Only now does it occur to me... THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1999)

Only now does it occur to me... that the most concentrated five minutes of sheer "1990s" ever spat out upon celluloid probably occurs at the beginning of William Malone's (fortieth anniversary) remake of William Castle's THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL.

Within a single, five minute span we have: Geoffrey Rush doing a Vincent Price impersonation (his character is even named Price) and making Beanie Babies (!) references,

 

 

 

 

 

 


"the '90s-personified" singer-songwriter and glasses enthusiast Lisa Loeb as a local reporter interviewing him,

 

 

 

 

 

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER's James "Spike" Marsters as her hapless cameraman,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(oh, did I mention this is set at an amusement park with X-treme rollercoasters?)

 

Loeb and Marsters riding an X-treme rollercoaster,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cut to: an early Macintosh PowerBook rocking some clip art,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

haunted '90s email which deletes text on its own,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Famke Janssen (GOLDENEYE, ROUNDERS, THE FACULTY, MELROSE PLACE) in a luxurious '90s bubble bath,  discussing her birthday party,

 

 

 

 

 

 

followed by a montage of the party attendees, which include Taye Diggs (GO, HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK, ALLY MCBEAL),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Peter Gallagher (AMERICAN BEAUTY, MALICE, CENTER STAGE, WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, THE PLAYER),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Ali Larter (VARSITY BLUES, FINAL DESTINATION, DAWSON'S CREEK, LEGALLY BLONDE, SUDDENLY SUSAN),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
who is waving around a Sharp ViewCam camcorder like she just don't care,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras (BILLY MADISON, MORTAL KOMBAT, SAVED BY THE BELL, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, HIGHER LEARNING, THE LAST ACTION HERO)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the latter two actresses of whom, slight hairstyling differences aside, I defy anyone to tell apart. And that's not all! Before the five minutes have elapsed, we meet SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE's Chris Kattan

 

 

 

 

 

 
in a serious (?!) role. And there you have it. I'm not sure there's a more concentrated dose of '90s out there. You might try HACKERS, sure, or REALITY BITES, EMPIRE RECORDS, SPICE WORLD, BIO-DOME, maybe even BATMAN AND ROBIN, perhaps TANK GIRL or THE PHANTOM, but I'm not sure you'll find it.

However, it brings me no joy to also tell you that: the rest of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL '99 is pretty mediocre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
There is a fun homage to SUSPIRIA with primary colored stained glass falling down to (near) murderous effect:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
And a blink-and-you'll-miss-him cameo by REANIMATOR's own Jeffrey Combs as a mad scientist:

 

But, anyway. Aside from the 90s nostalgia, there's zero reason to recommend this over the William Castle original, which features everything from acid skeletons to a lesser Mitchum to Vincent Price doing whatever the hell he wants.

R.I.P., Stuart Gordon

I'm sorry to report the death of Chicago horror icon/auteur Stuart Gordon. Though he was best known for his major masterpiece, RE-ANIMATOR, and, perhaps, his connection to HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS (whereupon Disney almost broke him entirely), he made many of the greatest horror films of the 80s, 90s, and 00s, which always brimmed with dark comedy and social commentary––from the best Full Moon Picture THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, to the primordial suburban stew of KING OF THE ANTS, to the best rock-em-sock-robot movie ever made, ROBOT JOX (yeah, that's right, PACIFIC RIM), to the underrated mayhem of DOLLS, to his pitch-black indictment of modern indulgence STUCK, to all his other Lovecraft adapations, FROM BEYOND, DAGON, and the oft-overlooked CASTLE FREAK. He was a great theater director, too, and I was lucky enough to see NEVERMORE in 2011 (his "Jeffrey Combs-as-Edgar Allan Poe" one-man-show) and wished for years for his production of TASTE to come to NYC (it hasn't yet). He certainly left his mark on modern horror––and, as Don Coscarelli remembers––he summed up the genre perhaps better than anyone: "Horror films are a rehearsal for our own deaths."

Theater Review: NEVERMORE, AN EVENING WITH EDGAR ALLAN POE (2011, Stuart Gordon)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 90 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Jeffrey Combs (RE-ANIMATOR, THE FRIGHTENERS, CASTLE FREAK, THE BLACK CAT). Written by Dennis Paoli (BLEACHER BUMS, GHOULIES II, THE DENTIST). Directed by Stuart Gordon (ROBOT JOX, DOLLS, FROM BEYOND).

I was lucky enough this year to spend a portion of my Halloween in the mad, increasingly inebriated company of the Nineteenth Century's greatest poet and weaver of macabre tales, Edgar Allan Poe. Upon a candlelight-flicker'd stage at Lincoln Center, Jeffrey Combs performed a special New York engagement of his one-man show, NEVERMORE.

I'm a longtime fan of Mr. Combs (one of the more committed, versatile actors of modern genre cinema) as well as the rest of the creative team: the director is the great Stuart Gordon (Mamet crony, Lovecraft-adapter extraordinaire, and the man who brought ROBOT JOX into the world) and the playwright is Dennis Paoli (rarely has an accomplished dramatist also penned the best GHOULIES movie, which was 2, by the way). It is difficult to describe the sheer power of this show– its resonance, its poetic value, its sense of history– but I shall try.

A candle journeys from its first lighting to its natural end as a whispery nub of extinguished wick. In between, Edgar Allan Poe exists. Even an intimate familiarity with Combs' body of work cannot prepare you for his transformation. Sure, a prosthetic nose, a wig, and a well-tailored costume are employed, but Combs becomes Poe. Even actively looking for it, you can only see glimpses of Combs beneath his performance, a glint in his eye here, an off-handed remark there. Combs is so profoundly in the moment that a patron's cough, the New York milieu, or Halloween night itself might bring forth an unexpected reaction, a measured improvisation.

Combs imbues Poe with a singsongy drawl and much humorous pomposity, then enshrouds him in madness and submerges him in the haze of drink. He reads aloud "The Tell-Tale Heart" ("The Tell-Tale Heart"....perhaps you've heard of it...?," he smartassedly inquires) with a manic energy which brings alive the story's humor and derangement as never before. He physically stomps upon the carpet in an approximation of the story's terrible, persistent heartbeat, injecting a sense of rhythm to the piece that one usually only associates with Poe's poetry. He reads a line like "ALL IN VAIN, because Death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim" with a wet malevolence that drips morbidly from every syllable.

Claiming the birthright of his actor parents to 'perform,' Combs' Poe lays siege to the stage against the better judgment of unseen handlers, stagehands, and the poetess Sarah Helen Whitman in the audience, whom Poe was courting at the time (in the wake of his wife's death). He rants against Longfellow, pokes at the Transcendentalists, and razzes Washington Irving. He brags at length about his career at West Point and his achievement of swimming the James River. But a bottle of Rye (at first swigged surreptitiously, then guzzled out in the open) causes the evening's events to grow increasingly and exponentially unhinged. "WHOOOOOOOOPS," he blurts as he gulps down the sauce again and again and again, promenading about the stage like an irrepressible beast. His ever-roaming, drunken tongue practically becomes a character in and of itself. He stumbles and staggers and teeters and falls; he earns our applause through the Herculean act of "standing up." He straddles a music stand like a horse, amuses himself by playing with a length of his ruffly shirt caught in a gap through his unbuttoned vest, battles the forces of gravity with great slapstick physicality, and shrugs it all off with a mad, wheezy cackle. There's an insane, boozy recitation of "The Bells," whereupon Combs hurls his arms about and boogies across the stage, flinging himself and suspenders alike with reckless abandon, ultimately whimpering in the aisle, wounded and bitter, but not quite broken. And for all the humor, there is a tremendous emotive core, perhaps best exemplified by the air of melancholy that results when a dried flower falls out from between pressed pages, a sudden and unexpected reminder of his dead wife. And I can't even begin to chronicle the profundity of Combs' reading of "The Raven," a reading which transports you face-to-face with the sullen, saggy-eyed countenance from the famous daguerreotype by which most of us know Poe's face.

NEVERMORE is a masterful work. Stuart Gordon's sure, even-handed direction is capable of handling all of Poe's heights and depths and tonal shifts; Dennis Paoli's script (with much assistance from Poe's prose and poetry) is in turns hilarious and heart-wrenching; and Jeffrey Combs' performance is a staggering portrait of a majestic poet and a gutter philosopher, a man whose mind and body tested themselves against the maelstrom for only forty short years. I'm not sure when this show will be performed again, but if it's ever in your power to see it, you must.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1991, Stuart Gordon)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 97 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Lance Henriksen (ALIENS, THE TERMINATOR, NEAR DARK), Mark Margolis (THE WRESTLER, PI), Jeffrey Combs (RE-ANIMATOR, CASTLE FREAK), William J. Norris (brilliant Chicago theater actor), Stephen Lee (WARGAMES, DOLLS, GHOULIES III), Frances Bay (BLUE VELVET, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS), Rona de Ricci, Jonathan Fuller (CASTLE FREAK, CAMPFIRE TALES). Music by Richard Band (TERRORVISION, GHOULIES, PUPPET MASTER). Written by Dennis Paoli (RE-ANIMATOR, GHOULIES II, THE DENTIST), and loosely based on some of the writings of Edgar Allen Poe.
Tag-lines: "A bizarre descent into hell from the creator of RE-ANIMATOR."
Best one-liner: "What are you doing here? Why don't you go torture some heretics!"

How's it goin', Full Moon? It's been a long time. Come to torment me with more mediocre, direct-to-video genre cinema, have ye? Come to fool me into thinking I've rented PHANTASM? Cause if I squint my eyes and look at the cover, that's what it looks like. And if I had no idea what talents were involved, I think I'd have to assume- best case scenario- that the film within is something along the lines of 'PUPPET MASTER III meets DRAGONWORLD.' But lo and behold: THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM is a damned solid flick. I mean, it's not quite as good as Dreyer's LA PASSION DE JEANNE D'ARC, but it probably burns at least three times as many heretics, and in blazing Technicolor!

Actually, that was a lie, it just sounded better to say "in blazing Technicolor" than "in a murky 35mm-to-VHS transfer."

Now the first thing that's going to surprise you is the fact that this film appears, in fact, to have a budget of some kind. Estimated to have been made for only two million dollars, I find that to be pretty impressive. I mean, after craft services, extras, airfare, buying location access to a bona fide Italian castle, paying Stuart Gordon, semi-intricate period costuming, complex gore effects, retaining some recognizable actors, building a Pit and a Pendulum out of something sturdier than balsa wood– that seems like it would cost a lot of 1991 dollars. So I'm wondering exactly how much went to Lance Henriksen (to get him to prepare, fly him out, have him act for a few weeks, have him on call in case they need dubbing, pick-ups, etc.)?

It can't have been toooo much, the whole goddamn budget was $2 million. Let's pick an arbitrary figure- let's say that he commanded $150,000: 7.5% of the budget, which I think is a semi-reasonable guess given the costs of everything else. That would be for- let's say 6 weeks of hassle in all. Might have been more, might have been less. Does that mean that if I scraped together $3,500, I could get Lance Henriksen to hang out at my apartment for a day? And that $3,500 is what he'd normally earn for some grueling work- shaving his head into a whacky monk's tonsure, getting whipped, pouring his heart into his work, etc.

So it wouldn't even be demeaning to just hang out with him for half the day, shoot the shit, drink some beers... and then I could reasonably ask him to maybe do some light housework for the second half, maybe he could do some dishes while we discuss SURVIVAL QUEST. Time to start saving, I guess.

What was I talking about? Ah yes, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM. Gordon and Dennis Paoli weave together the Spanish Inquisition, "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Premature Burial," and a smattering of other Edgar Allen Poe elements into one big Medieval frenzy of swashbucklery, supernatural horror, and Gothic torture.


The plot concerns two innocents (originally cast as Billy Dee Williams and Sherilyn Fenn!) -

a breadmaker and his pious wife, played by Jonathan Fuller and Rona de Ricci- who are inadvertently swept up into a world of imprisonment, torture, and autos de fé. A gang of terrific character actors comprise the Inquistion, including Lance Henriksen (as Torquemada himself- a part originally intended for Peter O'Toole!), Jeffrey Combs, Mark Margolis (whose old crucifixion wounds are continually fingered by Lance), William J. Norris (who plays the Doctor with Paul Bartel-style flair), and Stephen Lee (who evinces dunderheaded charm). Additionally, they almost seem to directly prefigure the posse of colorful tormentors in Gordon's 2003 KING OF THE ANTS.

Of the crew, Henriksen gets the most screen time and by gum, does he make the most of it. He might be having a ball beneath that bitter, hardened exterior, but you really can't tell. The man looks like he is in genuine, diabolical agony for the duration.

He's not some cardboard cutout Inquisition villain- he's an anguished soul, scourged by his own spiritual hang-ups and ambigious sexual repressions, and he finds his outlet in pure, unfettered, self-serving sadism. He's got a weird SALÓ-style torture peephole and a Sword of Damocles installed in his quarters. He's got a Virgin Mary fetish and a hard-on for gettin' flagellated ("Flog me!"). Gordon's pulling out all the stops and the Catholicism clichés, all the way down to the (Buñuel-inspired?) crucifix dagger.

At one point, he screams, "NO ONE ESCAPES! NO ONE!!!" followed by a nearly endless recitation of "KILL HIMs." He must scream "KILL HIM!!!" about three thousand times in this movie, and every time ya hear it, it's just as fresh as the first time.

There's definitely an element of 'Inquisition-sploitation' to this picture, and when the innocent young maiden is stripped down and scrutinized by these ecclesiastical clowns, Henriksen must react.

What would you have him do, as a director? Go the hackneyed route? Have him twirl a mustache, or giggle lasciviously? Have him lick his lips, or look her up and down with the 'ole pervy once-over? Well, let's see what Lance Henriksen decided on:

Now that is an acting choice, ladies and gentlemen. Look at him. Does he even know they're making a movie? At this point in time, measured by the medium as 1/24th of a second, can we say for sure that there's a difference between Lance Henriksen and Tomás de Torquemada?... It's not for me to say. But goddamn, it's one hell of a performance. And he should have earned the first Oscar nomination to be affiliated with a Full Moon picture.

While not living up to Henriksen's sheer intensity, Jeffrey Combs manages to steal a little bit of the spotlight in his role as Francisco, the Inquisition's resident bookworm. Looking sort of like a Medieval Encyclopedia Brown, Combs is outfitted with a pageboy wig, some spectacles worthy of Mr. Peabody, and a demeanor that seems truly alien to us 21st Centurians.

Allow me to explain: as the film progresses, it becomes clear that Combs studied artwork contemporaneous to the Inquisition and painstakingly emulated the poses found therein. The rigidity, the arm movements, the way he peers into a book or disdainfully regards a potential "witch."

Though it doesn't call for a great deal of movement, it's an extremely physical role, and Combs makes it extremely memorable.

There's a meaty role by Lynch's favorite scary old lady, Frances Bay, as an actual witch captured by the Torquemada.

Bay is guaranteed to bring 'blood-curdlingly off-kilter' and 'adorable old lady' elements to her performances, and her "Esmerelda" here is no exception. She gets tortured, dispenses Obi-Wan Kenobi-style spiritual guidance, sounds off with wacky one-liners, and faces her stake-burning fate with gunpowder-gobbling panache (which leads to an... explosive payoff).

Stephen Lee and Mark Margolis waterboard Frances Bay.


Believe in yourself and you can overcome anything!

Just when you think you've seen it all, the Cardinal arrives to put the kibosh on Torquemada's brutality. I did a spit-take when he arrived, because, much to my surprise, the Cardinal was played by THE DEVILS' own Oliver Reed!!! He stumbles in, par for the course, swigging from a flask and mumbling in an accent that bears some similarity to that of an inebriated Italian chef.

He's all about shutting down Torquemada's operation, giggling somewhat malevolently, and murmuring things like "No-a, I tell you, I have-a de seal of de Pope!" When Torquemada offers him a few snifters from this schweet, aged cask of Amontillado, do you really think that Oliver Reed refuses?

SCHLERP

One thing leads to another, and- well, if you have any familiarity with Poe, you know how it turns out. Suffice it to say that Ollie Reed was- however fleeting- an unexpected pleasure. Full Moon, you continue to surprise me. Anyway, we finally get to that eponymous Pit and Pendulum around an hour and fifteen minutes in, and some satisfying (although fairly predictable) payoffs ensue.

I'm giving this movie four stars. I'm fairly certain it's actually a crime in some states to assign a Full Moon picture a rating such as this, but let's just run with it. For another Full Moon/Stuart Gordon/Jeffrey Combs/literary adaptation that's far better than it has any right to be, check out CASTLE FREAK.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: THE BLACK CAT (2007, Stuart Gordon)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.
Running Time: 58 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Jeffrey Combs.
Tag-lines: None.
Best one-liner: Anything with "Eddie" in it.

As a film, Stuart Gordon's THE BLACK CAT is a mixed bag. As a "Masters of Horror" episode, it's top-notch. THE BLACK CAT's been tackled by everyone from Argento to Fulci to Edgar Ulmer. There have been faithful adaptations, and there have been total reworkings that lose EVERYTHING except the title, and maybe an appearance by the eponymous feline (if we're lucky). How does Gordon's stack up? Pretty well.

The good: A. Jeffrey Combs. His performance is truly transformative. The man IS Poe. And it's not just the makeup and prosthetics- only fleetingly do you catch traces of the Jeffrey Combs we know and love beneath the tortured exterior.

And to think I'd just been saying that I'd love to see him play another drunk after CASTLE FREAK. B. The visuals. Gordon uses a muted color palette except for vivid blood-reds and sharp cat's eye-yellows. It looks great. C. Doing something new with the story, and making it relate to Poe's life. Though it steers hilariously close to YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES when, for example, Poe's wife calls him "Eddie." (*It must be noted that he historically answered to the nickname Eddie, but that doesn't make this any less hilarious.)

The bad: I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Stu, could ya lay off the CGI? I'm not suggesting animal cruelty for a certain eye-gouging scene or an actual victim for the axe to the head, and I understand you're under time constraints for these gigs, but surely you could've done something with a puppet or prosthetics or SOMETHING. The CGI just really takes me out of the movie, and definitely moreso than stop motion or rockin' 80's makeup FX. (*It must also be noted that there's a lot of great traditional makeup FX in this episode, it's simply these two brief examples that took me out of the episode.)

And, also, I've seen so many adaptations at this point, it's SLIGHTLY difficult for me to get it up for THE BLACK CAT these days, but this version really makes me want to, so, I'd say if this at all sounds up your alley, you'll probably enjoy it.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: ROBOT JOX (1990, Stuart Gordon)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 85 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Gary Graham (ALL THE RIGHT MOVES, Paul Schrader's HARDCORE), Paul Koslo (MR. MAJESTYK, JOE KIDD), Jason Marsden ("Dash X" on EERIE, INDIANA), Ann-Marie Johnston (I'M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA), Hilary Mason (the little old lady in Gordon's DOLLS), Ian Patrick Williams (Gordon's RE-ANIMATOR, DOLLS; TERRORVISION, and plays Alvar Hanso in promotional photos for TV's LOST).
Tag-lines: "The ultimate killing machine. Part Man. Part Metal. "
Best one-liner: "I kill you already! [taps head] In here!"

Holy God, we are talking Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots- the movie!

And I can see you, sitting in the back there, feeling brave and anonymous under cover of darkness, muttering about "that sounds dumb" and things of that nature. Well, to at once warn you and quote ROBOT JOX: "It's clobberin' time!"

The set-up is this: after WWIII, war's been outlawed. Something happened to the atmosphere, or else Stuart Gordon ran out of money, but everybody has to wear $1 painter's masks. Anyway, conflict is now resolved between warriors driving gargantuan robots and beating the hell out of each other. The latest battle is basically between the USSR and the USA...for Alaska!

This movie's got it all: We're talking sweetass stop-motion, Cold War paranoia, a Jeffrey Combs cameo,

fuckin' awesome spacesuits, serious use of the line 'I kill you dead!,' and futuristic blinking panels straight out of SPACE ACADEMY- shit, this is what it's all about! Yet, Fancy Pants back there STILL thinks this is a bad idea?! Well, allow me to finish.

Gary Graham is awesome as our stalwart, Gordon-esque hero, "Achilles."


No one calls Gary Graham a cowerd.

Paul Koslo is chewing so much scenery as the villainous "Alexander" that he almost overshadows the GIANT ROBOTS.

How is that even possible?! Well, watch the flick and find out.


"The battle's over." -"Not for me!"

And guess what- this shit ends up...

... in space!?!
Yeah, giant robots smacking the tar out of each other in Siberia and Death Valley is not enough. Space is awesome. Why not have them fight in space? Well, there's no reason not to... so here we are. In fact, this entire movie seeks to answer that open-ended, oft-rhetorical question: WHY NOT?!

But it's subtle, too. There's a really nice touch when this society obsessed with repopulation has a media that overtly pushes imagery of sexy pregnant women.

But then again, this movie also ends with two thumbs-up giving fists slamming into each other as majestic music blasts away.

Four robot whappin' boppin' stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: CASTLE FREAK (1995, Stuart Gordon)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 95 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Jeffrey Combs, Jonathan Fuller, Barbara Crampton (all three of them Gordon alumni).
Tag-lines: "Hideous... hungry... and loose!," which, I gotta say- though it is somewhat inappropriate- it's so ridiculous that I have no choice but to love it.
Best one-liner: Not really, actually.

Using the short story "The Outsider" as a point of departure, Stuart Gordon crafts one of the more successful H.P. Lovecraft adaptations and a micro-masterpiece of what I call "Melancholy Horror." Like a somber version of PHENOMENA meets DON'T LOOK NOW with a sprinkling of THE SHINING, CASTLE FREAK is a work that completely transcends its dime store origins. (It was a Full Moon release- the illustrious company that gave us such classics as CRYPTZ, EVIL BONG II: KING BONG, and DEMONICUS.) The always-entertaining Jeffrey Combs is our American hero who has inherited an Italian castle which may or may not contain a feral half-brother man-child that is the product of years of child abuse, isolation, and imprisonment.

Combs builds a complex Lovecraftian hero, tortured by his own past and tormented by genealogical forces. Using the darkly depressing backstory (involving alcoholism, a blinding, and the death of his son), Combs derives frustration and real emotional weight, which in a Gordon film of this era (pre-EDMOND and STUCK) is almost unthinkable.

I found myself chuckling a little whenever we see Combs in drunk mode, but I wasn't laughing because he's bad- I was laughing because he's so good!

Everything involving the freak (Jonathan Fuller) is well done (the makeup, the uncanny movement, the tortured cries, etc.), but, as always, when the monster is decent, the a-hole distributors have plastered its mug all over the posters and promotional materials, thus ruining the ominous dread of the initial reveal (which was the big zinger in the original story). I'm all for a sweet poster, but can we not blow the movie's load on it? (For this review, I was able to find 1 poster which didn't completely show the creature.) Anyway, the freak gets loose and its warped attempts at human behavior are briefly humorous, then horrific, and ultimately depressing. There's plenty of depraved gore and a few thrills, but in the end, CASTLE FREAK is a chamber piece of baneful despair that I think even that ole’ crab Lovecraft himself would have gotten a kick out of.

-Sean Gill