Week Three - October Horror Movie Challenge

Day 15 - PUPPET MASTER II: HIS UNHOLY CREATIONS (1991). Oh Day 15, how I hardly remember you. Puppet Master II, what a shit show. Or maybe it's all the booze talking. In recent months, I've been revisiting some of these Full Moon Productions I loved so much in early nineties and realizing I was a very different person in the early nineties. (But I still dress relatively the same - boots, leggings, plaids.) There's an Egyptian brain serum and some side love plot involving reincarnation of a lost love (isn't there always?) but not enough here to keep me awake for very long.



Day 16 - HISSS (2010) directed by Jennifer Lynch. Think Bollywood without the singing and dancing crossed with what? A snake goddess hellbent on revenge towards a wealthy old white dude with brain cancer that stole her snake lover while they were doing sex so she would pursue him and offer him an immortality stone in exchange for her lover. Yep. That's what this is crossed with. And it might sound like a good time (the snake goddess in human form is impossibly hot, as well) it's pretty craptacular. Cheap, cheap, cheap, but there are some good gore gags and the snake transformations are actually pretty nice. Not what you would expect from David Lynch's offspring, given her other work, but whatever.



Day 17 - John Carpenter's THE THING (1982). Duh.



Day 18 - THANKSKILLING (2009). Recommended to me by my bar partner, who inexplicably smells EVERYTHING and has a serious fascination with boobs. (He drew a crude set on my birthday card last year.) This god-awful, but self-aware, horror movie making at its best (worst?) makes Troma look like they have a high class sense of humor. If you ever wanted to hear a turkey hand puppet say 'nice tits, bitch' then look no further. Misogynistic, poorly acted, over-the-top on purpose, and offensive as the day, this one clocks in at just 66 minutes, which seriously feels like an eternity, but not in a bad way. How many Jon Benet Ramsey jokes can you take in an hour? Watch this and find out.



Day 19 - CARNY (2009). Starring Lou Diamond Phillips as a small town sheriff with an escaped cryptozoological beast on his hands. Maybe or may not be the Jersey devil, because it escaped from a truck at a carnival with Jersey plates. Nice try, crappy script. Sideshow stuff is cool, but I do find it hard to believe such an outfit would hit upon small, religious town Reliant aka Bumfuck Nowhere, USA. All characters are either assholes or you don't care about them, so when they become monster food, you continue with your game of Angry Birds and try to give even less of a shit.



Day 20 - THE BLACK CAT (1934). Bela Lugosi birthday = Bela Lugosi movie. Horror stalwarts Karloff and Lugosi out evil each other over the affections of a young newlywed. Awesome set design, awesome performances, some very Caligari-like imagery, a cat, and a Karloff flaying. Good, good, good stuff.



Day 21- GUTTERBALLS (2008). I wish I could tell you how much I loved this because the MANIAC inspired cover makes me giddy with glee, but it was Friday night, I worked until 3 a.m. and had to be up at 9 a.m. so I probably watched all of ten minutes. I awoke to the DVD menu starting over and no recollection of what had just transpired. It still counts, because this is my blog. I still have the DVD, so a repeat watching will take place.

There's the third week. Started slacking there towards the end, what with two late night bar shifts and the anticipation of birthday celebrations (read: drunkenness) getting in the way. But I'm still in. Don't tag me out yet.

Reasons Why Sssssss is Fucking Awesome

1. It features a snake-obsessed mad scientist antagonist named Dr. Stoner.

2. There is a carnival/fair/sideshow element integrated into the mad scientist plot.

3. A man is turned into a snake, not only once, but twice (it's two different dudes, sorry if I didn't really word that correctly), and we get to see the results at varying times.

4. Heather Menzie's hair. Seriously, what is up with her hair? It's horrible, but also awesome.

5. It's from the seventies.

6. It's name is an onomatopoeia and how often do I get to say that, both the word 'onomatopoeia' and that a title of a film is one?

7. The man snake looks fucking creepy and rad, even though he's sad because he's in the freak show.

8. All the snake milking scenes (of which there was a certain sideshow quality to as well) were apparently real. That, and I got to use the words 'snake milking' in a sentence and attest to their reality.

9. There's a mongoose, who eventually saves the day, if you count taking down the man-snake and subsequent object of Heather Menzie's character's affection as saving the day, which I do.

10. There's a love plot involving a half-reptile/half-man and Heather Menzies.


The only way this could have been better is if Ray Milland had showed up.

Expound on your Sssssss love in the comments.

Black Cobra Woman

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Friday night, and it's time to celebrate because I'm off work, I just poured a too-large vodka and ginger, and I'm ready to take you on a super sexy (subject to opinion) journey into what as known as Black Cobra Woman, staring my lovely Indonesian crush from 70's sexploitation, Laura Gemser, and the venerable Jack Palance.

BCW begins as the sultry Eva (Gemser) arrives in Hong Kong. She met a charming young gent on the plane, Jules (played by real-life husband and frequent collaborator Gabriele Tinti - who I find strangely sorta sexy, in a smokes too many cigarettes and could possibly get rough kinda way), who is immediately enchanted with her. I would be too, she's an exotic dancer who specializes in the ancient art of dancing naked with large snakes, the reptile that is. Jules vows to see her show at a club that evening and runs home to tell his brother, Judas (Palance) about Eva.

It really couldn't be more convenient, because by trade, Judas is a snake curator and collector. He has many poisonous varieties in his palatial apartment and also happens to be a billionaire. Jules and Judas go to watch Eva dance that evening and Judas is immediately smitten. He must have Eva for his collection. Later that evening, he catches Eva's eye at a restaurant but she's too busy feeling up a Chinese woman under the table. Eva winds up retiring alone to her hotel room to have a masturbation fantasy involving her nakey snake dance and the aforementioned Chinese woman.

Judas somehow procures Eva's digits and gives her a ring, inviting her to lunch. Ever the stalker, he picks her favorite restaurant and orders all her favorite dishes before she arrives. She's impressed, but when he puts his offer on the table, that is, to come live with him and do whatever she pleases, no strings attached, she's a little off put. I was, like, come on sister, he doesn't want sex or nothing! Take the deal! She does accompany him back to his apartment to see his snakes, again, the reptiles, and she seems bored to tears. She tells him he's a little scary and he goes on some rant about the fear of fascination, quotes Oscar Wilde a little bit, and tells her he'll always respect her.

Eva's still not buying it - she wants to know why. Seems Judas likes the scent of her, he actually says that, and she leaves abruptly. She returns to her hotel room where a Chinese man who she has apparently been in a relationship with, beats her mercilessly for cheating on him. She lets him mount her and do his thing for about thirty seconds with a vacant look in her eyes. It's here when she decides to take Judas up on his offer.

Jules, who totally has a thing for Eva as well, warns Judas that women are dangerous. Honestly, Eva doesn't seem all that dangerous at all. She's a essentially a stripper, sure, but she's really not a bad person, strippers are people too. Judas, however, couldn't be more thrilled. He's totally taken with Eva and decides to have a big party in her honor so she can make some friends in Hong Kong.

At the party, Eva meets Jerry, a fairly attractive blond woman studying Chinese medicine. Eva is immediately taken with Jerry and for the rest of the movie they get nekkid massages (with toys!) together, take rickshaw rides, as well as soapy showers, and have lots of girl-girl fun, 70's softcore style.

Well, seems since Jules has the hots for Eva, he gets a little jealous of Jerry and decides to release Judas' most deadly snake, the green mamba, into the girls' bedroom. Jerry wakes up, senses the snake in the room, has a total meltdown, and the snake, sensing her fear, bites her, killing her instantly, save for a little foaming at the mouth. Eva's heartbroken and vows silent revenge.

Here's where it gets interesting. Sure, lots of lesbian softcore is totally cool with me, even the pubic hair doesn't bother me. And the exotic locations are pretty cool. But what I really want to see is Laura Gemser getting all revenge-y on some Jules. Which she does in kind.

Knowing Jules released the snake into the room, she seduces him and tells Judas she and Jules are going on vacation to the island where she was born. Once secluded in a fisherman's hut with a couple of natives, Eva allows one of the natives to pleasure her orally while the other strums a guitar nearby. Jules, getting a little jealous once again, sidles up to Eva and takes over. As he's doing his thing, a native grabs him and holds his hands behind his back, while the other shoves a venomous cobra up his ass per Eva's request.

All is not done, however, in that Eva returns to Judas telling him how his brother perished. Judas is fairly non-plussed but still thinks Eva's changed from when he first met her and decides to end the relationship. Knowing which side her bread is buttered on, Eva's all like, well, let me borrow the green mamba for my act, it'll be sexy, so she starts dancing with that dangerous piece of shit, and it bites her, killing her instantly.

Okay, can we not even go biblical with this? Judas? Eva? Snakes? Sexy times? I don't know. I've been working a lot and I was super tired when I watched this. It's a far cry from the usual Laura Gemser/Joe D'Amato/Emmanuel movies I'm normally used to from these guys. It's not an Emmanuel movie, but it might as well be. There's lots of softcore lesbian action and someone gets penetrated by a snake (which happens in those flicks more often than you might think). There's also a couple of different exotic locations, making it look a lot more expensive than it actually probably was. It's got everything that an Emmanuel movie's normally got, except Laura's Eva here and not a journalist. Ah well, I was still entertained in my vodka and Tylenol PM just worked a double stupor. And even though Laura's too skinny, I still think she's hawt. And Palance has just the right amount of creepy lecherousness that I found very hilarious. I wonder if he's ever like, yeah, remember when I made that movie with Emmanuel? Probably not.