TERROR ON TOUR (1980)

We start off at a show for a Kiss like band called “The Clowns”. They have big black wigs, white faces and makeup that gives one side of their face a smile and the other half a frown. On the frown side of their faces is a droopy mask that covers one of their eyes.

 The Clowns schtick is they chop up dummies on stage and fake stab ladies on stage. They used to be a pop band with beautiful melodic songs. But that didn’t get the chicks, man.

 When these guys are off stage, they are the dorkiest normiest looking gents making bad jokes and acting really terribly. These guys were an actual band called The Names. Who honestly, aren’t that bad.

One of the sound guys for The Clowns is a shy boy named Herb. Herb wears The Clowns get up after shows so he can get laid. ewww.

 After a rockin’ Clowns performance, a drug dealer/prostitute is stabbed with a giant knife by one of The Clowns. But which one!? They all look the same!

 Where I wished this movie went from there is The Clowns are also a rag tag team of junior detectives. And they cease their next show until this mystery is solved! NOPE! They just go back to doing blow and getting laid.

There is a scene in the same club after the first concert scene where they just seem to be hanging out. No show, no press. full make up, tables of drinks (that get knocked over) and a room with blood on the walls where each of the clowns go down to get gone down on. Meanwhile more ladies with misplaced shirts are getting stabbed by one of The Clowns.

I should mention that even though The Clowns talk about tour alot, They seem to be at the same club three nights in a row. And when they aren’t in the club, they’re at their collective home decorated by one of their moms. So they aren’t on tour. But “Terror at the Same Theater in Milwaukee” is a terrible name.

 A detective calls upon one of his favorite customers, a prostitute/drug dealer named Nancy to infiltrate the back stages of the Clowns show. Now, you think tough Nancy is going to get the bottom of this and kick some evil clown ass, nope. She goes out just like the rest. Except her shirt is still on.

The finale shows patsy, I mean Herb stalking around the backstage putting on his make up while The Clowns play the longest song ever and people are getting killed left and right.

This movie has some good gore, some rockin tunes and plenty of cheesy dialogue. I would like to call this movie for every female character depicted as an idiot, but so is every other character in the movie.

Things to keep an your eye out for: topless ladies, cheeseheads, crazy christians, home decor, great T-shirts, sold out shows with eighteen people, red herrings and a man cueing the end of the film.

I liked it. Terror On Tour goes for about $50 on most websites.  I’m glad I scored it for a buck at a GoodWill. It shall be screened.

-Rick

An article Grant wrote about Mexican Punk films is featured in this issue of Blood Video. Check it out if u down.

We’re showing this movie. I know it’s been on a million terrible DVD collections but it’s never had a good version come out. So many are just ripped from a video. Go see it! Be part of the pitch we send to Wellgo USA to re-release this movie!

We did this screening at my pal Gary’s recording studio The Witching Well. I borrowed a projector and a screen and the audio was run through the sound board at the studio.

We didn’t have chairs and we told folks to bring their own. Only one human brought a chair. We pulled the all seating material from Gary’s house.

I thought that 75% through Fade To Black people would walk out. They all stayed and all stayed intrigued.

It’s  very cool how you notice more things about a movie when watching it with a group of people. Everything Tim Thomerson says in this movie is hilarious.

The best being when the two detectives discuss how bad the traffic is while driving on an empty street.

Everyone did Eric Binford impressions after the screening.

I’m planning on doing Fantasy Mission Force next.

This was over a month ago, but I should feel how it went.

This was the first Video Boom screening in Bloomington IN as opposed to it’s birthday place Fort Worth, TX.

Plan 9 video has a very nice screening room behind the store. There is also a practice space on the other side of the theater. Luckily that wasn’t problematic.

There isn’t much seating room in the mini-theater but we had a full house at about eighteen people. Everyone enjoyed and are now also asking the question “Why isn’t Mike Jittlov running Hollywood!?”.

I got good feedback and everyone was stoked about more screenings. I would like to do more at Plan 9. The space is great! But the only problem is that I can’t do VHS movies there. There set up is for DVD/Blue Ray only. It would mess everything up to hook a VCR up in that bidniss.

I plan on doing a screening there next month. Just gotta ask. It is nice living in town with an extremely cool video store.

itsmerickv:

Return of the Living Dead Valentines. Circa 1986.

Sometimes you watch Return of the Living Dead and decide to valentines. -Rick

Wizards of The Lost Kingdom (1985)

Before I watched this I saw the Cinemassacre review for it. Rolfe makes the movie out to be the worst Lord of the Rings/Star Wars rip off ever made.

Really, it’s bad but not the down there with the worst things ever made. The movie opens up with a lot of footage from Deathstalker and the story starts up with teenage wizard Simon impressing his princess girlfriend by making a bird statue sing. An evil wizard shows up, kills the king, seduces the queen and kills Simon’s wizard dad.

Before his father’s death Simon is transported  to the outskirts of the kingdom. Simon and his poodle chewbacca companion have to make it back to the castle to stop the evil wizard Shurka.

That’s right. Simon has a pet poodle monster. Not the one you’re probably thinking of. But a giant fluffy yeti that seems to be drunk.

And speaking of drunk, characters love drinking wine in this movie, including teenage Simon. He gets lured into an evil Siren’s gazebo where she gives him wine till he passes out. When he wakes up she transforms into a giant insect. The effect is actually pretty cool.

The movie is actually pretty fast paced. As corny as it is there is rarely moments that you just want to fast forward.

We are introduced to a middle age warrior Kor who become Simon’s sidekick and faithful protector. Kor is being chased across the land by a knight with a glittery dome helmet. Kor teaches Simon how to use his growing Thundercats sword and shows him how to sing to make ghosts disappear.

In one very strange scene Simon thinks if he resurrects dead warriors they will help them. He necromances some zombies that only spout off cliche “Join Us” and “One of Us” type phrases only dead people say. They get up, walk past Simon and Kor and staircase back into the ground while talking about how sleepy they are. It is never brought up again.

Of course this move does have it’s fair share of bad. All the death scenes are so not epic. People just disappear or turn into piles of clothes. While watching the end of the movie I had to rewind it because I didn’t really see Simon kill his adversary before the whole kingdom goes apeshit with joy. The evil wizard Shurka just kinda dissolves and Simon doesn’t even flinch.

I like all the rotoscoping effects in the movie despite how cheese ball they are.

Of course it’s a bad movie. But I think it’s worth watching. I would probably even watch it again. I possibly even smell a Video Boom screening.

Things to look out for:

Swords getting stuck in tree’s alot.

Dwarves of plenty.

Random boob.

Cyclops wedding.

Clear as day voiceover punch up.

Evil wizard child abuse.

-Rick

FADE TO BLACK 1986: is something that has been recommended to me many times and I’ve never sat down to watch it. Eric Binford is a young kid living with his invalid aunt and obsesses over classic hollywood movies. His house is covered with posters, video tapes, film reels and 8x10 glossies.

The beginning of this sounds almost like my last review for Malcom. But Eric is different from Malcom. He’s very unlikable.He’s creepy and very aggressively spouts off movie trivia.

Eric being obsessed with Marilyn Monroe meets up with a Australian woman who took my breath away and looks like Marilyn Monroe. Her  name also happens to be Marilyn. 

They hit it off and decide to meet up for a date later that evening. This is where you start to like Eric. He becomes a lovable obsessive goofball. That is, until Marilyn shows up extremely late for their date leading Eric to believe that she stood him up.

Being stood up drives Eric over the edge and starts calling himself Cody Jarrett and starts acting like James Cagney. He starts doing this really creepy laugh and talking in a high pitched weasel voice.

Oh yeah, he starts killing people. Eric dresses up like various characters from horror, gangster and western movies of olden days while hunting down those who have wronged him. Although, the first two deaths blow my mind how they are possibly fatal. For example, a woman falls over on a picket fence and a fence post goes into her neck. HOW!?

Meanwhile, Tim Thomerson is playing Jim Carrey playing Charles Bronson as a hippy counselor working for the LAPD. His character comes in goes throughout the movie until the finale.

What I like most about this movie is the gritty look Hollywood has. This was the end of the 70’s and Hollywood was getting old and wasn’t so glamorous anymore. And everybody smoked.

Quick Run down.

The Good: The costumes Eric wears when he’s killing. Eric mentioning my favorite theater, The Texas Theatre. Hippy Tim Thomerson.

The Bad: The end credits song. The drawn out finale.

The Ugly: Hollywood. Weird masturbation scene.

The Beautiful: The lovely Linda Kerridge as Marilyn.

Fade to Black has come out on DVD a couple of times. One version being a two pack with Hell Night. But it’s hard to come by and a pretty penny. You can find it on VHS for cheap!

-Rick

Malcolm is a 1986 Australian movie that even though it won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film it has never had a proper DVD release in the states.  

Malcolm is a eccentric possibly autistic guy living in his dead mothers house. Instead of being an assumed cold blooded serial killer he is obsessed with trains and building gadgets and mobile contraptions. For example, he gets fired from his job at the train station for building his own tram with other parts of trains.

After arguing with a lady about milk at the corner store he takes on a tenant in his house. Ex con Frank and ex waitress Judith move into Malcolm’s house full of toy train tracks. Frank treats Malcolm like a turd and Judith treats him with some sort of motherly respect.

Malcolm finds out that Frank is a robber and wants to help him. Frank is only impressed whenever he is showed a goofy yellow car that can split in half. It’s referred to as the getaway car even though it only goes about 20 miles per hour and sounds like a go kart.

The movie’s setting is dirty and dingy. It’s never sunny outside in this Australian town.  This movie is labeled as a “magical comedy adventure” but not so madcap as the cover appears. It’s dark yet pretty funny. It’s more realistic than some would think an 80’s comedy would be.

It gets slow and repetive at times but the final bank heist scene with robotic ashtrays is pretty amazing. Mainly due to the cool song it plays.

The VHS is not hard to come by and it’s definitely worth watching at least once.

-Rick

A movie that was made in 1987 and was never released until the good people at the Alamo Drafthouse got ahold of it. I want to see this movie so bad but it’s not playing at any theater in a five hour radius of me.

Go see it for me.

http://drafthousefilms.com/film/miami-connection