Well, it's come and gone!

 

Yep, The First Annual Cool Halloween Spooktacular That Was Cool AND Good has ended.

I know I said that I was gonna bring it into November but I don't think that will happen. HOWEVER I still have movies I downloa.......I mean took off my DVD shelf and I intend to review them during November and beyond, however It's back to normal as it wont be all spooky scares of ghosts and goblins! It will go back to the usual goofy stuff like Darkhawk and TaleSpin. We will have a good time though

I do still plan to put The Final Episode on hiatus so the other two columns can get to the same number. I do plan to talk about the 3 remaining shows I said I'd do for Ichiban Crush so we will get them done soon as possible.

I also plan to start reviewing Disney movies every few Movie Reviews, so expect to see that stuff pop up.

This will be the only blog where someone will praise both Sword in the Stone AND a Lucio Fulci gore flick!

I plan to try to put a lot of work into the November stuff because this month will be the blogs first birthday! Isn't that cool?

TV You Forgot About #7: The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976)

 

Of all the old timey pre-1980 film stars I kinda feel bad for Paul Lynde. The dude was hilarious and memorable in like every role he could get, yet could never get the big role. He was always the guest star. He always wanted the big roles and probably would be flabbergasted that people are still talking about him these days. The man was bigger than life and it was hard to believe for me that he was only in 11 episodes of Bewitched. Like seriously? You'd have thought that he was in like half the episodes! Still he got a weird Halloween special and really did you expect me to not talk about this during the Very First and Very Best Halloween Spooky Spectacular For Cool Kids and Cool Adults... fat chance!

So this special has some interesting backstory at least for me. ABC got Paul into a contract for a television series, The Paul Lynde Show which well was a one season failure. I have no idea about the actual shows quality but it didn't get the ratings they wanted. Then came ANOTHER show from ABC, a show called Temperatures Rising. It also flopped. So they did what they could and put him on a bunch of specials with Donny and Marie Osmond, who have always creeped me the hell out. I do not know why. After those variety show specials they gave Paul his very own! Now wasn't that interesting?!

So they packed this puppy fulla stars of the time. You had the mom from the Brady Bunch. Billy Barty the famous little person actor of the time. He was even in the He-Man movie! the Wicked Witch of Oz, Margaret Hamilton shows up. Betty White! Everyone loves Betty White, even grouchy incorrect assholes like portnoyd. To top this cast all off, those wild rascals known as Kiss even got to play their first live tv gig on this special! Now that's some good watching!

The special starts out with Paul Lynde dressed up as Santa. Margaret Hamilton comes in and is all sassy and old and is like "It ain't Christmas!" Then he dresses up as a giant Easter bunny. She tells him it ain't Easter either. He then tries Valentine's Day. She tells him it's not that either, he then lists off a bunch of holidays and tells her to smile if he gets close. She then gives him a hint about goblins and ghouls and he says "That sounds like Hollywood Squares!"   She then tells him that he knows what day it is and he goes Happy Halloween...woo.. I don't think Paul's really into the holiday spirit! He then goes into a monologue which has the best fat joke I've heard in a while "It's easy to love Halloween when you're the size of a Pumpkin!" The monologue ends and he starts singing his song from Bye Bye Birdie. You know the one the Simpsons parodied in that episode with the SEX CAULDRON I THOUGHT THEY CLOSE THAT PLACE DOWN joke in it. Had I known it was from a movie with Paul Lynde I would have watched it years ago!

The song ends with him being placed in a trash can by Donny and Marie Osmond and they smile this creepy smile. Brrr. I do not like those two. They were a surprise guest that apparently ABC ruind the surprise by putting them in the ad materials. Do you know what a surprise is ABC? It ain't that. After that the fucking trash can explodes and we fade to black. Then when we come back its Paul Lynde and Margaret Hamilton driving around. They are going to Margaret's sisters house. She is played by someone from one of those crazy ass shows by Sid and Marty Kraft. She turns out to be a witch and this is probably the third and last time Margaret Hamilton plays the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. She also played it on Sesame Street a year earlier. Someone will probably be like UM NO SHE PLAYED IT IN SOME OBSCURE THING FROM 1957 HOW DARE YOU NOT KNOW. Anyway this is a fun bit that even involves Miss Halloween 1976, Betty White herself. Personally Betty White is not very scary and should not be Miss Halloween 1976. 

They say they will give him three wishes if he joins the witches union and helps them get a better rap. I guess just talk about how cool they are on Hollywood Squares or some shit. His first wish is to become a trucker. With the gaudiest most ridiculous costume of all time. Like look at that thing. I love it more than I thought I could ever love something. I want to go as Rhinestone Trucker Paul Lynde one Halloween. It looks like so much fun. He and another trucker, played by Tim Conway! find out they are both set to be married to the same woman. Said woman is Fonzie's Girlfriend! Yep, the lady from the hit 1980 horror film New Years Evil has decided to marry both men. Paul Lynde in a frenzied rage of needing to marry this woman crashes through the damn wall of Billy Barty's resturant. Billy Barty shows his Incredible Hulk like strength to push the truck out of the resturant. Little known fact is that Billy Barty was in fact going to be the first live action Incredible Hulk but they chickened out and went with Lou Ferringo.  Tim Conway and Paul Lynde end up arm wrestling with each other for the love of Fonzie's Girlfriend. I didn't think I'd ever get to write a sentence that weird. Actually sadly they don't do the arm wrestling they just do a test of strength. Of course the Strongest Man Who Ever Lived, Billy Barty proves to be the strength. Tim Conway then says he's the smartest he knows all the numbers AND colors. Paul Lynde wins in the end by saying he's the richest. We don't get to see Tim Conway arm wrestle but WE do get to see him sing with Paul and Pinky! Now that's how you end a comedy sketch.

Then we get another silly bit involving Paul and the Witches which (say that five times fast) leads into one of the performances by Kiss. I like Kiss. They play Detroit Rock City and it kicks ass. Then it's back to Paul and the Witches playing monopoly which leads into our second comedy sketch! Where Paul is a sheik! Who is trying to seduce the Mom from the Brady Bunch! She ends up getting into it which makes me thing that she was really into gay men seeing as Robert Reed the dad from the Brady Bunch also liked to kiss dudes. Paul comes back to the witches again and decides to do something nice for them. They want to go to A Hollywood Disco and they turn it into a cool ass Halloween Hollywood Disco! They introduce Florence Henderson who does a pretty great little song and then Kiss comes back for another song this time Beth the monster hit! The song ends and then Paul makes some corny jokes about Kiss that yes I laughed at ("My dream came true! Four kisses on the first date") he asks Margaret Hamilton for one final wish and it's for Kiss to play one last song. Kiss plays one last song and then everyone starts to dance to a song called Disco Baby. Billy Barty has some kickass dancing moves. Paul Lynde gives us a nice closing monologue and this variety special ends.

FINAL VERDICT: This special has considered by so many people as bad and I don't get it. This entrie thing was very delightful with a lot of great music, fun comedy sketches and that rascal Paul Lynde. If he somehow still exists out there in the cosmos I hope he knows we like trying to pull off his voice. He's up there with Peter Lorre, Vincent Price and Bill Cosby. I think that's a great legacy to have honestly!

The Final Episode #87: Are You Afraid of the Dark (#1 revival series) (1999 - 2000)

 

I had a hell of a time figuring out if I should have done the Final Episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? because there was a break of 3 years between the original series and what I guess I'll call the revival time. I was like is 3 years enough for it to be called a revival? I then realized that they even got a new cast so I figured it was a good idea to do both versions. Plus the Final Episode of this "revival" sounded really bad and I wanted to at least celebrate this silly little show. So I figured that I would do both. Plus the internet agrees with me that this is a revival series and I'm gonna go with them. I do plan to discuss the newest episodes put out in 2019 and 2021 because why not. We might as well talk about the remakes and see which ones are dumb and which ones aren't.

Another reason I wanted to do this as two posts is the fact that I do not at all remember this version of the series. I was like "Yeah I think that was one of the later episodes... the one with the computer Gremlin" Nope. That was in Season Four of the original series. We can argue if 3 years is a lot of time for an adult but 3 years IS a lot of time for a kid. When the first series stopped I was in the 5th grade going into the 6th. by the time we got to this series I was in grade 8 (I had failed the seventh grade. Yep here's some new information about your old pal claw!) I was into Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon and the shows on One Saturday Morning, that was the stuff for kids I was still into. I didn't really need Are You Afraid of the Dark? anymore because I was allowed to go wild on horror films. I'm also not completely sure this revival series WAS on YTV. At this time the channels I mostly watched where like FOX (for Jerry Springer in the afternoon!), Teletoon, TBS, and The Family Channel. I'm going to say that it had to be on one of those channels because I remember one single episode from this revival and well that happens to be the Final Episode.

So seeing as I don't remember a single episode from this iteration of the show means I'm going to watch some episodes from this series and discuss them. Because that sounds like a whole hell of a lot of fun to do. The first episode I watched was called "The Tale of the Zombie Dice" and holy hell it was weird. I find a lot of the stories on Are You Afraid of the Dark? were weird. They kinda felt like a story a kid would come up with. This one involves a kid played by that Jay guy whos friends with Seth Rogan (a person who is ten times funnier than Tim and Eric will ever ever be) who is scared of gambling or playing games of chance. However he's friends with a kid named Tate who has no fear of gambling or any game of chance. You challenge him and he's gonna do it. So they go to a place called Click's and Tate gets challenged by Click the owner of the place. Mr. Click is clearly without a doubt the best part of this episode. The man is so clearly over the top evil but Tate still ends up taking the bet, even after first saying no. The man's gotta do what he's gotta do. Mr. Click shows him the Zombie Dice and well he loses. After he loses he has to give him his thumbprint which turns him into a eeny teeny Tate that is going to be sold. Jay ends up having to play the game to win Tate back and even has to double down after losing. However he wins by well kinda cheating but the evil Zombie man working for Mr. Click doesn't think so and well Mr. Click is never seen again.

The next episode I decided to watch was clearly intended to be the first episode shown of the revival series. It shows Tucker (Gary's brother from the original series) showing the new kids the place the old Midnight Society would tell their stories. He even calls them the New Midnight Society and says "We're back!" This is clearly a revival series and I get to talk about Are You Afraid of the Dark? twice in one October. Now that's cool! This also answers my question as to what channel showed this, it was apparently the Family Channel. For those not in the know that was pretty much the Canadian version of the Disney Channel. I don't even know if it exists anymore because we get some Disney related channels now. I would watch it but it was always my last choice. I do know that I would watch reruns of Darkwing Duck and that British art show Art Attack on that channel. This episode was "The Tale of the Forever Game".  Also about games and stuff, yet vastly different than "The Tale of the Zombie Dice". This one involves some kids getting lost in the woods and finding a dead tree which one of them falls through and ends up playing a game with another lost kid named Nathanial (who is wearing old timey clothes showing that this dude has been here for a long time.) and whenever they hit a place on the game board it happens in the forest, like bringing a monster to terrorize the two kids stuck in the forest. They end up stopping the Forever game by blowing up the dead tree.

You know how I said I saw The Final Episode, nope I was incorrect and I seriously am wondering if I ever saw any of the Family Channel/Cinar Are You Afraid of the Dark? stuff. Like I was sure this was an entirely different episode so I got some catching up to do with Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Also I don't even see Nickelodeon helping out for this version of the show. It just says Cinar presents? Did Are You Afraid of the Dark? first revival even show up on Nick? I probably should have checked that out first before getting silly and reviewing said episode. Anyway this one is without a doubt my least favorite of the three and I'll get into that in a bit.

The Final Episode of the first revival of Are You Afraid of the Dark? came to us in the year of our lord 2000 and was entitled "The Tale of the Night Nurse" and it's a bit of a wild ride. So we start out with two girls, the usual age of your Are You Afraid of the Dark? protagonists get left by their parents at their grandpas house. They call him "Gramps". If I ever get to be a Grandpa I want people to call me Gramps. It feels very chill. Gramps is chill. Anyway one of the girls, Nikki tells the other AJ that she can handle Gramps... and in the next scene we see AJ clearing the snow path. Man Nikki is a asshole. She also starts hitting AJ with snowballs and they start a snow ball fight. They see a woman go by and they think they hit her with a snowball so they go inside to apologize just for Gramps to be like "Yo dudes there aren't any ghosts here" wait no I got that confused with my Rappin' Grandpa movie script. 

Anyway AJ wakes up in the middle of the night and sees A bunch of of people at a birthday party for someone named Emily! Then we get a few more scares until Gramps confesses that they have Ghosts in his house! He didn't want to scare them. Personally the Grandpa in my Rappin' Grandpa script will give you the low down period, he's an honest dude! He then brings them upstairs to tell them the story of Emily and her Night Nurse who gave her medicine that killed her! Oh shit! Anyway Emily died and The Night Nurse seemed to have gone mad or something. They try to get Emily to talk to them by offering cake but all they get is THE NIGHT NURSE. Whos actress is the best part of the episode. They end up going back up in the attic and finding out about a silly ass time travel dress. Yes, the dress makes AJ time travel and take over the body of Emily. Seeing as she saw what happened to Emily so she decides to try to help her. 

However the Night Nurse is now going insane and going after Nikki, until Emily actually DOES fall down the stairs (like a dumbass) and the Nurse disappears. Then she's after AJ. What finally saves AJ is the fact that Emily had lost her medicine alert bracelet and that she shows him that. Emily was allergic to penicillin. AJ finally gets back to her Grampa's house and saves Emily, showing that in this new world she got to be a big job in college or something else. Honestly I probably would have liked this episode if it wasn't for the two twins playing Nikki and AJ. Holy hell I hated these two characters so much. One of them was so mean and the other was a spineless toad. I also didn't like their acting either. Yeah yeah their kids blah blah, the kids in the OTHER episodes did a fine enough job! Not a fan of this one.

FINAL VERDICT: I may not have liked the Final Episode of this version of Are You Afraid of the Dark? but I'm still kinda excited to be able to see new (to me) episodes of this show. I'm sure I will have an article where I talk about those episodes to you fine people.  

TV You Forgot About #6: Struck By Lightning (1979)

 

Hello fine viewer of this blog! Welcome back to my least used blog column! I do hope to post in this one more. Originally it was for random not so well known holiday specials, but I felt that was too little of a range so I changed it to TV you Forgot About where I can talk about weird tv show episodes, weird tv shows, tv shows that didn't last very long, tv shows from my own country that americans wouldn't know diddly fuck about, and yes those obscure holiday specials I started this column out as. It's a much broader brush to paint with and I can discuss all kindsa weird shit that only amuse me. Struck By Lightning is such weird shit.

I must admit that of all the "classic" film and literature monsters that my favorite of them is Frankenstein. He always just looks really damn cool. It's such a fun and unique look. The vast majority of Frankenstein movies are a lot of fun. Nothing against Wolf Men or Vampires but something about Frankenstein is just the coolest to me. For those who don't know Frankenstein was a novel written by a lady named Mary Shelley all the way back in 1816. She was only like 18/19 years old when she wrote that novel. She also apparently according to legend lost her virginity on her mother's grave. No matter what you do you will never be more goth than Mary Shelley, so you might as well give up right now. 

So what exactly is Struck By Lightning you may ask? Well it was a sitcom that lasted 3 whole episodes leaving 8 unaired in the United States of America (apparently the Australians and the British got to enjoy more of this tv show.) Struck by Lightning told the story of a guy named Ted Stein who gets invited to his ancestral home to find a guy named Frank (played by Jack Elam, the doctor guy from the Cannonball Run movies who got the job because they thought his weird appearance was already so perfect that he did not need to wear makeup.) but it turns out that  Frank is actually Frankenstein and he needs Ted to create a serum that will prolong his life. So now it's a wacky team of Frank and Ted getting into wacky adventures.

So now it's the usual time for me to watch the pilot episode, which is the only one that's available online. So I'm gonna talk about what happens in said episode while making some jokes and weird tangents to talk about something completely different. It starts off with the theme song which was "You're So Beautiful" sung by Mr. Joe Cocker. He'll always be known to me as the guy who sung the theme song to the Wonder Years! Then we get into who sponsored this show. I didn't even know sponsored tv shows were still a thing in 1979. It's our good friends at Folgers who really want use to know that the coffee is MOUNTAIN GROWN. Personally I think all coffee tastes like someone took a big meaty shit in the coffee maker so I'm not the one to ask.

Oh hey before we get into anything else we gotta talk about the writers of this episode. Fred Freeman and Lawrence J Cohen. They wrote several pretty amusing movies, Start the Revolution Without Me, Delirious and S*P*Y*S. They also wrote The Big Bus which was the first disaster movie parody out there. I was not a big fan. So I'm wondering are we gonna get The Big Bus or S*P*Y*S. So we are introduced to Ted Stein who now owns this Inn of his grandfathers and Nora. Ted is played by Jeffery Kramer who's claim to fame was being the deputy in Jaws and Jaws 2. Nora is played by Millie Slavin who had a pretty big career for a woman I don't think I've ever seen before in anything. Started in 1969 with a Dick Van Dyke movie and ended said career in 2002 with an Arnold Swartznegger film. Now that's a career! She doesn't like his smoking and tells him his grandfather told her to leave him in this chair. So now he's got an urn in a chair that whenever you move it lightning strikes.

Oh, speaking of lightning, it's a big damn part of the plot. well, it's a reoccurring gag it seems. So it's finally time for Frank and Ted to meet. Frank apparently is the handyman at the Inn. He gets hit by Lightning a lot. You know the stuff that brought him to life in the first place.  He tells him that he's going to Salem to his great great grandfathers grave and that they need to talk when he gets back. We are then treated to a silly but fun scene of the two of them in Ted's room. Ted intends on selling this place but Frank finally reveals HIS identity AND Ted's identity. It takes getting hit by Lightning yet again to prove who he is.

Now we meet the rest of the cast of this show. The kid character that appears in way too many sitcoms just to be cute and silly. An old man who was played by Bill Erwin. He will always be known as the grouchy grandpa that appears in that one episode of Seinfeld but he had one hell of a career. I'm pretty sure there's no way you haven't seen this guy before. He's great and I love him. Anyway we get a scene in the laboratory where Frank tells Ted that he needs to get a serum that he needs every 50 years to stay alive. There's only one problem, Ted's grandfather ate the paper with the serum on it. So Ted's gotta re-create it, except Ted's not a scientist, just a high school science student. Frank is not happy about this so uh he breaks the table. We then go to another scene of Ted trying to escape from the Inn and sell it but Frank literally smashes his hands through the door and then it turns to Ted pretty much looking like he's doing a 180 and pretending to stay, however during a talk between him and the real estate guy Frank overhears and well you know some zany stuff will happen, and by zany I mean psychopathic because Frank breaks down some trees and telephone poles to break a fucking bridge. And destroy cars. 

Frank is down in the laboratory and Ted comes down to tell him he's leaving. Frank tells him all about his life and how it's not been perfect (He hasn't been on a date in 186 years!) Frank even talks about how he could have had an even better brain if that butterfingers Igor hadn't dropped it! He even talks about how he was promised by Gustav Frankenstein that he'd be built a woman but he couldn't even get that! Ted finally gives in and tells him he will stay until they find a serum. It's a pretty fun and actually kinda heartwarming scene. 

FINAL VERDICT: I enjoyed this. I get the feeling if this were made in like the 1960s it would have been more popular. It was a silly goofball 1960s sitcom just put out in 1979 when people wanted sitcoms that tackled issues like All in the Family. Jack Elam and Jeffery Kramer actually work really well together and I really would like to see the other 10 episodes of this show that were filmed. Oh, and with the YouTube upload of this show we also get some classic 1970s commercials, like Zest, which gives you a good lather and really isn't that what life is all about?

Movie Review #61: Scooby Doo and the Curse of the Lake Monster (2010)

 

Ah, Scooby Doo. The most popular and long lasting Hanna Barbera character. I love his very silly adventures. No matter the era. I like the earliest episodes and a lot of the newer stuff and most of the stuff in between (the times it was just Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy was a blight on the franchise and should be forgotten by everyone.) but there's a thing I just have to say and I'm sorry if it offends younger people than me who make video essays on nostalgic things on YouTube. Scooby Doo does not work in live action. Period. I'm not opposed to live action movies based off cartoons. The original TMNT movie from 1990 is still one of my favorite movies of all time. It's very entertaining and worthy of respect and praise. It's just the cartoons worked differently. TMNT could actually be serious at times and it's shown in the movie (and still has a lot of great jokes) Scooby Doo is silly 100% of the time doing all kinds of things that work well only in a cartoon. 

It doesn't help that Raja Gosnell is the worst mainstream director of movies probably ever. Scooby Doo and Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed are both really bad. They may have had scripts from James Gunn but Raja Gosnell shows that he can ruin scripts from very talented people. I'll give it to Matthew Lillard, dude was very good at Shaggy but I didn't really care for the rest of the cast honestly. Also Scooby Doo looks really fucking ugly in CGI, holy fucking shit is he an abomination even in the bigger budgeted films. Scooby Doo and the Curse of the Lake Monster is the 4th of 5 Live Action Scooby Doo movies. This one was made in 2010 for Cartoon Network. Yes live action stuff on Cartoon Network. I don't get it either.

Yes, there was a Scooby Doo movie with the same cast made a year prior I think. I don't know or care. It was probably terrible. I will point out some of the positives that this movie does have, a Special Appearances thing pops up and I was worried at first, thinking it was some random Nickoldeon or Disney Channel stars that I have no idea whos who but nope. You wanna know who the Random Special Guests of this movie are, well here they are: Ted fucking McGinley as Daphne's Uncle Thorton Blake IV. Marion Ross as a owner of a general store, also the descendant of the evil witch the movie revolves around. Richard Moll as the guy who fills the gang in on the curse and shit. Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek as a Senator lady. Oh and he's not listed but Michael Berryman himself has a nice little cameo. Seriously it was as if they asked ME who should be in this movie as guest stars and actually took my suggestions. It's also nice to know that they are all still alive and get to enjoy the things life entails like eating waffles or playing BurgerTime on the NES. I will actually give credit to the cast of this movie. All of them do really well for their characters. Okay maybe the kid playing Shaggy goes a bit too far in his role but none of them actually annoyed me. 

Now for the bitching and moaning about the weirdly convoluted plot that isn't a lot of fun. First off there's this weird thing where the characters save another character and they fall in love with them. First Daphne is saved by Freddy and she is like OH MY GOD I LOVE HIM. Velma saves Shaggy at one point and for the rest of the movie he wants to put his weiner all over her. Velma is oblivious because men are not really her thing. Anyway this is all just put in the movie to keep them from realizing that Velma is the bad guy of the thing. She gets possessed by the evil witch that Richard Moll tells them about. It happens because she touches one of the moonstones that were a part of the witches evil staff. Oh and her favorite song is in the Light of the Silvery Moon from like 1907 or whenever the fuck. 

So Velma as the Witch uses this actually pretty cool Frog Creature so she can find all of the random moonstones and become more powerful again. Shaggy finds one and Marion Ross has one of them because she's the descendant. She gets the gems and then somehow the power of Shaggy's love singing her favorite song depossesses her but after that they kiss each other and she says they have no chemistry so what? I really don't get this stupid Scooby Doo movie. 

FINAL VERDICT: I like Scooby Doo. He's a lot of fun. I even enjoyed a good amount of the animated movies that I've seen, so it's not like he doesn't work in a film format. This is just a bad lazy movie. 

The Final Episode #86: The Munsters (1964 - 1966)

 

I did want to review The Munsters because I've only seen a few episodes and want to discuss it on this blog, but I knew that if I didn't review it for my blog during Halloween AND after doing the Addams Family, I would make someone in North (or is it South) Carolina very mad. So mad in fact that he would speed to my house using his wheelchair and run over my toes repeatedly until they were no more. Seeing as how I appreciate having toes and all that I decided that I just had to review The Munsters and not put it off till next year. So The Munsters is like from what I've seen a sillier version of The Addams Family. It's a family of Monsters instead of just really weird people. A Frankenstein, A Dracula and a wolfman. or wolf boy. Anyway how the hell did Lily and Herman create a wolfboy? I think someone in that relationship has some explaining to do!

The Munsters was created by Allan Burns and Chris Hayward in 1964. Allan Burns literally has my job. Or at least the job I wish I could have had. The man first started in animation helping Jay Ward with stuff like The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (so did Chris Hayward by the way. That guy created Dudley Do-Right!) Allan Burns would also go on to create The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s! Not all of the stuff they did separately or together were hits (they also did My Mother the Car and The Duck Factory) but you'd get the Claw Seal of Approval just by being a part of just one of those things I mentioned and he was apart of SEVERAL OF THEM. Now that's like three whole seals! Not a shabby job Allan! (and also Chris who gets an extra seal for creating Dudley Do Right) 

The Munsters lasted for two whole seasons until well at least according to Mr. Butch Patrick (cool name) Eddie Munster himself, Batman came along and took all of their ratings away. They do have a long cult following which made for movies and tv movies and reboots and everything else. They are being rebooting yet again this time by Rob Zombie. I am not looking forward to it because except for House of a Thousand Corpses and The Devils Rejects, I am not a really big fan of Robbie Z. I do not want to see Sheri Moon Zombie as Lily or hear Grandpa say fuck 167 times in a row. It's at the point that I just want to see the past left alone. Stop beating it with a stick you bastards.

Well despite I've seen a few episodes of this show I'm still gonna give this a giant size article where I talk about more than just the Final Episode because well It doesn't feel right to do that for the Addams Family and not the Munsters. They are like the yin and yang of 1960s television and you have to talk about one if you talk about the other, other wise you are a bad person and I don't like you. Before I do this I have to talk about the 100% fucking perfect casting of Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster. This man somehow got the perfect balance of serious when need be and goofy as hell when also to need be. The rest of the cast is great too, no shade on them but Fred Gwynne makes this show. Period. The First episode out of many that I watched was Herman, The Master Spy in which Herman gets lost scuba diving and is found by a Russian boat. They think he's the missing link between human and fish and send back to Russia for help. Russia says no he's a spy! This is a fun back and forth until Lily finds out and ALL SHIT GOES WILD. The ending is very silly because Herman gets in shit for dancing. Poor bastard.

The Second Episode of Four that I've decided to watch was called Herman Munster, Shutter Bug and was all about Herman Munster well becoming a photographer.  Now you're wondering just like I was at the beginning of the episode of how could that big loveable goober screw up and get into trouble taking pictures. Well it turns out he took a picture of two criminals getting away from a bank robbery and the two criminals want that picture. They find out who he is pretty quickly because well he was driving the Munsters car and that thing was weird as hell. Best car of the 1960s. Well I might rate the Batmobile a bit higher but still it's a car I would actually like to own and I hate car shit. If it doesn't transform it's usually fucking shitty as hell. Anyway the criminals are tricked into drinking Grandpa's Homing Pigeon potion and they end up bringing themselves to the police station. A really fun little episode.

A Man for Marilyn was the next episode I watched. Marilyn Munster is the one of them that looks like a quote unquote normal person. Not a Frankenstein, or Dracula, or a Wolfboy, nope, just a regular 1960s lady type. The whole joke is that the other Munsters think she's ugly and that's why she can't retain a man. The Munsters are kinda dopey like that. It YOU scary rascals that scare off the men! Anyway she was just at a wedding and the latest boy has seen Herman and he's running away as fast as possible. However Grandpa has a plan, which is to turn a frog into a prince. However it does not work, but a dude walking by who was played by Don Edmonds, a man who would later go on to direct Ilsa She Wolf of the S.S. and act in the crazy bonkers Body By Jake slasher film Home Sweet Home. The man clearly had the greatest career in cinema. Anyway he thinks she needs to be saved from them and THEY think he's the frog who finally turned into a prince after they left to see their drive in movie. They tie him up and try to marry him to Marilyn but he escapes again. He goes the police and actually gets them to go to the Munsters house but the two cops just think it's a big old prank. The episode ends with Marilyn and the guy meeting up again and she stands up for her family and tells him to get fucked with a cactus! Well, she's a bit nicer than that.

The Final Episode was called A Visit from the Teacher and was written by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, probably most famously known for Leave it to Beaver, a boring ass family sitcom from the 1950s and Amos and Andy a incredibly racist television series that showed black people as freaky weirdos instead of people. I haven't seen any of their other shows (or honestly Amos and Andy because I don't really want to watch it) but I'm going to proclaim that the Munsters was the only good show they produced. This was a really great episode though. It starts off with Marilyn and Grandpa in the lab in the basement trying to siphon off electricity from lightning strikes. I must admit that Herman is my favorite of the group but Grandpa played by Al Lewis is not far away. That dude is clearly having the time of his life as Grandpa Munster. They actually at first pull off the lightning thing. 

Now it's all about Eddie Munster writing his report. Can I say that I like that Eddie Munster actually is a part of the plots. I recently talked about The Addams Family series from 1964 and the two kids are oversights. I say this because the two kids in the movies were absolutely wonderful and I would like to have seen the kids from the actual series do stuff. It was really weird because those two were a big part of the movies. Anyway he's got to write a report on his family and ask them all kinds of questions and stuff. They use a different word in the episode but I'm very stupid and I don't know how to spell that word so we are going with report. Marilyn and Lily are cooking Dodo Bird Roast, Sour Apple Pie (with tons of vinegar!) and Cactus Juice when the lightning power fucks up and Grandpa has to fix it. However his fix freaks out and the Dodo bird (which Lily exclaims is very hard to get nowadays!) and they are stuck with eating cold rhino tongue sandwiches.

So Eddie is done with his report and wants to read his report to his family. They make all kinds of silly jokes during this segment until halfway through the speech when it flash forwards to Eddie reading his report to his teacher and principal. This report makes them think Eddie is over imaginative and has a poor living condition so they go to the Munsters house to make sure. At first they think he's faking it because they meet Marilyn. Then they meet Lily and Grandpa and see the house and are freaked the fuck out.  The damn power goes out again just as Herman Munster comes home. The Principal and the Teacher want to get the hell outta there and end up in a coffin. They finally meet Herman as the lights come on and shit the fuck out of their pants. Literally all over the place. 

The last scene has them eating dinner and talking about how the Teacher doesn't want to come back to the Munsters house for dinner. Grandpa is working on making it so they don't have to pay any more water bills. Of course this works out poorly and the Munsters end with Herman Munster sitting under a umbrella eating his dinner. I wonder how Lily's Dodo Bird Roast tastes.

FINAL VERDICT: A very fun time was had by all when I watched these episodes. Very entertaining, fun stuff from the 1960s. The Munsters and  The Addams Family are both a lot of fun and I wish I could get ahold of The Munsters Today. I'm bored of todays constant reboots but I'll still watch one from the 1980s! I hope all fans of this blog especially ones from North Carolina (or was it South Carolina, I always get them confused) have enjoyed this special.

The Final Episode #85: The Real Ghostbusters (1986 - 1991)

 

The Real Ghostbusters was the first thing I was ever truly obsessed with. It was probably the first tv show I ever cared about actually watching (at like a year old) before that all I would watch were tv commercials. They were quick and bubbly and fun. My parents had to go around watching commercials to keep me amused. I think that's very funny. Anyway The Real Ghostbusters was not only my introduction to the Ghostbusters franchise but the first toy line. Well it was  them or Care Bears. I had a ton of Care Bears as a young boy. I didn't need every Care Bear (even though I probably had 98% of them) but if you slapped a Real Ghostbusters thing on a product I HAD to have that mother fucker. This was up until I believe the family dog, Teek ate them all when I went to kindergarten in 1990. It was a sad day. I was more into TMNT at that point but man I still liked my Ghostbusters. I wish I still had them. I wish I still had all my toys. Stupid garage sale where I sold them all for peanuts.

Uh, yeah, The Real Ghostbusters would leave our tv screens in 1991, but YTV or Teletoon or maybe even both would show reruns of the show during their Halloween month stuff. The thing is they only ever showed the first two seasons of the show. Like I would get the internet and find out that Dave Couiler took over for Lorenzo Music (more on this later) and I do not remember this ever happening. Ever. I was amazed the show lasted as long as it did and was completely overhauled. To me Lorenzo Music was ALWAYS Peter Venkman. No Full House dipshits ruining the show.  The reason for these changes was a consulting company called Q5 that ABC went too for some reason. They were hired to "improve" the show but since consulting companies are all ran by braindead morons who should not have jobs they fucked the show in the ass. You remember the character of Janine, a saucy tough noo yawk lady. Yeah well in the Q5 episodes she was soften down to care about the Ghostbusters like a mother. She became a boring mother like figure. They also ruined the character of Peter Venkman. He went from a hilarious deadpan dude to a complete fucking idiot goober. Thanks alot Dave Coulier you dumb shit.

The worst thing that happened was the change in stories. J. Michael Strayzckisfnid whatever the hell his name is pretty much left the show because of these changes and ho boy you can really tell. The original two series had fun inventive stories involving really cool ghosts. One involved the Boogieman and how the Ghostbusters had to stop him. They even go to his realm and its a cool M. C. Esher? I don't know how to spell his name either. I should look this up but the two episodes I watched of the later seasons soured me so badly that I just want this thing over with. Anyway the Boogieman is a great design, the story goes great from point a to point b. It had several funny jokes. The other first season I watched was the one with Sam Hain. They misspell Sam Hain (just like Dr. Loomis in Halloween II) but the same thing can be said there. A great story that isn't all over the place and has a great villain with a great design (35 years later and my old man still mentions this guy.) 

So what happenes to the Ghostbusters in later episodes. Well one of them was so fucking stupid it literally felt insulting to watch. It was so dumb that even when I was 5 I would have been like "wow that was fucking dumb" and I was not a particularly smart 5 year old. The Ghostbusters are forced to move and they are powering down one of the traps and Peter comes in and acts like a big dumb Dave Coulier child and takes one of the traps out of the thing and they travel through time to the 1950s. Yes, apparently the traps can bring you through time. Yep, not something they just threw together at the last moment before calling it quits. They stop some random ghost and go back in time. Also make some dumb 1950s jokes. Oh, yeah Ray and Slimer were all YEAH THE 1950S WERE GREAT AND TOTALLY PERFECT in front of a black dude. I'm pretty sure Winston was thinking "Jesus christ you goof". The second episode from the later seasons I watched was another dumb episode where they fight Ghosts that look like the Simpsons and have the names of the Bundys (you know from Married With Children. Weird how they even got the okay to make fun of those shows because they were the controversial "HOLY SHIT HOW CAN YOU DO THIS" TV shows of their time and It's also just weird to realize they were all on the TV with new episodes at the same time.)

I literally left this in a draft format for a day because the two episodes from the later seasons were so fucking dorky that I really didn't want to discuss the Final Episode, but I had to do it for the Real Ghostbusters and also the fact that I wrote all of this. Here's an neat-o fact, did you know that Arsenio Hall the guy from Coming to America, voiced Winston for the first few seasons? Cool right! Also before I start I just gotta bitch about the animation. The animation in the first two seasons was so damn good you could eat of it. I'm pretty sure it's those rascals from TMS Entertainment and Toei Animation to some random South Korean animation houses because DIC was completely run by Andy Heyward at this time and was being called "Do it Cheaper" by many many many people within the animation industry.

I've put it off as long as I can, because baby, I got other stuff to write about. I want to get four more articles out before we get to Halloween. And that's only 3 days away! So let's do this bitch! Thankfully it's much much less dumber than the other two episodes and just clearly "we have run out of ideas so lets just do this" kinda thing. Yeah I'll give them credit that I'd be hard pressed to find out things for the Ghostbusters to do after 140 episodes and that's not even including the fact that they were still probably listening to those Q5 jackoffs. It wasn't easy for the two writers of this episode Richard Mueller and Jules Dennis, who's other credits include X-Men Evolution, the apparent Starship Troopers cartoon that existed (I am baffled at this just like you), Street Sharks, The Wizard of Oz cartoon, Mighty Max, Batman the Animated Series, and oddly enough Married...With Children. I didn't think I'd be mentioning that show twice in this damn article. 

Enough dilly dallying what is this episode about damnit?  Well my dear fellow it's about bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. Yep. Giant ones. It all starts out with Peter Venkman having a dream about a Praying Mantis trying to eat him. Yep it's one of those later season episodes that just shows us a character having a trait that they never showed ever before. I'm not an expert on this show like I was when I was 6 but I'm sure something related to bugs had to come up before. Yeah I know this is a continuity thing that I usually don't rag on but something kinda bothers me that yeah this is the final episode and we just don't care to check if he didn't care about bugs before hand because now he does. (They really did a more show don't tell kinda thing for at least the episodes of the first two seasons that I can remember) He's awaken to Ray getting an ant farm and he complains about how much he now hates bugs.

So we then change scenes to Winston and Janine in a museum. Janine talks about how she was Cleopatra in another lifetime because they are at an Egyptian museum. The curator talks about some random Egyptian Bug god that would you know it is just a slight redesign of the praying mantis that was in Peter's dream. The South Koreans aren't trying that hard for the final damn episode of your cartoon, Yankee! So the curator dude just tells them all about the crystal that gives the bug god his power all those years ago. You know the way they Ghostbusters defeated the ghost of the episode was totally done better before hand. You just had to be a barely sentient person who could tell when something was important but nah it's just time to completely spell it out. It's the Final Episode. No one cares! 

So the stupid asshole curator goes "Yeah I'll press this button on this magical beetle that was the only thing left behind by the Bug God." Yeah that'll work out. Work out in the fucking Bug God's favor. Fucking earthquakes start happening and when they start every bug in the city is going to the park. And they are getting bigger. This is a job for the Ghostbusters of the Real variety! They get into the Ecto-1 AND Ecto-3 (the Helicopter thing). I mean this might be the Final Episode but it doesn't mean you can't get that one last chance to show the kiddies these new toys! Peter gets captured by some spiders and brought down to the Bug God to become a human sacrifice because that will power up the crystal faster or something? I guess. Anyway the Ghostbusters have to get past all the ghosts and unlike Peter they don't know that you can just blast them and they'd turn back into mini bugs so they go steal a truck full of honey and spray it all over the ground. 

They all go down underground including I was pretty damn sure Janine, but she's above ground. I'm not going to complain really because of an animation error, even if the best animated shows of this time had errors so I'll just move on, but yeah this is one of the episodes where Janine gets in on the action which was always pretty cool. It kinda upped the stakes for the episode. At least in the first two seasons. So Janine goes YEAH THATS THE CRYSTAL THE CURATOR WAS TALKING ABOUT to point it out for the really stupid children, like Little Claw.  The Ghostbusters realize Peter is being brought above ground so they just go above ground again. They start shooting the giant mantis but Janine tells them to shoot the crystal so they do just that. The Bug God yells about it being 3,000 years and how it was TIME NOW! THERE WAS TIME NOW! Then he turns into sand and explodes, the bugs turn back into their small selves and the pyramid they were building out of junk explodes too. I guess that junk got magical the second the crystal touched it.

We then get Peter bitching about bugs and Egon and Ray tell him how the planet cannot exist without bugs. He calls them all stupid smelly and ugly (not quite like that but I don't care at this point) and then a monarch butterfly lands on his nose and he ends up believing it to be so beautiful that he cannot stop looking at it. It's actually pretty funny due to the cornball animation. Ray and Slimer go well this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship and I beg to differ because the show is ending and well I'm pretty sure Peter Venkman appears on the spinoff Extreme Ghostbusters and does not seem to give a flying fuck about butterflies in that show.

FINAL VERDICT: When going into this I did not expect that I would enjoy the silly ass Final Episode of the Filmation Ghostbusters show over the Real Ghostbusters, but here we are.  I still stand by my opinion that the Real Ghostbusters was a great cartoon, but only on the strength of the first 78 episodes in the first two seasons (the second season was syndicated so that's why there's 78 episodes. The Real Ghostbusters was one of two shows that I can think of that was syndicated AND on Saturday Morning. The other one was TMNT. Weird huh?) Anyway thats the end of this giant ass piece of work.

Movie Review #60: Maximum Overdrive (1985)

 

Boy oh boy where the bloody blue Jesus do I start with this movie? I'm going to go wild and say that this is my favorite Stephen King movie. This or The Running Man. They let Stephen King coked out of his mind write AND direct this insanity. I think this movie is incredibly entertaining and I shall let you in on everything great about this movie. I do think we should discuss the movies producer Dino De Laurentis. He got his start in his country of birth, Italy, in 1946. During the 1960s he started making American pictures. The first one of these you may have heard of is Barbarella in 1968. Then King Kong remake in 1976. Then the floodgates opened. Many Stephen King adaptations like The Dead Zone or Cat's Eye, the Conan The Barbarian films. Halloween II and Halloween III. Amityville II. What I'm saying is the dude was awesome and helped give us some cool as hell movies. He produced movies up until 2007, 3 years before his death at 91 years old. Let's give some cheer to Dino!

So the history of the short story this is based on is well this: It was first published in 1973 in a magazine named Colliers. I have no idea how famous this magazine is. I don't even know if it's still being produced. All I know about it is several of Stevie's first short stories got put in the magazine. Cool huh? Yep. You know what else is interesting about this short story is that I believe it's the ONLY story written by Stevie that has TWO movies based around it. Yes, in 1997 (I believe) the movie Trucks was put out. I remember liking it, but I'm pretty sure I saw it BEFORE I saw this movie and really there's no way to make this a better experience. It's amazing and if I ever meet Stevie I will give him a kiss for this beautiful film.

So what is this movie all about huh? Well, it involves a comet that turns all machines evil. I mean ALL machines. A walkman strangles someone. You only see the aftermath and this might be the only thing I'm pissed about because I WANT to see that insanity put on the screen. Don't you? Still this movie gives you all kinds of crazy deaths. A vending machine starts smashing a dude right in the face with coke cans. I also have to give Stephen King the award for BEST cameo ever. He goes to get money from an ATM and the ATM just starts calling him an asshole. The way he says asshole is the way I want too say it. I must practice so I can sound like a huge goofball. Oh I don't want to miss out by mentioning the great soundtrack by AC/DC who are a great band and smelly weirdos should know this (said smelly weirdo knows who he is) 

Now it's time to talk about the acting and I gotta say I love the cast here. First off we got Emilio Estevez who really needs to have a comeback to film acting. Stop directing tv and the occasional movie. The men and women who can't get over the 1980s and early 1990s want you back. I've always liked him going back to being a kid watching The Mighty Ducks films. The man gets into his characters and you easily believe he's a ex-con trying to get out alive vs some killer trucks or a jock in detention or a hockey coach. He really gets into these characters and I feel the fella. He was also pretty good in comedy like Charlie Sheen. He should be more popular than Charlie Sheen. I like some of the things he's done but hoo boy as a person he's got a whole hell of a lot of problems that he should really work on. I'm a very good therapist and blog poster.

Another great performance in this film is from Pat Hingle. He plays a huge and I mean huge asshole. Like he forces ex-cons to work longer hours for him without pay or he'll call the parole board on them. That kind of scummy fucker. He literally goes to a kid "YEAH YER DAD DIED FROM ONE OF DEM TRUCKS" and he's so shitty about it that the main lady slaps him. Of course this being a horror film the asshole gets his. You kinda wanted someone to kick his dead body after he died because he was THAT much of a prick. I must point this out when it comes to the acting because well it has to be known to everyone, even people who intend on never watching this movie because they listen to critics (you really never should. they are hoity toity dickholes who stink) or are hoity toity dickholes who only watch boring art films. Uh, so yeah there's one guy who literally acts so hard that when he threw the doors open to come out of he breaks the damn glass. Now that's acting! I wish I knew this guys name so I could call him out. He's one of the random people in the truck stop with some wild ass hair.

FINAL VERDICT: This movie is incredibly fun to watch. It's wild and crazy and it's got the second best soundtrack to any horror film (the best one is from Demons). It's got a lot of really good acting and it's fast paced and man just stop reading this terrible attempt at reviewing something and go watch it. Jerk.

Movie Review #59: Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)

 

We all know that I would rent horror movies like there was no tomorrow when I finally got the chance, but what about before that. Well, it was mostly kids films. You know like Homeward Bound and Little Rascals. Cinematic classics like that, however my dad would rent old comedies from the 1970s and 1980s. The kind I probably shouldn't have been watching when I was 7. He would rent stuff like Airplane and Mel Brooks movies. Several Eddie Murphy movies, mostly Trading Places. I was totally into them even if a lot of the comedy went over my head for a very long time. I had a copy of Spaceballs taped off television and it was the best thing I owned. I loved Spaceballs as a kid. Way more than Star Wars as weird as that might be. I watched Spaceballs the way several other people watched Star Wars. 

I also loved Mr. Leslie Nielsen. Leslie Nielsen spent like the first 25 or so years of his career as an actor as a serious actor man. Like one of the most serious kinda serious actors. There was a movie spoof called Airplane that changed his career for like the last 30 years of his career. He became a comedy star and well his comedies came in two different ways. He was either the stonefaced guy saying the dumbest and most outrageous shit (like in Airplane) or a big goofy weirdo (like in Spy Hard). I do believe he was very good at both types of comedy but much better at the stoneface stuff. I think that might be why I like The Naked Gun series the most out of his comedy movies because you get both styles in one film series. 

Now all of this is to tell you that when this movie came out when I was 10 that I was already a fan of both man. A really big fan. I was excited as hell to see this movie. I'm not sure but I might have even seen this movie in the cinema and WOW was I ever fucking disappointed. Clearly, clearly the worst of their movies I've seen up to that point. Over the last 26 years I would mention this as the worst movie both men had ever made. (I still haven't even seen ever comedy film Leslie Nielsen was in), I figured because I had this silly little blog where I talk about movies and cartoons and comics and all kinds of nostalgic shit that it would be a perfect time to rewatch this movie. (Another thing was that my sister seemed to love this awful movie and I had to watch it a lot as a kid)

I don't know where to start with this movie but I guess I'll get this out of the way right here: I fucking do not like Peter MacNichol's acting. I really really dislike it. He's bad at comedy. This guy tries way way way way way too fucking hard as Renfield. He tries way way way way way too hard in all of his comedic roles, including Ghostbusters II (he is the worst part of that movie and I don't care what anyone says about that. He just gets on my last nerve and he's gotten on my last nerve since I was a child. Not a fan of it. Not at all. I also have to admit that Leslie Nielsen is completely wasted in this movie. He really doesn't get a chance to do his stone-faced deadpan bit. He also does not get a chance to be silly. It's unfair and I'm not a fan of it. He's just playing a boring version of Dracula. Like everyone in this movie from Amy Yasbeck to Mark Blankfield are just wasted. Horribly, horribly wasted. It's very sad as this is a very talented cast.

When it comes to the jokes a lot of them just don't really work. It's that they are bored to be here. There's also a lot of moments that just seem to go on way too long. Oh and as weird as it might be there's a lot of moments in this movie where there's no jokes at all. I get the feeling that Mel Brooks was not really into making this movie and it might have been some kind of contractual thing. Like in every other movie of his every scene was a goofy joke, or had some joke in the background. They went for the gusto and I honestly thing the vast majority of them are very good to great comedies (Honestly this is probably the only Mel Brooks movie I dislike.) I will be fair that there were some moments that got a few chuckles out of me but it just feels very sparse when it comes to jokes.

FINAL VERDICT: Young Frankenstein is the Mel Brooks movie to watch around the holidays. It's way funnier, the actors seem to actually be having a good time, It actually feels like a Frankenstein movie that could have come out in 1942 or whenever. Dracula: Dead and Loving It just feels like something no one on the cast was all that excited about. I mean it's taken 26 years since Mel Brooks wrote anything for movies or tv (I say 26 years because he's apparently working on a History of the World Part II tv series for some streaming service. I hope this happens so it can wash the taste of this movie out of my mouth)

Movie Review #58: Graveyard Shift (1990)

 

Well there's a lot to say about this movie so let's start. (wow talk about a bad opening sentence.) So I think this is the first actual movie based on a Stephen King story. I mean I've talked about Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest but that's a sequel to a movie based on a Stephen King story. I'm pretty sure he had no influence on that movie and I doubt he even made any money on it. I'm not sure he had any influence on this movie either but I'm sure he got a nice ass paycheck for a story he wrote. I wonder if Stephen King ever just wrote a story on the shitter, like during a long shit and ended up getting tons of money for it. From what I hear I'm guessing that story was Dreamcatcher. I actually haven't read any Stephen King stuff but I really should because I have several of his books just around my house. I do enjoy several of the movies based around his work. I think they work very well as films.  I think my next several reviews will be of movies based around his work. 

This movie brings me back to the halcyon days of yore which means around 2000. I had joined a message forum on the internet called JoBlo's Movie Forum (I'm surprised that this is the first time I had ever mentioned forums on this site.) This was one of the two forums I would be apart of. Well it was more than two for NES games but still. Those were my obsessions at that time. Collecting and Playing NES games and watch motion pictures. If I wasn't doing one I was doing the other. On JoBlo I met several people that I still talk to on Facebook and stuff (I would throw Facebook and Twitter right into the shithole to bring back forums if I had the power.). I remember talking about movies to several of them. I mention this because I feel like I have to mention Amie because whenever I would talk to her we would talk about this movie. I thought it was great! Amie not so much. Amie is a picky movie watcher and I still bother her about this. It's always a good time.

Anyway enough about the memories about the film, how does it hold up on a rewatch. Well I STILL think this is a great movie. It takes place in a small town in Maine because every single Stephen King story takes place there. Stephen King does not like any other place on this planet. If it ain't Maine it ain't shit! Anyway there's a mill in the town and it is infested with rats. Big scary mother fuckers. It's not just rats but a big beautiful monster that I gave the name of "rat-bat creature" in those AOL Instant Messanger chats. I miss AIM. Anyway the "rat-bat creature is starting to kill people who work at the mill and well that's never good! 

So we got a simple but effective plot, but what about say the acting? I personally think the acting in this movie is great. First off we have Brad Dourif. He's most famous for voicing the Chucky doll. However he's acted in a ton of films and of all genres and characters. The thing is every single one of them is wholly memorable. Regardless if he was just a throwaway character in like one scene. He'll be the best part of that scene. Thankfully he gets a lot of scenes in this movie and he gets to play a sleazy crazy weirdo which he does perfectly. However I think Stephen Macht as the asshole boss just might be more memorable in this film. I don't know how many movies I've seen with this guy in them but holy hell it should be more. This man is clearly playing the biggest dickhole on the planet. I love him.

Everyone else including the Wishmaster himself, Andrew Divoff give there characters a bit of life making them a likable fun bunch of weirdos and jerks. The only person I have a problem with is the hero of the story. He cannot play the stoic loner hero type. He doesn't come off as "IM THE LONER HERO I DONT WANT TO BE ANNOYED BY ANYONE" and more like I'm a big turd who doesn't want to associate with you because I'm a big snob but I still want to start a life here in this small Maine town. I'm with the guys who don't like him and wish he'd go away. They even start harassing him a bit. Yet I don't feel a single thing for this fucker. He's shit. Fuck him.

The monster, the rat bat creature, the reason you know you should watch this movie for is AWESOME. You get to see it a quite a bit. It's gooey, it's freaky, it's ugly, it's disgusting. It's got weird rat features and weird bat features. I love it so much. The movie also goes by at a very good pace. It really still works very well for me except I really don't like the main character as much. Still this movie is great and Amie is still wrong.

FINAL VERDICT: If you need any proof that this is one of the greatest films of ever time. Well it ends with a song about the movie. We only gave that honor to the greatest of films, like My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Addams Family, The Jetsons the Movie, and many more. It doesn't really tell you about the plot (It's really just someone playing music over lines from the movie. It's weird and kinda terrible but I'm still counting it.) 

Movie Review #57: Ghoulies IV (1994)

 

Well you all knew it had to happen. I had to review a movie from the Ghoulies franchise or series or whatever. I think I'll just call this a series because it was only movies. Friday the 13th had a tv series, several video games and all kinds of other stuff. Ghoulies has just languished as a film series. I didn't have a Ghoulies NES game or a trading card set or something. Just 4 movies. And I really don't like saying 4 movies because I don't think Ghoulies IV deserves to be in this series. So you already know how much I enjoyed this film. It was very, very little if you couldn't guess.  

So Ghoulies is considered a Gremlins ripoff just because they have little monsters in each movies. I don't really know if I like the term ripoff all that much because well Ghoulies and Gremlins and Critters and Hobgoblins and Munchies and stuff like that. Each one of those movies is way different than each other. I wish we would use the term cash-in more because it at least makes more sense that way. Ghoulies even went into production before Gremlins. Now that I mentioned how I don't think it's far to refer to them as rip-offs watch the comments just call these movies rip-offs. Because the comments on my blog are made by jerks.

Ghoulies was made by Charles Band for Empire Pictures in the 1980s. 1985 to be correct. It involved all kinds of insane shit. Little monsters, little dwarves, Satanism, big fancy robes, black magic, it's a prefect mix of all kindsa great horror stuff. I think It's a very entertaining movie but It's been a while since I've seen it. It's very 1985 and I am a fan of that. Ghoulies II took place in a damn carnival and if you want me to like your horror movie you set it in a carnival. You'll have to make a really damn awful movie for me not to like it. Childs Play 3 has the best ending in that franchise because it takes place at a carnival, one that seems to have some insanely dangerously awful rides that people seemed to love to ride. Ghoulies III is a weird horror comedy that takes place in a college. It's pretty amazing and I love it. 

I think Ghoulies or Ghoulies II was the first movie I saw in the series. I believe it was one of the movies that I saw on ASN in the middle of the night in the 1990s when I would try to stay up in the middle of the night as a kid. Can I just say that late night movies are no fun anymore. Like stuff like The Matrix gets shown at 1:30 at night. That's not a late night movie damnit! I don't believe I got to see the entire movie that night because one of my parents came in and made me go to bed. Damn parents! Anyway it wasn't hard to find a copy because Ghoulies was at every video store ever made. You didn't have a video store if you didn't have Ghoulies in your horror section, and seeing as I was renting every movie I was able to finally see the end of the movie. Ghoulies III however was literally the hardest movie for me to find. Not a single video store ever had it. I found it at a video game store called Nintendo World which sold VHS tapes. I was so happy to finally see it. It is a gloriously silly movie.

As for the movie I decided to watch, I'm sure I watched it as a kid. I remember that VHS tape so well. It's literally the only thing I remembered about the movie. Ghoulies IV is really really bad so I'm pretty sure I forced all of those thoughts out of my mind because I don't see how I didn't see Ghoulies IV before this. So let's talk a little about this movie starting with the plot. Some sexy S&M Lady who's name I've already forgotten because my brain is trying to push all thoughts of this movie out of there for the second time. She wants this jewel because it will bring back a guy named Faust into the real world. The jewel gets destroyed but she is told of a second jewel owned by Johnathan Graves from the first Ghoulies movie. Despite this I really don't feel this was originally ever supposed to be a Ghoulies movie.

So The Jewel also somehow brought out the Ghoulies, which are totally different than regular Ghoulies (who are wet puppets) this movie has little people in costumes. One of them was Tony Cox who was the black little dude in every comedy movie in the early to mid 2000s. That dude was in them all I'm pretty damn sure. This is not his worst role. That's probably one of those terrible fucking Movie Movies, like Date Movie or Meet the Spartans. Holy hell I'd watch Ghoulies IV  a thousand times over this one.  These Ghoulies don't feel like Ghoulies tho. They are helpful to people and don't even eat a single persons face. You could literally cut them out of this movie and you wouldn't even miss them. That's not very good for a movie called Ghoulies IV.

Another reason why this feels like something other than Ghoulies IV is how they change the plot of the original movie. It was just how he and the S&M lady were very close and loved Devil worship. Somehow their Devil Worship helped make an evil version of Johnathan Graves and now that's who the S&M lady wants to bring back to the real world. It's all really stupid and confusing and not a lot of fun to watch. 

I will give the movie some credit as the lady who played the S&M lady is clearly having the time of her life and is very fun to watch (and she's very attractive too!). I also enjoyed the relationship between Jonathan Graves and his ex-girlfriend who is now the police commissioner or something. That's about it when it comes to the acting because everyone else is terrible and I hate them. Going back to shit on this movie some more is the really bad comedy that just randomly jarringly pops up from time to time. It's the kind of movie comedy that isn't very well written and it's also not well acted. It's a complete failure in that way.

The worst thing about this entire movie is that It's very very boring. The director Jim Wynorski is very good at making fun, fast paced, action packed low budget movies. The problem is I'm pretty sure CineTelFilms (that actually made several movies you've probably heard of like The Phildelphia Experiment and I Spit on Your Grave remake) took the money they had in the petty cash drawer and used it to make this movie. They couldn't even afford the damn puppets from the other movies! What the jesus hell is that shit?

FINAL VERDICT: This movie is a boring sack of crap that REALLY did not feel like a part of the Ghoulies movies. It didn't even feel like the original story even had any monsters in the damn thing. I'm sure they were put into this movie just because CineTelFilms found out that they somehow had the rights to the Ghoulies. It's a complete failure. Watch any of the other 3 movies or any Jim Wynorski film. They are all streets ahead of this garbage.

Comic Review #68: Stray Dogs #1-5 (2021)

 

I've been doing quite a number of movie reviews lately as you all can see. I'm trying to get all three of the main columns I guess is what I usually call them that I do all caught up to the same number, which is probably going to be about 88 when all is said and done. So I've been doing more movie reviews and I'm not going to stop but I do want to discuss the other two more. I wanted to talk about this comic for like the entire year, but I knew the spooky season would be the best time. Another point I want to make in this paragraph which is I guess what's going on with the blog update kinda thing is that I'm continuing the spooky fun into November! That's right on this blog our Halloween Special DOES not end at 11:59 on October 31st. No we are going to keep discussing the spooky stuff that I wanted to but got caught up in how much spooky stuff I haven't discussed. I mean if Christmas can take over November despite happening in December than this blog can take over November for Halloween. So keep watching for the fun we will have.

Stray Dogs is a recent comic (it literally started in February of this year.) done by Tony Fleecs and Trish Forstner. Tony Fleecs seems to be a newer person in the comics industry, working on according to google stuff like Ninja Turtles and My Little Pony. So in other words Tony is my kinda guy. Trish Forstner worked on a comic called My Little Pony / Transformers II. which means I've somehow missed two crossover comic series that involved the My Little Pony characters teaming up with t he Transformers. I'm kinda mad that Trish hadn't told me about this personally. Anyway Trish does the art for this comic which is so cute. It's very Don Bluth-ish which I think works well for this story. Don Bluth stories had a lot of weird dark moments in his cartoon movies. 

Stray Dogs is a pretty dark little story. We start out with the main dog of the story named Sophie at the vet and her owner is worried that she will hate her for bringing her here and the vet says that no dog ends up hating their owner and that they have very poor short term memory so in a week she'd have forgotten about even being there. It then goes to Sophie being introduced to all of the other dogs that live in the house with this guy. They all of course get excited because dogs are like that. One dog named Rusty sees she's freaking out and get's all the other dogs out of her face. His name is Rusty and then he decides to tell her who everyone is. He shows her the entire house until they get near the masters room and she freaks out and pees on the floor, like you know a dog sometimes does when scared. She hides and the Master of the House finds her and puts a scarf over her. However she's reminded because of the smell and sees that the Master of the House is really into murder, having killed her previous owner! Oh shit now it's on.

She tells the other dogs but none of them believe her except Rusty. Rusty and Sophie go to a room that the Master has said they aren't allowed in. They move around the room but the Master catches Rusty, while Sophie is still stuck in there. Rusty gets put in the PUNISHMENT ROOM which this nice guy has in his backyard. I would be weirded out by the very visible PUNISHMENT ROOM this guy has in his back. It's more of a PUNISHMENT SHACK but that doesn't sound as good as PUNISHMENT ROOM. We will get back to that in a bit. Sophie finds a photo and brings it to the other dogs and BLAM one of the dogs Roxanne remembers this woman as her previous owner. Oh shit! Stuff is going down! The third issue has the dogs finding some graves under the porch of the house. At least three of them. Roxanne, Sophie, Rusty and Victor a three legged Dalmatian get stuck down there but well find their way out. They find a small piece of clothing that Victor realizes was owned by his previous owner, a firefighter. Victor gets the gang to try to call 9-11, however they can't actually understand dogs. The Master (have I said how this always just reminds me of The Brave Little Toaster) he brings Victor out and fucking SHOOTS HIM behind the PUNISHMENT ROOM/SHACK.

Issue four starts with the oldest dog there, Earl, not believing the Master would do any wrong ever. He pretty much is the last dog believing The Master is a good guy AND he told (in his dog way) the Master about Victor. He's a big rat rat the water rat. That was a weird saying children would say when I was a child. I don't get it and I don't think I ever will. They open up the PUNISHMENT ROOM and they see Victors fur was cut off him. Holy shit you know this guy is a monster. Earl finally finds out about the truth about the Master is how he opened up a drawer? I don't know what the actual name of this thing he opens is but it's got fucking dog skulls stuffed and put up like you know hunters do. This Master guy is fucked up.

Earl is not fucking happy about this shit. He's barking like a madman and he fucking RIPS THE SHIT OUTTA THIS GUYS THROAT. He literally tells every other dog to run like hell and JUMPS THROUGH THE DAMN WINDOW and that shit AINT open! The dogs all run out of the open window and Sophie does not want to remember her lady so she wants to go back and get her scarf.  She gets past the Master but he goes outside and starts fucking shooting, hitting Roxanne, Sophie comes back out without the scarf and bits the Masters leg, the dogs can't get across the street because there's like seventy thousand cars going by. Earl realizes that the only way he can save his friends is to sacrifice himself by walking in front of the other cars and causes a  accident. He tells the other dogs that he remembered and all the dogs go OWWWWWOOOOOOOOOO sound that dogs make. One lady gets out of her car and the dogs try to get attention from her and talk to the Master, however the throat bite that Earl gave him and he falls down dead. I guess holding your hand against a bleeding throat wound won't help you not die. Now all police are around and the dogs are trying to get their attention for quite some time. One of them is like GET ANIMAL CONTROL HERE! However there is a police dog and they give him all the details and we go to several months later and we see Rusty and Sophie playing but they also think this is the first time they met. The final page shows that Sophie has a new name and new owners and doesn't remember anything. Kind of a melancholy way to end this comic, but I'm pretty sure like all horror stories kinda end melancholy way, still this one kinda bummed me out. Poor pupper doesn't remember her friends or original owner.

FINAL VERDICT: This comic has been getting a lot of love from many people and I gotta add in my love in too. I loved the characters (them being dogs helps a lot) but there's also a bit of comedy that works well earlier on in the comic. You see two of the dogs are named Henry and Other Henry. It's the kinda joke that a Disney/Don Bluth/Animated Movie of the 1980s or 1990s would have and it works well with what they were clearly going for which was a messed up Disney flick. The art is fantastic in every way. Look at the cover up there. That's just fucking awesome. I think I would have a great time talking about horror movies or Disney things with Tony and Trish, I've also found out about a spinoff series called Stray Dogs: Dog Days and if I can find them I will talk about them. 

Movie Review #56: Stepfather II (1989)

 

Alright! I think I need to call attention to Mr. Jeff Burr and the films he's directed because this will be the third one I've talked about all month. I do not know why I felt like re-watching so many of his movies but hey here we are! I don't think this was intentional! I forgot he directed this movie! Anyway Jeff was born in 1963 and directed his first movie, Divided We Fall, at only age 18/19. It all depends if the movie was done before July 18th, his birthday. He made his second feature in 1987 called From a Whisper to a Scream, with Vincent Friggin Price! Anything that man is in is a classic. I haven't seen it in a very long time but I remember really liking it. Then the sequel floodgates opened. In 1990 he directed Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. I remember thinking that was the worst Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie at the time (which was before the shitty remakes and prequels so I'm sure it will improve itself in my eyes. Then he did Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings a film I've already discussed. Puppet Master 4 and Puppet Master 5 in 1994 and 1995. Other than Night of the Scarecrow, I have not seen any of his non sequel movies. Some of them look interesting and expect them to pop up on the blog.

Now I remember getting this movie from Allan's Video in the early 2000s during my "Rent every movie made in the 1980s that you possibly can, especially the horror films" binge. I spent my (parents) money on two things in those days. Old NES games and Video Rentals. I was able to do this because we had so many video stores in our town. In the St. Johns/Mount Pearl area. we had 3 Jumbo Videos, 3 Blockbusters, I think 4 Allan's Video, Capital Video (possibly the best of the lot) and at least 3 or 4 movie stores I forgot the name of. That's not to mention the ones that closed down like Venus Video (I remember someone sprayed a P over the V in the name and it was Penus Video. Very good comedy.) I really wish I had decided to rent these movies instead of uh let's say using the internet to get them. Yeah, that'll work. I mean it's easier to use the internet but man it nothing beats the fun of just trying to figure out what the last movie you'll rent is.

So The Stepfather is a really great film. Written by Donald E. Westlake who wrote like 5,000 novels. He based this off guys like John List and William Bradford Bishop, dudes who killed their entire families. Apparently they call them "Family Annihilator". That sounds like someone Batman should fight not murderers. I will never understand how we give killers such cool names. Every serial killer should be called something like "The PeePeePooPoo Killer or The Small Dick Fuckhead Killer" No more cool names for these fuckers. So yeah The Stepfather was a great film that I really enjoyed back then. I remember checking out parts two and three and not really enjoying either of them. I don't know why but I felt like watching this movie again. I'm glad I did because this is a very good little film that I don't know why the hell I didn't like back in the day. 

Stepfather II continues the story of Mr. Jerry Blake (played by Terry O'Quinn) who wants to find the perfect family. If his family fails him, well it's time for a bit of murder and wander off to another town and start again. However he's in some mental hospital because of his murders in the first movie. He escapes and finds himself in a small town and falling for Meg Foster (I forgot her character's name) and she's got a son, played by Jonathan Brandis. The guy who was on every teenage girl magazines between 1989 and 1994. Teenage girls loved that guy. Caroline Williams from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is in this movie as Meg Foster's best pal. You've got one hell of a cast there. Everyone does a great job playing pretty likable characters that you want to see make it through this ordeal.

There are some really neat directorial things I like. There's one scene where Meg Foster and Gene Clifford (Jerry Blakes new alter ego) are talking about her ex-husband who came back to her and how he left again. This is clipped in between scenes of the car his dead body is in being crushed. There's also another neat scene where Jerry Blake is killing someone and gets blood on the lamp so everything is all red. Very neat ideas that I appreciated. 

FINAL VERDICT: yeah this is yet another movie I end up watching and then really liking and wonder what the hell was up with my young self. Do I have to rewatch every one of these movies? Nah. I don't think I need to rewatch Stepfather III. 

Movie Mini Reviews #3: April Fool's Day (1986) & Night of the Scarecrow (1995)

 

Does anyone know where you could buy actual tubs of Popcorn? That to me feels like the best way to enjoy popped corn. I want to own one of those giant popcorn makers movie theaters have. Yes this is probably in the top 3 for worst openings to a blog post anyone could ever make, So you know it's another Mini Movie Review. or Movie Mini Reviews. or whatever the hell I call this crapola. See it eve gets the ola so you know it's extra bad. Anyway you know the drill by now. I discuss two movies that I feel I can't get a full review out of for whatever reason but I still wanna talk about. Since this is October and the Halloween Cool Time Baby For Cool Guys, and Cool Gals, and Cool People of Ambiguous Gender Identity we are gonna talk about two horror films!

This brings me back to the late 90s/early 00s when we got a Jumbo Video close to our house. We'd go there and I'd have a totally different selection of horror crap to rent! I remember renting this movie and watching it on a day off school if I recall correctly. I was not a big fan of it then, and I'd hardly call myself a big fan of it now but I definitely do enjoy it much more now as a sweet ass adult. Anyway the movie involves a bunch of rascals going to a place and getting killed. The difference is that the entire thing is just a April Fool's Day joke (I'm sorry but I'm spoiling this 35 year old motion picture), this movie works because the group of rascals are a bunch of pretty entertaining and enjoyable  people, even if they are incredibly rich white people. One of them is named Muffy which made me think of this movie having the characters from the PBS kids show Arthur doing the same stuff they did in this movie and that made me laugh because I'm a fucking weirdo. I was reminded of Arthur because one of the characters was named Muffy. Do you think anyone in this world has ever been named Muffy? Anyway this is a bit of a slow moving burn but I don't mind. You get a great cast including Amy Steel from Friday the 13th Part 2 (most attractive Final Girl in that franchises history I don't care what you say jerks) and Biff from Back to the Future (most attractive character in that franchise's history I don't care what you say jerks) and It's got a lot of pretty good scares. I personally enjoy the moment in the well with the 3 bodies and the lady who fell in. Good shit. I will give this one a Recommended.

I don't know what the fuck was up with my younger self and movies. If I ever gain the ability to time travel I will one.) Kick his stupid fat ass for getting so fat and two.) kick his stupid fat ass for ever saying anything bad about this movie. I do not understand HOW I didn't think this movie was the most amazing thing ever filmed, but enough of that. I'll give you many reasons why this movie is so badass you need to go find it at a movie rental store that barely even exist anymore. It's THAT good. Firstly, you get a killer scarecrow. Scarecrows are fucking cool, doesn't matter if they live in Oz or they want to cut your face up. Scarecrows are fucking cool. So giving us a Scarecrow is a really good idea. They are weirdly underrated and many of the movies involving Scarecrows are really bad. Secondly, this movie has several really fun character actors in the movie, Stephen Root (from NewsRadio, King of the Hill and Office Space) as a sheriff AND Bruce Glover (yes Crispin Glover's daddy) as a priest. They do great and are always wonderful to see. In fact everyone in this movie is really pretty good in their roles and are mostly likable (except the jerk character that all of these movies are legally required to have). Thirdly the death scenes are god damn insane. A man gets magical scarecrow straw put on him and he just turns into straw! There's one I don't want to even mention anything involved with because you gotta see it to believe it. It's amazing. This is a incredibly fun movie by Mr. Jeff Burr (who I've already talked about on this blog. I will probably end up talking about him again.) Very Highly Super Recommended.

That's it. Go away.