Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers /Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland - 1988/1989

 I'm combining these in a review partially because they were filmed at the same time, and partially because I don't really have a ton to say about either one.

We begin with Unhappy Campers, a relatively bad subtitle.  Its a dumb play on a already dumb saying?  That's what you're going with?  

The original Sleepaway Camp I saw for the first time in the last 5 years or so, and is so bizarre and such an obvious rip off of Friday the 13th that its fun to see another whodunit in that style.  Spoilers I guess that it reveals that the seeming innocent final girl Angela turns out to be the killer and also a man in the the freaky, cryptic final shot of the movie.

5 years later another camp is getting set up, telling scary stories around a campfire.  Someone tells the story of the original Sleepaway Camp and Angela comes and kills her.  Then... well, the same thing happens again and again.  Teenagers transgress in the normal fashions with drugs, sex, being a dipshit, being mean, etc.  Angela comes after them in turn and kills them.

You know, its fine.  And if you liked it, well, part three is more of the same.  Another camp, and Angela runs down one of the counselors in the beginning, kills her, takes her place and goes to the camp.  Teenagers get picked off.  

The kills in both are in a range from pretty decent to practically the lowest tier of ability.  Something awesome like a practical tent they light on fire is equally met with someone who instantly dies from being hit with a  medium size log once.  

Filled with many breasts, there's very little else to say except maybe one thing.  Just because you're not going to have another twist ending or anything doesn't mean you need to follow the killer this much, reveal this much, and have no tone.  Nothing is suspenseful, nothing makes an impact.   Nothing matters in these, its pretty much a straight line with no variation.  Its more about what order the people will die in than virtually anything else.  And for that, you know...  2 stars each.

The Lair of the White Worm - 1988

 Ya throw on The Lair of the White Worm and you know, you can feel this should've existed in the 70s.

Except that it has Hugh Grant and some 80s comedy elements, this type of slow bizarre horror was not around in the 80s usually.  

This movie is loosely about a snake sorta vampire lady that has various powers and fucks with Hugh Grant and his little camaraderie group.  That's the extremely short version.  They find a cool weird skull and that seems to summon the creature in question, and Hugh and his hapless buddy Angus go up against the ancient lore and the incredible power of the snake lady.

We got nudity, we got bumbling British comedy, we got a bizarre cross-section of Dracula and Pagan mythologies infused with some classic Freudian concepts which interest director Russell.  Apparently he read this Bram Stoker book he described as sub-par and decided it would be better if it also had some of his own ideas, and filled in some of the gaps with his own stuff.  

Some of the 70s stuff could be parsed out, like for example this feels very slow and repetitive despite being 90 minutes.  Its also really hard to track as to "what's going on" at times, and the rules to what's going on seem to shift with whatever the person (likely the one behind the camera) felt like they wanted to do at the time.

Far from a true hidden gem, but still maybe a under-discussed horror movie, I get this one constantly confused with The Serpent and the Rainbow.  It's interesting that this certainly feels "different" and that is due surely to Ken Russell.  Pretty decent, I'll throw it 3 stars.

Deadly Snail Versus Kung Fu Killers - 1977

 Seriously guys how did I nail the year 1977?  Its almost scary.

Okay so various years are reported and my gut instinct is closer to 1973, but you know I'll take it.  This is me in the time of sorta two years or so into the blog I begin to feel like exploring some martial arts stuff like the Shaw Brothers, which naturally leads me to trying to find the more obscure and strange of that type.  

Around this time I go see Crocodile Fury in theaters at the Alamo Drafthouse, and likely this gets added to the list at that point, when that briefly inspires me.  I have also reviewed Robo Vampire, which is another thing in this category.

This movie does in fact have a snail that the character finds and gives blood to, which then gives him superior fighting skill.  That does indeed happen in this strange and unique movie.  Now the snail power is up against some demons and that will all be fought in the strangest Kung Fu fights set against an extremely obvious set of blue sky and fake plants.

This is a comedy of course, and I will say I found it to be light and easy enough in tone.  It doesn't linger too much in the plot obviously, and instead there's plenty of medium entertaining Kung Fu and there's plenty of old guys talking.  There's not a TON to talk about here.

The sky blue set and the action there are a bizarre and surreal highlight.  I couldn't find a pic.  The rest, there's some off color humor and there's some likable characters and actors and sequences.  I give it a 3.

Lisztomania - 1975

 Am I trying to decide on my next theme right now?  The truth is I am almost done with "the list" and something like a watch of all of Ken Russell's films would be pretty appealing.  I could also circle back and finish Brian DePalma.  I am definitely drawn to the idea of watching someone's entire filmography.

History suggests that Franz Liszt was one of the earliest examples of celebrity infatuation that would rival modern day idol worship that was happening around this time in the 70s with the Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, etc.  These bands were huge, and they had been releasing intensely detailed, thematic pieces as they tried to graduate rock music from simple "fun time" to "art piece".  So why not take that trend and make a movie about the OG celeb musician Franz Liszt?

I mean, I'm not really asking because I could really see plenty of reasons not to do this, but they did, and I watched it as part of my Ken Russell journey.  Previously I have reviewed The Devils, I have seen Altered States and Tommy, and I recently rewatched The Lair of the White Worm.  If we had to compare this to Tommy, which I think we do, I guess I liked Tommy more, but really....this stuff is just not for me.

A possible rewatch and review for Rocky Horror is coming, especially after I realized that I haven't seen it since 1999 or 2000, which means a long time has passed since I watched it til now than from when the movie was first released until I saw it for the first time.  Crazy shit dude.  Its also showing on Oct 30 at a theater near me.

Anyways I mention this because much like my memories of Rocky and my review of Phantom of the Paradise, this kinda stuff I just don't really "get".  I really appreciate the energy and the effects in this movie, and this is way more entertaining than Phantom and Rocky Horror, but I don't really know what's going on or why, and part of it could be the sensibility, part could be the British-ness, part could certainly be that I tune out the songs, but honestly I just probably don't care enough.  

There's a lot in here and a lot of it looks great, and you can have a decent enough 3.5 star time with that whole thing.  The rest of it, well, I got not much else to say on that.

Return of the Blind Dead - 1973

 Also known as Return of the Evil Dead and Attack of the Blind Dead. 

My first one of the two series in this document, I finally finished the Blind Dead series.  This and Phantasm are two long present series that I seriously remember wanting to see for years.  I basically remember the moment of concreting the idea that I would watch these two series, adding them...  Watching Phantasm circa 2011(ish??)   How did Blind Dead escape me?  I really don't know.

Return of the Blind Dead is the second of this series of sorta loosely connected Templar-related zombie horror.  This one features a sorta "origin segment" early on where villagers burn the eyes of a group of knights.  Present day the Templars get brought back to life by a sacrifice and they begin to pursue the main characters.  There is also village idiot Murdo around to mess things up.

This one is sorta perfectly in line with the aggregate of the series.  It has like...a decent amount of effect and a decent amount of cool sequences.  It doesn't match the Ghost Galleon's zilch and it does not match the heights of Night of the Seagulls.  Dude, Night of the Seagulls rules.

There's not much to say here, although I'll mention that there's nudity and the close ups of sword stabbings is a new thing at this point in the series.  Hey, you know, you could do worse.  3.5 stars.

The Dragon Lives Again - 1977

 I was trying to imagine what it would be like for this to happen again.  What if Heath Ledger died in 2008, and from that point all the way until 2020 there had been movies with fake Heath Ledgers; various actors pretending to be him, in movies exploiting his likeness and fame?  Can you IMAGINE this happening now?

That's not even an apt comparison because Bruce Lee was a bigger star arguably than good ol' Heath bar, but yeah this genre Brucesploitation was around from Lee's death until a good 12 years after.  The world seems to move so much faster now I cannot see us being so hung up on a star, even one that did have a huge news story premature death.

The Dragon Lives Again stars Bruce Leung Siu-Lung, and starts out with dick jokes and sultry women, as well as a James Bond parody and a Clint Eastwood character.  We know instantly that we made the right choice.  This movie is a comedy, it's a parody, its basically Asian Kentucky Fried Movie, and firmly stays in that category, breezing through without getting bogged down by plot or action.

Yeah I said it, bogged down by action.  If they still had 20 minute fight scenes, this would move slower. Instead it spends the exact right amount of time on seemingly everything.  How did they nail it so well?  I have no clue.  

This type of thing was an early peek into my mindset after starting the blog.  Here's something I miss.  I used to be so fuckin excited I took it on myself to do homework to include odd subcategories into this blog.  I had barely heard of Brucesploitation before this blog, and upon starting to write it I did the research, tracked shit down, and watched these two movies.  Spirit of Bruce Lee and Clones of Bruce Lee.  This was definitely added to the list then, and I just never got around to it.

There's a plot about an evil Dracula character and his skeleton monsters, there's a conjurer who helped bring Bruce Lee back accidentally, there's Bruce Lee confusingly dressed up as his Batman Kato character, there's a fuckton going on in here.  But that keeps the flick moving, as well as the jokes.  Hey, big news here?  The jokes work!  Its funny!  And there's nudity!

If every genre has to have a relative masterpiece within it, this is the one for Brucesploitation.  5 stars.

The Unforgiven - 1960

 I could have mentioned at one point that my gf is into Audrey Hepburn.  I don't super remember.  Either way, we were looking for a whatever movie to put on, in one of these long tired days after a sleepless night, and we opted for this Audrey movie.

Apparently a movie set that was fraught with production troubles, this movie was caught between the studio that wanted something commercial and the director and writer that wanted something with a message.  It seems neither got their way. 

What this is, rather, is a long convoluted race-related movie about a found Indian girl, played by Audrey, who is caught in a bit of a love triangle while she lives on dangerous Native American troubled lands.  She has the hots for her adopted brother Burt Lancaster, who is also much older, and a kid her own age wants to be with her almost as much as he wants to go to Wichita, which I think is about his only want in the movie.

At first you think its about forging this unsteady relationship with the Natives, led by John Saxon in brown face.  Then you think its about the love triangle, then it shifts to a bizarre almost surreal story as a mystical cowboy guys enters, then it's a love triangle again, then a Native story...  and that sorta keeps up in this two hour movie where you feel just about every minute of that.

Once the Natives kill one of the white people, some whites turn on Audrey and yell some things at her they'll probably regret later.  This all culminates in a big fight scene at the end, Natives vs. whitey, and that sequence is good, but hooooo boy.  What a chore this is.

I wanted to give it a star because it's like...you know shot fine, it's not a messy inept schlockfest or anything.  I wanted to like this a fair bit, honestly, and I just didn't.  There's very few redeeming factors, but even the big fight scene feels telegraphed and you know what will happen.  And in the end Audrey gets with her brother?!  What is this, fuckin' Pornhub?  I give this a zero.

Rawhead Rex - 1986

Always a fan of the obscure even in the days of modern “everything is online” norms, it makes sense that I actually cannot find some of these movies online. So I had to pull a Rottweiler and watch this in another language without English subtitles. 

I think I added this when I found a cool sounding monster movie and then further saw the name Clive Barker was on it. In the life of this blog I have watched "the other two Barker directed films" Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions, I even revisited Hellraiser (although I guess I did not review Nightbreed, sorry).   And hey while I'm at it, Candyman 2 and 3.

Rawhead Rex I watched in French, and I gleaned that a church somehow summons the titular monster, which looks in some strange clash somewhere between comic book super villain, cheap Halloween werewolf(?) costume and prime 80s rubber suit film monster.  Its about 65-80% silly depending on the mood you're in, and I think there's at least part of this that's intentionally having a laugh, if you will, with it.

The rest, well, is pretty minimal and scope, and basically what you'd expect.  There's certainly a slightly heavier church angle in here than some horror films, and the monster is terrorizing this family, eventually revealed at the request and under the control of the pastor.  Our main character and his family are on the run, and there's a couple cool sequences like the one in the car that stand out.

Almost most interesting - in a bad way - was watching it in another language and trying to follow, as well as the bad quality of the video, which dropped sound completely for a few minutes, and then later had a little jaunty song come in instead of the film's soundtrack.  Look, this isn't that bad, it seems like I've given just about every other Barker film about a 2.5 besides the "big two" and this will join that list, it's just kinda that is a mild disappoint given how much I love the original Candyman.