Five cool things about Night of the Creeps

Night of the Creeps is excellent mid-1980s B movie cheese about parasites from outer space turning college kids into walking corpses. But unlike many of its schlocky, silly and often downright pathetic B-list brethren from the decade, Night of the Creeps is actually entertaining. Make no mistake: It's a B movie. But its mix of humor and gore -- with one or two genuinely scary moments to boot -- make it worth watching. The jokes are funny and the effects are great -- for 1986 anyway. It's no accident that it became a cult classic.Here are five reasons why:

5) The Aliens.

When you first see these guys running through the spaceship (obviously little people dressed in suits) you want to laugh. But when you see them up close, they're kind of scary -- in a cuddly sort of way.

4) The Bradster.

Any time you see a guy who looks like this in an 80s movie ( i.e. Cole from Bachelor Party, Johnny from Karate Kid) you know you've got a Grade-A asshole on your hands, and The Bradster doesn't disappoint. Which makes it all the better when he gets it.

3) Sorority girl with a flame thrower/Busload of dead frat guys

I mean, who hasn't wanted to kill a whole busload of fratboys at one time or another?

2) Robert Kurtzman.

Kurtzman worked on the effects on this movie and played one of the creeps. Seems to have worked out well for him, as he is partners now with Greg Nicotero, who does a little show called The Walking Dead.

1) Tom Atkins.

Tom Atkins is a badass. He was in Creepshow, My Bloody Valentine, Lethal Weapon and Walker, Texas Ranger for chrissakes. He fights ghosts in The Fog. He fights psychopathic child killers in Halloween III, Season of the Witch. And in Night of the Creeps he delivers one-liner after magnificent one-liner, including the movie's tagline "The good news is your dates are here. The bad news is, they're dead," and his catchphrase, "Thrill me," all while smoking, drinking whiskey and blowing bad guy's heads off with shotguns. To paraphrase a line I once read about Chuck Yeager, the clanking you hear when Tom Atkins walks in a room is the sound of his giant brass balls banging together.

Available on Netflix streaming. 4 stars.

Bay of Blood - Bodies! Boobies! Bava!

My introduction to Mario Bava was Baron Blood on VHS many moons ago. It was fitting, I guess, that the godfather of giallo horror was my introduction to it.

I like the style of giallo (Italian for "yellow," a subgenre of horror/thriller films named for the yellow covers that adorned novels of the same ilk.) Giallo movies are just nice to look at. It doesn't matter whether you're looking at the Italian countryside or a bloody murder scene, it'll be beautifully photographed.

European horror in general often has a sophistication to it not present in most American films, even when offering up the requisite nude blondes for sacrifice to the black-gloved killer. Bava (like another of my favorite giallo directors, Dario Argento) pays meticulous attention to set design, lighting and the role of the camera. You just feel like you're getting your money's worth out of the cinematography in a good giallo.

Bay of Blood (known by many other names, including Twitch of the Death Nerve, Carnage and Chain Reaction) was a groundbreaking movie in a lot of ways despite not being a critical success. Bava had already invented the giallo genre, which normally involves the aforementioned stylish camera work and a bloody murder mystery. With Bay of Blood, he helped usher in the modern slasher film. What Hitchcock started in 1960's Psycho, Bava put into overdrive with Bay of Blood.

Blood is a twisty whodunit that opens with the murder of a countess, an act which leads to an ever-increasing pile of more-and-more gruesomely murdered bodies. The gore in the film was (and is) unsettling, and made the ultimate reveal of who was behind the killings even more shocking.

Many of the murder scenes from Bay of Blood would later be imitated (including being outright ripped off in the Friday the 13th franchise) by countless American slasher flicks. And in addition to influencing the amount of blood, Bava also brought us the young-people-up-to-no-good theme along with what is now one of horror's most over-indulged-in cliches, the hot chick going skinny dipping only to discover something horrific or to be killed in a horrific manner - or both.

Bay of Blood as a story is lacking. That's actually an oxymoron - there's too much story. There are too many twists that at best make the plot hard to follow, and the end - meant to shock - left me scratching my head a bit. But if you want to see one of the movies that led to the classic American slashers of the 80s, you should take a trip to Italy's Bay of Blood.

Bay of Blood is available for streaming on Netflix. 

3.5 stars.

A note on the trailer: Plenty are available. One has a long ad and another gives too much away. This one is done in monotone colors, and thus doesn't really show the good cinematography, but it sort of camouflages the spoilers and doesn't have ads. 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 40th anniversary: Beer Goggles for Leatherface

Tobe Hooper's low-budget horror classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre turns 40 this year.

Fans know all the trivia, the behind-the-scenes stories, and have debated the film's themes, value, etc. for four decades. I've seen it 5 or 6 times myself, including a viewing for the first Fright Film Spectacular when I did it via Twitter (check out @TheBulldogNate for those tweets from two years ago). I'm not sure what else I could add to the knowledge base of the movie, other than to describe what it was like to see it on the big screen for the first time this past Saturday.

I got to see it in Athens, Ga., which is my favorite city in the world. I watched it at Cine, which is a bar/theater a block over from the world-famous 40 Watt Club. Cine is hosting what it calls Schlocktoberfest, which is sort of a misnomer given the classics on the schedule (The Exorcist, Halloween, An American Werewolf in London, etc.).

The theater held a Chainsaw Chili Cookoff and Dog of the Dead (as in hot dog) contest in conjunction with Creature Comforts Microbrewery. For $13 you got a glass, beer tasting tickets (with very generous pours), and a tasting spoon for the chili.

I got my money's worth. I had five different kinds of beer (the Reclaimed Rye is the best) and several types of chili (The Silence of the Lambs made with lamb's tongue, fava beans and chianti was by far the best). By the time I made it across the street to Cine, I was in fine form.

Cine was offering two specials in honor of TCM: $3 Lone Star beers and a drink called Grandpa's Hammer, which was basically a spicy Bloody Mary with a Lone Star in it.

I had one of each. Then took a glass of Scotch (Glenmorangie Nectar d'or, which is worth every bit of the $7.50 they charged for it) into the theater. By then I was really ready for some mayhem.

The film was introduced by a University of Georgia professor who teaches a class on horror films, which I must audit someday. He did a decent job of giving a 6- or 8-minute primer for the audience. And then the movie began.

Now if you've seen it, you remember it, and there's no point in rehashing the plot. But I will point out three things I think you should know.

One, this was supposed to be the 40th anniversary digital remastered print. I noticed no difference in image quality, which doesn't necessarily bother me. When I watch exploitation horror and grindhouse from the 1970s I sort of expect it to look cruddy. It's part of the experience. I don't know if it looks the same way on Blu-ray, but I'd probably be a little disappointed if it does.

Two, you haven't heard the saw until you've heard it in a theater. I've heard the saw on VHS and DVD, through tinny TV speakers and decent surround sound, but until you hear it on a commercial quality sound system, you haven't really heard it, nor understood just how terrifying it can be. It takes you from simply watching Sally run from Leatherface to running with her. It's a lot more effective.

Finally, the film still holds up, mainly because it descends into madness so quickly. It's a lean 84 minutes, but it gets the job done. Today's directors who can't seem to make a feature-length movie that clocks in at less than 2.5 hours could take a lesson from Hooper. From the opening voice-over by John Larroquette and camera-flash images of the posed corpses in the graveyard, you are creeped out. By the time Leatherface does his chainsaw ballet in the road at sunrise, you're ready to get the hell out of there.

Even more so if you've been to a beer tasting beforehand.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains a five-star classic.

The Return of Fright Film Spectacular

This blog was going to be a regular thing. And then it wasn't. There were a lot of reasons. Brain surgery. Divorce. Drug addiction (not mine). The list goes on, but for awhile I had no interest in blogging about horror movies.

But now, here we are in the scariest month, and it's time for some frightening films. I'll try to watch as many as I can to continue the Fright Film Spectacular tradition, but I'm not promising anything. Life is still in the way, as the saying goes.

Now, formalities out of the way, we start October with a movie I discovered on Netflix streaming: Jug Face.

Jug Face is about backwoods weirdos and their god, which lives at the bottom of a muddy pit. As long as the rednecks feed "The Pit" with a little human sacrifice occasionally, the pit will heal them when they're sick. That's the pact they made since they "survived the pox," as one character says.

Who gets given to The Pit is revealed by The Potter, played by Sean Bridges, who you may know better as Johnny from Deadwood. When The Potter makes a clay jug with your face on it, you get given to the pit. That's how it works in backwoods blood sacrifice land.

But some folks don't want to be given to The Pit, including our heroine, Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter), who happens to be pregnant with (drum roll to introduce cliched Southern stereotype) ...
her brother's baby! And, of course, mayhem ensues when Ada finds a jug with her face on it and hides it so the backwoods gods don't get their preferred victim.

The film also stars Sean Young, who played another redneck mama in Poor White Trash, which is a hysterical comedy. Young is less loving Southern mom and more sadistic matriarch in this flick though.

The movie is weird and disturbing. It has a high yuck factor (which I guess is good if you're into that sort of thing), and the gore effects are good, thanks to Robert Kurtzman, who has done effects on everything from Army of Darkness to Pulp Fiction to Texas Chainsaw 3D. It's not for the squeamish. Torture, miscarriage, dismemberment -- it's all there for the gorehounds.

It gets minor points off for being the 3,450th movie to perpetuate Southern stereotypes like inbreeding and possum eatin', and it gets major points off for one of my biggest pet peeves -- uneven sound. I can not stand having to turn it way up to hear dialogue and then way down to keep from waking the neighbors during intense scenes.  How this is still a problem with all the technology that exists in the 21st century is beyond me.

All in all, I wasn't mad that I watched the movie, but I wasn't necessarily all that happy either. Jug Face is strange, but it's nothing special.

2.5 out of 5 stars.

I won't let KISS bandmembers tarnish my memories

This entry is not about horror fims. But many horror fans I know are also fans of KISS, so I figure this is as good a place as any to get this off my chest.
KISS — the band — is finally going in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The band members, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, Peter Criss and Paul Stanley — have done everything they can to screw it up for everybody.
Between social media, That Metal Show, radio call-ins, press releases, books and Rolling Stone, we fans — many of us fans for decades — have gotten a new look inside the band we love.
And we hate it.
We now see how the sausage is made in this band. And we don't like what we see, because it is not what we remember or believe in.
We're nostalgic for our own childhoods and wanted to relive them one more time at the induction ceremony.
We wanted our fire breathing, blood spitting, smoking guitars, smashing guitars and rising drum kits — and the men behind them — to be the same as what we saw when we opened the gatefold of Alive II. When we were 12-14 years old (or in my case, 6) we thought the characters and the men playing them were one in the same on the same mission. And maybe they were on the same mission at one time. But they aren't anymore.
We're not going to get that trip down memory lane because behind these characters, these personas that we all believed in as kids, are flawed human beings.
The Spaceman, with his rocket-shooting, smoking guitars and blistering solos will always be my guitar hero.
The real Ace Frehley is a spaced out ex-coke fiend who thinks aliens abducted him.
The Demon that was plastered on my bedroom wall (briefly, until my mom made me take it down) with blood dripping down his chin and breathing fire will always scare the crap out of me.
The real Gene Simmons is an admitted friendless, greedy jerk.
The Starchild with that big mane of hair and the mirrored guitar will always stand tall in the pantheon of cool, with the Fonz, James Bond and Dirty Harry.
In real life, Paul Stanley is the Man Behind the Curtain, a string-puller who seemingly can't stand any of the people he's worked with, but tolerates them to keep the rock and roll money and fame machine moving forward.
The Catman will always live in a thunderous, never-ending drum solo showered in smoke and confetti.
The real Peter Criss may be the only one who is close to a genuine person, and it's sad that he isn't going to get one last hurrah. I, too, was moved by his speech on That Metal Show. But he is also the guy who hung Ace out to dry in his book and is so paranoid he is afraid to answer his own door.
And whatever they appear to be to us, they apparently appear 1,000 time worse to each other:
— Sweet guy Peter didn't merit a phone call from his bandmates when he had cancer?
— Reality star Gene can't get his "brother" Paul to stay at his house for more than a few minutes because Paul thinks Gene lives a "fake" life?
— Paul is so ruthless he'll "cut your throat?" And says people who don't realize who the real boss of KISS is "don't know the band"?
— Ace says Peter was his best friend in the band but then voted him out? (Or didn't, depending on what day you ask him.)
These guys are goofballs. Idiots. Assholes. Between the four of them they have maybe two brains and half a heart.
But the four of them together circa 1977 — or 2000 — reach a level of awesome that's rarely been achieved by any of my other childhood idols. I've seen KISS in various lineups a half dozen times. I've seen the original four together once, and that show still blows away any other. Because those four together, in makeup, on stage, create something special.
So that's how I'm going to remember them — on stage. On my turntable. On my bedroom wall. I don't want to hear about, read about or otherwise discuss them, the Hall of Fame or any of their off-stage drama any more. Because I don't need those four guys. I don't need to be a part of their lives. I don't need them.
But I do need KISS. Sometimes I need to be a kid again. Sometimes I need to rock-and-roll my troubles away. And as long as I can put on a KISS record I can do that. Listening to the music is a must.
Listening to the nonsense is optional.
Some said KISS stood for Knights in Satan's Service. Others said it was the old adage Keep It Simple, Stupid.
For me, from now on, it will be Keep It Separate, Stupid — love the music, love the nostalgia, and the hell with the rest of it.

Galaxy of Terror - or Alien 1.5

You know those movies where someone says it's this movie meets that movie or if this movie and that movie had a baby? Well, if Alien was molested by Attack of The Crab Monsters while the crab monster used one claw to touch Star Wars inappropriately and an episode of Happy Days was playing in the background, you'd get Galaxy of Terror.

This Roger Corman-produced sci-fi/horror schlockfest from 1981 apparently has a cult following, and now I know why.

First, get a load of the cast: Devil's Reject Sid Haig and Freddy Kruger himself, Robert Englund. Then add a slumming Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian, Mr. Hand from Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and Joanie - pre loving Chachie, Erin Moran. Throw in a faux Tom Skeritt and a cantankerous ersatz Ripley from Alien and you're all set to rip off some blockbusters.

But not so fast. Sure, the first 10 minutes of this film are so cringe-inducing you'll want to turn it off. Sure, it steals blatantly from Alien and Star Wars (and later Empire Strikes Back and Forbidden Planet.) And sure, some of the acting is so bad from Erin Moran and Grace Zabriskie (trying for half Ripley and half Han Solo but failing miserably) that you can't wait for their characters to die. But, if you hang in there, you get a nice little reward.

The film starts with this old sage woman, who looks like Grand-MaMa from The Addams Family, talking to this mysterious Master, who is informed that a ship, the Remus - as in Uncle - has not been heard from. A crew is sent to investigate, their ship is pulled to the planet via some unknown force (I used the word force there on purpose), they start to investigate, people start dying, and you can guess where it should go from there.

However, there's a twist to this little pseudo-Alien ripoff. Things are not as they seem on Planet Morganthus, and the crew will find themselves not just stalked by slimy aliens but at the center of a very warped game.

And if Galaxy of Terror steals liberally from Alien, it also foreshadows Aliens. Why?

Because a guy you may have heard of who directed Aliens was the production designer on this film. James Cameron's fingerprints are all over Galaxy of Terror. The set design and the special effects in particular will remind you of Aliens.

And speaking of the effects, gore lovers will get their fill in Galaxy of Terror. Dismemberment, disemboweling, burnt faces, wriggling maggots - a little something for everyone. And three of the death scenes are of the kind that make horror fans stand up and cheer: One for originality, one for killing off an annoying character in a spectacular way, and one that is primarily responsible for the film's cult status and its original X rating. I won't spoil it, but it has to do with a hot blonde and a very gross creature. You'll just have to see it.

As for performances, Haig and Englund are acceptable, Walston is fine but looks like he's mad that he's in the movie most of the time, Zabriskie is pitiful and Moran is clearly uncomfortable being such a long way from the set of Happy Days. Her lines are throwaway and her character, Alluma, who is a Deanna Troi from Next Generation type, is useless.

The version I watched was on Netflix streaming and was a terrible transfer, presumably made from a VHS since it was in standard 4:3 screen ratio. A Blu-ray version exists, but the cruddy, grindhouse look of the streamer sort of added to the experience for me. It clocks in at a quick 81 minutes, and you know how we love short movies here at Fright Film Spectacular. It may have taken me longer to write the review than to watch the film.

Finally, I purposefully did not post the trailer because it gives too much away. But if you just have to watch it to see if you're interested, close your eyes anytime you see Sid Haig or a naked woman. You don't want those moments ruined when you watch the actual movie. Which you should do.

3 out of 5 stars.