Here we are again, with something special for Halloween, a horror movie! Finally, I get a break from the 90s T&A films! I can't wait to watch...
... a 90s T&A
horror film. Oh, to live in a world where my every hope and dream isn't crushed to paste like my spleen under the pummeling fists of the exploitation business.
Let's do a thought experiment. You're Fred Olen Ray, and today is the day you aren't embarrassed enough by being Fred Olen Ray to get out of bed. You're filming a T&A horror film, and you need a shocking image at the beginning. An image that all audiences will remember and -- this is the important part --
won't come to represent something totally different 17 years into the future.
Probably not the best place to make my "o" face.
Damn.
Yes, David Carradine, er, "stars" in this picture, if by "stars" means he's first in the credits, and not that he spends 90% of the movie peeping, pulling up his cloak, and then zipping behind trees like some type of perverted Dracula (I'll have to check to see if Hammer studios already did that one.)
The real stars are our lovely ladies, b-movie actresses, soft-core porn starlets, and Cinemax screen star Artie Johnson.
Artie's ability to pick roles: Very interesting ... but stupid.
Yes , Artie Johnson is in this movie, as is great character actor Dick Miller. As for the real stars, it's the T&A of our T&A movie:
Hey, you on the right, stop looking at the camera!
Gee, I wonder who will be the survivor? It's almost as much of a puzzler as why Dick Miller hasn't shaved the back of his neck, and what that could possibly mean for voluminous mountain of fur that is surely on his back?
Here's where the movie starts to go off the rails. The movie is full of nod nod/wink wink in jokes about horror movies, but then goes on to just follow those same clichés. This is like delivering a commentary on sexism during a strip tease. By the way, there's a high concept burlesque act for the taking!
Our heroians are hired to clean this haunted house, and they don't take one step in without the one on the right spitting out the most clunky line of dialog I've heard in a while: "Long history of mayhem and madness, pretty strange unusual and weird things have happened here." She delivers the line like she's straining to remember it, which I have to give her a pass for because there seems to be no relationship involved in that jumble of word soup. It has to be hard to memorize,
just like memorizing to stop looking at the camera!
Now, since the script writer ran out of random words pulled out of a hat and forced through the mouths of actresses, we get to the the inevitable out of nowhere strip scene:
I'm lucky this radio from the 40s plays stripper music!
I didn't post this to get hits (yes I did), but to point out that after this comes the most perposterous thing I've ever seen in one of these films. They try to get the dowdy one to strip, but she runs off embarrassed by her own body. The actress playing this part? Penthouse Pet, 36D packing, big hair b-movie scream queen Monique Gabrielle. Who then spends 2 minutes looking at her own naked body in the mirror, seemingly disgusted.
I re-watched that scene 5 times just to be sure. I'm that dedicated to the craft of faux reviews. Really.
Look, I'm willing to believe evil cartoon characters from the necronomicon are real before I'll believe anybody that looks like Monique Gabrielle can be ashamed of their body.
This isn't the movie I wanted to be in!
I can't believe my agent mixed up Evil Dead and Evil Toons!
The totally not a rip-off from Evil Dead -- even though they specifically mentioned Candarian demons, but in this movie they are
Kandarian not
Candarian demons, so it's totally different -- this book brings forth our evil toon. Yes, toon. Singular. Damn you, opening titles!
[Side note: How come nobody has though to create a sci-fi horror con called Necronomi-con? Somebody get on that!]
He's so cute!
OK, this is fun. It seems these movies haven't left every part of me shriveled and dried up, and I can still feel a slight tinge of joy! Our little furry (wait, no, bad use of word, nobody get any ideas) catches one of the women being sexy, and suddenly the movie stops ripping off Evil Dead and begins ripping off Tex Avery:
That Red Hot Riding Hood is really something!
This is great fun, and if the movie continued on in this vein, then I'd really be entertained. So, obviously, do you really think that will happen?
It's nice an actress with such an overbite can find work.
Of course the hell not. Animation is expensive and this is a T&A film and most of the money is spent on body waxing, so after 54 seconds (I counted) our evil toon disappears (he reappears at the end for an additional 14 seconds) and we are replaced with evil sexy lady. So, Evil Toons is neither Evil Toon(s), nor even Evil Toon, but just Evil Teeth.
Evil Teeth, my favorite Danish Black Metal band.
This means the titular Evil Toon is in 0.01% of the movie. This means the movie is 0.01% animation, 5% Carradine peeping, and 94.99% boobs with a sprinkling of butt. It seems a bit unbalanced in the peeping.
Of course, we're not done lifting until we get the old Scooby-Doo joke about sitting on a something scary:
Zoinks!
Eek! A slightly bloody Dick Miller! Who know's where he's been?
People die, nighties are ripped, more dumb jokes are made, and David Carradine stops peeping long enough to kind of, half-heartedly, with the least gumption he can manage, save the day.
Again with the "o" face!
After all the
yucks forced laughter polite titters, I do have to say I appreciate Fred Olen Ray. His movies might be crap, but he turns them in fast, cheap, on time, and probably always makes a profit. He's a modern day Roger Corman, and you have to give him a bit of credit. I'm still going to slap around his movies so hard that they will be convinced that gravy is a color.
I'd like to dedicate this review to my pal, Dave S.