Unseen Terror 2024: Spooky Title of Your Choosing (Day 31)

Well, it’s the end of the month. Time for the final batch of flicks. Hope everyone’s Halloween has been fun. Maybe next year I'll actually venture out into the world again.

I wasn’t planning on having 1984’s Don’t Open Till Christmas as the closer for 2024’s iteration of Unseen Terror, but I figured it could be a fitting note to end on considering that when the clock strikes midnight, the slumbering beast known as Mariah Carey will emerge and terrorize the world for the next couple of months. Plus, I don’t really have a strong desire to end my marathon with an Eli Roth flick like Thanksgiving. Anyways, this is the first "traditional" slasher movie that I’ve seen in recent memory to NOT take place in or come from North America. It’s a simple story of authorities pursuing a mysterious figure who’s been killing off Santa impersonators in London during Christmastime. The first thing that must be noted about Don’t Open Till Christmas is how much of a nightmare it was behind the scenes to complete and release the movie. First, its main actor/director Edmund Purdom quit after constant conflicts with producers (which led to delays and rescheduling while shooting). Afterwards, the movie’s co-writer Derek Ford was hired to take over and complete the picture…only to be relieved after two measly days on the job. After THAT, editor Ray Selfie was hired to direct, and they demanded that most of the script be rewritten by another individual. Because of the previously mentioned Purdom leaving the production, they also asked that much of the movie be re-shot. Many characters had to be recast as well due to some of the original performers being unavailable to return at the time. Eventually, Purdom came back to finish directing and complete his on-screen scenes.

 

You got all of that?

 

The result is a slasher flick that feels extremely awkward, though still admittedly entertaining. The influence from the Italian giallo scene is very noticeable in some of its color palette (very bright red blood for example) and there are some very sudden outbursts of extreme violence that feel slightly like the material seen in Pieces (both coincidentally produced by Dick Randall). That’s another hyperviolent release from the mid-80s that I’ve previously reviewed, but Pieces is a lot more competent and unapologetic for what it is. Also, Pieces wouldn’t have wasted casting genre favorite Caroline Munro (famously known for roles in Maniac, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Spy Who Loved Me, and MANY hammer horror flicks) in a two-minute-long cameo that ultimately serves no purpose other than to make her scream at the sight of a dead body. At least Munro understood the assignment given out here though; most of this cast is eerily calm about seeing horrific murders committed in front of their eyes. Hell, one of the picture’s first slayings is seeing someone get a spear shot through their head IN FRONT OF PEOPLE AT A PARTY, and only one person seems genuinely shocked or horrified. Maybe this is a British thing? Maybe I’m just being too anal about these kinds of flicks.

 

Don’t Open Till Christmas is like that person you randomly see at a bar who can’t quite hit the bullseye on the dart board, but still manages to elicit an “ah, at least you tried man” from the patrons. It’s just too clumsy to warrant a strong recommendation but compared to some of the other material I’ve viewed this month, it’s far from a complete disaster. If you aren’t in the mood to rewatch the vastly superior “holiday horror” pictures such as Christmas Evil, Silent Night, Deadly Night, or even Gremlins for the umpteenth time, then I suppose you could fire this up.

 

 

 And now we move on to…………. something else.

 

The nicest thing I can say about A Haunted House, a 2013 parody of the “found footage” genre, is that it could’ve been far worse than it is. At this point I don’t think it’s controversial to say that any of the Wayans Brothers’ best days are behind them and that post-Scary Movie, the parody genre has more-or-less become the “reference” genre. Yes, we get lucky with gems like Pop Star, Hot Fuzz, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and Black Dynamite from time to time, but for the most part it has become dreadful. The funniest part of A Haunted House had to do with an audio review from the now defunct spill.com (which I’ll link to right here. I'd advise starting at the 9-minute mark). I breathed a short sigh of relief when J.B. Smoove and David Koechner showed up because lord knows once I saw Nick Swardson on screen, I almost instantly knew that this movie was doomed. Hard pass on this one. I am not looking forward to Scary Movie 6.

 

To quote the immortal Cypress Hill, however, “I ain’t going out like that.” I had to end on a high note.

 

So, I re-watched Tremors. Again.

 

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with a “comfort” watch. Plus, I’d rather have October end on an exciting note about giant, underground worms battling Kevin Bacon & Fred Ward than one where Marlon Wayans takes a dump on his wife’s father’s ashes.

 

Not sure what I can say about Tremors that I already haven’t said either online or in person. It’s a perfect monster movie. It’s a perfect horror-comedy. It’s the right kind of exhilaration packed with memorable characters, endlessly quotable lines, and practical effects that could put most things from modern day “monster” movies to shame. It’s….perfection.

 

Nevada.

 

 

…………………I’m not apologizing for that joke.

 

Anyways, stay tuned because I may be back in the next couple of days to talk about what the future holds for this yearly blog-o-thon thing that I do for fun.

The Amazing Bulk (2012) Review

Young scientists begin work on a...serum...that turns one of them...-


Screw it, I can not convince myself to even attempt to make a description of this film's plot synopsis. Then again, one could even argue with categorizing The Amazing Bulk as not a full-fledged motion picture, but rather a college student's poor attempt at making a superhero parody that began out of a brainstorm fueled by excessive amounts of glue huffing and Angel Dust usage. It's a thirty minute idea that is somehow stretched into an excruciating seventy-five minute long movie, and ultimately feels like it could still have fifteen minutes eliminated from the final cut (with most of that coming from stock footage of missile launches and scenes from orbit that are set to classical music). There was no brand of drug out there, be it legal or illegal, to make this experience anything but, well, fucking bizarre.


Okay okay, if you were to request that I give a sincere explanation as to what in the unholy hell this flick's story even is, I would tell you that at its core, it's the "mockbuster" equivalent of Louis Leterrier's 2008 reboot of The Incredible Hulk, only without the everything. The revelation that most of this picture's budget was spent on designing the cover art posted above would not shock me in the slightest.  If your desire was to see a behemoth of an antihero that looked like recently-deceased MMA standout Emmanuel Yarbrough had sexual intercourse with a melted version of the Grimace who spends more time running like a character from an early 1990s Macintosh game than he does fighting, then allow me to disgrace this blog of mine with one capture of the titular character.

Did I scare you away yet? No? Good. Because should you search on noted movie database IMDB (where this pile is currently sitting at an alarmingly low 1.9), one fellow reviewer points out that this was primarily filmed on an iPhone 4. More often than not, absurd statistics such as this would warrant some further research so that I can prove their validity, but in this case, I'm just going to go along with what this person says and agree that it was very likely true. One hundred percent of Bulk is shot on a green screen, with none (I repeat, NONE) of the backgrounds being authentic and making the "Money For Nothing" video look modern. Christ, they even have CGI dogs and Monkeys running around! If this was an attempt at paying homage to noted screen gems such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Cool World, then they succeeded with no colors. By the way, before anyone jumps on me with the usual "oh, but they weren't lucky enough to have a huge budget," I would just like to point out that even turds like Manos: The Hands of Fate had the decency to grab real animals for their set, and all they had to promise the owners or tamers was a bowl of food for the creatures to enjoy.


Oh that's right, I haven't even begun to discuss what is usually the subject of fecal waterslides such as these: the acting! Well, given that the dialogue is written by two gentlemen whose credits include promising efforts like Vampire Boys, Gothic Vampires From Hell, and Queen Cobra, it's a given that it would be downright embarrassing. What you'll ultimately take away from every single character (other than they're self-aware that they are in a flick made for approximately the same amount that it would cost to purchase an HD TV) is that they are doing their best to turn up the volume of their roles' stereotypes to a clear eleven. The man portraying our Bruce Banner is just as bland as Eric Bana was in the 2003 Hulk, and even Bulk's antagonist, who may or may not be Adolf Hitler, is as over-the-top as one with working eyesight could ever imagine. Every performer also seems to be walking or running as if they were on a treadmill or partaking in those old green screen skits that you would see on Late Night With Conan O'Brien.


Should an afterlife truly exist, I am thoroughly convinced that there is a special place reserved for films of this ilk in the deepest, most pain-inducing bowels of hell. Do not be fooled by its promise of comparisons to that masterpiece of trash known as Tommy Wiseau's The Room. Yes, its unbelievable badness does almost warrant a one-time viewing, but pictures such as the latter, along with numerous cream of the crap winners in Grade-Z cinema like Pocket Ninjas and Shark Attack 3 will sooner find themselves sitting in heaven than this ever would. This 2010 work, which took an additional two years to see distribution for anyone that enjoys torturing their children, is available for streaming on Amazon Prime and sitting at the bottom of that dumpster a few blocks away from your apartment or house.



Enter at your own risk, and know that you will be in my thoughts should you decide to take the plunge.

A Million Ways To Die In The West (2014) Review

Sheep farmer Albert Stark detests living in the mostly barren frontier of Old Stump, Arizona. In addition to nearly everything around you having the capability to end your life within seconds, he has also been dumped by his girlfriend Louise, most likely due to his recent withdrawal from a duel, which many, including her, perceive as an act of cowardice. Soon, Stark draws the ire of notorious gunfighter Clinch Leatherwood, and through unexpected and initially unrevealed sources, he will find the courage and skills needed in order to face this infamous outlaw, lest he be thought of as a meager quitter for the rest of his life.


I just don't know what to make of Seth MacFarlane these days. I initially thought the man was a genius (or at the very least, a very underrated writer and voiceover performer) who came across as rather intelligent and knowledgable, if not a bit smug. I was surprised by his humility and legitimate happiness over hearing of the revival of his animated (then) cult television program Family Guy, and was just as ecstatic as him when I heard of its resurrection. Hell, I even enjoyed his first writing and directing foray into live-action filmmaking with 2012's Ted. And yet, the man has been disappointing me immensely for the past decade or so in ways that you can't imagine. The aforementioned Family Guy has arguably been out of gas for its past few seasons (a now infamous lambasting from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone didn't help matters either), his other cartoon projects have been notoriously hit or miss, and the recently cancelled Seth Green vehicle Dads could go down as one of the absolute worst shows I've seen in my twenty eight years of existence. All of that hoopla aside, a large part of me was secretly interested in checking out MacFarlane's parody of the old western genre, the cleverly titled A Million Ways To Die In The West.


Regrettably, I think AMWTDITW (I am far too lazy to type this title multiple times, so you'll have to deal with this acronym) suffers from the same problem with the creator's more recent ventures, and that's just lazy, run-it-up-the-flagpole-style writing. And while I could normally nitpick and point out several large, glaring problems with films that I'm not too fond of or am immensely disappointed by, this really is the only major drawback, although it is a large one in the case of a comedy-based writer like MacFarlane. Nobody is phoning their performances in, and in fact, it seems that most of the cast are having a ball with one another (Charlize Theron and Sarah Silverman shine brightest). When a large chunk of your material, however, just isn't particularly strong, there is only so much that you can salvage in order to make it memorable for the general audiences who have paid to have good, boisterous laughs, and usually en masse. The mostly serious third act also does a near 180 for the film, and though it eventually leads to a relatively fun sequence involving psychedelic drug use with Native Americans, it feels klutzy in terms of transitioning and you can hear a pin drop in the theater in the build up to it.


AMWTDITW's heavy reliance on feces, urine, and fart jokes tends to wear thin after about the third time you're exposed to it. One wonders if perhaps they just couldn't come up with anything more clever in time (or were afraid of using the now-maligned "flashback" gag from Family Guy) and just figured that the average moviegoer can always find humor in anything coming out of the two holes below your belt. It's the type of lazy jokes that you expect from someone as lowbrow or idiotic as Marlon Wayans or Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer, not the same man who was asked to host the Academy Awards one year ago. On the plus side, what isn't lowbrow is a pretty darn entertaining musical number led by Neil Patrick Harris (who seems to revel in playing a villain) and Stephen Foster that serves as an homage to the art of certain facial hair, and about how glorious it is. There are also a copious amount of cameos from who I can assume are some of MacFarlane's best friends from the liberal world of Hollywood, including one in the aforementioned drug sequence that gave me the biggest laugh overall. Sadly, a lot of the film's best gags were run into the ground by the overexposure of television spots and trailers for the picture, and most gags or antics elicit mere chuckles instead of guffaws.


You know what? After much debate, and even perusing through my own writing, Seth MacFarlane might be a genius after all. The man somehow managed to convince studio executives to make what essentially amounts to an uneven, two hour long episode of Family Guy with a forty million dollar budget. There is absolutely no reason that this couldn't have been of one of Seth's television shows. And before you say "he could have used this as an excuse to work with this famous actor or actress," I have to ask: why couldn't they have been recruited to do voiceover work instead? You're technically still in the same area or studio as them, and while you may not be able to do anything as memorable as physically kiss Charlize Theron or stick a flower up Liam Neeson's rectum (don't ask), you can still have the credentials on your resume if it is something sought after that much. At the end of the day, A Million Ways To Die In The West just makes you want to pat Seth MacFarlane on the back and say "well, you still have your other works. Better luck next time. Now it's time to go watch Blazing Saddles or Lust In The Dust and forget this whole thing ever happened."