Posts Tagged ‘MGM’

 

For reasons known only to them, MGM had decided to make another evil clowns flick, one year after their (in)famous Killer Klowns From Outer Space. But unlike the said movie, Clownhouse is neither fun nor watchable. Nor worth of remembering.

This cheap attempt of exploitation of people’s fear of clowns starts on one windy night, in front of “American dream” house. But wind is not the only present there. There is also a human doll hanging of the tree. Inside the house, in one of the rooms, 10 years old kid Casey (played by Nathan Forrest Winters) wakes up, walks to one of the windows, sees hanging doll followed by piece of paper with clown drawn onto it and wets his pants. But wait! It was just a dream.  Well, except wetting part. He did wet his bed. And not for the first time. It seems that such thing happens to him often since his nerdy looking brother  Geoffrey (played by Brian McHugh) already possesses a routine in disposing of the evidences. But not this morning! Their oldest brother Randy (played by Sam  Rockwell) storms in the room, thus discovering a nasty deed of Casey. As it always happens, the oldest brother is usually the biggest jerk and bully. Anyway, all three of them are about to go together to local circus that evening. Somewhere along the way they see several police cars with sirens on driving in  haste. Their remark “Trouble at a nuthouse…Where the crazy people live” accurately reflects their IQ and state of mind.

Yard decorationYard decoration.

Later that evening they visited a fat guy dressed like one-eyed woman fortune teller. (S)he predicts great danger for all of them, and especially for Casey.  Bad for her as well since they stormed out of her tent without paying for her services (not that kind of services). I bet she didn’t see that coming!!! So  much about her foretelling powers. Anyway, Casey was really shaken after that which resulted in his freaking out in front of entire town because Cheezo,  Bippo and Dippo clowns wanted to play with him. And similar thing had happened a year before. That kid sure hates clowns. And for some reason that was the  end of the show.

Now who would find this funnyNow, who would find this funny?

But Cheezo, Bippo and Dippo must be punished for their crime! Soon after the show, while they were doing some gay talk and heavy drinking, three escaped  mental patients had sneaked in, brutally slaughtered them (of course, good people from MGM didn’t bother to show us actual act of killing, despite the fact  this was supposed to be a horror movie), and stole their costumes. While wandering around dressed like clowns they had finally stumbled upon the house of our 3 stooges. And as you could take guess, they have been left completely alone in house, while their parents were somewhere on party. People among you that  were lucky enough to not watch this movie (oh how I envy them) are now probably guessing that, at this very point, the real horror is going to take a place.  That’s so naive of you to think that MGM would do such logical thing. In next half an hour or so, barely anything is happening. Evil clowns are walking  through the house completely unnoticed (with a short leave of absence to kill a store clerk), Randy being a jerk and bully as usual (also he dressed himself  as a clown so he could scare his younger brothers), Casey’s hallucinations, Geoffrey being a pathetic nerd and doing nothing.

This kid has some serious mental problemsThis kid has some serious mental problems!

Our boys have finally noticed that there are clowns in their house exactly one hour after the movie had started (don’t get your hopes up – this movie is not  going to be more interesting). First one to spot escaped mental patients was Randy. Too bad for him since he died a minute after that, while still dressed as a clown. Well, he got what he asked for. Can’t really say I am sorry, neither. Kid was demented jerk. Geoffrey and Casey find Randy’s corpse hanging in front of house. Casey freaks out as usual and Geoffrey is trying to calm him down. And what would be better way to chill out than dragging corpse of your brother  and putting it in closet (?!). Now it is time for revenge. Evil Bippo (played by Byron Weible) and evil Dippo (played by David C. Reinecker) are about to get their asses kicked by two 10 years old. One gets killed by Casey and the other one gets thrown out of a window. Now, I know people get adrenalin rush when  they are in danger but it is still hard for me to believe that two 10 years old kids could throw full grown 120 kg madman like that. Still, it had happened.  Eventually, evil Cheezo (played by Tree) gets an axe into his back while fighting with Casey. And that is the end of this horror.

?

Conclusion: I can’t believe that movie about escaped mental patients dressed like murdering clowns can be so boring. Unlike Killer Klowns From Outer Space,  MGM tried here to be more realistic and serious. The only serious thing here is how seriously they had failed. Even a base set up wasn’t completely correct.  Most of the time kids are as deranged as escaped mental patients (and that is not due to fear). I am not sure how Victor Salva (writer and director of this movie) imagines realistic horror. I guess he is few clowns short of a circus.

Trivia: Victor Salva was such a pervert that he went to jail guilty of child sex abuse before this movie was even released. On the other hand, that didn’t stop him from directing a commercial success Powder for Walt Disney’s studios  only 3 years after his release. See children, Disney is always on the side of evil. 

The movie starts with MGM logo soon fallowed with a deranged song about clowns and you know right away this you’re in for one  weird experience tonight. The music then changes into smooth jazz and then we see a parking lot with a bunch of teenagers making out. Some idiots brothers show up and try to sell them icescream in the middle of the night interrupting them and they almost miss the falling star because of it too. Only the falling star is not star at all- it’s a spaceship!

killer_klowns_from_outer_space_movie_poster_horror_comedy_reviewNo Icecream? Oh, the horror!

Two of the teenagers,  Mike Tobacco and his girl Debbie find the ship that is also a Circus tent (and it already claimed it’s first victim- the crazy old man. He doesn’t find anything strange in the fact that there’s a circus in the middle of the forest and decides that it must be of the more avant-garde European ones- (as someone living in Europe I can assure you that circuses are pretty much the same wherever you go). Anyway two of them start exploring the ship until they run into one of the aliens… I mean clowns and then they finally figure out that something is wrong.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space 1988 DVDRip XviD AC3 - KINGDOM.avi_000497622

He wasn’t expecting this… on the other hand who would?

Evil clown starts chasing them, hunting them with his dog made out of balloon. They do the reasonable thing and hit him with a car but that doesn’t really stop him. If anything it seemingly motivates all the clowns to come down from the woods and have some fun in the city And what fun they had!

They are all set for night of clowning around!

One of them played in the drugstore, another made a street puppet show, one surprised an old lady with a present and my favorite one made friends with a biker gang (*see below). In the meantime Mike and Debbie report a murder and try to explain the treat of the clowns to the police- as you can guess that doesn’t go so well. Young blond cop Dave Hanson  (also Debbie’s ex- boyfriend) finally accepts that something funny is going on (no pun intended) and goes to investigate but the old officer decides stays in the station and is firm in his decision to ignore multiple distress calls from over town (and his other decision to get drunk while doing so). When Mike and Dave return to the station in hope of reasoning with the officer they find  out that  he is already dead and one of the clowns even uses him as a hand puppet.Truly bizarre! In the meantime the others of the merry gang of aliens are busy storing human bodies into cotton candy cocoons– so they can drink their blood later- yes it seems the title was not really precise one, it should be Vampire Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

Clown walks into a drugstore, you know that one, right?

Clowns making friends everywhere they go!

I love this scene!

They finally organize picking up the irritating brothers with an ice-cream truck in the way and fallow clown all the way to a deserted amusement park where they finally confront them. Also idiot brothers menage to have sex with two of the female clowns somehow!!! Anyway it turns out they were way over their heads. Just when they finally think they got away cleverly using an ice cream truck as a distraction a GIANT KILLER KLOWN shows up and starts causing a ruckus. Irritating brothers explode into nothingness (finally!) but the rest of them find a way out and get out of the tent in the last possible seconds before tent becomes a flying saucer and goes away. Ship lifts up a bit but then explodes in the way of pretty purple fireworks. Small clown car crashes from the sky and the irritating brothers WHO JUST DIED MINUTES AGO come out of it with some imbecilic explanation and the movie ends- a lot worse than it began,

And now enjoy this extraordinary song from the Killer Klowns OST (by The Dickies), it makes as much sense as the movie itself!

Verdict: I could easily envision Tim Burton directing a remake of this film, one bit more streamlined story-wise and definitely more epic visually. Someone like him could pull this off even in his sleep. Chiodo who directed this one- not so much. But don’t get me wrong, with all its faults  this is still one hell of an entertaining flick but if you want to watch one evil clown movie- I would still probably recommend TV adaptation of Stephen King’s IT. But this one is solid second place!

Trivia: The Chiodo Brother are currently working on the sequel titled Return of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space in 3D, targeted for 2015 release.

This movie is about a man who melts, melts, melts, and eventually melts away. That’s pretty much it.

We noticed that this is going to be an awful movie before it even began. How? Simply. We saw MGM logo. That logo usually marks the beginning of 90 minutes of  bad acting, low budget, plot with more holes than a Swiss cheese, incoherent script, and many other bad things which cross your mind when you see MGM. Pay attention now. This is going to melt your brain.

Space expedition on Saturn ring, consisted of 2 men in space ship. Their names are Ted (played Burr DeBenning) and Steve (played by Alex Rebar). I don’t know what they were looking out there. Anyway, it’s not important. Suddenly they see some strange lights through the window and Steve starts bleeding on his  nose and getting cramps. Ted shows no signs of any sickness and he is doing just fine. A moment later, we see Steve lying in the hospital bed, surrounded by  blackman doctor with an afro haircut and really fat nurse. The moment the doctor leaves the room Steve gets up from his bed. Terrible wounds can be seen on his face. He has become the incredible melting man (for the rest of this review he will be known as a Timm). Timm starts chasing fat nurse. Next we are  getting fat nurse running through hospital hallway in slow-motion. And that goes on and on, until she eventually runs through glass doors. I really doubt  that even steel doors would stand any chance against such destructive force this woman causes when she hits you in her full speed. She is running on the  street now and that’s where this chasing ends. Next scene sends us to the morgue. There is a HUGE body on the table. We find out that Timm has eaten fat  nurse’s brain. They decide to call Dr. Ted about this.

Fat nurse running

Meanwhile, somewhere in the nature, far outside a town a dorkish looking fisherman is having his time. Suddenly, from the bushes, Timms approaches and cuts his  head off, followed by 5 minutes close scene of head while it floats in the spring, eventually falls of mini-waterfall and crushes into pieces like a  watermelon. Totally without any pity to poor fisherman, we are skipping to scene where 3 of ugly, ugly children are trying to have their first cigarette.  Two little boys and one little girl. Finding that smoking is too hard they start innocently chasing each other until the moment when the little girl stumbles  upon Timm. She starts screaming and runs away to her mother, who tries to convince her that she hadn’t seen anything (why no one ever believes kids). But Ted is close. He tries to find his friend Steve (Timm) with help of Geiger’s counter. I guess that already melted parts of Timm’s body (like his ear) are leaving much of background radiation. No one bothered to explain why exactly, but hey, who needs reason, sense, and logic in such movie.

                    GlavaHeads up!!!

On the other side of desert, young model Sandra is having foto-session with her photographer. After couple of photos, photographer couldn’t restrain himself so  he tears up Sandra’s top, leaving her small tits exposed to us. Sandra, who didn’t want to be raped, started running away of horny photograph, until the  moment she stumbles upon decapitated corpse of our late friend fisherman. Ted arrives on crime scene together with police, just to confirm that fisherman is  dead. Hm, how did they came up with such conclusion? Anyway, Ted continues his search for Timm.

                SandraSoft core?

But Timm is gone. Ted is at his home now getting lectures from his ugly wife Judy (Ann Sweeny). I don’t know what has gotten into him to share such classify  secret with his bigmouth, ugly wife but now they are working together on this case. While they are making strategy, we see Timm walking through desert into  sunset and melting. This goes on and on, while he is getting flashbacks of what happened to him in the space. More sunset, more desert, more flashbacks. More  melting. The night has fallen and he is still melting. Only, this time, he is in vineyard. He melts even more, followed by couple of minutes of more melting. On the other side of town Ted is sitting somewhere and talking to his ugly wife about situation. Doctor with afro haircut and General Perry (Myron Healey)  are with him too. Judy invites both of them to dinner but only General accepts invitation. Also, Judy informs Ted that her mother and her mother’s friend  will join them too. So we are on the road now. We see one old woman and one old man driving the car. It seems to me that they already went through the  process of melting for several times during the centuries and centuries of their lives. They decide to make a quick stop so old man parked his car in the  bushes. It turns out that they want to revive the forgotten craft of sex!!! Really disgusting!!! They left the car and enter deeper into bushes. They both  seems to be a moment before reaching ecstasy of perversion. We notice that old man has a name for his balls. He calls them “Lemmon” and he suggests old lady  to suck it. Good thing that they didn’t actually show us this crime against nature. After finishing what were they doing, old couple returns to car. But, as  it always be, Timm was waiting for them on the backseat. When they saw him both of them died of heart attack. Timm ate them afterwards.

MatorciHot young couple.

After finishing his meal, Timm finds himself (or itself?) in front of Dr Ted’s house, where he spends one hour just standing and melting. Eventually, he  finds General Perry, gives him a kiss in the cheek, drags him into bushes, defiles him, and eats him on the end. The lust is strong in this one! But Timm  isn’t done yet. Instead of finishing the rest of the house residences, he goes to completely different house where some completely different ugly woman  lives. We notice that she possesses a Kelvinator fridge. Very amusing name. She uses that fridge to block the doors so Timm couldn’t get in. Finally, she cuts  of his arm with a cleaver and Timm runs away. After that event she starts losing her mind in style of Nicholas Cage.

                    Her brain already got meltedHer brain already got melted!

Police discovers General’s mangled body and sheriff Blake (Michael Alldredge) decides to join his forces with Ted in search for Timm. After some time they  eventually find him on top of power lines. It seems that Timm has been cornered now, right? HELL WRONG!!! This is the scene where Ted shows his true face. He  prevents sheriff Blake from shooting Timm, after which monster used his chance, took a poor, confused sheriff and throwed him away onto another power line  where sheriff ends up electricuted. And remember, all of that with only one arm, which is also melting. Two cops kill Ted after he tried to protect Timm. (he
got what he deserves). As an act of revenge, Timm kills both cops and the score is settled. Having enough of everything he goes to space station where he  completely melts away in only good scene in this God forbidden movie. On the very end we find out that new expedition to Saturn has been preparing for  launching. I only hope that this doesn’t mean a sequel since I wouldn’t be able to handle another garbage of space proportions.

Conclusion: The only incredible thing about this movie is how incredibly bad is it. No budget, no actors, no story, no sense. Also, this movies contains no  sex scenes or at least full frontal nudity. Shame! Tho, no amount of porn could wash a taste of failure from the mouths of director William Sachs. The only  thing worth mentioning here are awesome make up and special effects by legendary Rick Baker. He is the only one who had given decent performance out of  entire movie crew.

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

Because somebody thought that rabbits running in slow motion across a model city are freakin’ scary!

Also featuring former Western star Rory Calhoun…

    “The Man who always Stands and Walks”

If you ever wondered what had happened with those rabbits after movie was over here is a clue: