Dad's a Marine.

Kubrick. Scorsese. Spielberg. Wynorski. These are the names that make up the Mount Rushmore of film directors. Oh, what's that? You don't recognize Jim Wynorski? The man has been heroically churning out blockbuster movies for three decades. Munchie Strikes Back, Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure, The Bare Wench Project 3: Nymphs of Mystery Mountain, and Busty Cops Go Hawaiian might not of been the movies we needed, but they were the films we deserved. He is the director that understands that it isn't story or characters that makes the movie, but the size of the breasts.

Chopping Mall is one of Wynorski's most known works of art because at least a thousand people might have seen it. It came out in '86 during the height of American mall consumerism. Have you been to a mall lately? Yeah, it's the fucking worst. Just let me marinate in my shart-stained underwear and order products from Amazon like a civilized human being. Better than to walk among the plebeians with their Auntie Anne's grease stained Under Armour shirts. Chopping Mall makes the mall experience of the '80s look like the best of times, with women in bikinis and people slinging phrases like, "good times to the max" and "bodacious."

This particular mall has a brand new security system made up of robots controlled by a central hub. In that regard it reminded me a little of Death Spa. Doesn't take long before something goes wrong when a group stays after hours and lightning strikes the security system.

Our main group of peckerheads have one of those classic '80s movie parties where about six people get together and have the time of their lives. At least one of them will dance and force everyone into thinking it's a party, around four others will be fucking, and the other two won't be fucking because they're prudes. There's an equal amount of men and women even though every party I've ever been to had about a 30-to-1 ratio of men to women. The best I ever did at a party was receive the world's most uncomfortable tugjob on my buddy's futon. Even then it wasn't really a party as much as it was a gathering.

During one of these make out sessions comes an all-time great line as the guy (who the fuck knows the names--it's pretty much "white person #1-6") drops the panties with, "You smell like pepperoni." Even more bizarrely, after helpfully clarifying that he likes pepperoni, she answers by stripping while humming a melancholy tune. This really isn't sexy. Well maybe...you know what, yeah it's sexy.

On the other side of the furniture story is the busty blond with the oversized areolae of a true star-in-the-making. When her boyfriend is going down on her (and this is in the close proximity of their friends, because nothing says cunnilingus like allowing your buddies to bask in the Dolby Digital stereo sound of your tongue hungrily lapping at your partners slippery ham hock) she rebukes him by reminding that she doesn't allow that. What the? Broad must possess more funk than George Clinton.

"We're here for like...the Battlestar Galactica auditions"

There's not an excessive amount of nudity or anything, but it got me thinking about the attitudes towards it. There isn't really a whole lot of nudity in movies anymore. Instead it seems to have transferred over to premium channels like HBO. Game of Thrones shows beautiful naked women all the time and creeps on the internet piss and moan about how it doesn't "serve a purpose to the narrative" or some such bullshit. Look, I'm fine with them showing more hanging dong if it gets the killjoys off my back. Wieners make me chuckle so it's not like it's a problem for me. But I refuse to apologize for my enjoyment of breasts. Stop trying to turn the world into Demolition Man.

It's worth mentioning that Dick Miller shows up as a janitor who bitches about his job before getting electrocuted by one of the robots. Because when you work a thankless blue collar job, you waste no moment to complain about it even if it's to an inanimate object.

The best death is probably when the blonde with boobs and a haunted vagina gets her head exploded into chunks of styrofoam. They even re-use it for the main actor credits at the end.

The robots themselves are alright. They shoot lasers and are even worse shots than the entire cast of G.I. Joe. They should have at least looked different. It's hard to get a sense of place when all the robots are the same.

What stuck out to me was just how different the mall of the time was compared to modern malls. The mall in Chopping Mall is filled with mom and pop shops that don't exist whatsoever in the malls of today. Instead, independent stores have been shoved to the few dirt malls that remain. There's a gun shop, a hardware store that has gasoline, and the mall itself is carpeted. I'm not sure if you could actually get guns and gasoline in a mall of this time period or if they're using creative liberty, but I want to believe and that's all that matters.

Eventually everyone but the two nerds are killed, and they go off to fuck I guess?

Don't make me laugh, Baby Pig.

It might be questionable whether B-movies exist as they once did, but something tells me that asking about the Italian Horror industry will have a much clearer answer. The sub-genre flourished from the '70's and into the '80's before petering out--like all good things--sometime in the early '90's. What the Italians lacked in technical skill compared to their American counterparts, they more than made up for with gore and gonzo creativity. Really the only name still going today is Dario Argento, arguably the most successful of his colleagues. His modern output pretty much blows, but back in his heyday he pumped out a number of staples for Horror, including a producers credit for Demons.

A young woman (I have no idea what their names are because it isn't important at all) is riding the subway train filled with a real bunch of punks, as the typical excellent Italian musical score blares out the stereo. You can say whatever about their skills as filmmakers, but they knew how to craft a soundtrack for Horror. Even better, the soundtrack for Demons has a bunch of Metal acts like Scorpions, Saxon, and Accept.

She is handed a flyer by a mysterious man with a metal mask embedded in his face for a special screening at a theater named the Metropol. After convincing her friend--who I'm positive is Megan Fox's mother--they join up with a motley crew of characters. This includes an elderly couple celebrating their anniversary and a young pube-headed caucasian couple whom look like siblings. They do say people are attracted to those with genes most similar to themselves; that doesn't surprise me since I married my wife chiefly to go fuck myself.

In addition, the crowd attracts two young men on the prowl for snatch, and a pimp who shows up with his hoes for a night on the town that doesn't involve putting out cigars on the inside of thighs. Soon they are transfixed by a prop from Knightrider displayed in the lobby. The prostitute going for the desirable "Rick James look" can't help but put the demonic hockey mask (?) on her face, pricking her. NOT THAT SHE'S NOT USED TO BEING PRICKED.

I would be remiss to forget another couple who come to the show. An old blind man with his young, able-eyed lady. Like a typical old blind guy, he's all like, "uuhhhh help me I can't see uhhhh." Soon, her sidepiece shows up and they begin making out directly next to the guy, because fuck him. But once things get too hot and heavy they move behind the curtain, leaving the man alone, sweaty, and terrified. Eventually he gets his eyes gouged out, but he's blind so it's not like it really matters.

I told you Megan Fox's mom was in this

Demons is unique in that its movie theater setting allows it to have a movie-within-a-movie. As much as I was hoping that everyone was there to see Bucky Larsen: Born to be a Star, the in-universe film is a parallel to what is happening  in the Metropol. A group coming across the very same mask, unwittingly unleashing the forces of hell. I would say this is commentary on the influence cinema has on real life, but being an Italian movie the only thing on anyone's mind was spaghetti sauce and uncomfortable sexual advances.

The crowd (mainly the women) are very scared by this movie, but I've never understood being scared at a Horror movie. If you're a little kid? Yeah, sure. But any adult who is scared over a movie is an embarrassment to society.

The demons start doing their thing and everyone barricades themselves inside the theater. Driving around the city is a car full of punks snorting cocaine out of a can of Coca Cola because who doesn't enjoy visual puns. When they accidentally spill some of the coke, the guy driving--who goes by the name Ripper--stops and forces everyone else to recover as much of it as possible because he is an insane rage-monster. Turning lemons into lemonade, his buddy uses the opportunity to gingerly scrape a razor blade against the taut nipple of Yolandi of Die Antwoord.

As someone who has "dabbled" in the "punk scene," I can confirm that this is 100% accurate. Punks voraciously follow the three C's: Cocaine, Coca Cola, and Cutting.

When the crowded theater begins panicking, the pimp takes control and tells everyone what to do. This may be surprising to some, but when it comes to skilled work, pimping develops unparalleled leadership qualities.

Dr. Doom's half-brother

Of course it all goes to hell, and soon bodies are piling up. Including the woman who was operating the movie theater. I was under the impression she was in cahoots with the demons, but perhaps not? Or more likely, the filmmakers just stopped giving a shit and made her a victim along with everyone else. Soon Megan Fox's mom gives birth to a full-size demon from out of her back. It's this big money shot moment that led me to believe that this particular demon was going to go hog wild, but he doesn't do shit. So what the fuck?

One of the white guys looking for twat goes absolutely wild with a samurai sword, and he and the other girl I already forgot about escape with a family in a jeep. In a SHOCKING twist, she happens to be a demon and butthead has to kill her.

For an Italian Horror movie, Demons is as close to a blockbuster as it gets. The pacing is good, it's well made, the music rules, and there is exactly one nipple dusted with cocaine.

Say hello to my little friends.

Does the B-movie still exist? Of course there are still plenty of cheap movies pumped out on a steady basis, but it isn't like the boom that was seen when VHS took off. Straight-to-video doesn't have the same meaning anymore with on-demand and streaming increasingly cutting into the theater business, but back in the day it really was a separate entity. A division where genre films could really thrive. Where phenoms like Cynthia Rothrock could practice their trade without the stifling necessities of a big budget feature.

Watching Demonic Toys made me think about this. By all means it should suck. The budget, the single location, and the warmed over concept should be a recipe for garbage. Somehow it avoids this fate and manages to be totally watchable. The reason for that is competence and earnestness in the face of absurdity.

Compare what studios like Full Moon and Troma put out now as opposed to decades ago. Toxic Avenger and Pupper Master might be dumb goofy movies, but they felt like movies. These days neither company can bother to give a fuck, being perfectly fine with the tiny niche audiences who still bother to show up.

Anyway, fucking Demonic Toys. The big selling point is that it was written by David Goyer. Goyer has been involved in comic book movies for years now, starting with the Blade series and ending with his fingerprints all over the DC Comics properties. It's sort of like James Gunn coming out of Troma to helm the very popular Guardians of the Galaxy, with the exception that no one likes the DC universe.

After an opening credit sequence worthy of the finest TV movie, we focus on two cops--a man and a woman--shooting the shit until the woman admits to being pregnant courtesy of her partner. Pregnancy is always this huge dramatic storytelling device, but really it isn't that big a deal. Look at how many people have kids. Now try to give a shit.

A negotiation with arms dealers go wrong, so now Judith (Tracy Scoggins) must chase down the criminals while briefly mourning the loss of her unborn child's father. One of the bad guys dies in a spotlight that highlights magical cracks in the floor. His blood flows into the cracks and brings a select group of toys to life. It's a stupid explanation, but this is a stupid movie.

Judith isn't the only person trapped in the Arcadia toy warehouse. There's the sloppy guard on duty, plus the delivery guy for a fast food chicken joint who sniffs the pages of a Miss July centerfold with carnal pleasure. This is a real bonding moment with the boorish night watchman. Because a toy factory needs to be heavily guarded.

Nobody could do harmonies like Chet and his tiny clown

The toys consist of a toothy bear, creepy doll (complete with sassy catchphrases), snake-bodied clown, and a robot. The guard is overtaken by these tiny terrors, mainly because he does nothing in self-defense. Horror movies usually require a pretty hefty suspension of belief, and that's even more so with small doll monsters. Someone always makes a comment along the lines of "Why don't they just kick it?" There's a spot where the fast food guy effortlessly swats the robot over and gives those very critics the moment they've all desperately been waiting for.

The explanation for the plot (because there really needed to be an explanation) is about a woman who gives birth to a stillborn demon. This dead demon is then given to trick or treaters with the explicit directions of having to bury it so it can grow some day. The dead baby is a boy from Judith's dreams who needs to have sex with her so that he can have a new body. Look, I was just here for the evil dolls.

When Judith is in danger of being penetrated by this man-boy he goes into full Bond villain mode. His endless talking is exactly what a stop-animated wooden soldier needs to foil his plans, converting itself into another of Judith's not-very-legal dream boys, only this one is a good guy. The two of them were fighting for her soul, you have to understand. It's pretty much like Lost, only this movie about magical cracks in a warehouse floor that brings toys to life when blood spills into it somehow MAKES MORE SENSE.

I warned you

 When writing about the remake of The Blob I said, and I quote, " If made today it would obviously be done with CGI, and that would be sad." 

Looks like Hollywood was listening. Because here comes another remake of The Blob by the director of unforgettable classics like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and a single episode of The Cape. Taken from Uproxx, who got it from Deadline:

“With modern CGI we can now fully realize the potential of The Blob. The world I create will be totally believable, immersive and emotionally satisfying. It’s a thrill to introduce an enduring icon to a wider audience and a whole new era of fans.”

Thank Allah we can finally realize the untapped potential of The Blob.  At the very least it's nice to see they aren't pandering to us anymore by pretending that it'll be done with practical effects. Last time that happened we got The Thing (2011) where they wound up covering all the practical effects with CGI anyway.

 Strap in kids, this one is going to be EMOTIONALLY SATISFYING.

I'll stick with turkey jerky, thanks

When director Kevin Connor looked at the script for Motel Hell, he said it opened with a description of a fat lady on a bed with a dildo. Inexplicably, this was wrong to him. So he set out to make a more tongue-in-cheek, less trashy, version of the movie that is the kinda-sorta cult classic we know today.

Old school actor Rory Calhoun (the Keith Carradine of his time) plays the ruggedly handsome Vincent Smith. A farmer who makes very special beef jerky along with his sister, Ida. The leads aren't the traditional type of sweaty young slabs of meat who generally make up the casts of Horror movies. Instead it's an old guy and an overweight woman. Together they ensnare unsuspecting travelers in order to get fresh ingredients for their jerky. The ingredient? Do you really need it explained? Come'on, man.

Vince makes a late night capture when his booby trap knocks a couple off their motorcycle. It's one of those motorcycles with a sidecar. You never see sidecars much these days. Vince takes a liking to the female involved, a woman named Terry played by a pretty awful actor. When she comes to--instead of being like hey what's going on I need to go home--she just stays at the motel and hangs out. I guess she's into dads because she falls in love with Vince and tries to put the moves on him, but Vince is a man with principles and insists on getting married first. Ida doesn't approve and correctly believes that Terry will throw a monkey wrench in the whole "we murder people and turn them into smoked meat products" thing.

Motel Hell feels like a constant tug-of-war between being a true cult classic and just another average Horror movie. On one hand you have entertaining scenes of a couple staying at the motel who are into bondage and go nuts whipping everything in the room. On the other hand it's a poorly paced movie with long stretches of boredom in between such scenes. It has just enough goofiness to tilt it to the side of being memorable. But it's no surprise Kevin Connor would go on to mostly do a bunch of TV work (his six episodes of Hart to Hart remain the series apex).

Vince and Ida keep their victims buried up to their necks in a secret garden. There they slit their vocal chords and hypnotize them with a magic pinwheel. When some of the victims escape (including a guy with a beard that couldn't look more fake) all hell breaks loose and the film climaxes with its most famous scene of Vince donning a pig's head; almost assuredly breaking the Guinness World Record for longest instance of maniacal laughter.

What's a nerd, daddy?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Man, I hope they show that prison flashback again

MC3 is more notorious for its production problems than for the finished product. Series director William Lustig butted heads with producers and quit with only 51 minutes in the can. So the producers had to scramble writing and filming almost half the run-time in order to get something resembling a movie out the door. Did the backstage drama effect the end result as much as it's known for?

Yes and no. MC3 reminds me of Alien 3 in that the finished product is more cohesive than it has any right to be, but not without some quibbles.

A female officer is earning a no-nonsense reputation around the department, to the point where some are calling her "Maniac Kate." When she gets caught in an inside job to rob a pharmacy (courtesy of Jackie Earle Haley), she kills a suspect and wounds the other after taking a bullet herself. Two reporters happen to be on the scene, and in order to create a sensationalist news story, edit the footage to make it look like Kate used excessive force. Robert Davi returns to clear her name, while Matt Cordell (Robert Z'Dar, also returning with his freakish jowls) wants to grab her body in some sort of bride of frankenstein plot.

One of the issues with the plot concerns Cordell's resurrection. He's brought back to life by a voodoo guy. Why? Don't ask me because I'm pretty sure they don't bother telling. As far as the plot is concerned, a voodoo guy is as plausible as anything, so why not?

But the main problem would be the lack of Cordell in general. The character the series is named for only makes a few brief appearances until showing up for the big flaming finale. Everyone involved could have saved themselves face by at  least adding a few scenes of the Maniac Cop taking out some thugs. One scene of a jerk doctor eating pussy just isn't enough to make up for it.

Even in spite of Z'Dar feeling like a cameo player in his own movie, it isn't a total failure. MC3 still feels like Maniac Cop, just more of a standard B-Action vehicle this time out.

"And then I was like, 'Got a light?' But seriously..."

Oh yeah that movie with the penis

During the 80's with the boom in slasher flicks, you had to do something different to get noticed. Most of the material in the sub-genre were perfectly happy to stick with the status quo, but Sleepaway Camp had a trick up its sleeve. Or should I say, up its shorts, that set it apart from the rest.
 
Summer camps were a popular setting for Horror and Comedies, most notably with the Friday the 13th series. I have to admit that I never went to camp, so everything I know about it comes from shit like this and Gorp.

We open on a serene lake where a perfectly hairy man-dad has brought his children for an enjoyable afternoon. Unbeknownst to him are the rowdy teenagers riding around in a boat, forcibly pulling their friend on water skis whose cries for help fall on deaf ears. When the guy driving makes the mistake of letting a girl take the wheel, all hell breaks loose when she accidentally runs over the dad and son. Women drivers, am I right?

Years later we meet the girl who survived the death of her family as she and her cousin get sent off by a creepy woman in a beret. The girl is Angela--played by actress Felissa Rose--who does all the heavy lifting by either sitting or standing with a blank expression on her face.

The camp is filled with many colorful characters. Such as the bodybuilder stuffed into inexcusably tiny shorts, and the elderly owner clad in polyester pants with a stogie always in hand. But my favorite is the cook Artie. Artie is an unabashed pedophile who practically licks his chops at the new arrivals as they walk off the bus. So do the other employees report him? Nah, James Earl Jones' dad just laughs him off. Oh that Artie, always talking about fucking kids.

I'm not sure how product placement worked back when this came out, but something tells me Miller probably wasn't head-over-heels with his constant partaking of High Life. Not that people who drink beer from companies like Miller aren't child molesters.

Unfortunately Artie isn't long for this world as someone "mysterious" pulls a chair out from under him, causing Artie to dangle perilously two feet off the floor. His only other choice to brutally falling the height of Vern Troyer is to dunk himself into a giant pot of boiling soup and scream about it for at least 45 minutes. Unlike most of the Slasher fare, Sleepaway Camp is more interested in showing the aftermath instead of the actual kill. There aren't many deaths, so some fans might be disappointed with the low body count. Life is full of these little disappointments.

The Sleepaway Camp experience is more about allowing the look of the times to wash over you. There are so many men in ill-fitting shorts that some may find it too sexy for comfort. One of my favorite looks is the kid wearing a shirt that says "Jogging Shirt." Back then people didn't really know what one was up to unless they had their activity of choice emblazoned across their chest.

Another curiosity is the scene where the men of the camp try to get the women to go skinny dipping with them. The women want no part of it, so all the guys gleefully tear off their clothes and hop in together in a shockingly moving display of masculinity.

What most of the plot is concerned about revolves around a girl named Judy. Judy's budding B-cups are the delight of the camp, and she can't have someone like Angela sitting around not bothering anyone. So she and a grown counselor who is cool with tormenting children constantly harass her. Judy also wears a shirt with her own name on it.

So the big finish. When it is finally revealed that Angela has been the one going around killing people we discover that she isn't a girl at all. Turns out the young girl was killed in the beginning and when the aunt took in the orphaned boy, she turned him into a girl. What disturbs me more than Angela having a penis is how she stands perfectly still with her mouth agape for about a minute straight. If I saw this going on it would be like, "What the hell are you doing?" Why the hell are you just standing there with your mouth open and your penis hanging loose? People are weird.

Something else I want to discuss before checking out. There's a cop who shows up at the start. Well apparently he shaved his mustache before having to come back at the end because from what I can tell he's wearing pieces of electrical tape on his face. If Hollywood ever gets around to remaking this I hope they honor its legacy by throwing a CGI mustache on somebody.

"Looks great. Alright, let's start rolling"