Sting of Death I seem to be caught in a tug of war. I'm awake when I need to be sleeping and sleeping when I need to be awake. Now if I could just switch around that scenerio it seems like an easy solution but it's determined to be anything but. I seem to exist somewhere in between, all because of a noisy neighbor and  giving up caffeine. The only solution for this nightmare is to turn to pure drive-in schlock. Ok maybe it's not solving anything, or actually it's making things worse. Trying to navigate reality while existing in some half-awake dream state is even more confusing when you look up and see a man in a wet suit with a garbage bag on his head pretending to be a jellyfish. This is not cundicive for mental wellness. But at the least it feels like a 90 minute respite from Burzum or whatever racist Norwegian black metal's blasting through my ceiling. I thought this was a monster movie. I'm not sure if my own predicament has led to this being near incomprehensible or its just that it came from Florida. So the monster is a man but I could never tell if it was a man that could turn into a jellyfish or a man who just decided to wear a big ass jellyfish on his head like a hat. At one point his face is covered with petroleum jelly and I can't tell if he was supposed to be turning into a jellyfish or if he was gelling up his face to protect it from the stings of his massive jellyfish hat. It's never explained which is weird cuz this is the type of movie where they OVER explain everything especially if it didn't need to. There's a shot of a boat sinking and they ADR'd the line "boat sinking" over it. Not "the boat is sinking" just "boat sinking". It's also the kinda of movie where people just dance around the pool in a way that makes me want to rescind my caucasianity. This is the shit I want to Clockwork Orange strap people to a chair and force them to watch when they claim some innocuous shit is the "worst movie ever made" not because this is the worst, it's actually perfect no notes, but it's got a level of incompetence that would make the uninitiated's brains leak out their nose. You don't know the pain I put myself through everyday. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp5vvgfOqrY/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Just for the Hell of it The DVD case describes this group as "ne'er-do-wells" which is a descriptor that absolutely needs to make its way back into the public lexicon. Next time I drunkenly stumble through the streets, knocking over garbage cans, stealing BBQ potato chips from QC, and launching cookies in every direction, I need an old man to rap his cane on the light pole shouting "you damn ne'er-do-well!" I kind of love this, not because it's good (it's not) but because it's such a specific snapshot of something that's so quintessentially American, fake outrage. This time in American history spawned a whole subgenre of "scary kids" movies and I don't mean the supernatural kind like The Omen, no, exploitation films of the '60s have no time for metaphors, these were literally about the fear of rowdy teens. Exploitation extraordinaire Herschell Gordon Lewis sensed the growing panic regarding the older generations attitude toward the youth and did what any purveyor of sleaze does best and concoct a scenerio so cartoonishly out of touch with reality it's only obvious purpose is to whip up a frenzy among the gullibly conservative. These rowdy rapscallions do shit like destroy their surroundings at the apex of every party, swipe a blind man's cane and spin him around a bunch of times, snatch a baby straight from its stroller and place them in a garbage can... and also drug and sexually assault 4 women. I'm sorry wut? That last one clearly crosses a line beyond rambunctious hellions and there's something sinister in conflating all those actions but that's the beauty of bad taste. HGL also does his thing which is basically just place the camera in one spot and run the whole scene which ALL manage to go on 2 to 5 minutes too long while repeating shots over and over just to reach full length. Like I said, it's not good but a gloriously trashy monument of its time. Frankly every generation should be frightened of the one that is going to replace them. The clicking in my knees suggests that that time will soon come for me much like it did the generation I once terrorized and will eventually come for the tik tokers that think sex scenes don't belong in movies. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpn1V8zuDDK/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Tales From the Budget Pack: The Vampires Night Orgy Aye, fuck the wheel. Of all the undiscovered gems just sitting there... uh... undiscovered, waiting for me to... uhm... discover them, the wheel gives me the fucking shitty public domain box set.  If this was 1 year ago and pre-medicated me then I would assume this was God personally challenging me because the Old Testament God was a real fucking dickhead. But I'm a lot smarter now... OK just a lot more selective of which drugs I take and I now know there is no God. There also is no orgy. Wtf. It's bad enough that this shitty transfer was both letterboxed AND pillarboxed so I was essentially watching this in a tiny little window amongst the backdrop of a large black screen but at the very least I wouldn't have minded if they delivered on the promise of said orgy. Also is the adjective "night" really necessary? I feel like the time of day is already implied by them being vampires. They literally can't survive during the day, no one wants an orgy in a hostile environment. Another false promise. Like affordable housing, health care, or a living wage. Oh I'm sorry you want me to review The Vampires Night Orgy? Well I just remembered qualified immunity exists so too bad. Now I'm thinking about the time that Wallington cop made me take off my shirt when I was a kid to make sure I didn't have any weapons and I still think that's fucking weird.  This is what bad movies do. Just fucks your whole day up. Worse than having your bus break down near a village full of vampires who pick you off one by one, which is what happens in this movie. The only redeeming quality is that there's a big dude with an axe who chops off people's limbs, cooks 'em, and serves it to the guests. Other than that I guess the sub-90 min runtime. No one is looking out for you. There isn't some cosmic force gently guiding us through a life absent of hardships. Babies get cancer. I have to watch The Vampires Night Orgy. Being alive is nothing but chaos ping-ponging between tragedy and ice cream. Nothing makes sense but I just found an ASMR video that features Phoebe Bridgers so at least I got the next 40 minutes of my life figured out. https://www.instagram.com/p/CpdiQFIPq4v/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Showgirls Recently I attempted to write some kind of long form article regarding how the setting in which we watch movies is an integral part of the watching experience. We are just meat-bags of chemicals and electrical charges firing in response to external stimuli. This is the basic relationship between the audience and a film. But as I kept writing it became clear that without the instagram character limit I was taking a long walk to get no where. I've been spending as much time as possible outside the hellscape that is my living situation, the apartment above mine is alive, pulsating with a heartbeat of goth edm and the occasional arrhythmia of black metal. It's taxing. So last weekend I had an edible and headed into the city for a screening of Showgirls on 35mm at midnight. Now I had only seen parts of this film on late night cable as a kid in hopes of seeing a boob cuz I grew up in a time where we didn't have the internet in our pocket. This screening was exactly the kind of thing I was trying to write about. For 2 hours I forgot about everything else except Nomi fucking Malone. This gloriously trashy character (a bad performance that also happens to be perfect) is a force of nature, barely controlled chaos, merely nudged in a specific direction and unleashing a path of destruction in her wake, a true tornado of a human. Her only peers I can truly think of are Jason or Michael Myers. But as I and the whole audience were watching her incredibly aggressive drive (both her dancing and fucking are so AGGRO) just tear through Vegas it became clear we all were in her corner, loudly cheering her along the way. In a post #metoo reckoning Nomi Malone emerges as a sort of folk hero foregoing any semblance of grace because those that uphold the systemic abuse in the entertainment industry don't deserve any, they deserve to get their ass fucking stomped which is exactly what Nomi does. It's truly a shame we did not get to see her same destructive path tear through Hollywood as the film teases at the end. If the audience I was in was any indication, people would be standing in the aisles cheering for her to burn it all down. Give me this legacy sequel now! https://www.instagram.com/p/CpVzRhAPz2C/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Killer's Delight I bought weed legally for the first time the other day, "legal" being the modifier to pay attention to. I've been used to dog shit dirt since I was buying that shit in the football locker room after practice in high school. Now I'm like "ooh this one might alleviate some knee pain." It's a whole new world. I disclose this info only to get out in front of the claim that it was this "bomb ass weed" that made me fall asleep during the 3rd act of Killer's Delight and not the movie itself. I assure you, it was most definitely this boring ass movie to knock me out cold and not the professional grade pharmaceutical. Honestly they should be prescribing Killer's Delight to individuals battling insomnia, this was the first time I've been able to sleep through the night since my upstairs neighbor moved in and decided that common decency doesn't apply to his 24/7 revolving door of a party (how does anyone even know that many people? I caught 2 people fucking in the laundry room while I was trying to watch Skinamarink). But don't worry, the next morning I finished the movie, I have a modicum of dignity, but not before ripping a fat one off that new vape pen. Listen, I applaud the effort. The movie wants to delve into the mind of a serial killer, featuring all that psychoanalyzing criminal profile jib jab well before Mindhunter and Silence of the Lambs. But this primordial ooze of an idea never really forms into anything resembling life. And all the ancillary horror beats that usually appeal to my lizard brain fail to elicit any caveman instinctual reaction. Me like blood. Seriously, just kill someone in a cool manner and I'll gladly give you a thumbs up, I am so easy to please. Killer's Delight has very little to offer and while it may deserve an "atta boy" with concurrent hair tussle just for its chronological placement regarding "psychological serial killer" cinema it's the grandma's hard candy of horror, it's cool for you to offer but this bland rock disguised as a food will remain untouched in the dish visit after visit. At the very least it has a John Saxon-esque lead, NOT John Saxon mind you, just Saxon-ESQUE. The wheel did me dirty today. https://www.instagram.com/p/CpLgvobO3JP/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

The Zero Boys The Zero Boys are a group of either really cool teens or the lamest dudes in their mid-thirties, I'm not sure. Hollywood casting once again leaves me perplexed, Kelli Maroney's character says she's 19 but the leader of dem Zero Boys looks like he has a mortgage and back pain. Also if you're wondering "what the fuck is a Zero Boy?" well it's a group of friends who play paintball on the weekend while occasionally indulging in unintentionally problematic '80s shenanigans due to our ever changing cultural landscape. Kelli Maroney's character is only on the trip with the Boys of Zero due to her boyfriend losing a bet over a game of paintball, while he is also dressed as a Nazi (they later establish he's Jewish, I don't know if that actually makes it better). Thankfully Maroney rightfully calls them out though ends up agreeing to join them just to piss off her bf. What follows is a mish mash of subgenres that, while never really finding its footing in any, leads to something pretty unique. While the Nil Boys start as a raucous coterie of horniness befitting the usual '80s sex comedy it becomes clear that their weekend warrior antics are just a last ditch effort to hold onto the playfulness of their youth while standing on the precipice of adulthood. They're not the normal interchangeable slasher film fodder but not the tough guys they fancy themselves to be. Part "wrong turn in the woods and hunted by some backwoods hicks" with a progression that occasionally lines up with the established slasher formula, it also manages to show flashes of the torture porn genre, predating it by over a decade. It really is something to behold... I didn't say it was good just kinda unique. In one of the most baffling and contrived plot points the The Null Character Boys always train for their paintball games with actual semi-automatic weapons containing live rounds which they bring with them everywhere. I'm sorry wut? Once again Kelli Maroney chastises their fascistic behavior, literally labeling them Nazis, but even she can't escape the '80s crushing grip of acceptable bigotry as she drops an errant f-slur. No one is safe. Also this movie has no ending. https://www.instagram.com/p/CpDy50pvg7M/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Satanico Pandemonium I put my fate in the hands of the wheel and whatever divine guide, cosmic karma, or just random chaos (it's the latter) has lead me to Satanico Pandemonium. But God almost had other plans because when I originally ordered this movie from an online retailer they mistakenly sent me Bela Tarr's Satantango, a 7 hour black and white art-house film. Maybe that unknown guiding force was trying to get to me watch less trash and be more cultured. Not today! Nunsploitation leads me to believe there's 2 types of nuns. 1) Young Nuns who are equally horny as scared because of years of indoctrination that taught them sex is evil. They either succumb to temptation (thus becoming evil) or B) they grow into an old bitter asshole Nun, probably cuz they went their entire lives without orgasm. It's a lose lose situation. This is about the former who stumbles upon a nude man in the woods and the sight of peen just fucks up her whole day. She becomes haunted by this penis spectre, unaware if he's real, anthropomorphized horniness, or maybe something much darker. Ah, the beauty of cinema! She chooses sin and it turns her into an uncontrollable sex monster, committing a string of sexual assaults (and eventually murder) mostly directed at the other nuns (and not terribly graphic). She then assaults a young man... er... boy? The age is never given and regardless of the statutory laws wherever they reside I'm pretty sure what she does to him is a crime regardless of geographical location. I'm not trying to grade sexual assaults, just give you the heads up so no one is caught off guard by me recommending the "rapey nun" film. Cuz as far as rapey nun films go this is one of the better ones. While nunsploitation primarily dwells in sleaze most of it is born out of the oppressive and hypocritical nature of religion, though dealt with a far from nuanced touch. This film has a subplot regarding the nuns being racist, a concept that should be antithetical to Christ's teachings but that's the point cuz in actuality (especially regarding today's American Christians) it's a perfectly apt display of hypocrisy. This movie also has the worst fake knives I've ever seen. https://www.instagram.com/p/Co5gzG1P4uH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Nine Guests for a Crime So I put the names of a bunch of movies I haven't seen into this app, spin the digital wheel, and watch whatever it says in an attempt to cut down on the indeciveness of picking out a movie which more often than not equals the length of a movie itself leaving me to unfortunately fall asleep before said film has finished. I spun. It gave me Nine Guests for a Crime. I don't know what that means, that's a nonsense phrase which leads me to believe that its a giallo. I'm right and who are you to doubt me. It opens on a young couple getting it on on the beach only for some cardigan and kahki wearing fuckers to shotgun down the dude. The killers' faces are obscured but their murder attire suggests they're clearly affluent so I already don't like em. Fast forward to an extended family on a yacht headed toward a private island for a vacation and I'm already itching to watch these people die cuz its ok to root for the deaths of those that belong to a certain tax bracket. To say this family is disfunctional is an understatement, and that is coming from someone who was unable to attend many holidays due to a restraining order.  Basically every single person has a reason to want any of the others dead. They're all cheating on each other with each other, they all stand to gain a sizable inheritance once the old man bites it, and just maybe this has something to do with that pesky murder in the opening. It's kinda like I Know What You Did Last Summer with the setting of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer but without the deadlocked Jack Black... wait that was Jack Black?!? I'm on way too much of a roll to stop and check but even if I'm wrong (I'm not) the backspace is the enemy of progress, only cowards edit. It may not have the lush vibrant cinnamontography (shh, I know what it says but we've already established that I'm never wrong and refuse to edit) of the more famous gialli by Argento or Bava but its got fantastic set design and wardrobe. It might not be anything new but a simple giallo with a solid mystery and a satisfying conclusion already put it ahead of a decent chunk of its peers. The wheel has spoken and it has done right be me. https://www.instagram.com/p/CoxytsDv9QW/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Attack of the Killer Refrigerator What can be said about Attack of the Killer Refrigerator that isn't already implied by the title? The film is only 15 minutes long, any sufficient plot analysis runs the risk of going longer than the actual movie. So why bother  "reviewing" it at all? Maybe it has something to do with last night being the Superbowl and in a long standing tradition consuming an amount of food and alcohol that by any metric would be considered "reckless" leaving me little to no time to watch anything else. Truth is I'm not even that big of a football fan (I played it in high school and still don't understand the rules). In fact this was the first full game I watched all season and by "watched" I mean played Mario Party online with my sister while the game was on in the background. But this is America and the Superbowl is the most high holy of the holiest holidays. And in true American fashion I'm just here to see the Eagles lose, not because I dislike them but because America thrives on sowing division between the likes of politics, religion, and most definitely the arbitrary geographical boundaries created by a sports team. It's not even a football issue, my chosen sport is baseball, I'm a fan of the Mets who rival the Phillies. Therefore through the transitive property I cannot in good conscience root for the Eagles. It's the sporting equivalent of a good ol' Cold War era proxy war. This is the American way, passive aggressiveness riding on a bald eagle wrapped in the flag. I have plenty of South Jersey/Philly   followers who I genuinely like and maybe an Eagles win would bring them a modicum of happiness however fleeting. A happiness that seems to elude me season after season, but seeing their joy should be worth it. Or maybe I'm a miserable cunt who wants everyone to feel as shitty as I do. That's why I'm watching the Superbowl alone and probably always will. It's as hopeless as trying to deal with my upstairs neighbor's 24/7 rager who I just found out is the landlord's son and I guess immune to noise complaints. I might as well be asking them to deal with a killer refrigerator, which if you didn't know, most definitely attacks. https://www.instagram.com/p/CondcZkvwN0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Memories Within Miss Aggie Aggie is a middle aged woman taking care of her invalid husband and while she seems content, she genuinely loves him, there also appears to be a sadness within her. Being a full time caretaker for an adult can be taxing but Aggie's love for her husband carries through the daunting task. When she's needs that extra bit of encouragement she thinks back on the good times, specifically when she met her husband. But as she gets older her memory becomes hazy. Aggie fondly remembers their first encounter, two young lovers exploring each other and themselves. It's tender, the shots gently linger as their hands caress and probe each other with a naive discovery. But Aggie snaps out of this memory and dismisses it as false. Her daydreams become increasingly darker, all sexual in nature, from anal sex with a stranger to performing sex acts for money. Where are these memories coming from and why can't Aggie remember her first meeting with her husband? Also all the sex acts I described are hardcore penetrative sex scenes cuz this is a porn. Did I forget to mention that? Yo I know I'm repeating myself everytime I review a porn but these movies had actual fucking stories y'all. Like I never loaded up pornhub/redtube/youporn/xhamster started a video where a pizza guy rings the doorbell and says "I've got 1 large salami with extra cheese" and sat their on the edge of my seat thinking "ooh I wonder how this will end" (wait what's the "extra cheese" in this scenerio... oh god). Middle aged Aggie and her husband don't even get naked, like they are legit just actors. Can you imagine? This shit gets weird too, in a scene that achieved whatever the opposite of "horny" is, a young Aggie masteurbates with a baby doll, shoving the head up there like some reverse birth. The ending is also a take on a classic film (I won't spoil) that's been ripped off dozens of times and I can honestly say Memories Within Miss Aggie pulls it off better than most. I normally wouldn't play a porn so loud but since it turns out my upstairs neighbor is basically having a non-stop "party" no one seemed to care. I feel bad for the young family on the 3rd floor though. https://www.instagram.com/p/CofwIaHPV6y/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Undeclared War One of the many contributions of near cinematic perfection The Godfather has graced us with is its climax, an absolute masterclass in editing and montage where a series of assassinations play out during the course of a christening. Ringo Lam's Undeclared War posits the question "what if you do away with that bullshit cutting back and forth and just have the assassination right at the baptismal fountain?" Dear reader when the nuns pulled out automatic weapons from beneath their habits and started lighting up everyone at the church altar I immediately splayed my hand across my chest and whispered "the audacity" to no one in particular. This film truly pulls no punches (and considering I just saw Knock at the Cabin where anyone familiar with the book knows that punches were most definitely pulled) it brings great joy to my heart. Especially considering this is from a time before rampant CGI abuse. The action has weight and feels beholden to such minor inconveniences as gravity and physics (which means I got to put down the fork I routinely use to stab myself in the thigh while watching Marvel movies just to feel something). Lam's going bigger than the usual Hong Kong street tough cop, giving us an international cast with some recognizable faces. Olivia Hussey's co-leader of the liberation army's spiel regarding the US propping up dictatorships in third world countries to fight their proxy wars isn't wrong and most definitely converted me into a believer of her cause, especially while the CIA and Hong Kong cop engage in a bureaucratic dick measuring contest over who gets to make the arrest. But the film doesn't really have any place for nuance and the "liberation army" devolve into generic terrorists much as the film does into copaganda. The CIA agent and Hong Kong cop play out the tropey odd couple/buddy cop scenerio eventually overcoming their differences with their shared love of fascistic state sanctioned violence regardless of borders. Truly bringing together all walks of life and maybe opposites really do attract as I've befriended and just completed a week long bender with my white-boy dreaded, face tatt'ed upstairs neighbor. https://www.instagram.com/p/CoVcBXsvEGz/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Undeclared War One of the many contributions of near cinematic perfection The Godfather has graced us with is its climax, an absolute masterclass in editing and montage where a series of assassinations play out during the course of a christening. Ringo Lam's Undeclared War posits the question "what if you do away with that bullshit cutting back and forth and just have the assassination right at the baptismal fountain?" Dear reader when the nuns pulled out automatic weapons from beneath their habits and started lighting up everyone at the church altar I immediately splayed my hand across my chest and whispered "the audacity" to no one in particular. This film truly pulls no punches (and considering I just saw Knock at the Cabin where anyone familiar with the book knows that punches were most definitely pulled) it brings great joy to my heart. Especially considering this is from a time before rampant CGI abuse. The action has weight and feels beholden to such minor inconveniences as gravity and physics (which means I got to put down the fork I routinely use to stab myself in the thigh while watching Marvel movies just to feel something). Lam's going bigger than the usual Hong Kong street tough cop, giving us an international cast with some recognizable faces. Olivia Hussey's co-leader of the liberation army's spiel regarding the US propping up dictatorships in third world countries to fight their proxy wars isn't wrong and most definitely converted me into a believer of her cause, especially while the CIA and Hong Kong cop engage in a bureaucratic dick measuring contest over who gets to make the arrest. But the film doesn't really have any place for nuance and the "liberation army" devolve into generic terrorists much as the film does into copaganda. The CIA agent and Hong Kong cop play out the tropey odd couple/buddy cop scenerio eventually overcoming their differences with their shared love of fascistic state sanctioned violence regardless of borders. Truly bringing together all walks of life and maybe opposites really do attract as I've befriended and just completed a week long bender with my white-boy dreaded, face tatt'ed upstairs neighbor. https://www.instagram.com/p/CoVb5Pvvuk5/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Santo vs Doctor Death Idk what the fuck I was expecting. I get these types of clashes in horror, from well before Freddy vs Jason, back in the Universal Monsters days when the classic monsters used to throw down constantly and Santo himself has faced mummies, vampires, the wolf-man, and Frankenstein. So when Santo went up against a dude named Doctor Death I guess I wasn't expecting a low budget James Bond-esque actioner. BUT I'M FUCKING HERE FOR IT. This movie opens on a fucking art theft (a super convoluted nonsensical art theft that has one of the most insane plot points, absolutely bonkers, involving tumor secretions. I shit you not and somehow it helps replicate the paintings? Why you need to replicate the painting if you're just stealing the original I don't fucking know... where am I?) and then Interpol is like call Santo he's defending his championship in Spain anyway, he can investigate and use that match as cover. Wtf. In a perfect world all crimes would be solved by professional wrestlers. Oh no, someone stole the Hope Diamond! Better call The Excellence of Execution, the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be, Bret the Hitman Hart. But seriously Mexico was so far ahead of the game. Luche Libre is the closest shit to like real life movie/comic book superheroes so them branching out into film and other media is frankly fucking perfect for this kinda stuff, the MCU can suck it (makes X over crotch). It's an incredibly fun and ridiculous film which at the very least has copious amounts of some good ol' fashion pro rasslin'. And I LOVE pro rasslin' (it's basically redneck drag) and tomorrow I'll be watching the Royal Rumble drunk as fuck and alone. And I'll probably do something I regret and feel bad about it the next day which then causes me to indulge in more "bad habits" which I'll feel bad about until it's an endless cycle. Man, I'm tired. Fuck this lonely sadboi era, instead of  running fake scenarios in my head of whatever my upstairs neighbor is doing at 3am, I'm gonna invite him over for a brewski and some big meaty men slapping meat (jk, wrestlers today are all skinny little nerds). https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn7saVSPq0T/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Tales From the Budget Pack: Point of Terror Nah, I'm good. I mean... not in the sense of my overall well-being but like imma have to pass on Point of Terror. It's awful. It starts with a dude in like the spirit Halloween version of a fringed Elvis jumpsuit, belting out some forgettable song in front of a giant curtain, I guess trying to give the illusion that he is playing in front a huge (but clearly non-existent) crowd. Listen, I'm in already. I'm on board. More films should start with Vegas residency-style lounge acts belting out numbers over the opening credits. I love Elvis. I share a birthday with The King, we share a cosmically connected kinship. It's also the same birthday as David Bowie and R Kelly and writing them all down has made me realize that every single one of them have a history with underage girls... so yeah nevermind, I don't believe in astrology anyway. But all its goodwill from its dance number opening are squandered on a mediocre soap-opera plot. The whole thing is about the singer trying to shmooze his way up the ladder of the music industry by courting a rich wife of an invalid music exec. This is like 95% extra marital affairs and 5% murder and the murders ain't that great. Even all the blackmail/blacklisting/threats/deceit are kinda boring. In the one bit of inspired petty revenge the singer dude seduces the rich woman's (adult) daughter. My man's cold blooded. But even after all that fairly non-eventful cheating and fololing around, the film ends with one of the worst tropes in all of cinema, rendering the ALREADY boring previous 90 minutes utterly pointless. Y'all can guess what that ending is. Avoid at all costs. In the most clichéd way I made a promise that I'd better myself after house arrest but I've been drinking harder, there's gaps in my memory, and it's taking longer to recover. I'm not saying it's Point of Terror's fault but I can feel my body slowly breaking down and this shit is not the pleasant distraction from my own decay that I was hoping for. If anything it's just amplifying my awareness of my own ailments. I just want to sleep and my neighbor is so fucking loud all the time. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn2isipP-Go/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Demonoid B-movies are dope cuz they're just like "you know what's scary? A hand." And then we get 400 movies about killer hands. It's all drive-in schlock and I have no idea how or why it started but eventually the people that grew up on these films became directors themselves and we get stuff like Evil Dead 2 and Idle Hands. And also Demonoid, but like any good horror movie, and by "good" I mean "trying to make a quick buck by cheaply ripping off something more popular" Demonoid is not just a killer hand movie... it's a killer hand movie jammed together like an ill fitting puzzle piece with (checks notes to see what's the most popular film preceding Demonoid)... oh The Exorcist. It's a killer hand film meets The Exorcist. But while Evil Dead 2 and Idle Hands stop at the possession, Demonoid goes full Exorcist, starting with an archeological dig, constant flashes of a creepy old devil statue, and of course a priest. But wait, there's more! Demonoid is not content with being JUST an Exorcist/killer hand mash up. Like a patchwork quilt of B-movies tropes, Demonoid kinda throws everything and the kitchen sink into the formula. Pre-dating both The Hidden and Jason Goes to Hell, the possessed hand jumps from body to body.  But it's not just beholden to the horror tropes as it borrows gloriously from outside the genre too. I'm talking both car and fire stunts. Does this movie need car and fire stunts? Yes. Literally every movie needs car and fire stunts. You are lying to yourself if you believe otherwise. Tell me Sight & Sound's Top 100 Greatest Film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels wouldn't benefit from a car flipping over and exploding on Day 2 in-between shining her ungrateful little twat of a son's shoes and over-boiling the potatoes. "But then you're kinda missing the point of that movie, Ned!"  Yeah well I miss the point of a lot of things like why my father only said "I love you" on April Fool's Day while laughing maniacally. All I know is Jeanne Dielman is 3 and a half hours while Demonoid is an hour and 18 minutes and only 1 of those movies open on a Satanic cult committing a human sacrifice (though the other has a banger end). https://www.instagram.com/p/CnxaZ3_vyuA/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Vice Squad My neck currently has the mobility of what I'd only describe as Michael Keaton's Batman so I propped myself up on the couch and positioned towards the television, hoping a stiff draft in the basement doesn't blow me over and render me as helpess as a turtle on its back, destined to stare at the ceiling wondering what Mr White-Boy-Dreads upstairs is laughing at at 3 am (he's high it could literally be anything) and why his endless cackling sometimes turns into guttural howls (wtf?!?!). I often bemoan the fact I couldn't experience sleazy pre-'90s 42nd street and it's infamous grindhouses (let's be honest though, I was mugged once and folded like an accordion, I don't think I'd last to the end of the first movie in a double feature) but have also severely neglected the sleaze factor of LA. Hollywood likes to romantize itself in films, it's where stars are born and dreams are made, but there's a certain subset of films that portray the underside of the city when the sun goes down and the tourists go home. It's "Hollyweird" where all the freaks come out (my people!). Vice Squad is one of those movies. A prostitute cooperates with the cops in a sting operation to take down a brutal and sadistic pimp but when the pimp escapes custody he carves his way through LA leaving a trail of bodies, beaten and broken, in his unassailable mission to find the prostitute that set him up. Oh boy. If I had a Hall of Fame for the bat-shit bug-fuck bonkers, then Wings Hauser's filmography would earn him a lifetime achievement award and his performance here as the sadistic misogynist pimp Ramrod turns what could have been an over-the-top cartoony caricature of LA after dark into a legit disturbing and  and repellent sleaze-fest. TRIGGER WARNING cuz this one gets surprisingly ugly. While '70s NYC gritty aesthetic in film was synonymous with crime, its the bipolar attitude of LA, the whiplash between the place where dreams come true and where they go to die, that make LA prime real-estate for sordid tales entwined with sadness. Vice Squad excels at this brand of melancholic nastiness bubbling beneath the opulent veneer of the city of angels. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cnpr--qvxEK/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Tales From the Budget Pack: My Mom's a Werewolf Now that I am no longer confined to my apartment I figured I should try to engage in some good ol' healthy activity... and immediately pulled something in my neck and shoulder. Now I'm not only confined to my apartment again but this time my bed too as any position outside of laying like I'm in a fucking sarcophagus causes excruciating pain. Fuck me for trying to better myself. I'm once again reminded that I'm not just getting old, I am old. And my body is not just broken but breaking. It'll only get worse from here. And what am I doing with this infinitesimally small window I have on this earth? I'm watching My Mom's a Werewolf, which actually isn't bad, at least for these budget pack movies. Like you realize how many classics I haven't seen? But I am a trash person and I deserve trash and also probably deserve being stuck here and forced to observe the bizarre habits of my new upstairs neighbor (seriously wtf is he up to up there?). This film is pretty PG and damn goofy, it's actually not a bad movie for kids getting into the spooky shit cuz it's pretty much a comedy but with a werewolf. But there's also a ton of sex jokes, like a TON. But nothing graphic and let's face it, even if they don't get it, kids love laughing at shit they know is "naughty". We've all watched shit we probably shouldn't have or else we wouldn't be into the fucked up shit we like today. Nothing in this film is gonna harm a child's psyche. It's Fright Night with the silly humor of My Boyfriend's Back, though not as good as either. It's also got Maddy from Friday 7 and here she's playing a horror loving dork and I'm starting to think there's a lot of genre filmmakers that look down on their audience. Horror fans are almost always dorks (thank God for Kirby) in horror movies. Wtf. I feel attacked, yet again. I'll have you know I once dated a girl from Newark. I watched her open the door of a moving vehicle, drag a women out by her hair, and beat her with a stick in the middle of the road. I believe the term is "fearection". Ok maybe this isn't making me look as tough as I thought it would but damn I felt safe in her arms. https://www.instagram.com/p/CnkikkKPIgx/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=