I love Indian food!

Did you know that I love movies about demonic possession? I've only mentioned it 9256 times, so it's entirely possible that you don't know. Or didn't know, I should say, because now you do: I loves me some movies about demonic possession. The thing about this subgenre, however, is that there's pretty much only two ways to go: you either rip-off The Exorcist, or you don't. If a film is on the grounded in reality side of the fence, as are The Last Exorcism and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, then there's not much ripping off. But if the film is of a more shocking, straight-up horror bent, then it will pale in the shadow of The Exorcist. Mind you, The Exorcist is soooooooo much more than its most shocking moments- but the movies that came after (particularly in the late 70s and early 80s) ape nothing but the effects and therefore wallow in Pazuzu's shadow. Ovidio Assonitis's Beyond the Door (1974) is one such movie.

The film begins with a voiceover from Satan. Yeah, I'll just let that sit there for a moment.

Meet Jessica Barrett (Juliet Mills), a housewife from San Francisco. While her husband Robert (Gabriele Lavia, Revenge of the Dead) is off producing fabulously funky record albums (yes, record albums- it was the 70s), Jessica goes grocery shopping and deals with two of the most awful, obnoxious children ever committed to celluloid. Ken slurps Campbell's pea soup from the can (GET IT PEA SOUP) while Gail constantly has her nose buried in one of the dozen copies of Erich Segal's Love Story she's always toting (GET IT OH WAIT I DON'T GET IT) They bicker, they whine, they swear, and they're generally unpleasant. Imagine the joy the Barretts feel when they discover that birth control has failed and there's another jerk on the way!

domestic bliss: Jessica rehearses suicide (or tastes batter, whatever)

Meanwhile, Dimitri (Richard Johnson, The Haunting) wanders around, spying on the elder Barretts. See, he's Jessica's long-lost ex and now he's on a mission from Satan: in exchange for a few more years of life, Dimitri needs to ensure that Jessica's unborn baby completes its journey down the baby hatch. This is because, somehow, it's Satan's baby. That's right, Satan can infect a baby with evil just like that- sans chalky mousse or the aid of the Castevets!

As you may expect, carrying the spawn of Satan in your baby-place is not without its downside. See, Satan spreads his dominion beyond the door womb and things get totally craycray up in the Barrett household. Okay, maybe not totally craycray, but there's one night when the kids' room starts shaking and the floor lights up (like, through the floorboards-style, not disco-style. Unfortunately.) and toys move around and dolls get extra creepy via glowing eyes. It's some Poltergeist shit!

Jessica, of course, has it far worse. During some Paranormal Activity shit, she's visited in the night by an unseen force that cruelly removes her bedcovers. Then she floats around the room and...wait, did I say she has it worse? Fuck that! I'd love to float around.

The baby grows at an exponential rate and Jessica fears it's trying to kill her. She's sort of right, for her condition rapidly deteriorates. What starts out as vomiting blood and eating rotten banana peels off the street (???) soon becomes hi-Exorcist shenanigans like head-spinning, speaking in different voices, and puking up green stuff...although perhaps it's worth noting that her vom is more palak paneer than it is pea soup.

Okay, it's not worth noting, but I felt like noting it anyway.


As the screencaps show, Jessica also sweats and suddenly has weird eyes and corn teeth. During these moments, I felt hearts shoot right out of my eyeballs and into Beyond the Door. What can I say- I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

Eventually Dimitri stalks Robert so hard that they end up meeting. Dimitri convinces Robert that he wants to help Jessica. Robert is all, "okay". I mean, what else is he gonna do? Oh yeah- he briefly tries some science with a doctor friend. The results prove nothing, but the...science apparatus did give me an opportunity to imagine that a possessed Jessica was visiting a hair salon, so all was not lost.

Once Dimitri enters the room beyond the door (SEE WHAT I DID THERE), things go from mostly incomprehensible to "dammit, we passed incomprehensible 20 minutes ago". Satan whines about always having to be born into another person's body and no one knows the suffering of a body-squatter Then he demands that Dimitri "plunge his hands into her" and rip out the baby. He refuses so Satan kills him, and the baby is stillborn. Hooray, the Barretts are back to normal! OR ARE THEY?

I know what you're thinking. That is some Zoltan: Hound of Dracula shit!

There's an awful lotta wrong in Beyond the Door. There are several lengthy passages where characters walk around the city while crazy 70s music plays; don't get me wrong, I dug the music, but the scenes went on too long and largely felt like filler. The time could have been better spent on things like...oh, you know, characters and the plot. Still, there's no denying that there's a certain...mmm, "charm" doesn't seem right somehow...there's a certain something to the scene where Robert is relentlessly harassed by a dude playing a recorder-flute-thing with his nose.

Everything's just too damn vague in this film and we don't much care about what's going on, never mind the undeveloped characters, which give us no reason to invest in their stories or plight. Dimitri explains things to Robert without explaining anything. Jessica is full-on possessed pretty quickly, and then suddenly she's not possessed. It's all sort of shrug-worthy, which...dammit, demonic possession is not supposed to be shrug-worthy! It's supposed to be terrifying and awful.

Still, there are a few things that work in the movie. There's a nugget of a worthwhile story buried deep under all the crap; we get peeks at it when Jessica confides in a friend that she dreams of running away from it all, or when she yells at Robert for not giving her "any room to breathe". If The Exorcist is in part a metaphor for puberty and burgeoning sexuality, then Beyond the Door is in part a metaphor for those- women in particular- who are dissatisfied with the idea of traditional domesticity. Granted, I may be stretching it a bit and that "in part" is a verrrrrrry small one, but it's there. Don't worry about having to think much, though, as it's never addressed in any real way. It's too bad, because it would have put some meat on the movie's bones.

The shocks, for what they are, suffice for the sub-genre. Yeah, we've seen them all before in The Exorcist, but if you dug 'em then, why wouldn't you dig 'em now? Demonic sweat is always good. And there's one bit with Jessica's eyes that- well, I don't want to spoil it but it literally made me gasp. It's a moment like that in The Exorcist when Regan has been acting out (if you can call masturbating with a crucifix "acting out") and suddenly throws her head back, her eyes stark white and her throat stark lumpy. Basically, it's that moment when "acting out" blows past "she's ill" and heads into "what the eff is going on here this is really not right" territory.

Like me, fans of possession movies will probably enjoy Beyond the Door, if only because it brings to mind thoughts of its far-superior predecessor. However, The Exorcist shouldn't get too high and mighty- after all, I didn't seen anyone play a recorder-flute-thing with their nose in that movie.

Buy Beyond the Door at Boulevard Movies and judge for yourself, judgey!

Track of the Moon Beast!

Click to embiggen!







I realize I didn't mention the awesome musical interlude, or the fact that in the end, Professor Johnny Longbow kills Lizard Paul, who "explodes"- meaning, the screen turns red. What can I say? I start these comics and then they end up in a different place than I'd originally intended. C'est la something something.

I did, however, write about my favorite scene from this film and how much it affected me when I was a dumb kid over at Mermaid Heather...so, you know, you can read that if you want to.

eh, just do it yourself.

I wrote up a bit of an ode to the back yard filmmakers of the world over at AMC this week. Go read it. Or don't, see if I care. You just think you're so big, don't you?

I finally caught the finale of VH1's Scream Queens last night and...ridiculousness aside, I think it was the first time in the history of ever that my favorite contestant from the beginning actually won a reality competition.

And yet, I still feel empty inside.

And I still won't go see Saw VI.

What I will see, however, is My Bloody Valentine 3D, which opens on January 16th. The commercials are starting to air and dammit, I'm excited. The Harry Warden costume looks great and just as scary as the original, and I find myself not caring a whit- NOT A WHIT I SAY- that it's a remake. Perhaps that's owed to the fact that the words "three" and "dee" are tacked on to the title- as we all know, I fucking love 3D. So much so that I would probably go see The Runaway Bride if it were re-released in 3D. So much so that I would probably go see some romantic comedy/frat comedy/heartwarming Christmas movie with an all-star cast that features Paul Reiser, Julia Roberts, Charlie Sheen, Cameron Diaz (I just don't get her), Jack Black (I just don't get him), and the Welch's Grape Juice Children if it were in 3D...and that's saying A LOT because for some reason those Grape Juice commercials really angry up my blood, especially this one.

But today is not a day for angried-up blood! Let's all GET PUMPED to the strains of "Rock n' Rock" from the little1986 masterpiece called Killer Workout. So much rock, they don't have time to roll! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go make out with my KW videocassette.

don't tell mom, the babysitter's hobnobbing with satanists

Unless you’re Paris Hilton, chances are when you hit your teens your parents put a stop to your weekly allowance and forced you to get a “real job”.

Wait, ARE you Paris Hilton? OMG hi! I totally saw you at the Scream Awards last year and you were, like, skipping down the hall and I thought that was funny. And I’ve totally copped your method for avoiding talking to people- you know, pretending to talk on your cell phone? Except I’m always forgetting my cell phone so I end up, like, talking into a fruit smoothie or my elbow and people look at me all funny. Are you and Nicole Richie still friends? I saw that episode of The Simple Life where you worked at Sonic for a day and it was—

Sorry, got off track for a second there*. The point is, jobs for teenagers tend to suck, don’t they? Retail this, fast food that, mow this, deliver that; no wonder teenagers are so damn sullen all the time. In my opinion, the worst of the worst job is the one that girls are most often saddled with: babysitting. If you’ve got kids, I’m sure they’re lovely. If you can relate to kids and you love babysitting, you’re awesome. Me? I just don’t really get ‘em- nor do I get the appeal of looking after someone’s kids for money. The idea of getting paid something like a dollar an hour to be saddled with the enormous responsibility of, you know, someone’s life is a bit much for me, even if the family should offer up “all the sodas you can drink!”

I say all of this after having successfully completed the Babysitter’s Training Course in 8th grade. Might I add, I even passed with flying colors- I emerged from the course with an arcane knowledge of snack mixes and I correctly circled “Call 911” in response to the question “What should you do if the baby explodes?” Regardless of my stellar performance, my certificate declaring me a competent babysitter didn’t inspire me to seek out work in that particular field as a teen- I chose the “retail hell” route instead. In fact, in my life I’ve babysat exactly one time...as an adult...for a co-worker who was in a real bind. I spent the day with her three ADD-riddled punkass brats and while it was happening, I wanted to kill myself. I came home with the migraine to end all migraines and something like $15 for my troubles. If I still had that stupid babysitting certificate lying around, I surely would have set it afire with only the power of my rage-filled thoughts!

As if that day weren't enough to put me further off of babysitting until the end of time (plus a week), then horror movies certainly would be. Hi, Laurie Strode, anyone? Or "Have you checked the children?" Babysitters, as a rule, do not fare well in the horror realm.

"Oh my God...there are children in the house?!"

Yesterday, Cinematical brought news of House of the Devil, a flick currently in production about a babysitter getting mixed up with a family of devil worshippers. Seriously, they had me at the devil-worshipping mom is played by Mary Woronov.

In my mind, this movie will be a throwback to an era when movies about Satan and Company were abundant and nonsensical. These kids today will deem House of the Devil "slow and boring", whilst I will deem it "atmospheric and awesome". The supernatural '70s will be back, baby- back in a big way! We'll see the DVD release of many weird and creepy thrillers such as The Haunting of Julia. The success of House of the Devil will show studio execs that original properties can rock and the remake train will derail for a little while. A seismic shift will occur in the world of horror moviemaking, and I can't wait!

So say we all.


*You know, I get off-topic and go all tangent-y here at Final Girl all the time. It's kind of what I do, though I'm not necessarily saying it's a good thing. Do you think it's a good thing, or do I ramble on about irrelevant crap so much that you get bored and confused? I'm always scolded gently reminded by editors at other websites for which I occasionally write that I need to stay on-topic more and be more precise. Is my style being hampered by The Man, or is my "style" only a "style" in my head? Has writing only to please myself- on a blog of all places- led to my growing a garden in desperate need of a trim? No, that's not a euphemism, yes, it probably doesn't make sense...and yes, I'd really like to know what you think.

And I heard? This one time...

Ah, the urban legend. We've all heard countless tales of people dying when they consume soda and Pop Rocks simultaneously, or that guy who woke up to find "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light?" scrawled in blood on his wall, or "No really, my sister's friend totally knew this chick who got this cactus from Mexico and then one day she went to the doctor because she had really bad cramps and it turns out that all these spiders that were living in the cactus built a nest inside of her and all these baby spiders came out of her vagina." Good times, good times. Urban legends have long provided fodder for horror movies- horror movies like, uh, Urban Legend, Urban Legends: The Final Cut, and Urban Legends: Bloody Mary.

Fingerprints (2006) is supposedly based on one of these tall tales, but it's a new one to me: if you put your car in neutral on these train tracks where a bunch of kids died in an accident, the ghosts of the children will push your car to safety and leave behind ghostly fingerprints on your car windows. It all seems plausible to me- kids are always leaving filthy, greasy fingerprints everywhere in life, so why not in the afterlife?

feel the terror

In 1957 in an unnamed small town, a bus full of smiling, singing children meets the business end of a train when the guard and signal light at the track crossing fail. Ever since that dark and stormy night, the citizens of Unnamed Town have experienced a strange phenomenon at the site of the accident: if you put your ear to the train tracks, you can just make out the faint strains of Carol Channing singing "Hello, Dolly!"


No wait, sorry. What I meant was, if you put your car in neutral on the tracks, it'll roll off. Not nearly as exciting as Carol Channing, but still.

Melanie (Leah Pipes) arrives in Unnamed Town fresh out of rehab, ready to start life afresh and reunite with her bitch-cuckoo mom, her pushover-whipped dad, and her bland-hot sister (Kristin Cavallari). Boy, lemme tell ya, kicking heroin was a walk in the park compared to life in Unnamed Town for poor Melanie! Kids in school are mean because she's an ex-druggie, this one boy from school totally tries to rape her, and this little mute girl named Julie keeps following her everywhere.

As you could expect from any teenage girl, Melanie decides to solve The Mystery of Julie. Over several days of wacky adventures, she digs around the abandoned bus depot, talks to the town drunk, sees messages written in blood in various places, and chats with Sally Kirkland. It turns out that Julie is Sally Kirkland's sister- and one of the children who died in the horrible bus accident all those years ago! It might have been a shocking twist if we hadn't seen Julie riding the bus at the beginning of the film.

And yes, I'm calling Sally Kirkland Sally Kirkland instead of her character name, because it's just better that way.

Lest ye think you've got it all figured out, however, Fingerprints continues to deliver twists and turns, oh my brothers and sisters. Someone, you see, is killing the teenagers of Unnamed Town...who could it be?

no really, feel the terror

It's someone in a train conductor's outfit, that's who! Yup: after about a half hour of...well, nothing, Fingerprints turns into a slasher film. Melanie continues to get her Columbo on and finds out a bunch of crap that makes only a little sense: the bus accident never happened, someone was actually killing children back in 1957, there was some Nightmare on Elm Street-style justice, something about building highways and knocking down depots, and Sally Kirkland sports an "I do declare!" southern accent for no apparent reason.

a slumming Lou Diamond Phillips feels the terror, literally

All in all, it's a terribly dull affair. There's not much action to be found, and what little there is is decidedly unscary. The town history is convoluted, the ghosts don't do much, the slasher-style killings are cheesy, and the effects range from "meh" to "worst fake blood ever" to "holy shit, I totally forgot we're filming the graveyard scene today- someone run to Hobby Lobby, buy some styrofoam, and make some gravestones stat!"


Believe me, I'm all for movies with super-fake gravestones...unless the movie is just plain boring, as is Fingerprints. The only time I sat up and really took notice of the goings-on- and I mean literally sat up- happened in the last 15 seconds of the film. After yet another twist that made zero sense, there was this shot of a car swerving all over the road (due to, you know, terror)...but the footage was sped up and I swear, it looked like something straight out of Benny fucking Hill. It was an incredibly bizarre choice by the filmmakers, and probably the highlight of the movie.

"I do declare! I feel the terror!"

Given the general suckitude of this flick, it should come as no surprise that it lingered on the shelf for a couple of years: though it was produced in 2006, it was released on DVD only yesterday.

Oh my God, I heard about this girl? Who watched a horror movie that totally stunk and she was so bored the whole time! She ate a piece of cake, though, while she watched it and the cake was good. And then spiders came out of her vagina, I swear! I know her roommate.

wrong wrong wrong

An A for effort maybe, but in every other regard, undoubtedly an F. Times fifty.

I admire that he went the extra mile and combed his hair and shined his shoes for school picture day, but stabbing with a machete? Come on now. Moron.

Kiss my soul goodbye

In my humble opinion, it's a sad, sad fact of life that Marilyn Burns appeared in only six films before leaving Hollywood behind- and her role in one of those films was but a wee cameo. Sadder still, however, is the fact that only two of those films, Helter Skelter and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, are any good. Sure, one could argue the cheesy merits of both Future-Kill and Eaten Alive, and in their own ways they're kinda fun, but still...not great. After watching Kiss Daddy Goodbye (1981), I can now say that I've officially made my way through the entire Marilyn Burns oeuvre and wow, did I save the worst for last.

That's right folks, this film is worse than Eaten Alive. Speaking of which, Dark Sky Films just announced the forthcoming 2-disc Special Edition of Eaten Alive, hitting shelves in September. Yesiree, if any film in the world deserves the ol' 2-disc spit shine deluxe treatment, it's Eaten Alive!

Sigh. Fine. Okay, so we all know that I'll check out and/or pick up the DVD when it's released...but I'm telling you, I won't like it! So there! In your face! But back to the film at hand, Kiss Your Brain Cells Daddy Goodbye...

There's these two kids, right? And they, like, have psychic powers and shit, and their dad is all "Don't use your powers outside of the home! Men in white coats will come and take you away and lock you up and stick needles in your heads!". The kids are all, "Oh no!" and so they have these, like, "conversations", you know? Where they totally talk with their brains instead of their mouths. That is so fucking cool! I mean, when the kids are, like, staring at each other for a few minutes and there's nothing else going on and the kids are all stare stare stare, it was...well, you might not believe it but it was, like, only the most totally fucking exciting thing I've ever seen in a movie and, like, my shirt exploded because I was totally Hulking out with excitement and the little scraps of my shirt caught on fire as they fell to the living room floor because the air was like electric with excitement, you know? Like what Ben Franklin talked about that one time with the kite.

Okay, so the dad is like "You kids need to like do the chores and shit" only he doesn't swear, and the kids are like "Uh huh." So they start doing the chores, right? And then...oh my God...and then these, like, skanky bikers show up out of nowhere and come rolling up the driveway on their...umm, bikes. There's the fat leader of the bikers who's all tough and I was like "Oh my stars and garters...I totally know him from somewhere..." and then I recognized him as the fat leader of the bikers in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and I was like "Yes! That's where I know him from!" and then I thought to myself "I hope you find your bike, man!" which is a line from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure but it was another biker who said it, it wasn't the fat leader of the bikers and did you know that when the bikers want to beat up Pee-Wee in the bar, you know, the private club of the Satan's Helpers, and that one guy says "I say we hang him! And then we kill him!" and that biker lady is all like "I say you let me have him first!" did you know that that's Elvira, Mistress of the Macabre? It is. And by the way my favorite character in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is Amazing Larry.

Okay anyway, the bikers show up and this one suuuuuuper skanky chick is like "Whee!" and she takes off her shirt and it's like "Ugh, please, put it back on!" 'cause she was...umm...unattractive. So she's like "Whee!" and she and this other guy get in the hot tub that belongs to the dude with the two weirdo kids. The dad is totally having none of that, though, and goes outside and says "Git off my land!" or something and the bikers are all "No!" and they fight and the dad gets shot. The kids are watching it all from the house and they're like "Should we help?" and then they're like "No, dad said not to use our powers in front of people!" and I'm like "Okay, your dad is getting killed and you kids are just sitting there, that's so retarded."

So the bikers leave and the kids bring the dad's body into the house using their special mind powers and I was soooooo hoping that they'd show the dad floating along like a hovercraft but that is too high budget or something because they totally didn't and I was like "Aww, man." Once they get the dad in the house, the kids fucking bust out the tempera paints or some shit and they paint these symbols on their dad's face and it's pretty stupid and not scary or creepy. It's like A Clockwork Orange meets the symbol for pi meets dumb. See?

Oh yeah, the face paint, like, brings their dad back to life. So, umm, I guess the kids were too stupid to help their father, but they totally know some ancient Egyptian bring someone back to life magic spell. I was like "Whaaaaaaat?"

So Marilyn Burns plays this woman from the Board of Education who drives a Porsche and I'm thinking "Umm, I thought teachers made like $9000 a year? Where did she get the money for the fancy sports car? She must be a whore!" and she kind of is but I'll tell you about that in a minute. So Marilyn Burns plays this woman from the Board of Education who drives a Porsche and she visits the weirdo twins once a month or something because their dad is homeschooling them. She gets to the house and is all "Where's your dad?" and the kids go "Umm, he's busy" so she's like, "Okay". And her Porsche breaks down so she has to get a ride from the new deputy in town, played by Fabian. Yes, that Fabian who was one of those teen idols back in the day and Amanda said he was on Laverne and Shirley one time but I don't remember that episode. In fact, I don't really remember any episodes of Laverne and Shirley. I mean, I remember the opening bit and I remember, like, Squiggy biting his hand or whatever and that they lived in a basement or something but if you were like "Stacie, tell me the story from one episode of Laverne and Shirley" I'd be like "Sorry, can't do it" and it would be true.

Oh, and so I don't know what Fabian was like when he was on Laverne and Shirley, obvs, but in this movie he can't act worth shit, so my hopes aren't high that his appearance on L & S was any better, although it might have been if he was playing himself though sometimes people can't even play themselves very well, you know? Like when the Sonny and Cher were on Scooby-Doo...frankly I found Sonny's performance a little stilted. But I loved him in Airplane II, so whatevs.

Anyway, Marilyn Burns gets a ride from Fabian and they have dinner and then she's like "I have some (wink wink) evidence for you to (nudge nudge) inspect further!" or something and he's like "Okay" and then Marilyn Burns gets another ride from Fabian if you know what I mean. Thank god they don't show anything because I was sooooooo not ready for it, but if you've ever wondered what Fabian's chest hair was like, then Kiss Daddy Goodbye is the movie for you.

See? The woman from the Board of Education who drives a Porsche is totally a whore!

Oh, I'm only kidding. It's not like he paid her.

Okay, the kids are at home playing Pong with their minds, and man...I thought the whole telekinesis bit was exciting, but put that together with the excitement of Pong and it was like...it was like..."If this gets any more exciting, I cannot be held accountable for what I might do!" and "Please, I need a cold compress!". But luckily, before I had a terrible spell of the vapors the scene was over. Even looking at a screen shot gets my heart racing, though! Finally, I know what all those hack critics mean when they call something a "pulse-pounding, non-stop white-knuckle thrill ride for the ages"...they totally mean Mind Pong.

So A Clockwork Daddy ends up killing the bikers and stuff. There's one part where the skanky biker woman and her boyfriend are on the beach making out and of course the skank takes her top off again and again I was like "Aaaah!" because I was so hoping that I'd seen The Skanky Twins for the one and only time I ever would in my life but no, there they were. Oh and so the dad, like, worms his way under the sand and chokes the biker couple to death and no I'm not even kidding about the worming under the sand part, it really happens and I was so laughing.

Eventually Deputy Fabian is like "Hmm, I think something is weird here with all these deaths" and Marilyn Burns is like "Yeah, me too" so they go up to the house again and the kids are like "Dad's busy" but then the last of the bikers show up to kill the kids because they think the kids are, like, eyewitnesses from when they killed the dad and the kids do their mind thing and they make the fat leader of the bikers from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure almost choke himself to death and Marilyn Burns is like "Nooooo! Stoppppp!" and so they do.

But then instead of being all grateful and like "I'm sorry" the biker is like "I'm outta here!" and he takes off but Deputy Fabian chases him down and they get into this wicked wicked fight that is just action-packed like you might see in a John Woo movie...no wait, I don't mean a John Woo movie, I mean Cocoon. Anyway, the biker dies and the kids go to live with Marilyn Burns or something, the end.

Kiss Daddy Goodbye features the most egregious display of nepotism not seen at Final Girl HQ since the likes of Knight Chills; the Weirdo Twins, you see, are the children of writer/director Patrick Regan. Apparently Patrick Regan was completely, blissfully unaware that his kids have less acting talent than Madame without Waylon Flowers. Unfortunately, the viewer is constantly, completely aware of this shortcoming and their performances make Kiss Daddy Goodbye virtually unwatchable. The kids mumble, they don't finish sentences, and Girl Weirdo Twin doesn't even move her mouth when she speaks.

Of course, even it starred Haley Joel Osment from 8 years ago and Dakota Fanning from 6 years ago, the film would still blow blow blow. It's pure ineptness from beginning to end, no question, and it would take me a week to list all the things wrong with it.

However.

In the right hands, the basic premise of Kiss Daddy Goodbye might make for a decent flick. Telekinetic kids who resurrect their dead father to do their bidding? A dead father forced to walk the earth like a zombie and kill like a...like a...zombie? That could be interesting, and this is exactly the kind of horror film that cries out for a remake. Alas, alack, it seems that no one wants to remake garbage that can be vastly improved upon, films with a teeny tiny speck of compelling material buried under the vast mountains of crap. And why should they, when they can simply remake all the classics? I mean, surely they can be improved upon, right?

When Nerds Attack

Confession: I have this problem with self-control, and I think eventually it's going to get me into real trouble. Don't get me wrong, I'm not worried about my overindulgence in regards to crack, hobo wine, or midget porn...I'll overindulge in those as much as I choose and you'll pry my Night Train from my cold, dead fingers. I'm referring to my weakness for those damn ultracheap multi-movie packs. You know the ones- usually they come courtesy of Brentwood Communications, the pack is called "Horrible Horrors" or something, they've got a minimum of 10 movies (but sometimes upwards of 50), and they're like $15. I cannot resist them. And yes, I know that I'm not alone in this, but for every gem included in the set, there's at least 18 giant turds. The ratio is terrible! I end up starting so many movies and then taking them out, declaring them unwatchable- and for me to declare something unwatchable, you know it's gotta be as bad as you can get.

But still I buy the multi-packs, thinking "Wow! 50 movies for $12! How can I lose? Knight Chills...that sounds great! What a find!"- thinking it as if I'd never been burned before. I'm like an innocent, you see, a babe in the woods. Every day is a new day, every movie has the potential to be a great movie- maybe the best movie I could ever see is still out there, waiting for me! Yes, waiting for me in a 50-pack! Never give up hope! The reality of this attitude, of course, is that I end up saddled with 3985643 movies that SUCK. The most I can really hope for is that I can make it all the way through one of these movies and it's worth my time to write a review. Such is the case with the aforementioned Knight Chills (2001). It's terrible, but it's compellingly terrible, and that makes all the difference.

During the opening credits, I realize that many people wear multiple hats- the writer is also an actor, the editor is also the assistant director- and I feel...well, I can't say my warning bells went off, necessarily, but my warning bells let me know they were hanging tough and they could go off at any time. I was pleased to see that Knight Chills is directed by a woman (Katherine Hicks); the director's gender obviously has no bearing on the quality of a film, but it's great to see woman director- especially in horror- because there simply aren't enough.

Meet John (Michael Rene Walton) as he gathers items he'll be needing for this hot Saturday night- no, he's not gathering edible undies, Drakkar Noir and Riunite! John is gathering stat sheets and photos and papers, 'cause John is fixin' to go role-playing.

When John pulls up to the RPG Clubhouse, he's immediately pelted with a snowball courtesy of Hanee and Russell (Nathan Thomas and David Borowicz)- a couple of beer-drinking lugs who seem oblivious to the fact that their beer-drinking doesn't really make them much cooler that John- I mean, aren't they all there to play Dungeons and Dragons...err, I mean Pandemonium? Equal footing and all that.

The RPG Clubhouse actually belongs to Jack and Laura Nixon (Tim Jeffrey and Laura Nixon) and their young son, the cleverly named Jackson, aka Jack Jr (Jackson Kennedy). The similarity in names would go on to cause me some confusion thanks to the shitty script- "Oh, I'm worried about Jack. And what about Jack?"- but nothing would cause me to blurt "What the fuck?" more than the performance of little Jackson Kennedy.

A horrible example of nepotism-gone-as-awry-as-possible (Jackson's parents act as the film's writers, producers, art directors, etc.), the kid is simply the worst child actor I've ever seen. Ever. EVARRRRRRR. I know, you're looking at that picture and thinking that I should cut the kid some slack. You know what? Fuck that. You put the kid in the movie, he should at least be able to speak somewhat clearly. The magical Olsen twins could enunciate "I'm outta here, dude" when they were like 18 months old; this kid...I could not understand a single word he said throughout the entire movie. It was all garbled and nonsensical, and the only way I could figure out what he was supposed to be saying was to listen to the replies and try to surmise the context- and sometimes even that isn't enough to decipher the dialogue. For example, when John arrives at the Nixon house, Jack Jr greets him with "Hiser taio!" John responds by giving him a hug. Jack Jr goes on: "Inna dingdoff in tope mowe", to which John replies "OK!" Whaaaaaa?

John heads to the basement (shocking) where things are about to get underway. We've already met Hanee and Russell, who are now seated at the table, drinking beer, and shooting each other finger guns. And they have the nerve to call John a nerd?

The other RPGers are the bitchy Nancy (Sarah Klein)- she's one of those humorless nerds who doesn't readily display nerdish tendencies- and burnout couple Zac and Brooke (DJ Perry and Laura Tidwell). Jack gets his Dungeon Master- err, I mean his Lord of the Lore- on and it's time to let the games begin!

Boy oh boy, lemme tell ya- there hasn't been this much action and excitement on screen since Driving Miss Daisy! I don't care what anyone says- I've seen some riveting cinema- the car chase in The French Connection, the dogfights in Star Wars, the towering inferno in The Towering Inferno- and nothing compares to the hot RPG action of Knight Chills. I could barely catch my breath as Nancy said "I'm going to dismount and check out the camp"! I was on pins and needles wondering if John would roll the much-needed 35! And when Jack got out all his crazy-sided dice, it was like I was right there in that basement with him. I don't think "mesmerizing" is too strong of a word, really.

John and Hanee get into some sort of in-game tussle that escalates to real-world spit takes and alleged punches (someone says Hanee really smacked John a good one, but...umm...he didn't touch him), all of which puts a damper on the dungeon. The crew calls it a night, but John's misery isn't over yet- he hits on Brooke and is shot down, and he catches Nancy and Laura talking smack about him. Nancy thinks that John's weird behavior that night indicates "brain strain" and he might very well be a child molester. Laura mentions something about John having killed his little brother years ago; this is a shocking plot development, and you'd think it important enough to have some eventual bearing on the events of the film. Of course, you'd be wrong as it's never mentioned again.

Feeling dejected and rejected by his Game Club pals, John heads home. On his way to his car, he finds one of Brooke's earrings that she dropped on the ground. He picks it up and fucking sniffs it, which...you know...isn't at all weird.

The next morning, as Zac and Brooke are lying in bed recovering from their sweet sweet lovemaking- which, let's just say I'm glad this movie is PG-13 and the sweet sweet lovemaking is only talked about- Brooke mentions that her caller ID shows that John called her 14 times during the night, but he never left a message. Zac doesn't seem to think that's weird. But...14 times? 14 TIMES? Methinks the earring-sniffer is a wee bit obsessed.

But enough "character development!" Knight Chills is a film that forces the audience to walk on the razor's edge of danger and intrigue, and this means it's time for another Game Club meeting. Hooray! This Saturday the action is even more riveting than the last time, meaning I AM SO FUCKING BORED. We don't even get the slo-mo dice roll to break up the monotony of "You see a monster" "Really? Then I put on my +5 cloak of WHO FUCKING CARES!"...I mean, maybe RPGs are fun to play...I don't know, I've never played one. I'm not casting (+16 spells of) aspersions here, for I certainly love my video games. I would not, however, think that anyone would enjoy watching a movie wherein I play Cooking Mama for 20 minutes, though even that would still be far more exciting than Knight Chills.

Finally, the evening draws to a close. Zac and Brooke get into an argument outside and Zac takes off; John thinks this is the perfect time for him to make his move. He tells her about the earring, but before Brooke can reply John gets down on one knee: "Johandra should be treated like the princess she is! Let me warm you with my pledge of undying affection!" Brooke responds, literally, with "Fuck off!", which I simply don't understand. Sure, John is addressing Brooke by her role-playing character's name, and sure, he used the phrase "Let me warm you", but I think she's just uptight. Who doesn't want to be warmed by some creep who can't tell make-believe from reality?

This rejection is the last straw for poor weirdo John. He drives along rubbing Brooke's earring on his face, which again isn't at all weird, talking about completing his knight's quest for the Order of the Red Rose by the winter solstice...again, not weird. Finally he plows into a tree, and in a final gesture of not-weirdness he kisses Brooke's earring. Then the car explodes. One Extra Crispy-style Nerd, coming right up.


The next morning, Jack is in the midst of teaching his history class when he's hauled out of the room by the cops and angry administrators. A flyer for Jack's Game Club was found at the scene of John's accident, and...what's up with that? The members of the Game Club are all former students of Jack's, and now with John dead, Jack must surely have something to do with it. It makes sense to me- John was speeding along a snowy road and crashed into a tree- clearly this was murder; since Jack knows him, it stands to reason that Jack is the murderer. Jack is relentlessly drilled with such hard-hitting questions as "What is this Game Club, and how often does it meet at your house on Saturday nights?" Umm...to answer your question, the Game Club is a Game Club, and we meet on Saturday nights. That's some top fucking notch detective work.

The RPGers are nice enough to attend John's funeral, though Hanee and Russell still act like a-holes. John's mother blames the gamers for his death, and Zac spies something on John's grave that really upsets him: a red rose! Who would ever expect to find a flower on a fresh grave? No wonder he's spooked! I mean, it's so out of place that anyone would be weirded outhuhkchjsarrrrgrhghsdfgsdlvcadiUGFLDJKBV...........

Zac is so put out by the rose that he steals it...even more inexplicable than that, however, is the fact that there is one 10-second shot in this sequence that is black and white. No, it's not an artistic conceit...it's a fucking mistake. Zac walks to the grave: color. Zac bends down: B&W. Zac grabs the rose: color. It's a huge, glaring filmmaking error...but there I am looking at it. SIGH.

Anyway.

Hanee is helping out his father at their Christmas tree farm; they talk about the plight of the farmer and the sacrilege of plastic trees and it's scintillating, as you can well imagine. Hanee goes off to cut down some more trees when he finds...a red rose! The next thing you know, a knight rides up on a horse and kills Hanee with a sword. The sequence is poorly edited, devoid of thrills or tension, and mostly obscured by the heavy-handed use of a fog machine. SIGH.

Now it's Russell's turn: he's working his shift at a convenience store, he finds a red rose, the knight shows up, Russell inadvertently breaks the fourth wall, the knight kills Russell...and we see even LESS this go-round. SIGH.

The knight shows up and scares Nancy while she's in the computer lab- he doesn't kill her, even though, like, if this is a vengeance thing, well...she did call him a child molester for no apparent reason, so you'd think the knight might have a beef there. Whatevs. Nancy screams and that's that. FUCKING SIGH.

Jack and his family are still being harassed by the police, who seem to think that he's the murderer. Zac has it all figured out, though, and he shows up at the Nixon house all frantic and crazy. He knows that it's John back from beyond the grave, here to complete his quest. In the midst of this, Jack Jr waddles out into the room and quips "Inna dolie thlou. Dozen liyou eder. Inna mitchoo manna." Laura replies "Oh, honey, I'm not going anywhere!" and puts the kid to bed.

Though the scary knight is out for blood (sometimes), his quest must be completed by the winter solstice...the winter solstice begins at midnight! If the gang can just make it until midnight, they'll all be safe! Hooray! Sounds easy, right? It might be, except that no one can stay awake until midnight. Jack decides to take the first watch, and he immediately falls asleep. Zac goes to relieve him- it must still be before midnight- and Zac promptly falls asleep as well. Are you telling me that no one in the house can stay awake until MIDNIGHT even though their lives depend on it? Are you fucking kidding me?

The next morning, Jack Jr wakes up his mom and dad- he's wearing a viking helmet, carrying a plastic sword, and wheeling a suitcase. He says "Im broan don", which Jack and Laura find alarming for some reason. Oh no! Zac is dead! Oh no! The knight is here! Laura...well, Laura falls down. I have no idea if she died, if she passed out, or what. The knight is here, apparently, to take Jack Jr with him into a CGI portal. Jack, as the Lord of the Lore, tells the knight that he's free to go but the kid has to stay behind. The knight nods as if to say "Meh, whatevs" and everything is ok. Or is it? There's one final exchange between father and son:

JACK: Jackson, are you alright?
JACK JR: Eyena dadeh!
JACK: Yes it is. Your name is Jackson Kyle Nixon.

Then...then...Jack Jr clearly mouths the words "shngudad dhfdfsvauvc", but what we hear is a James Earl Jones-esque voice that says "Not anymore!"

?

??

??????????????????????????????

Yet somehow, Knight Chills gets worse: the fucking credits are riddled with punctuation errors and typos...unless "pyotechnics" is some new film thing I've never heard of. Couldn't they get anyone to proofread the credits? Good GAWD.

The worst part about all of this is that I know I still haven't learned my lesson in regards to those damn multi-packs. "Hell in the Family" 4-pack? Sign me up!

The Special People Club

You know, I hadn’t quite realized that Clive Barker’s Hellraiser has become a bonafide franchise, a juggernaut set to rival even those most stalwart of franchises, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. In fact, previous to this past weekend, I’d still only seen the original Hellraiser. I was shocked- shocked, I say!- to find out that Hellraiser: Deader (2005) is the seventh film in the series, and it’s not the last. Where the hell(raiser) have I been?

Kari Wuhrer stars as Amy Klein (shut up I know I’ve totally been on a Kari Wuhrer kick lately but I can’t seem to control myself ok so shut UP), an ultracool reporter who writes ultracool articles with titles like “How to be a Crack Whore”. She’s so ultracool, in fact, that she got booted from The New York Post for being…I don’t know, too ultracool or something, and she’s now writing for an ultracool London newspaper.

One fateful afternoon, Amy’s editor (Simon Kunz) calls her into his office in order to check out a videotape he received in the mail. On the tape, a group of kids who call themselves “Deaders” stand around in a warehouse looking all mopey. A girl Deader is cajoled into blowing her brains out so the leader of the Deaders, Winter (Paul Rhys), can suck face with her and bring her back to life. What a cool club! The girl sits up and exclaims “I’m OK!”, oblivious to the fact that while she may be alive again, she’s now saddled with a giant hole in her head. That’s gross, not to mention unsanitary. Why didn’t she hang herself or something equally less messy, rather than shooting herself in the head to play this little resuscitation game?

I don’t mean to harp, but I just couldn’t get past the impracticalities of the whole thing. “Yay, I’m alive again! Boo, I have a large gaping hole in my head! Mayhaps I shall fill said hole with Spam, using the canned meat like so much caulk. Then I shall get mah hurr did- a little weave here, a little weave there and I’ll be all set!”

At the conclusion of the tape, it’s decided that The Deaders have “huge ultracool blockbuster story!” written all over them and thus Amy must get the scoop. Her only lead is the return address on the mailing envelope, and so it’s off to Romania for Amy Klein.

Once in Romania, Amy gets caught up in all sorts of wacky Deader capers when she finds a dead body, another videotape, and a strange li’l cube we’ve all seen before.

Somehow our plucky and ultracool reporter has become trapped in a battle between the Deaders and the Cenobites- I think. It was all sort of confusing and nonsensical, and there were so many “Omigod did that just really happen? No, it’s just a dream…no wait, it DID happen…no, it was just a vision...” sequences that I kind of stopped trying to figure things out. Eventually Pinhead and His Merrie Bande of Leather-Clad Weirdos show up and I decided to simply enjoy the visuals, the chains, and the goo.

The single biggest problem with Hellraiser: Deader is that it’s glaringly obvious that the film was not originally conceived as an entry into the Hellraiser mythos. It was meant to be an entity unto itself, but at some point a “shrewd” producer slapped the Hellraiser label on it, Pinhead was added, and POOF! Hellraiser 7.

Yeah, that approach? It doesn’t work. I mean, tacking Jason Voorhees into the last fifteen minutes of The Trip to Bountiful and changing the title to Jason vs Gramma doesn’t properly make it Friday the 13th Part 18, you know?

On the other hand, it would make it a film I’d very much like to see.

Had director Rick Bota and writers Neal Marshall Stevens and Tim Day not been bogged down with the need for some added-on Hellraiser stuff, Deader could have been an interesting little thriller. It’s still an ok movie, I guess, though I’m already forgetting about it- it’s another sequel of a sequel in a long line of exercises in character dilution. In the end, however, the film does raise an important question:

IS THERE ANYTHING KARI WUHRER CAN’T DO?

for reals, y'all

OK, I'm really back this time. I mean it. 

For my "grand" return to Yon Blogge, I decided to watch a movie I figured I'd enjoy, even if it sucked- the 1978 anthology flick House of the Dead, aka Alien Zone. How sad, eh? Using one title, the film is mistaken for the Uwe Boll-helmed zombie crapfest, and using the other title is slightly misleading. By "slightly misleading", I mean it's a completely inexplicable title that has nothing to do with anything. No matter! My love for horror anthologies is like my love for mint chocolate chip ice cream- it can only lead to pain and suffering, but I can't control myself.

As it's a film from the late '70s, naturally House of the Dead opens with its own theme song, "The Sound of 'Goodbye'", wherein singer Steve March (sounding like a poor man's Dan Hill, which is really saying something) lets us know that the sound of goodbye is, in fact, the saddest melody of all. I enjoy these movie theme songs for their novelty value and the fact that they were such a big deal, but let's face it- they never set the right tone, do they? This is supposed to be a horror movie. I don't want to hear about sad melodies and goodbyes...save it for Love Story, ya wuss!

The wraparound story concerns a fellow named Talmudge (John Ericson) who gets lost in a strange town after an extramarital hump. He ends up seeking shelter from a rainstorm in a funeral home, where the "creepy" mortician (Ivor Francis) tells the stories of each of his dead "clients". An easy setup, no?

Segment the First

A cranky schoolteacher who seems to hate children goes home one afternoon in a particularly foul mood. Apparently we're supposed to be scared- the teacher, after all, seems scared and keeps looking out her window. She puts on an apron and begins to prepare her dinner, but she only gets as far as cutting a tomato in half before she has to take the apron off and hop in the shower. Yes, she's that freaked out. Lest you think this is simply a ploy for some gratuitous "Hot for Teacher" shower time, let me assure you that it most certainly is not.

The scene doesn't last long as the teacher gets freaked out again and heads back to the kitchen. Finally there's some cause for her anxiety- her front door is open, the phone line is cut, and there's some strange noises. Out of nowhere comes a bunch of kids dressed in their finest Ben Cooper finery.

"Hey!" thought I, "That's pretty creepy! Maybe I'm in for some Brood-style nastiness." Sadly, the kids pull off their masks to reveal some truly awful candy-corn-esque teeth, which we can assume they use to bite the teacher to death. Yes, I said "assume", because the scene cuts back to the funeral home.

Segment the Second

A weird man who loves photography sets up a motion picture camera in his living room and films himself killing blind dates. The mortician tells us he was caught and executed a year or so later.

YES, THAT'S IT!

And don't go thinking this was some sort of interesting Peeping Tom-style story, either, because it was positively dreadful. DREADFUL. We see everything through the camera the dude sets up, which means one stationary shot for the entire segment. It made me feel like I was back in acting class, sitting through everyone's boring-ass scene studies. Let me tell you...that's not a feeling I enjoy.

Segment the Third

Meet America's Greatest Detective, the Master Criminal Investigator, as he goes against all basic crime scene procedures (wear some fucking gloves, man!) to expound his theories on a hanging victim. He's such a Master Criminal Investigator that he quickly manages to deduce not only that it's murder (not suicide), but also just who the murderer is from such paltry evidence as ashes on a nearby table. Yes, just by looking at the ashes, this guy can tell that they're from one particular kind of cigar - a brand smoked only by one person in the entire city- clearly, the smoker must be the murderer! Even Jessica Fletcher weeps in jealousy over these superior sleuthing skills.

One man who's not weeping in jealousy, however, is Britain's Number One Sleuth, a Scotland Yard bobby who's come to America to witness America's Greatest Detective in action. Veddy good.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, you see, the two men are in contention for the title of World's Greatest Criminologist.

YES, I SAID ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE. I WILL NOW ALSO SAY, ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE? WHAT THE FUCK?

As the two men have a pissing match over a romantic candlelit dinner, America's Greatest Detective receives a threatening letter, one constructed of letters cut out from newspapers...it must be sent by a real criminal! The letter states that in 3 days, someone he knows will be murdered. America's Greatest Detective begins detecting right away- he sniffs the letter and deduces that Elmer's Glue was used, a glue he denotes as "very middle class". I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult.

After three days spent looking through magnifying glasses and microscopes (eat your heart out, CSI), America's Greatest Detective has solved the case- the letter was sent by Britain's Number One Sleuth! Britain's Number One Sleuth agrees with this conclusion and shoots America's Greatest Detective. In a shocking twist, however, America's Greatest Detective reveals he's wearing a bullet-proof vest...then he kills Britain's Number One Sleuth via a boobytrapped chair. In yet another shocking twist, America's Greatest Detective opens his briefcase to reveal a bomb, which explodes.

There's really no way to describe this segment beyond calling it just plain stupid. Did I like it? Well, yes, I did- it had me laughing my head off. It totally reminded me of something I would have written in 7th grade for a mystery-writing assignment. 2 "great" detectives, the worst police procedurals ever, magnifying glasses, 3 twist endings, and Rolling Stone magazine. I would have called it World's Greatest Murder, and my "author's bio" would have consisted exclusively of "STACIE PONDER #1".

Segment the Fourth

A man working in an office just doesn't get along with people. When a co-worker invites him to a new restaurant featuring 23 different hamburgers, the man refuses and thinks to himself "23 different morons!". Later, when a store clerk tells the man that no, they don't have any gum, the man thinks "Slob!". Even later, a crazy-looking homeless person approaches the man, who yells "Why don't you get a job!"

I don't know why, but I was really into the idea of 23 different hamburgers. I mean, it sounds incredible, right? Hardly believable, even. In reality, though, we all know that "23 different hamburgers" simply means 23 different combinations of hamburger toppings...then it doesn't seem so incredible.

Cranky Office Man inexplicably enters an empty storefront and gets locked in. Then he inexplicably falls down an open elevator shaft.

You know, "inexplicably" is a word that entered my thoughts often whilst I was watching House of the Dead.

It seems that Cranky Office Man has fallen into a trap that's sort of a prototype of those found in the Saw movies- we assume, anyway. It's never really explained. At any rate, he can't get out. Walls begin to move and he almost gets impaled on some magically-appearing nails- they stop short of killing him, however, and this causes Cranky Office Man's brain to break- we assume anyway. It's never really explained. Whoa, deja vu!

Some bottles of wine then roll into the room (yes, I know this makes no fucking sense- see? "inexplicably"!), and I guess Cranky Office Man has no choice but to drink them all. I mean, yeah, he's not forced to or anything, but if six bottles of wine rolled into the room right now, wouldn't you simply drink them all straight away?

As Cranky Office Man lies sleeping it off, a wall raises and Cranky Office Man is free to go. However, now he's all dirty and drunk and crazy- and when he approaches a man in a suit, the man says...yes...wait for it...

"Why don't you get a job!"

That's some poetic fucking justice right there.

Lest you think that Cranky Office Man could just get over his wine hangover and go back to work in a day or two, however, back at the funeral home the mortician tells us "Eventually, he died."

EVENTUALLY, HE DIED. That has got to be the lamest fucking ending to anything EVARRR. Eventually, he died??! That's IT??

The wraparound story finishes up exactly as you'd expect- Talmudge's infidelity leads to him becoming the mortician's fifth "client". Sigh.

House of the Dead didn't disappoint. I mean, it did, because it sucked, and yet there I was, enjoying it and all its inexplicablies. Maybe when the suckage is restricted to 15-minute segments I become more forgiving. Still, though..."eventually, he died". That's just bad. It's a good thing I love horror anthologies so much, or I may have punched the DVD over that one. Instead, I make like I'm going to punch it, but at the last second I give it a hug. That doesn't mean, of course, that I can recommend this movie. I can only give it 4 out of 10 kinds of hamburgers.

Animals Run Amok Week: Day 3

Once in a blue moon, a movie comes along that feels as if it sprung fully-formed from my forehead, not unlike Athena from that of Zeus. One such movie is today's feature, Night of the Lepus (1972), a movie that has so much in it I enjoy that it's hard to believe it's not a dream. A movie with a line like "There's a herd of killer rabbits headed this way!" just seems too good to be true, doesn't it? Rest assured, though, the film actually exists- and it features Rory Calhoun, Janet Leigh, and a mustachioed DeForest Kelley. Life is so good sometimes.

Arizona's very existence is threatened by an explosion in the rabbit population. Rather than simply poisoning the little bastards (for fear of throwing the entire ecosystem out of whack), the very scientific, very married team of Roy and Gerry Bennett (Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh) are called in to come up with a nature-but-not-rabbit-friendly solution.

Back at The Lab, Team Bennett starts injecting bunnies with various serums in an attempt to curb the population. Thanks to their stupid daughter (Melanie Fullerton), a doped-up bunny is released into the wild. Somehow the serum causes the rabbit to grow to a massive size and develop a taste for human flesh. How one bunny became hundreds in a day (that's fast, even for rabbits, I'm pretty sure) and how these docile herbivores became ravenous carnivores isn't explained, but I don't care! the important thing here is that there are herds of massive rabbits roaming the desert terrorizing towns and looking for humans upon which to feed!

Night of the Lepus was made in those heady pre-CGI days, and I'm ever-so-thankful for it. While I can't say the effects are "great", I find that there's something inherently charming in the approach here: regular-sized rabbits tromping through miniature sets. What it amounts to are lots of shots of rabbits running intercut with shots of rabbits leaping and maybe a big, fake rabbit paw smacking someone in the face. The secret here, the filmmakers seem to think, is that is you play weird mood music and show the rabbits running in slow motion, they'll seem big. It's hokey, to be certain, but it's also the sort of movie magic that makes me feel like a kid again. That's a rare treat, my friends.

While there is a surprisingly large amount of blood in the movie, by far the most horrifying thing onscreen is this unfortunate attack of male-pattern baldness, which I have decided to call The Dollop:

Poor thing.

Night of the Lepus is about as simple and straightforward as you can get: big rabbits attack! It's the perfect Saturday afternoon movie, to be viewed right after a morning full of cartoons. I give it 6 out of 10 footie pajamas.