Announcements and a Double Header Review

Announcements:

Welcome back Sporefans. I've got a couple of announcements to make and then we have not one, but two reviews. First off I have to tell all my loyal readers that I'm heading back to college to finish up my degree. While this means that my writing will improve and hopefully bring even more entertainment to my readers, it also means that I might miss a week or two here and there. Sorry Sporefans, but you don't pay me enough to make this my full time job.

Actually, you don't pay me at all.

Second announcement is the new tag line for the website. Check the top of the site to see our new slogan.

Third, I'm holding a contest. Its time to replace the Spored to Death logo under my profile. I'm holding an open contest to all my readers with artistic talent. Or crayons, I don't care. The contest is to design the new Spored to Death publishing logo. There are only a few criteria for this. It must be original artwork, it must have some sort of mushroom or fungus theme, and it would be preferable if it were somewhat cute. The winner will receive a "Minion" T-Shirt. The contest will run until I get a winner or, after no one enters I get off my butt and make a logo myself.

Which means you have lots of time.

And now for the big announcement. While there will be no review next week, the week between Christmas and New Years, the first review of January will be a MAJOR review. I've been holding out on you Sporefans for some time now. You see, I have a movie so vile, puerile and incredibly awful that even I cringe at the thought of watching it in its entirety.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the first Spored to Death Publishing review for 2007 will be "The Malibu Beach Vampires".

Don't miss this review Sporefans, as it will most undoubtedly leave me a broken and twisted shell of my former self, and as we all know: that's entertainment.

And now for this weeks reviews...


Aliens Gone Wild:

First up we have a little film called "Aliens Gone Wild". I ordered this little gem from our local cable company and paid my $5 to see what all the fuss was about. You've got to love On-Demand: they charge you $5, don't give you a preview, and you have to believe whatever they type in as an accurate description of the movie you're trying to order. Which means even if they're lying through their teeth you've already paid your $5. Now, I'm not saying that my cable company is run by a bunch of incompetent liars.

Wait a minute, that's exactly what I'm saying.

The movie led me to believe that I was ordering something of the caliber of a Naked Gun or Scary Movie picture: full of big name stars doing bit parts around a mediochre comedy. But what I actually got was a montage of clips of other movies which had been sewn together and slapped in a can. I'm sorry, but when I order a movie called "Aliens Gone Wild" I expect to see a bunch of drunk grey aliens lifting up their spacesuits and exposing their chests only to explode (or is it implode?) due to the dreaded vacuum of space. This movie lacked both alien boobs and explosions (implosions?) in deep space, so its a huge letdown in my book.

Also there was no plot in this movie, just the best of the worst movies ever produced by some movie company that I've probably never heard of and that probably never went anywhere. While I did find this "best of the worst" compilation entertaining, it was pretty disappointing when you consider what I thought I was getting. The list of stars even included Demi Moore and George Takei. I saw Demi Moore somewhere in a clip of the movie "Parasite" but George Takei was no where to be found. I refuse to believe that the one chubby Asian guy I saw piloting a giant robot scorpion was George Takei, no matter what was listed on the cable company's credits.















She went from this to doing "Ghost". Demi, what were you thinking? Why would you ever agree to be in "Ghost"? Why, Demi? WHY?!?!


On a side note, I should send Mr. Takei my copy of "Dark Heritage". He may appreciate it more than I do. You know what I mean.

Even more frustrating is the fact that because "Aliens Gone Wild" isn't a movie in the traditional sense, it has no listing on IMDB. So even if someone were entertained enough by a clip to seek out one of the movies they saw, they might not be able to find the full version of the film. Luckily the publishing staff and I were able to pick out some scenes from "Dollman" and the "Trancers" series. This lack of proper credentials really steams my Zoosporic flagellum! But rest assured Sporefans, that I will track down these movies, so I can present their rotten goodness to you all.

One particular clip stands out among the rest. One of the six movies in the "Trancers" series (the fourth movie I believe) takes place in an alternate reality that has not advanced past ye olde medieval times. The Main Character Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) has been transported to this reality to fight the evil "Trancers", who are life force stealing vampires from the future. Unfortunately Jack's ray gun has been damaged, leaving Jack defenseless against the sword wielding Trancers and their human lackeys.














Jack Deth smokes because smoking is cool. You'd smoke too if you did 5 of the 6 movies in the Transer series. Because that would make you cool.


In one of the final scenes of the movie, Jack finally gets his ray gun working and zaps the evil Count who sought to invade Jack's home dimension or some other such nonsense. The Count's son, who has joined the good guys arrives to watch his father... well... just kind of stand there and glow. Realising that this is the end, the son pleads "Forgive me father!" With his dying breath, the Count exclaims viciously "I have no son!".Then, using advanced graphical techniques developed in the era of "Bewitched", "I Dream of Genie" and "Star Trek", the Count suddenly disappears into oblivion, right after disowning his offspring.

I had to stop laughing because if I didn't I'd either have passed out or peed myself. This was the funniest thing's I've seen in years. So Trancer's definitely gets put on the "To Review" list here at Spored to Death Publishing.


House of Blood:

House of Blood is the latest film from director/writer/actor/special effects supervisor Olaf Ittenbach. When I first saw the name Olaf Ittenbach, I knew that it sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place the name. Then I remembered that Olaf was the writer/director for the 2001 stinker "Legion of the Dead". If I've never mentioned Olaf Ittenbach before, there's probably a good reason. Here's a good reason: "Legion of the Dead" was painfully bad. I haven't reviewed Legion because I saw it well before I began doing my reviews, but rest assured that one day it will receive the thrashing it deserves.

Lets move on to slightly greener pastures. "House of Blood" is not all that bad. Its a movie about a group of convicts who escape from a prison transport when it collides with a car. The convicts take the driver as a hostage and soon discover that he is a doctor, which is fortunate because one of them was unlucky enough to take a bullet in the arm. They wander about the woods of Washington trying to cross the border into Canada when they happen upon a cabin. The cabin is occupied by a family of backwards folk who look like they belong in the fjords of Scandinavia or some such place. The convicts take over the cabin, brandishing the firearms that they pilfered from the transport, giving the doctor time to amputate the arm of the prisoner who was shot.

Then, everyone turns into vampires.

This story sounds very familiar to me, as if I've seen or heard it somewhere before. Oh, wait. I know! This is the plot of "From Dusk till Dawn" only it takes place on the Canadian-US border and not just past the US-Mexico border. Also, all the things that made "From Dusk till Dawn" cool are completely missing in the Ittenbach translation.

So after the doctor, our protagonist, escapes from the jaws of the bloodthirsty undead, he is captured by the police. The police decide to take the good doctor into custody as a murder suspect on a collection of evidence that an 8 year old child could refute in a court of law. It is at this point that B-movie legend Jurgen Prochnow enters as a hard nosed cop asking the doctor some tough questions. Jurgen delivers his lines like a pro, collects his check and exits stage left for greener pastures. Lets hope that Mr. Prochnow's check doesn't bounce.

Jurger Prochnow asks Christopher Kriesa some tough questions. Questions like, "Where's my money?" and "When's Olaf's check gonna clear?" I wouldn't wanna be Kriesa right now.

So this gets us about 40 or so minutes into the movie. But wait! This movie is scheduled to run for 90 minutes! How will the writer/director/actor/whatever fill the remainder of the movie? What could he possibly do that will keep the audience entertained? What could possibly top the vampire attack sequence?

Are you stumped?

Well, I think that Olaf sure was stumped because he puts the good doctor in jail, which gets him on a prison transport on the exact same route as the first one and the whole movie happens all over again. New convicts, new injury (shot to the groin), same old plot.

Now a good circular plot isn't a bad thing. Its a nice way to leave the audience with a feeling that even though everything is all wrapped up the story will continue after the end of the movie. However, the idea behind a circular plot is that because the audience knows the story already, they don't need to sit through it a second time. Olaf! Learn to pad out your script!

This movie wasn't an atrocious piece of crap like Legion of the Dead; and it might be interesting to see how Olaf evolves as a writer/director/monkey/evil henchman of the dread-knuckled Uwe Boll, but the problems in this movie should have been ironed out in pre-production. Like in the script writing phase. This is what happens when you edit your own work.

Remember when Jurger Prochnow played "Captain Kirk" on the big screen? No? What's the matter with you? Go see "House of the Dead", or Uwe Boll will beat you up!

Did I mention that Mrs. Ittenback plays the lead female vampire trying to convert the vampires into non-human blood drinking vampires? What a nice rack. I mean Lady! Yeah, that's what I meant. A nice lady... who tries to get the vampires to only drink the blood of animals. Its like the vampire version of veganism, only with blood.

House of Blood is definitely a step up for the Ittenbach family. Lets hope that whatever movie Olaf decides to rip off next is as improved as this movie was over Legion of the Dead.

Dark Heritage

Welcome back, Sporefans. Today we have another exciting review in store for you. This week we'll be taking a look at the movie "Dark Heritage". This 1989 stinker comes all the way from Louisiana and let me tell you, there's no shortage of stink here. To start off, after I popped this movie into my DVD player I was treated to the sight of a pop-up screen before the main title which informed me that I was about to watch a movie entitled "DRAK Heritage". Confused, I looked at the box for the DVD and then back at the screen. Sure enough, the box said "Dark Heritage" and the screen displayed "Drak Heritage". A moment later, the chapter menu appeared and the title was corrected, but I knew that this was the sign of a great movie review.











Drak Heritage.


This movie is full of conflict, and what I mean to say by that is that this movie is conflicted. In fact, the title screen is the least conflicted part of this movie. There are several conflicts going on in this movie, such as Man vs. Authority, Man vs. Monsters and Man vs. his own repressed homosexual urges. Lots and lots of repressed homosexual urges.

After the introductory murders of a couple of bit players, the movie attempts to introduce Clint, who is a reporter sent to investigate the gruesome killings. Clint's employer, a creepy newspaper editor in a bad 70's suit and sunglasses has Clint pick up two guys who also work at the newspaper and drive out to an old mansion that local legends say are connected to the killings. Clint and the guys are ordered to take some time out there at the mansion and "see what happens". I'd like to provide names for these characters, but the sound quality was so bad I could hardly understand what was going on. For the sake of clarification, lets just call them "big gay guy" and "little gay guy with a mustache".

So the three amigos set off in a car older than God and drive out to the mansion. On the way, they have themselves a conversation about what they might encounter out in the spooky house. All the talk of the recent creepy events prompts little gay guy with a mustache to pull a magnum out of his pants.

The gun kind, not the condom kind.

We are thus supplied with our first phallic image of the movie, and there are a great many more to come. After the three amigos set up their video camera to "catch the exploits", Clint and the big gay guy take a nap (separately) while mustachio man watches them sleep. Eventually mustache man gets sleepy, and he wakes up the big gay guy to ask him to take over guard duty. Mustache guy tries to convince the big guy to "take his gun", but the big guy insists that the tiny little switchblade (phallic image # 2) he has in his pocket is enough protection. After a brief lover's quarrel, the big guy takes the gun, proving that he is the woman of this relationship.










Is this old man Dansen, or that muppet Waldorf? I can't tell.


Clint wakes up to find the dynamic duo missing during a fierce lightning storm. When it becomes apparent that they aren't off spending some "quality time" together, Clint decides to go back home with the video tape of the night's events.

Cut to Clint in a meeting with his creepy newspaper editor/father figure who tells Clint to forget the whole thing and take 3 weeks off with pay. What a nice man, I wonder if he has some ulterior motives.

After that, Clint decides to watch the videotape in the privacy of his own home. We are treated to a scene with Clint rewinding and re-watching the tape over and over as the big gay guy is knocked down and dragged off camera by some unseen force. It should be noted that only one of Clint's hands are visible during this entire scene.

Then Clint decides to go hang out a the local library. While reading a book about "this old house" (now kind of known to the viewers as the Dansen place), a couple of guys walk over and one of them proceeds to stand close behind Clint while reading over his shoulder in a most inapropriate way. After a brief argument, the two guys introduce themselves as paranormal investigators. Again, there's one with a beard and one with a polo shirt.

How about using a microphone other than the one attached to the camera, guys? Seriously, there's almost no understandable dialogue in the whole movie!

After discussing all the rumors and details of the old Dansen place, Clint and the new dynamic duo decide that the only logical thing to do... is completely ignore the house that they've been studying and investigate the campsite where the murders at the beginning of the movie took place. With flawless logic guiding them, the new super-friends hunt about the campgrounds. They find some fascinating clues, among them: a small pile of dirt with a small impression in the middle of it, and abandoned camper, and some rocks and sticks and other such crap that no one wanted.

This is the first time the movie reveals one of its primary means of plot development. Sometimes a character will suddenly pull a vital piece of information out from between their buttocks, for no apparent reason. This is usually reserved for important information that would have a major impact on the plot, but the writers have forgotten to mention for some reason.

Perhaps early senility is a problem in Louisiana.

As the team investigates the campgrounds, one of the paranormal guys says, "Hey, don't all the attacks occur during lightning storms? I think they do!", and the other one says, "Hey look! There's a storm blowing in! We'd better take cover in that camper!". The storm isn't the only thing that blows in this movie, as many more important plot points materialize out of some very bad dialogue. And when I say bad dialogue, I mean angsty teenage girl writing a fan-fic for Beverly Hills 90210 because she totally thinks that by expressing her feelings in writing Luke Perry will totally come to her and fall in love- bad.

The storm hits and the trio takes up temporary residence in the camper. In a scene so predictable that even its comical value is lost, polo guy peers out of the camper door during the storm and has his face ripped off. Somehow, despite all logic pointing to the contrary, Clint convinces bearded gay guy to bury his dead friend in a shallow grave in the middle of the woods. What a nice friend!

Now the reason I've explained so much of the plot is so that I could go over the dream sequence. Yes, there is a very, very, very gay dream sequence right in the middle of this movie. In the dream, Clint walks into the old Dansen place and finds his friends wandering around, all of whom appear dead. While the make up artist probably intended for Clint's friends to appear dead, the actual result is that the guys look like they are wearing way too much mascara and lip stick which makes them even more gay than when they were alive. In the dream big dead gay guy, little dead gay guy with a mustache and gay guy in a polo shirt now without a face all gang up on Clint and "get" him, making him wake up in a cold sweat.

As the movie progresses, bearded gay guy and Clint have a few lover's spats and finally decide that the best way to solve the mystery is to do some grave robbing. They find the old abandoned Dansen cemetery and dig one of the graves up to find, take a guess, an empty coffin. Under the coffin is a tunnel. After some more arguing, the guys decide to crawl into the tunnel and see where it leads (although even they mention that the tunnel probably leads directly to the old Dansen place). At first, the viewer might be concerned that our two on-screen buddies are about to crawl into an ill designed hole in the middle of the woods. But after about 5 seconds you'll notice that the "tunnel" is very obviously constructed of chicken wire and brown paper mache.

After crawling around the tunnel like a couple of hamsters, these two lost boys encounter one of the creatures. In probably the only redeeming shot in the movie, the creature remains just at the edge of the range of the flashlight, so that only it glowing eyes and fangs are visible. This is when bearded gay guy produces yet another phallic symbol from his backpack, a Desert Eagle. Of course, no one actually shoots at the monster because this movie couldn't obtain a fire arms permit. They wave the gun menacingly for a few seconds before the monster escapes.

Eventually, after spending a night huddled together "for warmth", the ambiguously gay duo find themselves back at the old Dansen place. Another lightning storm forces them to hide under the sheets that protect the furniture from dust. The monsters emerge from a door in the ground and run about the mansion like a bunch of monkeys on crack. One glance reveals that the monsters are simply wearing the same full black body-suits that the nihilists are wearing int he dream sequence from "The Big Lebowski" topped off with some dime store ghoul masks.The makeshift furniture forts that conceal the heroes prove not to be monster proof however, and bearded gay guy is eaten alive.

In the movies most anti-climactic climax, Clint confront's his boss, who is a decended from the Dansen family and has been covering up their dirty little secret. The creepy boss man tells Clint that "he's always liked Clint" and begs him to drop this story, but ultimately they wind up in a farcical fight. Both men draw guns, and when the only gunshot in the entire movie is fired, its accomplished be recording the sound of a phone book being dropped onto a table and played back while a close up shot of Clint's face is on screen. Both men stare at each other until creepy boss man hits the floor. Clint turns to see the creepy boss man's wife, who "always suspected that there was something wrong with her husband". It was she who fired the fatal shot, bringing an end 94 god-awful minutes of pain and anguish.

While the credits roll, you might suddenly become aware that during the entire film there were only 5 women on screen. There was one in the camper with her boyfriend who gets killed, a librarian with no speaking lines, two extras who are seen only in a distant shot outside the library and the creepy editors wife. These five women together only have about 4-5 minutes of screen time. The remaining 90 minutes of this movie are a total sausage fest. Couple that with the obvious couples spats that occur between the all male cast and you can't deny that Dark Heritage not only has issues, but that this movie might be better off staying in the closet, never again seeing the light of day.

G-Men from Hell

I get a lot of people who ask me "Why do you watch these movies?". I think that I need to stop telling people what I do with my spare time. If I wasn't an asexual fungus, I might be concerned that I'd frighten away most members of the opposite sex. Its a good thing that I only need to spread a bunch of spores and hope they find the right amount of humidity and a nice dark place to fester!

Well, I'd like to address this question as I begin this next review. You see, Sporefans, every bad little movie I watch is a small piece of entertainment that got made despite the fact that the creators never had a big Hollywood budget, or professional actors, or a studio, equipment, talent, etc., etc... But through perseverance and hard work, and probably through a few deeds better left unmentioned, someone has the drive to push their project though against all odds, only to have the fruit of their labor wind up on the back of the discount movie rack. Now in most cases, this is exactly where a movie belongs, because its a piece of crap. But every once in a while you find a real diamond amidst all the poop.

Now for the last few reviews I've taken it easy by reviewing some of the great Kaiju films of my youth, which is probably how I wound up doing movie reviews in the first place. But this week's all new review is right off the $3.99 shelf from the local Walgreen's. Little did I know that what I held in my hands was a complicated nexus of the B-movie world which seems to have seeped down from the streets of Hollywood through the cracks of time until it came to its final resting place.

On my movie shelf nestled between "Beast of the Yucca flats" and "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger beyond the Moon".















I speak, of course, of the movie from the year 2000 that almost no one has heard of, much less seen; Michael Allred's "G-Men from Hell". This movie is a veritable web of "Hey I know that guy from somewhere" as almost every member of the cast has had a part in a major work in their career. Lets start with William Forsythe as Dean Crept and Tate Donovan as Mike Mattress, the two G-Men in question. Forsythe has had a steady career since the 1980's and Donovan was not only the voice of Disney's "Hercules", but was also in the recent Academy award nominated movie "Good Night and Good Luck".

But wait! There's more!

Not only does this movie sport Forsythe and Donovan as the main characters, it also boasts Gary Busey as, and I quote, "...a sadistic leather master homosexual..."cop, and Robert Goulet as the devil himself. These men are household names, so I don't need to point out the large body of works that each of them has. Busey alone is a complicated nexus of the B-movie world. In a parallel universe people are playing the six degrees of separation game with Gary Busey instead of Kevin Bacon.











A new look for Busey.











Robert Goulet is very disappointed that you didn't see this movie.


Not enough cheese for you? Well there's also Kari Wuhrer as Marete, the G-Men's new and enthusiastic secretary. You may recognize Wuhrer from her role from TV's "Sliders", or as the spider squishing sheriff from the movie "Eight legged freaks". There's also Vanessa Angel as Gloria Lake, the ditzy wife of aging millionaire Greydon Lake (Barry Newman). You might have seen Ms. Angel in some of here more famous movies produced on the Sci-Fi channel, like "Sabertooth", "Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys", and also from the 1996 bowling comedy "Kingpin".
















Mrs. Gloria Lake does... um... stuff...
...
Yeah...
...


Still want some more stars? Well how about Bob "Bobcat" Goldthwait as a petty drug dealer named "Buster" who winds up getting himself shot to death by the G-Men, only to be re-incarnated in the body of a giant pink (well, reddish actually) robot. Comedian Paul Rodriguez also gets some screen time as "Weenie Man", an inept demon sent to Earth to retrieve the G-Men. And how about that Dr. Boifford? Doesn't he look exactly like the Big Lebowski from the movie "The Big Lebowski"? Well that's because he is the Big Lebowski, Lebowski.












No you damn puppet, I'm the big Lebowski!


Now let me show you what happens when you SPORE a stranger in the ass.

Oh, and I saved the best for last. Did I mention that this movie was directed by a Coppola? Yes, Christopher Coppala, nephew of the famous Francis-Ford Coppola and brother of Nicholas Cage. Of course, that means that his cousin was Sofia Coppola, whose movie "Lost in Translation" loses something in translation.











If you don't come back to Hell with me, the devil will make me watch "Lost in Translation" for 10,000 years. Its so UNRESOLVED!!!


Now with all this star power behind it, you'd have to figure that there is something seriously wrong with this movie to wind up on the $3.99 rack. That either the production quality was so bad or the script was so terrible that nothing could save this movie. But as you watch G-Men from Hell, you begin to realize that the script, while cheesy, isn't bad. There are no lines that leave you writhing in pain and no huge, out of paradigm plot holes, just a fun but over the top movie.

The production values are cheap, but there's nothing here that you wouldn't see in an old Roger Corman picture. Sure, hell is a sound stage in Hollywood, but who's to say Hell really isn't a sound stage in Hollywood. You know that Satan: full of irony!










Cheetah man gets a helping hand from an off screen grip. Either that or he's being felt up. Haha, felt get it?
.... (sigh) No love.

In fact, one of the moments that really impressed me about G-Men from Hell was when I realized that the movie not only had a coherent timeline that progressed over the course of 46 hours (48 hours was already taken), but instead of trying to force the time of day in some scenes with blue filters, the crew actually went out at 4-5am in California and shot in the wii hours of the dawn. Pretty impressive when you take into account that setup for those scenes could have started as early as 11 or 12 o'clock the night before.

G-Men from Hell is a movie that could become a cult classic. If you can find a copy out there, be sure to create a cult. Just don't drink the Kool-Aid.