Evil That Is Hard to Swallow. Bad Meat review!

badmeatNot quite sure I want to review Bad Meat. Analyzing a project that never saw completion is like trying to teach terminally ill 3 year old how to manage a bank account. As I do a little more back ground research on Bad Meat, I’ve come across some very interesting and almost discouraging tidbits about the history behind Bad Meat. First off, the director is named Lulu Jarmen. Right now, you might be asking yourself who the hell is Lulu Jarmen and what else has she directed? Some people think Jarmen took over the project from Rob Schmidt, the director behind the inbred cannibal movie Wrong Turn and who promised fans that Dead Meat would be the most vile move ever seen quoted in 2011. However, many other people believe that Lulu Jarmen is a pseudo-name for Rob Schmidt because of how embarrassedly bad Bad Meat turned out financially and plot-wise.

Six troubled youths are sent to the isolated Camp Hardway under the cruel thumb of an hitler-esque figure and perverse, sadistic counselors. When the camp cook feeds the counselors rotten meat, the counselors transform into raging, flesh eating psychopaths.

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The premise is a shortcoming much like the ending of Dead Meat. Literally, the film just ran out of money from Capital films and immediately shut down production half way through the movie. Is it a good thing that perhaps Schmidt (or Jarmen) shot the movie from first sequence? One would think. Yet, Dead Meat ends right at the middle of the movie and in the midst of an attack none-the-less. The characters’ fates, the six teenage renegades, are left unexplained by an open ended, most likely reshot, ending that has left us to conjure up our own imagination to seek an ending to Dead Meat.

Dead Meat from the beginning had no promise even though fun to watch. The perversity is awkward, the fluids flow in chunky green vomit and think warm red blood, and the dialogue is as colorful as all the spectrums of the rainbow. The first 82-83, give or take, manages to at least make your time worth wild, but the last ten minutes are severely butchered with reshot with scenes of a severely burned (maybe?) survivor of the camp laying in a hospital bed and typing away on a bedside computer. Typing what? Yo no se. Most likely the story behind how this survivor came to be mangled and so horribly disfigured. These scenes, which are interjected into the original film, barely have any connections besides the name of the main character Tyler being thrown about by his apparent older brother who looks old enough to be his father.

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Dead Meat is not the “sickest move you’ll see this year.” Besides, I most likely would not even call it a full film. Intriguing, gross, and hilarious but a grand let down by Jarmen (or by Schmidt, who cares?). Any bit of Dead Meat’s success died with Capitol Films the production company. Revolver Entertainment’s pickup of Dead Meat would have rejuvenated life into this film, but instead arbitrary reshoots baffles and confuse.

Is Your Maid this Evilly Erotic? Maid in Japan trailer!

I’ll just leave this here for you to watch…

Enjoy.

Sofia Vergara’s Big Evil Guns! Machete Kills poster!

To be honest with you, I was not a very big fan of Machete. Robert Rodriguez’s concept of a vengeful former Mexican Federale out for blood came off as a neat idea when previewed as a spoof trailer from Grindhouse. And having the hard-ridden look of Danny Trejo portray the character is a match made in hell! What was not to love when the news broke that Rodriquez would actually be writing and directing a feature film a few years later. Yet, I was let down and the sort of slap-stick, roughly edited film just didn’t hold the same thrill as the trailer had spun into me.

Machete must have done well enough to warrant a sequel that I will surely grant audience, but the new poster feature Sofia Vergara and her machine gun tits just screams bland, same old exploitation by Robert Rodriequez, feeling the same similarity with From Dusk till Dawn and the crotch gun worn by Tom Savini. Does Robert Rodriguez feel that privates are ultimately dangerous and should be considered hands off in the eyes of a good Catholic? See the poster below.

Sofia Vergara and her heavy artillery.

Sofia Vergara and her heavy artillery.

Machete Kills does sport a motley crew of a cast that includes fallen angels as Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson. Also appearing would be William Sadler, Cuba Gooding Jr, Amber Heard and Lady Gaga. But of course this would not be a Robert Rodriguez film without his usual cast of actors such as Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Tom Savini, Antonio Banderas, and Electra and Elise Avellan. Machete Kills is slated for a September 13, 2013 release.

E/V/I/L! V/H/S review!

VHSMain

The Video Home System, aka the VHS, became a leap forward for home entertainment in the mid to late 1970s growing widely popular by the 1980s and into the better half of the 90s. Two decades later, most of the youthful generation can’t even tell you what a VHS tape looks like or spell out the abbreviation. Today the DVD is the standard norm and DVD has made a fatal blow that killed the VHS tape forever in the industry retail market, but believe me or not, the VHS tape still lives and breathes among us and those who collect the out of print format believe that VHS is the ultimate haven for movie lovers. Today, not everything is on DVD. VHS had thirty years to collect films from all over the world and DVD nor Blu-ray have captured them. They are timeless vintage that doesn’t have a expiration date (until the sun gets a hold of them).

Now, the VHS tape has been used in horror movies before – The Ring, Vacancy, etc – and has become sort of a icon for the genre. Nothing about a DVD disc is scary, but bring out a VHS tape with the grain and the tracking blemishes and that can even make the happiest of times seem creepy as shit. This leads me into V/H/S a horror anthology of short films surrounded by main film where adult juvenile delinquents decide to pursue a lead in gaining a cash prize if they pinch a VHS tape from an old man’s house as if sharking (scoping out women targets and exposing their breasts on camera unwillingly) and breaking windows in an abandoned complexes wasn’t exciting enough. After they break into the house and discover the owner apparently dead in a room full of televisions, they decide to split up and search for the tape. One by one they view a different tape and get more then they bargain for as each tape contains a horror story which once watched will never leave them the same again.

The Second Honeymoon

The Second Honeymoon

V/H/S is damn scary. Plain and simple. Black and white. Up and down. Five short horror stories with an horror story – a resemblance, if not a respectable nod, to Creepshow or Tales from the Crypt era, but the writers and directors made these stories their own constructing each one carefully to where the content just doesn’t scare you stupid but will also leave your jaw dropped and your mind racing. Being a recently married man myself, one episode entitled ‘The Second Honeymoon’ had my mind racing and paranoid – you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see the anthology. V/H/S encompasses different genres such as creature feature, thriller, haunted house, satan, slasher, and even aliens. A little something for everyone to enjoy. You might even recognize some of the directors and writers names such as Ti West (House of the Devil), Adam Wingard (Pop Skull), David Bruckner (The Signal), and Glenn McQuad (I Sell the Dead).

There is definitely a feeling of no holds barred when an series of short come out like this. I feel that the nudity and gore taboo go right out the window and anything can go. A big F.U. is given to the MPAA and, for this review, that I’m on board with that as I my philosophy in life is the more brutality, more nudity, more visceral the better and though each director accomplished their part in each of their respective story, I couldn’t help that something was missing. The characters and some of the dialogue just weren’t doing it for me. I must be jaded as I write myself and I find some of the dialogue to be at a third grade level along with most of the character’s mental states. Again, ‘The Second Honeymoon’ separates itself from the pack with sympathetic characters and an adult, non-frat party attitude dialogue. ‘Friday the 17th’ episode could just be a spoof on the 80’s slasher now that I think about it and that makes me a feel a little better about the writing.

Tuesday the 17th

Tuesday the 17th

Go grab your DVD or Blu-ray copy of V/H/S from Magnet Releasing and keep your eye out for V/H/S/2 – I’m sure it’ll bite even harder than the first.

Evil Thoughts. The Baby (1973) and The Prowler (1981)

Tonight I thought I would discuss two very different kind of horror films.  Trying to dissect and compare horror films to each other can be enlightening to others; to help them explore new territories in horror.  Also, this idea gives me to chat to be a blabber mouth about obscure, retro movies that most of the younger generations don’t know about.  Hell, I’m almost 30 and I probably still need more horror movie schooling.

babyFirst I want to talk about Ted Post’s 1973 exploitation film The Baby.  A social worker seeks out and becomes hired by the Wadsworth family to oversee the mentally ill child of the family who goes by the name of just Baby.  Besides the retardation, Baby is an average boy who plays with toys, sucks on a bottle and cries when his diaper is wet with the exception that Baby is a 20-year-old man.  The social worker plans for Baby seem genuine  – to try to progress Baby’s ability to walk and talk like everybody else.  However, the Wadworth family holds a dark secret that if anybody gets to close to that person ends up disappearing, but little does the Wadworth family know, that the social worker has alternate means for Baby than what she cares to divulge.

The Baby is a unique exploitation for me.  I’ve never seen anything like it before.  The fact that the mentally ill, a man, and the mind of a child are being exploited beyond rational means.  When you (in this case when I) think of the exploitation genre, I imagine women being used for their body or just a person being exploited for violence.  In The Baby, the man and the mentally ill is being abused for his body and the man and the mentally ill is being exploited for violence.  During the duration, there is no grasp on who might be the hero and who might be the villain.  The roles are a virtually reversed between the Wadworths family and the social worker and even at the end of the movie, you still don’t know how to process the information and end up second guessing the hero and the villain.  The Baby will imprint in your mind and sear into your brain making The Baby a well executed film just by script alone.  Director Ted Post and The Baby David Mooney do a remarkable job even if the 70s film does come off outdated and corny.  Gerald Fried’s score is also pretty amazing and that is worth listening to as well.

 

 

Second comes The Prowler.  A maniacal killer runs rampant on Avalon Bay, NJ dressed in WW II fatigues carrying aprowler pitchfork, bayonet and a handheld shotgun.  The killer reminisces about Rosemary, the love of his lift who gives him a Dear John letter for his time in military service.  His longing forces him to kill.

 

 

Tom Savini has mentioned that his work on 1981 The Prowler was his best work ever.  I don’t know if I could agree with Mr. Savini or not on that as his effects for The Burning are superb, but anything Savini touches is gold so The Prowler is a shining example of his gruesome work.  The problem or problems rather with The Prowler is the entire storyline as it was far too choppy and incoherent.  I pieced the story all together sans the movie and I get that the audience sometimes has to make their own interpretation, but come on!  I feel as if The Prowler character just didn’t have enough back story like Jason Voorhees who had a tragedy as a child seeing his mother beheading and seeks revenge on the free-spirited, sex crazed teenage campers and consolers.

Two very different movies.  Two different styles.  All with in the realm of thrills and chills.  Exploitation and slasher genres have gained knowledge from these two prime examples, yet we still build and build upon each genre.  We don’t see them too much in theaters anymore which is a shame since both genres really put you in the center of the worlds most delicate issues of the world.  People kill people.  People exploit people.  These issues will never go away but they will never been renowned as popular because the subjects frighten us way too much.