' with a child? Really? The only two 'events' in the movie that I thought had any merit - one was CGI'd (and badly) and the other was copied from about oh, a dozen other movies. So nope, no chills here. 




Others have been cheap knock offs of the same exact formula over and over and over... there was even one about 'found footage' (which you know I hate with a passion) at the John Wayne Gacy house. Okay everyone knows who he was. Trouble with this movie (besides that it was moronic) was a few very basic contradictions that didn't help their little story: Gacy was caught and we all know what for (one of his victims name was Voorhees... hmmm) in 1978, tried and convicted in 1980 and executed in 1994. His house was razed to the ground, and a new one built. Okay so this film claims to be from 'found footage' from 2006 - in Gacy's house. Which didn't exist. For a long time. Which fact they printed at the beginning of the film. DUH! And the whole thing follows the exact same damn pattern every one of these movies uses - the first half is mostly setting up equipment, explaining equipment, going around with tape recorders saying ad nauseum 'Is there someone there?' 'Was someone killed here?' Well duh, you say you're in the Gacy house.... c'mon! The regular progression follows, except since they're not trying to say 'based on real events' they exaggerate quite a few things, and of course everybody dies. One funny - they show all the autopsy reports of the idiots at the end. One fellow was near frozen - 80% of his skin was necrotic (dead). But the coroner then says he died of 'hyperthermia' which is is an elevated body temperature - not too cold, too hot. HA!

So yes I've been keeping an eye and ear out for the good stuff to pass on and especially the rotten stuff you really don't want to see (those are more fun anyway) and of course trying to keep up on my The Walking Dead (the way they've been tossing characters aside I may start doing memorial pages for them, seems only fair) and will try to keep my blood pressure down, my kitty's spirits up, and my keyboard clacking away for your amusement. And thank you all - we're almost to 8,000 views and that just blows me away, you guys are just terrific and I'm having a blast - TO ALL THE DUMB MOVIES AND THE STUDIOS WITH THE MONEY TO WASTE TO THROW THEM OUT THERE.....

On a very personal note, there is a certain young man who has several people very worried for him. He was a regular FB contributor and has not been heard from in a month. Now this is kind of the problem with FB. Some friends can really burn you, others become a beacon in your life. This young man is a real beacon and we miss him like crazy. But because we know him only on FB, and not in person and are not really a part of his life, we have no right to try to 'track him down' or interfere with whatever it is that is keeping him away. Young man, and you know who you are, if you see this, know please that your friends are worried, we're trying not to encroach on your privacy or rights, but we would be so thankful and relieved to hear just one word from you.

Live well and carefully friends.

A Musical... Wait! Don't Go! This Is A Good One!

The Devil's Carnival (2012)

Yes, I'm trying another format - for some reason my reviews are printing so small you almost need a magnifying glass just to read them so let's try this.

Apparently this one came as a suggestion because I saw (and reviewed) Repo: The Genetic Opera which, for musicals about repossessing transplanted organs wasn't half bad. But what caught my eye with this one was it said it starred Emilie Autumn and for some reason I couldn't figure out where I'd heard that name...

Oh! Emilie Autumn! Curse my fibro fogged brain! Of course I know who she is - a young lady first told me of her - she's a singer, songwriter, musician, writer, poet, actress... she could probably pilot a plane if she wanted to. This is a young lady with a huge boatload of talent that very few people probably have ever heard of. I have heard her sing complicated songs like Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody (she transposes two lines, I never figured out why) with grace, as well as celtic sounding songs and beautifully flowing music. Well, that cemented it - I was going to watch yet another musical this year.

Emilie Autumn, during a 2007 performance.

Thankfully, this 'experimental short horror film' has much in it to enjoy, not just Emilie. Some names you recognize from the Repo musical, others such as Paul Sorvino and Sean Patrick Flannery you probably know pretty well. But they are just part of an elaborate, very well put together and extremely colorful hour long musical about the downfall of three foolish people who die of different causes, ending up in The Devil's Carnival. They manage to incorporate some great songs, three Aesop's fables (which they attribute to the three new 'arrivals') and a whole lot of imaginative sets, costumes and makeup which made this musical seem almost too short.

Some doesn't quite make sense, but hey, even if it's not perfect, it sure has a whole lot of creativity. We start with God in his workshop, looking harried and frustrated over his 'creations' which look to be a lot of toys. We then see the lives (or endings of) three people: John (Sean Patrick Flannery) who is mourning his son, Ms. Merrywood, a petty thief who doesn't seem to have an off switch, and Tamara, the over-trusting victim of domestic violence.

Several of the characters in the carnival are selected to keep the three busy - meaning torturing them - hey, it is supposed to be Hell after all. And all have to look sharp - Lucifer himself is going to be watching this one, so they better not screw it up. The Ticket-Keeper explains to the three there are 666 rules to follow, and they better not break any of them or the consequences.... well, it's Hell. First to 'go' is Ms. Merrywood, who simply cannot control her desire for everything she doesn't have - as her 'end' comes, Lucifer reads from Aesop's fables to Daniel (John's departed son) the story of The Dog And Her Reflection, of course being the tale of one so greedy that when it sees its reflection in the water, it wants what the reflection has, dives in and drowns. As, in a manner of speaking, does Ms. Merrywood.

Then we have Tamara. Tamara is young, naive, and let's face it, dumb as a piece of wood. She's there because she's the constant victim, the trusting soul for anyone with a smile and a promise. So while her downfall begins, Lucifer begins to read the tale of The Frog And The Scorpion. True enough, Tamara trusts without merit yet again, and her end is quick.

We get a treat about 35 minutes in as Emilie sings the song Prick! Goes the Scorpion's Tale to the Carnival's 'workers' and she's just terrific - you've got to listen to at least one of her songs, I'm sure she's got a ton on You Tube. My personal faves besides the Queen cover are her songs Dead Is The New Alive and By The Sword. Just beautiful.

After this nice little interlude, we center on sad sack John, who realizes that although the carnival seems to be leading him to his son, he will never reach him. Finding Lucifer reading the final story The Devil And His Due John bursts in and grabs his son Daniel - who of course never was Daniel, but the Fool. Lucifer tells John his son had a clean death - Lucifer had nothing to do with it. John screams that he wishes that Daniel was never born, to the surprise of Lucifer. John ultimately resolves his grief, and Lucifer has no choice but to release him to Heaven, much to the surprise of God (Who are you? Where did you come from?).

Lucifer informs Ticket-Keeper that he has let John go to Heaven, which prompts Lucifer and Ticket-Keeper to re-write the 666 Rules of the Carnival. Ticket-Keeper informs the carnies that they will prepare for a war with Heaven. Lucifer chants and reveals his grand plot to overthrow Heaven, causing God to scream in pain from the noise.

This is kind of a simplified version of things, but this colorful and inventive show should really be experienced first-hand. Oh, the 'rules' are pretty funny too - they run during the end credits. I liked Number 5: No crying wolf, shark, or Sasquatch. <silence> I guess you had to be there.

A MILLION WAYS TO DIE... ACTUALLY, ONLY SIX...

Holy Crap! A Movie That Didn't Suck

Die (2010)

Yes, I'm back with my Netflix and this popped up immediately so I thought eh, what the hell - can't be the worst movie I've seen this month... and holy hell it wasn't! Now at first glance you could dismiss this thing as a cheap Saw knock-off but then again... it is worth a look. I wouldn't really call this horror more than psychological thriller. Where Saw was all about Jigsaw and how he was 'teaching' people the value of life (by killing them, I never understood that part), he was also the one doing all the talking, telling us what each person felt about their life and how they got there. This lets each of the characters do their own exposition and we get to see exactly what brought them to the lowest of the low state they are currently in.

It begins in 1976 where a young boy named Jacob witnesses his father at the table with a gun and a single die. He makes his son roll the die and when it comes up three, puts three bullets in the chamber and plays a little Russian roulette. He loses.

Now we get our six downtrodden people from different backgrounds. Their common sin, if you will - they've all tried to kill themselves in one way or another as the final solution to a life they can no longer take. Lisa, a gambler who lives for the cards, Robert, a millionaire philanthropist, Mark, a cop reaching the end of a gruesome career, Zach, a brilliant psychiatrist, Melody, a teenager battling drug addictions and Diane, a caring nurse. Each of these wake up in glass cells, not knowing how they got there and of course, why. We then meet a fellow who has observed all of them, knows their histories, and is determined to 'start their lives over' - that is, if the roll of the die allows them to live. Yes, this of course is Jacob, the boy who watched his father die. That's pretty obvious from the start. As the movie progresses the partner of the cop who was taken is desperate to find him and other missing persons that have all been taken that week. She's a little obsessed, because her father, after disappearing, ended up being found, having slit his wrists. She's never accepted that, even though the Chief keeps insisting she stop. That's pretty standard police-movie stuff. One detective determined to solve a crime even though her boss keeps insisting there isn't one.

Back to our six 'contestants' who will be facing a series of 'trials'. Robert is up first - he's strapped to a chair and the cop has to roll the die to decide how many bullets go in a gun to shoot at him to see if he lives or dies. He dies. He's put in rags and posed in front of his own building, and ruled a suicide but of course our detective doesn't believe it. The second woman, Lisa is made to take a drug in a dose again determined by the die - she lives but is still imprisoned. The third, Melody is given something and ends up naked in the streets - but alive. She says nothing about what happened. That's when the detective notices burn marks on her wrist. She checks back on her dad's file - he was found with burn marks on his wrists.

Mark

By now, the captive cop sees the same burn marks and asks the others and sure enough, each has been marked 1-6, as on the die. More trials come up, and needless to say, all die - until we only have Mark the cop and Lisa. Mark fakes hanging himself to get Jacob in the cell and takes his gun - but it's empty. He then notices dark figures standing all around the room - Jacob has quite the following. The detective at the same time is discovering that Jacob spent a lot of time in mental institutions, wrote a book about living according to the toss of a die and gathering 'disciples' in a sort of fate-driven cult. As Lisa moves to escape Jacob offers Mark the chance of becoming one of them, because he has survived up to now and is considered 'reborn'. Jacob has misinterpreted Mark's true feelings - he's getting older, extremely weary and he tells him 'I'm more afraid of living than dying'. He then commits suicide which sends Jacob into a hissy fit, I guess because he's reliving his dad's suicide. Lisa comes back, having found another gun, but before she can do anything the detective who finally has all the pieces (she thinks) shows up with a SWAT team and Lisa is taken away. Jacob and the other figures fade into the dark of the building, which turns out to be the basement of the only place he kept of his wealthy family's properties - a casino.

Lisa

The movie ends in Rome, where a ritual is taking place with Jacob as the leader of course, and the person greeting the 'newbie' is our teenage Melody, who apparently has taken up Jacob's offer of being a disciple. Oh, and we find out why the detective's boss kept trying to keep her out of this case and telling her to go home - his wrist is also marked. Those who survive, keep the secret or die I guess.

Jacob

What made this movie interesting and not your basic get them all together and kill them one by one movie was definitely the exposition of each of the characters. You got to see how they felt, what they had to deal with, why they were brought so low, and what would make them (even the millionaire) want to die so badly. Despite it being a 'director's cut' and unrated, there is actually not that much violence and little gore, so again, a halfway decent psychological thriller. Not bad for my Netflix comeback.

My Last Horrific Experience With Amazon Movies




Frankenstein (2007) A Film By Creep Creepersin

I just want to point out that Amazon is a great company - I get things from them all the time, like being able to order different products from different companies and get them all through the same place, and they've been nothing but reliable. However, their entry into the movie streaming business leaves a whole lot to be desired. Their streams are uneven - you get from poor to excellent back to poor quality for no discernible reason, they don't offer close captioning (which for people like me who have problems understanding dialogue, especially when it's from a foreign film is vital) and their movie choices - well, they're just awful. If you want a prime movie like The Cabin In The Woods or some other new one to come out that you don't want the DVD to, it might be fine but for other choices - blech. Most of their horror section is unrated - that usually means the movie didn't even make it to the theaters, much less to anyplace you've ever heard. Like this last abortion I only watched because it was only 54 minutes long and it was my last gasp at trying their 'service'.

Creep Creepersin. Try to find his real name - I couldn't. I do know he's a California native, lived in Oregon for a while then moved back to California. He also goes by the name Skrotar The Conqueror. So if you get the picture, this 34-year-old really thinks he's something. Well, he's been busy anyway. Two bands, lots of movies and shorts (some of which I can't even put the names on here, they're just that disgusting) and he doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Too bad.

Frankenstein is a movie that was labeled 'Some men make monsters, Victor just wanted a friend.' Just the title, that statement and the fact this is written, directed, produced and financed by Creepersin, with original music by 'Mrs. Creepy' told me to keep my expectations low. Good choice. You see he tries some creative, umm, choices in the way he makes this film but in the end you don't know whether to feel bad for the character or just relieved that the damn thing is over.

Victor is a 40ish man obviously with mental handicaps. His only friend is a rat, Frankenstein. His only entertainment (he doesn't seem to leave the house): Old and classic horror films like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Nosferatu, all movies I would much rather have been watching but this. Saturated with all this fantasy and being painfully alone (and unable to cope being around people) he decides that he needs a friend - besides his rat, who is now seemingly talking in his head. Oh boy. The only person he interacts with is an unnamed female who, whenever he converses with her, her dialogue plays backward - okay that got irritating after a few seconds and it drags on forever. We discover, although we really didn't want to know, that he was molested by his father all his life (probably the basis of a lot of his problems) and he is visited by the spectre of his mother who hates his guts. That, plus the voices in his head, pretty much finish off whatever normalcy he might have had.

We next see that he has his friend - a dead friend. A girl in her underwear, a nasty head wound bleeding down her face. He's determined to 'fix her up' just like in the movies and the 'three' of them can be friends (The rat, remember?). His version of 'fixing' her is taking a black marker and drawing 'stitches' on various parts of her body. Yes, I know how stupid this sounds, imagine having to watch it. She is beginning to smell, but he doesn't have air freshener so.... stink on. Finally she 'rises'. No, it didn't work - except in his head. This was Creepersin's only other rather interesting effect - whenever you saw her 'move' or 'speak' it was in the one-color film mode of the silent pictures. There's no sound, we just see 'title cards' for her dialogue. He decides to call her Mary and feeds her breakfast - in his head. Poor Victor - even in his head he can't make a friend. 'Mary' is a foul mouthed horrible girl who only confirms that Victor is nothing but a loser. My favorite line? She says (by title card), 'And what about these stitches? What are you, like nine?'

Eventually the noises in his head (which he still blames on Frankenstein) and the girl's 'insolence' towards him are all he can take. I don't know what he does to the rat (thank goodness) but he drags the girl's body out into the yard into an empty bathtub and covers her with leaves. We then see him walk to the fence surrounding his yard as he falls to his knees and.... what? Cries some more? He does a lot of that. Pray? Got no idea. All we know is that he's still there and the movie ends and thank you very much Mr. Creepersin for that piece of celluoid that I don't know whether I should be sad over or just glad it IS over.

And back to Netflix I go...

Movies No Sane Person Can Even Finish Viewing

I don't claim to be the sharpest tool in the shed, or the most pithy movie reviewer ever, but there are some movies that, well, to be honest, had me hitting the 'skip ahead' feature (there's no fast forward when you're streaming movies dammit) and still not finding a single redeeming thing I can either make fun of, criticize, or praise. I found two of those just this afternoon. No, I will NOT be keeping my Amazon movie streaming account - besides uneven streaming, no close captioning and other inadequacies, they have a TON of movies just like this:



I'll Be There With You (2011): Don't bother trying to look this one up. There's nothing - well one mention on Fandango's site - but other than that all you're going to get is hundred's of references to Bon Jovi's I'll Be There For You. Sheesh. First, the fact that this movie's big name is Daniel Baldwin should stop you before you even start this film. I mean, was he EVER relevant in anything? And here he plays a sadistic pervert and yet he's not even the BAD guy of the movie? Yikes! It started badly as it was, a death knell to a movie as far as I'm concerned: Inspired by true events. I call BS on all those - they probably had some murder case in California that involved escaped somebodies and they said hey, we'll put that in a movie. A really, really BAD movie. For one thing the movie was out of focus. Whether that was the movie or Amazon, does it really matter? Secondly the movie tries to be clever by mixing film, pictures, cartoons, whatever is cheapest to string together pieces of the so-called plot. Your best bet to know for yourself that this is a movie to skip: The very first scene is in some vineyard in San Diego where they have found seven bodies lined up in the dirt. Yes, it's all the rotten cast, including Daniel Baldwin. So now you know, why continue, right? I tried, I really, really did. With my fave cuddle boy Max snuggled under my chin I worked hard at paying attention but geez. Six whiny kids that you hate immediately, five friends with one 'new' friend, decide to take a trip from San Francisco to San Diego. Yay. One of the Japanese boys (there are two, both non-redeemable characters that are foul, dumb and obnoxious) knows this guy named Constantine (Baldwin) who owns this place they can visit for lots of - uh, debauchery I assume. Sure enough when they get there things go bad very quickly: The new 'friend' is a buddy of Constantine's and their sole purpose is to rape the two blonde girls after the boys all go clubbing and quickly cheat on whoever they're with, THEN we get escaped mental patients who are shooting up whole families and groups and... sigh. When there was this protracted scene of the guys helping out this carload of people (the escaped patients I presume) who then proceed to shoot, stab, beat, etc., as well as Constantine and his friend 'John' terrorizing and hunting down the two blonde girls, I just gave up, because hey, they all end up dead anyway and frankly I'm glad. If this is a true story, it has a happy ending.



Playhouse (2005): Now I had a little higher hopes for this movie because it was not trying to take itself seriously in the slightest. In fact, a disclaimer at the beginning said that 'This film has been modified from the original to be much funnier.' Okay, sounded good, I'll bite. The basic premise was a group of 'ancient ghosts' are stirred up just before a young people's performance (looked like that awful interpretive dance crap to me) and things go horribly wrong. Oh and try to wiki this dreadful movie, I dare you - I tried everything and the closest I got was Pee Wee's Playhouse which review starts with 'I pray to Tupac's ghost that you are joking...' - there's nothing on this piece of... film. It's dedicated to a Hunter Furches (1912-2003) the search of who brought up again... absolutely nothing. It's like they're daring me now. I finally tracked down an actor from the movie with his own page which led me straight to... Amazon movies. Dammit. So you're just going to have to take my word for it or attempt watching this thing yourself. All right, it's obvious this was played for yuks (more like yucks) because the jokes are lame, the setups are reminiscent of a movie like Airplane or Police Squad - except not near as funny or clever.

This is supposed to be about ancient ghosts being stirred up by this big production coming up. Trouble is, these 'ancient' ghosts are wearing better clothes than I've got and hair styles, etc. obviously from the 21 century. But this is supposed to be a duh... the special effects were really bad and cheesy, the constant running gag of the officers spewing all over everything got old really quickly, and not even the supposedly gory murders could keep my attention. The first murder, the play's director, had his arm ripped off and the arm shoved clear through his throat. He was found standing (yes, I said standing) on stage. Just as in Waxworks, this supposed 'stiff' couldn't hold still to save his life, his eyes fluttering and obviously having trouble keeping his balance. I was just about done then. Then comes the stereotyped Scottish janitor is in a horribly fake wig and outfit (which was supposed to be part of the joke I guess). Oh and every telephone call the detective got from whoever and was having conversations with, was just dogs barking, quacking, or just high pitched noises. Not funny, just irritating. Even when the 'kids' in the movie try to Scooby Doo their way through the thing, the line 'How else do you explain it without giving away the plot.' still wasn't enough to keep me interested. When the second body is found shoved (feet first) into the toilet clear up to his neck (that happens every day) and they yanked out the head and the officer spewed all over it, I was done. You know, at the beginning the 'detective' who did an absolutely horrible job (but I guess he was supposed to) said that this was the worst slaughter he'd ever seen. Okay, that's all I need to know - they're gonna die and these 'ancient ghosts in clothes from the Gap' are going to do it - for no discernible reason. And I'm done. Really. Even my cat Max escaped and ran under the bed during this one.