This C.H.U.D.’s For You

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been storing radioactive waste in the sewers under the streets of New York. And since most of the homeless live rent-free in the fragrant underground, the dots connect themselves.

Radioactivity has time-tested body distorting properties, so it’s an easy leap to assume the C.H.U.D. (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers) are in fact the grotesquely mutated creatures that have been feasting on those who are not.

Looking like something that came out of a heavy metal song, these inside-out-faced creatures leave a wake of half-eaten humans all around the sewers. Waste not, want not. They could at least wrap up the leftovers for citizen stew or street chili.

Topside, they’re planning to gas the sewers in a feeble attempt to put the thud on the C.H.U.D. They better hurry – the monsters, with glowing eyes, can-opener-strength claws, and radioactive slobber – are getting into apartment buildings and restaurants.

Underpin all of this with testy New Yorkers and a government cover-up, and sit back and watch the mutated flesh hit the fan. They don’t show the monsters actually ripping apart humans and dining on skin snacks, which was a big disappointment. All you see is brief flashes of the underground dwellers, which is a shame as they look kinda cool.

Most of C.H.U.D.’s (1984) action centers around ill-tempered New Yorkers who act as though radioactive sewer monsters were just a part of every day life. Maybe they are.

Trading Faces

A young supermodel doctor sees herself driving down a London street and it freaks her out. Especially since she would never be caught dead wearing that hideous ensemble of out-of-season colors.

That she follows herself  and ends up getting in a violent car crash is about the only thing you’ll be able to understand in The Broken (2008), a needlessly confusing head-scratcher. (Note to people who scratch their heads – try using Tegrin™ medicated shampoo or just don’t watch this movie.)

For whatever reason, her mirror doppelganger is committing murders onto her boyfriend and some other people no one gives a bagel about, thereby setting up the letting of blood.

Not particularly suspenseful, but man, is it full of blah, blah, blah. The Broken is aptly titled.

Smoke On The Daughter

Eleven year-old Ivy Smith doesn’t know it yet, but she’s really the reincarnation of Audrey Rose, a little girl who was barbecued alive in a painful car crash/fire. Hard to go through life with two first names, let alone souls.

Audrey’s grief-stricken dad goes to New York, looking for the soul of his burnt daughter. Thanks to a religious tip, he believes his daughter’s crispy essence has taken up shop in Ivy. Now all he has to do is convince Ivy’s parents to let him have her. Good luck with that.

While this is going, on Ivy is beginning to suffer horrific nightmares of being oven-roasted, even getting burn blisters on her hands from touching a cold window during a gnarly sleep-walking episode. And the nightmare continue as it nears what would’ve been Audrey’s birthday. (Just don’t light the candles. Just sayin’.)

The hypno-regression scene is pretty darn hairy and rounds out this intriguing psychological horror thriller. To enjoy Audrey Rose (1977) , all you need to do is sit back with a refreshing adult beverage and a grilled (sorry) hot dog and you’re set.

Brain Pain

Money may not be able to buy you happiness, but it can buy you a medical procedure to take the brain out of your withered old financially wealthy female body and transplant it into something a little more swimsuit ready.

An earlier experiment using the readily available power of atomic energy, had a dubious scientist transplanting the brain of dog into a guy and a brain of a cat into that of a young woman. Not sure if it worked, but she sure does like eating mice and licking herself. (I’d pay to see that.)

Mrs. March, the old rich woman, hires several hotties to tend to the house chores while she evaluates their muscle tone and ability to invoke wolf whistles. But the double-crossing old broad gets hers when Dr. Frank (enstein) puts her brain into that of the donor cat. B*tch, you’ve been served.

All of The Atomic Brain’s (1963) delightful gruesomeness is implied and not shown (i.e., brain pudding, blood, R-rated licking). Like what a cat leaves behind, it looked good on paper. Ultimately, the subject is more shocking than this sci-fi morality play.

This floater was also known as Monstrosity. That, and The Atomic Brain, pretty much describes me after last call.

Candyman: Bee-Grade Horror

Candyman, a former murdered son of a black slave in his pre-folklore days, appears after you look in a mirror and say his name five times. (I tried that using the word “Budweiser™.” Didn’t work.) Those who successfully summon this Man of Candy, always dies an ugly death. Never heard of a pretty death, so that makes sense.

Helen Lyle is a graduate student researching the legend of Candyman in the sprawling, crime-plagued Cabrini-Green area of town. She meets the real legend who tells her she must believe in him. Hey, any guy with a hook for hand and who shoots bees out of his mouth has my full attention.

People become possessed. Dogs get decapitated. Necks get sliced. Blood gets on everything. Bee breath begins to stink. Candyman kidnaps a baby with the intent on not letting it get past Huggies™ and into Underoos™.

Helen makes a deal with Candyman – she’ll carry on his fearful legend and make the surrounding neighborhood crap their pants whenever they hear his name, only if he doesn’t take the baby with him into that junk yard bonfire where he lives.

Helen barely manages to save the kid from the extra-flame-y flames, and ends up dying due to her burnt-toast flesh. Trevor, Helen’s grief-stricken husband, looks in the mirror, all sad and upside-down smiley, and says his wife’s name five times. Do I have to spell it out for you?

A great horror icon in Candyman (1992), what with his happenin’ fur coat, white scarf, hooked hand and mouth bees. He also has a deep voice. I bet he could get a job in radio easy.

The Horror of Sex

It’s not often you see a horror movie about a sexually transmitted disease gone wild. And really, who would want to see something like that on the big screen, let alone their privates and face after they scratch themselves and then rub their eyes?

Contracted, a new horror flick flaring up on November 22, 2013 on IFC, deals with just such a topic. Here are the icky details: “A young girl who has a one-night stand with a stranger, contracting what she thinks is a sexually transmitted disease, but it is actually something far worse. As things begin to crumble around her, she’s sent on a disturbing and bloodcurdling journey, sure to keep audiences on the edge of their seats. With nail-biting suspense and frightening twists, Contracted is a horror film for those who think they’ve seen it all.”

I’m thinking I don’t want to see it all. Conditions like Rump Rot or Greasy Crease isn’t on my go-to list of horror genres to watch. How come they just can’t make a nice, happy movie about super painful rug burns or achy tennis elbow? Now there’s some fascinating themes to explore.

Pet Sematary: Diggin’ Up The Past

Pet Sematary (1989), an adaptation of a Stephen King book, follows in the unique trend of horror fans doing their documentaries on their favorite films, the mind-boggling Room 237 (2013), a microscopic dissertation on The Shining, blazing the trail.

Because I’m feeling a bit washed out right now from watching non-dubbed Japanese sci-fi without sub-titles, I’ll let the press release do the talking:  “Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary is an independent documentary taking an extensive look at the making of Pet Sematary, the origins of the story, the stories of cast and crew, memories of the Maine locals who helped make the film, and the legacy the film has established among horror fans and scholars of Stephen King’s work.”

In addition to what I hope will be unseen footage of you-know-who being flattened by a you-know-what, there’s interviews with cast and crew members, tours of filming locations, behind the scene photos and videos, and a bunch of other stuff I’m just not up for writing about because I can’t get the sound of a Japanese expressed “aiyeeee!” out of my freakin’ head.

For those of you who may not have seen Pet Sematary or read the book, a little kid gets run over by a semi, his dad buries him in an ancient Indian burial ground after being warned not to, the kid comes back to life and curse word worthy Hell breaks loose.

You may remember Pet Sematary under its first short story title: The Monkey’s Paw (1902). (Just replace horse-drawn buggy with eighteen-wheeler.)

A Ghost You Can’t Bust

In the oddly titled The Asphyx (1973), Sir Hugo Cunningham, a turn-of-the-Century science dude, stumbles across a curious phenomenon. Having invented a motion picture camera, he films a hanging execution of a criminal. (Fun to run in reverse.) During the playback notices a small, fart-like, black smudge zooming into the condemned man right before the trap doors put an end to his wrong-filled life. (Fart-like is such a handy phrase.)

Later, Hugo and his family go row boating on the lake without life preservers. That no one knew how to swim is none of your business. While filming the accidental drowning of his son and his wife, he later plays back the footage and notices that same dark smudge fly across the frame and go into his son as he was about to swallow lake. He deduces this to be the Asphyx (pronounced, “ass fix”), a death spirit.

This gives Hugo a bright idea – to see if he can capture his own death spirit by tricking it into thinking he’s about to die. Hugo manages to succeed in a grim sequence that will make your pants bunch up around your puckered lower orifice. It’ll also cause a fart-like stain and/or noise down there.

More experiments with remaining family members, which ends in a few “oops” moments. Anguished at the oops of his entire family, Hugo tries to take his own life – but it’s not working. With his Asphyx successfully stuck in a bottle, Hugo can’t die. Harshness abounds.

The Asphyx, which looks like a glow-in-the-dark version of Slimer from Ghostbusters (1984), is a cheesy special effect. Still, he sure is a cute little fellow. I wonder if you can get your picture taken with him without croaking?

A Bloody Good Read

Mary Florescu, a 40-something paranormal professor and published author, along with her ghost hunter sidekick Reggie, are investigating a mysterious spooky house where several ritual murders have occurred.

There are mysterious spooky warnings scribbled all over the walls: “Do Not Mock Us.” The penmanship left a little to be desired, but the message was clear – don’t mess with us ghosts.

Enter Simon McNeal, a morose young student and clairvoyant, who is hired to spend a few nights in the haunted house to help solve the mystery. Simon, turns out, is less of a clairvoyant than I am. (OK, I’m not clairvoyant. BUT I WANT TO BE.)

He fakes a string of ghostly events that convinces Mary he’s the real deal. But Simon underestimated the real ghosts living in the house, which happens to be an intersection for the dead.

While he may have staged the earlier visitations, the one last night was unfortunately real. Soon it’s a poltergeist jamboree with the walls in Simon’s room fading away to reveal the after-life, with thousands of ghosts with stories to tell, lining up to autograph/carve Simon’s body while he lays there screaming. That’ll teach him.

Clive Barker’s Book of Blood (2009) doesn’t have as much blood as the title advertises, though there is one face-ripping, six schoolgirl skeletons dancing in a fountain, and 150,000 (give or take) dead souls with poor writing skills.

Craptacular Werewolves

Blood of the Werewolf (2001) is a trio of zero-budget tales, each involving a werewolf and each sucking harder than the one before it.

You know you ordered a turd sandwich with all the trimmings when the first scene opens and it’s the director’s friends as your “actors” and the music soundtrack is the band that rehearses in the garage next door.

The werewolves (and I use the term loosely) look like they were made of wet clay and dog hair sweepings. The dialogue appears to have been written by a comatose patient on life support. And how dare you put two lesbians in a movie and not have them rub each other?

As punishment, those involved with this crap-o-rama should be forced to watch it for all eternity.