Director: Astron-6
Year released: 2011
THE CHARGE: Being the best movie ever directed by something that sounds like George Jetson's robot dog.
THE EVIDENCE: Is there anything more frightening than the holidays? As if putting on a brave face and dealing with your relatives wasn't troublesome enough, numerous film makers have ensured that we need to spend every Halloween, Christmas, New Year's, birthday, Mother's Day and Earth Day looking over our shoulders to make sure that a masked maniac isn't trying to offer us season's greetings with a butcher knife between the shoulder blades. Canadian film crew "Astron-6" has taken their turn on the holiday exploitation bandwagon with Father's Day and it's safe to say that I'll never view that particular day the same way again.
Director: Rainer Erler
Year released: 1979
THE CHARGE: Having no heart, but trying to make up for it with a liver and a couple of nice kidneys.
THE EVIDENCE: I've watched a lot of movies that the general viewing public would consider "bad". But I'm usually able to sit through even the worst of the worst just from the sheer awe that comes with the realization that this movie exists because numerous people dedicated a fair chunk of their lives, and invested a fair chunk of their money, to make it happen. I respect that kind of dedication, however misguided it may be. That being said, Spare Parts sorely tested the boundaries of both my respect and my patience.
Director: Robert O'Neill
Year released: 1970
THE CHARGE: I can think of at least two things wrong with that title.
THE EVIDENCE: Blood Mania. You might think this would be a slasher film filled with all manner of gratuitous violence and gory special effects. Or maybe you'd think it's a lesser known movie from the collection of a notorious b-movie auteur like Herschell Gordon Lewis or Roger Corman. Or maybe you'd think it sounds like a ditzy Troma horror-comedy chock full of gross-out gags. Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong.
Director: Osvaldo Civirani (as Richard Kean)
Year released: 1971
THE CHARGE: Identity theft, because seven faces is at least a couple too many.
THE EVIDENCE: Ah, the early 70s. A politically incorrect time when men were openly lecherous, secretaries wore miniskirts, and sideburns weren't ironic. A time when every home, office and daycare center had a wet bar. A time when the Surgeon General said "Smoke 'em if you got 'em." A time when a movie as utterly crazy as The Devil with Seven Faces could pass itself off as a serious crime caper.
Director: Giulio de Santi
Year released: 2013
THE CHARGE: Price gouging, eye gouging, brain gouging... pretty much gouging every gougable thing there is to gouge.
THE EVIDENCE: You see that tag line above, just below the web site's banner? "Films on trial for crimes against humanity, decency, and general good taste." I made that up with the intention of being tongue-in-cheek. I love movies and even the low budget affairs I typically review here are rarely ever that bad. But then I witnessed Hotel Inferno, a movie not content to merely wallow in bad taste. It decapitates bad taste, pulls out its innards, vomits on them and gleefully rolls around in the putrid mixture while unleashing a torrent of profanities that would make even the most dedicated vulgarian blush.
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Year released: 1988
THE CHARGE: Being grody to the max and so not totally tubular, like, gag me with a spoon FER SHERRRR!
THE EVIDENCE: The 80s were... well, they were what they were. Some of us lived through them and have wistful memories every time the muzak version of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" plays in the supermarket. Some of you were born afterward and your only exposure to that era has been through repeated airings of Back to the Future on TBS. But like a relic in a time capsule filled with Pound Puppies, Alf dolls and Nintendo Power Gloves, Day of the Panther is here to show you exactly what the 80s were about... for better or for worse.
Director: Nacho Vigalondo
Year released: 2014
THE CHARGE: Wasting air conditioning and letting all the stank out.
THE EVIDENCE: Boy, this review was a poser to write. How do I start it off? Do I talk about Elijah Wood's increasing wide-eyed presence in the horror and thriller genres? Do I mention that director Nacho Vigalondo was the man behind Timecrimes, one of the best time travel stories ever put to film? Do I go straight for the reader's prurient interest and discuss the performance of ex-porn star Sasha Grey? Ultimately, I decided to just get right to the point: Open Windows blows.
Director: Peter Carter
Year released: 1977
THE CHARGE: Having a title so vague that I'm forced to watch the movie to figure out what the hell it means.
THE EVIDENCE: We all have rituals that we go through. It could be in the form of a daily routine or activities centered around a particular religion. It could be an OCD-like need to makes sure all the doors are locked whenever you leave the house. The movie reviewed today examines such rituals and... wait! No it doesn't! In fact, after watching this movie, I still don't know what the hell the title has to do with anything I saw.
Director: Joel Bender
Year released: 1990
THE CHARGE: Impersonating Re-Animator with a budget that screams Re-Possessed.
THE EVIDENCE: By 1990, the horror genre was on life support. We had eight Friday the 13th and five Nightmare on Elm Street films to that point, with both series demonstrating serious declines in quality. Sequelitis was in full force, and for every decent one released (like Exorcist III) we were treated to a slew of stinkers (Prom Night III, Psycho IV, Troll 2). And on the rare occasions that original horror films like The Immortalizer were released, they were typically as unoriginal as you could get.
Director: Minoru Kawasaki
Year released: 2005
THE CHARGE: Animal cruelty. Anyone who would doom a cute little koala to a life of living in cubicles is a dirty monster.
THE EVIDENCE: In this Japanese import, a successful executive is accused of murdering his missing girlfriend. He has no alibi and no memory of the night of her disappearance, but the chain of events is eerily similar to what happened when his wife was killed years ago in a crime that was never solved. He also happens to be a koala. An executive koala, in case you wouldn't have guessed that from the title.
As much as I enjoy watching cheesy movies, I can't bring myself to watch or review any films in the Sharknado franchise. That's because they aren't really films. They're just a business strategy, a crass commercialization of the "so bad its good" paradigm. And while many exploitation movies were created for the sole purpose of making a quick buck, the joy in watching those movies comes from discovering the artistry that the film makers managed to sneak in despite having little to no budget to work with. There is no artistry in the Sharknado movies. They are soulless corporate entities.
And that's why I'm happy to report that SyFy's recent airing of Sharknado 4: The Fourth Awakens earned the lowest ratings of any of the Sharknado sequels, showing that audiences might be wising up to the con.
Despite having less than a 30% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Suicide Squad set a record for best August opening by any movie in the history of forever by earning $135.1 million in North America. But ticket sales of less than $40 million on Saturday were a huge drop-off compared to its strong Friday opening, indication that the movie might not have a very long box office life.
Can a movie that sets a box office record ultimately be considered a bomb? Time will tell. One thing we do know for sure is that any movie looks better in comparison when its opening weekend competition stars Kevin Spacey as a cat.
Director: Taylor Sheridan
Year released: 2012
THE CHARGE: I dunno. Is it a crime to be vile? How about icky? Is it a crime to be icky?
THE EVIDENCE: Vile opens with a stark, high-def scene of a man on an operating table, bound and gagged. As the opening credits appear, a great slacker-rock soundtrack in the background provides a nice counterpoint to the visual of this man getting his chest cut open and salt rubbed into the open wound. Meanwhile, liquid drips through tubes in the back of his head, which is collected, centrifuged and infused into pharmaceutical ingredients. Watching this, I sat back with a grin, enjoying the wickedly black comedy that doubled as a scathing indictment of the drug industry.
Directors: Monroe Mann, Ronnie Khalil, Jorge Valdés-Iga
Year released: 2012
THE CHARGE: Cinematic con artistry in an attempt to cash in on the reputation of someone who had NOTHING to do with making the film.
THE EVIDENCE: When you discover a film with an incredibly awesome title like You Can’t Kill Stephen King, one hopes the imagination that led to the creation of that title will be equally displayed throughout the film. One is frequently disappointed. Here, once again, we have a movie that falls short of the hopeful aspirations raised by its title... but somewhat surprisingly, it doesn't fall short by much.
Director: Adam Fields
Year released: 2008
THE CHARGE: Indecent exposure, indecent acting, pretty much indecent everything.
THE EVIDENCE: Since you’re on the internet, you’ve no doubt seen the joke about replacing the word “wand” in the Harry Potter novels with “wang”. One-Eyed Monster is the cinematic equivalent, taking the “killer” in any horror flick and replacing it with... well, “wang”.
Director: Marc B. Ray
Year released: 1973
THE CHARGE: Noise pollution. The bloody murder I can take, but enough with the screaming already!
THE EVIDENCE: The 70s were a classic era of cinema, providing countless gems like Jaws, A Clockwork Orange, Rocky, Star Wars, The Godfather, Chinatown, The Exorcist... the list can go on and on. But it was also the era that gave us films like Night of the Lepus, Satan's Cheerleaders, The Blood Waters of Dr. Z and Exorcist II: The Heretic. I'll bet you can guess which side of the fence Scream Bloody Murder impales itself on.
