Three laughs: Birdemic - Shock and Terror

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.  

★ or ★★★★★

 
Three Laughs Case File #40:
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (USA, 2010)
Director: James Nguyen

If you've noticed, I like to do a little something special every time this column reaches even tens. So, it was about time to get the other movie that gives The Room a run for its money for sheer ineptitude. The fun of Birdemic is that its director James Nguyen obviously had lofty standards. It's the sort of self-serious film that takes a major issue (in this case, global warming) and trying to hammer the audience in the head with it in the guise of an easy to watch thriller movie.

The movie has obvious reference points, the main one being Hitchcock's The Birds, which is given a shout-out several times. Nguyen goes so far as to bill Tippi Hedren third in the end credits for using a clip of her performance in Julie and Jack. It should be obvious, but Birdemic doesn't get anyone to change their minds about global warming, but the way it sets out to achieve this task makes for a bizarre and beffling journey.

Rod (Alan Bagh) is a software salesman, living his daily life albeit ominous news of melting glaciers, heat waves and forest fires. Rod meets his old flame Nathalie (Whitney Moore) and they begin dating. But one day, everything changes and angry eagles start attacking and killing people. It's up to our (pretty useless) heroes to get to the bottom of what's causing the birds to attack, save children and bring balance back to nature.

 Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. After the seemingly endless opening credits where the short main theme loops about three times, we get our first proper scene and it gives us a very good idea on what to expect. The sound mixing is terrible, making every line jump terribly and making it feel like you're watching a skipping record. About everything that's possible to be wrong about a quick scene of a man walking to a restaurant and being seated, is worng. The actors are hokey, the editing giving the scene odd emphasis and everything in general feeling awkward and weird. These kinds of bad movies are very good at revealing how odd our daily interactions may be, and as an entertainment it's something you don't get to see every day.

2. The dating scenes between Rod and Nathalie seem to go on and on, but there are occasional bright parts, like the one where they attend a R&B gig at a bar. The song "Hanging out with my Family" has hilariously bad lyrics, and it's cut to Rod and Nathalie doing the most hilariously awkward, white bread dancing. The next scene is the sex scene, so at least it worked for them.

3. The most famous terrible thing about the movie has got to be the special effects. The first scene of the birds attacking illustrates their hilarious ineptitude best. Shrieking GIF-animated birds fly up and about, with explosion GIFs added over the city (maybe the eagles are carrying TNT and kamikaze striking?). The high-pitched whine the birds keep making is also totally hilarious. Like everything else in the movie, it just keeps going, and going, and going...

Three laughs: Robotrix

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.  

★ or ★★★★★

Three laughs case file #37:  
Robotrix (Nu ji xie ren, Hongkong, 1991)
Director: Jamie Luk

I've heard movie pitches a lot worse than "sexy RoboCop". During Hongkong's mad "CAT III" years, someone had the bright idea, not only to do a combined scifi actioner and softcore film, but to also have it basically be Terminator 2 as well, having two killer robots battle it out. The evil robot, played by Billy Chow, is REALLY EVIL, and during the course of the movie performs rather nasty sexual violence against sex workers. So, there's a Trigger Warning to go with the film, they really don't slow down as it gets started.

The film has a little tongue in cheek, as in the beginning we see a German robot that resembles a little of the ol' T-800, and an American robot that in turn has stereotypical mullet wig and if I needed to make a guess, seems to be a reference to Jean-Claude Van Damme's Cyborg. Mammary-heavy Amy Yip plays the android body into which a dead policewoman's brain is inserted into. There's little nudity, though, even though for the first time in Hongkong cinema, Chow also reveals his member in a quick scene.

A lot of the film plays up the comedy rather than the serial-killing robot hunting. Not all of it is intentional, bad dubbing, bizarre dialogue and hammy acting carries a lot of the fun. Yip's cyborg is put on an undercover mission disguised as a sex worker, and caused by this, starts a really successful police-run brothel business, that also her co-workers in blue seem to enjoy using. Chikako Ayoma plays Yip's rival policewoman that comes to rely on her as a partner before the film's bloody climax.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The film's flimsy plot consists of several elements that don't quite click together. We are introduced to the villain of the film when he uses sleeping gas to knock out everyone in a bath house and to kidnap the daughter of an Arab prince to... ransom her for money? This idea doesn't really play out in the following scenes. But at this point Yip is still playing a flesh-and-blood policewoman. It is proven she is no match for the precision of a cyborg as she is immediately shot in the chest by the villain. She'll get better.

 2. The bad android's sex drive is so huge, he goes to bars picking on small-time gangsters' girlfriends. This enrages the Triad guys and they take the fight... to the toilet? As the android refuses to pay to use her, he is attacked, but the robot just punches the gangster so hard to the stomach, it implodes. The Itchy & Scratchy -level cartoonish violence that reminds of films like Riki-Oh is one of the best reasons to watch these CAT III films. There's also a memorable scene with a drill in this one.

3. Of the police group's characters, the most annoying one is the bearded sex-hungry virgin guy, who also tried to get a free round with sex worker Robotrix by disguising himself. In the lead up to the climax, he is unceremoniously cut in half with a car. The characters in the film are very sad to see him die, the audiences back home may have an entirely different reaction to seeing the sleazebag go.

Three Laughs: Showgirls

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Three laughs case file #36
Showgirls (USA, 1995)
Dir. Paul Verhoeven 

Now, Showgirls is a cult film in the proper use of the term. It has a devoted league of fans that know the movie by heart and recite its lines. But even they can't really come to an understanding on whether the film is actually any good or if it's funny just because it's bad. There's even a new documentary called You Don't Nomi (2019, dir. Jeffrey McHale) that makes arguments for either case.

I am more than willing to give director Paul Verhoeven the benefit of a doubt. After all, the crazy Dutchman has always provoked and in the meantime made some of my favorite movies of all time. But one has to also know that he's a bit of a perv, and even if he's doing a scathing movie of the treatment of young women in the entertainment industry, one can be sure he makes it gaudy, ridiculous and more than a bit male-gazey. Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas gets even less of a benefit of a doubt.

But the thing that makes Showgirls an entertaining movie is that it refuses to belong to any one box. It is more than happy to keep switching its tone, taking different aspects and running with them, and refusing to give easy answers. It's dumb, it's weird, and the acting in particular is all over the place. It is not an entirely successful movie, that much has to be said. I think one gets quite weary of it during the lengthy run time. But there's certainly the required laughs to be had in following Nomi's (Elizabeth Berkley) career from a stripper to showgirl to a genuine star.

★ or ★★★★★

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. Some people in McHale's document claim to realize the film is very bad from the first scene onward. I feel like it's a bit heightened, but a true reveal on how the film is going to be is after Nomi arrives to Las Vegas and loses all of her belongings to a thief pretending to be a Samaritan. A kind soul (Gina Ravera) offers to help her, but also makes the mistake of asking her where she comes from. Nomi, just trying to eat a basket of fries, doesn't have any of it, throws the fries away and gives a wonderful delivery of the line "DIFFERENT PLACES!"

2. I think the film's funnest scenes include the super-bitch star Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon), and the All About Eve -style one-upping between her and Nomi. The film's funniest scene comes from the bonding at a restaurant they seem to have between eating dog food, and loving a perticular brand, Doggy Chow. To add up to the scene's oddness, they also toast chips when finding common ground.

3. I just have to include the bizarre sex scene between Nomi and the sleazy rich boy Zack Carey played by Kyle McLachlan. They head out to a neon-lit pool for a bit of the old in-n-out, which Nomi performs similarly as her striptease, mainly throwing her legs around Carey and flopping on her back like a fish on heat in dry land. It's wet, it's wild, but it ain't erotic, I tell you that much.

Joe D'Amato triple feature

 

 

As a preview of next month's ABC's of Italian genre cinema post, I thought I'd take an opportunity to take a couple of monster movies that didn't make the cut for that one. Moreover, this post is to write a bit about Joe D'Amato (1936-99), born Artistide Massaccesi.

He's often seen as one of the more banal Italian genre film director, making shlock from popular cannibal and zombie genres. Yet I don't particularly find his movies "so-bad-they're-good". While he is not a brilliant horror director in disguise, I do find his films to often be more original and suspense-driven than their reputation suggests.

Probably what ruined his reputation was the moralistic fact that he also worked on Adult films, producing first the Erotic films like the Black Emmanuelle series, and then moving on to hardcore pornography (like making the notorious Porno Holocaust). But I have selected here three horror films that perhaps shed a light a bit on why D'Amato was an unique director after all, if not entirely successful.

Antropophagus: The Beast (Antropophagous, 1980)

Italian film fans know the character actor George Eastman, often playing nasty brutes, from films like 2019: After the Fall of New York and Warriors of the Wasteland. He had a fruitful work relationship with D'Amato, working with multiple genres and even co-directing 1983's 2020 Texas Gladiators. But with Antrophagus, he had a role of a lifetime. He also worked as one of the film's screenwriters.

Most of the film concerns a group of young vacationers exploring a mysteriously empty Greek island. It's as if all the occupants therein had died or fled. To spoil a little, it turns out a cannibalistic and mute killer with a scarred face (played by Eastman) lurks there.

The film builds up very slowly, which is partly impressive for a film deemed a Video Nasty, but also partly a bit boring as the puzzle pieces don't seem to reveal themselves. Nevertheless, as D'Amato started out as a cinematographer, he manages to create an unsettling vastness of the island, and claustrophobic interior scenes with ease.

The film's most memorable part comes when we get a flashback on the tragic events that made Eastman's character lose his mind and all sort of reasoning. D'Amato seems to have a point that we are only one bad day away from reverting back into cavemen and killing everyone within our territory.

★★★

Absurd (Rosso Sangue, 1981)

 

A sort-of sequel to Antropophagus, except it actually has an entirely different backstory. But Eastman looks and acts the same way. The actor worked as a screenwriter in this one as well. This time, Eastman's mute killer surfaces on the mainland, killing people that happen on his way, and seeming impervious to bullets.

It turns out the killer has escaped from a medical facility. He battles a motorcycle gang and some cops, but ends up in the houselhold of a seemingly regular family, The Bennetts, who have to fight for their life against the unremorseful killer. The film is a bit darker, utilizing night scenes and the fear of the unknown within a city setting to its advantage. It includes all the basics of a slasher movie, with its unfeeling and unstoppable force coming out of nowhere to intrude on a normal family life.

Compared to the previous one, this is more eventful, but also a bit confusing, as pieces don't seem to add up the same way to a big reveal as before. The violence is particularly brutal here, with plenty of gore and a particularly nasty scene where Katya Berger's head is being burned in an oven. This film turned out on the list of the notorious Video Nasties as well.

Massacessi used the pseudonym Peter Newton this time around. It might be that since he had directed ten Erotic movies in the year between these two movies, the name D'Amato started to wear out.

★★★

Beyond the Darkness (Buio Omega, 1979)

 

As much as those two monster pictures had some nasty and disgusting shades, they pale in comparison with D'Amato's best horror work. It is a thoroughly disturbing serial killer movie that cares not of the boundaries of taste and reason. It has some shades of black comedy as well, that were later more realized in purely comedic films such as DellaMorte DellAmore. It also takes ideas presented by films such as Psycho to their logical extremes.

Frank Wyler (Kieran Canter) loses his girlfriend to an illness. But instead of letting go, he decides to dig up the corpse and embalm her. The family villa houses this secret, but multiple people stumble upon the scene by accident and meet their grisly fate as punishment for this. Iris (Franca Stoppi), the strange housekeeper is culprit on all of this, finding also suitable victims for his young master and helping dispose of the corpses.

 

The film is a gruesome remake of The Third Eye, but also revels in the historical knowledge on stuff such as how mummies were used to be embalmed (we can see this in all gory detail). While the film centers around necrophilia, it also includes cannibalism and gory dismemberments. It seems the effects budget for this was considerably bigger than in most of D'Amato's other works.

While the film may seem to have so many tasteless elements in order to irate cencors and decency activists, it also has a very perculiar and odd sense of wonder in all this. The human mind in its most crazed can be oddly creative and logical in its illogicalities. It's not an easy movie to predict the next scene and it keeps surprising the viewer. The images are sterile and unmoving, which makes for an odd experience to follow such depravity.

 

On the worse side, the ending seems rushed and a bit clichéd compared to the rest of the movie. It had some ingredients that could have made it a serial killer classic, but now it stays more or less just a curiosity for those that can stomach its contents. It has a very cool Goblin soundtrack, though.

★★★ 1/2

Three laughs: Ebola Syndrome

 

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.  

★ or ★★★★★

 

Three laughs case file #32:  
Ebola Syndrome (Yi boh lai beng duk, Hongkong, 1996)
Director: Herman Yau

Has there been a pandemic going on long enough that we might have a bit of a black-hearted laugh about it? I recently had my Covid tested, and even that experience was enough for me to want to have a laugh at this shitty disease's expense. Or perhaps at the assholes who spread it because of no regard for public safety.

Today's film tells the story of one such individual. It is also a notoriously nasty and outrageous film, that could only have been made in liberal Hongkong in the 1990's. They used to have this CAT III rating that allowed directors to truly push boundaries, which resulted for a lot of erotica, but also some very out-there movies.

Herman Yau's Ebola Syndrome is nasty in every sense of the word. It has a kind of racist approach to the disease spreading in Africa at the time, showing natives therein being just primitive tribespeople. The film's main character Kai (Anthony Wong) is one of the nastiest bastards in all of cinema history. A brutal sociopath, misogynist, rapist and murderer, he is a Triad henchman on the run from his bosses to Africa, where he catches a disease. He returns home to become a cannibal chef at a burger joint (in a move parodying the more straight-faced The Untold Story).

The film itself pushes the viewer's buttons and provokes at every turn. The approach is something akin to Troma movies, but made with a better budget and sense of cinematic shots. Yau is not a bad director, but he approaches the sort of nihilistic edgyness that was hip in the 90's, but a bit tiresome now. Ebola Syndrome doesn't apologize for anything, it is a throughly slimy and mean-spirited movie, and proud of it. And, for certain sorts of viewer, also very funny. Viewer discretion is adviced.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The film's opening scene sees Kai having sex with his bosses' wife and getting caught in the act. The boss orders the sniveling underling under a golden shower, which shows quickly on what kind the film's sense of humour is. Nevertheless, the shlubby-looking Kai soon reveals that he is more cunning and ruthless than appears, and brutally murders everyone else in the room.

2. The film's racism could almost be seen a parody of some old-school shockers, such as Italian cannibal movies. The shocking conditions in Africa, for instance, show pig corpses intended for food being stored in broad daylight next to human corpses. Needless to say, they get churn into hamburgers anyway. Both pigs and corpses.

3. But dead people in a bun are not the most disgusting thing the film serves. Later on, we see Kai listening in on some next-door love-making while relieving himself on a piece of meat. Of course the same piece gets then thrown into a pan and served to customers. If this movie teaches something, it's taking distance and remembering at least some resemblance of hygiene.

Three laughs: American Kickboxer 2

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.  

★ or ★★★★★

 
Three laughs case file #31:  
American Kickboxer 2 (USA, Philippines, 1993)
Director: Jenö Hodi

Let's kick two flies with one stone. Since we've been very interested both in bargain-bin VHS action movies and foreign movies from around the world, here we have a cheapo actioner that's been done in the lovely Philippines. American Kickboxer 2 has nothing to do with the first film in the franchise, as the case with sequels always should be.

It's a dumb-as-rocks -kind of film that also has its tongue firmly in cheek. Nevertheless, it has a borderline soap opera kind of plot. The film concerns a rich family's small daughter getting kidnapped by a SWAT team in a helicopter. As the parents can't go to the cops, Lillian (Kathy Shower) makes a shocking revealation to her husband Howard (Police Academy's Tackleberry, David Graf): he's not the father of the girl, it could either be his violent ex-husband David (Evan Lurie) or the girl be a result of a casual fling with a local playboy Mike Clark (Dale Cook). Luckily, both of them are cops, martial artists and men of action. Not so luckily, they despise each other and the situation they are put in.

The film's actors are hilarious to watch as Cook can barely act and just stumbles around stupidly, and Lurie is so off-puttingly aggressive it's impossible to feel any sympathy for either of them. But then, they get into bar fights, shootouts, prison riots and even an underground fighting ring around every corner. As a travel commercial for the Philippines, it really doesn't work. But as far as B-grade action movies go, this one is a keeper.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. As we're somewhat copying the buddy cop -format from movies like Lethal Weapon, one thing the film needs is a Joe Pesci -like comic relief. Or rather, not. When the main characters first meet they immediately hate each other, and start to fight at a McDonald's parking lot. Maxin Ross, a local club owner, plays a weaselly guy that has an objection since the beat-down is happening on the hood of his car. He runs his mouth a bit, but is mercifully kicked in the head soon enough.

2. The main characters bickering to the point of fisticuffs is a running gag throughout the film. My favorite scene comes when, just as another of their fights is about to start, they suddenly duck out from a drive-by shooting. As Lurie thanks Cook for saving of his life, Cook smugly retorts there's no debt since they saved each other. But Lurie just takes this as a realization nothing is stopping him from sucker-punching his partner to the face. As Cook falls, he also hits his head to a steel door behing him. But then we immediately cut to the next scene where he's walking around as if nothing happened. This is basically a Tom & Jerry cartoon with real actors.

3. It turns out that our dynamic duo has a secret ally infitrated in the criminal leagues, a guy who's a dead ringer to the director Peter Jackson in a beret. He makes his infiltration in a memorable way. As everyone is distracted by watching the captured heroes fight each other to the death, he goes to put two cockroaches from a jar to a guard's leg. As the roaches run up his trouser leg, the guerd is distracted for a moment and then klonked in the head. Smooth.

Three laughs: Don't Go Near The Park

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.  

★ or ★★★★★

Three laughs case file #28:
Don't Go Near The Park (USA, 1979)
Director: Lawrence D. Foldes

We should all try to avoid public places there days, so to remind you, here's Don't Go Near The Park. And why shouldn't you go near? Well, since there are serial-murdering magic cavepeople in there, of course. The film has the gall to state that it's based on actual occurences throughout history.

In actuality, it is a cheap grindhouse flick that cashes in on similar 70's dreck such as The Hills Have Eyes. There is enough gore that it gained some notoriety when in the UK it was put on the Video Nasties list, but they shouldn't have. It's a childish movie that perhaps only open-minded kids could properly appreciate. The cavepeople seen in the movie are Gar (Robert Gribbin, as Crackers Phinn) and his sister Tra (Barbara Bain) some ancient native americans that were cursed by a witch to live forever near their home cave and only gain their youth by consuming human flesh.

But there is also confusingly an important, magical date of two stars coming to in line approaching when they should sacrifice a virgin in order to gain eternal youth. And for this, Gar concieved a baby girl with a woman and grew her to be 16 years old (played by Tammy Taylor). She also has a magic amulet from her caveman wizard daddy that kills would-be rapists and such scum that would do her harm before his dad and aunt can.

The film's inner mythology doesn't make much sense and the wooden actors won't even try to sell it. Most of the movie is spent on following airheaded but peppy kids straight outta 60's Disney movies that are drawn to the cave-vampire Some familiar B-movie stars such as drunken Aldo Ray and fresh-faced Linnea Quigley are top-billed, but in actuality, have only small roles.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The opening scene where a Halloween-masked witch puts a curse on the diabolic duo is pretty funny, because Bain chews the scenery incredibly hard. It also seems like she's cracking up listening to the bullshit. Why were they cursed? There's an incestual tone here, but it's probably due to them being cannibals even in ye olden days.

2. The first poper gore scene is one of many cases of Tra doing the Kali Ma and ripping live organs from people's stomachs with her bare hands. The effect is laughable, but even more laughable is her taking off her withered old crone face like a rubber mask. Underneath, she had an eye patch for some reason, perhaps to make her look similar to Christina Lindberg?

3. The climax is something to behold, as Gar and Tra suddensly start shooting white lasers from their eyes and kill much of the supporting cast, start a major fire and then bring the dead back to life in positively Turkish-grade -looking zombies that turn against them. Way to save the sugar to the bottom, movie.

Three laughs: Parole Violators

 
It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.  

★ or ★★★★★

Three laughs case file #27:
Parole Violators, USA 1994
Director: Patrick G. Donahue

You might know that I tend to love action movies more when the cars in chases are rusted-up old lemons and the actors seem to be picked from a local gym or bus stop. And as dumb as they come. In this case Parole Violators is a home run for me.

"We're ALL potential Video Cops!"

The film concerns a vigilante going around with a video camera to beat some sense to store robbers and the likes. But he also seems to know their names and criminal histories. In actuality, it is the mulleted ex-cop Miles Long (Phil Donahue) who also hosts a local TV crime show.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Cops, an irredeemable piece of propaganda that for years colored the public eye for police brutality and treatment of the poorer classes. Fictional world at least gives us a canvas through which we can better handle the ideas being fed to us. In this case, of course, they are being given as dumb and ineptly as possible which makes the movie such a laugh riot. This film is not really even a narrative per se, more a showcase of various stunts like getting hit by a car or falling from any height. The final showdown in particular is a shooting range that constantly keeps upping the ante with more and more inventive kills.

Anyway, Miles himself soon gets to see that there are cases he can't solve with his camera as a guy he helped put away comes after him and his family. He and his girlfriend must survive a gauntlet after they are kidnapped by a small army of thugs.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The first laugh comes from the opening scene that shows the masked Video Cop stop a convinience store robbery. It shows everything you need to know about the movie, with a lot of roundhouse kicks thrown, cardboardy sets destroyed and wilhelmy cartoon screams added on the soundtrack. My favorite move is Video Cop hitting the robber on the head with his own camera. I gotta wonder how that footage will look on Miles's show.

2. One of my favorite scenes is a woman-on-woman fist fight that ends with the bad girl's head getting impaled to a nail sticking out of a wall. The female lead (Pamela Bosley) quips "Hope you got you tetanus shot, bitch."

3. It gets increasingly crazy on just what the main characters are able to survive as the movie goes on. A particularly insane climatic scene sees Miles getting shot twice while on a roof, but as he's sliding down, he chances the clip on his handgun and shoots baddies as he falls down, landing on his back on a crappy car. It's an image of the entire movie, none of the Lethal Weapons ever did anything so excoiting.

Three laughs: Hard Ticket to Hawaii

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Three laughs case #20:
Hard Ticket to Hawaii (USA, 1987)
Director: Andy Sidaris

There are plenty of 80's video store -stuffing cheapo films that exist by using the allure of female bodies and cartoonish violence to draw in the crowds. But few have refined the formula to work in their favour as well as Malibu Films auteur Andy Sidaris. If Godard only needed a boy, a girl and a gun to make a movie, then Sidaris needed a couple of D-cups and some beautiful hawaiian landscapes to create a better one!

Plenty of Sidaris' films use similar premises and girls with big guns, most also feature Dona Speir's agent character, Donna Hamilton. But Hard Ticket to Hawaii is notorious, because of a few scenes (that I will detail below) and the lead role played by Ronn Moss, a soap opera hunk beloved for his long-lasting role in The Bold and the Beautiful and for his musical career as a sort of blues rock balladier. It should goes to show as well that the film is funnier than Sidaris' usual forte, though not always because of the corny jokes meant to be laughed at. The film has a sort of good-natured and easygoing feeling. It's like everyone involved had a lot of fun, so it's a bit hard to get angry at the movie objecting women or having misogynistic underlying thoughts as the makers seem to be in on the joke. The women do have their own agendas, even if it mostly means them getting naked in a hot tub or seducing men for some piece of information.

According to a video greeting by Moss, the film is also a favorite of Quentin Tarantino (though he heard this compliment from his unnamed friend) and he has viewed the film numerous times. I can't argue with the sentiment, I like to watch the movie all the time, too.

"One man's dream is another man's lunch!"

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The film's plot, as it is, is twofold. First, Hamilton and Moss's agent Rowdy Abiline are looking to bust a criminal league that's smuggling diamonds to a peaceful Hawaiian island in small remote-controlled helicopters. But the situation is also worsened by having a giant, chemically enhanced snake get loose and murder people. The snake is infused with cells from cancer-induced rats! Nevertheless, the model is totally cute and every time the rascal appears on screen, it gets a hearty chuckle from me. And of course the explosive finale of the snake saga has to be seen to be believed.

2. The film's action scenes are far between, as mostly the movie is more concerned with sex and soap opera -like scenes of the girls' daily lives. But when it delivers, it delivers hard! The favorite of YouTube is the entitrely bizarre scene that has a skater with a blow-up doll try to kill Abiline by skating by his car and pulling out an uzi. But Good ol' Rowdy just backs his buggy into the assailant, who flies in the air. Then Abiline pulls out his rocket launcher, and kills the creep, and then his blow-up doll. Take that for trying to be the next Tony Hawk!

3. Abiline is surprisingly violent towards goons for a guy that's most of the movie totally mellow and along for the ride with Donna's sexual hunger. Another brilliant scene sees him dispose of a guard on a beach. He sees he likes to throw a frisbee around with a bikini-clad lady every day, so flawlessly he steps in as her replacement. The thug has no big quarrels with this, and he carries on playing frisbee-throwing. But Abiline switches the frisbee to have razor blades on its side, which then is thrown straight to the goon's throat. You can't see shit like this in your Krulls.

Three laughs: Low Blow

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Three laughs case #16:
Low Blow (1986)
Director: Frank Harris

I had written a post about another film for today, but then I went and streamed this 1986 action movie and plans changed. It is by the renowned stunt actor Leo Fong who stars and wrote the script. Renowned mostly because of this movie, which really is something else. The 50-something Fong plays a former cop private eye Joe Wong, that is prone to shooting first and asking questions later. He always seems like he had just woken from a nap, moves as fastly, is as good a driver as Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun movies and seems to live in a junkyard. There's some elements in the film that makes me suspect they had a tongue in cheek in certain things (like the running gag of the car not starting), but it's so bizarre and constatnly surprising that it doesn't really matter.

Playing the cultist main villain is Cameron Mitchell himself, who is remembered both from movies by Mario Bava, and taking a paycheck from some of the worst 80's direct-to-vhs actioners. Here he does the laziest and most hungover performance I've ever seen. He has a hood and sunglasses on in every scene (even his sex scene) and usually just sits in a chair, mumbling. His cultists mostly do the powerspeaks and lead the workers in their shady farm. The kidnapped daughter of a millionaire also drives Fong's hired detective to examine the farm, with hilarious results.

I've got to say, here almost every scene is stupider than the last and could be the most hilarious scene in another bad movie. The film has everything, dirtpit fighting, car chases with rusty old cars, cameos from other D-list action stars like Troy Donahue and Billy Blanks, hillbilly bar bands, even ninjas and pro wrestling women make an appearance. Thus, it's even harder to choose the three laughs for this case. I suggest you go and see the movie yourself, you won't believe it.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The first laugh of the film comes from the first scene, which shows Joe Wong leaving his office with a gun to stop a robbery of a local diner. It's never properly explained how he knew there was a robbery going on, but I suspect they had watched some Charles Bronson movies before writing this scene. Wong enters the diner asking if his ham sandwich is ready, brutally shoots the robbers dead and leaves quipping "Nevermind the sandwich".

2. Probably the most bizarre scene of the movie sees some redneck thughs appear on Wong's junkyard with shotguns and assault rifles to kill him. They've come to the Wong place, as the master of the domain has built his yard full of various traps and hiding places from which to attack his assailants. He keeps appearing out of racks of lumber, doing a quick punch and taking guns away. There's a shot of a thug waking up next to a pack of cute tiny widdle puppies, which goes unexplained. Once Wong has disarmed the gang, he goes on to take a plank and smash the windows and then a chainsaw with which to slowly tune their car a convertible, before the thugs go and run away.

3. In the climax assault on the cult compaund, Wong runs into one of the thugs from the junkyard scene, who laments the destruction of his car. Wong punches him out and on the floor the thug reaches to take his gun from his pants. But then Wong starts to make a punch and the camera cuts to hit feet where he stomps the thug's face as if it was made from birthday cake. This hilarious Riki-Oh -like overpowered violence scene has to be rewinded and watched again and again, which may be the reason why this movie is a bit pricey to be purchased today.

Three laughs: Double Down

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watvh them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.


Three laughs case #15:
Double Down (2005)
Director: Neil Breen

It's about time to get to the filmography of one Neil Breen. Double Down may not be his best movie, but it is the first, so let's begin there. Breen began as an architect and a real-estate agent, but he had aspirations for a movie career. Nowadays he is a director, actor, writer, editor and a producer with a sizable internet following.

The reason for this is because his style is so unmistakable. Breen is both akin to Tommy Wiseau in his delusions of grandeur and acting style, and somehow totally unpredictable and weird, no matter how many movies he makes. He  likes thriller movies with little suspense and big stakes that are informed to the viewer mostly through dialogue or voice-over over some stock footage. Usually, Breen is out to save the world with his hidden knowledge, superior hacking skills and/or magic powers from evil and shady military, medical or financial institutions.

While all of Breen's films have been made on a pittance, here he basically doesn't even have money to any other actors save for a few cameos. A lot of the fun of Double Down is the ingenuity of getting past this fact. Breen is a former government agent and hacker, who has ran away from his former masters because they killed his fiancée for some reason. Hiding out, he threatens the world with hidden biological weapons he has hidden in several cities and that he will kill hundreds of thousands of people if not left alone. Somehow, the film twists this premise so that he's the hero?

Logic is not big in these films, even though Breen likes to repeat lines and themes over and over again.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. Breen's unenthusiastic line-reading is a thing to behold, it's like a parody of Steven Seagal done by Bob Odenkirk in a weird wig. Thus it's preposterous how he keeps finding even worse actors than himself. This film has plenty of flashbacks and so we are also treated to the scene where Breen's wife got killed in a pool. And boy, is she atrocious an actor. Even lines like YES! seem worse presented than in the cheapest porn you can find, no matter lines like "I can't wait to be your wife!" After this, she is shot by a sniper (though there's no wound on her back) and left to float on her face in the pool as Breen cries to some bloody orchids.

2. Between stock footage and Breen talking to powerful people with some dubious connections, every once in a while we have a scene with him either hacking on the laptops in his car, or killing an intruder. One of my favorites is when he announces, playground-style, that his desert base is protected by an invisible barrier. We then see a soldier walk awkwardly with an assault rifle. He suddenly falls down dead with blood in his ears.

3. There's a lengthy scene of Breen climbing a rock formation on the desert. The camera pans to show four AK-47's resting to a rock. Breen blurts out "Sorry to interrupt your lunch" and blasts away with his handgun with arcade machine sound effects and with blood sputtering to his face. It seems the scene means he managed to catch four mercenaries out to get him off-guard, yet without ever having one image of any of the would-be attackers. Avantgarde!

Three laughs: Street Trash

 
It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watvh them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Three laughs case #13:
Street Trash (USA, 1987)
Dir. Jim Muro

Some trash films are meant to be funny, but are so nasty and unapogetic in their approach that most people just think of them being vile. I don't really believe in "guilty pleasures" as such, but there certainly are some movies that might give a bit of a bad impression of you if you go around proclaiming your love for them. Especially today.

Well, I believe thet you can recognize something has problematic ideas and still enjoy it for its other aspects, especially when it comes to humor. Just try to not apply that dirty worldview to your own everyday life. Case in point is 80's trash classic Street Trash, which is certainly dark enough for my sense of humor. But I would never mistake that it is in any way a fair and reasonable portrayal of the homeless and underpriveleged and neither should anyone.

Maybe you could go deeper and see that it carnevalizes some stereotypes and general tropes attached to the lowest of the low. I wouldn't call the film a very fine satire, but it certainly takes some of the 80's ideas about poor people being trash to its extremes. The film depicts a bum's life as a struggle to live on a postapocalyptic sense in a very 80's trash movie style. There are hierarchies and power struggles even when living in a city dump and they are even more dog-eat-dog than you would find in the rest of the society. It is cartoonish and gory and totally ridiculous and that is enough for me to really enjoy watching it.

TRIGGER WARNING That being said, there's some sexual violence against women in the movie that is not funny in the slightest and that I can't condone.

Three laughs:

1. A lot of the beginning of the movie sees a new batch of Viper bottles arrive at a suburban liquor store and a stolen bottle switch owners from bum to bum. Finally when one of them takes a swig at a port-a-potty, we get the  money shot of him melting into a screaming pile of blue goo.

2. A really culturally insensitive, yet a funny scene comes when a psychotic Vietnam veteran dreams of vampiric Southeast Asian monsters stalk him in the night. The hysteria of the overplaying is a good fit for the genuine creepiness, both of the scene itself and of the mindset of one of the movie's many very unlikable characters.

3. The most immature laugh of the movie comes when an overweight wino gets his johnson cut off and it gets thrown around from bum to bum in a game of keep-away. The best part is when the film cuts to the shots of the dick flying through a clear blue sky.

Three laughs: Starcrash

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watvh them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Three Laughs Case #12:
Starcrash (Italy, 1979)
Director: Luigi Cozzi (as Lewis Coates)

I was surprised I had never written anything about this Star Wars ripoff in this blog, since I have loved it for years and years. Luigi Cozzi is a director very prone for the Three laughs -treatment, since many of his movies are bursting with weird ideas and their so-so realization. I guess he would have wanted to make adventure and peplum films like Jason and the Argonauts, to which there is an obvious "tribute" or two in this film as well.

The lovely Caroline Munro plays Stella Star, a skimpily-clad intergalactic outlaw, that gets caught up in a major war between good and evil. If Star is a gender-swapped Han Solo, then the equivalent of Princess Leia is played by none other than David Hasselhoff as a missing space prince whose absence kicks off the plot. Some of the other most memorable of the film's characters include a whiny chauvenistic Southern police robot L and Maniac actor Joe Spinell as the latex-clad and overplaying baddie Zarth Arn. Many of the characters flip their allegiances multiple times.

The film had a rocky and sped-up production and as such, it's good to marvel how good-looking the miniatures and sets are. They serve their daydream-like quality. I think the film works on multiple levels. If you showed this to a small child, they might not realize how cheesy the acting is and how incomprehensible the plot. They would be just excited that Cozzi throws a weird scenario after another, even if at points the slow miniature shots last for quite a bit too long.



Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. They somehow tricked Christopher Plummer into starring as the Emperor of the Galaxy in this. His performance is something to behold. I can't tell if he's drunk or just holding the entire production in huge contempt. He does chew the scenery, and I really can't tell if he's trying his hardest or just amusing himself until he gets his paycheck. But he does deliver lines such as: "You know, my son, I wouldn't be Emperor of the Galaxy if I didn't have some powers at my disposal. Imperial Battleship, halt the flow of time!"

2. As the characters bumble out of the fire and into the frying pan, it's impossible not to laugh when L exclaims "Look, Amazons on horseback!"  Their horses have been painted pink and have some sort of lizard masks on them. What follows is a rather amazing girl-on-amazons fight scene. The film also has giant robots, killer cavemen and sword-fighting stop motion statues.

3. One revealation shows that one character can see into the future. When asked why he didn't help out with this ability before, he answers, "You would've tried to change the future. And changing the future is against the law!" Can't argue with that.

Three laughs: ETV - Extraterrestrial Visitors

 It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most "quality" films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.


Three laughs Case #11:
ETV - Extraterrestrial Visitors (Los nuevos extraterrestres, 1983)
Director: Juan Piquer Simón

One of my favorite trashy directors is the incredible Spanish hack Juan Piquer Simón. He started out by making an actually pretty good and creepy Exorcist rip-off Escalofrío, which opened doors for him to copy out whatever films were popular at the time and put his own twist to them. I've talked about the Dick Randall -produced slasher classic Pieces before. Coming hot off its heels is the ET-copying Extraterrestrial Visitors.

I think Simón started out by trying to do a horror version of Alien and Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind. Too bad an even bigger Spielberg film came out in the middle of the shoot and the producers demanded that Simón switch out his plans and make a family movie that cashes in on the lovable little alien, ET, and his friendship with a suburban little boy.

That's why this film is such a mishmash of two different flavours. It's pretty hilarious that the aliens are at the same time judo-chopping ALFs and magic-powered slumberland friends for every boy of a certain age. The film has two sub-plots, and the other features a group of teenagers in the woods getting killed one by one. The budget has got to be minimal, they didn't even have the dough to pay for blue lenses for night-time scenes, or sound effects to point out it's supposed to be stormy outside. Mostly there's just smog. Lots and lots of smoke.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. As an apparent meteor falls into a forest, we have three dumb-as-rocks hunters examining the wreckage. One of them finds a batch of glowing pink eggs in a cave. He proceeds to smash them with a big stick for no reason. But then he hears the soft growl of an off-sceen creature that apparently kills him. Rather than being a blood-curdling roar, the sound is more akin the Nurse Bear from BoJack Horseman waking from a nap. The weak sounds these aliens make never ceases to be hilarious to me during the movie.

2. Once we see the creatures about 40 minutes into the slow-as-glacier movie, they are basically midgets in fur suits with ridiculous dickfaced and pinheaded masks. One of them wanders to a campfire with the burly poachers, who try to capture the creature first by luring it closer with a charred rabbit's leg and then throwing a net over it and shooting it with a crossbow. It turns out that such mortal instruments have no effect on these Extraterrestrial Visitors. The hunters are done for.

3. But of course only the adult aliens are vicious. One hatches from a child's egg and turns out to be a deadeyed wannabe-ALF, and is named Trumpy by the ridiculously naive kid. To project its friendship, the alien proceeds to show off its magic powers by solving a puzzle in stop motion, making shoes dance in an astonishingly inane display and enhancing the kid's spyglass to show archive footage of African lions.

Three laughs: Miami Connection

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most "quality" films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Miami Connection (1987)
Director: Park Woo-sang

Lost for decades, the cheap 80's VHS movie Miami Connection was the first real gem discovered by the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and restored for an audience hungry for some prime cheese and turkey action. Miami Connection mashes together a story of a teen rock band and a crime thriller about about drug-dealing ninjas. It's exactly as bonkers as it sounds. But really, the film is funniest when attempting to be "just another movie". Everyone on screen is extremely awkward, their lines don't sound like anything anyone has actually said in real life, and the basically very clichéd plot becomes more and more bizarre the more elements are thrown into the pot.

The star and producer Y.K. Kim later became some sort of inspirational speaker, and it can perhaps be seen from his script, since such wisdoms are seen in the film such as "Only through the elimination of violence can we achieve world peace". As an actor, he's something to see. It's a bit cheap to make fun of his thick accent, but it is really hard to understand what he's saying, even when it's over-the-top action movie clichés such as "You don't scare me at all. Goodbye!"

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. A lot of the film's fun hangs on how cheesily 80's the entire thing is. So I hope you like mullets, synth-music and godawful clothing. The biggest laugh comes from the great reveal of all of this - after a fight scene where a gang of ninjas have killed some drug dealers and split the loot we see the band Dragon Sound in all their glory. Playing shirtlessly their hit song "Friends Forever" at a smoky, blue-tinted club to some really white-bread audience having trouble clapping along.

2. It's always hilarious when Kim is showing off his tae kwon do skills with ridiculous Bruce Lee -poses and grunts. My favorite is the practice scene where he takes his friends to school by showing a fist to Jack's mouth and humiliating John by grabbing his nose by his toes.

3. The real star of the film is Maurice Smith's keyboard player Jim, who has the most soap opera -like arc which sees him being teased of sending out some mysterious letters. It turns out he's just trying to find his father, probably by mailing to every candidate he can think of. When he finally finds him, he lets out an incredible high-pitched yelp. But alas, fate has a real ironic twist in mind for him, which motivates the surprisingly brutal final fight, which sees Kim brandishing a machete, among other things. Against the Ninja!

Three laughs: 3 Dev Adam

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

3 Dev Adam (1973)
Director: T. Fikret Uçak

Turkish exploitation films could be a genre on their own. They are some of the weirdest trash movies one could hope to see, yet I feel like many conisseurs of bad movies don't tend to know too much of them. Turkish Star Wars of course is a cult classic, but there are plenty of other good ones as well. What makes Turkish films special is the total disregard for copyright, good taste or any kind of grown-up logic, which makes many of the movies seem like children playing as portrayed by adults.

Case in point is the film known as Three Mighty Men, which I usually just call 3 Dev Adam. The grubby VHS-ripped film sees a Turkish version of Spider-Man start a brutal takeover of Istanbul's crime syndicates, and who gets sent to stop this lunatic but Captain America and the Mexican luchadore Santo themselves! The Turkish knockoff versions have little to do with their original counterparts, especially Spider-Man (called The Spider), whose costume is red and green, and likes to stab mafiosos with knives and put people in elaborate death traps. I think he was the model for the portrayal of Joker in The Dark Knight.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The very first scene introduces us to the brutality of Spider-Man. His goons capture a pretty girl on a beach and they bury her neck-deep in the sand. Soon, The Spider brings out a motor boat, and proceeds to shove the spinning propeller into the face of the girl. This violence is intercut with the smiling face of Spider's girlfriend, apparently telephatically surveying the scene from a completely different setting.

2. Another insane way for The Spider to execute his victims is to tie a gangster onto a pole and attaching two tennis ball tubes to his eyes. He then unleashes two vicious guinea pigs to the other side of the tube. The critters run up to the tube and apparently eat his eyes, killing him. Adios mafia.

3. The film, which is basically a game of tag with people in Halloween costumes, goes out its way to appear "mature". And by that I mean that besides the violence, there are also sex scenes and footage of strippers. It is really hard to figure out what the filmmakers were going for. During one sex scene the film cuts to some fugly puppets taking a glance at each other and cackling. And then to another, puppet, now a policeman, before cutting back to the sex. This is never explained, and the next scene is the first big fight scene between Santo, Captain America and The Spider, in which it is revealed that whenever The Spider is beaten, it is somehow a clone or some other replica and the real villain is somewhere entirily else making his getaway. Goodnight, Americanos!

Three laughs: Thunder of the Gigantic Serpent

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Thunder of the Gigantic Sepent (Hong Kong, 1988)
Director: Godfrey Ho (as Charles Lee)

If Bruno Mattei is known for combining two movies' worth of stolen ideas into one movie, then Hong Kong's maestro Godfrey Ho does that literally. He used to buy film stock and combine multiple films into one with English dubbing. Mostly these are Ninja pictures, which have main characters that never meet, and more abandoned plot threads left unexplored than the last seasons of Lost and Game of Thrones combined. But Ho really did also test out which movies sold.

Case in point he bought out a Korean giant monster movie and combined it with a spy thriller. The end result is Thunder of a Gigantic Serpent, a title which sounds like an euphemism of farting before having to go to the bathroom. As you can imagine, much of the pleasure of this film comes from trying to combine a gritty crime thriller leaving plenty of corpses behind, and a silly family comedy of a pet snake growing into impossible size. But you know, some of the Godzilla movies were pretty violent, too. Somehow it all stays together.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The titular Gigantic Serpent starts out small, as a tiny snake that befriends a little girl. As the girl is asking on what to call her new pet, the snake waves its head first horizontally in disapproval, then vertically when the girl comes up with a name. She decides to call it Mozlov. The snake is in parts played by a rubber hose on a string, other times by an actual snake. Either way, the boneheaded way of having it nod or shake its head gives out a giggle each time.
2. The dubbing in general in this film is kind of hilarious. The main little girl sounds like a British lady talking with a very soft voice. The main bad guy seems to try out a voice somewhere between Cobra Commander and a cartoon vampire. The voices of his minions, gangsters and criminals are trying to sound as tough as they can. This includes swearing, which works to further destroy the illusion that this is supposed to be a family movie. "He lost the fucking formula!"
3. Once Mozlov the snake gets electrocuted with a groth ray, we enter the phase of the rubber puppets. The snake has a really irritating parrot-like scream. The sitcom-like comedy of a little girl trying to hide a huge snake in her room seems to have some Freudian undertones. I also love the scenes of the snake helping the girl out to win a roller-ski race pushing her around are to be seen to be believed.

One must add that the titular Thunder the Gigantic Serpent makes once the gangters start to threaten the little girl, is as underwhelming as they come. Just rattle a few bridges and skyscrapers and that's it. But being denied of your expectations is all part of the charm of these VHS-era clunkers. I wish we could have had a proper dvd or blu-ray release of this.

Three laughs: Rats - Nights of Terror

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Rats: Nights of Terror (Rats - notte di terrori). Italy, 1984
Director: Bruno Mattei

It is Chinese New Year and now starts the Year of the Rat. What better time, then, to revisit probably the most coherent film in the filmography of the schlock maestro Bruno Mattei. We might meet him in this column again a couple of times. Usually, he makes films that are cheap rip-offs of popular Hollywood movies. The fun comes from his ineptness in recreating working scenes on one hand, his inventiveness in mashing up two flavours and making his super-cheap budget work for him on the other.

A lot of fans of crappy movies absolutely detest Mattei. But usually even they make an exception with Rats. It is a sort of rip-off of The Warriors, Night of the Living Dead and your basic animal attack -movie. A group of young post-apocalyptic bikers seek shelter in a house that happens to be a breeding ground of super-intelligent and super-violent rats. The apocalypse hasn't hardened these kids too much, they are shaking in their boots the whole time. Most of the movie is shot pitch black, in order to hide the fact that Mattei really has no skills at his disposal to actually direct rats to do what he wants to. Troll 2 bad-movie maestro Claudio Fragasso worked as a co-director.

Three laughs (SPOILERS!): 

1. I am against animal cruelty, and feel strongly that even rats used in movies need to have rights to prevent them from being harmed. But anyhow, I am not a good enough person to not laugh when scenes come on where rats supposedly jump and attack characters, since basically they all just look like a guy off-camera (perhaps above them) is just throwing bagloads of rodents at them. If it's any consolation, I bet a big percentage of those are just stuffed animals, since live rats tend to cost more. And rats always land at their feet.

2. Since the rats don't actually move that much, the actors try their best to sell they are in mortal danger. But the hamming it up just comes across that they are scared in the Scooby-Doo sense. They are a cartoonish bunch anyhow, with each having a stock characteristic or a skill. And of course they seek to boink the girls of the group in the hilariously seedy mansion, not caring even if they are in the same room as their friends, who are actively trying to avoid eye contact.

Also the film's rats seem mostly want to avoid people, no matter what Mattei tries to sell us. Particularly any scene in a staircase where characters try to avoid any proximity to rats makes them seem hilariously fragile for supposedly hardened outlaws. Since rats won't just move towards the main characters, there is also a scene where some sort of cut-outs are clearly put onto a conveyer belt in order to advance menacingly.

3. The biggest laugh comes at the very end of the film, and is a surprise of the kind that I would really advise to see the film before reading this.

BIG SPOILER FOLLOWS

It turns out, Mattei had a twist ending on his mind, the like of Planet of the Apes or irony in the vein of Night of the Living Dead. As it has been a bit on the edge on why this film was set post apocalypse in the first place, the answer is given when dawn rises and our two survivors meet on with radiation-suited exterminators on city streets. When one of them removes their mask, we gat to see that they weren't human at all. They were some sort of wookiees, or gerbil-men. Or rather, I think what the film is trying to show us, is a man-sized rat who have taken over the world from the humans and are here now to exterminate even the last survivors. How's that for a twist, Mr. Shyamalan?