The Good Daughter: The Devil Bat's Daughter

Perseverance pays off, ladies and gentlemen!  After a lot of waiting and pondering, I got the movie in the mail today and got it ready to review for you!    Was it worth the wait?  Was it worth the effort?  Before I answer that, let me give a little back-story for anyone who doesn't know the history of this.  In 1940, Bela Lugosi began his 'poverty row' career with a film called The Devil Bat.  It was a hit and, more importantly, cost very little money to make.  As such, a sequel was made...six years later.  Of course, there were some catches.  Since he died in the first movie- sorry to SPOIL a 70-year old film for you- he doesn't show up.  Mind you, dying in the previous film doesn't stop you from appearing in sequels- see Hell Up In Harlem, Bride of Re-Animator and Saw IV-VI.  This film has no major recurring cast members, in fact, so...um, enjoy.  This is...

The film begins with a woman ending up in a doctor's care and acting strange.  She's having strange dreams and reactions to external stimuli.  As a freaky bonus, her point-of-view randomly becomes an out-of-focus camera lens.  My god, you're being Edited!  They call in a psychiatrist to help her out, but, being a '40s film, there has to be more to this.  The young woman is staying at a house owned by a woman who is the separated wife of the psychiatrist.  The man's new fiancee is not happy with this, but he does not relent.  He hypnotizes the young woman and tries to draw the truth from her.  All he can get out of her is that she came into town, went to her dad's house and found out that he was dead.  Did more happen than that?  Find out after this annoying and interrupting picture...

The man keeps treating her as the movie keeps cutting to a calendar changing dates.  Wow, time change editing has sure changed with...um, the times.  That sure was awkward, huh?  Anyhow, all of his therapy and pills do not stop her dreams of killer bats.  Things only get worse as she seems to have killed a dog in her sleep!  Let's step away from that plot, however, for a sub-plot revolving around some romance.  Apparently, the woman whose house our heroine is staying in has a grown-up son.  Um, how?  She appears to be about 35 at most!  To make matters sillier, the son appears to be about 40!  What were these people smoking back in the '40s?  Oh right, reefer.  Within the short amount of time that the movie takes place in, the son falls in love with the woman.  When your movie is only 67 minutes long, you have to rush these things.  Speaking of rushing, the woman wakes up in the morning and finds herself at the bottom of the stairs.  Right across the room, the 'old' woman is dead.  Dun dun dun!

Naturally, the people all think that she is guilty because she is the daughter of Dr. Caruthers aka 'The Devil Bat.'  By the way, where is the family resemblance between her and Lugosi?  Our 'young' hero does not believe that she is guilty of murder and vows to find out the truth.  This leads him to seek out the mystery of the father's missing notes.  While in the house, he finds the rock that the psychologist has been playing with the whole movie.  It takes some tricky investigation techniques- including pretending to be drunk so that he can stay in the psychiatrist's apartment- to find out the truth, but he eventually.  He does this by talking down the fiancee and getting the papers.  Right at the hour mark, he confronts the man with the evidence and he talks a lot of it away.  With one last trick up his sleeve, he reveals that the drugs the woman took would have made it impossible for her to move, he suddenly pulls a gun and runs.  Yeah, he gets shot.  All of this wraps up nicely as the heroes get married and nobody died...except for those other people.

This movie is really not that good and I'll tell you why.  For one thing, the movie has almost no horror elements at all.  Are there giant bats in this movie?  No.  Okay, that's not completely true.  In the film, our heroine has nightmares about the bats, which are made up of footage from the previous film.  This gets a bit absurd as she actually has dreams about the bats attacking people.  Um, you weren't there for any of that, but okay.  The plot is annoyingly-straight-forward and features a super-small cast.  Who's the bad guy?  Gee, I wonder if it's the guy who looks like Jackie Earl Haley!  In defense of the movie, it is a different take on the story and is not simply a retread like many of the 'son/daughter/cousin of Frankenstein' films.  Of course, those films are entertaining for those reasons.  As a side note, I should talk about the DVD.  The version that Netflix carries is not at all restored and pops more than popcorn!  Oh and the DVD menu has the Chapter options on the front page with a little 'Feature Start' button hidden in the corner.  How did we live with these things again?

Up next, Instant Trash returns with a movie that one of my readers thought was fake.  It's real as hell and you can live in it's glory...glory on glory.  Stay tuned...

Lost in Translation: Dawn of the Dead

Dawn of the Dead is known by many names and has many different cuts.  However, which title or cut led to this...

Wow, that's amazingly...not helpful.  That movie must be about...um, evil Santa Claus?  Actually, it bears an eerie resemblance to a Monty Python cartoon character!

Next up, Spain takes a crack at a Stephen King classic and makes...something odd.  You probably guessed that, huh?  Stay tuned...

WTF Germany?!?: Revenge of the Rats

Let me explain a bit here: my plans did not work out too well.  It was simple: I'd review the two Rats films from Germany around my reviews of three Daughters of Horror films.  Ah, how that went downhill fast.  The second film in the Rats series and my last Daughter film went on a wait about three weeks ago and have yet to come out of them.  I was supposed to get Devil Bat by yesterday, but that shit is not here.  In the meantime, I'll keep you occupied by this weird German film that has a sequel that will be reviewed...sometime next month.  I swear...that it might happen.  Break out your Black Plague cure for my review of...

The film begins with a man feeling really bad about something happening.  We get a bunch of random shots that don't explain anything.  Eventually, we get our heroes: a crack, action team with big goals.  For example, their big mission involves going into the sewers and rescuing a girl who got trapped while trying to find her lost dog.  Our hero- who looks like the host of Dinner: Impossible- saves the day by smashing a transformer, causing the power to go out.  This is an important plot point to set-up how our hero is reckless and will do whatever it takes to save the day.  That...bastard?!?  We get a couple of interesting plot points to pad out the run-time as well.  Basically, the girl's mother is a hot doctor who falls for our hero.  Meanwhile, a trash worker's strike primes Frankfurt (by the way, watch how much they disguise the German setting) for a rat infestation.  Of course, that's not enough drama, so we have to have a rat-related plague.  You aren't going to focus on the rats too much, are you?

Finally, we get some real action as the men go down into the sewers.  After a talk about how they need to be careful with fire, they go down into the sewers with flamethrowers.  I'm not sure whether you should base your plans on ideas from either C.H.U.D. or Slugs, guys!  Naturally, this doesn't end well as a bunch of them are killed by rats.  They make a dramatic escape attempt, but one of them gets crushed by a car whilst in the manhole still.  Oh, that's what the weirdly-dramatic introduction was about.  Things escalate as the rats are still a threat, a plague is still out there and that damn puppy from earlier is still missing.  Hey guys, pick a plot, please!  Meanwhile, we get more of the romantic sub-plot and a bit where the girl makes a new pet rat.  Aw, I'm sure that it won't lead to a sequel or anything.  By the way, is that thing named Ben?  The middle point of this movie is dragged down ever further with a lot of scenes of people talking about what they're going to do.  As a bonus, we get a whole sub-plot with one of the men wandering around sick in the streets and the girl trying to find him.  Action, people- action!

Are you ready for the big finale, bitches?!?  Our heroes gather their resources to take out the infestation.  Of course, by 'resources,' I mean a shit ton of explosives!  It all leads up to our oddly-buff hero going down into the tunnels to set a bunch of C-4 at a key location.  He's willing to risk it all because he was bitten by one of the rats and will not live if this fails anyways.  Wow, that's a defeatist attitude, huh?  After a lot of false tension, he sets the stuff with a five minute timer.  Naturally, his simple escape route is blocked by crazy CG rats and he has to improvise.  This leads to him narrowly diving out of the way of an explosion in the tunnel.  If you ever wanted to see flaming CG rats flying at the camera, this is your movie.  Some more false tension is given to us as it appears that the man died during his efforts.  Of course, he's actually still alive and even manages to rescue the puppy!  All is right with the world as he embraces the woman in front of a crappy green screen background that looks like a low-rent Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.  The End...Oh yeah, we also get a shot of the rat pet from earlier swearing revenge at us from its nest.  Now, it's The End.

This movie is really not that good, but it is for a lot of reasons.  The pacing is bad, the writing is stiff and the action is lacking.  So yeah, there are a few key reasons.  The plot is simple enough, but it is dragged down with some melodrama and unfocused writing.  That said, the rat action you get is pretty good, although the CG rats look more like the ant swarms from The Hive than real creatures.  It doesn't help that the American DVD only offers a dubbed audio track and no option for Subtitles, huh?  It just serves to make the action all the more silly and the dialogue more campy.  In a way that helps, but it mostly hurts.  You get no feel for the performances and the characters are just more one-note.  On the plus side, there is a good message to take out of this.  See, even foreign countries can make generic drivel- it's not just us!

Will I review the sequel to The Devil Bat tomorrow?  It's all up to you, Netflix.  If not, I'm stuck with Fred Olen Ray.  Stay tuned...

The Good Daughter: Dracula's Daughter

Tod Browning's Dracula is a classic film that led to the Universal horror films of the '30s and '40s.  Much talk is made of the originals- Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Wolf Man, etc- but much less is made about the sequels- Revenge of the Creature, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.  Why is that exactly?  Are they not as good?  Hell, most people consider Bride of Frankenstein to be a stronger film than the original...not to knock Whale's classic.  Many of them are not that great, but there are some really strong films from this era that are sequels.  This brings me to the one and only sequel to Dracula that's actually canon.  In 1936, they made this film to follow-up on the events of that film and take it in a new direction.  Did it work?  Find out in my review of...

The film begins right where the last one left off.  Renfield is dead, Dracula has a stake through his heart and only one man is left around: Dr. Van Helsing.  Naturally, the cops are a bit suspicious to find him in a room full of corpses!  As a bonus, he freely admits to staking Dracula, so, yeah, he's going to get arrested.  He explains his story to the head of Scotland Yard, but he doesn't exactly buy it.  He calls an old friend of his to be his lawyer...despite the man being a psychiatrist...and American.  Yeah, you are crazy, Van Helsing.  The man is in the country...although the movie never really tells us why.  Back at Scotland Yard, two detectives are left to watch the two bodies & the film's biggest problem rears its ugly head: the humor.  The film is full of 'jokes' and 'comedy characters' that were, I guess, there to ease the audience from the horror.  It's like 'this is scary, so relax for a moment.'  Go ahead, try to picture that idea used in Texas Chainsaw Massacre!

Basically, a mysterious woman shows up when the head guy leaves and takes Dracula's body.  She does this with the power of her big opal ring, which hypnotizes the man...without moving or flashing.  It's no worse than the magical ring from Dracula vs. Frankenstein that shoots lasers!  Out in the foggiest sound-stage ever, she burns the vampire's body in an effort to rid herself of 'the curse.'  Her Harold Lloyd-looking helper (two in two movies- wow!) is pessimistic, which is pretty much his only character trait.  Basically, he's the assistant from Andy Warhol's Dracula, just more of a jerk.  The woman loses hope of herself being cured, so she kills a guy in the street...off-camera.  Yeah, this is 1936, so don't expect any gore.  Much like in the last film, our villainess puts herself in high society and attends a gala.  There she runs into the psychiatrist/public attorney and is intrigued by his talk of curing people via therapy.  She invites him for a date, which sets up another 'funny' scene with the man and his assistant/love interest.

The real meat of the film comes at this point as she is given some advice by our hero: confront your 'addiction' head-on.  In the film's most controversial scene, she hires a lady to model for a painting and has her take off her shirt...to reveal another, smaller shirt.  She is attacked off-camera too and ends up in the care of our hero.  Through hypnosis, she reveals all of the details about our villainess and then dies.  Um, what?  Before this comes to bear, the woman reveals that she will not escape her 'addiction' and tries to take the man with her to Transylvania.  When he declines, she kidnaps the assistant/love interest instead.  In an intriguing retread of the first film, the village is celebrating the lack of Dracula in the region...only to have that end when a light comes on in the castle.  Our hero arrives and has to coerce them into driving him to the castle.  In another scene that created infamy, our villainess lurks over the comatose victim a bit too closely.  After going through those same, damn cobwebs, our hero is given a choice: stay with Dracula's spawn or let the girl die.  His choice is moot as the woman's assistant shoots her with an arrow (why?), but is shot dead by the police.  The End.

Yeah, this movie is not nearly the classic that Tod's film is.  Don't get me wrong- it's not shit like a lot of the stuff I cover.  The biggest problem is that it just doesn't age well.  The mix of humor and drama just doesn't work here.  The comedy characters feel very forced and their stuff is just not that well-written.  A cowardly cop- yawn.  A spunky 'gal Friday' who ultimately proves to be nothing but a plot device- seen it.  For that matter, their one returning cast member- Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing- is nothing but a glorified cameo.  He pops up in about four scenes and is really just coasting here.  This is in the days of studio deals that required people to make X-number of films per year.  That doesn't always show, but it does here!  Ultimately, it lacks all of what really made the original great: Tod Browning and Bela Lugosi.  By the way, watch for the bad body double for Lugosi.  You can live without seeing this movie, but it is something that horror film snobs like myself need to see at least once.

Up next, Part 3 will have to wait as a certain DVD company is taking their sweet time.  In the meantime, Germany is invaded by rats.  Stay tuned...

Impossibly-Cool Cover Art: Harold & Kumar 2

In fairness, this movie is gross, stupid and very funny.  That said, nothing they could do could possibly top the image used to sell the movie...

That's just...awesome.  Neil Patrick Harris riding a Unicorn.  I'm sold, movie!

Oh, as a bonus, this actually happens too!  Another point for you, movie!

Next up, a movie that promises me a monster beyond all logic.  Can it deliver?  Stay tuned...

The Good Daughter: Frankenstein's Daughter

We're one year removed from my 3-Part review series called 'The Good Sons.'  In them, I reviewed three films about the sons of famous movie characters- Son of Dracula, Son of Kong and Son of Frankenstein.  For all of you who were not reading the site at this time last year (hiya), I tell you this to prepare you for this new segment: 'The Good Daughters.'  First up, a 1958 B-Movie called Frankenstein's Daughter.  Is it about the famous doctor's daughter?  Well, no.  In fact, this movie's Dr. Frankenstein (call him Dr. Frank) is actually the grandson.  In a weird way, this works out well for me, since it's written as a follow-up to Son of Frankenstein.  Of course, that film had Universal backing & such actors as Basil Rathbone and Bela Lugosi in it.  This film was by the guy who made Missile to the Moon & features such actors as Harold Lloyd Jr.  This should be interesting, huh?  This is...

 The film begins with a lady monster showing up outside and...doing nothing, apparently.  The witness saw a monster, but is still alive.  Um, okay.  Our heroine is a brunette and speaks to her boyfriend about having a dream of a monster, which ties in with her friend's story.  Meanwhile, a younger man is working for an older scientist on some sort of vague potion to heal disease or something.  When a movie can't nail down it's own fake science, we're in trouble.  It becomes readily clear that the other man is keeping stuff from his boss and is much more than a lackey.  As it turns out, the groundskeeper is working with him on some sort of experiment & even brings him a dead person's hand!  Of course, we know what he's doing, since this is, after all, a FRANKENSTEIN MOVIE!  I appreciate the dramatic foreplay, but it's a bit silly here.  We learn that night that the assistant is testing out the prototype of their MacGuffin formula on the young woman and it turns her into some sort of unibrow-sporting monster.  Of course, it's just a cheap, silly mask.

The real meat of this movie involves Dr. Frank and his conniving.  He eventually gets all of the parts he needs for his *secret* experiment.  All he needs now is a head.  Naturally, he decides to hit on the blond girl from earlier and kill her, after she spurns his advances of course.  His experiment seems to fail, since they all do, but the monster eventually wakes up and escapes.  It wanders onto the docks and kills some guy using its best Tor Johnson fighting style.  It actually kills a guy by closing a door on him and pressing it!  Right after he tells her that nothing is going on, the monster shows up at the door and Dr. Frank pulls it away.  It is around this time that the logic really strains itself.  You see, the old man has a lab, but Dr. Frank has a lab built behind it- even going so far as it have it be two stories.  How did that get in there without him knowing it?!?  In fact, the secret door doesn't even have a switch on it, so we have to pretend that the guy never once leaned on the bookcase in all of this time!

 The finale of this movie just acts dumber than anything else you've seen so far...somehow.  The old doctor has been stealing chemicals for the experiment and finally ends up being caught.  At the same time, the girl is *coerced* into throwing a party in the backyard.  After teasing the girl, the lone, single guy is *forced* to sing...which he does in a really rehearsed manner.  By the way, he's played by Harold Lloyd's gay son- go figure!  The finale involves the monster killing one policeman (giving me the 'fire all your bullets and then die' cliche) and facing off with the boyfriend, with the girl's health on the line.  The other cop distracts the monster and our hero throws a bottle of acid.  This actually hits Dr. Frank(enstein) and he dies in a silly manner.  The monster stumbles around, lights itself on fire and dies.  The film ends with the happy couple getting over the death of the uncle (off-screen), the many murders and the monster.  How?  By making out and pushing Mr. Lloyd into the pool.  Hey, you know his girlfriend was killed and decapitated, right?  The End.

So yeah, this is not a good movie.  The plot is silly, the acting is hammy and the production values are super-minimalistic.  As a bonus, the party scene has two musical numbers to pad the run-time.  The first part of the movie is a fake-out as the girl's monster form is actually unrelated to all of this.  I suppose you could say that it's foreshadowing, but it's just downright deceptive!  The monster itself looks ridiculous, but did you expect anything else?  By far, the best part of the movie is Dr. Frank, who has all of the subtlety of a gunshot blast to the face!  He makes the guy from The Brain That Wouldn't Die look like Stephen Hawking!  As per the time, there really is no gore, save for the 'acid splash' bit and the monster make-up is just goofy.  That said, it's not really that boring.  It's stupid as hell, but it's not boring.  Put this on a Double-Feature with Frankenstein vs. The Space Monster & you've got three hours of funny shit- just for all the wrong reasons.

Next up, Universal tackles this whole thing properly with the one true sequel to Tod Browning's Dracula. Has 70 years of obscurity helped or hurt this?  Stay tuned...

WTF China?!?: Raped by An Angel

Okay, I won't lie: I only wanted to see this because of the title.  Honestly, can you blame me?  This exploitation film came out in 1993 in China and actually spawned four sequels.  We only had four Exorcist films, but we have five Raped By An Angel films!  What should you expect from the first film of a series that brought us such films as Raped By An Angel 3: Sexual Fantasy of the Chief Executive and Raped By An Angel 4: The Raper's Union?  Incidentally, do I even need to bother to summarize the plot for you?  It would either meet your fears/expectations or just ruin the whole thing for you.  If you're still with me, check out my consent-free review of...

The film begins with a man breaking into a woman's house and raping her.  Wow, even I Spit On Your Grave set things up first!  As it turns out, this is actually a game he plays with his girlfriend, although it's much more for him than for her.  We are introduced to our heroines via a TV commercial they appear in.  They run around in the jungle, fire guns and dodge explosions.  Is this an ad for the military or the NRA?  No, it's actually an odd for...milk.  What's in your water, guys?  Our rape-happy villain makes them his focus and hits on them at a party.  It doesn't end well, unless you consider having a glass of scotch dumped into your lap to be foreplay.  The next night, he sets up his girlfriend to be raped by his friend, an act that he films.  So far, he's only a rapist-by-proxy, not that I consider that to be okay either.  We get an odd bit of dialogue as our heroines discuss their long-lost friend who has showed up with AIDS.  I bet you're wondering where that is going, if anywhere.  I'll never tell...until it comes up later.  The man sets up a series of events that will come into play later.  While it's clever, it also flies in the face of the entire film's plot.  That's a first, huh?

Things only escalate as our heroine tracks down a person for an interview related to her law class.  That man: a Triad boss.  Way to aim low, honey.  After helping him escape a murder coup against him (a kung-fu fight- what?!?), the man agrees to do an interview with her.  On top of that, he begins to woo her and eventually ends up having sex with her on a houseboat.  Meanwhile, there is some sort of main plot here, right?  This finally comes to head around the forty-five minute mark.  Ah, I see someone read Screenplay 101.  You see, the man has moved into the building with our heroines and breaks in one night to have some fun with our heroine's friend.  She puts up a fight, but proves to be weaker than his American Psycho impression.  By the way, you actually see more of him in this scene than you do of her- odd.  He sets up more plot points that fly in the face of logic during this as well.  The next day, her friend comes home and finds out the news.  She pushes her friend to press charges.  I choose you, courtroom scene!

The trial is, well interesting. The whole thing basically boils down to people either believing odd things about her (they were a couple, says the landlord) or buying into the weird things he set up earlier.  For example, he deposited a bunch of money into her account and made her publicly withdraw it with the threat of a tape.  The problem with all of this?  He acts completely-surprised when she 'dares' press charges.  He does all of this just in case they do something that has never been done before?  WHAT?!?  Anyhow, he gets off after blackmailing his ex-girlfriend with the tape of her being raped earlier.  Meanwhile, our heroine's new beau does what he can to get at that man.  That proves to not be enough as the girl who pressed charges is kidnapped, killed and dismembered.  Two months later, the man moves back in and finds our heroine there.  She sets up a trap for him by allowing him to watch her saunter around.  In a *lovely* scene, we get to watch the man manipulate himself while hanging upside down.  Ew.  The climax (sorry, I didn't mean to do that) comes when the evil lawyer uses the boss' ex-girlfriend to keep him away while he breaks in...dressed as a clown.  A big action scene ensues involving fighting, slashing, a bathtub full of acid and a crossbow.  Eventually, he catches and rapes the girl...only to find that she switched with the AIDS-infected friend.  They got you...in a roundabout way.  The End.

This film is really not that good.  It accomplishes what it was going for, I suppose, but is a highly-flawed film.  The movie takes nearly an hour to get to its point and main plot.  Before we get that, we get a whole ton of random stuff and a romantic side-plot  that the movie deemed more important than the main one.  Would you kindly not waste my time, movie?  I also have to mention this: the subtitle work is utter shit.  Now the producers of the film are not to blame for this, but still.  Whoever failed to spell check this shit and decided to do all of the translation as literal needs to be shot in the scrotum!  As a bonus, the script is full of vague and confusing expressions that I'm supposed to know.  The thing can't go three minutes without calling a horny guy a 'wolf' (Tex Avery would be proud) or a stalker a 'creeper!'  I can figure this out with enough thought, but it's distracting as hell.  Oh right, the movie.  It's not good.  It has random humor, a listless plot and some very out-of-place fight scenes.  That said, stay tuned next month for the sequel!

Next up, I celebrate the 1-Year Anniversary of my look at the sons of famous movie villains.  This time, their daughters take their turn.  First up, the daughter of a scientist continues the family work...sort of. Stay tuned...

VHS For The Win: Attack of the Beast Creatures

I wish I was making this movie title up- I really do.  Sadly, this is a real film with a real bit of box art...

Wow, does that sell you on the film?  It tells you absolutely, freaking nothing about the story.  Does it feature some sort of flying spirit?  Maybe the fog from the cover to Return of the Living Dead 2 finally formed into a creature?

Considering that it's writer and producer/director/editor only have one film to their credit (this one), I doubt it.

Up next, a film whose title character seems even more evil now than he did then.  Oh and he has a crossbow.  Stay tuned...

Stock Footage Hell: Trancers 6

I know you've guys have been waiting for this one for a quite a while, so I won't leave you waiting any longer.  Check this crap out...

The film begins in the future with some guy talking to Jack Deth on a video screen.  Apparently, he saw a future vision of Jack's daughter/future descendant (I hate you, time travel!) being killed, so he sends Jack 'down the line.'  Of course, this is all a guy talking to stock footage.  Think I'm joking?  Check this out...

Anyone with working eyes can see how badly-chopped up this crap is?  How hard would it have been to get Tim Thomerson again?  He's still acting, so it's not like when they replaced the actress in the sequel to Island of the Fishmen (yes, it is real).  Hell, the guy's last movie was War Wolves, a shitty film that is a future review on the site.  I think he had no better options, but whatever.

Then again, Trancers 6 has shots like this in it...

You made a good call, Tim.

Next up, in the wake of all the hype about the new Doctor Who Matt Smith, I thought it was worth looking into a mistake they made in the past.  Welcome to Hell, kiddies.  Stay tuned...

WTF Asia?!?: Three..(Extremes II)

Let's take a look at the confusion caused by delayed DVD releases in North America.  In 2004, we get a freaky anthology film called Three...Extremes.  Featuing such directors as Takashi Miike, it had some good horror moments, freaky imagery and was just generally trippy.  A couple years later, they released it's sequel Three...Extremes II.  However, one look at an accurate DVD sleeve description creates some confusion.  You see, this movie is dated 2002!  Allow me to clear this up through the magic of internet research: this film is actually Three, the original film with different.  That's why they added the '...' between 'Three' and 'Extremes,' implying that it was a(n extreme) follow-up.  So is this a case of the original topping the sequel or is it a rare case (not the upper case version) of a sequel that surpasses the original.  Find out in my dumpling-free review of...

Our first tale is called 'Memories' and begins with a super-slow tracking shot of a man on a couch.  Is he dead?  No, although the audience is getting there with this shot taking up three full minutes.  'Quick, honey, turn it to Channel 3- paint is drying!'  Seriously though, this one of those Asian horror tales that doesn't really tell you anything, has a frigid pace and thinks that it can just throw some weird imagery at you once or twice to keep you hooked. There are two plots that sort of run their own course.  One of them involves the mopy guy who can't find his wife.  The second involves a woman (presumably his wife) who wakes up on the street with anmnesia.  He mopes around, hangs out with her family and just generally looks depressed.  Her story involves her wandering around trying to figure out what is going on.  Both of them have some flashbacks/dreams that appear to explain everything.  After about forty minutes, we learn that the man abused her and she left...but neither one of them really remembers this.  Um, okay?  Take Two...

The second story comes to us from Thailand and involves a small village dealing with the curse of some dolls.  Don't get excited- it's not as interesting as it sounds.  The whole narrative is bogged down by some weird freak-out moments (read: the only interesting parts) which make things very hard to decipher.  From what I can tell, the Village Elder stole/purloined the dolls and scoffed off their curse.  A few people die, but never in that dramatic of a fashion.  One woman appears to bleed from the eyes and is next scene hanging from the ceiling dead.  Another man dies of...um, something while dressed up like one of the dolls for a festival show.  The Elder's assistant warns him about the curse, but he ignores all of that.  Eventually, the Elder lashes out at one of the dolls and sets his room on fire, requiring him to be saved.  The Elder's Assistant saves a local girl from drowning, so she repays him by slashing at him with a knife...which causes the movie to flashback to an earlier part.  Was that a dream?  A vision?  Who knows?  I sure as hell don't.  Alright, Take Three...

The final tale involves an obsessive man trying to ignore science in favor of getting what he wants.  The narrative focuses on a man and his son who move into a mostly-empty apartment building.  The kid disappears one day and the father ends up at the apartment of the man from earlier.  He ends up getting captured as the man explains that he wants him around to see his wife return from 'death' in two days.  Like the other tales, this sounds interesting, but proves to be another slow-moving tale.  The guy is stuck in the apartment for a while and even tries to make nice.  When he turns on his captor, it just gets him hit on the head.  As the second day approaches, the captor tells him about how science is wrong and he knows better.  When the time comes...the woman doesn't wake up.  The police rush in and capture the man, since the kid reported the dad missing.  As the police take away the wife's dead body, the man chases after the car and stops in the road, only to be hit in a pretty hilarious computer effect.  The film flashes back to his perspective and shows that he see the wife's eyes blink before he died.  Rather than ending there, the film takes another five minutes explaining the back-story of the man.  *Sigh*

Wow, this was pretty disappointing.  Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad movie like a lot of the stuff I see.  It was just not all that interesting.  Let's compare this to Three...Extremes for a moment, shall we?  That film had a tale about a woman eating fetuses to stay young.  Do we get anything that interesting here?  No.  How about the second tale involving a crazed actor torturing a director and his wife?  Again, no.  Probably the most comparable is Miike's odd tale, but even that was a little interesting.  In hindsight, it is easy to see why they added the 'Extremes' to the ending, huh?  The key thing to understand is that the three directors for this film are not really horror directors.  Hell, one of them is the guy who directed The Love Letter, a romantic comedy starring Kevin Costner!  The one thing that these have going for them is that they are chock full of atmosphere, like most Asian horror films.  Ultimately though, the stories have to go somewhere and do something unique.  These ones just don't deliver.  Your opinion might be different- I freely admit- but I was pretty let-down by this.

Next up, a crime drama/action film with a title greater than the sum of it's parts.  Something this strange can only come to us from China.  Stay tuned...

Blockbuster Trash: Return to House on Haunted Hill

I'll be honest: I hated the remake of House on Haunted Hill.  It was not the worst movie ever made, but it was part of a batch of remakes that completely missed the point.  If you doubt me, I have two words for you: The Haunting.  The film was interesting, but was something completely-unrelated to the original.  Oh look, you named the main character Price- that makes it all okay!  Cut to the year 2007 and eight years have gone by.  All of a sudden, the Direct-to-DVD market has picked up and every film possible is getting 'a sequel' now.  How else do you explain Wargames 2 and Lost Boys 2?  Apparently someone thought that this failure of a film deserved a sequel and got together as much of the original cast as they could.  As it turns out, that ended up being just Jeffrey Combs, a great actor who really needs a better agent.  What's left to say about this haunted house of horrors?  Find out in my review of...

The film begins with our heroine waking up in the morning and ignoring anything not considered to be work.  This includes some frantic, desperate calls from her sister.  Our heroine- a completely self-centered bitch, ladies and gentlemen.  Her work day and meeting with her boyfriend our interrupted by some news: the sister has committed suicide.  We are also introduced to an anthropologist who is obsessed with finding a rare Idol.  Cutting back to our heroine, she and her boyfriend are going into her apartment, choosing to ignore the police tape on the door.  They find that she is a bit obsessed with a certain house/sanitarium.  By the way, there's no Ali Larter and this movie sort of skips around how they got off the high precipice with no exit at the end of the original film.  In the film's defense, our heroine is buff, tall and awkward, much like Larter.  Speaking of which, her stand-in appears in a bit that rips off The Ring (ironically, the director of the original would make Feardotcom, which also ripped off The Ring) & warns her about the house.  They run into the teacher, who warns them as well.  That night, she gets home and discovers a package from her sister.  It turns out to be a diary from the eponymous house that explains where the idol is.  By the way, they have guests.

A group of treasure hunters (when they're not Nicolas Cage, they're inherently bad) shows up and explains that they're seeking the Idol too.  They staged the sister's death, but did not get what they wanted.  Now that they have it, they are going to the house & decide to take our heroes with them, since 'the police won't buy another suicide in the family.'  Our heroine is taken inside, while the man is left outside for insurance.  Just before that, the anthropologist, his assistant and a female student wander in...only to get captured.  As a bonus, the hot girl reveals that she is actually aligned with the bad guy.  Burn!  A loud creaking noise occurs, which our heroine says is the place going into lockdown mode.  To circumvent this, the man has his assistants shoot the gears!  Once that's done, the leader says that they have to split up, which our minor comic relief character questions.  Being a horror movie, the bad guys start to die off.  The black guy goes first as the ghosts of formerly-walled in patients pull out his guts and, finally, pull him into the wall.  The hot girl with the gun (not to be confused with the student) gets his next.  She escapes a pair of lesbian ghosts (don't ask), only to run into the ghost of Dr. Vannacut (Combs), who cuts her face off, killing her instantly.  Perhaps the most ridiculous death is given to the tough Australian henchman as he is pulled into the air by bed sheets and explodes into a pile of CG blood!

The man guarding our hero is called in and the house retries 'lockdown mode.'  Our heroine actually escapes, but decides to go back in to save her man.  Oh and the house lets her in.  First, it can call you on a cell phone and now this!  With most of his men gone, the villain loses his power and has to play along with the others.  Their trip through the mansion is long and dangerous.  At one point, they end up in a pool of killer zombies, which spells the end of sarcastic guy.  Gee, someone saw The Descent, huh?  The bad guy actually ends up getting trapped in a furnace and burned alive.  Mere seconds later, burnt and ashen zombies chase after the survivors!  Their constant menace is Dr. Vannacut, who actually gets to really do things this time around.  Ultimately, our heroes get the Idol in a true Raiders of the Lost Ark moment, but the anthropologist goes all heel on us!  He engages in a fight with our heroine before Vannacut arrives.  In a true cheat, he can choke us, but people literally pass through him.  Pick a ghost rule, movie!  The day is saved...for our two heroines when they toss the Idol away, causing the ghosts to recreate the cycle of violence from before and kill Vannacut...'s ghost.  They all live happily ever after...until someone else finds the Idol in the Epilogue.

This movie is alright, but barely has anything to do with the original.  Let's be honest: this movie's plot is really just filler.  The whole point of this movie is to have a bunch of odd gore scenes that bring in the 'freak crowd.'  As part of said 'crowd,' I can see the appeal in them, as most of them are pretty creatively-executed.  Ultimately though, this film is a giant mess.  The whole thing with the Idol is never really explained and just serves as a MacGuffin.  Does it have some sort of powers?  Maybe.  Considering that the ghosts were killing people before, I don't know how you could tell.  If anything, this de-powers them, as the weird black fog thing (way to steal that, by the way, Lost) is nowhere to be found.  I suppose you could argue that this is more of the ghosts acting out than the house is, but why would the house be calling people and working with them?  The Wikipedia plot description mentions something about the Idol being 'addictive.'  Maybe you watched a different film- one that actually made a little bit of sense.  On the plus side, it has a gun-toting lesbian getting her face cut off by the dude from Re-Animator, so it's not all bad.

Next up, I take a look at the sequel to a cult Asian horror film...which is actually the original film.  Wait, what?  Stay tuned...

Forgotten Toons: Godzilla (1998)

Yeah, very few people liked Roland Emmerich's Godzilla.  I don't blame you.  I've grown to understand this feeling after seeing the film as a teenager and actually liking it.  Don't get me wrong- it was dumb.  However, it featured a giant monsters smashing up a city- sold!  Looking back at it, it had neither 'jack' nor 'shit' to do with the actual franchise and is, in many ways, like 1999's Yongary (aka Reptilian).  Someone wanted to make a monster movie about something, bought up a name and went to town.  Ironically, that film was made due to market off of Emmerich's. 

That said, something good did come out of this whole thing...

Yes, they made a cartoon show out of it.  It was an interesting, albeit safe, idea at the time.  The guys over at Fox owned the movie license and had a cartoon block- why not?  After all, this logic also brought us the surprisingly-good Men in Black cartoon.

The premise is simple: the egg left over from the end of the movie hatches and is discovered by Dr. Nick (Hi, everybody).  Ever wonder if there was pay-off to that sequel-bait ending?  Now, you don't!  Since it's own offspring is dead, it thinks that the Doctor is its parent.  Fortunate timing too, since a horde of monsters have begun to pop up all over the world.

The show was pretty formulaic, but did have some good monster-on-monster action.  It also had decent, albeit a bit one-note, characters to fill the non-smashing time.  They were nothing special, but better than anything given to us by the last Godzilla cartoon!  Incidentally, the closest you get to a Godzookie here is a robot voiced by Tom Kenny.  It is light years beyond that '70s crap!

The show is not officially on DVD, but select episodes can be seen in individual sets.  Out of those, there is one I highly-recommend.  As part of the Season 1 mid-point, they had a three part series called 'Monster Wars.'  That plot involves aliens, flying saucers and a whole bunch of return monsters.  That's not the best part: Mechagodzilla!

In a really clever move, they have the aliens make their own Mechagodzilla.  How?  By drudging up the corpse of the film's Godzilla monster and attaching lasers to it's back!  The whole thing is pretty big and epic...making you really wish that you could see all of the build-up to this.  Seriously Fox, the show was not a classic, but it deserves a DVD!  Come on, you guys made Life With Louie, so you can't be that picky!

Up next, I take a look at a show before my time, but produced by a man who would influence my generation's animation.  How odd will his early work be?  Stay tuned...

WTF Japan?!?: Stacy

Okay, I'll be up-front with you: this is a weird, f-ing movie!  Seriously, I could not manage to get through it the first time I watched it.  As a challenge to myself, I put it on the review schedule and planned to re-watch it.  The second attempt, well, didn't help much.  I saw it through to the end- don't get me wrong- but it was still weird as hell.  The movie has almost no real plot, choosing to just throw about five different sub-plots together that sort of collide in the end.  The tone is very odd, going from comedy to drama to horror and back to comedy again.  It is extremely disorienting and is one of the movies that really deserves my 'WTF' label.  I'll get into the plot in the review, but know this.  The movie's title gives you no idea what to expect.  This is...

Our story begins with a group of kids lying near a comatose girl and talking.  The mother comes by and thanks the girl for 'playing with her kids.'  Are you going to thank the swing set for playing with them next?!?  The girl returns the compliment by transforming into a zombie and killing them...off-screen.  The movie throws a lot of strange narration at us, pretending that it makes sense.  Here's what you need to know: teenage girls are transforming into zombies when they hit the 15-17 age mark.  Why?  Nobody is quite sure.  On top of that, the movie introduces two other things to us...

When the girls near the time of transformation, they become manic and happy.  Why?  Again- no explanation.  Secondly, this mysterious B.T.P. stuff is seen emanating off of them when they get ready to attack.  At least, it does when the movie decides what qualifies as an attack.  The movie introduces us to our main heroine, a young woman who knows that her transformation into a Stacy will soon occur.  By the way, the zombie girls are called Stacy, but your guess as to why is as good as mine.  To that end, she finds a nice toy-maker and asks him to 'second-kill' her when she transforms.  His response is, understandably, confusion, but he eventually goes along with it.  Sure, why not?

Before I get into the plot more, I want to discuss two silly in-jokes of the film.  First, they establish that a unique police force is there to stop the Stacies: The Romero Kill Crew.  Yeah, we all get it, movie.  Secondly, an infomercial is shown for a hand-mounted chainsaw called Bluce Campbell's Right Hand.  Yeah, they spell it wrong to avoid a lawsuit or something.  Naturally, this becomes a key plot point.

As I said, the movie is pretty much just all sub-plots.  Here's a rundown of them for you...
* A group of female killers (all dressed in Japanese cliche outfits) hunt down the Stacies.
* One of the Kill Crew begins to have doubts.
* A group of scientists are trying to figure out the mystery of the Stacies.
* Our hero is trying to make peace with the whole situation involving the girl.

All of this comes to a head as the Crew member finds a girl that he likes has become a Stacy.  He tries to keep her, but gets shot by his Commander.  In turn, he shoots the ladies...who shoot him too.  By the way, random cameo by CG bullets for no reason.  After all of that crap, a horde of Stacies kill the scientist and our heroine dies.  Our hero takes her to a field where he uses Bluce Campbell's Right Hand (see, I told you!) to second-kill her.  The End.

This movie is seriously, f-ing weird.  I don't know what to say about it.  I mean, the story does not know what it wants to be or how it wants to act.  Case in point: we get a scene where the Romero Kill Crew take down a zombie and cut her into little pieces (only that works, apparently).  Right around this time, our heroine shows up whilst under the effects of N.D.H.  The men feel remorse for their actions and start crying up a storm.  Our heroine walks around them, giggles and thanks them for doing their jobs.  WHAT?!?  The main plot is ridiculous enough, but the sub-plots are even worse.  The girl killers call up a lady and tell them to that they need to kill their daughter before she has even turned.  The scientist manages to explain the B.T.P. idea with a straight-face and taunts a dismembered zombie.  Do all scientists in zombie films have to be assholes?  Is that a rule?  You know what, I challenge anyone to make it through this movie with their sanity intact.  I look forward to reviews from anyone who has the guts...or lack of brains.

Next up, Blockbuster Trash brings you the sequel to a remake of a 50-year old horror film.  Is it a bad sign when it takes 8 years to follow-up to a film?  Stay tuned...