the giant claw

When one is feeling down, one must watch The Giant Claw.  The Fred F. Sears B-movie follows the destructive path of a gigantic, cawing buzzard.  No one, not even the might of all the military, knows how to stop it.  Like most 1950s monsters movies, the setup is doused with a healthy amount of doubt among official, scientist and government types.  But then the action finally gets going as Jeff Morrow (sturdy and unflappable) and Mara Corday (smart and strong-willed) try to trap and destroy the big ol' bird.  Best sequences involve a series of snapshots of the beast with a closeup of its gap toothy grin, a carload of obnoxious teens who get what they deserve, and the big buzzard taking bites out of the UN and Empire State Building (eat your heart out, Kong).  All of these scenes made me laugh; the effects and editing are deliriously shoddy and there are some great bad lines too ("Now, I don't don't care if that bird came from outer space or Upper Saddle River, New Jersey; it's still made of flesh and blood - of some sort - and vulnerable to bullets and bombs.").  Ray Harryhausen originally planned to do the effects but budget limitations forced the crew to use trick shots and a marionette.  Reportedly no one, including the actors, knew what the bird would look like until the film's release.  Had Columbia Pics had the dough, perhaps it could have ended up being a horror classic, but the schlock effects on display here are enduring and charming.  **1/2

under your spell

I remember temporarily putting a stop to making fun of my sisters after watching The Spell one afternoon as child in the 1980s on TBS.  This 1977 is a shamless TV movie rip-off of Carrie. Overweight, teased teen Rita (Susan Myers) seems to have powers that put her tormentors in peril.

Her mean schoolmate nearly dies doing twirls during the gym class rope climb...

Her meanish sister Kristina (played by Helen Hunt!) nearly dies in a swim match (a particularly harrowing scene to watch as a child)...

And the mean, gossipy friend of Rita's mom self-combusts (?) (a hilariously bravura sequence)...

Lee Grant, who has single-handedly saved many-a-drab 70s movie, plays Rita's mother who is kind of compassionate and kind of salty and the one with all the power.

The Spell has eluded me for years. I was always haunted by Rita in her witchy red cape. Now that I've finally found it again, it's pretty preposterous, kind of boring, and sometimes hilarious. And it's free on Hulu!  **

some tongue-in-cheek 80s gems from karen g.

Gone and probably forgotten…Karen G. takes a look at some lesser known 1980s movies

Invaders from Mars (1986)

Tobe Hooper’s remake of the 1950s Sci-Fi classic stars Karen Black, Timothy Bottoms and Hunter Carson who plays the heroic young boy who tries to save his town as aliens begin to take over the minds of his parents and every other grown up in sight!  (Carson happens to be the real-life son of Karen Black).



The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987)

I read recently that some of your old Garbage Pail Kids cards could be worth upwards of $4000 thanks to runaway ‘80s nostalgia that has taken the world by storm!  Sadly, the only Garbage Pail Kid memorabilia I have in my collection is the movie.  According to this charming flick, even if you’re really disgusting, a great personality goes a long way! 


Witchboard (1986)

What do you do when someone tells you NOT to use a Ouija board when you’re alone? Well, you use it alone of course, and it’s all fun and games until you unleash an angry spirit!


Summer Camp Nightmare (1987)

Dare I say that the title says it all?  This movie is Lord of the Flies meets Sleepaway Camp.


The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)

Just because you’re a cute blonde, does not mean you’re not a bad ass.  This is what happens when you push a woman too far!  P.S. Helen Slater – where are you girl?


Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend (1985)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, before CGI, After Effects and Photoshop…movie makers lived in a world of stop-action animation and a little something called “Animatronics”.  If you’d like to see both of these things done particularly badly, please check out this heartwarming movie.


Masters of the Universe (1987)

Dolph Lundgren as Russian boxer Ivan Drago in 1985’s Rocky IV may have been one of the most terrifying characters of my childhood.  He then later transformed into superhero HE-MAN in 1987 and won me over again!  (All this aside, Frank Langella played "Skeletor," how bad-ass is that?)


Maximum Overdrive (1986)

I’m convinced that Stephen King can make anything scary.  This is what happens when bad machines happen to good people (like Emilio Estevez).


Shocker (1989)

"Just when you thought sending him to the electric chair would be the end of him."  Wes Craven does it again in this campy horror.


Hider in the House (1989)

If I ever saw Gary Busey staring in my window you better believe I would run like hell…no questions asked.


Saturday the 14th (1981) 

Pranks and Monsters lurk in every corner in this fun “fantasy horror” by Howard Cohen.


Q (1982)

What do you do when you hear reports about a giant killer lizard flying around New York City?  Move to California.

bad to the bone

What's a "bad" movie? Who knows.  But here is my attempt to list some of my favorite movies that are generally considered turkeys on the awesome blog Rupert Pupkin Speaks.

best worst movie

As a kid in the early 90s, I didn't have HBO.  If I did, I may have found Troll 2.  The movie has eluded me for years until I watched it recently on Netflix instant--a source of discovery for a new generation of camp horror-inclined fans.  The legend of Troll 2 being one of the worst films is true, it's terrible--cheaply made and poorly acted.  Yet, there's a mood and texture about it that makes it more bizarre than most B-movie trash.

Having a fondness for the unintentional comedy of B-movies with serious intentions, I completely adored and was unexpectedly moved by Michael Stephenson's Best Worst Movie, a doc on the aftermath of Troll 2 and its cult following.  Stephenson is the child actor of Troll 2 who had dreams of being a star (I distinctly remember our era of Macaulay Culkin) but never saw his film until a year later on VHS and was embarrassed and disappointed.  With a sophisticated mix of humor and pathos, Stephenson tracks down and presents his director and fellow cast members of Troll 2, notably George Hardy, who played his father.  Hardy lives well in Alabama and is described as the "Patch Adams" of dentistry there.  Jovial and expressive, he loves to be the center of attention.  Stephenson's subject is entertaining and electric.  We watch Hardy's burgeoning egomania and enthusiasm for his past role as he attends fervent screenings of Troll 2 and his profound disappointment when people don't recognize him or the film at a UK horror convention.

It's also a film about Italian director, Claudio Fragasso.  At the time of shooting Troll 2, Fragasso spoke little English which caused a lot of communication problems on the set.  In the documentary, we watch his seething contempt at the actors (he describes them as "dogs") as they reveal their side of how incompetently  the movie was made.  It's a portrait of a filmmaker's frustration and his inability to defend both what he has created and its cult phenom (the jolly Fellini-esque score that sometimes accompanies the doc is befitting).  

When Stephenson and Hardy visit the Utah home of fellow cast member Margo Prey, an intensely somber strain emerges. Agoraphobic and taking care of her elderly mother, Prey speaks about her view of the film (a movie about people that compares to the likes of Casablanca) and her reluctance to go out to its screenings.  The contrast between Hardy and Prey (who played the parents in the original film) couldn't be starker and Hardy is visibly uncomfortable by her.  We also meet the actor Robert Ormsby, who, despite his extensive stage work, admits he has "frittered" his life away.  Stephenson creates something akin to Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, except this one is real and feels personal--a really complex testament to the making of low-budget horror. ***1/2

joan crawford chiller double feature: 'i saw what you did' & 'trog'

Poor Joan Crawford at the end of her career.  You can tell her heart is just not into these B-movies even though she tries her darnedest to rise above the drivel material.

It has its moments but the William Castle flick I Saw What You Did is more like a gag than an actual motion picture.  Two chirpy teens (Sara Lane & Andi Garrett) and a kid sister (Sharyl Locke) decide to spend their sleepover randomly picking names from the phonebook to prank call.  When one of them utters, "I saw what you did, and I know who you are" to a man (John Ireland) who just murdered his wife, they fall into trouble.

The premise is fun and the movie is watchable and hokey though a bit too glib (there's a somewhat irritating insistent rinky dinky 'nanny nanny boo boo' mid-60s pop rock musical cue).  The blatant rip-off off of the Psycho shower scene is amusing.  Crawford doesn't add much as the murderer's mistress.  Castle's great trademark gimmick trailer is almost as good as the film itself.

Oh, Trog.  You lifted the fog off of these January blues (with the depressing chatter of the 2012 Republican primaries in the background).  You are the funniest movie I've seen in a while.  I love the way your title character (in a cheap mask and makeup) and Joan Crawford [in an incredible array of pantsuits and skirt suits (and surgery scrubs!) in all shapes, pastel colors, and fabrics] interact with one another.  It was cute when Trog showed how a windup doll works.  You got a bit boring in the courtroom scenes however I howled when Crawford compared Trog to a "retarded child."  Your rubber dinosaur montage is ludicrous. When Trog goes on a rampage and scares schoolchildren in a sleepy English hamlet you spark to life.  You're a camp classic.  You give Joan's last moment in film a wistful, appropriately melancholy touch.  Thank you Trog for existing in this gloomy world.  

frosted flakes

It's cold in New York so what better flick to watch and write about for Stacie Ponder's Final Girl Film Club? O Frozen. I'll try to avoid "cold" puns throughout this review... but it's so tempting. Frozen is pretty thin ice. Three dimwitted friends decide to get one last ski run in before closing time and end up stuck on the lift. They panic a little and conversation ensues about "the worst way to die" including an awkward reference to September 11th. Soon enough, just when you would say to yourself "I would just jump off that piece," Kevin Zegers decides to jump, but unfortunately, feet first. Wolves come out of the woods. And that's about an hour in, with 30 odd minutes to go. So we have to watch Emma Bell weep about her little dog, pry her icy grip from a metal bar, pee her snow pants, and ask her comrade (Shawn Ashmore) why he doesn't have a girlfriend. The remaining time consists of more climbing across creaky cables, landscape shots, heavy breathing, growling wolves, and a lackluster conclusion. Shrewdly marketed as horror (and featuring a small cameo by Kane Hodder), Frozen is less (much less) Jaws on the slopes, more ultra lite 127 Hours. I guess the filmmakers deserve credit for attempting to make a good-looking thriller on such a tiny scale. *

-Jeffery Berg

the best & worst of the friday the 13th series

Happy Friday the 13th everyone! I thought I'd share my favorite and least favorite of the series.

The Best:

1. Friday the 13th (1980) There's still a lot of fun to be had with the original. Especially when Betsy Palmer shows up in her powder blue cable-knit, giving such an outrageous performance.

2. Friday the 13th - Part 2 (1981) This one has aged well. A classic, 80s-slasher set up with a little more atmosphere (great full moon shots) than the rest, and the most inventive final girl.

3. Friday the 13th Part III (1983) A ridiculously slow-paced opening sequence but the 3-D effects are charming, characters are pretty well-drawn and Jason finally gets his mask! Plus I love the disco opening theme song!

4. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) Pretty terrible and ridiculous Carrie ripoff, but oh so fun. Lar Park-Lincoln's telekinesis brings Jason out of his watery grave.

5. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) Oh how I wish Corey Feldman could have been a series regular. He elevates the material here, especially in the spooky finale, which overall, is pretty standard Jason-slash-teen fare.

6. Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986) I give director Tom McLoughlin some credit for his horror movie in-jokes and style (filmed around foggy Georgia lakes). It takes quite a leap of faith for Tommy Jarvis to age at least fifteen years as he does in this movie.

The Worst:

7. Freddy vs. Jason (2003) Basically a noisy, hyper kinetic battle between the two horror icons mismatched in the jokey, overly raucous Bush era of horror film-making.

8. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) Filmed mostly in Canada, turgid scenes on a cruise liner full of high school graduates lend way to slight Jason mayhem in the Big Apple. Unfortunately most of Rob Hedden's original script involving many New York scenes were scrapped due to budgeting issues. The best thing about the film was its brilliant teaser trailer. One wonders what it could have been.

9. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) Unfortunately Violet with her crimped hair and robot dance can't save us from this nadir.

The Unwatchable:

Jason X (2001) and Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

midnight double feature: deadly eyes & the pack

I took the advice from one of my favorite movie blogs, Rupert Pupkin Speaks, and watched two creature features from director Robert Clouse. Clouse is best known for his Enter the Dragon. Watching his schlocky animal against man flicks Deadly Eyes and The Pack, it's interesting to see how Clouse works within different genres. The Deadly Eyes refer to those of rats, who having fed on steroid-injected grains, are wreaking havoc and roaming the undergrounds of snowy Toronto. It's pretty standard stuff, with a group of characters that interact but never quite connect. It begins fittingly with a lecture on rats with a classroom of bored students. One of the girls (Lisa Langlois) has an intense crush on her teacher, the film's hero Paul Harris (a rather stiff Sam Groom). Meanwhile, Department of Health employee Sara Botsford (Kelly Leonard) and field inspector George (an amusing Scatman Crothers) are beginning to question mysterious deaths and activities in the city. All of this wants to be covered up by the mayor's office a la Jaws for the impending opening of a new subway line. It's fairly predictable what's to come out of this scenario.

Despite its pedestrian plot, Clouse pays tribute to the midnight movies before him. In a Blob-like moment and one of the better set pieces, the giant rats descend upon a movie house where unsuspecting teenagers are watching Clouse's Bruce Lee epic Game of Death (where the Bride of Kill Bill got her getup). One wishes Clouse had more fun, campy moments like this but the movie is saddled with some ridiculous plot points such as the budding romance between Groom and Leonard. I can't deny that there is something charming about the film. And as a person living in a city where I've come across rats seemingly the size of those depicted in Deadly Eyes (even though they are merely poor Dachshunds in rat costumes), this movie seems eerily possible.


The Pack turns man's best friend against man. It insinuates an epidemic of Seal Island vacationers leaving behind dogs. The rabid strays on this island terrorize a man (an appealingly low-key Joe Don Baker... such a great drawl!), his new family, and a ragtag group of bumbling visitors.

This pre-Cujo horror film is much more competent than Deadly Eyes but less charmingly terrible. Again the film is bogged down by time spent on relationships that are difficult to connect with. What's great are the attack scenes and a stripped down realism in its filming of the dogs. It's much easier to relate to wronged dogs than rats. One tense scene involves a woman trapped in a Bug convertible. Clouse did not win any awards for direction but his use of slow-motion works better here than it did in Mel Gibson's Braveheart. The ending too is unexpectedly powerful for such a low budget drive in flick.

valentine's day

Sluggish pacing is usually death knell for the romantic comedy. Many filmmakers fail at attempting multiple story lines and some succeed. Garry Marshall, who found a knack for frothy films such as 1990's Pretty Woman, would be in the category of the former. Clocking in at 125 minutes, Valentine's Day is a turgid romantic comedy without much romance or comedy. It wastes the talents of Shirley MacLaine, Queen Latifah (playing another stereotype), Kathy Bates (in a nonsensical and completely unnecessary role), Julia Roberts (unbelievably cast as an Iraq soldier on leave), and Anne Hathaway (also unbelievable as a peppy poetry student who temps and moonlights as a phone sex operator). Most of the screen time is given to Ashton Kutcher, an attractive but terrible actor. I kept waiting for him to wink at the camera.

It's the audience who pays to see this who have been "punk'd." I won't even spend time on the plot which is more convoluted than the ridiculous intertwined L.A. story lines in Crash or 1974's Earthquake. I pictured a group of Hollywood executives drawing a Venn diagram on a dry erase board, connecting all of the characters in every possible fashion. The film could have been trimmed by at least 40 minutes, including a predictable subplot featuring Julia Roberts's niece Emma and a quizzical tween romance between Taylor Swift (all of her attempts at comedy fell flat in the audience) and Taylor Lautner. There is a gay storyline, that is shamelessly used as a plot device, with dated, sitcomish jokes sprinkled throughout ("I'm with you, just not behind you"). We watch all of the straight characters kiss, but for some reason, our gay men are reduced to a face caress. The supporting cast features a cutesy kid (Bryce Robinson), the painfully bad Jessica Biel, Geroge Lopez, Jessica Alba, McSteamy and McDreamy from "Grey's," Jamie Foxx, and I believe a dog or multiple dogs were in the movie for "aww cute there's a dog" moments.

In case you don't believe that this film is more a harmless frothy concoction, less a cold Hollywood product, Warner Brothers has already optioned a similar movie for New Year's Eve. The thought of that is equally nauseating. The problem is that Valentine's Day isn't a very compelling holiday. As a teacher, Jennifer Garner attempts to explain its history to a bored classroom. One of the few things that kept my interest, in the most base way, as if I were watching an episode of "Saved By the Bell," was "what is in the mysterious silver box?" Just so you aren't duped like I was, what's in the silver box isn't very thrilling. *

-Jeffery Berg