A.P.E. [1976]

Right away from the title, you know that this is going to be a King Kong knock-off. The movie itself wants you to know that it knows it's a King Kong knock-off too. But hanging the lampshade on this very derivative piece doesn't help it. What might have helped is that it was released the same year as a big budget King Kong, the one with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange, which none of us have seen. While we can't compare it to that one, it was definitely inferior to the 1933 King Kong in terms of special effects, which is absolutely wild considering the four decades between them. Money is everything. But this one does have something that the '33 Kong lacks: unintentional comedy.

The makers of this film decided to completely forgo the first half of the Kong story by starting it on a boat that has already captured the monkey with the goal of bringing him to Disneyland to start his world tour. The monkey somehow escapes the boat, blowing it up entirely, and killing the best character in the movie, a super monotone first mate. We loved him so much we went back and watched the beginning a second time. The monkey also wrestles a shark in the first of what will be many hilarious scenes. The film actually takes place in Korea where a Hollywood actress arrives to film a movie. She has a boring romance with a reporter and as far as we can tell the movie she's filming is just about her getting raped in different parts of the Korean countryside (and we were all subjected to the director's advice to the lead actor of "rape her gently"). Meanwhile, the monkey is terrorizing the countryside where a lot of people don't seem to notice a 35 foot tall monkey until he's right in front of them. We get a lot of scenes of a military guy who doesn't leave his office talking on the phone to a Korean officer about how he doesn't believe the monkey problem exists until the movie needs him to. Occasionally we see the Korean officer at home where his wife amuses their children with a terrifying puppet. Eventually the monkey gets his hands on the actress after she runs right into his open palm. Twice she escapes, but the movie does make sure to note that she's sympathetic towards him. The monkey attacks Seoul, which is just a bunch of cardboard models, and then the military finally springs into action and takes him down. In an attempt at an iconic end line, the reporter dating the actress closes the movie with, "He's just too big for a small world like ours." Whatever that means.

The special effects in this movie are peak. The monkey costume looks very cheap, and they are never able to show the monkey in the same frame as any other actors. This is dealt with through a combination of low angle shots, models (including a toy parachute guy, a toy cow, model towns, and a toy tank), and a giant leg prop and giant hand prop. It is never convincing but it is consistently entertaining. The movie also has this weird quirk of having people throw things directly at the camera, making us wonder if it was a 3D film at some point. The film also has some mediocre, but not horrible, acting and a really poor script. The desire of the scriptwriter to skip any kind of build up just shows how unexciting a movie is when it's just fighting. All in all, a solid watch.

Spoon Rating: 6

REWATCH: Birdemic [2008]

It's been five years since we last watched "Birdemic" so it was about time for a rewatch and that was definitely a good amount of time to wait. We got out our hangers again in preparation, and got ready to hang out with the family (and have ourselves a party). It was enough time that all the weird moments were fun again, and we had managed to forget some of the intricacies of the meandering plot. Tom joined us for this one, which was appropriate given that he is an audio person and an amateur ornithologist and we apparently wanted him to suffer. If you want to actually hear about the movie, here's the original post

Savage Beach [1989]

It's safe to say that Andy Sidaris films are good bad movie night material but not something you should watch with any kind of frequency. Unlike Neil Breen or even Tommy Wiseau's scattered works, Andy Sidaris has a niche that is so specific and so often repeated that any Andy Sidaris film can easily be confused for any other. While we have generally considered Malibu Express to be the worst and Hard Ticket to Hawaii the best, all the others just fall into this general area of "fine." So here is our yearly watch of a Sidaris film: Savage Beach.

As usual, the plot revolves around some government agents, one of whom is played by Dona Spier. They are trying to get some medicine to sick kids on a remote Pacific island when their plan goes down n a deserted island. They eat some coconuts and strip naked to swim in response. Eventually, they encounter a Japanese man in terrible old age makeup who seems bent on protecting them and not causing problems. It turns out he killed non-Dona's grandfather during World War II, and they have the same eyes. While this is going on, the whitest Filipino delegate and some Americans are on a hunt for lost treasure that is somewhere around the island. All three plots come to a head and our eternally braless heroines end up on top, taking a few gold bars on their way to afford the plane repairs. In between all of this you have to imagine a lot of piloting planes, women getting naked to change outfits, a few sex scenes, and a lot of unfunny dialogue. Classic Sidaris.

In spite of how classic it was, we didn't actually win Andy Sidaris Bingo but dang did we come close. The locations were too clear and the dressing sequences kept cutting out before they got excessive:

Spoon Rating: 5

Werewolves On Wheels [1971]

This one has been in the queue for years and with a small group, it made sense to finally knock it off our list. The title is honestly and unfortunately one of the best things about this film. 

The film starts with an extensive scene of motorcycling as our tribe finds itself in some sort of café. One of the characters does a tarot reading for a girl they're with and the result is very bad. After another driving montage, the crew finds themselves in a field near a monastery where a bunch of ominous monks offer focaccia and wine goblets that make them sleep (Adam insisted that the focaccia means they're the good guys because he's an Italian-American stereotype). We got a decently strange sequence of Satanic rituals involving a cat murder (Sarah covered Mara's eyes), chanting, and the girl from before dancing with a snake (Sarah covered her own eyes). In the morning, the crew heads out on the road and we get a bunch of driving scenes interspersed with the occasional disappearance and minor shenanigan as they try to figure out who the werewolf is. Some minor characters die. They light some cars on fire. They wander around sand dunes. Ultimately there were two werewolves. They fight. One of them stops, drops, and rolls through a fire. The end.

It was pretty boring. Could have used more rituals.

Quote: (as part of a eulogy) "She was a good freak"

Spoon Rating: 2

The Underground Doctors [1977] & Welcome To The Streets With Lenny The Lion [1989]

Last Monday was an Occult Demon Cassette double feature. Per Sarah, a medical professional, we started with The Underground Doctors, a Peter Fonda-narrated exploration of various kinds of pseudoscience including dowsing, massage for healing and simulated death, and a bunch of other things. Most memorable, unfortunately was the showing of a human birth within some clearly cult-like group, which Adam needed to look away from. Ultimately, it's a curiosity but not enjoyable.

Spoon Rating: 2

Our second feature, however, was great. We needed something kind of short so we voted on "Welcome to the Streets with Lenny the Lion." This incredibly low budget puppet show is about Lenny moving to the big city where he immediately makes friends with a snake called Snakey and his coke fiend friends, a dog named Ruff and a cat named, amazingly, Cool Cat. We get some really pathetic songs. Snakey tries to get Lenny into crack and then Cool Cat ends up overdosing. Mama Cat gives a tear-filled speech, and we all learn the dangers of drugs. We like to think this was the sequel to Cool Cat Saves The Kids. 

Quote: "Once you die, there's no coming back."

Spoon Rating: 6

Jive Turkey [1974]

A while ago Adam watched all the movies in a 50 pack of Drive-In movies (see: public domain) and decided that there were about three or so errant good ones and four worthy of bad movie night. We have already watched Prisoners of the Lost Universe, Single Room Furnished, and The Guy From Harlem so it was time to finish it up with Jive Turkey a.k.a. Baby Needs A New Pair Of Shoes. Ultimately it might actually be the weakest of the four with Guy From Harlem definitely the best, but Adam explained that after watching that many disappointing films, Jive Turkey looked really good in comparison.

Jive Turkey's premise is established quickly and then the film putters around for an hour and a half. An Italian restaurateur named Tony who deals drugs is trying to get into business with a black guy named Pasha who is a bookie. Pasha's friend, Serene, offs Tony's bodyguard and now they're apparently at war. A lot of vague criminal business happens. There's a very tall, snappy fellow named Sweetman who collects the horse race money from the barber shop, an opium brothel, a pastor who cheats on his wife in the vestry. None of us really know what the point of any of this was. Our favorite characters were this group of five guys who would just randomly appear from an alley and swarm around one of our mains for no reason at all. Eventually we find out that there's a double agent working for Tony and a double agent working for the cops, who care about all of this for some reason that may have to do with a mayoral election? We aren't even sure where this film takes place, by the way, but the license plates all said Ohio. It turns out that Serene, the enthusiastic murderer, was the cop's plant, which we discover after watching her de-drag. Sweetman gets gunned down by Pasha's crew, and we managed to piece together that this was because he was Tony's plant. He was the real jive turkey all along. The film ends there with nothing really resolved.

We got a few laughs from a cameo from a boom mic and from Serene's murdering scenes, but overall this film was too incoherent and didn't have enough camp to really be fun.

Quote: "I've always been arrogant. It's my only fault."

Spoon Rating: 3

The Dalmatians & Nice Cats [1995]

 In the interest of having a surefire good time, we decided to return to the Dingo Pictures well, the super low budget German Disney rip-off factory. While we really wanted to get our hands on "Hercules", with what we had available we decided that a pet-themed double feature would work. Each film was a mere half hour but felt longer.

"The Dalmatians," unlike it's more popular counterpart, only features three Dalmatians, siblings named Toby, Timmy, and Teuful (devil in German). Toby and Timmy get kidnapped by black pitbulls who make them work in a factory "licking and gluing and licking and gluing and licking and gluing..." Their demonic sister teams up with a beagle who gets her in with a gang of dogs who help to look for the missing pups. The gang includes a dog named Tramp who is clearly styled after "Lady And The Tramp," a dog with a weirdly sensual voice, and a bulldog who is completely incomprehensible. An exceedingly annoying bird who acts as our narrator prides herself on not getting involved until she helps free the dogs. Maybe there's a moral there.

Spoon Rating: 6

"Nice Cats" is about some really classist cats going on vacation with their owner. The female kitten ends up walking off on her own and is captured by the cat catcher (a man with a droopy ear, large nose, and "I Love Cats" shirt) and thrown in cat prison where she meets a street cat. In spite of her being an "educated domestic cat" they form a friendship and break out of prison together. The rest of the film involves them trying to get her back home. This film was slightly less amusing than its predecessor because it only had one voice actor who told the plot like a children's story, but it did have the backgrounds from "The Dalmatians," the music from "Alladin," and the Italian and Asian stereotype chefs from "Pocahontas." We are now much more versed in the Dingo Expanded Universe.

Spoon Rating: 5