Heavy Metal Monster

Pulgasari is a mythical giant monster ox thing that helps those in need of justice. (It’d be cool if he could be my legal counsel. I’m getting really tired of being told to just “throw myself on the mercy of the court.”)

 A small farming Korean village in an old time-y century has been jacked for all their metal tools and dishes because a nearby king needs the iron to make plenty ’o weapons for his super big army. The farmers fight back and get pushed around by the warlord. Pulgasari to the rescue.

Fashioned from a wad of mystical rice and brought to life by the blood of a hot farmer’s daughter who doesn’t know the meaning of “one hung low,” the tiny beast gorges on metal and grows at a buffet-busting rate; When he reaches the height of 250 feet, it’s hammer time.

The best part is Pulgasari is made of metal and can’t be killed by conventional means (fire, avalanches, cruel taunts). Putting the iron in irony, the monster makes rice cakes out of the army, but has to keep eating metal in order to survive. The villagers are right back in the soup.

All things considered, the ending of the Korean-made Pulgasari (1985) has a nice twist that’ll bring tears to your eyes. Dry your leakings – Pulgasari would not want you to be sad for him.

A Traveling Sales Werewolf

In the mid 1800s the countryside of Spain was plagued by unusual murders and wolf attacks. My first of three conclusive thoughts was, “Wolves are mugging people, no doubt.”

But the wolfiness going on was merely a by-product of the murders, wherein the wolves would eat the remains and make the cops think the dead people were made that way by the hungry animals.

But one detective noticed hidden within the mangled flesh areas were very precise surgical incisions. Since there was nary a hairy enrolled in medical school, the crimes were obviously committed by a human. (My second conclusive thought placed the blame squarely on Jack The Ripper. Apparently, it was not him, dang it.)

Enter Romasanta, a traveling soap salesman who makes his product out of human body fat. Ick. Since this was the stinky 1800s and bathing was done on special occasions (like the changing of the seasons), his soap was in demand. After he seduces a rippingly hot supermodel (bath tub scene – great rewind material), she discovers he killed her sisters and was more than likely using their soapy butt fat to wash herself. Eeww! So she tells the police and a manhunt ensues.

While the wolf/werewolf attacks are PG graphic, it’s the scene of the fat and naked guy running through the woods with his Willy Wonka flapping around the way a chubby snake does when it sticks its head out the window of a car speeding down the freeway that’s the most unsettling.

Romasanta is tried in court and he tells them he couldn’t help killing 15 people because he’s a werewolf. His attorney successfully gets him off the hook under the “bonkers” defense strategy. I need this guy’s number.

While Romasanta doesn’t morph into a werewolf in a silly fur coat, they do show him changing into a human from a real wolf form. I felt this was pretty neat.

A few problems, however: Romasanta did not have an accent befitting someone from Spain. Nor did the cops. Nor did the wolves, which didn’t sound the least bit Spanish when they howled (example: “El Barko! El Barko!”). My last conclusive thought was that Romasanta (2004), which was based on a true story (Werewolf of Allariz, 1853), could’ve used more soap bubbles.

Planet of the Vampires

Planet of the Vampires (1965) is also known as Terrore Nello Spazio. (It’s an Italian sci-fi flick.) Even so, only half of this movie’s title is correct.

Two pricey spaceships, loaded with astronauts in work clothing, crash on a mysterious planet that has a lot of glowing steam and pointy rocks. The place looks unoccupied, but the planet’s residents are invisible. (That saved the film company a few bucks on crappy rubber masks.)

The crew of the Argos become possessed by these invis-o-beings and turn last call-hostile, beating each other up and down. Those who die during these point-counter points are reanimated with space herpes sores on their faces, and stalk those without space herpes.

A couple of the guys from Galliot, the other space ship, want to get the heckaroo outta there, and go about stealing Argos’ Meteor Rejector device, the thing that will allow them to navigate the pinball asteroid field they barely made it though on their way to Planet Boring in the first place.

The DVD box art shows giant skeletal vampires with icky faces attacking the crew. There are no such creatures in the movie, just astronauts covered in Saran Wrap™ running around and smacking each other. I wish I had a Crappy Horror Movie Rejector device installed on my TV.

Alcoholic Alien

Thomas Jerome Newton is a humanoid alien from a distant planet. It’s oddly comforting to know that even on other worlds, having a first, last and middle name is a universal rule.

Mercurial rock icon David Bowie plays Thomas, the bald alien with cat pupils. He was the perfect choice for this sci-fi pic as Bowie IS an alien. So he comes to Earth looking for water as his home planet is as dried up as the condoms in my bathroom.

His wife and kid on Planet Dust are thirstier than all get out, but they have to wait while Thomas makes millions off his electronic inventions so that he can afford to build a spaceship and bring mom and offspring some Space Kool-Aid™. Not sure why he simply didn’t bring ’em along and drop ’em off at the pool.

While on this planet, Thomas gets himself a “goes all the way” girlfriend. (What happens on Earth, stays on Earth.) He also goes all the way into TV, personal firearms and other great trappings about this planet. But his new friends, like every human, can be bribed, which the government does to get the inside scoop on this effeminate extraterrestrial.

They strap him to a chair and subject him to painful probing experiments. During the course of these “finger exams,” Thomas becomes a full-blown alcoholic. (Wouldn’t you? Earth hooch is so darn tasty.) And because of his earth-condition, he can never go back to his parched family. Time to drink the grief away.

Bowie is totally convincing as an alien in The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976), probably because he’s from outer freakin’ space. And his 1969 “Space Oddity,” a song about going face first into the galaxy and not coming back – those lyrics are for real, man.

Schemin’ Demon

Heartbroken, Justin pines for his girlfriend who was taken to the Seventh Layer of Hell by demons. That always happens when you get a new gal, and some guy who’s hotter comes along and chops your beef.

So Justin, using an evil book given to him by his beloved April (the one now curling her hair in Purgatory), draws a pentagram, lights few candles, sits in the magic circle, and calls upon the demon Lo to come before him to assist his passage waaaaaaay down south.

Lo arrives as a wicked cool creature crawling out of the darkness on his stomach. He has no hair, but has hair on him. The back of his is missing, with rocks protruding where brains might normally be on display. He has black stuff all around his mouth, as though he just ate most, if not all, of an evil cream pie. His other sweet tooth is for human flesh. Delighting in the fact that Justin is a newbie demon invoker, Lo refers to him as “Dinner.” That’s pretty funny.

Lo tricks Justin into drinking a cocktail that will allow the human body to be taken into Hell. It’s really a slow-acting poison served with a green olive and poured over ice. Justin doesn’t care – he just wants to see his girlfriend. (Yeesh, talk about whipped.) What happens next is surreal, unexpected and downright smarty brilliant.

You haven’t seen anything like Lo (2010). Don’t go in expecting traditional horror, but savor the way horror is presented in this uniquely creative tale of how love is nothing but Hell. Cool – I just sounded like an actual critic. Look at me, I’m a “film” reviewer.

Lipstick Vampires

Two gorgeous gal pals with benefits – one pure of heart, the other a remorseless killer with anger issues – come back from the dead as vampires. This was in 1968 and was facilitated by God, represented as a red head chick with see-thru nightie, who come out of the sky for a little chat.

The blonde is made dead by a black sand tornado and the brunette gets to make out with the deity. It’s explained that She did Humanity laundry with a 40 day/40 night flood back in the day to cleanse the land of wrongness. Now She needs someone to roam the land, killing those deemed cruel and unclean. And that person has to wear a slinky dress, look hot and be into girls.

A deal is made to bring the blonde back from the dead (sorry – forgot to mention it), which carries a warning. Like anybody ever listens to warnings. If they did, I wouldn’t have stuck a fateful fork in that toaster all those painful minutes ago.

Both girls are reborn out of the ground and its 40 years later, which is kinda sorta now. The blonde, amped up with her newfound power, rips the necks off two guys out on a desert highway.

Finding the Murder World Mini-Mart (I’m not making that up – that’s what the store’s sign says) miles from nowhere, they need to hide from the rising sun or else burnt toast time. (That’s why I used the fork – the bread was burning, man.)

What could’ve been Life Blood’s (2009) epic showdown between the girlfriends was but a mere bitch slap, to say nothing of the diluted ending. Never send a vampire lesbian to do a psycho serial killer’s job, I always say.

Iron Mike Bison

In the late 1800s, James Otis – also known by his Christian name as Wild Bill Hickok – has syphilis, and it’s starting to make his brain go as wacky as his wiener. Crazy Horse, the famous Indian with a name right up there with Geronimo, is also in this old western horror fun fest.

Seems a giant, marauding white buffalo has been causing tent-wrecking migraines for everyone. So Wild ’n Crazy are called in to track, evaluate and eventually dispatch the hooved earthquake.

Crazy Horse wants the glory so he can retain his cool name (they don’t just give it to you – you gotta earn it) and skin the protein-packed beast for its hide, which he then wants to wrap his dead child in and send off to Paradise. (For me Paradise would be a tavern with working bathrooms).

Hickok wants to kill Mr. Buffalo because he thinks that’ll stop his dreams from being all nightmare-y. (He didn’t know about unchecked tool rot and its effects on the upper and lower noodle.)

While Hickok should be looking for a drugstore instead of giant bison, his dreams get weirder and more intense, almost as if he tried Jager Floats™ for the first time. The final confrontation where the buffalo charges out of the woods and comes straight at him is what Ted Nugent’s dreams are made of. Mine as well.

The scenes of the beast running through the snow-buried woods at night, making steam from both ends and doing cool honking sounds, only serves to validate the The White Buffalo’s (1977) rental fee. I don’t give a crap if the buffalo did look like an overstuffed carnival toy – I should’ve stolen this movie.

Sewer Phantom

The eternally classic Phantom of the Opera (1925) is adapted from the book Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, which I never even looked at because I can’t read French. I assumed I could. My bad.

So this opera lovin’ dude has a f’d up face, so he wears a mask and lives in what seems like a million feet below the Paris Opera House where Christine, his muse, sings songs in a really high voice. (You don’t get to hear it as this is a silent movie. Just use your imagination.)

The Phantom threatens mega unhappy times if the theater/theatre owners do not let his song bird perform instead of that singing diva c-word, Carlotta. He makes good on the threat by dropping a massive chandelier (fancy name for fluorescent lighting) on the audience during a sold-out show. Dude! 

The Phantom, who has been secretly coaching Christine, finally gets the nerve to ask her out, and takes her to his nicely appointed crib in the sewers. (French sewage – loaded with recycled wine, butter and stink cheese.)

He tells her not to fixate on his mask and that if she touches it, will totally wreck their relationship. She touches it. Snap! That turned out to be one of horror’s all time kick ass shock moments as the Phantom looks like a mummy with too much eye shadow and lipstick.

Inevitably, the cops show up and beat the arts outta him. Too bad – the Phantom showed serious sequel potential.

 

Evil Sex

Despite Satan’s Baby Doll (1982) title (Satan doesn’t appear, he just licensed his name for this production), this half-baked Euro-sleaze tale about sex from beyond the grave does have its rewind moments.

Dad kills mom for sleeping with everybody but him. Geez, lighten up, Francis. Mom returns as a naked ghost spirit that possesses her mega-hot teenage daughter to continue her sexing ways. The uncle is a paraplegic who is attended to (i.e., hand-bathed with the glory of the washcloth) by a supermodel/nun.

 OK, she’s not quite ordained yet, but she wears the right clothes until bedtime. Then she takes ’em off to reveal thigh-high silk stockings and high heels. No point in adding a bra to this functional yet stylish casual attire.

When possessed, the teen daughter exposes her religion-proof body and wanders around the family’s castle, looking for someone to do. Dad is hooked on drugs, dabbles in the Black Arts, and tries to make it with the nun, but she ain’t having “nun” of that. Heh.

Mom returns from the grave – nude as naked could be – to seduce dad to death. But drugs have made his bacon under cooked, so he has to go away. Too bad he had to die with Mr. Wink dangling through his unsecured bathrobe. That can’t be anything but embarrassing.

Mom, though, wants to pick up where she left off with the nun (aha – that explains the inherently sexy underwear), but needs her daughter’s body to do it. The nun, though, wants to set the daughter’s soul free. To do this, she has to get naked and… I’ll let you connect the rest of the dots. Use both hands.

This Spanish lurid horror sex romp (aka, La bimba di Satana) at least had hot women if not a hot plot. Man, I wish I lived in a Spanish castle with an unsecured bathrobe and supermodel who could assist me with my daily hygiene rituals.

Religion Gone Wild

To say the uber-strict Sister Ursula gets into her job is an understatement. She tortures “godless and impure” girls at the Catholic convent school, stuffing passed notes in mouths and sticking a water nozzle where God hadn’t intended a water nozzle should be stuck. Clearly, religion holds a special place in her heart.

Fed up with being nozzled, stuck and stuffed, the students turn on Sister Ursula and drown her in a bathtub. Baptized with bubbles. Homework assignment completed, they haul the Sister’s body out to the school’s deep pond and give her a proper burial at sea.

Twenty years later the pond was drained, which means Sister Ursula’s revenge-driven soul was allowed to escape. (Her bones, though, were probably eaten by pond sharks.) Because she died by water, so does that become the method of her revenge.

The ordained effects in The Nun (aka, La Monja/2005) are kinda cool, what with the floating Sister doing stuff with water only a Catholic Aquaman could do. No nudity (dang), colorful dismemberment (sweet), and a mystery that couldn’t stump a bone dry Nancy Drew. All in all, not a bad way to spend an hour and a half. That, or in a confessional.