Tape Freaks Presents: April's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, Wednesday, April 4th @ 7:00pm, only $5!
****Purchase advance ticket here****
March 30, 2018
April's Mystery Movie: Second Clue
Clue #2: The screenwriter responsible for April's movie wrote a few more made for TV horror movies, one was directed by a master of horror, and another happened to terrify Colette when it originally aired.
March 29, 2018
Made for TV Movies: Don't Go To Sleep
This movie was bad. It was also pretty entertaining in retrospect, and might have been funner with a larger group but, it's also so so so so so so bad. Though, while we were talking just after watching it, we might have talked ourselves into like it, but it's still sooooooo slow. But, it's also sooooo uniquely weird...
The plot unfolds something like this: A family of four is moving into their grandmother's mansion to in order to take care of her now that she's getting older. Unbeknownst to this family, the ghost of their eldest child has come along, and she is not here to play.
Oh, didn't we mention?: There are some seriously confusing scenes at the beginning of this movie, and it takes a good 20 mins before those scenes are (barely) addressed again. But it turns out those scenes were about the eldest child of this family dying in a car accident. When did she die? They never really get into that, but they do continue to cryptically bring up all the ways their family has been effected by her death in ways that hardly make anything clearer for the audience.
This is a family murder movie: The beginning of this flick (and the title) set this up as a straight forward haunted-house movie, but pretty quickly we discover this is a one-family-member-murders-the-rest-in-cold-blood movie.
By "pretty quickly", we mean really quickly: There's hardly enough scenes with the grandmother to establish her relationship with the family before she dies in front of all of them. Each day after that seems to lead to another family member's death.
The asinine amount of deaths occurring in the family is not lost on the family members, but it also kind of is: There's a long drawn out scene with the parents of this family arguing about who's done the brunt of the work that comes with a family member dying (who's packed all the dead family member's clothing for donation, arranged all the funerals, etc.). They literally argue about who's going to pack up the belongs of the latest dead family member, and resolve that conflict, but never mention how wild it is that so much of their family has dropped dead this week.
Foreshadowing?: During the move-in montage, the father of this family sets up a row of electric kitchen gadgets and turns each one of them on with increasing (and inexplicable) glee. Later on in his death scene, it's clear to the audience for at least 5 mins that he's going to be electrocuted in the bath. You have to wonder; was that the world's most awkward attempt at foreshadowing?
Ad libbing?: There's a gratuitous amount of what seems to be ad libbing in every scene where one adult talks to another. It plays like they needed to pad the run time, but it adds a level of confusion I didn't know could exists in a film.
Still, it's boring: We might be selling this one harder than it deserves, because although it's pretty asinine, it also feels really long and repetitive between the fun stuff.
Better with a group: If you have some bad movie loving friends, this would be a good movie to watch with that crowd. There's enough “did that just happen” scenes to make it fun, but it's just slow enough to be easy to talk over while not missing anything important.
Yup that's: Ruth Gordon and Valerie Harper.
Standout performance: The girl who plays the middle sister gives the best performance in this film hands down. She plays a wide range of emotions that shift from moment to moment, and she makes it seem effortless on her part. It's a shame she didn't appear in much else.
The plot unfolds something like this: A family of four is moving into their grandmother's mansion to in order to take care of her now that she's getting older. Unbeknownst to this family, the ghost of their eldest child has come along, and she is not here to play.
Oh, didn't we mention?: There are some seriously confusing scenes at the beginning of this movie, and it takes a good 20 mins before those scenes are (barely) addressed again. But it turns out those scenes were about the eldest child of this family dying in a car accident. When did she die? They never really get into that, but they do continue to cryptically bring up all the ways their family has been effected by her death in ways that hardly make anything clearer for the audience.
This is a family murder movie: The beginning of this flick (and the title) set this up as a straight forward haunted-house movie, but pretty quickly we discover this is a one-family-member-murders-the-rest-in-cold-blood movie.
By "pretty quickly", we mean really quickly: There's hardly enough scenes with the grandmother to establish her relationship with the family before she dies in front of all of them. Each day after that seems to lead to another family member's death.
The asinine amount of deaths occurring in the family is not lost on the family members, but it also kind of is: There's a long drawn out scene with the parents of this family arguing about who's done the brunt of the work that comes with a family member dying (who's packed all the dead family member's clothing for donation, arranged all the funerals, etc.). They literally argue about who's going to pack up the belongs of the latest dead family member, and resolve that conflict, but never mention how wild it is that so much of their family has dropped dead this week.
Foreshadowing?: During the move-in montage, the father of this family sets up a row of electric kitchen gadgets and turns each one of them on with increasing (and inexplicable) glee. Later on in his death scene, it's clear to the audience for at least 5 mins that he's going to be electrocuted in the bath. You have to wonder; was that the world's most awkward attempt at foreshadowing?
Ad libbing?: There's a gratuitous amount of what seems to be ad libbing in every scene where one adult talks to another. It plays like they needed to pad the run time, but it adds a level of confusion I didn't know could exists in a film.
Still, it's boring: We might be selling this one harder than it deserves, because although it's pretty asinine, it also feels really long and repetitive between the fun stuff.
Better with a group: If you have some bad movie loving friends, this would be a good movie to watch with that crowd. There's enough “did that just happen” scenes to make it fun, but it's just slow enough to be easy to talk over while not missing anything important.
Yup that's: Ruth Gordon and Valerie Harper.
Standout performance: The girl who plays the middle sister gives the best performance in this film hands down. She plays a wide range of emotions that shift from moment to moment, and she makes it seem effortless on her part. It's a shame she didn't appear in much else.
March 28, 2018
Made for TV Movies: Cast a Deadly Spell
This is one of the better TV movies we've watched, likely because it was made for cable, though it was still pretty cheesy and not without it's problems.
The plot unfolds something like this: It's 1948, and everyone uses magic. They use it for personal gains, mundane tasks, and for protection against those who use magic for evil. Lately, there's been a bad energy filling the air, anyone who's sensitive at all knows something big and bad is coming fast. Private detective Lovecraft doesn't have time for any of that, but his latest case might pull him right into the eye of the storm whether he likes it or not.
Predicting the attitude of the future: Imagine a world where magic is substituted for today's technology in regards to how we use it, how dependent we are on it, and how pervasive it is in our daily lives. That's sort of the vibe of this movie, but this was made in 1991, decades before technology would actually be that pervasive in our society. Somehow, the attitude everyone has in this film about magic parallels how people feel now about tech today creepy well. For instance, detective Lovecraft refuses to use magic (making him the luddite of the film) and anytime a new character finds that out, he's met with this “how do you live without it” sort of attitude. It was strange being able to so easily see the parallels while having to remember that it wasn't a commentary on modern technology.
Monster effects: There are some pretty fun practical effects and puppetry in this movie with all the spells being cast and demons being summoned.
Not without it's problems: There are two characters that stand out as problematic in this otherwise fun movie. One is a transgender character who's needlessly brutalized by Lovecraft while he interrogates her. The other is a Black man who's a zombie slave to the main antagonist. He is not the only Black zombie slave featured in the movie, there's also a crew of them building a housing development for another of the film's antagonists. And although the zombie slaves are presented as a direct parallel on slavery, there's no commentary made on the subject, so their presence just comes across as gross and racist. (Thankfully, there are Black characters this film who are not zombie slaves, but it doesn't undo the grossness.)
Non-problematic cringe: There's a drawn out scene where a very young Julianne Moore sings seductively into camera. It misses the mark.
Don't take our word for it: If you want to check this one out, it's up on YouTube in SD, or you can watch it in HD on Amazon Prime and HBO Go; just be ready for some serious cringes.
The plot unfolds something like this: It's 1948, and everyone uses magic. They use it for personal gains, mundane tasks, and for protection against those who use magic for evil. Lately, there's been a bad energy filling the air, anyone who's sensitive at all knows something big and bad is coming fast. Private detective Lovecraft doesn't have time for any of that, but his latest case might pull him right into the eye of the storm whether he likes it or not.
Predicting the attitude of the future: Imagine a world where magic is substituted for today's technology in regards to how we use it, how dependent we are on it, and how pervasive it is in our daily lives. That's sort of the vibe of this movie, but this was made in 1991, decades before technology would actually be that pervasive in our society. Somehow, the attitude everyone has in this film about magic parallels how people feel now about tech today creepy well. For instance, detective Lovecraft refuses to use magic (making him the luddite of the film) and anytime a new character finds that out, he's met with this “how do you live without it” sort of attitude. It was strange being able to so easily see the parallels while having to remember that it wasn't a commentary on modern technology.Monster effects: There are some pretty fun practical effects and puppetry in this movie with all the spells being cast and demons being summoned.
Not without it's problems: There are two characters that stand out as problematic in this otherwise fun movie. One is a transgender character who's needlessly brutalized by Lovecraft while he interrogates her. The other is a Black man who's a zombie slave to the main antagonist. He is not the only Black zombie slave featured in the movie, there's also a crew of them building a housing development for another of the film's antagonists. And although the zombie slaves are presented as a direct parallel on slavery, there's no commentary made on the subject, so their presence just comes across as gross and racist. (Thankfully, there are Black characters this film who are not zombie slaves, but it doesn't undo the grossness.)
Non-problematic cringe: There's a drawn out scene where a very young Julianne Moore sings seductively into camera. It misses the mark.
Don't take our word for it: If you want to check this one out, it's up on YouTube in SD, or you can watch it in HD on Amazon Prime and HBO Go; just be ready for some serious cringes.
March 27, 2018
Made for TV Movies: Gargoyles
This movie was entertaining, but could have been much better as an episode of something.
The plot unfolds something like this: Dr Mercer Boley and his daughter have taken a trip into the desert to speak with a recluse who has the skeletal remains of a strange creature in his shed. While they chat about the origins of the skeleton, a very large and very angry creature tries to break into the shed. In the commotion, the shed catches fire and the recluse gets trapped under some burning debris. Seeing the man is trapped, Dr Boley grabs the skull from the skeleton and flees the scene with his daughter leaving the man to burn to death. But while they hightail it to town, creatures are plotting to retrieve what's been stolen from them...
Dr Mercer Boley is a cold-blooded scumbag: Not only does Dr Boley steal the skull by stepping over the recluse as he burns to death, the doctor was plotting to steal the recluse's story and write a book about it as though it was his own discovery from the start. Dr Boley also waits to notify authorities about the fatal blaze until after he's gotten a good night's sleep. (He also wakes his daughter up that morning by, yet again, playing the recording of her screaming as the burning building comes down around them.) And when the police try to pin the fire on a bunch of kids riding dirt bikes, Dr Boley does basically nothing to correct the situation. He waits until after his daughter is captured by the gargoyles to tell the police they've made a mistake, and then promptly DEMANDS that the police (and bikers) drop everything to help him find his daughter. It's honestly hard to tell if he's supposed to be the protagonist or antagonist, because he's so flippin' unlikeable.
Almost some commentary: This movie has some surprising subtext condemning appropriation and colonization. However, before any of those subtexts are explored, the "white dudes must save the human race" text takes center stage. The (many and long winded) monologues from the main gargoyle hint at what could have been a much more interesting movie.
The Gargoyles: Long winded monologuing aside, the gargoyles look pretty cool considering the time period. They were so ahead of the makeup-effects curve that Gargoyles won an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup. That's likely due to Ellis Burman Jr. working with an impossibly fresh Stan Winston (this is his earliest credit on IMDB).
Under all that makeup: Our main gargoyle is
Bernie Casey, though you'd never recognize him, or his voice.
Every shot was considered for slow-mo: For the first two thirds of the film every scene with gargoyles in it runs in slow motion for reasons we don't understand.
Fun, but repetitive: The gargoyles are revealed pretty early on in this flick, but the story and effects don't ramp up enough to make it that interesting all the way through. But the whole movie is up on YouTube if you want to make that judgment yourself!
 |
| Goosebumps clearly ripped this off. |
Dr Mercer Boley is a cold-blooded scumbag: Not only does Dr Boley steal the skull by stepping over the recluse as he burns to death, the doctor was plotting to steal the recluse's story and write a book about it as though it was his own discovery from the start. Dr Boley also waits to notify authorities about the fatal blaze until after he's gotten a good night's sleep. (He also wakes his daughter up that morning by, yet again, playing the recording of her screaming as the burning building comes down around them.) And when the police try to pin the fire on a bunch of kids riding dirt bikes, Dr Boley does basically nothing to correct the situation. He waits until after his daughter is captured by the gargoyles to tell the police they've made a mistake, and then promptly DEMANDS that the police (and bikers) drop everything to help him find his daughter. It's honestly hard to tell if he's supposed to be the protagonist or antagonist, because he's so flippin' unlikeable.
The Gargoyles: Long winded monologuing aside, the gargoyles look pretty cool considering the time period. They were so ahead of the makeup-effects curve that Gargoyles won an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup. That's likely due to Ellis Burman Jr. working with an impossibly fresh Stan Winston (this is his earliest credit on IMDB).
Under all that makeup: Our main gargoyle is
Bernie Casey, though you'd never recognize him, or his voice.
Every shot was considered for slow-mo: For the first two thirds of the film every scene with gargoyles in it runs in slow motion for reasons we don't understand.
Fun, but repetitive: The gargoyles are revealed pretty early on in this flick, but the story and effects don't ramp up enough to make it that interesting all the way through. But the whole movie is up on YouTube if you want to make that judgment yourself!
March 26, 2018
April's Mystery Movie: First Clue
Clue #1: April's movie is a classic made for TV horror!
Tape Freaks Presents: April's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, Wednesday, April 4th @ 7:00pm, only $5!
Tape Freaks Presents: April's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, Wednesday, April 4th @ 7:00pm, only $5!
****Purchase advance ticket here****
March 19, 2018
2nd Annual All-Night Horrorthon Fundraiser!
If you were able to score tickets to the first annual Trylon Horrorthon Fundraiser, you'll remember it was a blast despite the cramped accommodations. This time around, it's a brand new Trylon with big cushy seats, more leg room for stretching out and an additional film added to the roster! And like last year, if you make it through all the movies, you get a screen printed poster designed and printed by Tim!
Each of the Trylon's movie-marathon extravaganzas have sold out so far, so grab your tickets while you still can, sleep in as late as possible March 30th, and be counted as one of the survivors!
Each of the Trylon's movie-marathon extravaganzas have sold out so far, so grab your tickets while you still can, sleep in as late as possible March 30th, and be counted as one of the survivors!
2nd Annual All-Night Horrorthon Fundraiser at the Trylon Cinema, Friday March 30th @ 7:00pm, $40.00 for six movies (that's only $6.66 per flick! Oh dear...)
March 6, 2018
March's Mystery Movie: Third Clue
Clue #3: Most everyone who worked on this month's movie didn't go on to do much else, except for some people in the camera department. One of them went on to shoot some of the more notable documentaries of the last 25 years, and another went on to work with people like James Cameron, Oliver Stone, Kathryn Bigelow, Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma.
Tape Freaks Presents: March's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, Wednesday, March 7th @ 7:00pm, only $5!
Tape Freaks Presents: March's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, Wednesday, March 7th @ 7:00pm, only $5!
****Purchase advance ticket here****
March 5, 2018
Creature Features: Slither
It's no secret that Tim loves creature features and James Gunn, so it should come as no surprise that Slither is one of Tim's all time favorite creature movies!
The plot unfolds something like this: A sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere is the first Earthly stop for an extraterrestrial parasite bent on world domination. The town's sheriff and a ragtag group of towns folk are the only ones standing between this single-minded monster from space and the rest of the planet.
James Gunn's first feature as directer: Originally Gunn had written this as a script to sell, but was talked into directing it, despite no longer being interested in the horror genre.
The creatures: There are a variety of exceptionally gross creatures in this flick, and the longer things go on, the larger and grosser those creatures get. By the final scene Michael Rooker's wearing one of the largest practical monster effects I've ever seen an actor actually inside of. Evidently the weight of the massive apparatus caused Rooker injuries that persist to this day.
Always read the whole script: Another of the massive creature apparatus was worn by actress Brenda James. However when Brenda signed on to the project, she'd only read the script through her character's first appearance, so when they asked her to come in for a prosthetic test, she was a bit confused. She decided to read the rest of the script on her flight to the effects studio and, according to her, once she fully realized what she had signed up for, she spent the rest of her flight sobbing.
The Mayor looks familiar: Gregg Henry (who plays the mayor) is Star-Lord's grandpa in the Guardian movies, and the second lead in Just Before Dawn!
Box office bomb: This movie was a flop for the studio, but it's a fun movie that didn't get a fair shot. The poster doesn't tell you much of anything and the trailers sold it as a straight forward horror, so maybe if audiences had known this was a horror-comedy it would have done better. But horror-comedies never do well in the theater, even ones that became classics later on, so maybe this gem was doomed no matter what.
 |
| So... it's a movie about aquatic slugs? |
James Gunn's first feature as directer: Originally Gunn had written this as a script to sell, but was talked into directing it, despite no longer being interested in the horror genre.
 |
| Not even the worst he'll look. |
Always read the whole script: Another of the massive creature apparatus was worn by actress Brenda James. However when Brenda signed on to the project, she'd only read the script through her character's first appearance, so when they asked her to come in for a prosthetic test, she was a bit confused. She decided to read the rest of the script on her flight to the effects studio and, according to her, once she fully realized what she had signed up for, she spent the rest of her flight sobbing.
 |
| That's how you get lyme disease. |
Box office bomb: This movie was a flop for the studio, but it's a fun movie that didn't get a fair shot. The poster doesn't tell you much of anything and the trailers sold it as a straight forward horror, so maybe if audiences had known this was a horror-comedy it would have done better. But horror-comedies never do well in the theater, even ones that became classics later on, so maybe this gem was doomed no matter what.
 |
| This Ghana poster represents the tone of the film one thousand times more accurately. |
March 2, 2018
March's Mystery Movie: Second Clue
Clue #2: The creature work for this month's movie was done by an artist who did creature work on a couple movies we screened during our days at the MOA.
Tape Freaks Presents: March's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, Wednesday, March 7th @ 7:00pm, only $5!
Tape Freaks Presents: March's Mystery Movie at the Trylon Cinema, Wednesday, March 7th @ 7:00pm, only $5!
****Purchase advance ticket here****
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