"Friday the 13th is Bad...Saturday the 14th is Worse"

Saturday the 14th (1981, Howard R. Cohen)

 

Sometimes it's best not to fuck with nostalgia.  I saw Saturday the 14th at my grandma's house in the mid-80s, when we used to watch the Saturday Afternoon Shockers.  Good times!  Anyway, I haven't seen the movie since that day, when I was too young to understand what "spoof" means.  I remember actually being scared by a few key scenes.  I also recall the TV spot, which went featured a tagline along the lines of "Friday the 13th is bad...Saturday the 14th is worse!"  Oh, never has a movie tagline been more literal!

The plot concerns a couple, Mary and John (Paula Prentiss and Richard Benjamin), who manage to beat out their crazy relatives (referred to throughout the film as The Relatives) for an inheritance.  They're excited to hear they're getting a house, a little bummed when the will explicitly states that the house is cursed.  Still they're happy to move in, even though their kids think it's a bad idea.  Lil' Billy finds an Evil Book that says "No really, don't open this book," opens it, somehow misplaces the book, and soon a variety of monsters is roaming the halls.  Throw in a couple of bickering vampires (Jeffrey Tambor and Nancy Lee Andrews) perched outside, thinking the house should be theirs.  An original enough plot for a movie that's trying to be a spoof, right?

Keep Out of Area 407!

Area 407 (2012, Dale Fabrigar and Everette Wallin)

The trailer for Area 407 (a.k.a. Tape 407: The Mesa Reserve Incident) indeed looks like familiar "found footage" territory, but I'll admit I thought it looked creepy enough to give it a shot.  The hook (plane crash survivors tormented by unseen predators) seemed a whole lot like Blair Witch meets Lost, which sounds like a purdy good mash-up.  Unfortunately, this is yet another sad example of a fantastic horror concept crappily executed, and another nail in the first-person-cam coffin.

The movie starts out with some standard "found footage"  opening text explaining that the tape we are about to see is totally real, and it's totally wrong that we are going to watch it.  Bad viewers.

USA is A-OK!

Uncle Sam (1996, William Lustig)

(Slight SPOILERS below!)

I decided to get real patriotic this July 4th by solemnly reflecting on the Land of the Free (by exercising my right to scream "enough with the goddamn firecrackers before I shove 'em up your tight little crack!") and the Home of the Brave (by reveling in Frank Ocean's marvelous tumblr posting).  Most importantly, I finally sat my ass down to watch William Lustig's (Maniac, Maniac Cop, 10,000 Maniacs Murder Natalie Merchant) holiday horror, Uncle Sam.  This weird zombie-slasher hybrid was quietly released straight-to-vid back in the mid-90's genre dry spell, despite being penned by horror staple Larry Cohen (It's Alive!).

The movie opens with an army sergeant messenger (an oh-so-shitbaggy William Smith) delivering the news to Louise Harper (Anne Tremko) that her soldier husband, Sam, who has been M.I.A. in Desert Storm for the past three years, was found dead.  "We'll be sending the remains," says the creeper messenger (who later exclaims that the best perk of his job is macking on grieving widows), lazily reassuring her, "you'll get over it in time."  Louise seems more relieved than distraught that her husband's body was found dead, and confides to her sister that she was afraid the messenger would tell her that Sam was found alive.  Eyebrow raising, eh?  Instead of thinking "why is this guy such a nasty perv?" or "why is this lady so scared of her dead husband?", there are more important questions to be answered, such as "who the hell wants a corpse that has been dead for three years delivered to them?!" Not only do they receive the coffin, they put it in their living room for the wake, just so Louise can look like a proper grieving war widow. 

Instant Insanity!!

A ton of sweet shit is being added to Netflix Instant this week, just in time for your July 4th  movie marathon! Some titles worth checkin':

Brain Dead (1990) - Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton find themselves in the same movie.  Confusion ensues.

Cold Sweat (2010) - Looking forward to watching another film by Argentina's premiere horror director, Adrián García Bogliano.  He's released several films since his unsettling creepfest  breakthrough Rooms for Tourists, but none of those films have been easily accessible here.  Thanks to Dark Sky Films for distributing this.

CQ (2002) - Apparently a swanky ode to Barbarella and other 60's Euro-mod flicks.  Somehow this slipped my radar all these years.  Will check it soon.

The Crater Lake Monster (1977)

Deathsport (1978) - Like Death Race 2000, but instead of sweet cars you get destructocycles. And David Carradine in a loin cloth, shot from below.   Shudder.

Don't Look Now (1973) - You should look, but definitely cover your eyes when Julie Christie sucks on Donald Sutherland's big...toe.

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)

Galaxy of Terror (1981)

Hollywood Boulevard (1976) - YES!  This is one of my favorites from the Corman canon.  A B-movie about the B-movie industry, throwing in every subgenre you can think of, and perhaps predicting the upcoming success of the slasher.  Starring cult goddess Mary Woronov as a real whack-job, and Candice Rialson as the naive, starry-eyed young lady lost in the darker side of Hollywood. 

Sorority House Massacre (1986) - My brain hurts just thinking about where this off-shoot of Slumber Party Massacre fits in with the other SPM sequels and the SHM sequel that features scenes from the other SPM movies, which apparently also spawned a Cheerleader Massacre series (the first of which is also added to Netflix Instant).  Incestuous Franchise Massacre!

Terror Within (1989) - Never seen this, but post-apocalyptic gargoyles impregnating Star Andreef (Dance of the Damned) sounds like a good time to me!

The Unborn (1991) - Just one of many pregno-horrors from the 90s.  Not quite as hilarious as the sequel, but it has enough fetuses to keep you entertained.

Happy Birthday, Karen Black!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAREN BLACK!

The most awesome actress in cinema history (no, not hyperbole, I FREAKIN' LOVE ME SOME KAREN BLACK) turns, umm, somewhere between 60 and 75, depending on which source you check. However many years young she is, she looks amazing, and never seems to stop working.  Karen has spent 40+ years entertaining her public: from the indie trenches to the heart of 70s Hollyweird, the numerous screenplays she wrote, the plays she has written and starred in, the one-woman shows...hell, she even did live narration on Guy Maddin's Brand Upon the Brain!  Case in point: Karen Black is cooler than you and me.