Black Roses [1988]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

It feels like we have been suffering for weeks without a delightfully bad reprieve but when I look back, it has only been three weeks since the charming "Die Hard Dracula." I guess the last two weeks have been especially rough. Either way, this one may not be a classic of bad movies but it was a nice way to spend an evening if you like horrifying 80s aesthetic, heavy metal, and fakey Satanism. Which of course we do.

In a backwoods suburban town, the teens are a-buzz with news that Black Roses, a popular heavy metal band that never plays lives shows, will be during a five(?) concert series at the high school, curiously paid for by the school board. Some parents are aghast because of the band's antisocial, anti-religious content but a few minutes into the first performance, nothing seems amiss so they leave, prompting the band to strip down to their leather harnesses and praise Satan. As the nights of concerts go on, the students seem to develop the ability to turn into demons but it's unclear how or why and they become increasingly more disobedient. One kills the principal after killing her mother, one seduces her friend's dad with strip poker and kills him, and one who's already obsessed with the mustachioed English teacher, kills the teacher's ex-girlfriend and tries to seduce him in his house before turning into a demon that he kills. She's somehow okay later in human form at the last Black Roses concert. The teacher goes to the concert to stop the demonic activity and seems to, but later Black Roses is playing Madison Square Garden so I guess nothing is fixed. Also, all those people are still dead. And we never find out if the kids were saved from their possession. And there's basically no closure. 

This movie has all the 80s cheese you would want including silly acting (especially a man who is definitely in his 30s playing a teenager by just having too much energy), bad sound effects, and a plot that doesn't really make sense or go anywhere. Hail Satan?

Spoon Rating: 5

Science Crazed [1989]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

"Science Crazed" is a Frankenstein movie that would have been a decent 30 minute bad movie but has been mutated and cruelly malformed to fit a feature run time. It was apparently salvaged from two different recordings but they didn't seem to cut anything so we see the same victim-stalking shots over and over, seemingly to build anticipation for the "fiend's" kill, but mostly to bore us into fast forwarding through most of the film. The plot is just about a mad scientist who never takes off his sunglasses making a woman go through a 21 hour pregnancy to give birth to "Frank Jr" who promptly kills his father and mother and then goes around a . . . gym . . . hotel . . . something, killing people. He is stopped by the scientist's assistants and a detective they hired who dresses like a detective in a 1940s noir. Aside from the long, repeating shots, there's some looping bad 80s background music but in between we get gloriously badly dubbed dialogue that kind of make the whole thing worth it. Watch it, but fast forward until you get to dialogue.

"Science Crazed" is a Frankenstein movie that would have been a decent 30 minute bad movie but has been mutated and cruelly malformed to fit a feature run time. It was apparently salvaged from two different recordings but they didn't seem to cut anything so we see the same victim-stalking shots over and over, seemingly to build anticipation for the "fiend's" kill, but mostly to bore us into fast forwarding through most of the film. The plot is just about a mad scientist who never takes off his sunglasses making a woman go through a 21 hour pregnancy to give birth to "Frank Jr" who promptly kills his father and mother and then goes around a . . . gym . . . hotel . . . something, killing people. He is stopped by the scientist's assistants and a detective they hired who dresses like a detective in a 1940s noir. Aside from the long, repeating shots, there's some looping bad 80s background music but in between we get gloriously badly dubbed dialogue that kind of make the whole thing worth it. Watch it, but fast forward until you get to dialogue.

"Science Crazed" is a Frankenstein movie that would have been a decent 30 minute bad movie but has been mutated and cruelly malformed to fit a feature run time. It was apparently salvaged from two different recordings but they didn't seem to cut anything so we see the same victim-stalking shots over and over, seemingly to build anticipation for the "fiend's" kill, but mostly to bore us into fast forwarding through most of the film. The plot is just about a mad scientist who never takes off his sunglasses making a woman go through a 21 hour pregnancy to give birth to "Frank Jr" who promptly kills his father and mother and then goes around a . . . gym . . . hotel . . . something, killing people. He is stopped by the scientist's assistants and a detective they hired who dresses like a detective in a 1940s noir. Aside from the long, repeating shots, there's some looping bad 80s background music but in between we get gloriously badly dubbed dialogue that kind of make the whole thing worth it. Watch it, but fast forward until you get to dialogue.

Like this film, this post would have been a decent, if short, post but in the interest of making it the same length as my other posts, I decided to just repeat it over and over.

Spoon Rating: 5

Black Devil Doll From Hell [1984]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

It has been a long time since we suffered like this. I hesitate to compare anything to "Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star" but for a solid 20 minute period of this film, we were all trying so hard to disassociate that I am almost uncomfortable writing this blog post as it forces me to relive the experience. We were expecting a blaxplotation version of Chucky and all the cheese that would imply, but oh, we did not expect this.

The beginning of the movie is pretty inoffensively bad. We follow Miss Helen Black, a good church going woman who is proud of how she's waiting for marriage. It was hard to tell how old she was supposed to be as she was wearing those ridiculously large glasses that were fashionable in the 80s that make everyone look like a grandmother and her couch was covered in plastic. We get a lot of lingering shots of her apartment full of religious articles while she talks to her friend on the phone about much she needs Jesus. One day Miss Black goes into a thrift store and finds a really frightening puppet, which the store owner promises will grant her her deepest desire. She also mentions that the puppet always finds its way back to the shop, which seems like a bad thing to mention because it assures the buyer that ownership is temporary. Regardless, Miss Black buys the thing and props it up on her toilet while she showers. 

And here's where the film takes a turn. In between shots Miss Black enthusiastically soaping up her breasts, we are treated to horrifying images of the puppet licking her and having sex with her. It was unclear at this moment if she was imagining it or if the doll was. Even more unfortunately, this was foreshadowing as the puppet ends up tying her to the bed and raping her. This doll sex scene (because yes, it eventually became consensual) went on for what felt like days. We hadn't seen anything of the sort since the furry sex in "Wolfcop." If I could "Eternal Sunshine" those images away, I would in a heartbeat.

After the puppet sex, the doll disappears and Miss Black is now a nympho but no man can satisfy her. She goes back to the shop to buy the doll again but when she brings it home and begs it to have sex with her, it kills her. The film ends with someone else buying the puppet.

Do not watch this. Just don't. It is an exercise in misery. It is an endurance test that is not worth the suffering. If I ever were to encounter the director/writer/producer I would run away because I definitely know too much about him and none of it is good.

Oh, and the quality is VHS level with tracking issues and the acting and sound quality are very bad. But who cares? Puppet sex.

Quote: "I've slept with men . . . several to be exact."

Spoon Rating: 2

Die Hard Dracula [1998]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

'Tis the season for vampires. According to the vampire tag, our previous vampire movies have featured a vampire dog, vampires in space, vampires based on a video game, and a "Twilight" ripoff. By that reckoning, this is the most normal vampire movie we have watched at Bad Movie Night and is also unquestionably one of the best.

This is a movie that seems to not understand transitions but we eventually managed to follow the plot. Dracula took a bride for himself 300 years ago named Sonia, which we need to be shown for some reason, and then we flash forward to modern California where our protagonist's girlfriend dies in a tragic water-skiing accident. Following the funeral, protag goes on vacation to Prague and ends up wandering the countryside. He walks into a small town bar and is baffled to see that the owner's daughter, Carla, looks identical to his dead girlfriend. This plot point goes nowhere. Also, the town has a Dracula problem. In this folklore, he can go in the sun but not direct sunlight and it weakens him, and he can be killed with silver. Dr. Van Helsing comes in and he is the weakest Van Helsing in media. Even with Dracula eating in the town bar, he neglects to do anything about it. The plot ramps up when Dracula kidnaps Carla after a weird sex scene with the protag and turns her into a vampire. Protag and Helsing go to save her but they both end up falling victim to Dracula. Uniquely, it's a happy ending because now they are all one big vampire coven and they dance around their tower while Dracula plays classical tunes.

There are a lot of reasons this movie is a delight. There's bad CGI, public domain music that often casts a comical light on something presumably not meant to be funny, bad acting, a low budget, and just all around madness. We're borderline on whether this movie deserves a rewatch but it most definitely deserves to be seen once.

Weird Credits:
Mr. Sachen's Girlfriend - Squishy
Mr. Sachen's Other Girlfriend - Vanda
Catering - Sometimes

Spoon Rating: 7

Elves [1989]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

I actually don't know where to start with this one. On Wikipedia it only lists one writer but I could swear in the credits there were three and oh boy, does it feel like three different movies haphazardly smashed into one. I don't even want to try to explain the plot honestly so I'll keep this one short and sweet. 

It has Dan Haggerty of "Repo Jake" fame (oh and some television show in the 70s that wasn't well known or anything) playing the down on his luck good guy who may just be him in real life. There's a Christmas motif to this movie but it doesn't play much of a role outside of being set during Christmas, mall Santas, and some sort of "anti-Christmas" ritual in the beginning. There's an evil elf but they don't really seem to have anything to do with Christmas. More so the film is about Nazis and inbreeding in order to create a master race. Really. The main character is a result of her father and her grandfather being the same person and now she is expected to have sex with the elf to create powerful hybrids. Although we don't see elf sex and we mostly just get a lot of murdering and Nazis, they do set up for a sequel by implying that she got pregnant offscreen somehow.

Honestly, this movie isn't especially funny but it has its moments and it's kind of worth a watch because it's so bizarre.

Quote:
"What's wrong? Are we going to be alright?"
"No, Willy. Grandpa's a Nazi."

Spoon Rating: 4

Urban Cowboy [1980]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Sometimes one must ask the question: is this movie unpleasantly bad or just not for me? In the case of "Urban Cowboy" the answer is both. In the beginning we thought this might be promising as a bad movie. It initially reminded us of "Road House" a bit and we basically decided to watch it because the DVD case screams "homoeroticism that lacks self awareness" like "Top Gun." The movie didn't deliver on either end. 

The plot of "Urban Cowboy" is simple and horrible. A guy from a remote part of Texas moves to the big city of Houston where he spends all his time in the same large bar. He meets a girl there, treats her horribly and beats her, but she marries him anyway in a strange smash cut 30 minutes in. It was at that point we realized the movie was two hours and fifteen minutes long and it had only just finished its introduction. We watched the rest of the movie on 1.5 speed with subtitles and it didn't make it any worse or better. Cowboy wants to mechanical bull ride but doesn't want his wife to because misogyny. They fight a lot. He hits her more. He gets jealous of her bull riding skills when he forbid her to do it. He sleeps with an oil tycoon's daughter to show her. She sleeps with and starts shaking up with an ex-con who also beats her but more often. Eventually this all boils down to a riding competition between the cowboy and the ex-con. The cowboy wins. The ex-con tries to steal the prize money and the cowboy saves the day while also getting his wife back for some reason. No one has learned anything. The cowboy is still a jerk but now has $5000, presumably enough to upgrade their trailer. The wife really likes abusive men and takes back the cowboy with literally no evidence that he has grown or changed. If this is anyone's fantasy, you have to analyze your life. At least the devil went down to Georgia guy was there.

So apparently people in the 80s liked this movie because while many reviews talk about how it hasn't aged well, it still has a weirdly high rotten tomatoes rating. Ignoring the fact that nothing about this story appeals to anyone in the Bad Movie Night crew, the movie has a very real flaw as a regular film: the writing. This movie seems to have a basic understanding of plot points but not things like "dynamic character" or "payoff" or the fact that things should happen to move the plot forward and connect plot points.

Even if you are a cowboy or cowboy lover, I don't understand why you would like this misogynistic, boring dribble. You'd be better off reading a Harlequin romance.

Spoon Rating: 1 Lone Star.

Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat [1999]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Back in the late nineties when most of us Bad Movie Nighters were in our late elementary school years, I remembered seeing television advertisements for this film on Nickelodeon or some other channel that primarily catered to kids. Even at ten I was skeptical of any movie or album you could order directly off the television and I found myself wondering, "who even does that?' The answer is Sarah's mom and Sarah used to watch this movie constantly as a kid and fall asleep to the soundtrack. After she discovered that Tim Rice wrote the music for "Lion King" and this, she remembered that it was a bizarre, trippy nightmare and decided we should all experience it. It's only an hour and fifteen minutes but it felt so much longer. Also, here we go with another entry thanks to Andrew "tory-voting" Lloyd "frog-face" Webber.

So the plot follows the Bible but if you're a heathen like me, you don't know what that is so I'll explain. Joseph is the favorite son of Jacob much to the chagrin of his eleven brothers who were not born of Jacob's favorite dead wife. Jacob gives Joseph a really tacky coat that drives the brothers to attempt fratricide and when that doesn't work they sell him into slavery. Joseph attains pretty high rank as a slave in Egypt but then gets sexually assaulted by his master's wife and thrown in jail. He managed to get out because he's really good at dream interpretation and uses it to win the Pharaoh's favor and become his right hand man. Joseph's brothers, now destitute without him, go to Egypt to beg for food and Joseph makes them grovel. He then plans to punish one for stealing a cup but forgives him and reveals his identity. Happily ever after.

This movie is an acid trip. First of all, it has a useless framing device about it being set as a school play in an elementary school with all the actors in the play also doubling as admin. The only purpose this seems to serve is to justify the existence of an ear splitting children's choir in some songs. The aesthetic of this film is basically a low budget kid's show during the scenes with Joseph's brothers and then Dr. Caligari's Tim Burton-esque gay nightmare while in Egypt. The original stage musical came out during the era of popular tribal musicals for adults like "Hair" and "Godspell" but that only explains so much. The music is all over the place involving songs in styles of western, cabaret, tango, Jamaican steel drum, Elvis rock, and more standard Broadway. Oh, and it's supposed to be FUNNY. It's sometimes funny but not in the right way.

Should you watch it is a bit of a debate. Sarah says yes. Adam says no. Kay says it's a fair candidate for watching. Keith was mostly ranting about the liberties taken with the original story. Decide on your own.

Adam's Review: "Proverbs, Chapter 4, Verse 15: Avoid it. Do not go to it. Turn away from it and pass on."

Spoon Rating: 4.5