Chilling Classics Cthursday: DEVIL TIMES FIVE (1974)

Ah, well, if it isn't Devil Times Five. We've met before, you and I, 'round about fifteen years or so ago--yep, in the early years of this here blog. In the era when I first gave a peep-see to many a movie from the Mill Creek Entertainment 50 Movie Pack Chilling Classics 12-DVD Collection. (That is her Christian name.) And now here we are again, you and I, meeting once more in the interests of this here blog. When your number came up courtesy of RNGesus, I immediately remembered a few things about you. 

I remembered that you featured Boss Hogg from The Dukes of Hazzard and Rosario from Will and Grace, the latter of whom eats a banana at one point in the proceedings. 

I remembered that teen heartthrob Leif Garrett stars, though it's a bit before his teen heartthrob-dom, and he cries about his "beautiful face" after he gets hurt. 

While those are about all the specifics that have remained with me over the years, I will say that you left such an impression on me that a big feeling about you also remained: a feeling that I don't like you. Sorry to say it but that's right! It was a negative impression because you were godawful boring.

But hey, that was 2007 Final Girl. I am now 2024 Final Crone. And as was the hope when I revisited another 2007 Chilling Classic I disliked (The House of the Dead), I felt a rumblin' in my nethers that (blessedly) was merely my hope springing eternal. "How could I not enjoy a movie about killer kids wherein Rosario from Will and Grace eats a banana? Was not such a movie made just for me?" Armed with this hope and my modern-day crusade against finding movies "boring," I settled in, ready for you and I to merge and become Devil Times Six.

Look, I'm just gonna cut to the chase: Sad to say, but we are destined to remain Devil Times Five and Devil Times One.

I did find more to take with me into the future as rememberin's though. Like the couple I called "That's Really Not a Mustachioed Ken Howard?" and "Dollar Tree Lynda Day George."

Fun (??) Fact #1: I recently spied Dollar Tree Lynda Day George (aka Joan McCall) in a rewatch of Grizzly for my recent spot on The Evolution of Horror. In Grizzly she is Christopher George's love interest, which really drives home the "why are you not Lynda Day George"-ness of it all.

Fun (??) Fact #2: As an alternate name to "That's Really Not a Mustachioed Ken Howard?" I will also accept "White John Amos."

You know I'm not wrong!

There's also the kid who dresses up as a nun...she's giving a young Sister Wendy.

You feature a corpse party, Devil Times Five! One of my very favorite slasher things!

You've got a real nasty streak. Whether it's kids setting someone on fire, causing death-by-piranha (or "piraña," as one character says it), or beating someone to death with a variety of tools, when these kids get to murderin' they really get to it.

The issue remains, though, that it takes too long for the kids to get to murderin' and you can't figure out what you want to be in the meantime. Your soundtrack says "fourth rate sexploitation," and you try to go there a couple of times. You bust out some drama with all the married couples, but it just drags. 

And speaking of drag...I want to know what is up with Leif Garrett's character occasionally dressing up as a woman! But you give it naught but a throwaway moment or two.

Sigh. Given all of that, it's surprising that we are not Devil Times Six, is it not? My impulse is to say "it's not you, it's me," because that is the polite thing to do. But fuck it! It's not me at all. It's you! You're a mess! Your original cut was a paltry 40 minutes and your director quit, which left others holding the bag and having to do a whole lotta padding...and we can feel all 50 minutes of padding, lemme tell ya. That's your biggest problem, I think, and it's one I can't really surmount.

I mean, maybe I could if I'd watched you on Tubi, where I nabbed all these nice screencaps from. Or maybe if I watched you on the upcoming 4K Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray? (I can't believe you're getting a $40 4K Blu-ray, if I'm being totally honest, but hey.) But I watched the Chilling Classics version of you, which....phew. Muddy, dark, dreary, brown. Color was MIA, as were crisp edges to shapes. Resolution, man. It's kinda great.

Sigh I don't know. I don't know if that would really have helped. Sometimes a movie and a blogger simply aren't compatible, even if one of those things includes Rosario eating a banana and Leif Garrett in a series of wigs. To cling to each other after trying--and writing!--twice is a bit unseemly, no? Best to let go. 

And so I release you, Devil Times Five. I release your Boss Hogg (not a euphemism), your wigs, your corpse party, your pretend nuns...I release them so someone else--perhaps someone who will spend $40 on you via Vinegar Syndrome, or maybe someone who will spend $0 on you via Tubi--will give you and get from you what you both need. I'll always remember your "beautiful face." Probably.

THE MUTILATOR (1985)

I tells ya, o reader mine, it is not often these days that I'm in the mood for a slasher movie. I know! They used to be my bread and butter, the very reason I started this here blog in the first place. But what can I say? That was nearly 15 years ago. I was only 13, of course I was into slasher movies! The slasher kingdom is ruled by teenagers. Since those long-lost days, sure, I'll put on a classic once in a great while. Many slashers–Black Christmas, My Bloody Valentine, Hell Night, and so on–have a special place in the hole where my heart should be. But new slasher films? No thank you, I say.

But last night, I don't know, a mood came over me. Maybe it's SHOCKtober, maybe it's the Spooky Season in general, who can say. But I had a hankerin' for a hunk o' slasher, and there was The Mutilator, trying desperately to get my attention with its "I'm from the mid-80s, when the slasher was past its prime! Look at my poster, it's so 80s video store lurid! Me! Pick me!" So finally I was like "Okay, The Mutilator, fine! Let's get to know one another." I mean, the poster does exemplify 80s video store luridness, does it not? That tagline! The bikini! The dead bodies! The bloody logo! It's great.

The film begins, as all good slashers must, with the inciting incident, that which gives motivation to the killer. As a birthday gift to his father, young Ed decides to clean his dad's numerous guns. A super great idea! Until Ed accidentally kills his mother. Dad celebrates The Worst Birthday in the History of Ever by getting angry at his son (understandable, but maybe do not keep the cabinet filled with your 465 loaded guns unlocked? Also why all the guns, DAD) and drinking with his wife's freshly-dead body.

I want to start storing all of my liquor in one of those old timey trick globes! The Mutilator is already proving aspirational.

Anyway. We jump into the future (don't get excited, we only go, like, 15 years into the future) and Ed is a college student...or a law school student? it's not entirely clear...and he and his friends are about to embark on their fall break. This fall break is so important that the movie's original title was Fall Break. It's also the name of the movie's theme song, which sounds like a sitcom theme song. It will play approximately 12 times over the course of the film. It's been stuck in my head for about 15 hours now. The Mutilator has changed me.


The "kids" can't decide what they're going to do for this fall break, but then a call comes from Deus Ex Dad–although he's largely ignored Ed since The Worst Birthday in the History of Ever, he desperately needs his son to come close up his beach condo before winter sets in. And so, just like that, Ed and the Gang have something to do.

They arrive at the pigged out condo and marvel at all that awaits within, from the empty booze bottles to a framed photo of a dead body hanging on the wall. Apparently dad ran over the person in the photo with a ski boat and killed him. What better way to show regret than taking a picture of the bloody body and hanging it up, I guess? No one seems to think this is too weird. Also not too weird: the shitton of taxidermied animals, the giant gaff hanging on the wall, the empty spot where dad's "battle axe" should hang.

We've got the gang where all slasher gangs need to go: an isolated location! That can only mean one thing...yes, it's time for sex and partying and murder. We kind of get all of those things. Look, this gang is the absolute squarest fucking gang you will ever encounter in a horror movie. From time to time they drink from a can of Natty Light, sure. One of them even burps one time! But oh my lawd are they square. I love them.

NERDS

Now then, about that murder I mentioned. It eventually arrives. There is no mystery whatsoever about who the killer is. Ed's dad has lured his son and his son's friends here to kill them. Dad does not wear a mask. We see him front and center all the time. We even watch him set up the requisite corpse party! It takes forever for the killings to start, and while they're not nearly as lurid as the poster might lead you to believe, they are pretty clever for the $0.50 budget this film had. Decapitations, bifurcations, guts and blood...it's got some fun gore. Yes, the battle axe comes into play, and so does the gaff, right through one poor nerd's vagina.

Is The Mutilator scary? Absolutely not. Is it "good"? Not particularly. It's roughly 84 minutes long, but it feels at least five times that. There are long stretches with no action that will likely turn off impatient horror fans. And when said "action" kicks into gear, it's about as scintillating as when the waitress refills your coffee at the diner.

All that said, I love it when the waitress refills my coffee, and so it stands to reason that I love The Mutilator. It 100% has that certain charm that can be found only in some vintage off-brand slashers. I'm talking Don't Go in the Woods...Alone! or The Nail Gun Massacre, you know? They don't always succeed, but they often try to have some inventive kills. For the majority of the cast and crew, the movie in question comprises the entirety of their resume. Some "actors" simply came along with the shooting location; just like Nail Gun Massacre, The Mutilator has a pair of shopkeepers who awkwardly deliver some lines and then look at the camera. (I love them.) The dialogue throughout the film is often a delight, such as this exchange between two nerds about to get hot-n-heavy at the pool:

"What's wrong with the water?"
"Looks like it's been loaded down with chlorine."
"Will that hurt you?"
"No. In fact, it probably prevents herpes."

It's always just this side of completely nonsensical and/or inept, like this sequence, where the room is supposedly so dark the character can't see two inches in front of her:

Either you will succumb to this weirdo slasher charms and you will love The Mutilator, or...well, I guess you won't. As for me, I'm going on a fall break!

awesome movie poster friday- the VHS BOX ART edition!

From the "Cheap VHS knockoff? How dare you, madame! I never...eh. Yeah, you got me" department:


How many halves does this thing in the pit have, exactly?

From the Holy Fucking Shit, I Need To See This Movie RIGHT NOW Department:

Eh. You oughta see what's living inside my George Foreman Grill! *ba-dum-tish*


"Take that, pool of blood-shaped woman!"


Please tell me I'm not the only one who can see them- the visible invisible dead.


With that tagline, this movie could also be about farts. I am just saying.


The most frightening cover art ever? Is he a giant, or is she smurf-size?


This almost looks more irritating than anything else: "Quit fondling my face, bloody ape!"


Is this a now-live dead person having fun at a party, or is it a formerly-live person who died whilst having fun?

This cover for Body Shop is one of the greatest examples of the lurid nature of VHS box art. It goes without saying that the movies are rarely as hardcore as the box leads you to believe they are. Browsing the horror section in the video store back in the day was a head trip- everything was so seedy! It all felt forbidden and naughty, and if you dared to rent one of these puppies, surely you'd go mad with terror or your head would explode after witnessing all the depravity!


Umm, if this isn't the perfect companion piece to Killer Workout, I don't know what is. Does anyone own a drive-in?


What the hell is going on here, Endplay? "Gripping until the bizarre end- then it all falls apart and you'll be bored...to death!"

Day 16- ...and when she was bad...

Here I am, halfway into Shocktober '06, and I just feel kinda...meh. I need a movie that's gonna rock my face off from beginning to end- a new movie, that is. Everything I watched this past Saturday got my juices flowing, of course, but I'd seen them all before. I want some brand new superstar to come busting out and rock my face off hard. Is that so much to ask? IS IT? I should hope not. Wherefore art thou, hidden treasure that I love so much I want to take to bed with me and tuck away under my pillow so we can be close? Wherefore art thou, dammit? It's getting so I'm simply going to watch and review The Haunting every day and that'll be that.

Today's feature film was Madhouse (1981), aka There Was A Little Girl. I was pretty into this flick for the first 45 minutes or so, but my fervor petered away by the end. The result, sadly, was a Tiffany...which as you may well remember is my code word for a "coulda been". Coulda been good...started out strong, but pooped out before the finish line. Man, I hate that.

Trish Everly stars as Julia, a super sweet teacher at a school for the deaf. Her students adore her, she's got a mustachioed boyfriend, and her birthday is fast approaching. Sounds like heaven on earth, right? Sure it does...but we cannot have heaven without hell, can we? No! We cannot! And in Ovidio Assonitis's movie, hell is in...THE MAAAAADHOUUUUUSE!

Sorry. I'm just trying to jazz things up a bit.

Anyway, Julia's got a twin sister Mary, see, and Mary totally used to, like, torture Julia- stick her with pins, threaten to sic the dog on her, make her cry- you know, the kind of stuff kids get up to. Mary ended up in the so-called "mad" "house" and is wasting away with a disfguring skin disease. Against her better judgment, Julia goes to visit Mary. Mary, all scabby and grody-faced, still has a boner for torturing her sister. She tells Julia that she'll make sure their impending birthday will be one Julia will never forget! *insert evil, maniacal laughter* By "never forget", we can assume that Mary means to do Julia harm, not that she's going to take her to Ragin' Waters Fun Park for the day. Poor Julia.

Mary makes good on her promise in short order; she escapes the MAAAADHOUUUUSE and, with the assistance of her trusty sidekick dog (Ol' Smilin' Rotty, as I called him), sets about killing most of the people in Julia's life. She even goes so far as to have Ol' Smilin' Rotty kill one of Julia's students...it's all offscreen, but you gotta admire a flick that has the balls to kill a deaf kid. Them balls be brass, my friends.


At this point in the proceedings, I was hooked. I mean, I was so hooked I was planning on taking Madhouse out to dinner this weekend...maybe some coffee afterwards. A little small talk, a little of this and that, and who knows where the night would have led? I mean, I'm all about movies with twins wherein one twin is evil. To me, that's all the setup I need and it I'm totally in. How can you go wrong with the old evil twin routine? The only way a movie with the evil twin angle can possibly be improved upon is if it stars the Sagal Twins. Even without them, though, you're good as gold- especially when the evil twin has a disfiguring terminal skin condition.

So what went wrong with Madhouse? The plot wound out of control, that's what happened. If you've got an evil twin, just go with it. Suddenly there was another killer and lots of dead air and a corpse birthday party that went on far too long. And you know, I love a corpse birthday party almost as much as I love an evil twin. It's a horror/slasher staple! But nonetheless, you've got to keep some forward momentum or the movie will fall apart despite the awesome elements. That's what happened here- once the second killer was revealed, the proceedings ground to a halt. The remaining kill sequences were incredibly dull and drawn out, and any promise the first two-thirds of the film had vanished.

Of course, it didn't help that the sound quality of the film was wretched...so wretched, in fact, that I couldn't make out alot of the dialogue. It's hard to be in the moment when you have no idea what people are talking about.

I'm bummed this flick petered out- I was so excited early on. It's still got enough good stuff to warrant a look-see- I mean...evil twin, corpse party, decent effects...and Trish Everly plays a decent lead. Ultimately, however, my face was not rocked off. My face remains firmly in place. I give it 6 out of 10 jars of Noxema.

Oh, and just because this face cracks me up...

Recess

I'd been hoping to continue my "What makes a slasher?" series, but I've been so so so mired in comic book deadlines that it's been difficult for me to do much else besides sling ink. I did take time out to watch a movie, though- 1981's Happy Birthday to Me , starring Melissa Sue Anderson and her extremely dry, damaged hair.

Anderson is Ginny, a member of the "Top Ten" students at prep school- they're the rich kids, the popular ones- and they all wear matching stripey scarves and black leather gloves. This serves to unite them in their coolness, because stripey scarves are cool.

The movie wastes no time getting to the goods as Top Tenner Bernadette is offed on her way to hang out with the gang at the pub. While starting her car, she's strangled by a black gloved hand that pops up from the back seat. In a move I've never before seen in one of these flicks, Bernadette plays dead. The killer loosens his grip for a moment and Bernadette runs out of the car. I am so adding that to my repertoire of moves! Now, my repertoire totals 1. Lest we think Bernadette is too smart, however, she doesn't exactly run away when she escapes the car. Instead, she runs about 50 feet away and stands there. The killer comes again...and she runs a bit further away. "Get the fuck outta there" is clearly not in her vocabulary. Then, a figure approaches that Bernadette takes to be a friend- "Oh, it's you- you have to help me!". But alas, out comes a straight razor and it's bye bye Bernie. So...now we know that the killer is a friend- and one of the Top Ten! Those gloves...those gloves! Any one of them could be the killer!

But...which one? At the pub, we meet the rest of the gang: there's Etienne- the exchange student, Rudi- the obnoxious one, the bland girlfriends, and Alfred- the nerdy taxidermy student. How he fits into the clique, I'm not really sure, but his course of study provides ample opportunity for the gang to make side-splitting puns along the lines of "Aw, stuff it, Arnold!" The Top Tenners are forced to leave the pub after they antagonize a bunch of Shriners so much that fisticuffs are threatened. When they all split, we get to see how cool they really are...the drawbridge down the road is going up, and they all jump the gap in their expensive cars. When the car Ginny's in goes over the gap, Ginny totally and completely flips out. We're talking hysterics, screaming, thrashing about...and when the car stops, she flees toward home- and a quick stop at her mother's graveside. Well, it was on the way, after all. While trimming the grass around the headstone, Ginny tells her mother not to worry- "They all like me now, mother...". Hmm. Whatever could she mean?

The next day in school, The Top Ten...well, Nine, now that Bernadette's gone...are all crammed next to each other at a lab table for science class. The professor gives a little electrical jolt to some severed frog legs. This not only causes the muscles in the legs to contract, but it also causes an extreme closeup on Ginny, as the screen turns red and the camera spins- flashback! Something something Virginia-as-guinea-pig something brain surgery something scientific mumbo jumbo something something salamanders have regenerative qualities so we'll use them on your brain tissue to help after the accident something WHAT?! OK, so Ginny's got some past issues that will be coming to light eventually. Pretty soon, everything is triggering a flashback for Ginny, from a scolding by the headmistress to someone telling Alfred that the prosthetic Bernadette head he made (yeah, you read that right) is sick...sick...sick...sick...sick...echo into grisly brain surgery scene!

Meanwhile, someone's still offing the cool kids. The exchange student gets his stripey scarf tossed into a spinning motorcycle wheel- while it's still around his neck. Face grinding yuckiness. Greg, the jock of the bunch, is doing the benchpress when a familiar figure comes in. Greg asks the figure to put more weight on the crossbar. As Greg struggles with the enormously heavy bar, the black gloved hands (gasp!) reach for a 25-pounder and drop it squarely on Greg's...err...Greg Jr. Greg drops the bar onto his neck, killing himself in splatty fashion. Bleargh.

It's not just the the matching outfits that lead us down many a red herring path; there's also the fact that all of these kids are just plain weird. They stare at each other vacantly, slightly menacingly, and say things like "I have a knife..." in a calm, creepy serial killer type voice. They make stuffed heads of each other and steal each other's undergarments. Pfft. Rich kids. The trickery is finally over and the killer is revealed when Ginny once again visits her mother's grave after dark. Uh oh, here comes Alfred sneaking up behind Ginny. As he reaches into his pocket to grab something, Ginny turns around and stabs him in the gut with her trimmers! What the...? Ginny? But Alfred...he was reaching for something...and when he falls dying, his hand slowly opens to reveal what he was reaching for. A single...white...rose. It is such a tragic and tender scene, I'm not lying when I tell you that I cried. OK, yes I am. But Ginny's the killer! Now...to the dance!

That's right- the dance. Ginny's dancing with Steve, the druggy Top Tenner, and she's acting awfully aggressively. She invites him back to her place- her dad's away on business, you see. He'll be back for her birthday on Sunday, but for now they have the house to themselves, and killin' just makes a gal so dang horny! They have a little wine in front of the fire and Ginny goes to fetch the snack: shish-ka-bobs. She starts feeding Steve chunks of meat- how romantic. The next thing you know, she's jammed the skewer right into the back of his mouth! Dead!

With the help of her shrink, Ginny finally pieces together her fractured memories to help the viewer understand what the hell is going on. Years ago, Ginny's mom planned a birthday party for her, to which all the rich kids were invited. No one showed- they all went to another party instead. This sends Ginny's mom into a drunken tizzy and she drags Ginny to the other party, only to be denied entry. It seems Ginny's mom had a bit of a reputation- she was the "Town Pump" as my grandmother would call her. No way would such trash be allowed to mingle with the Top Ten! Well, that tears it- Ginny and her mom get into the car, mom's driving drunk, the
drawbridge is going up...and into the drink goes the car. Ginny manages to escape, but mom doesn't.

Phew! To thank her doctor for helping her recover her memory, Ginny bludgeons him to death. What a freakin' nutter! Dad makes good on his promise to be home for Ginny's birthday and finds blood all over the house. He runs out to the cottage behind the house to find his dead wife's exhumed coffin...and his daughter Ginny throwing a corpse birthday party. Yup, all the rich kids who missed her party years ago are here now! They're dead, but they're there and that's what counts. Ginny thanks her father for coming and then kills him. She walks over to a party guest who's slumped over on the table and lifts the head to reveal...GINNY! Again, I say- what the?! In an attempt to have as many twists endings as possible (this movie is like porn for M. Night Shyamalan, I tell ya), Ginny the killer pulls off her face to reveal that she's really Ann, Ginny's friend and fellow Top Tenner. Where the fuck are Velma and Daphne at this point? Anyway, yes, it turns out that Ginny's slutty mom had slept with Ann's slutty dad, and hence Ginny was brought unto the world, which ruined Ann's family. Ann's been so pissed about it all this time that she murdered all these people to pin the blame on Ginny and ruin her life. Nyah! Well, they struggle, and Ginny stabs Ann dead. As her bad luck would have it, though, a cop walk in as Ginny stands amongst the bodies, holding a knife...zing! No one wins!

Happy Birthday to Me is a fair-to-middling slasher. It certainly made an attempt at originality with all those twists and turns, and it's got some very creative death scenes. I remember the death-by-shish-ka-bob from the pages of Fangoria way back when. It's certainly not scary, however, and there's something about it that's lackluster for all its originality. Overall, I'd give it 5 out of 10 matching stripey scarves.