Guru, The Mad Monk - 1970

Well, I had to get a clunker on the new boxset eventually. Guru was pretty lame.

First of all, this is not THAT bad. It's not even 1 hour, it's amateur as fuck with terrible actors, but I am sure it has a following of cult weirdos.

Andy Milligan is yet another little known cult filmmaker in this vast movie landscape we live in. He had loose connections to Andy Warhol, he made off off off Broadway plays that got him into making horror, and these eventually had followings.

Guru is about what one would expect given this knowledge. Terrible actors delivering awful dialogue as they wear clearly theatrical robes... Guru borders so bad it's great territory, but I wasn't in the mood for it.

Not necessarily a clunker for everyone, Guru is about a 1.5 star film for me.

The House by the Cemetery -1981

Lucio Fulci is a well known, well documented Italian schlock hero, Zombi and all the others being true giallo classics if you love B movies.

I watched House here not knowing it was Fulci. I might have paid more attention had I known that. but, I don't think I needed to. I don't feel like I missed much of anything.

House begins with Michael and his wife and their son Bob moving into a old Victorian house by a cemetary. The house immediately seems spooky to the wife, and son Bob begins to see a phantom girl no one else can. There's a locked basement door that's spooky, and wierd sounds coming from different corners.

The initial build being fine, we look to the end, where shit naturally gets whack. It's sheer insanity from one moment to the next, and the last 20 minutes is gold.

I think I liked this! I'm inclined to look back, I felt like I'd seen Fulci do better, but this was not a bad movie. the music, settings, camera work, nudity, practical effects, weird monster. It's all here. once the monster really shows up, there was no where else I wanted to be.

I'll give this one 4 stars.

Death Warmed Up - 1981

Sometimes you can just tell when a movie has a cult following. And sometimes all it needs is to be made in New Zealand.

Death Warmed Up has a plot synopsis listed on IMDb and Wikipedia. They might be accurate, for all I know. I don't remember this movie having a plot at all besides "random shit happening and characters reacting". In the beginning of this movie, some guy Michael and a few of his friends are driving around and pretty soon all sorts of crazy shit is happening to them. There's a cult that's after them and pretty soon demons and such show up.

I could tell that this had a cult following because it was really over the top, really fast paced, and really stupid. I never knew what was going on, but I was entertained, and that's something.

I'm unconvinced about the plot, but it's better than a lot of movies, boxset or not. 3 stars.

Dead Ringers - 1988

I am in a rewatching marathon right now, and you know what? It's the good shit. It's not the usual rewatching of stupid fluff that I rewatch for god knows what reason. I'm reawatching actual good movies. Imagine that.

David Cronenberg. How did I learn of him? I have no memory of it. I have no memory of what I saw first and when. I know that I was in high school-ish age, and that I got in deep and fast, watching all of them in a line. Pretty much. It was circa 2000, and lil' Theo was slamming through Cronenberg, Lynch, Kurosawa, and many other great directors. Man, I miss those days.

Dead Ringers has Jeremy Irons as twin brothers Beverly and Elliot are both brilliant, charming, attractive gynecologists who who apparently have it all. They are young, successful, and their relationship is so close and intimate that it's scary. They live together, they practice together, they are basically one, to the point where most people cannot tell them apart. When an comes into their lives and Beverly begins to fall in love with her, it creates a rift between the two brothers, and when she introduces Beverly to drugs, things start to really go awry.

This movie is so great. It really is wordless, descriptionless, amazing and powerful. The acting is next level as Jeremy Irons creates a slight distinguishment between the twin brothers. The idea is a consuming, immediate threat as we see the quick road towards destruction we're following. The effects, the darkness of the film is complete, and we get a deep sense of foreboding along with a total mystery as to how the film will end. The music, the whole thing is in effect here, shining bright that these are people who know what the fuck they're doing.

I want to rant and rave about this. When I first saw this, I was very disturbed by it. The gyncological angle that happens in this film is really creepy. These guys invent these weird tools to the treatment of "mutant women" and I found that to be extremely disturbing. There is incredible restraint though, because this movie shows very little until the end. It's powerful when the implication of violence, horror, and the unnerving is worse that the actual experienced horror.

I have to rewatch M. Butterfly, Naked Lunch, and then I might be done. I would enjoy seeing History of Violence and Eastern Promises again, to see if they're better than I remember, but I'm also not gonna force it. I could rant and rave for hours, but instead I'll say it's a great film, and one of the necessary ones.

Anatomy of a Psycho - 1961

Great name for a great movie. I went on the Wikipedia just now and you know what? One big ol' name bright and center as writer: Ed Wood. Hey man, this script wasn't anything stellar, but this might still be the best thing Wood ever made?

Anatomy of a Psycho stars Darrell Howe as Chet. Chet is a tough as nails young man whose brother is sentenced to death. Chet believed the brother to be innocent, but he's the only one. His brother is put to death and soon thereafter Chet is after his revenge. Revenge against who is hard, his anger unfocused at first soon gets honed down when he finds the son of the man who was a witness against his brother.

This movie was pretty great. The dialogue is tight and to the point, and the acting elevates a simple story. Darrell Howe plays a tightly wound, flawed and deeply humane main character in Chet. They capture a huge amount of suburban anger, pent up teenage aggression, and frustration. The cops are in the mix, Chet's gang of troublemakers is there too, and the plot keeps us interested as things progress.

This story is also has the simplicity of "getting in too deep" going for it. It's really easy for these characters to spin a small lie, to deceive a little bit. But as the lies and the actions keep on stacking up, they get dug in deeper and deeper and deeper. A giant spinning top that gets out of control, we're in it as the audience, curious about the outcome.

A couple issues were present in the film, for one the script has dramatic slow downs and speeding back up. The trial towards the latter half slows things down in a huge way, and sometimes there's no point to some of the scenes. They throw in a romantic angle for Chet's sister that feels awkward and rushed, and the whole end is a bit too convoluted to be as powerful as it could have been. That said, I do think the end was refreshingly realistic in many ways.

This is a good new boxset do far! This might have the best run of films in it so far, but I better not get too optimistic huh...? Anything could await me. I'll give this one 3 stars.

Spider - 2002

I remember working at my lil' theater and having the Spider poster on the wall. I was excited because it was David Cronenberg and the title was creepy, and I was in prime Cronenberg mood at the time. I don't remember if we ever played the movie or not, but this was my introduction to it.

I remember that when I saw Spider, I was very disappointed. Now, I will also say that it is likely I partially conflated this movie with something else, some unknown "other very strange" film. I remembered Ralph Fiennes character character having gross physical deformities and being a lot more of a twisted, arcane character. I'm wondering what movie I would've confused this for that DID have the imagery I remember, because whatever that movie is I want to rewatch it too.

Spider is the story of Ralph Fiennes as a weird, mentally impaired man. He is a mystery, a mentally challenged individual but high functioning and 100% we know there is some "reason" for him acting the way he does. He arrives at a home for people with mental problems early on and makes his way towards an existence there. As the story unfolds we begin to see the genesis to his problems, how he got the way he is. Turns out his parents were having many relationship difficulties when he was young, leading towards a fight...

Spider is one of those movies where I want to go through each little plot part, not because of how interesting or cool it was, but because with the simple story outline above you might think it's about some certain thing, while it is about many other things too. It all boils down to a slow burn story of mental illness, of fucked up childhood, of many other things.

Coupled with the plot, we have a great acting by all around and some cool imagery. But overall I didn't think this was great. I guess I'm trying to remove it from the "Cronenberg filter" in my head. I'm trying to look at it like a movie, and not "a Cronenberg movie". But either way, it feels a bit incomplete. It feels a bit lacking, and not just from the vague ending. I get it, it's a dark and fragmented story open to interpretation, but it still didn't feel "all there".

Hm. I dunno. I'll give it 3 stars.

Terror Train - 1980

I am listening to and thoroughly enjoying In Myers We Trust with Gyers and Rust. I also rewatched Halloween II recently and this got me into horror mood, as one is wont to do.

Terror Train kept Jamie Lee Curtis in the spotlight as a 80's Scream Queen. I never quite realized how many horror movies she was in in such a short time. She was in 5 horror movie in 3 years, and 7 total in the early 80s. That's a scream queen right there.

In the beginning of Terror Train, Jamie Lee Curtis takes part in a ritual hazing type thing where a bunch of kids scare some weird scrawny dude. For some reason, the beginning already threw me off. Minute 5 and we already know who the killer is and why they're killing. It's stupid. Come on, have you heard of something called "suspense" ever? Movie?

The whole of the high school or college or whatever goes on a train trip, which is admittedly super cool. It's also near Halloween and everyone on the train is in costume. The train idea is a huge sell point for the flick and has to be what go this movie made. Anywho, they're all on a train and the killer is there too. As the killer kills people, he takes their costume, meaning that no one knows who the killer is and we as an audience aren't ever too sure what the killer will look like next.

The kills are average to boring. A couple boring stabs, a throat slit maybe. Blah. Not a highlight. So what then is the highlight? Hm. Was there one? I'll admit, I didn't particularly like this movie. It had nothing to keep one interested.

Terror Train is too slow first of all. We know what's happening and exactly when and why it's all happening. The train adds a tiny, tiny bit of interest because of mostly the cool power of the train, but that is it. It's barely used also. Instead, they focus on a shit ton of magic tricks by David Copperfield, randomly riding in the train entertaining the high school kids. Okay...?

It's not like it's fucking terrible, but it ain't great. I'll give it 1 star.

Blue Velvet - 1986

600 motherfucking entries, motherfucker! I'm dancing with the big boys.. Or something, yeah I dunno.

I watched eXistenZ recently, which led to me renting several other David Cronenberg films from the library, and in my mind David Cronenberg always links up to David Lynch. It's "the two David's" who are both doing something awesome and unique in film, and I love both of them in different but also similar ways.

First of all, 1986? Nineteen EIGHTY six?!!! This movie feels so much more 90's, so SO much ahead of it's time. The controversial plot stuff, the characters, the darkness, the weirdness, this feels so much later on in time as a film. The style and the characters all feel more 90's, the bleakness and the storyline feels like that return to nihilism present especially in the early 90's. I thought it was 91, 93. I forgot this came before Twin Peaks, and that was also part of it.

David Lynch exploded onto the scene with Eraserhead, wowwed critics with his seriousness and pathos in Elephant Man, proved he could do sci fi even if the studio interfered with Dune, and then made this movie, Blue Velvet. Blue Velvet is one of this more linear films. I just counted right now, and according to "what I think" exactly half of David Lynch's films are in the "fucking weird" category and the other half are a lot more linear than I ever remember. Brief breakdown.

Eraserhead: weird as fuck, likely the weirdest thing he's made, though Mulholland Drive is close.
Elephant Man: linear, character based, performance based, feels like a return to 60's noir and mystery influence
Dune: Linear. There is no weirdness in this, at all, except the druggie extras with the blue eyes. Lynch decides not to do main stream.
Blue Velvet: Linear. I remember this one as weird, but it's not. Not really. It has strange elements and creepiness, but not weird.
Wild At Heart: linear. His idea of lovers and oddballs is the only weirdness here. Love the snakeskin jacket.
Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me: I'm not really counting this one, but it is a more linear version of the TV show, which had only a bit of weird.
Lost Highway: Weird. Very weird. Third most weird for me, and very layered.
The Straight Story: obviously linear, feels like the weakest of any movie he ever made.
Mulholland Drive: It's close up there in weirdness level to Eraserhead. I love this movie. Love, love love. Might be my favorite.
Inland Empire: The least weird, but that might just be because of the sheer length and the chore this was to watch.

So actually less than half of his movies are weird. And as I said, I remembered Blue Velvet being one of the weird ones. And let's be honest here, it has been many years. I think the three things anyone remembers about this movie are super weird: Dennis Hopper using helium to get high, Dennis Hopper yelling lines such as "Heineken?! Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!" and Dennis Hopper having strange mommy fantasies when he's high, fucking Issabella Rossellini. I mean really, this is a character which defines and makes this movie, and it's pretty much the only part one is going to remember many years after last watching it.

In the beginning of Blue Velvet, Kyle MacLachlan as Jeffrey finds a ear laying in a field by his house. The plot, the idea behind it is similar. What if you found something like this, and spurned on by curiousity, you investigated it? And I think it's extremely realistic in that it shows you'd discover something truly awful, truly horrible to be the cause. In this case, Dennis Hopper has kidnapped a woman's child, and is using that as leverage to rape and abuse her. The cops are involved as eventually shown, and only because Jeffrey is a innocent man who gets in too deep and is too good of a person to back the fuck off, do we as the audience get brought into this dark, twisted storyline.

There's quite literally endless things to talk about here. Whether it's David Lynch's style of taking us exactly where we don't want to go, or his horrible, hateful, but somehow extremely realistic characters, or his amazing acting and cinematography, or the music or the colors or the sets or the minimalism striking up perfectly against extremity... It is ALL here.

This is the type of film where it is needless, absolutely OBVIOUS that it is a masterwork. Every single thing is here, and there's also a sweet love story which doesn't feel rushed. This is the type of film to make you realize what high barometer a 5 star film really sets. This is up there with the other films I've rated which make me wish I didn't hand out 5 stars to ANYTHING else. Cause this is really and truly next level directing and writing. All of the stars. All of them.

HydroSphere - 1997

Also known as 2103: The Deadly Wake.

Malcolm McDowell should've been in more movies. Or at least, better movies. The guy looks awesome, was a great actor, has a fucking sweet accent, and proved he had what it takes really early on with roles in Clockwork Orange, If, and Caligula. He is a bit "controversial", is that why mainstream widespread success eluded him? These same big weird roles relegated him to B movie hell?

HydroSphere is what it's called on Amazon, 2103 is what it's called everywhere else. This is beginning to be a recurring theme, a sign that a movie probably sucks. If you have no confidence in the name, how can you have confidence in the movie?

Michael Pare and Malcolm McDowell star in this low budget 90's oddity of a film. It's a film in which there's a mutated talking baby immersed in a tube of water that characters interact with. It's a film in which there's a kinky black clad stormtrooper-like female agent that goes around killing people in tunnels. It's a film in which Malcolm McDowell's character swigs whiskey like it were going out of style, yet never acts or seems intoxicated in the least.

2103 is on the cusp of leaning towards so-bad-it's-good territory. It overstays it's welcome and is overly long, with altogether too much needless dialogue and nothingness happening. It's in the realm though, it's in the biosphere of so-bad-its-good, and I would say it makes it.

The plot online says the movie is about Malcolm McDowell discovering the cargo on a ship he is given is made up of inmates. The plot description also says there is a bomb onboard the ship. I don't remember either of these plot points. Instead, the end scenes involve the kinky black Predator in a classic Star Wars-esque electricity fight with an unexplained angelic lady. We also never find out wtf was the deal with the Predator. This movie made no fucking sense, but it is a fun enough watch.

I give it 3.5 stars.

Blood Sabbath - 1972

Choppin' my way through the boxset. I think my silent, not promised goal right now is to make it through in just two months. If I do that I could finish it by the end of the year. I am going to keep trying to do two movies every time I sit down to watch it. Hey, if you're gonna commit to one, you can commit to two.

In this weirdo flick, drifter David is walking along early on and gets beer sprayed on him by some passing teenagers. It's a strange intro to a strange film. David is a Vietnam veteran with PTSD and as the film goes on we learn a little bit about that.

David is hanging out by a creek when a girl comes swimming up and they spend some time together. David and her instantly fall in love, but this girl claims she is "of another world" and is a water nymph. David just sorta goes along with this. Meanwhile, there is a group of witches I guess nearby, and David can be with his water nymph if he loses his soul. He thinks the witches could do that for him.

This movie was made for 4 reasons: Boobs, Butts, Crotches, and stupid weirdness. Yeah, there is a shit ton of nudity in this. Fully nude chicks dance around, showing their best assets, cause those assets sure aren't acting. David is also a boring actor. I don't think he needs to have a soul removal. I think he already didn't have one.

Nothing really happens for most of the movie. Eventually David gets his soul removed and that changes him. There's very little to write about, and in the end it's a low budget nudie flick that tried and failed to have a horror edge. The weirdness and the nudity elevates it to about 2.5 stars.

Metamorphosis - 1990

Happy anniversary Metamorphosis! The movie turned 30 this year.

Metamorphosis got in my mind because I just watched and enjoyed George Eastman in Hands of Steel. George Eastman is a very prolific Italian writer, director, actor and producer. He primarily wrote films, known for Italian schlock like Porno Holocaust, Antropophagus, The Great Aliigator and Dog Lay Afternoon. Yes, that last film is about a woman who has sex with a dog.

In this Eastman wrote and directed entry, a brilliant, attractive, and successful scientist was recently given $200,000 for a research grant. His research comes into question, and it turns out he has been studying immortality, and has also tracked the human genome. Interesting that now we have actually tracked the genome! Anyways, all the other doctors naturally freak out, and soon enough our rejected doc is injecting himself with a radical untested drug he's been developing.

I watched this in part because several things online talked about how the doctor eventually turns into a T-Rex. I was excited to see a stupid late entry Italian horror film about a dude turning into a dinosaur. But, as we all know, sometimes these movies don't live up to their synopsis.

First of all, the movie is drag-your-ass-in-the-dirt-slooooooww. The beginning is interesting as we get to know the characters and such, our doc gets with a woman, and seeing him inject a needle into his eye was cool. But then, it's dialogue and nothingness as I guess things sort of happen. It seems the doc begins losing chunks of time, it seems he is transforming somehow in unknown ways, and his relationships get hurt because of these factors. Blah blah blah.

We only get "the T-Rex" part of this movie in the last 5 minutes, I kid you not. It's another great fucking costume too, or prop, or whatever it is. There's been some good makeup effects along the way I suppose, but it's all been too little, too late in my critical opinion. It's just ssssllllooowwwww and duuuuuulll and I was waiting for it to end.

Matamorphosis was on my infamous list of films I'd wanted to see. Now I've seen it, and it kinda sucked, so oh well. It happens. 2 stars.