1989 - 83m.
Canada 
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Guy and his friend go to his brothers house to drink a ton of beer and
end up having to fight some ant-like sharp-toothed creatures that were
born of the brother's sickly wife.
Every once and a while along comes an obscure bargain basement
shot-on-video horror that's so utterly awful and inept it makes me
giddy with delight and has me rolling on the floor in hysterics, this
one takes the cake.
It could be the fuzzy sound dubbing, it could be the constantly awful
dialogue, maybe it's the muddy filmstock, or perhaps it's the Casio
keyboard music, heck it could even be the scientist with the to die for
lame evil laugh to end evil laughs and of course there's the pathetic
paper-mache effects and laughable sound effects to consider...yep no
doubt about it this is possibly the worst horror film ever made. So
pathetic you wonder if the filmmakers weren't aware they were making
this piece of cinematic shit during filming, but it's the perfect "so
bad, it's good" film for lovers of bad cinema.
Just to share my favourite moments of godawful fun: when the characters
watch a horror movie on TV and comment "this is stupid" which could
apply to this entire movie, why porn star Amber Lynn (apparently making
her "mainstream movie debut") is in this because all she does is read
news stories while her eyes flitter back and forth to the cue cards,
when a character says his friend was pulled through a mousehole to
another dimension while nonchalantly paper-towling blood from all over
him, why everyone is so unconcerned about being in the house with the
monsters, the chainsaw creature killin', the character commenting
"you've been watching too many horror movies" when it's apparent the
people responsible for this need to see much much more of them and the
fact we have the most inactive creatures in history that crawl around
slower than a snail and at times are "sleeping" according to our
so-called "hero".
If you can find this get it just to see how wretched it really is.
Directed By: Andrew Jordan.
Written By: Barry J. Gillis, Andrew Jordan.
Starring: Barry J. Gillis, Amber Lynn, Doug Bunston, Bruce Roach.
THINGS IS ON THIS LIST FROM THE VIDEO GRAVEYARD AND IS NOW ON DVD
Thanks to the DVD format over the last couple of years
we’ve
seen movies you’d never expect to see again being released and it’s
given small
time distributors the ability to put out their products on a cheaper,
more
accesible, format. This, of course, means more obscure, forgotten, and
downright underappreciate movies that have been out-of-print on video
(or not even on video) for years have been given a new life.
But you know that no matter how many gems end-up appearing on DVD (the
most recent one I can think of I was happy to see come out was The Ice Pirates - yeah, I saw this in theatres in 1984!), there’s always going to be ones that are on your "Most Wanted" list.
So as an ongoing feature here on The Graveyard
I’ve decided to compile a list of movies I’d like to see on DVD - the
list will be updated periodically (as I remember the movies) and any
updates on the status of the films will be noted also.
THE LIST
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Night Of The Creeps [1986] - Date Added:
02/19/05
I'm sure Fred Dekker's high energy horror/comedy is on
many people's list to come out on DVD, and I'm not even
sure why it isn't out already!
A college campus is attacked by killer slugs from outer space and it
results in possessed zombie attacks, over-the-top comedy, and some of
the more quotable lines in horror history ("the good news is your
dates are here..." and "skreeming rike banshees!").
Released by TriStar pictures and put out on video by HBO, this has
enough big studio pedigree to warrant a DVD release. But so far, nothing.
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Phantasm II [1988] - Date Added:
02/19/05
Sure, the first Phantasm movie was an entertaining romp that
managed to mostly rise above it’s low-budget, but it wasn’t until 1988’s
Phantasm II that the series hit it’s stride.
Taking everything that was good about the first movie (mainly Angus
Scrimm’s "Tall Man" and those awesome blood-draining flying spheres), adding a
higher budget, and ramping up the comedy; Phantasm II is that rare sequel that
rises above the original.
MGM
did a great job bringing the first movie to DVD as a well done special
edition and they also released the forth film on disc, but so far
there’s been no sightings of the second or third movies. Hard to believe since Universal put them out.
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Demonic Toys [1991] - Date Added:
02/19/05
Maybe one day Charles Band will get his act together (and
pull his company out of the gutter, which is where it’s sat for the last bunch
of years) and release some of the titles he put out early in Full Moon’s career
(when they had a distribution deal with Paramount) on DVD.
Sure, not all his early efforts were great,
and a lot of them were downright rip-offs, but the movies in the span of 1989-1994
at least had more effort put into them than later Full Moon offerings.
Since the first Puppet Master movie is on
disc already, I’d have to go with Demonic Toys as the Full Moon movie
I’d most like on DVD. How could you not like people trapped in a warehouse filled with Satanic killer toys?
It was an amusing low-budget romp and certainly better than the "crossover" sequel, Dollman Vs. The Demonic Toys.
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I Come In Peace [1990] - Date Added:
02/19/05
When
you think Dolph Lundgren you instantly think direct-to-video action
drivel. But I’ve always thought of him as a better actor than both
Steven Segal and Jean-Claude Van Damme and he has actually made some
decent movies in his day (we’ll forgive
Masters Of The Universe).
I Come In Peace is one of those movies and one I’ve wanted on DVD for almost as long as Night Of The Creeps.
Dolph plays a tough big city cop who has to team-up with an alien cop (shades of The Hidden,
anyone?) to go after a deadly alien (the imposing Matthias Hues) who is
using a large, pointy arm device that he sticks into people’s heads to
drain their
brain fluid. Oh, and he also has these pretty damn fly killer CD
things. Plus
there’s a well done car chase (not surprisingly considering it was
directed by former stunt man Craig R. Baxley) and how could you pass up
the chance to see
Dolph emote? |
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Cemetery Man [1993] - Date Added:
02/19/05
When you think of outrageous horror/comedy movies filled with over-the-top gore you instantly think of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. Well you can add my next selection to that list with Michele Soavi’s romp, Cemetery Man (or Dellamorte Dellamore if you please).
Rupert
Everett is the caretaker at a local cemetery and it’s his job to return
the dead to their graves because they come back as zombies seven days
after being buried. This leads to all sorts of pleasing "head damage",
but it’s the films bizarre sense of humour and wacky plot (he ends up
falling in love with a zombie) that endured it to me so much. It was one of my favourites of 1993 and needs a long overdue UNRATED release on DVD.
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Things [1989] - Date Added:
02/19/05
Finally, for this first edition, I’d like to close-up with a
what’s got to be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. A movie so bad that you can’t help but love it - yes, I’m taking about 1989’s Things.
Made
in my homeland, Canada, this has a bunch of friends having to fight
some ant-like creatures (really just barely animated paper mache
creations) who were birthed
by our hero’s brother’s wife. It’s all a complete mess with something
to do with a mousehole that leads to another dimension and porn star
Amber Lynn embarassing herself more than Traci Lords in her first
attempt at "legit" film - heck, there’s too much here to even start
talking about it. But I wouldn’t hesitate in buying this on DVD at all. Plus co-writer/star Barry J. Gillis loves our review(!).
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