Alien Beasts [1991]

Occasionally we watch a movie that seems like someone's weird fetish. Sometimes we watch a movie that clearly has no budget. By that slim metric, "Alien Beasts" is technically nothing new for us, but somehow it is more utterly incomprehensible than anything else we've seen (and therefore more likely to be fetish based somehow) and seems to have had a budget that amounts to the cost of a gas mask. The Spanish language videos we made for high school in 2005 are better films than this movie. Our childhood videos filmed by our parents on the same camcorders in 1991 are better films than this one.

Trying to explain the plot of "Alien Beasts" is not really possible. There's no dialogue; only a voiceover who stumbles over his lines and repeats most of them twice and nothing he says makes sense. Even in scenes with people, they don't speak and the few times noises happen, it seems that they don't speak because the sound quality is so bad that the voiceover is meant to explain everything after the fact. The show opens on a man with a gas mask badly fighting a bunch of people in front of a house. By trying to decode the voiceover, it seems that there has been an extra-dimensional portal opened and there are some government agents trying to stop aliens or something. Mostly we get a lot of scenes of unskilled fighting, a guy under a bridge leaking fluid, and an incredibly long scene of an "alien" woman wearing a mask who breaks into a house and gets undressed really really slowly (hence, the fetish thing). Occasionally, the movie cuts away to the mask thing you see on the film cover. In the last few minutes there's a montage of weird art clips that look like an old Nickelodeon advertisement and that maybe suggest some sort of artistry that we never really got to experience, but that's it for the potential of quality. The film ends abruptly but the voiceover assures us everything is fine now.

This movie is really really bad. We got a laugh or two in the beginning because the quality of the film is so bad, but it quickly became tedious. We tried to make it more fun by imagining if Andy Sidaris made it or by imagining that the director is trying and failing to emulate David Lynch, but ultimately it didn't improve the experience. If you want to watch any of it to understand how bad it is, skip around and fast forward.

Spoon Rating: 1.5

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter [2001]

Adam gave us a few options for tonight and Erik and Kay immediately insisted on "Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter" on the basis of an amazing name. It asks the question we've all had of, "What if Jesus had his second coming during an epidemic of vampire lesbian murders in Ottowa?" And the answer is of course, kick ass in the name of love.

We get an introduction with some metaphor about a home from a bearded man emerging  from the bushes, the source of all the best advice. After a techno laced intro credit sequence, we get a vampire lady draining a victim and then lamenting, "Where have all our lesbians gone?" The scene cuts to a punk priest reading about the missing lesbians and discussing this with a priest in robes who is concerned about these missing children of god. He goes with another priest to find Jesus on the beach, baptizing and then dunking a woman in the sea. A trio of vampire women show up to fight and both priests get killed. Jesus takes their bike into town while a weird song plays listing the books of the Bible. Jesus gets a haircut and performs a music number with some people. He meets up with the priest from the beginning who tells him that lesbians are dying around the city but the church isn't really willing to step in because homophobia. It's good to know Jesus is an ally. The "atheists" show up to fight Jesus in a veritable clown car and he fights them all off with more techno playing. When Jesus gets back to his place there's a woman named Mary Magnum who discusses her work hunting the vampires while they hang in a sauna. They go clothes shopping at a thrift store with a white owner who speaks in Rudy Rae Moore quotes and it's awkward. The duo trail a vampire lady to the hospital where a crazy surgeon is doing work  to make vampires immune to sun. They go to a Lesbian Drop-In Centre ('cause those exist), which has already been infested with vampires. Mary and Jesus fight a vampire duo and Mary gets feasted on while Jesus wanders the streets alone. He is rescued by a person who seemed to be an offensive caricature of a trans woman. God then talks to Jesus in his ice cream and he meets up with a luchador named Santos. They go to a club where a man scats about "Star Wars" and fight vampires there. After a brief chat with his mom, vampires break into Jesus' apartment and he has a showdown with them in a lot. Mary is saved and Jesus resurrects her vampire girlfriend, Maxine. Everyone is happy.

Overall, the movie was strange in a mostly fun way. On the awkward side there were some random bits that didn't fit. We get a random bi character named Maggie who is Santos' love interest but none of us remember her introduction at all. There's also a random lady whose butt gets groped everywhere she goes and this seems like it's supposed to be a joke. And then there's the suspected transphobic vibe and the weird shop owner. Aside from those things, there's a lot of good silly moments throughout and it's worth a watch.

Quotes: 
"We're running low on skin. I suggest we harvest another lesbian."

"There's nothing deviant about love."

Spoon Rating: 7

Aladin [1993] & The 420 Awards [2020]

We started our evening with "Aladin," a Dingo Pictures production. We previously watched their version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" so we figured this would be a pretty good time, and we were right. 

It seemed to follow the "Arabian Nights" plot more than the Disney movie. It starts with a wizard claiming to be Aladin's uncle. It turns out he was lying to use Aladin to go find some gold for him (or magic fruit or diamonds or something). Aladin finds a genie in a ring and a magic lamp genie too. We get some random subplot about a snake owner and a monkey owner who are mad at each other throughout. Next we are introduced to the princess whose dad, the Sultan, will kill anyone who sees her. Aladin sneaks in to see her and offers his treasure, but she's going to marry some other guy. The Sultan sets the dowry at an absurdly high price but before Aladin can pay it, the wizard steals the palace with the princess in it and moves it to his place in Africa using the magic lamp that he managed to get back. Aladin asks the genie in his ring for help and gets a magic carpet to get rescue her. Aladin poisons the wizard and they return safely.

Overall, we had a lot of laughs. The voice acting was especially bad, worse than "Hunchback," and we could even hear mic bumps and the pages of scripts in the background. There were a few songs too that were mostly if not all in German because they didn't bother to translate them. The animation, as expected, was really terrible, so terrible that sometimes it was hard to follow because of how rarely the dialogue matched the scenes. We really needed Sarah, plot follower, to help us get through this. We definitely recommend it but it may be a little too frustrating to watch a second time.

Spoon Rating: 7

After "Aladin," we watched the second annual "420 Awards," Derek Savage's celebration of his own personal triumphs while he mangles people's names and acts like he's famous. With the pandemic, he was unable to invite a bunch of untalented comedians and rejected birthday party entertainers to pad out the run time. Instead the awards were intercut with a dude in PPE dancing, that same dude dancing dressed as a large joint, Savage shooting coronavirus with "Birdemic" level graphics, and a joke about him having coronavirus from drinking Corona beers. All the awards not given to Savage himself (get gave himself two this year) were accepted by PPE man while Savage claimed he was famous people. This joke never seemed to stop amusing him. In terms of notable mistakes, he mixed up Zendaya and Haliee Steinfield during the "Favorite Hottest Actress" category and most notably called "The Big Lebowski" "The Big Lewinsky" and later announced it as "The Big Lebwisky." Here's hoping there's more to the third annual awards, which will surely happen so Savage can give himself three awards this time.

Spoon Rating: 6

Gary Coleman: For Safety's Sake [1986], An Idea Whose Time Has Come [1990], Hot Talk Starters: Episode 1 [1995], & Hotel Torgo [2004]

We decided to spend the evening with a bunch of short videos that we found online; the final three coming from our favorite Occult Demon Cassette.

The first one was from the genre of 80s videos you'd watch in health class. The premise of "Gary Coleman: For Safety's Sake" is that Gary Coleman is a god who sits in a control center as he tortures a young boy calling himself Jack Example with all kinds of nightmare scenarios in order to teach basic safety and first aid for children. At one point he even causes him to choke so they can demonstrate the Heimlich maneuver. We definitely got a few laughs from Jack's pain.

Spoon Rating: 5

The next thing we watched was an utterly baffling twenty minute video called "An Idea Whose Time Has Come". The whole video explained in detail a discovery made by an Austrian scientist that supposedly revolutionized the world. They then show people in the modern era drinking this darkly colored substance called KM and talking about how amazing it is and how you want to get it and be a part of it. At no point do they actually explain what the product does or why you should get it. It's pretty obviously a pyramid scheme but when we looked it up, we could barely find anything about it except that it's some kind of potassium based mineral supplement.

Spoon Rating: 7

The last comedic thing was episode one of something called "Hot Talk Starters". The show was divided into segments that were apparently meant to provoke a conversation. The first was about suicide (that called suicide the selfish choice), then questioning the existence of god, then dating with a touch of discussion about interfaith dating (we all took bets and Sarah won but Kay and Erik both knew sex would be coming next), and finally a bunch of interviews with teens in the KKK. It was interesting but not really funny. We probably won't watch more.

Spoon Rating: 3

The last thing we watched was a short documentary about "Manos: Hands of Fate"  called "Hotel Torgo." There wasn't much of note in it and we obviously didn't rate it because it wasn't mean to be bad. Either way though, we didn't learn much more about the film.

The She-Creature [1956]

It's been a while since we watched a film this old but the title was pretty hard to resist. The film is about a hypnotist who controls a woman who hates him. He makes the woman enter into the lives of people in the past in the least impression parlor trick ever (she lies down and talks about who she is now; often with a very fake British accent). There are also a bunch of murders going on and people suspect that the hypnotist has something to do with it, but can't prove it. We have a whole side cast of characters including a scientist who's bad at sciencing, a detective, and a rich guy who lets the hypnotist live in his house because his wife is really into his show. The hypnotist makes a ton of money on the story but still refuses to leave the rich guy's house. It turns out that the hypnotist is using the woman to summon a primitive sea creature to carry out murders. The scientist falls for the woman and hypnotist tries to sick the creature on him but she manages to get control of the creature and kill the hypnotist with it.

Overall, there were a few funny moments with the unimpressive hypnotism shows, bad science, and the creature's costume but it wasn't really funny enough to recommend.

Spoon Rating: 3

DOUBLE FEATURE: The Human Tornado [1976] & Dolemite Is My Name [2019]

A few weeks back we enjoyed Rudy Ray Moore's first film, "Dolemite", and here we are at the sequel, "The Human Tornado." The title makes him sound like a superhero but unfortunately this isn't a superhero movie. Moore plays Dolemite again and the title seems to just be a reference to his sexual prowess rather than a new title or anything (but the movie does come with a sweet new theme song, of course). 

We open on some Dolemite standup intercut with a woman dancing and then we are at a house party at Dolemite's mansion where a party is going on to raise money for children (this plot point is never explained and doesn't appear again). In spite of the party, he's busy because he's apparently so great at sex than one of the police officier's wives offers him money for it. The party is broken up when some very racist police break in and shoot the wife, pinning the blame on him. Dolemite and some friends escape the party and hijack a car to get to Los Angeles and the flamboyantly gay owner of the car is happy to go along for the ride. Once in LA, they go to visit Queen Bee (she was a figure in the first film too as a brothel owner I believe) and find that her club and her girls are under the control of a local mob boss. Two girls in particular were kidnapped and brought to the torture chamber basement of some witchy old woman's house. Dolemite makes it his mission to find the girls, get the mob boss to give up his control over Queen Bee and her workers, and also to evade the racist cops who have come all the way from Alabama to find him. This involves, as expected, a lot of weirdness but it is overall more coherent than "Dolemite." There's an absolutely Lynchian sequence where Dolemite seduces the mod boss's nymphomanic mistress and, of course, the girls all get trained in martial arts to fight the mafia guys during an all out brawl at the end.

Overall, "The Human Tornado" is neck and neck with "Petey Wheatstraw" for best Rudy Ray Moore film that we've seen (although "Petey" still has the best theme song). There is never a dull moment in the film and we got a ton of laughs throughout. At some point we will have to watch them closer together to decide which one is actually superior, but we can guarantee that they are both wonderful so if you want to explore all of Moore's films, save them for last.

Spoon Rating: 9

Afterwards we decided to watch the latest addition to the world of good movies about bad films, "Dolemite Is My Name" (in keeping with the fact that we also did double features of "Plan 9"/"Ed Wood" and "The Room"/"The Disaster Artist"). As we were hoping, it was a great watch. Eddie Murphy plays Rudy so well and it was fascinating to see how they chose to portray Rudy's emergence in standup, his friendship with Lady Reed (who plays Queen Bee), and the process of actually making "Dolemite." Amusingly, because this was so fresh on our mind, we all observed immediately that they used footage from "Human Tornado" in their clips of "Dolemite" but we can forgive the transgression in the name of art.

We recommend the film for sure, but you should at least see "Dolemite" before you do if not a few of Rudy Ray's films.

REWATCH: Manos: The Hands Of Fate [1966]

The first and only time we've watched "Manos: Hands of Fate" was in 2013, fairly early in the nearly eight year life of Bad Movie Night. Because it was so long ago, we never gave it a proper spoon rating so we decided to give it a rewatch.

The plot is basic for horror. A family gets lost on a desert vacation and ends up staying at an inn with a fawn-like porter named Torgo who keeps talking about "the master." The mother and father of the family spend a lot time staring at an ominous painting of the master and his dog who Torgo seems to imply is both dead and alive. Turns out there's a secret closet-cave-thing for a cult consisting of The Master and his many brides who mostly just stay in some kind of catatonic state but arise to worship their god, Manos. The family's dog dies, possibly by the Master's dog. Torgo ties up the father outside seemingly in part because he wants the mother to be his. The wives wake up and debate whether to kill the daughter or perserve her because she's female and have a brawl over it. Torgo gets punished by the Master by being massaged to death by the wives, but then he arises and the Master lights his hand on fire. The father escapes after one of the brides untied him and pulls a gun on the Master, but it seemed to be for nothing. We get a hard cut to a couple arriving at the inn with the father replacing Torgo and the mother and daughter in the garb of the wives, now under the Master's control.

This movie is bad but what makes it notorious is really how strange the aura of this movie is. None of us could quite put our finger on it. Erik mentioned that it feels kind of like a hazy dream. Adam said that it feels something like a silent movie that happens to have dialogue. This aura is created through really long sequences that move very slowly, repetitive and simplistic dialogue, background music that resembles improvisational jazz (with the exception of Torgo's theme), and a lot of moments that contribute to a sort of unreality: the fact that the daughter's few lines of dialogue are barely audible when everyone else is, the occasional cuts to this couple making out in a car who literally never move over what is at least 24 hours, the Master's lair being a room in the inn that seems to not exist all the time, the reoccuring hand motifs, and even the lack of a real climax as if that moment was cut from the film. It's fascinating enough to watch once, but maybe not engaging enough for a second time, I mean, unless maybe you wait seven years like we did.

Spoon Rating: 6