Ghoulies

Ghoulies

1985

Dir; Luca Bercovici

"They'll get you in the end"

Some shit puppets happily ruin a perfectly good haunted house picture.

This is a mostly effective little play on a haunted house story which is only let down by Full Moon head honcho, Charles Band's addiction to shit puppetry (which may or may not be in part due to the fact that he is a bit of a muppet). For the most part, Ghoulies feels like an old Hammer Horror movie with atmospheric sets, decent production values and an enjoyable black magic story which largely plays out via very effective Hammer-esque witch coven and magic ritual sequences. Although this is often described as a horror comedy there's little evidence of comedy in the movie itself. As more sequels were excreted, comedy seeped into the forefront of the formula but although you might laugh at the crappy puppets I think this movie was made with quite serious intentions. The marketing department certainly treated it as a comedy horror, giving it a cover depicting one of the ghoulies wearing T-Shirt and braces, coming out of a toilet. I'm sure if Mr Band saw an opportunity to make money out of a comedy horror picture as opposed to a straight up horror picture he would have jumped at it, after all, horror comedies were all the rage in 1985.

The film kicks off with a very effective witch coven scene in which Malcolm Graves, the leader of the coven performs a very nice hammer-esque black magic ritual in the basement of a spooky old house. Graves is less effective when he removes his mask to show off his 80's surfer dude half head highlights. He tries to sacrifice his son, who is still a baby, but neon blue 80's lightening effects stop him from fulfilling his evil plan. Instead he sacrifices the babies mother by sucking her heart out of her chest. The always excellent, but underused on this occasion, Jack Nance takes the baby to safety. The evil ghoulies from the front of the video box watch the ritual from cages at the side of the room.

Years later the baby, Jonathan, is all grown up and preparing to move into the house with his ginger lady friend Beccy. He has been left the house in his fathers will but is unaware of its dark history. Jack Nance is still working as a caretaker at the house, he wears a bright pink T-Shirt underneath his dirty overalls. The house is the real star of the movie, doors creek eerily, bats squawk in the basement, the entire place is covered in joke shop cobwebs and there's a pentagram drawn on the floor... Cool. Despite all of this, Beccy quickly decides the house needs to be christened with a bloody good 80's mong party.

The party is a lovely celebration of all things 1985. Synth musak entertains a mass of big haired elderly teenagers. Jonathan rolls the sleeves of his grey leather jacket up above his elbows. A geek insists on talking to women in a weird high pitched toad voice. We later find out that he's a virgin. A funk synth song kicks off the worlds whitest breakdance which only ends when Mike, the lord of the dance, thinks he's busted his head. The elderly teenagers seem to really dig it. Jonathan finds a book about witchcraft and suggests that they finish the night off with a bit of a seance. The gang all file down to the basement where Jonathan inexplicably turns serious and starts reading from the book. He is not impressed when some of his chums start doing the hockey cockey half way through one of his spells. Unsurprisingly, the spell ends up being a success and unbeknownst to him or his chums he summons the shit puppets.

Jonathan claims to start work on the house whilst Beccy goes off to college but really he is busy working on his black magic skills. He turns an old tressel table into the worlds crapest altar and starts drawing pentagrams on the floor. Beccy doesn't realize there's anything strange going on until Jonathan tells her he's fasting. She's angry because she's just finished cooking dinner. She doesn't seem interested enough to ask about his sudden lifestyle choice or about why he is standing outside staring at a grave in the middle of the night. Alarm bells really start to ring when she catches Jonathan down in the basement, dressed up like a wizard and laughing his ass off because he's managed to make it rain indoors. Later he ruins a potential sex session when he starts to say a spell during some light fore play. That's about as much as Beccy can take and she leaves.

Then the really crap stuff starts. Jonathan's eyes start turning green. He creates dry ice in the basement, summons some badly dubbed midgets and the Ghoulies start to make themselves known. Considering their starring roles they really are a let down. There's a balding teddy bear with sharp teeth, a giggly rat creature with fluffy girl arms and a tiny green evil baby with a tiny six pack. Jonathan manages to arrange for the party revelers, (Beccy included) to come back to the house for a dinner party in which he insists everyone wears dark glasses at the dinner table. The Ghoulies climb out of the food but no-one seems to notice. Jonathan magics the guests down into the basement and covers them all with bedsheets before performing a ritual to resurrect his Dad from the grave. Once completed, the guests don't seem to realize that anything strange has been going on and prepare to do what anyone else would do at a party in an 80's horror movie; fucking, drinking and dieing.

The nerd tries to seduce a girl way out of his league by tickling her tummy before he is slaughtered by an army of little green ghoulies. The stud spunks into a woman and then heads downstairs for a drink, he meets an unidentified goth who seems to be interested in his penis, he exclaims "mr dick, you are a lucky guy" before she strangles him with her tongue. The breakdancing white boy gets clobbered on the head by a baseball bat wielding midget. A weird crocodile monster comes out of an evil clowns mouth and kills a girl. Beccy is so surprised by all of this death that she topples down the stair. Jonathan realizes that he has been a bit of a dick and comes over to the good side just in time to face his resurrected father.

Daddy aims to sacrifice Jonathan and creates some more dry ice and lazer effects to make this known. Before he has a chance, however, Jack Nance appears out of the blue in his own wizards costume and the pair start to strangle each other for what feels like forever. They both vanish into a ball of magic and everyone who had been killed over the previous 20 minutes of the film miraculously comes back to life and makes a run for it. Basically making the entire movie a pointless exercise. The midgets look a bit pissed off as their master drives away in a station wagon.

Mandroid

Mandroid

1993

Dir; Jack Ersgard

"Man and machine are one"

An evil doctor sends a mind controlled robot on a mini rampage in Eastern Europe

Not nearly as enjoyable as it sounds, in fact I really don't know how this film ended up being quite as dull as it did given its half decent plot and generous budget. It suffers from the fate of many of the Full Moon productions from around this time in which a cool idea which can be easily marketed to idiots like me is given a decent enough budget and produced competently but still manages to be boring as all shit. Lets not beat around the bush, I am easily pleased, usually a film featuring both a robot rampage and an evil doctor would be more than enough to engage me for 90 minutes (or, as this is a Full Moon movie and time is money, 80 minutes) but this just doesn't do it on any level.

The movie kicks off with an amazingly unsubtle rip off of the Terminator theme tune (instead of going duh duh, duh, duh duh, it goes duh duh, duh, duh, duh) which should have got Mr Band into hot water with the Governator (now that would be a good plot for Full Moons next picture, Arnie Vs Charles). The film makers treat their locations with some lovely post cold war casual racism. The film is set in the country "Eastern Europe" because apparently Americans don't realize that Eastern Europe is actually a collection of diverse countries and different cultures. Here "Eastern Europe" could be mistaken for a medieval village filled with horse and cart riding savages. It is so depressing that a muddy faced child walks through a train carriage playing a sad song on a violin. In the middle of this wasteland sits the town of Proheba where scientists are developing a new weapon, a robot which can be programmed to carry out pointlessly dangerous tasks by a human in a helmet with some wires coming out of it. The robots name is, unsurprisingly, the Mandroid.

The scientists who developed this piece of equipment are Dr Zimmer and Dr Drago with the assistance of Dr Zimmers strangely American daughter and some other bloke called Benjamin who, despite not doing much throughout this movie, was apparently important enough to the story to be given his own spin off sequel... Weird. Dr Zimmer plans to sell the Mandroid and its secret, a new type of fuel called Superconn which gives Mandroid its power, to a pair of dopey Americans. The Americans in question are scientist Wade Franklin and the CIA agent Joe Smith (come on, put some effort in Mr script writer). Unfortunately Dr Drago doesn't trust the Americans and feels that the Mandroid's secrets should be kept in Eastern Europe.

Dr Zimmer describes Mandroid as "the ultimate tool" (oh how right he is). He pointlessly sends the robot out to drive a car into a wall; it wouldn't have been that dangerous a stunt except that he was driving it in comedy fast forward. When the Americans arrive their new friends take them out for a vigorous barn dance to celebrate. Wade wears an XXL turtle neck and dances awkwardly with Dr Zimmer's daughter whilst Benjamin jealously looks on.

Dr Drago decides that he must steal the Mandroid to stop the Americans getting their fat greasy hands on it. He breaks into Dr Zimmer's lab and fills an urn up with Superconn. He pushes Benjamin into a fridge freezer but isn't able to escape before Zimmer's daughter shoots Superconn into his face. It makes Drago's face mutate into the shape of a herpes infected penis. The fridge freezer eventually makes Benjamin turn see through and later disappear all together. I'm not sure why really... Oh yeah, the sequels called "Invisible", that's right, I guess the poster had already been designed at this point.

Drago moves in with a mute homeless man and continues to plot to get Mandroid out of the hands of the Americans. Wade starts to help Dr Zimmer and becomes the new controller of Mandroid, a job previously entrusted to slowly vanishing Benjamin. When Benjamin finds out he cries into a pillow like a girl. He is then taken to hospital in the worlds crappest ambulance (basically a transit van with poorly scrawled red crosses on the back windows). Wade insists on being called Wade-droid when he is controlling the robot. They take the Mandroid out to a cave where Drago takes over the controls and brings him back to the tramps squat. Dr Drago wears a net curtain over his face to hide his penis head. He works out how to control Mandroid with just his mind. When he gets angry he slaps the tramp repeatedly and then uses his mind to make Mandroid slap him too for good measure.

Drago learns that Zimmer has a secret micro-film which contains all the secrets of Superconn. He uses Mandroid to kidnap Smith and arranges a swap; the CIA agent in exchange for the microfilm. Whilst captured, Smith proves that he is such a massive prick that he can't even get on with the mute homeless man. Dr Zimmer agrees to the swap but hires the local police force (who turn up in a fucking tank!) to come along with them. The exchange doesn't go down quite as planned and there's a bit of running around and shooting of guns. The tramp and Smith shoot each other over and over again at close range without either appearing to get hurt. Franklin shoves a metal bar in Mandroid's eye which seems to kill the invincible robot. Drago gets blown up.

Once all that shit is over and done with we come to the real reason that we're here. Benjamin is shown in hospital dressed up like the Invisible Man. Apparently the explosion didn't kill Drago because we see him getting it on with a grotesque Russian prostitute. Frankilin is in a wheelchair but has fixed Mandroid so that he can be his new legs. Why? Because as the credits role we're told that all these characters will be back in "Invisible: The Chronicles Of Benjamin Knight" another trash nugget from the Full Moon turd factory. Lets just hope something exciting happens in that one. Oh look, its ended up on my "to watch" list... Why do I do this to myself?

This movie is a characterless, action-less slow motion bore draw. Its production values are far higher than many of the movies you will see reviewed here and yet no effort appears to have been put into any aspect of the script or direction to make this enjoyable for the viewer. The video cover is way more interesting than the movie and the whole thing was clearly made as a desperate attempt to cash in on the success of the recently updated Terminator series. Mandroid aint no T1000, trust me, he looks like someone has taken a hoover apart, sprayed its contents black and stuck them onto a skin tight onezie. Its not a good look and the titular character is under used and underwhelming whenever he does pop up on screen.

The actors trudge their way through the half written plot with about as much interest as you would expect from anyone given this material. They are given characters so thin they would make an anorexic jealous. The only back story we get for Franklin is that he has recently given up smoking and as a result chews gum all the time. That's it? He's the hero of the film and that's it? It didn't make me care about his character much. But he is fully fleshed out in comparison to the others, I would probably have entirely forgotten about the character of Benjamin if I hadn't seen the advert for his spin off sequel in the credits. His story in this film is so bizarrely separate from everything else that is going on that it feels like the editors have accidentally spliced his final few scenes into the film by mistake. It just makes my mind boggle. How can a production company like Full Moon which, in comparison to most genre film makers has a great deal of experience, talent and money at their disposal, not put in enough effort to make an enjoyable movie about a killer robot? Its easy, find an interesting setting, make some shit explode, throw in a couple of memorable characters, make them explode, give the robot something to fight and make that explode too. Hell, just make some pretty people run about whilst things get set alight behind them, at least I'd be able to see where the budget went.

Beastmaster 2: Through The Portal Of Time

Beastmaster 2: Through The Portal Of Time

1991

Dir; Sylvio Tabet

"An awesome hero. An invincible villain. Time travel to a distant world. Its gonna be a wild weekend."

Dar, son of Zed, brother of Arklon, great warrior and ruler of beasts ventures to the distant land of LA and learns about ROCK N ROLL DUDE!

This movie has been panned continuously by critics and fans of the original Beastmaster for moving so far away from the original films straight sword and sorcery subject matter and relocating its hero to modern day LA. To be honest, I hate sword and sorcery movies, (if it ain't got Arnold in it, it ain't my type of joint), and so I love this movie for all the same reasons that most people seem to hate it so much. Don't get me wrong, I like oiled up muscular men in loin cloths as much as anybody else but I usually find these types of movies a real slog to get through. Not so when the loin clothed muscle man in question is riding around in a Porsche and calling everyone he sees an asshole!

The muscle man in question is Dar, The Beastmaster (Mark Singer), he appears to be wearing Sarah Jessica Parker's face on top of a pro wrestlers body. He is a very strange beast indeed. For the first half an hour or so of this movie he mucks about in a fantasy land, fighting against his brother, the evil Lord Arklon (Wings Hauser). As in the original, Dar is able to control animals, not through mind power or training but through friendship. His best friends are a pair of ferrets and a tiger who helps him get out of numerous jams and pickles. Dar meets a shit monster in the woods who tells him that he needs to battle his older brother in order to save the world or something.

Evil brother Arklon has hooked up with Lyranna, a witch who can open a portal to a mystical land called LA. She calls Arklon "honey" and tells him to "chill out". When someone gets shot by an arrow she exclaims " well, I guess he got the point". What I'm trying to say here is that she's a lot of fun. Arklon learns that LA is home to a neutron bomb which he believes will make him the most powerful man in the whole kingdom so he forces Lyranna to open the portal so that he can go through. Once the portal is open, Jackie, (Kari Wuhrer), an eccentric, badly behaved valley girl whose father is a senator and who is coming down off a 5-6 day bender (who can keep count when their off their nuts??), is going to drive through the portal in her Porsche. The fantasy gang naturally try to capture her but she escapes in her hot ride. Unfortunately, once safely driving away, her car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. She has no choice but to camp out with only her snazzy jean jacket for warmth.

Jackie wakes up to the sight of a Dar's tiger friend standing over her. She thinks Dar must be "one of those crazy bikers with the crossbows". This is despite the fact that he has neither a bike nor a crossbow and that these bikers don't exist anywhere in the universe. The culture shock is less extreme than one might expect. Its limited to the fact that Dar has never heard of 7-11 and Jackie doesn't know what a ferret is. Dar gives Jackie roots to eat but she wants to hold out for the salad bar. When "lost hounds" start stalking the pair, Dar describes them as creatures that suck peoples souls into the abyss, Jackie comments that "they sound like two guys I met in Tujana last night". Dirty slut.

Lord Arklon's warriors soon track down and kidnap Jackie. She describes them as "geeks" before getting taken back to the portal. Lyranna finds Jackie appealing but considers her new wave 80's denim chiq a bit dull. Jackie thinks the portal is "way rad" and assures Arklon that she will buy him a neutron bomb from the local K-Mart. The three of them jump back through the portal to LA with Dar hot on their heels. A dude with a ghetto blaster has such a surprised reaction to Arklon's games workshop fashion sense that Jackie suggests he get some "fresh threads". They go to a department store which is being run by the campest, french-est stereotype you are ever likely to find in a movie. He is like Serge from the Beverly Hills Cop movies but on some really gay speed. The stereotype and Arklon bond over their common interest in "sacrificing virgins" and stress management. Lyranna loves the cool 80's fashions and dolls herself up in a rather garish neon blue sequined evening dress. Arklon comes away with a ginormous green suit jacket which, if anything, makes him look even more conspicuous.

Whilst our evil friends are trying their new duds on in the changing rooms, Jackie escapes and runs home to her fathers mansion. She quickly.hooks back up with Dar by springing him out of police custody as he had been arrested by the Fresh Prince of Bel Air's fat uncle. The pair of them go for a drive. Dar doesn't like the "carriage that moves without horsepower" but he seems over joyed when taught the word "asshole" which he happily shouts repeatedly. Rock n roll reminds Dar of an earthquake but he seems to warm to Jackie's lacey sub-Pat Benetar tunes (the song they're listening to is actually performed by Kari Wuhrer herself). Whilst they're driving around the LA streets they pass a cinema which is advertising "Beastmaster 2 - Through The Portal Of Time" on its billboard. Dar appears bemused by all this post modernism.

Meanwhile, Arklon has made friends with a drunk soldier in a strip club. He beats him up and steals all his knowledge along with "the secrets of the world" by looking at him and widening his eyes a little. He also steals his outfit. He heads straight to the local army base and breaks in using all this knowledge he has apparently stolen. He nabs a neutron bomb and escapes, dispatching of Lyranna once he has no more use for her. She is so pissed off that she tells him she hopes tarantulas grow in his mouth. The bomb looks oddly similar to a large paint tin. It is set to explode in thirty minutes so the police join forces with the army to try to find it. The army's senior bomb expert is clearly in the early stages of dementia, he just continually repeats the phrase "ca-blooey" to the bemused police officers.

Arklon tries to get back through the portal with the bomb, Dar stops him and the pair head for the city zoo. This is surely a stupid place to go if you're preparing for a fight with a man who can control animals. There is a showdown between the two brothers in the zoo's arena. For reasons best left unexplored Jackie runs to the control booth of the arena and turns on an automated light show and oral presentation. I understand that from a film making point of view the light show might of added a bit of atmospherics to the proceedings but watching two warriors fight whilst a commentator says things like "watch them frollick together" and "lets see if we can make them kiss" made the fight a bit of an anti climax. This anti-climax was heightened as Dar didn't use any of the zoo animals to help him despite the film being about a man who can control animals. Luckily this anti climax is quickly forgotten when Dar stands over the pit of fire he has just thrown Arklon into and says "asshole". The dementing bomb expert pops back up and manages to reset the neutron bomb with one second left on the clock, he continues with the "cablooey" nonsense throughout.

His mission complete and his brother slain, Dar returns to the portal and heads home to his crappy fantasy world but not before sucking face with Jackie and giving her his ferrets as a gift. One of the ferrets kisses Dar's eagle goodbye. Once back, Dar runs into Michael Berryman who, along with a number of other pilgrims, have started to worship the broken down porsche that Jackie left in their world. As Dar looks on, one of the pilgrims accidentally hits play on the stereo and before you know it the pilgrims are worshiping rock n roll instead, gently swaying with hands aloft as mid-tempo riff-age pukes its way out of the speakers.

As I said, I far prefer this movie to the original for all the wrong reasons but I would suggest that all of those who have written this off because of the differences between it and its predecessor should give it another chance. Its a good ride of a movie and never gets dull. Director, Tabet, had served as producer on the first movie and would go on to be involved with both Beastmaster 3 and a really shit Beastmaster TV series which will make you vomit so don't even go there. All the other entries to this series stick closely to the fantasy genre but I genuinely think that this one offers something a bit more interesting, if entirely unnecessary.

Also, one thing that I didn't mention was that this movie has THE shortest cop I have ever seen. I appreciate that this isn't much of a recommendation but the character of Bendowski, played by Robert Fieldsteel, (future "star" of 9 1/2 ninjas) cuts a hilarious figure every time he pops up on screen. This guys is literally two feet shorter than everybody around him and yet there is no reference to it, his character is a pretty run of the mill detective, even a little tough at times. Why did no one think this would look anything other than bizarre? The poor little bugger is dressed up in a comedy bow tie and fluff mustache ensemble and is even made to act most of his scenes next to man mountain, James Avery (Fresh Prince Of Bel Air). For god sakes, get the guy a fucking box to stand on.

Little Monsters

Little Monsters

1989

Dir; Richard Greenberg

"They cause all the trouble but you'll have all the fun"

The Savage family exploit all of their offspring to maximum effect in this enjoyable fun house of a movie.

This underrated little gem suffered from a limited cinema release when production company, Vestron Pictures went bankrupt shortly after its completion. The film was quickly forgotten about, not even gaining much of an audience through the home video market. That's a real shame because it's a genuinely enjoyable ride and a great deal of fun. Its a film that is so full of Savages you could be let off for thinking you had stumbled across a light hearted sequel to Cannibal Holocaust. Of course I'm talking about the savage family, not those dastardly jungle dwelling bastards. Here Fred takes the lead, whilst little brother Ben plays his, erm, little brother and big sister Kala pops up as one of the monsters. Mr and Mrs Savage must have been rubbing their hands together.

Fred Savage plays Brian, a miserable little fellow who hates living in his new town. He has no friends, his parents bicker incessantly, his Dad runs over his bike and he has a pushing fight with a fat child at school . He sits up at night eating peanut butter and onion sandwiches whilst watching a TV show called "All about chicks" in which a biker interviews a blonde bombshell in a bikini. Brian's little brother Eric, thinks that he has a monster under his bed and challenges Brian to swap rooms with him for one night. Despite not believing Eric's tall tale, Brian prepares for the challenge admirably. He turns his broken bike into a booby trap in a rather random slow motion montage and leaves a trail of crisps out to lead the monster to be snared.

Midway through the night Brian's booby trap, (which effectively turns the lights on if anyone eats his crisps), is set off and, low and behold the monster is real. His name is Maurice. He appears to be going through a manic phase of his bi-polar affective disorder, either that or he is performing an effective impersonation of Beetlejuice on crack. Maurice mixes a Marky Mark outfit with a mild punk aesthetic. He doesn't stop moving, talking, laughing or farting for a second whenever he is on screen. Maurice is portrayed by Howie Mandell who would later go on to gain much greater notoriety by growing a soul patch and prostituting his dignity as the presenter of the American version of Deal Or No Deal. He is clearly having infinitely more fun pulling boogers out of Fred Savages nose than he could possibly have opening boxes full of money. Every time he steps into shot Maurice is like a ticking time bomb of fun. He eats a battery and then worries that its going to give him constipation. He laughs after every sentence he or anyone else says. He paints a sleeping child's face and pulls a wad of gook out of his own ear with a cotton bud.

Maurice introduces Brian to an underworld which lays under all children's beds. He describes it as a place with no rules and no parents, where you can watch anything you like on TV and never get grounded. Sounds pretty awesome. Weirdly when they get down there it looks more like a crack house having an indoor fireworks display. It is full of a multitude of other monsters of all different shapes and sizes who, like Maurice, all seem to have a complete disregard for calm. Maurice takes Brian around the underworld, he shows him the local arcade, the password to open the door to the arcade is a fart. Maurice also shows Brian how to climb out from underneath other children's beds. Maurice likes to get these children in trouble with their parents and comes up with all sorts of weird and wonderful ways to do so. In the first bedroom they go to Maurice straddles a sleeping ginger child before putting muddy footprints all over his floor. They write "ca ca" on a girls bedroom wall and go to a school bully's house where they put cat food in his sandwich and piss in his apple juice.

The next night, Brian returns to the underworld for more fun. Maurice gives him a zit as a present and they play a weird game of baseball which involves "smashing shit". The ball gets hit into Snik's lair. Snik is the bully of the underworld, he looks like a really angry version of Meatloaf. Snik isn't happy that Brian has encroached on his personal space and appears to get even angrier when Brain turns down the fly he offers him as a snack. Luckily Maurice comes to the rescue and the pair go for another night out on the town. Brian likes Kiersten (Amber Baretto) a girl from school who always does her homework on time. Maurice takes him to her bedroom, turns his hand into a dog and eats her science project.

The next day Brian and Eric's parents sit them down and tell them that they are getting a divorce. Maurice tries to console him in as calm a manner as he can but his limbs still don't stop moving even during this touching scene. When nothing else works he invites Brian back down into the underworld. He tells him "pranks, snacks and games will take away the pain" which I think could be the entire basis for a new religion. Brian finds that he is starting to turn into one of the monsters and it is becoming difficult for him to get back to the real world. He panics and starts to saw the legs off of all the beds so that nothing can come or go through the portal to the underworld. His mother figures its just his way of dealing with the divorce.

When Snik finds out that Brian is not coming back to the underworld he gets angry with Maurice for telling him all of their secrets. Snik reports this to Boy (a pre-Pulp Fiction, Frank Whaley) who is the ruler of the underworld. Boy's head looks like a turd so he chooses to wear a mask made out of a human face. Strangely he also dons a public school boy suit jacket and shorts combination. Boy instructs Snik to bring Brian back so that he can never tell anyone about the underworld. To do this they kidnap both Maurice and little brother Eric. Brian puts together a small crack team of children to head down under the bed and save the day. Their only weapon against the monsters is bright light which makes them disappear into their clothes. The kids create some light bulb covered trouser suits and a super powered flash light to assist them in their mission.

The Kids hook back up with Maurice and make some pencils light up using some ridiculous pseudo science. They use their pencils and light bulb suits to blow up both Snik and Boy and save Eric who has been tied up to a huge dart board. The gang have to get out of the underworld before the sun comes up and Brian's calculator watch tells them that they don't have time to get back out under the bed in time. In a decision that laughs in the face of sensible narrative the kids decide to try to outrun time by heading from the east coast of America to the west coast of America so that they can make the most of the time difference. They run through the underworld, passing signs for all the major American cities as they go. Eventually they reach California with a few minutes to spare. They all climb out from underneath a tramps ramshackle bench bed but not before Brian and Maurice exchange an emotional farewell. Brian tells Maurice that he is his best and only friend, in return Maurice gives Brian his Marky Mark jacket. Brian wears it proudly. Now he's never going to make anymore friends.

As you may have picked up from the plot description this film is absolutely choc a block with nonsense. However, for the most part, it is glorious nonsense. The idea of a netherworld under every child's bed filled with brightly coloured monsters, no rules and every variation of fun imaginable should have caught every child's imagination in the same way that the Goonies or Back To The Future did in years just before this movie was made. Sadly it never became anywhere near as iconic as those pictures. Partly because it wasn't quite as slick and partly because of the distribution problems it suffered. Its a true shame. This would go on to be director Greenburg's only fiction film directing credit and was Fred Savages last big starring role (although, obviously he continued working in TV). I think if you haven't seen it you could do a lot worse than to check it out.

The cast is solid with decent performances from most of the adult actors (and an acceptable one from the middle Savage child). Future Home Alone evil doer, Daniel Stern, is solid as Brian and Eric's douche bag of a father and many of the monster performers ham it up to nice effect. But, without a doubt, Howie Mandell's performance as Maurice is the highlight of this movie. If there was a god (and this pretty much proves that there isn't) then Mandell would have been showered in awards for this performance. He is like a shot of heroin every time he appears on screen, chewing up and spitting out every other actor in his path and then taking a piss in their apple juice for good measure. You just wouldn't get away with a performance this outrageous and unhinged in a film today and that's a damn shame. This guy should fill his Deal Or No Deal money boxes with boogers, fart at his retarded audience and get back into movies immediately.

As I said, there are flaws, the most startling of which is, without doubt, the misjudged score. Insufferably emotive, pan pipe led orchestration saturates almost every scene. This could have been appropriate for a couple of the more emotional scenes but when a movie is specifically about a kid discovering a world of fun you surely want something a little bit more Huey Lewis and a whole lot less shit. On the few occasions that this drivel lets up we're treated to a little mid paced synth rock (courtesy of Nick Lowe and some unknowns) which is far more effective. There's also nice use of the Talking Heads, Road To Nowhere, at the climax of the movie. The only other flaws are moot points if you like trash cinema because they invariably riff on poorly explained plot developments. But do you really watch films like this and expect everything to make sense? No, and why? Because, as I'm sure Maurice would agree; there's no fun in sense is there.

Brainscan

Brainscan

1994

Dir; John Flynn

"Wanna play? I dare you"

Post T2 Edward Furlong gets the worlds greatest computer game through the post and goes on a killing spree to celebrate.

To say that I wish I lived in this movie would be an absolute understatement. It is a world in which teenagers are left to their own devices, lame 8-bit computers can interact with humans, chicks like nothing more than secretly photographing boys reading Fangoria in their bedrooms and really awesome things are sent to you through the mail. Somebody find me a computer game that sucks me into this reality please.

A still compos mentis Edward Furlong (seriously, have you seen this guy recently? He looks like he spent the last 10 years bathing in a bath of crack and aids) stars as Michael, a teenager with the coolest bedroom in movie history. His computer talks to him, he answers the phone by saying "talk to me" and hangs it up by saying "later", his walls are covered with old horror movie posters, he even has a picture of Alice Cooper on his fridge! Whenever Michael looks out of his bedroom window he see's boobies which he naturally videos. The boobies in question belong to Kimberly (Amy Hargreaves), who along with Kyle, his best bud, appear to be Michael's only semblance of friendship. It is Kyle (James Marsh) who introduces Michael to the new video game, Brainscan, which he naturally finds in the classified section of Fangoria magazine.

Kyle personifies 1994 with aplomb. He seems to start and finish every sentence with the word "dude" and rocks a ludicrous post cock rock fashion aesthetic mixed with some even more ludicrous grunge plaids. Basically he is the best friend everyone should have. Michael and Kyle's friendship is the real deal, neither of them will get off the phone until both have repeated the catchphrase, "buddies forever".

Michael orders himself a copy of Brainscan and heads off to school where his free period is spent watching a film called "Death, Death, Death Part 2" with his horror club buddies (one of whom wears a monster mask for the occasion). The school principle is not impressed and compares the movie to a "pornographic sex film". He insists that in the future all horror club movies have to be screened by him first. A rule he will live to regret soon enough.

Michael receives his Brainscan package and, that evening, whilst he watches Kimberly and her friends partying to the sound of Rob Zombie's half arsed white rapping he decides to give it a whirl. The game is made up of four challenges, all of which involve him planning and carrying out the perfect murder. Michael carries out the first challenge by murdering a Kelsey Grammar lookalike with a carving knife and stealing his foot as a memento whilst synth industrial jams fart annoyingly in the background. Inevitably the next day Michael finds that the man from the game has actually been murdered and his worst suspicions are confirmed when he finds the disembodied foot in his fridge freezer.

Without warning, a character from the game called "The Trickster" (an awesome T.Ryder Smith), appears from Michael's TV. He sports a lovely velvet sports jacket and shiny PVC trouser combination. He has the face of Sloth and the hair of Toyah. He makes Michael listen to Primus whilst he does a spazz dance on a table before exclaiming "no country and western please, every man has his limits". I think we can all empathize with that. The Trickster electrocutes himself and breaks his own fingers to prove he is loyal to Michael. He also tells him that he needs to play the game again because he left a witness behind. Michael agrees and this time when he finishes the game it is Kyle's necklace that he finds in the fridge freezer. His newest victim was, indeed, his "buddy forever".

Bad ass Detective Hayden (Frank Langella) already has his eye on the "weird" and "frightening" Michael (because he is, well, weird and frightening) but when his best friend becomes a murder victim his interest is piqued and he heads over to question him. Michael acts like a guilty man. Whilst the police are questioning our hero, the Trickster is busy making a mess of his bedroom and eating a frozen chicken. He convinces Michael to go back into the game by giving him an amazingly negative pep-talk in which he basically just lists all of his bad points. Michael believes that he is only going into the game to get rid of a footprint left at Kyle's house but he actually becomes responsible for the death of a member of worlds most bad ass neighborhood watch team who are out looking for the killer. Michael see's Valerie on his way home from the killing making her the final witness to be knocked off.

Of course, Michael doesn't want to go back into the game and kill Valerie, otherwise whose boobs would he oggle on those long, lonely winter nights? Again, the Trickster convinces him to go but when he gets into Valerie's bedroom he cannot carry out the deed. The Trickster unsuccessfully tries to convince him to follow through on the murder by eating Michael's head in a terrible CGI sequence.

Michael wakes up to find that the entire experience has been a part of the game. He is so upset that he smashes up his bedroom in slow motion. This means that the party next door is still going on and that Kyle is still alive enough to call Michael a "dick lick" before the pair head over to Kimberly's to join in the festivities. The next day at school Michael tells the principle that he plans on showing his horror film club the Brainscan game. The principle insists on reviewing the material before hand and as Michael leaves the office we see the Trickster relaxing into the principles office chair, ready to take him on the ride of his life.

This underrated doozy of a film is very highly recommended. Edward Furlong isn't as annoying as you'd expect in the lead role and the set design and digital effects are very atmospheric. The films score, by George Clinton (no, not THAT George Clinton!) is very effective, mixing John Carpenter synths with Twin Peaks atmospherics, its just a shame that the soundtrack is about as lame as you would expect from the era (Tad and Mudhoney being the exceptions). I think if you've ever been a teenage boy you're going to have a good time with this movie, particularly if you were a teenage boy in 1994 (which, thankfully, I was). The evil video game plot was a relatively new idea at the time and the entire game within a movie is executed very effectively. If you haven't caught this one yet, I'd advise you to seek it out.

Dollman

Dollman

1991

Dir; Albert Pyun

"Thirteen inches... With an attitude"

The worlds tiniest bad ass gets dumped in the South Bronx and becomes a member of the local Neighbourhood Watch

Keeping with type, director Albert Pyun makes another failed attempt to fuse together two disparate movie genres with underwhelming results, (see also, Radioactive Dreams for his attempts to mate Film noir and Mad Max making a right fucking mess of a child). Here we have a largely unsuccessful mixture of futurist science fiction and hard boiled inner city drama with an idea so incredibly ludicrous that we should probably add "comedic" to the start of one of those descriptions despite the fact that there is nothing funny about this shit sandwich. Pyun really has earned his reputation as a modern day Ed Wood Jr, churning out numerous cinematic wonder turds, each idea crazier and less likely to work than the last.

Here, Mr Pyun thought it appropriate to take a hard boiled, no nonsense cop from a far away planet who speaks exclusively in an intense whisper, shrink him down to 13 inches and send him to the South Bronx to have some shoot outs with a racially confused drug gang. Although the idea could be good fun, the film lacks a certain amount cohesion in its tone, neither playing it too seriously or accepting its true fate and playing up the laughs. Overall, the production values are acceptable for this level of film although it is occasionally let down by atrocious green screen effects which are timed badly and poorly lighted. Its a shame because hidden behind the nonsense there is a vaguely enjoyable movie trying to get out.

The film opens on the far away planet of Arturous, 10000 light years away from Earth. The planet looks like a noir netherworld, its sepia tones and futuristic cityscape provide a really effective atmosphere only broken by the occasional nugget of shit dialogue. A man with a complexion so white and a jew-fro so voluminous that he looks like an albino clown is being chased by the police. He hides out in a laundromat where he stumbles across a gang of fat middle american women and children and exclaims "oh my god, I'm so angry with my life". He takes the chunkers hostage and forces them to stand around him in a circle to give him a full ton of human shield. The police officer outside (whose name is Captain Starburst for christ sake!) decides he needs to bring in the Mayor for some reason who insists on giving the criminal all of his demands because he doesn't think a pile of dead fat ladies is going to help him get re-elected. The plan goes awry when Brick Bardo (Tim Tomerson) arrives on the scene.

Brick is a suspended cop who appears from nowhere. He is a dead ringer for a middle aged Dee Dee Ramone and has a very filthy mouth. He wears a lovely flat top. When asked how he is going to tackle the situation he reply's "I'm gonna use hot water for my whites" before going into the Laundromat and completing a full cycle of washing under the gaze of the hostages. The criminal is not impressed so Brick threatens to shoot him through a fat lady. This makes the whole crowd panic and fall over crushing the criminal under flabby woman meat. As Brick leaves the scene, the Mayor is so angry he tells him to "take off those sunglasses, its night" which is probably the most sensible thing anyone says throughout the entire movie.

For no apparent plot development reasons Brick is framed for the deaths of some of the fat ladies, he seems as uninterested in this as the writers obviously were because it is not mentioned again. He returns to his futuristic apartment where he is accosted and kidnapped by Sprug (Frank Collinson's head) who plans to kill him in revenge for Brick apparently shooting his body off in some previous escapade. Brick refuses to go down without a fight. His gun literally makes men blow up. The effects in this scene are very effective, gore explodes across the screen and body parts splat across the rocks. Sprug gets in a rocket and flies away with Brick close on his tail. The pair both fly through a black hole and end up landing in the South Bronx, unscathed but inexplicably tiny in comparison to the natives.

In another very effective sequence the South Bronx is introduced in a montage and is painted as an urban wasteland. We see a collage of Tenement blocks, prostitutes, a homeless man wearing a plastic bag on his head, graffitied walls and Mexican gang bangers. The sequence has a rain soaked ambiance to it which really does feel depressing and gritty. Sadly all this good work is undone when Braxton Red (Jackie Earl Haley), the worlds whitest Mexican gang lord, is introduced carrying a machine gun which could have been a left over prop from Apocalypse Now. His character is so out of place within the context of the genuinely gritty surrounds that he feels like a comic book villain stuck onto a Polaroid with a prit stick. Despite this, I have to take my hat off to Haley, who puts on a genuinely convincing and unstable performance considering his character description must have read "white child with mullet who runs a Mexican gang". His performance is enhanced even more by the cardboard blockhead he has to act against.

Inevitably, Sprug gets friendly with the drug dealers whilst Bardo gets friendly with the local neighbourhood watch. The community group is led by annoying busy body Debi Alejandro (Kamala Lopez) who, if his legs and penis were longer, Brick would surely like to get busy with. She gets beaten up by the drug gang but is saved by Brick so she takes him and his tiny spaceship home with her. As she walks along the road with it Brick wobbles around inside in comedy fast forward. Once home, Brick has to put up with Debi's annoying child and his friend Gerald, who comes over to fiddle around with Bricks spaceship. Brick uses his most intense whisper yet to mutter "back away Gerald". Debi goes out to her job at the local toxic waste factory where her boss gives her shit because she refused to "go to the Guns and Roses concert" with him.

Whilst our hero is getting settled in his new pad Sprug and his new found friends head back to the gangs drug den where some women in bra's are counting large sums of money. Sprug and Braxton make an agreement to help each other take over the world but first they need to do away with Brick, or Dollman as he's being referred to by the local, apparently unsurprisable, Bronx residents (they don't seem bothered to see a 13 inch man angrily walking around on Debi's kitchen table). Sprug has a "Dimensional Fusion Bomb" which he would like to use. Unfortunately as soon as he hands it over to the gang, Braxton squishes him into mush and decides to go and kidnap Debi to lure Brick to his lair.

Brick goes to save Debi. He finds the gang and stealthily crawls through a very muddy drain pipe, coming out the other end looking like a minstrel. His tiny gun doesn't do quite as much damage on Earth as it did on Arturous but he still quickly dispenses with most of the gang bangers. He calls Braxton a "fucking puke" and a "sack of puss" but silly liberal Debi doesn't want anymore blood shed on her hands so she stops Brick from finishing him off. This gives Braxton a chance to set off the Dimensional Fusion Bomb which sends them all back to the planet Artuous.

Once there Brick and Debi's sexual organs are of a somewhat equal size. Hazzah!

Leprechaun

Leprechaun

1993

Dir; Mark Jones

"Your luck just ran out"

Rachel from Friends gets chased around a bit by Willow.

Future big shit, Jennifer Aniston, stars in this surprisingly competent and occasionally spooky little horror movie about a disgruntled Leprechaun who is willing to go to any lengths necessary to find his lost pot of gold. The film opens as big suited, mock oi-rish Dan O'Grady (Shay Duffin) drunkenly returns home to his unimpressed wife with a bag of gold coins which he claims to have taken from a Leprechaun. O'Grady celebrates his new found wealth by getting a lift home in a limo. His celebrations are cut short when the films namesake (Warrick Davis, the busiest dwarf in show business) comes to get his pot of gold back.

A genuinely scary moment introduces Davis' character as an eerie child's voice calls to O'Grady from inside an old suitcase and the tension slowly builds as he walks towards it and starts to unlock its clasps. The tension quickly ends, of course, when a tiny man in ladies shoes pops out of the case and starts wisecracking with the old man. The Leprechaun kills O'Grady's wife and has bad intentions for O'Grady too if he doesn't give him back his pot of gold. Luckily, the old man has a handy four leaf clover and manages to lock the evil little bugger up in a crate.

Fast forward 10 years and the Leprechaun remains imprisoned in the crate. That is, until father and daughter duo JD and Tory (a pre-op Jennifer Aniston) start sticking their noses where they don't belong. Tory is a rich bitch from LA, her father has apparently bought her the O'Grady house so that she can learn about the real world and gain some valuable life lessons (like money isn't everything and Leprechauns are bad). The house is an absolute mess of joke shop cobwebs and creaky floor boards. Tory disagrees with her fathers tough(ish) love and wants to take herself to the nearest hotel and get back to LA as quickly as possible. Her attitude soon changes when she runs into Nathan, a local part red neck, part male model type who sports an attractive Lady Diana haircut and Keep The Fath era Bon Jovi wardrobe and dead eye combination.

Nathan is one third of "3 Guys That Paint", a decorating team who have been hired to help make the old house liveable for Tory (so much for all that tough love). The other two guys that paint are Nathans 12 year old brother Alex and a simpleton by the name of Ozzie (Mark Holton who had long been an expert at playing fat men-children, most notably as Pee Wee Herman's nemesis, Francis, in Pee Wee's Big Adventure). Tory thinks that guys that paint houses are "weird and strange". She reminds them that "this is the 90's" before changing into a pair of high tops and stone washed denim short shorts. Inevitably our gang stumble across the crate that O'Grady left in his basement and let the Leprechaun out. Then the real fun begins.

Ozzie and Alex find the "pot" of gold (which is actually a bag of gold, presumably because a pot was just out of budget). Wacky old Ozzie decides to eat one of the coins. Alex tells him that they can sell the lot and use the money to get Ozzie an operation to fix his brain. Ozzie just wants to use it to buy comic books. Unaware of the discovery, Nathan is busy teaching Tory how to paint the house, he does this by dry humping her bottom whilst she does all the hard work. He claims to be impressed with her "nice even strokes". Tory's father seems less impressed by his daughters burning loins but soon forgets when the Leprechaun appears and bites him on the hand.

The mildly comedic slaughter is ready to begin. The Leprechaun threatens to bite Ozzie's ear off and make a pair of boots out of it. He bites a mans nose and then kills him by jumping on him repeatedly with a pogo stick. He breaks a police officers neck. He is given inumerous wheeled vehicles to ride, (a child's trike, a tiny sports car, a skateboard, roller skates, and, the real money shot, a wheel chair). He rides them all in comedy fast forward.

With all the killing that's going on, Tory and the "three guys that paint" lock themselves away in the house. Nathan gets his denim clad leg caught in a bear trap and has an amazing sit down punch up with the Leprechaun. At a glance it looks as if Jon Bon Jovi is having a fist fight with a toddler. The gang try to get away in a pick up truck but the Leprechaun somehow manages to turn it over by driving a child's toy car into the side of it. The gang get out without a scratch. Tory hands the gold over hoping that it will placate our little evil friend but there is a coin missing (the one that Ozzie ate earlier). Rather than waiting for him to shit it out like any reasonable person, the Leprechaun decides he's going to cut it out. In the process he grabs Nathans balls and performs an impressive skateboard routine along a hallway.

Tory goes to see old man O'Grady, who now lives in the local nursing home, to find out how to kill the Leprechaun. When she arrives, the old man is not in his bedroom and instead she finds the Leprechaun riding around in fast forward in that wheelchair. Tory manages to get away and into an elevator where, without reason, Old Man Grady's bloody face smashes through the ceiling. With his last few breaths he tells Tory to find herself a four leaf clover. She rushes back to the house where Nathan's bear trap inflicted limp is becoming less and less pronounced. The gang find a four leafed clover amazingly quickly. Alex produces a slingshot and fires the clover into the Leprechauns face with the immortal line "fuck you, lucky charms". Our titular hero proceeds to melt, fall in a well and get blown up for good measure.

This is a fun film, plain and simple. There's not a lot of characterization going on, some of the performances are a little wooden and nonsensical plot twists are the rule of thumb here but there are a couple of genuinely creepy moments early on, the Leprechaun is a great character and the mixture of horror and comedy is pitched just at the right level.

We can see flashes of why Jennifer Aniston's career skyrocketed shortly after this film came out. She is likeable, if a little wooden in the role of Tory and, in fairness, she isn't given much to work with. There are suggestions of the rich bitch, big city girl character (she threatens to leave a couple of times, she asks for a water cress salad and bottle of Evian in a redneck bar and describes Nathans Meat loaf as a "cut up dead cow") but shes far too nice and far too capable to fully encompass this type of character (she plays nurse without batting an eyelid and never acts superior to the other characters in the film, even the simpleton). Without doubt, this is Davis' film, he hams up the Leprechaun character with absolute glee and the screen lights up every time his little legs pigeon step into view. The Leprechaun make-up is very effective, his dialogue never gets overly tedious and watching him drive things in fast forward never gets old. Its no wonder that Davis returned for five further sequels (in the years following this movies release the Leprechaun would get to go into space and hang out with Ice T in the 'hood).

Director, Mark Jones, would go on to gain writing credits for a number of the Leprechaun sequels and would also return to the directors chair two years later for "Rumplestiltskin" also starring Davis. The franchise may not be dead yet either, with rumors of an upcoming "Leprechaun Vs Chucky" (god help us all) proving that there might still be life in the little fella yet.