Archive for December, 2012

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

Posted: 30/12/2012 in Trash movies
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Many of deranged people had tried to cash in birth of our Lord in many ways. But the most despicable of them all are Christmas movies, the worst Christmas tradition of all times. If you ever watched titles such as “Silent Night Deadly Night” (all parts), “Santa With Muscles”, Home Alone 3 and 4″, you’ll get the idea what i am talking about. But those movies are nothing in comparison with “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”, which is supreme and unquestionable ruler in the land of junk Christmas movies. Calling this movie a trash would represent an ultimate insult to every empty can, used product envelope and dirty diaper that has found it’s way to trash can. Also, calling this movie a Christmas movie would make Santa Claus to rage-vomit. So there you have it. I am stuck even with categorizing this nonsense. Nevertheless I’ll try to give my best in attempt to pass you experience I had while watching this.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

PLEASE GOD, NO!

Movie intro is nothing more than creepy song “Hurrah for Santa” which gives us hint of director’s insanity in the very start. The year is 196-who-cares. Existence of Santa Claus is widely acknowledged. Christmas eve is near so Santa Claus has to work like a hell if he wants to make enough toys for every child on this planet. Since his existence is no longer a secret, TV stations are announcing Santa’s visit. And we are going live to Santa’s workshop on the North Pole! There we see a lot of poor little elves working with no pause in fear of their evil master who had enslaved them. Of course, TV camera records only toys they had produced, not their misery. More workshop scenes….More unhappy elves…And here we come to grand finale – owner and soul proprietor of this cold factory of happiness. We see Santa Claus himself – an old, manically depressed drug addict, smoking the pipe which probably contains a highly suspicious ;substance. That is further proved when he is unable to remember the names of his raindeers, even calling one of them Nixon (?!). On the other hand even the Santa lives in fear of a real North Pole master- his wife! The diabolical Misses Clause is yelling instruction to everyone until she notices the camera and completely loses her shit. Santa uses the opportunity to disappear ( he’s probably sipping some Christmas punch a little early this year).

In the meantime on the planet Mars, two only two of Mars’s children (who happen to be kids of their leader) are watching TV, human TV! Thank God this was before the reality show era or we would be really in trouble. Noticing that the children are acting depressed their mom (and only female on Mars it seems) asks her husband to do something and cheer them up. He does the only logical thing- pays a visit to a 800 years old crazy man who advises him to find a Santa so the Mars children can experience the true childhood. His underling with awesome mustaches rejects his opinion but the leader is pleased and they are soon on the mission- find and capture the Santa Claus!

Don’t worry kids, nothing will ever be worse than this…

The crew which has been selected for this mission consists of leader Kimar, evil Martian with mustache named Voldar, imbecilic Martian named Dropo, and some other 2 random extraterrestrials. Despite the fact that their flying saucer has been seen by millions of people USA government still tries to cover up their visit to Earth. The fact that TV anchor somehow is getting news 5 secs after something happens doesn’t make their job easier. They even launched a counterattack which consists of 20 minutes of archive footage from WWII. We are skipping this part. We are back now to flying saucer. Interesting thing is that all instruments inside the ship are named in English language. This led us to believe that Martian and English languages are completely identical by astonishing coincidence. After they landed on Earth, they kidnapped couple of kids to help them find Santa. We are led to believe that one of the kids is female but all the evidences suggests otherwise (especially his/her unibrow). Kids pointed their way to North Pole. After landing there, Dropo secretly frees little brats after he previously was touching them. They tried to hide in cave but a man in a costume of polar bear scares them with gorilla movements and his lion roar. Eventually, two kids that are too retarded to be in orphanage, had been captured again

Meanwhile, in Santa’s workshop, Voldar storms in with his ultimate weapon – feeble minded robot named Tord,  After only 30 seconds spent alone with maniacally Santa, Tord confused himself with a toy and stopped functioning. In the background we see Misses Claus bulshitting something to her husband. Led by a motto “” If you want something to be done right, do it yourself”,  Voldar comes in, unholsters his paralyzing gun and shoots elves. Santa agrees to go to Mars just to get as far as he can from his wife. Voldar paralyzes misses Claus receiving Santa’s gratitude. They all aboard then to flying saucer. Amazing thing is that newspapers inform of Santa’s kidnapping a moment later.

After arriving to Mars, Santa gets new, improved workshop. After making a shitload of toys for a little Martian kids he gets informed that he will never be allowed to go back to Earth. Dropo starts cross-dressing as Santa (very disturbing) and gets kidnapped by Voldar who finally had enough of Christmas spirit. Also he tries to discredit Santa Clause by sabotaging his toy machine (instead of teddy bears it produces voodoo dolls). Voldar gets confused by false Santa, and then starts bitch slapping with Kimar.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

He defeats mighty Kimar, but falls a victim to little toy tanks, soap bubbles, and 4 little kids, after which he breaks down crying.  In the aftermath Dropo is pronounced the new Santa aka Santa of Mars and the original Santa heads back to Earth with kids because he is running out of time and needs to start delivering the presents ASAP. The last thing we see is an up close shoot of the moon, so it seems they run out of fuel and never made it back. It seems the Christmas will have to be canceled this year. The End.

Verdict:

HO- HO- HORRIBLE!

ZARDOZ (1974)

Posted: 27/12/2012 in Trash movies
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ZARDOZ is an unexplainable film by the legendary director John Boorman (Hope and Glory, Excalibur). Yes, even though we’re talking about 70es no amounts of LSD can justify the existence of this movie! After retiring the famed agent 007 Sean Connery decided to broaden his specter as an actor- all fair and square. He stared his post-Bond career with a hard hitting police drama The Offense, and then his further artistic explorations led him to…  THIS?!

DAMN!

In the year of 2293, a post-apocalyptic Earth is inhabited mostly by the Brutals, who are ruled by the secret clan of  Eternals. Eternals use special class of Brutals, called the Exterminators, as their enforcers.The Exterminators worship their god Zardoz, a huge, flying, stone head.

Can’t argue with that.

Zed (Sean Connery), an Exterminator, apparently bored from constant raping and killing finds a way to hide within the Zardoz’s head. How he got that idea is beyond me. He shoots  and kills pilot of a giant head. It seems that Eternals are not really that eternal after all. The Zardoz head with Zed inside returns to a secret community of civilized beings called Vortex. Once in Vortex he is found and detained by two ladies (Consuella and May) using their psychic powers of course. After reading his mind Consuella advocates immediate execution of Zed, but May is fascinated citing first real contact with outside world in ages as a reason to keep him around for study. The fact that she just “saw” Zed raping a woman in Zardoz’s name doesn’t seem to be troubling her the slightest. Anyway after some time they let Zed roam free and (probably a foolish decision) show him around the Vortex. He finds that Eternals  giving their limitless life span grew bored and lost any kind of real purpose. Also men became totally impotent. He witnesses their retarded social rules that result in punishment of those who think outside the box, the punishment being artificial aging and senility that fallows it. They of course keep studying him, disgusted and fascinated by the fact that he is capable of erection different than their Vortex men…

The Great Mystery!

After extensive research May concludes that he is a second or third generation mutant and that he is mentally as well as physically superior than anyone in the Vortex and is therefore dangerous!

Zed is Da Man, deal with it!

After that Eternals gather and lead by Concuella vote to determine his fate. They give May 7 days to complete her studies before Zed is destroyed. Then they continue with their gayish hippie rituals.Next, May is hypnotizing Zed  and we are treated with number of flashback, learning  to read in the ruins of  the old world  and his realization of origin of the name Zardoz- Wizard of Oz*. So we finally know the origin of his plan! Strange but it’s an explanation.

Aha!

Unfortunately Concuella interrupts their session and decides to punish May by rapid aging! She is for some reason jealous of her cause she was held by Zeds strong and hairy arms? Maybe she does not despise brutes or sex as much as she lets on? Despite her efforts Zed escapes and causes the ruckus, succeeds in absorbing all the knowledge of  Eternals (from their artificial intelligence, The Tubernuckle) and even allows the hordes of Exterminators into the fabled city! Complete death and destruction fallows.

Concuella tries to kill him even though it’s too late to save the city but she stops and then Zed declares “you gave me  what no other gave me- love”Just like that- without any set up. Hell, she actively  tried to kill him many times- and just ’cause she is not capable to get her hands dirty it’s love? I think I need to update my definition of love ASAP! Anyway city is destroyed, most Eternals dead (including May and her friend Friend), and  minority that survived forced to join the regular “Brutals”.

Zed and Concuella as suddenly in the cave, together, rapidly aging in time- lapse until there is nothing left but  skeletons, then dust and an old revolver of Zed. The End.*

The End

Verdict- it took me approximately 48 hours  to start to function as a proper human being again after watching this film.  More side- effect will probably show themselves in time… Anyway, I  know the puling force of Sean Connery in red diapers and  knee-high leather boots is incredibly strong but maybe you should choose to save your sanity instead.

And kids- remember!

*art by bopchara

Wilhelm Scream (1951- ∞)

Posted: 22/12/2012 in Tribute
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The legendary Wilhelm Scream is an inside joke among the sound engineers and  originates from a series of sound effects recorded for the 1951 movie Distant Drums. In a scene from the film, soldier is bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator. The scream for that scene was recorded later (by actor and singer Sheb Wooley) in a single take, along with five other short pained screams, which were slated as “man getting bit by an alligator, and he screamed.” It was later re-used in many Western and Adventure films. But the greatest triumph of the Wilhelm scream was yet to come! Motion picture sound designer Ben Burtt,  discovered the original recording (which he found as a studio reel labeled “man being eaten by alligator”) and incorporated it into a scene in Star Wars ( IV: A New Hope). Burtt is also credited with naming the famous scream (after Private Wilhelm  in The Charge at Feather River). Over the next decade, Burtt  incorporated the effect in more  films that he worked on, including projects by George Lucas and  Steven Spielberg (you can find the scream in every Star Wars and Indiana Jones film). Other sound designers of course picked up on the effect soon enough , and including Wilhelm Scream became holy tradition among the sound designer community.

Sheb Wooley’s other hit, unexplainable song by the name of  “Purple People Eater”

Invasion USA (1985)

Posted: 17/12/2012 in Trash movies
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Feeling of pure horror got a hold of me before movie even started, when I saw that this monstrosity is product of sinful , blasphemous, unholy union between Cannon and MGM. Like a convict to a death penalty who awaits his own execution I trembled in fever while awaiting the appearance of Chuck Norris. Of course, this kind of movie can’t exist without Aron Norris’s “colorful” script. Equation is simple here: Cannon+MGM+Norris Bros.Inc = Mental Torture. Lethal injection never seemed this tempting.

Cannon MGM logo USA

If you see this, run as far as you can, you might still have a chance!

The story is quite simple: Evil Soviet terrorists had launched full attack on USA. Mission – Conquering entire country! Start of their invasion looked like famous “Day D”; army of terrorists in a shitload of boats. After landing in middle of night, they enter hundreds of trucks. It came to our attention that no one of the authorities had raised an issue about unusual number of ice cream trucks parked at beach in the dead of the night. Soviets showed here extremely high level of patience since they conquering had consisted of destroying one house at a time using a rocket launchers. God have mercy on America. Meanwhile, in swamp of New Orleans, ex-government executioner Matt Hunter (Chuck Norris) passes his time with wrestling vs alligators.

Something like this…

He lives in nearby shack with some old Indian. Tools of repression (government’s men) found Matt there and literally begged him to return to his duty and save the USA. With the least possible emotions manifesting Chuck Norris had refused this offer. In that moment, it seemed that nothing can stop evil Soviets. Ok now, back to conquerors side. Rostov , main man in entire operation seems to got Matthunterphobia. Terrified by nightmare in which Chuck Norris rapes, kills and rapes him again, he decides to put an end to it by hunting Hunter in the stinky swamp. Epilogue of that attack was one burned shack (by rocket launcher ofc) and one dead Indian (not played by Armand Assante). After death of his longtime friend, Chuck Norris had engaged attempt to show at least some emotions… and he failed miserably. Without burying corpse of his friend, Chuck goes to bar (which was owned by the now dead Indian). After drinking himself to death he decides to avenge old man. Rostov doesn’t know what he had started. Well, he brought this on himself. Chuck wasn’t really interested in doing old US of A’s dirty work anymore. That’s what happens when you give too much credits to your dreams.

Next, the evil Soviets attack a shopping mall where all people are doing their Christmas shopping. During the attack, Hunter comes crashing in his pick-up and starts obliterating everything in his path in a style that would make Terminator jealous.  Next, Hunter tracks down the whole group that attacked the mall. He obliterates them too! Finally figuring out that something is terribly wrong, guard troops are called up and martial law is declared. Hunter of course continues to go after the terrorists, stopping their plans to bomb a church and a school bus with students and in the process, kills Rostov’s right hand man.

Chuck Norris and his pickup visit the mall, showing everyone what the Real Black Friday is!

In the sudden twist of fate, the FBI agents arrest arrest Hunter for the killing of the terrorists (?) and he is taken to the command center, where he goads Rostov (on national television none the less ) to come and kill him if he dares. Rostov then orders all the Soviets to assault the center. However, they find no one inside the center and the National Guard surrounds them… the arrest of Hunter was a trap all along! With the battle raging outside, Hunter comes face-to-face with emesis Rostov and finally kills him in a brutal fashion*. The terror crisis ends suddenly as it came to be… all thanks to one man.

Poor Rostov, if only he was smart enough to leave Chuck be  Soviets would have ruled USA and the world would be a better place!

Verdict:

The Pinnacle of Manliness

Tribute to Albert “Al” Leong

Posted: 09/12/2012 in Trash movies, Tribute
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There is a special kind of people that make good movies shine and bad movies fun and they routinely get little or no  appreciation from the movie viewing public – the henchmen. Long haired, muscular and more often than not foreign people whose sole reason for existence in the movie world is to look cool and die making the hero even cooler in the process.

al

This is a tribute to greatest that ever was, is and ever will be, the grand- master of all henchmen- Albert “Al” Leong aka  Al ‘Ka Bong’. With his receding but long hair, killer Fu- Manchu mustache and deadly martial art skills he embodied (but ultimately outgrow) Asian henchmen stereotype and went head on and all out with the stars caliber of Kurt Russel, Mel Gibson, Jean Claude Van Damme, Brandon Lee  and Bruce Willis and has been brutally killed by most of them.

Now I will let Al’s hand and feet do the talking…

During his storied career Al has broken all his ribs at least twice, cracked his sternum twice and broken his arms… none of that stopped him of course, ’cause he’s the freakin’ Al Leong. His popularity was so enormous that he even outgrew henchmen position and also stared in roles of dangerous Sensei  figures and even had memorable and frankly quite brilliant performance  in  Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure playing Genghis Khan (it was also one of the few films Al doesn’t die  in!)

al-leong-rapid-fire

His most impressive performance, when he was paired with the late great Brandon Lee who was good enough martial artist to keep up with him and make it incredibly engaging screen fight in the process and also because simply somebody  finally let him do his stuff instead of opting to kill him too soon.


Henching ain’t easy!

Samurai Cop (1991)

Posted: 03/12/2012 in Trash movies
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The main selling point of this film is Robert Z’Dar, star of a cult feature The Maniac Cop (and it’s two sequels) but for some reason he stars here as Japanese (!!!) Yakuza enforcer Yamashita. On the contrary the lead here is stone faced, one- time Stallone’s bodyguard of the name Matt Hannon. He was so dedicated to this film, his first (and last) feature that he decided to cut off his long hair during the filming of the movie and was forced to wear ridiculous female wig for more than half of the filming!

samurai cop

There’s something terribly wrong with this picture!

Movie starts with Frank Washington, epitome of 80es black police-man who gets a new partner from San Diego
incredible Joe “Samurai” Marshall, long haired California dude, supposedly fantastic martial artist and even better cop. He joins Frank to take down L.A. based Yakuza organization with incredibly retarded name- Katana Gang. Also more that 2/3 of gangsters are not even Japanese (although Z’Darr pretends to be one). After … chase scene and Marshall yelling “s-shot them” Frank succeeds and the van explodes (two times). The driver escapes, unfortunately in flames but Marshall and Frank pull out the security blanket (?) and fire extinguisher and save his life.

Also after completing their mission Marshall points to the female cop piloting a helicopter and says “see you tonight” With a trick of rushed editing it’s already tonight and we are treated with soft- soft- soft core sex scene of Marshall and a blond cop lady. Strangely none of the two feels any need to remove their pants during the whole scene which unfortunately seems to last ages.

undies

Cop Lady, proficient in riding a helicopter… and Matt Hannon!

Meanwhile in the headquarters of the Katana Gang the mullet wearing boss (of crime) Mr. Fujiyama is giving orders. Like any true Japanese traditionalist he wants the head of the driver- so he can place in on top of his piano? Z’Darr, I mean Yamashita doesn’t question that strange request because he is the true Samurai*

Samurai_with_sword

   *interesting because the status of samurai was abolished in Japan with the Meiji reforms in the late 19th century

Here we can see the effect “Samurai” Marshall has on ladies

Yamashita succeeds in his mission aided by his hot red- headed partner (porn actress Krista Lane- Deep Troath II). In fact she gets him in hospital acting as a janitor (dressed as a nurse) pushing the cloth- cover cart which hides Yamashita inside of it. He demonstrates his knowledge of sword veilding by using probably the sharpest blade ever made as butcher knife! They almost escape without a trace but an idiot cop finally notices that their witness is missing and he sounds the alarm. That complicates things a bit but Yamashita just destroys everyone on his path and they run away.

Samurai and Frank feel the anger of their boss (see bellow) but black partner cheers him up by kissing his bold head. He chase them away but smiles when he’s finally alone. Some old cop got a tip on the location of the gang leader so he informs “The Samurai” He surprises Mr. Fuyita and his underlings in a restaurant delivering a heartfelt speech.*

“…a heartfelt speech”

Also he hits on blond “all- American” girl, the owner of the restaurant because that’s just something that he does. After that Dynamic Duo of Frank and Marshall is faced with tons of goons, none of them match for their skill. Marshall shows his martial art knowledge by swinging a sword wildly with imbecilic face expression. Also he cut off an arm of one of the assailants and the said assailant died from bleeding 10 seconds afterwords. Yamashita is outraged by incompetence of his henchmen so he does what any real samurai would do- takes out an uzi and starts shooting like there’s  no tomorrow. Cops survive the bullets somehow but the criminals don’t. After that Yamashita runs away and detectives go too. They don’t try to do reasonable thing like try to arrest him for attacking the officers- NO! That’s not how they do business- they just pretend they have no evidence to book him (lots of bullet holes in their car and a bunch of dead criminals can be ignored it seems).

Dynamic Duo succeeds in finding the locations of only non- mullet wearing villain aka Elvis Fu (see Day of the Warrior by Andy Sidaris) and after a mismatched Kung Fu fight which little man truly tries to make entertaining (even thou he is pared with incompetent loser like Marshall) he ends up dead and they get nowhere.

Why they keep trying to figure out where is the mysterious headquarter of Katana Gang they decide to take the first step. They start torturing and killing police officers who work with “Samurai” trying to get a location of his house. Because the movie is set in 80es they probably should have just dialed information or maybe find an adressbook- everybody was listed in those days. Maybe there’s something in BUSHIDO that forbids them address-books, who knows? They kill the old cop and his wife, then they start torturing whore cop aka blond who drives helicopter (who mysteriously gained something like 20 pounds since we last saw her). The black cop is also on the target list but he somehow survives.

At the same time Marshall is seducing the “all- American” girl by preparing her a fried chicken (which he caught himself, I mean stole from his neighbor), then taking her to a beach which mysteriously morphed into a pool just a few seconds later. Finally he gets into her pants and then does nothing but kiss her while slow jazz music goes on and on in the background…

When mafia finally reaches his house he is prepared. He start offing the one at a time and after his incredible partner joins him (he needs a sidekicks in the background to  make funny faces while he is doing all the work or he feels sad) Yamashita yells “you can never run away from me” but 5 seconds later they did just that. Next thing you know Dynamic Duo are in office of police chief and he advices them to kill everyone and then give up on the whole cop thing and they take it to heart. After somehow realizing the location that they were they were not able to find the whole movie they head for final confrontation with Mr. Fujiama and his evil samurai Yamashita!

Unfortunately Fujiama is one step in fron of them- he now has Marshall’s girl and he’s holding her at gunpoint. After stand off he menages to shoot not the girl but the black partner… thankfully he has the west so he quickly recovers and guns him down. He then raves about being the smartest person alive ’cause he remembered to wear a west. After some default kissing and hugging “Samurai” and his black partner start gunning down the rest of the henchmen including the only freakin’ person who could knew how to swing a sword.

Then inevitable happens… and  we are treated with the most amazing thing ever, the duel of samurais!!! They stare at echother and suddenly they are transported from the backyard in some kind of desert where we can enjoy western- like cool framing as they approach one another. Then the fighting starts. First thing you notice is that there is aposlutely nothing samurai about this fight- neither of one bothered to take couple kendo lessons and make it at lest little bit believable- they just swing wildly then both lose they swords and start fist fighting- then Z’Dar ends up blind from the eye- chops, then he regains his vision and they somehow end up with swords in their hands- again! Oh, man- terrible editing FTW! Marshall finally stop him by catching his arm and then elbowing his back about million times- and for some reason that seems to hurt him very much. Then he does this strange thing with his neck and it snaps like a twig.
And then Z’Dar is in the dirt and his neck seems fine. After declaring ” You lost… you lost face” Hannon tries to chop of his head but his partner (who was there just watching the whole time) yells “no, you’re a cop” and he has change of heart. Disgraced Yamashita kills himself with a knife, but Marshall lets him do that and forbids Frank from interfering. We see a zoom of Yamashita’s bloodied up face, some Sega music and the movie ends and we are left wondering what the hell did we just saw.

“Let’s see how good you are with the sword samurai supercop!”

Verdict: If some alien civilization received the signals from Earth (including some movies) and then one of the aliens tried to explain concept of “Movies” to another one, and then that one decided to make a film of his own- without actually seeing how they look like- he would probably wind up with the end result not unlike Samurai Cop!

alien-37

Probable look of a writer/director of this film