As far as we can see it seems the cast is a good mix or original actors: irreplaceable Tom Neyman as The Master, Diane Mahree as Maggie (I had no idea she was still around) and Jackie Raye Newman as Debbie (of course) joined by Bryan Jennings (aka the son of the original’s Sheriff Williams Bryan Jennings) and also the new addition: Nuria Aguilar , Danielle Daggerty, Christopher Barnes and Christina Pezzo as Nicki.
Now, make it or break it moment of the casting is the replacement for Torgo (as original actor John Reynolds tragically died before the movie come out in 1966). For this crucial role they picked Nebraska born- LA based actor Steven Shields (from the award winning short film “The God Chair”) who as far as I’m concerned really looks the part. “I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to bring Torgo to the screen” he stated. I for one can’t wait to see Torgo back in action.
The idea that society looks at the deformed and ugly as inhuman only fit for death, while the parents see a child of theirs with a right to live regardless of how it was born, is not naive and hollow at all. It gives us several aspects. “Oh no, another society criticism”, I hear you say. But I liked the idea. The problem with this movie is that it was not properly developed and was given to director Larry Cohen who did half-ass job here.
Beginning takes us straight to the point. Not much of a introduction. A woman Lenore (played by Sharon Farrell) is in the hospital, giving a birth to a baby. Not to a regular baby, as we might have already presumed, but to a mutated monstrosity with gigantic head who went on killing spree the moment after it popped out of it’s mother oven (you will notice that I am using “it” as an expression for a baby). Not-so-proud father Frank (played by John Ryan) busts in where he finds the entire delivery room staff slaughtered and his son is missing. Frank holds the hospital responsible for, what he said, abduction of his son (though he previously had to convince doctor that it is human). Of course, doctors are suspecting Lenore being exposed to radioactivity during her pregnancy. Yeah, when you don’t know who, blame it on radioactivity. It has as much sense as zombiefing ray shot from outer space. Anyway Frank, doctors and Lt. Perkins (played by James Dixon) had agreed to keep this quiet in order to avoid unnecessary publicity. But too bad that news reporters wouldn’t agree to them. Those vultures somehow got hold onto the info and, while driving home after the stressful day, poor Frank heard on the radio his name and name of his wife being accused of creating a monstrosity which killed the entire hospital. They announced their names just like that! At this point I think I hate all of the characters in this movie. Meanwhile, IT is still somewhere at large.
After this Frank’s life is becoming a living hell. He got fired at his public relations job, media is all over him, and let’s face it, his firstborn kid is ugly as hell. And his newborn kid is piling up the corpses. After ripping the throat of some random unlucky guy it forced it’s entry into the milkman truck. And killed him. Frank had it enough of this, so he had agreed to sign his approval for absolute destruction of this thing, as doctor had suggested.
A police manages to locate the infant at nearby elementary school. Frank finds out about that so he joins them. He seems not as much interested in destroying the monster as into clearing his own name. There he held a speech in which he denounced his kid, not admitting it as his own flesh and blood (despite the fact that it the most certainly is). Offended by this speech, infant goes into another killing frenzy, slaughtering several police officers and escaping into the woods. Police had opened full fire but with no luck. They are just powerless against the demonic baby.
Burn, baby, burn
Back at home Frank faces another problem. Someone has drunk his milk! And we are not talking about few glasses. Several bottles are empty! Now who might that be? Was it his now deranged and ever-horny wife Lenore, who bugs him all the time about having sex with her? Or was it his firstborn son Chris (played by Daniel Holzman), who has been left for safekeeping at the relative? Also Frank finds Chris’ room trashed. He phoned him but Chris had said that he wasn’t coming back home that day. Then, under the excuse of going to bed, Chris sneaks out and starts running. Hm how strange. It turns out that Lenore and Chris were hiding monster in the basement, without Frank knowing it. Frank decides to deal by himself with his prodigal son. He shoots the baby but it escaped again and killed their relative Charley (played by William Wellman Jr) who were following Chris. Also, we got here continuity problem. You see, it was early evening when Chris started running back to home. Later scenes show us that he is still running through the deep night. Eventually, he arrived home early in the morning with the first sunrise. So, by the looks of it, it seems that little 11 years old Chris was fully running for the entire night without a pause. I know adrenaline mixed with fear can give you some superhuman feats, but come on!
Breastfeeding time
Police had arrived couple of moments later. It was obvious they wasn’t eager to stay. Actually they shit their pants. But there is a job to be done. So the big chase occurs resulting in cornering the infant in sewer. Like a real professionals police gave a rifle to civilian Frank in order to finish the job. I guess it is the only fair that Frank cleans up the mess he made. Frank finds his son wounded and, in that moment, fatherly instincts aroused inside him. He couldn’t kill the little monster so he tried to save him. He ended up surrounded by police squadron ready to kill. And what he had done? He played the oldest trick in the book! A moment before police started shooting he throws a baby into Doctor’s (played by Shamus Locke) arm hold, leaving him to deal with the rain of bullets and little monster who is ripping his throat. Classic! At the very end Lt. Perkins receives a call about another such infant has been born in Seattle, which leaves plenty of room for a sequel. And it actually has been made. Not one, but two – “It’s Alive 2: It Lives Again” and “It’s Alive 3:Island of the Alive”
Conclusion: As I have already stated in prologue, the main idea does drink the water. There’s no doubt that the film was made on a cheap budget. But it is not the main problem here. Main problem is director Larry Cohen. Sure, the budget was low, and he tried to cover it by hinting at the monster baby without elaborating in great detail what it looks like. But many other aspects remained undeveloped. For example, there is only a brief glance at researching scientists who wish to study the child, and the pharmaceutical company who created certain pills Lenore was taking during her pregnancy. That part of the story died with above mentioned rain of bullets so viewers remained short for explanation. Also there is a great number of continuity goofs. As for the acting I really couldn’t identify myself with nor believe to most of the characters, except maybe for John Ryan who’s performance in a role of agonizing parent who didn’t ask for the problems forced on him really hit the spot, while Sharon Farell was switching between overacting and underacting most of the time. And I must not forget to mention now famous make up artist Rick Baker who had done pretty decent job here, considering a cheap budget and the fact that this was his debut. Even if we promised to ourselves that we wouldn’t watch any other movie directed by this god wretched man, unfortunately we are such idiots that we ought to break this promise for sure (which actually happened the following week when we watched Q: The Winged Serpent). What can I say, we are suckers for ’80s trailers and low budget monsters.
P.S. We actually learned something from this movie. Don’t look with hate at and don’t be mean to the one who is socially unacceptable just because he is different than others in any way because…
Now, this one was on my mind for so long it may very well be one of the reasons why the whole WM page started. It’s one of those magical movies where nothing makes sense whatsoever, and you’re left wondering about many things including of course “why did I watch this in the first place?”.
Movie starts with a flashback: Carpatia- Vassaria. And you can right away notice that there’s no direct contact with the monster like in those monster movies from the 50’s where they used super primitive stop- motion. Speaking of it- even stop motion beats these TV quality CGI effects. But it’s extremely entertaining seeing Romanian women carrying crossbows, probably not historically accurate but still awesome! Of course the beast gets subdued aka sealed in a tomb via the magic of priest’s blood on the arrow. Never knew that was a thing- need to check with our local priest?
We flash foreword to today, Romania– first with a kidnapping rescue operation lead by CIA agents Sandra Hess (Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD) and has been (great) Michael Pare (Streets of Fire, The Philadelphia Experiment ). Operation goes awry as one of the suspect misterously desapears from the top of the building just to be found spiked on a top of a Church.
Now, the next thing we notice is a pair of Catholic Priests, old one and his future replacement arguing in a freakin’ Orthodox Christian Church! Why? I have no idea. I mean if you only had this church available why not make local priests Orthodox? Black robe and a (long) beard and you’re pretty much done. I mean if you’re making a movie with religious overtones (no mater how low-fi the movie is) you could have done your due diligence.
Our heroes, Michael Pare and his agent Scully- Sandra join the scene soon enough seeing that their suspect is impaled on the said church. Also same of the local archeologist that work on the church mysteriously disappear too. Sparks start flying between Pare and a young chief archeologist Dr. Christina Durant as the bodies starts piling up. The actress Kate Orsini looks incredibly like Maggie from The Walking Dead just with eyes too far apart.
Bodies like random woman taking semi- professional photos in Zoo. Somehow the place gets empty and night comes and she’s still taking pictures (presumably some 12 hours later ’cause it was obviously around noon when she started). Strangely trend of sudden (and illogical) day/ night shift continues later on too. Anyway, what’s wrong with this woman? We never get to find out because the Gargoyle shows up and just like that we have another victim.
Their logical suspect is a local vampire sect that turns out to be a Dance Vampire Sect! I kid you not. Never heard of something like that but man was I missing out! Their leader Lex (Tim Abell) performs the ritual with half- naked vampire chicks and then when you expect the grand finale dance music kick in and party gets going.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4vbdkm Now I must say- this dude is my hero! He is dangerous gangsta yet he also owns a dance club and in his free time he does these vampiric performances with hot chicks. And it seems the writers and director like him too because he doesn’t get to die like the rest of them and instead just looses his mind.
As the investigation gets weirder and weirder Pare and Orsini head out to the “abandoned” monastery to find clues in the old fresco- paintings. Old man shows up and finally explains them the curse of the Gargoyle. Also, I think he mixed up Dragons and Gargoyles but what are you gonna do- there’s not much mythology about gargoyles out there. Also Gargoyle decides to interrupt them while there’s still time and it all evolves into a super hilarious chase scene that again reminds us how cheap and ridiculous CGI is in this movie.
The finale of the movie is a sight to behold as two priests get into a fistfight while the army of gargoyles is hatching! Also with the evil priest kidnaps pretty Dr. Durant too. CIA agents backed up with a SWAT team breaks in and start shooting at everything and anything. Strangely, time of day rapidly changes from noon when they get into the Gargoyle cave (in the back of Church of all places) to the middle of the night as they come out 2 minutes later- to the early morning couple moments after that.
They also have the next case before the movie ends- in Russia! Unfortunately we never got to see it, but I’ll chose to imagine it superior and more grand than the first one, something like Del Toro’s Blade II!
Verdicts: Veteran genre director Jim Wynorski (under the alias of Jay Andrews) had many highs and lows in his career and you can honestly say that this one manages to simultaneously be both. It’s like a car crash, it’s really, really horrible but you just can’t look away!
WARNING! If we didn’t discourage you from watching this film, and you still want to see it- please find a proper DVD. Some horrid person on the internet found a way to make the movie even worse by splicing the footage with Vinnie Pooh cartoons- stay away from that god awful Youtube version if you value your sanity even one bit!
“Psychic Killer” is an example how promising premise can be beaten down to a level of those laughable slashers. We have all heard of expression “if looks could kill”, but how about thoughts? Well, that is precisely the setup of this Ray Danton’s 1975 horror outing.
Above posted quote of some random physicist at the start of the movie gives us a clue of what we might expect here. And not too soon since we witness riot of mental patients in the first scene. One of them tries to break out but with no luck. His name is Arnold (played by Jim Hutton, father of Timothy Hutton, in his final film). Arnold had been accused for murder but he doesn’t want to confess it. In his later conversation with another inmate Emilio (played by Stack Pierce) we find out that he had been accused for murder of a doctor who didn’t want to perform surgery on his dying mother. Of course, Arnold claims he is innocent (bah they all do). Emilio believes him and told him a story about how he killed his daughter for becoming a whore (oh tough love), and that he will help Arnold to find justice. But first things first. Emilio, for his final act, plans to get revenge on a pimp who turned his daughter into whore? But how does he plan to do that? Simple. He possesses a secret weapon. A medallion! The following night we can see Emilio in his cell, holding that medallion in front of his eyes and focuses on it. Oh black guy is doing some voodoo staff, how racist. The next morning he approached Arnold, told him about details of his murder and then jumped into his death, in a scene that can be described as quite possibly the worst staged fall scene in history of cinema! Anyway, see for yourself.
Next day Arnold receives a package sent to him by Emilio. Inside he finds a picture of Emilio’s daughter (very ugly chick, that pimp must have been blind), a newspaper clip about the murder committed in exact same way Emilio had described, and…a medallion. Medallion caused Arnold to fall in state of deep shock, making him look dead. No one at asylum had bothered to check if he is is still alive, so they jumped right onto doing autopsy on a living man. Cut the middleman, I say. Or, in this case, poor nerdy looking Arnold. Luckily for him, he woke up after the first incision. Asylum doesn’t need another bad publicity, not after Emilio’s flight off the fence, so they were glad to release Arnold after receiving a paper about all charges against him being dismissed. Apparently someone confessed the murder of doctor Arnold was accused of. He now may return to normal life. Something tells me that word “normal” had been used too lightly in this case. Anyway, Arnold went back home where he finds censored undelivered letters from his mother. Reading them made him to start crying out loud (that guy obviously has mother issues). His cat opens the package with his stuff and takes out the medallion. Arnold interprets it as a sign for payback time!
This man is clearly innocent
First person who wronged him is a doctor Taylor (played by Whitt Bissell) who testified against him on trial. Arnold used the medallion for astral projection (literally) to doctor’s hunting cabin. He finds him there with much younger woman. Doctor intends to cure her illness with some unconventional methods. Just when doctor was about to give girl his special drops, Arnold lured him out and made him to shoot himself, leaving behind half-naked slut to clean out a mess by herself.
Next one on death list is Nurse Burnson (played by Mary Wilcox), who were derelict her duties of taking care of Arnold’s mother. From what I have seen here, she is not only lazy. She is scumbag. Nurse Burnson is checking up old man stuck to his bad at his home, starts complaining about tight nurse uniform and how there is no one to take care of her. Poor old man is fighting not to get heart attack while she is undressing in front of him, oil her legs and uses his shower. Big mistake since that’s where our Arnold is waiting for her. Of course this scene is a complete rip off of famous shower scene in “Psycho”. The only difference is that nurse had been killed by hot water instead of Norman Bates with knife.
Home treatment
Lt. Morgan (played by Paul Burke) suspects something strange is going on here. 2 mysterious deaths in less than 12 ours. What is refreshing here is that in this movie detective really wants to solve the case. He sends Sergeant Sowash (played by Greydon Clark), who by the way was the one which arrested Arnold, to check out doctor’s cabin again in search for some extra clues. But he hadn’t arrived to his destination since Arnold forced him to drive his car off the cliff. Too bad this scene wasn’t capped off with explosion. This made Morgan pissed off so he visits Arnold who denies everything. Why wouldn’t he? The man never left his house. Morgan still doesn’t believe him so he and Doctor Scott (played by Julie Adams), who’s patient was Arnold, decided to watch closer over him. They moved into apartment across the Arnold’s house from where they observed him through the telescope while he was sleeping in chair. What they didn’t know is that Arnold was planning and executing his next murder. Target is Italian judge (played by Harry Holcombe) who made a travesty out of his trial. Italian died at construction site in a Wile E. Coyote style scene that was intended to provide comic relief.
It was too much for Morgan so he decided to get his own relief by inviting doctor Scott to dinner over at his place. He managed to score which pissed off Arnold who was as well growing a feelings towards her. So he astral projected himself one more time to her house and explained some things to her. Terrified doctor told everything to Morgan but he wouldn’t believe her. So they visited local mad parapsychologist who managed to persuade Lt. Morgan into the existence of out of body experience. They ran back to Arnold’s house where they found him still sleeping in a chair. While they stabbed and probed him Arnold performed another murder. This time the victim was a local butcher Lemonowski (played by Neville Brand). Now I don’t know what did he do to make Arnold pissed off at him, but I doubt it was cutting his mother into pieces and selling her meat in his shop as Arnold had imagined.
After dealing with tyrant butcher Arnold decided to make one last visit to Dr. Scott where he tried to score her while she was sleeping (I don’t know how it works with astral projection). Doctor was once more terrified, called Morgan and parapsychologist in order to confront Arnold once and forever. But they were too late. Arnold was found dead in his chair. Wanting to risk nothing Morgan stole the body and took it to the local crematorium. Meanwhile, doctor Scott remained in Arnold’s house where she found parapsychologist dead. Arnold appears, holds a little speech and when was about to finish off doctor his body burned itself to ashes. His cat finds the medallion and that’s the end scene. But is it really the end?
Conclusion: “Psychic Killer” is a strange story about a killer who wants revenge and is able to get it from a rather considerable distance. Not that this makes it a bad film, necessarily. What does make it a bad film is pretty much everything else. We early on get a body falling off a building that is about as fake as can be. Other deaths are equally cheesy, with maybe one that was at least a bit worthy of respect – though not praise. There was also bad music which doesn’t match the scenery. I’m not sure if the music would have matched much of anything, but it certainly didn’t go with what we saw. The film is hardly a sleek-looking affair, and seems at times a bit crudely put together, but again, it is an interesting and occasionally highly entertaining flick. Horror fans may find this a good film to pass the time with, but unless you’re drinking or have a high tolerance for bad movies, this one isn’t anything special.
By this point you probably realized we absolutely adore the work of the O.G. henchman Al “Ka -Bong”Leong (Lethal Weapon, Punisher, Die Hard, Rapid Fire ). You can even take a look at our little tribute here. But now we are happy to report that that the long gestating documentary Henchman: The Al Leong Story ( featuring the late great Brandon Lee, John Carpenter & The Rock) is in the finishing stages of production.We even have the first trailer to show you!
We already talked about Corman’s never (officially) released Fantastic Four movie at great length couple years ago. In this article we also mentioned at that time work-in-progress documentary from the writer/ director Marty Langfordshining a light on this fascinating subject.
… and this is a story of that movie!
If you don’t know the story- German producer Bernd Eichinger tried to get the right for a Fantastic Four movie in the early 1980’s and finally succeeded in 1986. He bought the right for non- glamorous price of quarter a million (remember those were the Dark Ages of Marvel adaptations). Now, unfortunately the rights were about to expire on December 31, 1992 and the movie didn’t even start the production.
Eichinger desperately asked for an extension from Marvel but he got none. So he did the only thing he could– he called B-MovieGrandmasterRoger Corman! Corman being Corman agreed to fast forward the movie and film it for just one million. And after all that effort the movie was never to be released with Stan Lee claiming it was never meant to be released at all (and it exists solely to extend the rights) with Eichinger and Corman claiming they seriously planned to have it released in the cinemas.
Whatever the truth may be Fantastic Four(1994) will not be released but the documentary Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four has a firm release date as of now! We can enjoy the crazy story of the FF on VOD in October 11, 2016 before it hits the DVD on December 20, 2016. Sing and rejoice!
The next in line of established directors we are going to poop on is Wes Craven. Now I am well aware of the fact that every actor and director has a stain in their career, just like every other person in the world (with the exception of Worsemovies crew), and that’s fine with me. But when someone tries to rip off himself just a couple of years after having a huge success, it just can’t be forgiven that easily. Don’t let the title fools you – Shocker is shockingly bad!
Get ready to be shocked
First scene reveals to us that there is already the mysterious killer who claimed another victims and then mysteriously disappeared. Actually, we can see the killer cleaning of blood his army knife while watching news report about him. Talk about egoism. On the other side of a town (or perhaps nearby, who knows) local jock Jonathan (played by Peter Berg) is watching news as well. Jonathan is stereotypical kind of jock – he plays football, he is good-looking, girls like him, he uses his penis instead of brain… But with one tiny difference – he is a complete brainless moron. Hm or does it qualifies as a difference? I am having second thoughts now. Anyway, after being pressured by his coach, Jonathan decides to focus on his game and show everyone what he is
capable of. So he runs with ball (and his head) into field goal giving himself a concussion. That might be a good explanation for his dream about some bald guy killing his entire family. Or was it just a dream? You see, Jonathan was sleeping at his girlfriend Alison (played by Cami Cooper) when her phone rang. It was his father Lt. Don Parker (played by Michael Murphy) who is working on the case of bizarre murders. Apparently, a killer slaughtered Don’s wife and two foster children, leaving alive only Jonathan, who is himself foster child as well. So overall we got 6-7 confirmed kills in first 10 minutes of the movie. The plot thickens.
What’s that spell? A moron!
What trained inspectors have missed Jonathan had seen immediately…in his dream. Yup he dreamed of murderer’s van with name and address written on it. How convenient! He tells that to his father and off they go, breaking into some guy’s TV repair shop. It turns out it was a lucky guess since they found there traces of practicing black magic and animal sacrificing. They also found owner and slasher himself – Horace Pinker. Well not actually found. They didn’t see him despite the fact he managed to kill 4 of Lt Don’s men. Police made a description of slasher based on Jonathan’s dream, which must be some kind of exception in history of investigating. This caused Horace to become pissed off and takes on revenge by killing Alison. Now it is personal! Dead family members were just to set wheels in motion.
He looks like he has seen a ghost
Jonathan has a plan. He will be using his dreams to find out where Horace will strike next and instructs his friend Rhino (played by Richard Brooks) to wake him up when things go too serious. Sounds familiar? Anyway, the plan worked. He got exact address, faced and evaded Horace (played by Mitch Pileggi) moments before being slashed to pieces. With the help of his father and police squad they manage to arrest Horace. While waiting for execution (I don’t recall any trial was going on before this) prison guards find Horace plugged to and speaking to TV in his cell (having a TV was the last Horace’s wish). Hm why is that? After TV burned out they decide it is time plug Horace onto electric chair. Even the execution couldn’t have gone flawless. Doctor got knocked away onto her ass, while executioner himself was fried to death. Horace’s body just vaporized itself, leaving behind only prisoner’s uniform. So that settles it, it seems. Or does it? Another strange thing occurs. While two cops were driving shocked (heh shocked) Doctor (played by Janne K. Peters) she suddenly woke up, started licking them and forcing them to drive into gasoline truck. Oh will we find at all any trace of sense in this movie?
Apparently not! Now Alison comes to Jonathan’s dream to warn him about the return of Horace, imminent slaughter and to give him her necklace which is apparently the only thing that can be used as a weapon against Horace. Don’t ask me why. Anyway, her prophecy came true sooner than Jonathan expected since he becomes a target of everyone who meets him (I myself had a desire to punch him in his retarded face). First, policeman chased Jonathan to shoot him, but instead he shot a random jogger while lying wounded on the ground. Little girl comes to help a jogger, becomes evil, spits him, and starts chasing Jonathan with a bulldozer. Not a toy, a real bulldozer. WTF are we watching now? Invasion of body snatchers on the Elm Street?
Of course, Jonathan was strong enough to overpower the little girl and knock her on the ground. And now it is time for a secret weapon. Jonathan throws the necklace Alison gave him. Girl starts screaming, bad effects occur and voila – Horace’s ghost is out and kicking. He takes over a body of girl’s mother just by plain jumping into her. Feeling uncomfortable in woman’s body Horace decides to takeover a body of nearby worker who came running to help. There is a lesson here: Never give a help to complete stranger or else your body and soul could end up taken over by strange entity. Worker disposes of necklace by throwing it in a lake on pick-axe, thus leaving Jonathan unarmed and helpless. But Jonathan manages to immobilize Horace by kicking him in the face. Just once. And then he runs away. Pussy!
Escaped convict
Like some gossip woman Jonathan runs to coach Cooper (played by Sam Scarber) and his teammates, and tells them everything, not knowing that Horace is eavesdropping on them from behind. Stupid thing to do because he made targets of his friends just by mere speaking to them. He goes home where he finds his coach already possessed and waiting for him (meanwhile Horace killed some nerdy guy to pass the time). After a fight (which rips off many scenes from Shining), With the help of Alison’s ghost, Jonathan manages to convince coach to resist Horace’s presence. Even that didn’t go as planned since coach had enough mental strength just to kill himself. Poor Jonathan, his brain will get short circuit. Shocker? Electricity? Circuit? Do you get it? Muahahaha
But that is not enough to stop Shocker. In another scene with ridiculous effects, Horace manages to escape by going through electric plug into the wall. Now he could be anywhere! As usual, cops came up too late to see the real culprit but not too late to arrest Jonathan. Hey they found him standing over the coach’s dead body, with no witnesses to prove his innocence (testimony of ghost of dead girlfriend would not hold on any court in the world. Hm except maybe in Serbia). Anyway, Horace takes over the body of Lt Dan who tries to shoot Jonathan while he was on backseat of police car. Dumb thing to do since it just gave Jonathan an opportunity to escape.
Stay plugged in
That scene marks the beginning of the grand finale. Alison appears in Jonathan’s dream and gives him AGAIN her necklace. I guess he couldn’t swim in real life. Also, our hero has another brilliant plan. He sends Rhino and his friends to destroy town’s power supply at midnight while he tries to lure Horace to face him inside TV. Then we get 30 minutes of most WTF scenes in movie industry consisted of chasing each other through different TV shows, electrical appliances, chairs and such, Jonathan’s control over Horace through TV remote in a manner of Super Mario player (?), big confrontation between them where we learn that Horace is Jonathan’s biological father (no further explanation was given)… As expected, plan didn’t go well as both of them ended up captured into TV in the moment Rhino had power supply destroyed. But Jonathan has had an ace up to his sleeve – Alison’s necklace. While Horace was literally paused with TV remote Jonathan took an opportunity to hang necklace onto camera which was filming them and return to real world through camera’s lens, thus leaving poor Horace to disintegrate himself. Ending scene shows up that Jonathan has lost his mind since he started looking and laughing at the stars, not minding his dead friends. A truly happy end.
Conclusion: The biggest problem with the movie is that Craven tries to make Horace Pinker the next Freddy Krueger, which just doesn’t happen. He cracks one-liners like Freddy and has supernatural powers, but unlike Krueger he has no personality and just sucks out loud. He isn’t scary or intimidating, his jokes are extremely lame and cheesy, and Mitch Pileggi is totally and completely wrong for the role. I can’t put all the blame on Pileggi though as I don’t think it would make any difference who played the part. The character is just horrible in general and I don’t think that there are many (if any) fans out there who think that Horace Pinker is the coolest horror movie villain in the history of film. Another huge flaw is the fact that the movie is just hokey and parts of it don’t make a great deal of sense. Why does Jonathan’s girlfriend come back as a ghost? How the hell did Horace make a deal with Satan that allowed him to gain electrical powers (it isn’t like the Devil is in the phone-book and I think that he would have a lot more better things to do than to help some schmoe TV repairman like Horace get super powers)? How does being able to manipulate electricity allow Horace to posses others? What is the secret of Alison’s necklace? These are just a few of the many things that don’t really make a great deal of sense. About the only good thing that I can say about Shocker is that it has an awesome soundtrack. I don’t know what Craven was thinking when he wrote the script, but I have a feeling that in his mind he thought that it was going to be as big as Nightmare on Elm Street (God knows it rips it off enough as we have a wisecracking killer who must be brought into the “real world” to be beaten, a past connection with the killer and the protagonist’s parents, etc). Skip this one folks and just watch Nightmare on Elm Street instead, as that is what this movie desperately wants to be. Or at least watch House 3, which is rip off of Shocker and far better movie than the “original”.
Now, first thing you need to notice when movie starts is “written, produced and directed by… (in this case Patrick G. Donahue)”. When you see something like that there is truly just two options: 01 you’ll get an autour like Lynch or Tarantino or 02 you’ll get an Ed Wood. Someone with, let’s say more passion than knowledge or resources to make a movie. Being on the WM you already guessed (corectly) that this movie is falling into a second category.
That’s a LOT of reasons!
Wealthy businessman Joseph and his wife are viciously attacked one night and even though Joe has a substantial Martial Arts knowladge he still sucombs to the superiour numbers (and weapons )of the enemies. To top it off attackers rape and kill his woman leaving him seemingly fatally wounded. Yet, revenge kept him alive! We see him some weeks later, now bound to the wheelchair talking to his most-trusted associate Larry (also his Vietnam War buddy,also the owner of the fantastic Afro + Mustache combo). Joseph proposes they gather their old team from the war, the KILL SQUAD!
Completely unnecessary but awesome introduction of Larry
Man, that sound impressive. He believes that with no help from the police this is the only way to enforce the justice, and you know who am I to disagree? Then we area treated to the classic of the genre, a default “Flashback from the ‘Nam” in which we learn that Joseph stepped on the landmine and the bodybuilder dude actually saved the whole unit even thou the whole movie everybody repeats how they own their life to Joseph.
Larry goes on to recruit one after the other members of the KILL SQUAD (I’ll never get tired of saying that) and it goes about the same- no mater where they are in their life members are keeping themselves busy by kicking numerous ass, often for little or no reason whatsoever.
There are not many things that are more impressive than a Martial Arts Pimp!
Squad has gathered rapidly and without a hitch and their first target is a ranch of all things.Larry tries talking to some cowboys to get audience with a man named Virgil. Cowboys are of course offended that a black person is trying to talk to them and things escalate into a full on brawl surprisingly fast. They even menage to kill the cowboy Virgil who was in the middle of some private time with a rather ugly brunette in the barn. That prevented them from getting any kind of information but the poor girl was helpful at least. I’m kinda sorry for the girl having to witness that.
Real woman help their man load up the shotgun!
So they finally find their lead (named fantastically Jessie James) in a cement factory! I’m starting to think those are all the locations our director had access too. They try to get him to talk, name dropping their other lead Dutch but it doesn’t really work out. Jessie runs like hell, they bring him in and ruff him up a bit but then when he was ready to talk things go sideways. A bunch of Kung Fu cement workers show up and things escalate! into a brawl once again. Truthfully this movie quite possible has the biggest fight per minute ratio of all non- Hong Kong flicks! Just when you thought they were getting somewhere, my favorite character- the bodybuilder is shot and killed with a single bullet from the sniper! Man, that’s a bummer.
Their next lead gets them to the used-car salesman and at this point I’m sure that Patric Donahue is filming exclusively in his friends establishments. I mean let’s be honest, badass assassins don’t have business with the used car salesman. Now, knowing what kind of a movie is this when they confront the salesman everything erupts into a full on brawl but this time it’s followed by a crazy car crash- and I must admit despite the general quality of this movie stunt people did their work surprisingly well.
Unfortunately the moment the Chinese member of the Squad asks about Dutch he gets the bullet to the stomach and dies shortly. Maybe they should just quit. Also it’s a bit confusing they are letting the mysterious sniper dude get away and they are not even trying to return fire. When I think of it- why are former military officers not using any guns whatsoever? Doesn’t make any sense to me.
Things end the same way they begun with Larry seemingly the only remaining member of the Squad. He also finally tracks down Dutch who’s none other than Cameron Mitchell (the star of everything and anything from The High Chaparral to Deadly Prey). The most ridiculous thing is that he found him in the middle of a crazy pool party and he starts hitting everything and anything on his way- including girls! He then beats Dutch to a bloody pulp but just when you thought that it was all over the mysterious assassin shows up again, just as Joseph mysteriously disappears. Also previously dead member of the squad appears to help Larry explaining that his life was saved by the bulletproof west. He then proceeded to take his west off (you know, the one that saved him) so he can be cut by a sword mere moments later. Man, this dude is a complete imbecile!
And then we finally see the assassin unmasked- and he is Joseph himself?! With added shoepolish or brueses and badly drawn teeth on his lips? I can’t even start do describe this.So, he ploted a deliberate revenge scenario for no reason whatsoever. I mean his wife was about to leave him (penniless) but that has absolutely noting to do with his Vietnam buddies. Larry fittingly ends him by only way possible- decapitation.
It’s always fascinating to think about the crazy, CRAZY movies that almost happened- like Tim Burton/ Nicolas Cage Superman or Albert Pyun’s Spiderman but that list now has a new and unexpected addition. Through the Blumhouse‘s horror podcast Shock Waves we found out about the script for an unprocessed (Charles Band’s) Empire Pictures Horror directed by Stewart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond) featuring none other but the The Governator himself Arnold Schwarzenegger!!! This was supposed to be Schwarzenegger movie after Raw Deal (1986) and it would have probably come out in between Predator and The Running Man (1987).
It turns out that Schwarzenegger’s Terminator stunt double also had a role in Re-Animator and that led to the friendship between Gordon and Arnold. They considered working together and came up with the idea of a wrestler that loses his mind because of super- steroids, and then naturally going on a murder spree all through New York city. I mean, Schwarzy yelling like a madman and ripping arms and legs left and right. I would so pay to see that! Thankfully there is one piece of promo artwork saved in the archives, so you can get the idea.
That also sounds a bit like the real murder- suicide of the famous WWF wrestler Chris Benoit. and Joe Begos actually found out about this movie talking about the case with Gordon.
Movie was originally going to be called STEROID but they later changed it to much more awesome- BERSERKER!
Update (2023): Years after the original interview– Joe Begos who originally broke the news spoke to the Best Movies Never Made podcast about this mythic collaboration that almost happened. Hosts also obtained a draft of the script so we can finally have a full idea what this movie would have looked like. So here’s the most important excerpts from the the episode:
“…(Arnold Schwarzenegger) is the strongest, meanest wrestler around.He enters the ring in a bear skin roaring wild eyed.Like the fabled berserkers of Scandinavian history. He fights bear fleshed in a meager loincloth, reckless, mad for the battle.The bout is brutal, bone crunching.The berserker is magnificent.And then it’s revealed, you know, that he’s a wrestling heel, so he always has to lose to the face and that’s kind of the kick off here, is that.
But he’s a foreign guy stuck playing foreign wrestling characters, which, you know, like the Iron Sheik… always had to be the heel, losing to some American guy.And he’s got a friend who’s similarly marginalized, named Black Mamba, who’s a talented black wrestler who’s got like, he’s got a special wrestling move called the Snake Bite…
And then one day Black Mamba shows up being like buffer and more confident and better than ever and reveals that he’s got some new special drug that he’s taking. And the arc of the story is that Berserker and Black Mamba both start taking this like experimental steroid.But, I guess because Black Mamba had been taking it first, we get to see the full arc of his and he like really fucks up a guy in the ring…
It’s so sad because the full arc of the story is that Black Mamba dies in his arms. And after he dies, Berserker goes and tracks down the Doctor who they’re getting it from. And you realize, yeah, this is like experimental.It’s harvested from reptiles in some way to make this drug. And Shirley wants him to stop taking it. But I also love that the element that’s like, you can’t really stop taking it because we see what happens to you.It’s basically just a moral decision.Do you want to keep taking the drug long enough that you go insane and start killing people, which then Berserker does well?”
*text was edited for length and clarity but you can listen to the full episode right here– it’s definitely worth your time.
Even though we never saw Schwarzenegger as a wrestler in a movie, he did have this wrestling appearance in WWF/ WWE and man, he’s beating HHH like his life depends on it:
Transmutations was written by Clive Barker, and that’s fairly surprising considering how terrible the plot is, along with the very poor characterizations of almost every single player in the film. But this is not the only time someone butchers Barker’s stories. Remember “Rawhead Rex“? Yeesh!
Mutant ninjas
As introduction to what we might expect from this movie we see some sort of ninja-resembling characters running around in hurry at night without any particular goal. Later, on a closer look, it turns out that they are just an ordinary people with duct tape tied around their heads. Urgh…bear it with me. Duct tape people then, accompanied with couple of freaks, crash in some high class orgies and from there they kidnap high class hooker Nicole (played by Nicola Cowper) who was laying in her bed dressed in curtain. Oh yeah, and they had butler beaten up. Nice start!
Sid Vicious as albino man-ape
When you are short of one hooker what do you do? You hire a detective. So Roy Bain (played by Larry Lamb) is called in to investigate a case of a missing hooker by rich businessman Motherskille (played by Steven Berkoff). Why him? Well we can just assume that Bain has had connections with Motherskille and Nicole in the past; the film does a particularly poor job of giving the viewer any sort of back-story towards the beginning, and after the plot has begun to meander, it really makes no difference anymore. All we know about him is that he is the usual arrogant self-employed detective cum painter, and he performs his duties with a reticence that might not really be acting at all, but instead Lamb’s hesitance to star in this movie at all. Anyway, after a bit of convincing by Motherskille, he decides to accept the case. He went to the crime scene where he talked to Madam Pepperdine (played by Ingrid Pitt) and another hooker Bianca (played by Irina Brook). Apart of Pepperdine’s teasing her butler Ricardo (played by an established actor Trevor Thomas) by saying that the only thing that got hurt was his pride (despite the fact that the poor fellow’s neck was almost broken), Bain didn’t get much information out of her. But he did find a lead – a bottle of some drug under Nicole’s pillow. When he pressed Bianca about it she told him that he should check it with Dr Savary, whom Nicole used to visit often. On his way back he meets Darling (played by Brian Croucher), a GUY who was sent by…someone…to look after him (I certainly wouldn’t want someone named Darling to watch my back) .Darling tells Bain that Motherskille and Savary are together into business with strange drug. But what kind of drug? We’ll find out soon.
He has a golden heart
After being scanned with futuristic metal detector you can see on the picture above, Bain meets with Dr Savary (played by Denholm Elliot) and confronts him about drug. Doctor didn’t let himself crack under the sarcasm and irritation Bain evokes at all times and he denied any knowledge of such substance. But Bain took an opportunity while Savary was briefly outside the office to take a look around. He finds a key and strangely shaped figurines. This is the point when viewers should start connecting some of a strings in the plot but I doubt that any of us could do such thing, given so little info about everything. Anyway, Savary is back and kicks out detective as politely as he could. Meanwhile, freaks somewhere conduct experiments on Nicole. They are giving her the same
substance Bain found at her room. Apparently, according to freak doctor Nygaard (played by Paul Brown), she is immune to dreams which drug should cause. Nicole wakes up disoriented and starts asking questions. To calm her and show they mean no harm (apart of poking and probing her), freaks, who happens to be very nice and polite, introduce themselves. Besides Nygaard there are also Oriel (played by Miranda Richardson) and Dudu (played by Paul Mari), who enjoyed sniffing her hair and is very proud of his nickname Shitface. Another freak storms in and explains that he had lost two men (men? hm) while breaking in to Savary’s office. It turns out that freaks need regular doses of drug in order to…I don’t know what. And by lost he meant it literally since one of them called Red Dog (played by Gary Olsen) was taken over by dreams and gone wild. Still no idea what kind of dreams those are. Anyway, Red Dog seems to have a crush on Bianca and gets infuriated after he finds her in Bain’s bed. Battle commences consisted of shooting, wrestling, balls grabbing and similar gay techniques followed with Bain chasing Red Dog throw the dark alley. Bain finds freak laying on the ground but to his surprise another freak shows up and drags Red Dog to sewers. Could it be some new race of C.H.U.D.? Everything is possible with script writer like this.
Clive Barker approves this
We are now at night club watching a gay performance. Bain there finds Motherskille enjoying the show with his retarded thugs and presses him about the drug. Motherskille at first wouldn’t admit anything (he was even swearing on life of his children), but after some police brutality he had no other option than to admit he occasionally manufactures things for Savary (though, he still denies any knowledge about the drug). So back to Savary it seems. Bain sneaks into doctor’s office and finds a tape with the test subject. As it always happens to be our hero gets captured by Savary when he was about to unfold the mystery. But wait, more of clichés are incoming! While holding Bain at point of his gun, Savary decides to do what every criminal mastermind does in that situation –
reveal everything. Apparently, the drug in question is euphoric, an powerfully hallucinogenic and painkiller, which gives a feats of strength to it’s users. And like every other drug it is addictive. The only side effect is that it turns humans into mutants. Hm, didn’t see that one coming from the first moment Motherskille hired Bain… Anyway, you can’t expect that a main charracter gets killed when he is about to solve a mystery, so Bain somehow manages to trick Savary and escape his office.
Bain decides to get to the bottom of problem. He enters sewers and there he finds mutants’ secret headquarters. Just like that! And Nicole, who tells him that this is now her home and mutants are her friends (despite the fact that she is immune to the side effects). They leave him tied just to be found by one of Motherskille’s crooks, a guy who wears ridiculous sunglasses throughout the entire film. He takes a bit of his time from the mission to kill all of the freaks just to inject drug into Bain. Could this be the end of our hero detective?
A happy bunch
Killing a bunch of mutated freaks turned out not to be an easy task. Led by Nicole they manage to capture Savary and right when they were about to make doctor tastes his own medicine (oh how poetic), Motherskille shows up with his goons and another shooting takes a place. Obviously he wants the entire place wiped out, including mutants. Why? Well here is how I see the plot at this point: Motherskille hired Bain to find Nicole, for whom he already presumed has become a mutant. He sends someone to follow Bain. Why? Because when Bain finds Nicole that means he will also find so-called Underworld, a place where all failed experiments reside, which he seeks to destroy. And for what reason? I guess to wipe out any remaining traces that could lead to his connection with drug. Keep in mind that I am writing this using a logic since film itself doesn’t give any background story nor the explanation. Ok, now we are back to movie. While I was bringing out my thoughts, Motherskille lost his own in shooting duel with Bain. Still, the final confrontation is between Nicole and Savary , where she uses her newfound superpowers (?) to burn mannequin dressed as an evil doctor. At the very end, she announces that it is not over yet (we certainly hope it is) and walks away with the only surviving mutant Dudu, thus leaving Bain with dumb xpression on his face.
Conclusion: The script is quite bad, but it’s managed fairly well by the actors, who do the best with what they have. Fortunately, most of the actors are very good, and that means that Transmutations is at least watchable. It’s following the storyline that becomes the killer here, because it’s a horrible maze of characters switching back and forth between good and bad guys while Bain tries to tell the difference. The story is simply a mess of ideas that do very little of anything, and not even the dark wave, saxophone-riddle soundtrack can make this film any more interesting. Nicole’s role as the damsel in distress is both boring and generic. There are some other characters who are supposed to be more important, like Motherskille (how can that name not cause you to foreshadow his role as supreme villain?) and his crooks. Transmutations even makes note of the terrible character writing by referring to one of the goons as a parrot; it’s a generous compliment. As for the mutants, at first, the viewer might question why the “monsters” of Transmutations aren’t really that scary. Sure, they growl a lot, and some have glowing eyes while others get bulbous growths on their faces, but there’s nothing about them that seems overtly threatening. See, it’s fine and good if Transmutations wants the monsters to be misunderstood. It often works for films of this nature. But not when the movie spends little time with them, and barely tries to develop them beyond their physical characteristics alone. This film wasn’t easy to find and maybe that’s a good thing, because a film this bad will die out without its lifeblood – the audience. The movie isn’t an evolution of the horror genre, but a mutant that is doomed to die off because of its fatal errors.
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