Monday, December 15, 2014

Tabloid (1985)

Tabloid (1985)
Director: Bret McCormick, Matt Devlen
Stars: Lisa Loeb, Glen Coburn, Scott Davis

One problem of having so many movies is that I'm not always sure WHAT the movie is about. This shows that I am in fact a hoarder, but instead of stacks and stacks of knick-knacks featuring Elvis in bejeweled jumpsuits on them, I hoard obscure movies. So going through some of these "films" I noticed one that caught my eye, so I decided to watch and review it.

This was a mistake.

Seeing Bret McCormick's name, I should have been tipped off that this was going to suck. McCormick wrote and directed some of the worst AIP (Action International Pictures) movies put to videotape. But seeing this was his first film, I thought "Hey, maybe he shot his wad early and went downhill". I don't think he had a wad to shoot.

Tabloid is a comedy anthology that spoofs things like the Weekly World News. They have three stories all telling a backstory to some tabloid headline, which I admit is a good premise. Too bad every story sucks (doubly so in the last one). The movie starts with aliens kidnapping an aerobics instructor holding classes in Buffalo Bill's basement. I was wondering where this was going to go, but much like everything else in this film, it  goes nowhere. It's never even mentioned again What a waste of time.

We then go to the offices of the World Investigator, a sleazy tabloid where it looks like a secretary is training the new reporter. We get to meet the cranky owner and find out her backstory. They were really pushing the hell out of these characters. So of course after the admittedly original credits (complete with theme song) and a few shorts scenes, we set up the first story and never EVER see these people again. Quit playing games with my heart you asshole!

Much like I did with Tales From the Quadead Zone, I'll go over each story individually.

Baby Born With Full Beard AKA Hey, Let's Kill That Drug Dealer!

 This story has a guy selling weed to some moron. The weed is no good, so moron and his cousin Rambo (yes, Rambo) and some nameless bastard decide to kill him. Too bad they never met his pregnant gun toting wife or her hideous Family Feud lovin' momma.
- Never buy pot from a guy whose idea of a good time is sitting on his car drinking beer. It may seem like fun, but before you know it, yer 40.

- If you need to smoke an entire bag of pot before realizing that you got ripped off, maybe you don't need to smoke it. You need those remaining brain cells to do things like walk and scratch your ass.

- Come for the stereotypes, stay for the awful southern accents.

-The one funny moment in this happens when the nameless bastard suggests they rape the shit out of the mother. The other two guys are like "She's all yours, bubba." Yep, A rape joke is the funniest thing in this story. Think about that.

- After a pregnant lady shoots your cousin Rambo from a speeding car, maybe it's time to just call it a day and cut your losses. By losses I mean the pot, not Rambo. He's a schmuck.

After the drug dealin shotgun shooting family kills the people who were fucking wronged in a bad drug deal, the woman gives birth...to the bearded kid. Yep. All that useless fucking backstory for a 5 second shot of a bearded baby. 

BBQ Of the Dead AKA WHAT THE EVER LOVIN FUCK?!

A dead guy comes back and invites his dead neighbors over for a barbeque. He gets upset that they were just sitting there in their coffins rotting and leaves. The sun comes up and they die again. That's it. 

- The zombie/dead makeup was pretty effective. The blackened eyes kinda gave me the creeps.

 I don't really have anything else to add. This story didn't give us ANY backstory to this. Hey, how about not giving us the tabloid owner's entire goddamn history and put those few minutes to use explaining what the fuck is going on in this shitcicle of a story! 

There's one more!? FUCK.

Killer Vacuum Destroys Town AKA Don't Piss Off Your Stepdaughter

A weatherman is correctly predicting tornadoes. Is he Criswell? No, he doesn't have his style, but he does have a daughter who is giving him the tornado information. How does she know? And why are we watching her get abused by some harpy with a mole? We actually do find out for once. Doesn't mean it's any good though.

- Very weird to see Lisa Loeb in this. She's the daughter who ends up (spoiler..oh who gives a shit) creating tornadoes using vacuums. How this is happening is of course never explained.

- Is there really a need on the networks for a goofy natural disaster predicting weatherman in a stupid bow tie?

-Why the hell do we need to watch two tv stations techs interact with each other for at least 5 minutes?! They add nothing to the story or plot. I don't care that the guy is never gonna score with the woman. Even if he has a whoopee cushion. We all know that's a panty dropper.

- Please have the guy with the awful speech impediment say "The tornados in your housth" 17 more times. It never gets old...or funny.

- Why did they need to stretch the stepmother's death out by 10 minutes? Couldn't you have used those ten minutes for something useful like refunding everyone's rental fee who got suckered into watching this!?


Maybe I'm being too picky, but I like my comedies to be, you know, funny. Not even a late scene where President Reagan buys one of the tabloids is enough to move my chuckle meter (bought it at Radio Shack). The cinematography was fine, but the writing and the dialogue came off like two middle schoolers giggling at their own jokes. Jokes no rational human being would find humorous. No wonder nobody tried to review this film. I'm the only one stupid enough to watch it!

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Abby (1974)

Abby (1974)
Director: William Girdler
Stars: William Marshall, Carol Speed, Austin Stoker

From the man who brought the world such classics as Three On A Meathook and Grizzly comes this Exorcist ripoff made Blaxploitation style. A marriage counselor married to a pastor gets possessed  by the horniest demon around. It's up to the pastor's dad (who coincidentally released said horny demon) to get midevil on this demon's hind end.

Out of all the Exorcist ripoffs, this was the only one that got successfully sued by Warner Brothers and got shelved after only a short time in theaters (where it grossed 4 million). It's not a bad ripoff per say, much better than some of the Italian ripoffs, and you can tell Speed really enjoys hamming it up as the possessed Abby. Eh, it entertained me, but I'm entertained by test patterns and informercials starring washed up celebrities.

Things I Took From Abby

- Never open a box that has an evil deity carved into it, especially if you have to twist the deity's hard on to open it. 

- You're not fully aroused in the shower unless you're zestfully aroused...oh and there's a demon in there with you.

-  I wonder how the demon got there so fast. maybe he caught a commercial flight. had to sit in front of an annoying woman and her bratty kid kicking the seat. Probably didn't even get a free bag of those tiny peanuts. No wonder he's pissed.

- I feel Abby's pain. When I'm cutting up raw chicken, I get so turned on I have to cut myself too. Now if it was turkey, she'd just be a weirdo.

- Dress yourself in nothing but a tiny towel, expect to be kicked in the balls. The more you know.

-  If you're doing marriage counseling, ripping open your shirt and wanting to "fuck the shit out of" someone is not really a good way to get one's point across. Show them a diagram first. Maybe a slideshow.

- Love that the nightclub looks like someone's living room. Adding ugly ass wallpaper and a tiny disco ball can't hide that fact.

- The demon in exorcist was scary, this one just looks like Abby dressed up like the incredible hulk. You wouldn't like her when she's horny.

- The best part was the Bishop performing the exorcism on Abby. Whereas in the Exorcist, they were confident but scared,  in Abby, the Bishop is one cool cat. He's openly mocking this demon like "Hey, if you're this big bad demon, you wouldn't be laying your jive ass on the ground while my groovy self is running the show". I mean, he didn't say it like that, but I knew what he meant.

- William Marshall was really someone I felt could have been used a lot more in movies. Hell, you got a guy there who could act, and also always came off with class. He could have been like a Christopher Lee of American horror in my opinion. Oh well, at least he was the King of Cartoons.


Friday, December 5, 2014

Fairy Tales (1978)

Fairy Tales (1978)
Director: Harry Hurwitz
Stars: Don Sparks, Sy Richardson, Linnea Quigley

As with most sex comedies, this one is pretty straight forward. A prince on his 21st birthday must find a woman that can get him "excited". So he sets off to Fairy Land where he meets a bunch of famous children's book characters doing things I ain't never read about. Maybe in Playboy, but I just look at that for the ads.

For a young man growing up and starting to really notice girls, waking up after my parents went to bed, sneaking my way to the living room, and seeing this on late night cable was like hitting the boner jackpot. I hadn't seen this movie in at least 25 years, but it brought back some fond (and slightly embarrassing) memories.

Although there is lots and lots of full frontal nudity in this, the way this is all presented makes it come off less sleazy than just goofy. Outside of a few lame risque jokes, and of course fully naked women, there's nothing really offensive here. Fun and harmless.

Things I Took from Fairy Tales

- This movie reminds me that Professor Irwin Corey is still alive at 100! I wonder if he watches this on a loop.

- Naked Angela Aames as Little Bo Peep? DEAR GOD YES PLEASE!!

- Odd thing to notice while tits are on screen every 15 seconds, but Don Sparks, who plays our hero the Prince, does a really good job in the role. Has a real everyman quality to him. He's done a ton of TV work since then.

- I think if you had a sex comedy at any time during the 70's (and early 80's) there has to be one character that's a complete flaming homosexual stereotype. In this case, it's Jack to the always horny Jill. I got something you can fetch. That was for Jill...not Jack. I swear. Shut up.

- I had completely forgotten that this movie had musical numbers in it. Some not that great, but the Snow White song about her sex starved seven dwarves is a highlight.

- Never thought I would see a trio of naked masked ladies singing a song about S&M in the vein of the Andrews Sisters. One of those naked beauties is Evelyn Guerrero, who is best known as Donna in the Cheech and Chong movies.

- If you watch the aforementioned S&M number, watch for the chained up guy really having a good time. You'll know who I'm talking about.

-The little guy helping the weird cop looks like a tiny Iron Sheik.

- Ol' King Cole was a bug eyed overacting soul. A bug eyed overacting soul indeed.

I wonder when Gussie Gander has to replace the carpeting in her shoe of ill repute, if she goes shag or Dr. Scholls. Maybe she's gellin'.

-I'm surprised to see how fresh faced Linnea Quigley is in this film (she still looks great today). I then noticed she was nude. Suddenly things got awkward. I shouldn't have watched this on the library's computer. 

At the end of this movie, they promised us three prizes. I don't care about the love potion or the cod piece (I already have a custom one), but the sheep...I have a friend who's in need of one. For the wool I mean. Really. Stop looking at me like that. Don't you walk away from me!! STOP SHAKING YOUR HEAD!


 If you want to see the whole thing, it IS on YouTube. But it's very NSFW. But here is a compilation of the doorman to Mother Hubbard's cat house. One of the unsung heroes of this film if you ask me.



Tuesday, December 2, 2014

The Bad Movie Couple are Here!

I'm excited to announce that after doing a few podcasts with my lovely and talented better half Erin, we had so much fun that we decided to create a site reviewing bad movies together! At The Bad Movie Couple, we basically review bad films in a conversational sort of way. So jump on over to the link below to read our first two reviews, on Evil Altar and Count Yorga, Vampire!