There's so much awesome stuff happing in town this week we had to tell you all about it! We don't have anything to do with these screenings but we couldn't let a week like this go by without bringing it to the attention of our fellow fans of cinema!
Tuesday August 24th The Burbs, on The Happy Gnome patio, FREE, Starts @ Sundown.
presented by Trash Film Debauchery and Indeed Brewing Company.
Trash Films and Indeed Brewing have been screening movies on the patios of local bars all summer, and this week's flick is killer! If you haven't revisited this one since Rick Ducommum passed away a few months ago, you really should. Its a not only great movie but its one of his all time great performances.
Made in between Basket Case and Frankenhooker by the incomparable Frank Henenlotter, Brain Damage fits between it's sibling movies in tone pretty well as a goofy-fun creature movie. Don't miss a chance to see this horror-comedy classic on the big screen in a room full of fans!
Friday August 28th -Sept 3rd
Turbo Kid at Theatres at Mall of America.
This movie looks INCREDIBLE! Made in 2014 to look like a post apocalyptic future perceived from the 80's, and looks to be a mashup of Mad Max and Rad. Theatres at MOA were able to get it for a week and are the only one in town. In fact we are one of a very limited number of cities to get it! (CAUTION: We've been told by a parent who's seen it, this is not a kid's movie.)
There are soo many movies starring Santo its hard to keep them straight, but this one also stars Blue Demon and together they battle: The Mummy, Frankenstien, a Vampire, The Wolfman and a friggin' Cyclops!
This is another genre mash-up movie with future prison and human hunting elements. This genre mash-up is made extra exciting when filmmakers actually shoot live rounds at the actors...
The plot unfolds something like this: Select inmates in a co-ed prison are given the opportunity to end their imprisonment. The only catch? A group of ultra-rich big game hunters have paid for the opportunity to hunt these potential free men and women. Who will come out triumphant in this game of cat and mouse?
Things to watch for: A chess set with pieces the size of house cats. Live ammo being fired at an actor hanging from a cliff face. Fun caricaturization of ultra-rich big game hunters. Lots of satisfying kills. A half man, half beast hunting partner who likes to eat toes.
Things to look away for: There's an unnecessary amount of sexual violence threatened on Olivia Hussey's character, though they (thankfully) don't follow through with any of it on camera.
The UK to the rescue: Apparently the American and Australian release of Escape 2000 were pretty lackluster, but in the UK it was re-packaged as Blood Camp Thatcher (as a reference to the movie's prison warden Charles Thatcher and UK Prime Minister at the time Margaret Thatcher) and it made a killing.
What we wouldn't give to see this movie at an actual drive-in! It's not the best of the Ozploitation but if we ever get to schedule a line up at a drive-in, this is on our list to play last! The social commentary juxtaposed with the new-wave/punk elements mostly make up for the go-nowhere plot and lack of pre-climax action and the final car stunt is pretty epic, which is a pretty good recipe for brainless fun.
The plot unfolds something like this: With crime waves sweeping the city, police have teamed up with local drive-in owners to convert their theaters into prison camps. Social misfits, petty criminals, and unemployed youth are loured in with the promise of food, shelter, and entertainment, but the catch is, they're never allowed to leave. Local health nut Crabs apparently has no knowledge of the new direction the drive-ins are taking, he just remembers the fun hangout of his youth and wants to take his new girlfriend Carmen on a trip down memory lane. If only they knew this trip was one way...
Totally a youth, not a 35 year old: The lead in this film, Ned Manning, allegedly informed filmmakers he was 24 to get the part. In actuality he was 36.
Possible modern throw back: Mad Max: Fury Road has a few nods to other Ozploitation movies (The Cars That Ate Paris for instance) and that leads me to wonder if the Fury Road "Warboys" get their name from the Dead End Drive-in "Carboys".
Expensive car stunts: It would hardly be an Ozploitation movie without a car crash, the final stunt of this flick was both costly and record setting. At the end of the film stunt man Guy Norris jumps a truck an impressive 162 feet, through a twentyish foot neon sign, giving the stunt with a price tag of $75,000.
Another list of Australian genre movies you should really check out! Howling III: How do you spice up a dull werewolf franchise? With kangaroo werewolves! The second Howling installment was so supremely bad it makes us wonder how the third got green-lit (with the same director attached even), but that doesn't change the fact that now you totally want to see Howling III, like right now.
Things to watch for: A unflinching weremarsupial birthing scene were the filmmakers put a mouse in a tiny werewolf costume and... actually, you should maybe turn away for that.
That movie was a book?!: Well, The Howling was a book trilogy, but it didn't feature were-marsupials.
You might recognize: Frank Thring (Ben-Hur, Max Max: Beyond Thunderdome, The Man from Hong Kong).
Chain Reaction: A nuclear-waste storage facility suffers a breach after an earthquake and nuclear waste is headed straight for the ground water. One facility engineer knows the danger that thousands of people are in and is desperately trying to warn the public. His boss, on the other hand, would rather just keep the whole thing quiet. Will the local towns people be warned in time?
Things to watch for: Countless car chases that go back and fourth between the town and a house just outside of town. This movie also has a pretty great synth score by Andrew Thomas Wilson.
This is basically: A car chase movie that won't admit it's a car chase movie.
Dark Age: A giant crocodile has developed a taste for people. A park ranger, along with some local guides, are sent to "deal" with it, but the local Aborigines believe this crocodile contains the spirit of their past. And also there's some local hunters ready to take matters into their own hands... I mean, it's basically Razorback with a croc, and that's not a bad thing. You might recognize: John Jarratt (Wolf Creek), Max Phipps (Thirst, Mad Max: Road Warrior), and David Gulpilil (Crocodile Dundee, Mad Dog Morgan).
That movie was a book?!: Yes it seems Dark Age was based on Numunwari by Graham Webb.
The Cars that ate Paris: Small town of Paris, Australia has a strange secret. Its local economy runs entirely off of causing car accidents and then stripping the crashed cars for scrap.
Things to watch for: Some fantastic car designs (including one that was clearly nodded to in Mad Max: Fury Road) and loads of great car stunts.
You might recognize: John Meillon (Crocodile Dundee, Wake in Fright), Melissa Jaffer (Mad Max: Fury Road), Bruce Spence (Mad Max: The Road Warrior, Mad Dog Morgan), and Terry Camilleri (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure).
From the director that brought you: Dead Poets Society, Green Card, and The Truman Show;
Peter Weir.
Body Melt: A new drug is being tested on local townspeople and there might be a few side effects... The trailer does it more justice than I ever could, but know it's one of the more intense body-horror movies out there.
This is a horror movie that's better seen without knowing much about it, so I'll be intentionally vague. However, the shortness of this post does not reflect a disinterest in this movie! Far from it, we seriously love this movie and really, really wish more people would see it.
The plot unfolds something like this: It's prom season and Lola has her date all picked out. The only problem? He has no interest in escorting her anywhere. But no worries Lola's experienced in getting what she wants...
Things to watch for: The best portrayal of a princess daughter and doting father relationship in the history of horror. Shocking amounts of cringe-worthy gore. Plot twists that you can't see coming. Strong female villain that sublimely illustrates that being "girly" isn't an indicator of weakness...
You might recognize: Robin McLeavy as Nancy Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter).
Like the perfect combination of: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and the non-telekinetic parts of Carrie.
Why we love it: We've never seen a horror movie quite like this one and McLeavy plays her part incredibly well. If you've ever wished to see a horror movie with a strong female baddie, this should be the next movie you watch!
This was a movie that could have been good but it didn't quite make enough sense. But as bad as Incident at Raven's Gate was, it was never dull, and it was always weird...
The plot unfolds something like this: Ex-con Eddie is helping on his brother's hydroponic farm when things start to get weird. Birds drop from the sky, people are acting strangely, and water is disappearing. In the midst of all this, Eddie and his sister-in-law are pursuing a romance. Will they discover what's at the root of all this chaos, or will they succumb to it like their unfortunate neighbors...
The sub-plots though: The movie skips around between strange subplots and most of them are never resolved. For instance, the brother's hydroponic farm's water keeps disappearing, but the reason for the disappearance is never revealed. (Though it's almost implied that aliens are responsible.)
Was it aliens?: Aside from the implications in the movie title, we couldn't tell for sure if the movie was in fact about alien encounters. If there were aliens, they weren't very consistent (some water was worth taking, some was not) and they weren't terribly interested in showing themselves. And although the main evidence that alien encounters were taking place was the towns people acting oddly, it was impossible to tell if they were being made to behave strangely by alien presence, or if they were always strange people. However, the government seemed to know what was going on! They show up during the aftermath (if those were actually supposed to be government officials that is) and it seems like their presence was supposed to indicate there were actually aliens involved.
Reasons to watch: It doesn't fail to deliver on the strange-twist front, there's some nicely gruesome moments, and it's pretty fun to yell at this one!
You might recognize:Vincent Gil (Body Melt, Mad Max). What we learned: If you want to make a movie about aliens visiting earth, you should probably explicitly mention (or show) aliens a few times...
This was a pretty straight forward 80s kids movie but it was pretty fun! Nicole Kidman was obviously interesting to watch in a role at the start of her career, but there were some other familiar faces from Ozploitation movies that were nice to see in a less gritty atmosphere. This is also an interesting departure for director Brian Trenchard-Smith, who had quite a few of our favorite Ozploitation films under his belt before this movie.
The plot unfolds something like this: A gang of criminals are planing the heist of a lifetime, but first they must obtain a box of police-issue walkie talkies. Meanwhile, some BMX-enthusiast kids are also on the look out for some quick cash after inadvertently getting their new friend (Kidman) fired from her summer job. She needs money for a new set of wheels, and her new friends have some ideas on how to get money quick. But when they find a box of expensive walkie talkies floating off a pier, their summer takes a turn for the dangerous...
Reasons to watch: Some genuinely fun new-friendship banter scenes, a couple of boys befriending a girl without making a huge deal that she is indeed a girl, some "sweet" BMX bike stunts, and the dimmest police force on the planet.
You might recognize: David Argue (Razorback), John Ley (Escape 2000, Mad Max), Bryan Marshall (The Punisher (1989)), and Nicole Kidman!
Now enjoy this supremely surreal interview with Nicole Kidman (be sure to watch it all the way to the end, you won't be sorry):
There are so many amazing Ozploitation movies out there we couldn't possibly write up every one of them, so we've got a few list posts this month, and our first has some pretty epic amazingness...
Razorback: A giant killer boar terrorizes the locals and that's not the strangest thing that happens in this movie.
The director: Razorback was Russell Mulcahy's first feature film but he drew from his background directing new wave music videos (Duran Duran, The Buggles, Human League) to make this a visually interesting film.
Wildest scene: There's a scene involving a kangaroo hunt where the filmmakers went out with licensed kangaroo hunters to gather footage, of an real kangaroo hunt. You watch a lot of actual kangaroos die in this film.
You might recognize: Judy Morris (The Cars that Ate Paris; Arkie Whiteley, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior), and John Howard (Mad Max: Fury Road, as The People Eater himself).
That movie was a book?: Apparently Razorback was indeed a novel by Peter Brennan before it was a movie.
Thirst: A young woman is abducted by a cult of what she quickly discovers are vampires running a blood farm.
Was Henry Silva actually being dangled nine stories in the air?: Yes, and he was none too happy about it, they actually took him quite a bit higher than they told him they were going to.
You might recognize: Henry Silva (Ocean's Eleven (original and remake)), Max Phipps (The Toady from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior), and David Hemmings (Deep Red).
Road games: Hitch (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a hitchhiker picked up by Pat Quid (Stacy Keach). Quid's just witnessed a murder while big-rigging across Australia. Together Hitch and Quid will play a game of cat and mouse with a nomadic serial killer.
This movie is basically: Rear Window on a highway.
This is no low-budget slasher: With a budget of $1.75 million, this was the highest budget Australian film of it's time.
You might have also seen by this director: Patrick, Pchyo II, Cloak and Dagger, or F/X2.
Patrick: Since causing the death of his mother and her lover, Patrick has been in a comatose state... with his eyes wide open. Now he's fallen in love with one of the new nurses and he'll stop at nothing to have her affection.
This movie inspired: The coma scene from Kill Bill vol. 1.
The truly wild part?: This is a movie where the main character doesn't speak or blink for the entirety of the film. Who looks at that script and says "Yes! We're making that movie!"
Some of our friends felt this movie was a let down, possibly because it was hyped up too much for them to enjoy it. But, maybe because of their hyping it down, we were able to enjoy it that much more, though we might not classify it as a straight-up horror. If you watch the Babadook knowing it's a character study focusing on grief and sanity with strong horror elements, you might enjoy it as much as we did!
The plot unfolds something like this: On the way to the hospital while in labor with their first child, Amelia and her husband are involved in a car accident and Amelia is left a widowed single mother. As a result, Amelia and her son Samuel are dysfunctionally close. Samuel has problems sleeping at night and habitually wakes his mother to read to him, keeping her in a state of sleep-deprived delirium. When Samuel has his mother read him a book called The Babadook-dook-dook they discover a sinister presence creeping into their lives.
Reasons to watch: This movie nicely balances horror and psychological thriller and with it's surreal presentation, you're never sure when things are in her head, in her son's head, or are very real.
Wait, that was written and directed by a lady?: Yup!
What we learned: Sometimes to enjoy an overly hyped movie all you need is a friend to intensely dislike it first!
There's a long standing rule in the film industry; if you've had a bad experience working with someone, you lie through your teeth about how just great that person was. But while watching Not Quite Hollywood we learned that might not be the standard in Australia as filmmakers explicitly talk about Yu Wang's seething hatred of his co-workers. I've never seen so many people talk so honestly about what it was like working with a hostile star, but Wang's work on The Man from HK just scratches the surface of Wang's assholery. He's been through two divorces; one marriage ending due to domestic violence and the other he ended only after drawing out for years and finally very publicly humiliating his partner. Every article I read on him cited a different fist fight he was famous for, he just recently ended his relationship with his girlfriend 40 years his junior over her parents disapproval of the relationship, and he's the prime suspect in a murder in Taiwan that lacks enough evidence for an arrest. Knowing all these things makes watching The Man from Hong Kong strange, because you find yourself rooting for the bad guys through the whole movie. However, that doesn't change how AMAZINGLY INSANE this movie is from start to finish.
The plot unfolds something like this: A pair of Australian detectives have busted up a drug buy involving a Hong Kong drug runner (Sammo Hung) and they've called in Hong Kong Inspector Fang Sing Leng (Yu Wang) to handle the extradition. But, Inspector Leng isn't just interested in bringing a drug runner back to his home country, he want's to bring down Sydney's largest crime organization to boot. And, if he has time, maybe woo some lovely ladies, kick a ton of bad guys around, and destroy more public and private property than The Avengers. You know, whatever he can fit in a weekend.
Things to watch for: A car door almost taking out the camera and crew during an explosion. George Lazenby's frightening scene in which he is, in real life, unable to remove his flaming jacket and is burned as a result. Some insane stunts by Grant Page. A car chase that tears through a house, literally. A no-holds-barred five and a half min fight that gives the infamous They Live fight scene a run for it's money. Some fight scenes that might have had some influence on The Raid and The Raid 2.
Holy shit, is that: A really young Sammo Hung? Why yes it is.
Yup that's: Fifi and Toecutter from Mad Max as the Australian detectives on the case. (Surprisingly, this movie came out four years before the original Mad Max.)
What we learned: If your leading man hates your country, women in general, and the director especially, possibly look into a different leading man...
First clue: This month's movie is an Australian production that falls under the under the Ozploitation umbrella. Tape Freaks Presents: Mystery Movie! Theatres at Mall of America, Thursday, Aug 20th at 7:30pm, only $5!
