Clown 2016

Clown is a movie that gets a lot of gas out of its killer concept; what if you were slowly changing into an actual circus clown and there was nothing you can do about it?  The movie takes the potentially hilarious premise of someone who cannot get a clown suit off, having to endure the rigors of the normal work day in full clown attire, and takes the concept one step further; into the crimson waters of body horror.  Think of it as The Fly, except instead of turning into Brundle-fly the main protagonist ends up something more akin to Pennywise from IT; a clown monster with an insatiable appetite for the flesh of children, at least until winter passes.

While the premise of the film is wildly entertaining, capitalizing on the inherit creepiness of clowns, there are some minor gaffs that prevent it from elevating from a mere cinematic curiosity to must see splatter.  There is some silly made up myth about the “true origin of the clowne” from Sweden or some place, a lot of time spent on exploring how another man had already exorcised the demon clown but it ends up really going nowhere, the only information he can really provide is that decapitating the demon will ultimately kill it.  Well no shit.  The wife they chose to “save” her husband from becoming a demon clown is a total cardboard cutout of an actress, her reactions to his clown possession are like “well he seems mad at me, he’s acting strange” when her husband  has already provided ample evidence that he couldn’t get loose from the cursed clown suit or accoutrements.

As the protagonist and loyal husband slowly transmogrifies into a clown during the film he gets more and more desperate to end the curse through any means, eventually resorting to attempting suicide.  In one of the more gruesome scenes in the film the shifting clown-demon-man shoots himself in the head painting his blood in rainbow colors across the wall behind him.  The dark humor in that one scene encapsulates the feeling of Clown perfectly for me; it’s a mix between black humor and sadistic horror.  The demon-clown eventually totally overpowers his host, cultivating into a kiddy massacre at honest to god Chuck E. Cheese.  A literal wave of blood splashes into the ball pit, the demon clown escapes back to his house to lure and kill his son, and the wife finally makes herself useful, decapitating her husband (and his clown dog, yeah that happens too), freeing him from the curse and you know, this shitty no good life. 

I thought Clown was definitely worth the rental in this lull of good horror.  It certainly kept my crew entertained until the end.

I Come In Peace

The White Boys are a group of white collar workers who happen to deal heroin on the side, although it’s clear they don’t need the money; they are just evil fuckers.  Damn white people.  They own exotic sports car dealerships, yuppie CEOs in designer suits with shoulder pads snorting mountains of coke; these bozos think they are above the law and they might be right, but they aren’t above Jack Caine (Dolph Lundgren), a loose canon cop who plays by his own rules.  They killed his black partner and they are going to pay with sweet round house kicks to the head, problem is some alien who uses CDs like ninja stars is slicing and dicing his way through their ranks, and now Jack is really pissed.  Turns out this albino alien with perfectly quaffed hair is a drug dealer himself; he sticks tubes in people’s chests to overdose them on heroin, and then extract pieces of their brains for the endorphins to sell on his home planet.  This piece of information is treated like an “ah-ha” moment, and is explained without a hint of irony, because shit happens, just another day on the beat for a Houston detective.  There’s also criminal who goes by the name Boner and is interrogated by Jack pressing a gun to his nuts.  If you are looking for any gay subtext in this situation stop right there,  this isn’t that sort of movie, besides, Jack is boning the local undertaker, although I am not sure why; seems like they could have gotten a hotter broad for this kind of B-trash.

The movie goes through the stereotypical odd couple cop partner thing for a while; Jack is paired with an impish brown-noser that does everything “by the book”, crap we’ve seen a dozen times before which only seems to distract from the alien chest fucking action.  The other portion of the movie is schlock creature feature, watching this weird silver haired dude making drugs out of people’s brains and dodge exploding cars.  He tells everyone “I come in peace” before sucking out their brains with a smirk on his face, the kidder.

Everything about this movie is slightly nutty, I’d like to think behind the scenes there was a lot of booze and partying going on; there’s a lot of energy and crazy ideas and somehow it works without making me want to gouge out my own frontal lobe.  There’s no underlining context or pigeon holed message about “drugs are bad mmmkay”, just real stuntmen and pyrotechnics and goofy wise cracks “you come in peace, and leave in pieces!”.  The final fight is about what you’d expect, lots of round house kicks and action posturing.  This is Dolph at his peak; would make a perfect double feature with Split Second. 

Sketch dump 7/14/16

Still grinding away during this hot, hot summer.  Been watching a lot of HalloweeN 5 lately.

Halloween Horror Nights - Michael Myers Returns!

Michael Myers returns to Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights

I might actually go this year for the Michael Myers maze.

Battle Truck - review

Civilization has begun its march to extinction.  It’s a steady pace, the cadence of violence and fear rings loud and clear for all. Panic is everywhere.  Cities crumble as survivors spread out to the wasteland in search of food and shelter; society decays.  On the streets it is a white line nightmare of Darwinian survival.  The highways are painted red with the blood of the innocent.  The high and tights, the ex-militia, the crazy and lonely and sadistic men that used violence to protect us and let us sleep at night have emerged from the maelstrom to take control.  The gas wars lead to the oil wars which lead to the water wars which end in a nuclear nightmare.  Resources are spread to the breaking point.  Tribalism rules the land.  Roaming bandits feast upon the weak.  It’s a new world, with new rules, learn them….

And amidst the rubble and decay of this post-apocalyptic nightmare, never stopping, never ceasing; BATTLE TRUCK!  A roaming death machine, twisted metal crushing bodies in its wake, unstoppable, unbreakable, and helmed by the sadistic ex-colonel Straker.  Straker sees the new world as it is; an opportunity for the strong to suppress the weak, to survive and flourish as warlords.  Politics of the old world are too soft and for the meek, “too much lipstick, not enough napalm”.  He roams the world doing what “the Generals” were too cowardly to do; instill order through fear and violence.  He has gathered a band of brutal mercenaries to impose his will on whomever he crosses, gobbling them up in his war machine to use as another resource in his unending search for conquest. 

Straker is polite, courteous, and willing to murder anyone with a cold reptilian detachment; anything for more oil.  His daughter however is a peace loving daisy hugging dreamer (bleargh!) who can’t reconcile her petty moral code with the harsh reality of the nuclear wasteland.  She runs away from Straker’s camp and is rescued by a loner with a cool motorcycle and night vision goggles; Hunter.  Hunter brings her to his thriving chicken shit farm.  After telling her he really hates people but helps them anyways he leads her to another community of hippies who are attacked by Battle Truck while picking apples.  They put up a pathetic fight, and a distressed Straker’s daughter runs back to Hunter as the raiders gather up the town women.  Let me tell you, when she is recounting the tale of the fallen town to Hunter it really seems like the actress is suffering from severe PTSD or something.  Snot is flying from her nose, she’s crying so hard she can barely speak her line; holy shitballs give this lady a Grammy or whatever; best supporting actress in a B-rated post-apocalyptic movie about a giant truck.  Later Hunter bangs her, and she gets all prophetic about humanity like she’s stoned or something; damn hippy.  The mailman from Cheers is in this too although his mustache is gone (must have been melted by nuclear fallout). 

There’s a shootout at night.  They must have used the same lighting guy from Humongous because I can’t see shit.  Straker ends up kidnapping his daughter back and Hunter works with the dude from Cheers to build a new battle wagon, which sucks ass.  It really kind of looks like a junky piece of shit but Hunter makes it work.  I’m assuming the film crew tried building something formable at first like the V-8 Interceptor from Mad Max but ran out of money or patience or both and just said “fuck it, let’s mount a machine gun to a beat up Volkswagen bug and call it a day”.   In the end the Battle Truck careens off into a gully and explodes although I’m not convinced Straker really died.  Seemed like they hysterically set up room for a sequel: Battle Truck 2: The Revenge of Straker.  Fuck I’d be there opening day.  Something about post-apocalyptic nonsense makes me feel free and long for the end of civilization.

JC to return to HALLOWEEN

From the OFFICIAL HALLOWEEN MESSAGE BOARD front page (aka one of the coolest places for Halloween fiends to hang their kitchen knives)

More gore in store....

Hibernating...but it's drawing to an end...soon fiends the next evolution in chunk blowers will be upon us...hail the gore vomit elite...