Year In Review: Top 10 Lessons I've Learned

 After running a site for nearly a year, I have learned many lessons.  Let me share some of them with you now...

1. Sometimes you should 'judge a book by its cover': Many films sound extremely weird and often are.  Take, for example, The Eternal Evil of Asia.  It's about a group of men who are tormented by a Thai Wizard for the death of his sister after a love potion gone wrong.  Does it sound weird?  Yes.  Is it?  Extremely!  It has a pair of evil wizards who cast magic by flying around and having sex, a man whose head is turned into a dick and a woman having pantomime sex with a wizard.  Yeah, it's weird.  See the review here.

2. Don't always trust marketing: Tony Jaa became an international star in 2004 with the release of Ong Bak.  When that happened, every film he ever appeared in got a DVD release.  Note how I use the word 'appeared' and not 'starred.'  This was the case with Hard Gun, a movie that is billed a kung-fu film with the man.  What it actually is: a terrible comedy with a minor revenge plot under the surface and a small role by Jaa.  In their defense, his fight at the end is pretty cool.  However, his role accounts for about five minutes and everything else sucks.  See the review here.

3. Some movies don't have a pay-off: Early in the history of the site, I reviewed a movie called The Gardener aka Seeds of Evil.  Built as a starring role for Joe Dallesandro (the muscular guy from Andy Warhol's horror films), the movie promises a big ending.  What it actually delivers is both 'jack' and 'shit.'  You get one scene in the beginning of a plant 'killing a man' by being near him and doing nothing & then nothing for about an hour and ten minutes.  One woman is wrapped up in leaves and dies from...something before Joe is shot, walks into the grass and turns into a tree.  That's 86 minutes of my life I will never get back.  See the review here.


4. Movies often disguise their bad plots as good ones: When a movie ends up in a segment known as Blockbuster Trash, it is not something to be admired.  Blood of Beasts is a direct-to-video fantasy film with a plot reporting to be a version of the 'Beowulf' story.  What is it really?  A thinly-disguised version of Beauty and the Beast, just with Vikings!  Screw you, movie!  See the review here.

5. Japan is an f-ed up country: I sort of knew this already, but my opinion was cemented by a few films.  For example, Entrails of a Beautiful Woman and Entrails of a Virgin are too freaky films full of rape, depravity and monsters.  There is also the cinematic classic Attack Girls' Swim Team vs. The Undead, which features zombies killing, random lesbianism and a ridiculous spy plot thrown in.  See the reviews here and here.

6. Parody is often worse than the original: In the history of this sight, I have covered two hideous parody films.  The first is Flesh Gordon II, which makes the first film look like Lawrence Olivier's Othello!  It has a giant ape pissing off of a building, a fart galaxy and penis monsters.  Please Don't Eat My Mother is a porn-style parody of Little Shop of Horrors which features some of the worst-looking movie monsters of all time.  It also randomly cuts to people having sex for minutes on end.  Check out the reviews here and here.


7. Movies that are meant to offend, often do: Good-Bye, Uncle Tom is an infamous movie in cinematic history and for good reason- it is terrible and offensive.  The men behind the Mondo Cane series were accused of two major things: being racist and falsifying footage.  What was their answer to that charge?  Making a fake documentary to explain why black people were kept as slaves in the South.  At over two hours (136 minutes in the uncut version), this film is a real chore to watch and took me about four- because I had to keep taking breaks.  Check out the review here.


8. Don't dare yourself to review something: After the travesty of Creepshow 3, I backed myself into a corner in regards to watching a previous film by the directors.  That movie- Day of the Dead 2: Contagium- is a movie that holds a very odd place in cinematic history.  It claims to be part prequel and sequel, although neither one of those holds true.  What is it really?  A boring and stupid movie that latches on to a popular series and tries to drag it down.  Check out the review here.

9. Shared titles do not mean shared interests: When I made up the name to this page, I had no idea that there was both a movie and a Ramones album with the same title.  For my 200th post, I reviewed the movie that shared my title and boy was it bad!  The movie was clearly-staged and just pointless.  It comes across as a sad attempt to cash in on an admittedly-lacking genre.  For the review, go here.


10. Bad movies from your past usually don't get better with age: Two of the movies reviewed on this page were painful experiences that I actually went through a while before I had a page.  The first is Feeders 2, a movie I rented about three or four Christmases ago and was just painful.  It's not funny, not good and filled with more padding than Silent Night, Deadly Night 2.  The other is Blood Freak, a film that really defines my love/hate relationship with Something Weird Video.  The movie is something to behold in all of its non-glory, but it is also a dull experience when you look at it.  I like that they release these movies, but I also wish that they didn't.  For the reviews, go here and here.

That's all for my  look back at the short history of Mondo Bizarro.  I hope you enjoyed it and, more importantly, look back at my older work and see how much better my new stuff is.  Tell your friends.

Next up, a look back at the weirdest Japanese films to come across my site.  Prepare to be freaked out.  Stay tuned...