Cobra

Stallone is pissed at crime

              "Cobra" is a seriously hardcore movie starring Sylvester Stallone as Marion "Cobra" Cobretti, the most badass cop ever. He's the cop you call in when everything goes to Hell. He plays by his own rules and bends the law if it needs bending. He does every dirty job that comes along... Wait that's "Dirty Harry", isn't it? But that's the beauty of "Cobra". We're 99.8% sure "Cobra" was made after Stallone watched "Dirty Harry" and decided to reamke it. Not that we're mad. Both movies are exceptional.

This is Cobra's gun. He keeps it tucked in the front of his pants...
Why don't you own a holster, Cobra?! 

The movie opens with Stallone rambling off some insane statistics. "75 robberies every 20 mins, 350 murders an hour, 945 rapes in a day, and 19,475 violent crimes in a fortnight". Follwing that, we have crazed man proclaiming to be "The Hunter" or something  who takes a grocery store hostage. The cops are all outside, helpless to stop this shotgun-toting maniac. With their backs against the wall, they make the decision. "Call in the Cobra". Bad news for criminals. Boom. Cobra's on the scene. He immediately enters the gorcery store, endangers all the hostages by provoking the dude to fire the shotgun, drinks some stolen beer, gets on the PA and accuses the villain of being an asshole and a bad shot, then blows the dude away, twirls his gun and disarms a bomb. Cobra is the most badass cop around and the movie hasn't even started yet.

Nothing says "Cop" like some badass threads

The entire movie, Cobra is perpetually wearing aviators, gloves, and chewing on a matchstick. Apparently this was hardcore in the 80s... Anyway the city is under seige by a serial killer known as the Night Slasher. You guessed it. He slashes people at night. But it's kinda tragic really. It's a compulsive act. He can't not slash. For pete's sake, there's time in the movie when he's trying to blend in and hide from Cobra in a crowd and he just slashes a dude. Another time, he slashes one of his own henchmen. He's just a poor, sick individual... with a compulsive need to slash Brigette Nielsen. Lucky for her, Cobra and his "partner" are ordered to protect her.



Poor guy's addicted to slashing people.
At night.

Did you notice we put "partner" in quotations? That's because Cobra works with a partner, Sgt. Gonzales. However, after close examination, we don't believe that Gonzales is an actual person. No, in fact, we believe Gonzales is the dark side of Cobra's psyche. Just hear us out. We noticed that no one actually talks to Gonzales except Cobra. Ok Brigette Nielsen talks to Gonzalez but she's really talking to Cobra, follow? Gonzales is an imaginary partner cooked up by Cobra! We say he's Cobra's dark side because he's always suggesting Cobra do bad things.

Gonzales: You know, when this is over with, I'd like to celebrate, by punching a hole in Monte's chest!
Cobra: You know what the trouble with you is? You're too violent!



Like Cobra, Gonzales refuses to wear a uniform, opting for
the ever dangerous jeff cap



Furthermore, it isn't until Gonzales is incapacitated and left behind that Cobra goes all psycho cop. The exciting conclusion takes place where all exciting conclusions in the 1980s took place: abandoned steel refineries that are somehow still active. Night Slasher and his army (yeah... we probably should've mentioned this earlier)...ok Night Slasher is part of a cult that's trying to kill the weak and usher in the future...? Sorry if that sounds weird. They don't really specify too much who or what the cult is. You just see em every now and then banging axes together. Pretty much, they needed a biker gang for Cobra to fight. Getting back to it, Cobra murderizes a whole biker gang with a little submachine gun with a laser pointer. We assume laser sights were introduced in 1986 because Cobra makes a big deal about having one. He keeps shining the red dot in people's eyes. They're all like "We get it Cobra".

The final showdown is super extreme. Night Slasher's got his knife, Cobra's got his laser machine gun. Night Slasher starts calling Cobra out, saying that he has rights. He has to go to jail and be given a fair trial.

Night Slasher: The court is civilized, isn't it pig?
Cobra : But I'm not. This is where the law stops and I start - sucker!

What normally goes on that hook into that furnace?

Cobra then throws Night Slasher onto a giant hook which then carries the ol' Slasher through a furnace. Afterwards Cobra strolls out where the entire police force is waiting. They're grateful but wish Cobra would've arrested somebody, anybody. Cobra laughs and punches the Captain in the face. Then he jacks an abandoned motorcycle and takes off with Brigette Nielsen. All in all, Cobra is a great action movie about a cop who just doesn't give a damn.

*Ryan's afterthoughts*

Hi all. Just an observation. As a criminal justice major, I think Cobra is a pretty awful cop with extreme homicidal tendencies and should be suspended or fired. He kills everyone. I admit, some are justified shootings, but he never attempts to arrest anyone. The only time Cobra reads anyone their Miranda rights is after he sets fire to them. Pretty extreme. That doesn't stop me from giving this film two thumbs up, however.

The Stuff

Dennis here, and The Stuff is my kinda movie. There are no famous people in it for me to know! And the ending is similar to how i would have done it.

The Stuff is such an action packed movie that there is barely any time to fit the back story into the film. In the first 30 seconds of the film, an old man finds a strange goo coming from the ground at a mine. Of course, his first instinct is to begin eating this strange new substance and tells his buddy that they could make a fortune selling it. Flash forward a few years and The Stuff is a national dessert sensation!

Everyone in America loves The Stuff, except for the rival dessert companies. So they hire industrial saboteur Mo Rutherford to find out what The Stuff really is in an attempt to duplicate the delicious treat. Mo has a terrible southern accent a wicked right hook (which he constantly uses to slug people throughout the film). He goes on a cross country adventure to investigate The Stuff, beginning in the small town where The Stuff was first tested.

Now just to be sure, you said I get to PUNCH everyone I meet along the way right?

The town is all but deserted, except for the gas station attendant (who runs off into the woods and disappears) and the post office man (who ends up being the extra in just about every scene).Here we also meet one of Mo's compadre's in the fight against The Stuff:

 (the link doesn't work if you click it, but you can copy/paste into your browser and it works fine. Its worth the effort!)

http://www.joblo.com/video/joblo/player.php?video=THE_STUFF-Best-Line

After punching out Chocolate Chip Charlie, the pair team up and investigate (steal) the mail from the postal man and learn the everyone has moved to Georgia. Its at this point that we learn The Stuff is BAD stuff, as it comsumes a person's mind and takes over their body. All four of the movie's extras attack Mo and Charlie, who lay waste to them with their bare fists and very easily escape on a boat. The pair splits up and plans to meet up in Georgia; Mo has to go recruit some more friends to combat the stuff.

First on his list is the woman who created the entire advertising scheme for The Stuff, and the second is one SERIOUSLY pissed off 9 year old. We're not sure why, but he hates The Stuff, and he flips his lid after seeing it move one night.

Eat some, and then maybe you can be part of the family again.

His dislike of the snack isn't helped by his abusive father who hits him, and terrible family that completely shuns him for not eating The Stuff. He eventually snaps and the result is one of the greatest scenes ever filmed:

 (the link doesn't work if you click it, but you can copy/paste into your browser and it works fine. Its worth the effort!)

http://www.joblo.com/video/joblo/player.php?video=THE_STUFF-Bad-Kid

Mo arrives at the boy's house and saves (kidnaps) him from his family, and then flies everyone to Georgia to take out The Stuff. Once there, Mo and the girl investigate the factory and processing plant, which is run by Stuffies (people controled by The Stuff). Meanwhile, the boy is still asleep on Mo's private plane when the postal man, who is now a Stuff truck driver, is trying to kill the kid by filling the plane with Stuff. The kid escapes and runs to the factory, which is apparently located at the end of the runway. He climbs into the completely unsafe shelter of a Stuff truck trailer and awaits rescue.

That night at the motel, Mo and the girl are attacked by their mattress, which is full of The Stuff! Unfortunately Mo's fists are useless against the goo, and he resorts to fire to burn it. Sadly, one of the film crew rushes onto the set to make sure the fire is under control and is subsequently socked by Mo and sent crashing into The Stuff:

Hey is everybody - OH JESUS CHRIST!!

Now that Mo and the girl are certain that The Stuffies are out to get them, they sneak back the factory and follow the convoy of trucks to a huge crater where The Stuff comes from. Rather than simply take pictures as evidence, Mo figures that he has to steal one of the trucks in order for the FDA to believe that the Stuff is harmful because its never processed...despite the fact that he was at the processing plant the prior day.

And so Mo sets some bombs, socks a few people, and steals the truck that the boy was hiding in. That's about as far as his plan goes though. This movie has been dragging on for quite some time, and to speed things up, his next idea is to enlist the help of a crazed old Army Colonel who lives in a castle with his own private militia:

"No no...we need you to help us stop THE STUFF!"  "Yea, the Commies! Got it!"

They convince the Colonel to help them by telling him The Stuff is a Communist secret weapon to take over America. At that, the Colonel musters up his troops and storms the factory, guns blazing. They then all fly to Atlanta where the Colonel owns a radio station, and they simply TELL people to stop eating The Stuff. Miraculously it works. It works so well that people have massive bonfires to destroy it. They demolish Stuff stands. They even go so far as to bomb the Stuff factory...it gets pretty violent pretty quick, and after a brief montage of destruction, the threat of The Stuff is over.

Or so we think! The film ends as a cliffhanger with plenty of room for a sequel, with a short clip showing the Stuff as being contraband in the underworld black market! Can you say Stuff 2000?!

Hercules in New York

This actually looks more like "Hercules in Fear City"

Total Recall! Predator! Terminator! Commando! Arnold Schwarzenegger is known for his fantastic action-packed movies and this film Hercules in New York may be the most awesome of all. We unearthed this movie, Arnold's debut, at the Mecca of Movies, Pathmark. Seriously, you can not go wrong with Patmark's movie section. We don't know about the food part of the store though. Regardless, Arnold plays Hercules and really sells the role well. Anyone else might've overacted or made the character seem more...overzealous than the master, Arnold. In the original film, released in 1969, Arnold was overdubbed because the studio believed his accent to be thick. Well we can say having watched the DVD with Arnold's original audio track, that his accent wasn't thick enough! People might also say that Arnold's acting was a bit stiff, but it makes perfect sense. If you were a superstrong Greek god, you would feel so detached from humanity and be bored running around Manhattan.

"AH'M TIRED'OV MOUH-TUH OLYMPUZ!"

The film begins with an exciting narration: "In a time when myth and mystery merged into mystery"! Now, Dennis made the point that "myth and mystery" haven't merged then, instead myth has assimilated into mystery. He then further demonstrated his point using some NesQuik powder and a glass of milk. Then he drank it.... Hercules is bored with Mt. Olympus and who can blame him? According to the set design, Mt. Olympus consists of Zeus' chair and Zeus' magic TV ball. Zeus gets ticked off at Hercules' constant whining and "explodes with anger" and hurls Hercules to Earth. He hops a freighter to New York and the hilarity ensues. The sailors try to make ol' Herc work on the ship, but Hercules works for no man. Instead he beats them all up.

It takes 2 guys using their arms in unison
to choke Arnold Schwarzenegger.

When the ship comes to port, Hercules ditches that ship resulting in another attack by the sailors. Apparently, the captain believed Herc to be a slave aboard the ship. Herc's not having any of it though. He beats everyone up, right in front of the greatest characters ever shown on the silver screen: Pretzie.

Pretzie: because "Joe" or "Bill" are names in lesser movies

Pretzie is a pretzel salesman. That's how he gets his name. He's got a basket of pretzels with him, but after we learn why he's called "Pretzie", we never see that basket again. Now we know what everyone is thinking. Pretzie sucks. Just look at him. You can just hear his little nasaly voice and you haven't even seen the movie. We felt the same way too. However, Pretzie won our hearts. He's just a lonely little guy and Herc's friendship makes him feel like he's somebody. That's touching. Freakin' Pretzie pullin' on our heart strings.

"AH LIKE YOU, PRETZIE.
DAT'Z WHY AH'M GONNA KILL YOU LAST"

Uh... Pretzie helps Herc around New York. Herc enjoys the Big Apple but uses every opportunity to prove how much cooler he is than any mortal. It's bad enough he's Arnold Schwarzenegger standing next to a shrimp like Pretzie, he's gotta show everyone up as well. He even outperforms the U.S. Olympic Track and Field team in Central Park, which is where we get my second favorite character ever produced on screen, Professor Camden.

Camden, NJ is a notoriously shady city and we can't help but be influenced by our proximity to Camden. In reality, Prof. Camden is a nice guy with a hot daughter, but in the back of our minds, we're just waiting for Prof. Camden to shank Pretzie and rob him. We're not even really sure what his role in the movie was. Speaking for myself, whenever he spoke on screen, another voice played in my head and overrode his actual lines. It was all bad stuff too. Like he might've said "Oh that Hercules is so strong" but in my head, Prof. Camden was saying "Nobody sells any coke in this town without Daddy getting a taste".

The nefarious Professor Camden plots to destroy Hercules

As the movie progresses, Pretzie gets Herc to start a wrestling career so they can get that money. Of course, they make a little too much money and pretty soon, the mob comes in to collect. Now Herc's wrestling for them. But Herc's too busy with Miss Camden, daughter of Professor Camden. She's all giddy for superstrong guys but not too bright. She fails to realize that Hercules is THE Hercules. He's not even trying to hide it!

Hercules takes every opportunity to prove he's Hercules. Here he is proving why the actor
featured on the poster behind him is not Hercules.

 On one date in Central Park, a grizzly bear escapes and interrupts Herc's date. Bad move, bear. What comes next is the single greatest battle between man and animal ever filmed. Forget King Kong. Forget Aliens. Herc and that bear fight to the death! Neither one giving an inch, neither one surrendering.

"GUARRGHGHARGAGHGH"

Around this time, Juno, Zeus' wife who hates Herc, steals Herc's strength. Real bad news for ol Herc and Pretzie. They just put a huge bet on Herc winning a weight-lifting competition. If they lose, the mob's gonna ice 'em! And guess what? They do lose. What results is a awe-inspiring chariot/car chase across New York. In the end, Zeus returns Hercules' strength, reasoning that "no mortal will ever best a son of Zeus!". Hercules quickly kills the mob. It's not shown on screen, but c'mon. We can infer. And so, Hercules and Pretzie return to their normal bachelor lives....we wish. In fact, Hercules decides to return to Mt. Olympus without even saying good-bye to Pretzie. And here's where our hearts broke. That's right! Broke! You may think we're hardened men watching movies like Dracula 3000 and Fear City... We thought we were too actually. But Pretzie returns to his apartment alone. We're a little concerned because he sorta develops a problem with alcohol after the mob threaten him way back when. He's so depressed as he pines over Hercules and how he's gonna go back to being a lonely schmuck selling pretzels down at the docks. We sat on the edge of our seats, praying the movie wasn't going to take a dramatic shift and end with Pretzie's suicide. Luckily, Herc uses his radio station atop Mt. Olympus and tells Pretzie through his radio that he'll be back whenever he wants to hang out. A happy ending!

"AHTENTION PRETZIE! DIS IZ HERCULES! AH'M
INZIDE DAH RAY-DE-OH!

We loved Hercules in New York  and are holding out for a sequel. Now's the time! We've actually prepared a rough draft for a script. Ok... here goes... Professor Camden wants to steal Hercules' strength with a giant laser and he knows the only way to lure Herc down from Mt. Olympus is to threaten Pretzie's life! That's good, right? Oh and guess what? Professor Camden has a partner. Oh don't worry, it's nothing too serious... Just a grizzly bear ghost! A grizzly bear ghost of the one Herc kills in the aforementioned film! It could happen... As soon as we mail the script out to L.A. Until next time!

Demon Knight

We’ve talked about Billy Zane in these posts, and we’ve talked about Tales From The Crypt movies in these posts. And as eloquently written as those posts were, we realize it left you wanting more. You were thinking “We LOVE Billy Zane as much as you. Can’t we see more of him?” and “Is there anyone better than Dennis Miller to star in a Tales From The Crypt movie?” Well, we are proud to say that the answer of both of those questions is a resounding YES. Yes there is a more suited man to be the star of a Crypt Keeper-driven vehicle, and yes, that man is none other than THE Billy Zane. This wonderful marriage of over-the-top machismo and gory, colorful special effects is a little piece of cinema heaven called DEMON KNIGHT.

By this point in time, we all know what Billy Zane is about. He’s the guy who uses his charming smile and debonair attitude to get away with doing pretty much anything he wants. He’s exempt from reading lines, developing a flair for character, rehearsing, or even conversing with his fellow actors between takes. The bottom line is that Billy Zane does what Billy Zane wants, and the way he sees it, we are all better people for having witnessed Billy Zane do what Billy Zane does best—be Billy Zane. It doesn’t matter what character he is cast as, either. A superhero, a rich fiancé, a politician….and in this particular case, EVIL. That’s right, evil. It’s never really clarified if he is the devil, or if he is a demon, or maybe even the grim reaper. He is sometimes referred to as “the collector”. All we know is that Billy Zane is trying to get William Sadler, because William Sadler has in his possession the flask of magic glowing green juice that we first saw in Bordello of Blood.

The directors repeatedly told Billy Zane to go into wardrobe and find something EVIL, but all he heard them say was "Sweet-ass Cowboy Costume."

William Sadler plays Brayker, a renegade with a secret who is quickly holed up in what seems to be the last (and only) resort around. It is a hotel that we soon find is full of a who’s who of horror movie stereotypes. We have Irene, the older, heavier black proprietor of the establishment, her employee/possible daughter Jerryline, who handles the oddjobs and the cooking, the hooker with the heart of gold, Cordelia, the timid man who is in love with the hooker, the town drunk, Uncle Willy, and last but not least, Thomas Hayden Church, the scumbag of the movie, appropriately named Roach.

The first few minutes of this film lead us to believe that Billy Zane is the hero and that Brayker is the villain, but Billy Zane almost immediately ruins that theory by beheading one police officer and ripping the heart out of the other’s chest, using his bare hands, of course. It is at that point we were amazed to discover that Billy Zane was EVIL!

Over the course of the next hour and a half or so, Billy Zane tries to get into the house (that is guarded by the magic green juice), by individually seducing each member of our beloved motley crue. He tells the stripper that she is beautiful, he tells Roach that he ought to be the leader of the group sicne he is the manliest of all of them, he offers Uncle Willy a party room full of booze and half-naked chicks. Finally, he comes back to the usual “F This. It’s Billy Zane Time!” and just rips Irene’s arm out of the socket and punches the timid man’s head off, before finally unleashing a horde of demons that kinda look like the Violator monsters from the Spawn comic book.

Eventually we are down to Billy Zane versus Jerryline, and during an awkward scene that we are sure was not meant to make the final cut, Billy Zane decides to dance with her instead of kill her (we can hear him now “These people paid good money to see Billy Zane, and when you pay to see Billy Zane, you are gonna get dancing, dammit!”), Jerryline manages to ultimately succeed (How, you ask? Watch the movie!) and destroy the collector…..or so we think.

As with most movies starring Billy Zane, you don’t really know how to take the ending. We aren’t sure if it was intentional, or if Billy Zane just showed up the next day and demanded to continue being filmed. Either way, the three of us are still eagerly awaiting Demon Knight 2!

"Y'all wasn't serious 'bout killing off ol' Billy Zane, were you? I thought maybe you were joking, so here I am. "

Dracula 3000

1000x better than Dracula 2000

Halloween is fast approaching and we'd like to continue our blog with some horror films that have ultimately changed our lives. Now if you're like us (and even if you're not) you probably enjoy a good vampire movie. They drink people's blood, they turn into bats, and they explode in sunlight. This past year we've viewed a multitude of vampire films from Daybreakers (an Oscar-worthy production) to Sundown (a life-altering roller coaster ride of a movie). Unfortunately, it all became a bit mundane. We saw vampires in the city, we saw them in the country, we saw them in Arizona and we saw them in Forks, Washington. Wasn't there a movie that put vampires in a wild and crazy locale?! Of course there was, you silly goose. Enter: Dracula 3000, the greatest movie that finally puts vampires where they've never been before. SPACE.

Just in case you were completely lost, space looks something like this.

Our movie starts in space with the most bodacious crew ever assembled on a salvage ship. Erika Eliniak (of Bordello of Blood fame), Tommy "Tiny" Lister (that convict from Dark Knight who throws the detonator out the window), Coolio, and freakin' Casper Van Dien! If these guys were on the Enterprise, we still wouldn't watch Star Trek.... Um...moving on. Casper Van Dien and his crew are salvagers when they discover an abandoned ship near the planet Transylvania. Casper Van Dien, being the clever businessman that he is, decides that abandoned ship is his now, so he and his crew shoot over onto the ship to check it out. Bad move, Casper Van Dien. His crew and him get stuck on the abandoned ship! Mega spooky! It gets even worse for them. If you're easily scared or squeamish, please scroll down and read The Phantom post. We promise you can stomach it. There's no shame in leaving. Okay everyone gone? Let's contine, you brave reader!

And you thought he was cool because of "Fantastic Voyage"

Coolio and Tiny find the ship's cargo which turns out to be a buncha coffins. Coolio thinks the coffins are being used to smuggle drugs. Silly Coolio! Vampires are in those coffins! Actually, there's only one: Count Orlock! Oddly enough, you'd expect him to be Count Dracula since the title of the movie is Dracula 3000... but a title doesn't make a movie, right? Anyway, Orlock quickly turns Coolio into Count Coolio who attacks the crew. Things look bad. Thankfully Casper Van Dien is onboard! He can kill any vampire and we fully expected him to kill Orlock and start making out on Erika Eliniak. Here's the thing: Casper Van Dien has it in his contract that he only works a certain amount of hours on one movie. That time expires somewhere around 45 mins into the movie. Tiny and Erika rush into a room and find Casper Van Dien already a vampire. We know. We were shocked and so were Tiny and Erika. They were sure the script had Casper Van Dien killing Orlock at the end. Regardless, they impale him on a spear. Casper Van Dien is out of the movie from this point on.

"It's been 36 hours. You know the deal. Van Dien out."

Not to worry, Tiny quickly undergoes a character change from "dumb, giant guy" to "manly hero". After this, Orlock doesn't stand a chance. In fact, in our favorite scene in the movie, Tiny is trying to close a door that Orlock is on the other side of. Orlock uses all his supernatural strength to catch his prey but Tiny overpowers that undead fiend and closes the door on Orlock's arm, ripping it out of the socket. Orlock screams the Lord's name and subsequently disappears from the film.

"Gimme that pool cue, and I'll do what you should
did ten min'nus ago"

Before we conclude, we would like to make special mention of "Dracula" in Dracula 3000. Consider the movie poster at the top. From we what we see, this vampire is an android with vampire and machine parts. Pretty scary but not creative enough. Admit it. You yawned when you saw it. It's understandable. That poster must've been designed by some guy thinking Dracula 3000 was some straight-to-DVD garbage, not the soon-to-be classic that it truly is. Luckily, the "Dracula" featured in the film is one we can all fear and respect.

Dracula 3000: Proving that Party City still
has kick ass costumes.

Until next time, folks!

Sssssss

Sssssss. Onomatopoeia at its finest

Sssssss (That's seven S's) is a rare treasue that we could never have hoped to find in a million years. This one comes to us recommended by Jennifer Thompson, a connoisseur of snake movies or musicals. We're not sure one way or the other. Regardless, we are eternally grateful. Why was this movie so hard to find you ask? It probably had something to do with PETA, we bet. We couldn't even find Sssssss on VHS, let alone DVD. We had to go and download it off a torrent. As for the PETA comment, before the film starts, a note appears on the screen explaining that all the snakes used in the film are real as well as the danger associated with them. We think that's mighty rad, especially considering the threat represented by the King Cobra and Black Mamba. Unfortunately, the animals take a lotta crap during this film which we're sure got it banned somewhere.

Dr. Stoner decides to Kung Fu a King Cobra. This should raise some red flags.

At it's core, Sssssss is a cautionary tale about the dangers of accepting a job without really reading the fine print. First let's meet Dr. Stoner. That's him up there. He's an oddball herpetologist (that's a reptile specialist). He keeps a pet snake Harry who he gets wasted with. Him and Harry are always knocking back a bottle of Jack. Now he needs a new lab assistant. His last one, Tim, well... we'll meet him later. Anyway, Dr. Stoner (that's really his name) goes to the local college and interrupts a Snake class to find a new lab partner. Yes, there is a Snake class going on. Apparently, snakes have a huge part in this town. The economy is probably hugely supported by snakes. Moving on, Dr. Stoner takes our young hero, David under his wing. First, he introduces David to all the snakes in the lab. This is where we get some neato facts about snakes, from this one tiny snake that Dr. Stoner jabs at to prove it won't bite, to the King Cobra, who Dr. Stoner fights on weekends for money. Come to think of it, Dr. Stoner might not be a herpetologist at all. But we digress, Dr. Stoner also introduces David to his daughter Christina, who he immediately gets the hots for, and why wouldn't he? Check her out:

"This is Christina, my daughter. You touch her, I'll turn you into a snake, you hear?"

Unfortunately she has terrible eyesight. There are a few times in the movie where we see through her eyes and it's just a blur. Now it doesn't really affect the rest of the movie, but we wanted to tell you anyway. Back to David. A fun fact about David is that he leaves right from the school to live with the Stoners. So, he's only got the clothes he came with. He wears the same blue shirt through the whole thing. Also, David is the most oblivious guy ever in the history of working with snakes. Dr. Stoner immediately starts "inocculating" David against snake venom. This seems ordinary, at least if David actually worked with the snakes. Instead, Dr. Stoner sends him to bed. Pretty much, all David does is get his shots, eat dinner, hit on Christina, and go to bed. You'd think his being hired as a lab assistant and Dr. Stoner's treatment of him would raise some questions. David starts feeling the results of these shots which he still believes to be "inocculations" no matter how weird the side effects get.

"What? Of course it's normal. Now get yourself a cookie and then off to bed"

Obviously, David's not the brightest guy around but we do admire his pursuit of Christina. He's driving her around, supposed to be doing snake-related things as per his job, when he decides to get her to go skinny-dipping. Later on, when Harry the snake dies (from alcohol poisoning we're sure) David sees this as an opportunity to get freaky. "Hey babe, sorry your snake died... wanna get naked?" Of course it works. When Dr. Stoner finds out, he flips. This isn't your average "I can't believe my lab assistant slept with my daughter" flip out either. He's really just worried about Christina giving birth to a snake child. That's right folks. That magical juice Dr. Stoner has been pumping into David the entire movie is turning him into a snake! For some off the wall reason, Dr. Stoner is worried about fuel shortages in the near future. By turning people into snakes, we won't have that problem. Think about it. Snakes can't drive cars. Why would they need fuel? Remember Tim from earlier? His old lab assistant? Dr. Stoner did the same thing to him but the serum was imperfect, resulting in this little beauty:

"Hi y'all, it's me Tim"

                                      
Christina figures this out when she sees Snakeman's blue eyes. "Tiiiimm!!!! NOOOOO!!!!" she screams, making poor Tim just feel worse about his situation. She rushes back home where Dr. Stoner's serum is nearly finished with David. In a matter of minutes (this serum is THAT good) David's limbs fuse with his body and he shrinks into a King Cobra.... Literally. Our favorite part of this whole thing is the climax because it all seems to go to Hell. First, Dr. Stoner takes the original King Cobra to tell him how he made a better one outta David. In the middle of this little speech, the King Cobra just straight up bites him. We believe this was unplanned and the actor playing Dr. Stoner died then and there. Inside the lab, Snake David is slithering around when a mongoose up and breaks outta his cage and starts beating the #@^& outta David. (This is where PETA would be mad) The cops show up with Christina and blow the first Cobra up with a shotgun. Then they run in and find David and the mongoose. Christina screams "David! No, not you too!" because as bad as her vision is, her heart knows when David's a snake. Abruptly the movie goes black and we're left to decide for ourselves if they shot Snake David or not.

Whew. It's quite an emotional thrill ride, isn't it? And you haven't even seen it yet! Now, like we said, the moral of the story is you shouldn't accept jobs from guys named Dr. Stoner who have a penchant for getting their snakes drunk. Furthermore, if they don't expect you to work and keep shooting chemicals into your system, that's probably not a good thing either. On the surface, Sssssss is a cautionary tale but peel back the layers and it's really a tragic love story about Christina and how all her boyfriends are turned into snakes by her overbearing father. Tragic, we tell you, tragic. But, watching this movie won't be tragic for you. We strongly urge you ask for this movie at your local Blockbuster. They probably won't have it, but the title is incredibly fun to say!

It's worth mentioning that Dr. Stoner created an earlier serum that gave Christina Chewbacca-like qualities

Hard Rock Zombies

Hard Rock Zombies is a rare jewel among movies - its like two (if not three) movies in one. And this greatness is only muliplied by its extremely low price of seventy-seven cents. However, its placement in the discount bin at Pathmark is beyond all comprehension because this film is pure genius, intertwining various different plots and subplots with other subplots even more complex than Lost.

Ok, so it starts out with a kick-ass rock concert at the local bar with THE BAND. The name of the band isn't mentioned and therefore isn't important. They're too hard rock for band names! Fittingly, the members of the band are also basically nameless except for the lead singer/bassist Jesse:


He's on the right. And oh yea, he's a pedophile but we'll touch on that later.

 So anyway, they're like the most rocking-est band ever, kicking over drums and jumping around stage and what have you and then have a super rad backstage autograph session with their tween fans (Hey, its the Eighties, kids could go to bars!)

After the gig they head to Grand Guignol, where their next event is scheduled to take place. En route, Jesse plays a few notes on the bass and remarks "This song is supposed to bring people back from the dead." (Hopefully if you're watching, you didn't sneeze or shift positions on a squeaky couch or you missed it and you'll be totally lost later on in the movie.) The only problem is that the townspeople HATE rock and roll music. Why? Because its a well -known fact that all adults hate glam rock and roll and everything related to this music is both evil and satanic. Just look at these hooligans!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l-scmdpfp8

Look at them! Dancing! Drinking Soda! Skateboarding! Panto-miming at the bus stop!! It's no wonder those adults are so displeased, their town can do without such deviance! The Band end up in jail and a young girl named Cassie tries to free them.

Notice how she's like 14?

She warns them about how the townspeople hate them, and how the people who bailed them out of jail are bad people, but Jesse is too busy falling in love with the minor. And to worsen the deal he even admits to his pedophilia by writing and singing a song entitled "I'm so in love but you're so young"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQsGLuIEe2s&feature=related

(sure this is a lot of videos, but hey - its a musical movie isnt it?! BTW the song doesn't start until about 2:30 into the vid)

OK so now we have The Band in Grand Guignol staying with a mysterious family that bailed them out of jail. And the band is struggling to practice for this gig and fighting against the town to have their concert. Sounds like your typical Rock and Roll movie right? Well this is where you're WRONG, because during practice, the family electrocutes them! Begin movie #2 - The Horror!

Turns out they're all freaks: two midgets, one with an eye patch and one with a melted face, a guy with a camera, a temptress with a knife, a creepy groundskeeper, and a werewolf grandma in the attic. I know what you're thinking: "Wait, did you just say a WEREWOLF? I thought it was Hard Rock Zombies?!" Well keep your pants on I'm getting to that!
The Band survives the electrocution and ends up being killed one-by-one by the freak family. Luckily Cassie shows up just in time to take the tape of Jesse's revival bass track just before he gets weedwackered to death.

At this point we learn that the freak family is led by none other than Adolph Hitler, and he has been in disguise since the end of World War II.

Begin Movie #3 - The Historical What-If! It's almost as if Hitler was actually taking over the movie with his new plot to begin taking over America with his mountain cave gas chamber, and he just had to get rid of the Band cast members to do it.

Meanwhile, the townspeople have just outlawed Rock and Roll to stop their concert. But that's not important because Movie #1 has been over for a long time now. Now its a movie about Hitler's secret plan! Except Cassie played the tape and now the band is re-animated as the Hard Rock Zombies! Actually they look more like Kiss than Zombies but thats just cuz their HARD ROCK Zombies. Begin Movie #4 - the Zombie Film!

And this is where the chaos begins, because all 4 of these movies are happeneing simultaneously and interacting like its the Great Movie Ride. The band gets their revenge on the freak family by murdering them all before heading to town to perform their concert. That's right, the zombie band from movie #4 is now acting out the plots from the first movie as well.

Back at the freak mansion, the dead freaks are now zombies and have begun to kill townspeople and turn them into zombies. And a chain reaction commences until only a handful of survivors, the band manager, and Cassie remain human. With their concert complete, the band has no more movie plots to follow and disappears from the film while the survivors try to figure out what the f--- happened to Movie #1 and cope with Movie #4 (The Zombies). Eventually they devise a plan to tie Cassie to a tree and let the zombies rape her, which will somehow solve everything.

Luckily, The Band comes to her rescue and plays one final Kick Ass Rock Show to lure the zombies into Hitler's Secret Mountain Gas Chamber - they played the bass-eriffic tune of course, with some death metal chanting to go along with it. With the zombies trapped inside, they turn on the mustard gas and kill the undead.

At this point its not really clear which movie we finished watching, all we know is that it was a real epic of a love story if ever there was one. Lying at Jesse's grave, Cassie confesses her love for him (so what if they met a day ago?) and a hand bursts through the dirt with a ring clenched in it. Thats True Love right there folks.

BORDELLO OF BLOOD

Chris here and I am writing to proudly present to you the cinematic mastery that is Bordello of Blood. The origin of why we watched this movie is two-fold. As a child, I used to watch Tales From The Crypt with my older brother and my mom, during the short period of time when we enjoyed HBO on the “hot box” that was a staple in the neighborhood homes. I remember we adored the scary shows like Are You Afraid of the Dark, and Goosebumps, and Tales From The Crypt was a more grown-up version of those shows. In Tales, the characters often met a gruesome demise that (unlike the endings of their childish counterparts, which always had happy endings), shocked and amused the three of us for reasons I can’t exactly begin to explain. The added bonus, and the part that kept this show on the air for so long, was the Crypt Keeper, a decrepit-looking muppet zombie, that was always right on key with a golden zinger to coincide with the episode's conclusion. For example, if a guy had his head cut off by his disgruntled employer, the Crypt Keeper would regale the audience with something along the lines of “he just wanted to get A HEAD at work!” We would laugh along with the Crypt Keeper’s ridiculous observations, somewhat uneasy but with unabashed respect for this weird little guy’s twisted sense of humor.

                         "sweet screams, boils and ghouls"...that's us! he means boys and girls!

The second factor that drew us into this movie is Dennis Miller. I doubt Dennis knew who Dennis Miller was, and even today he might not be able to describe him. The fact that they share the same first name will also add to the confusion of putting a name to a face. But I think Ryan’s first exposure to Dennis Miller was on a short lived program on the VS. Channel, wherein Dennis Miller sat on a stool inside a blue room that resembled something from the Matrix. Dennis Miller also is one to make quirky observations and snide remarks, but unlike the Crypt Keeper, no one laughed uneasily at his jokes…..no one laughed at all. We still don’t know if his show was filmed in front of a live audience or not.

 "The Miami Dolphins Special Teams unit is like a girl on a scooter chasing after after a box of squirrels tied to the exhaust pipe of a pickup truck going 40mph down the freeway, am I right?"

This sums up the duration of Dennis Miller's show on VS... him, alone in a room, laughing at his own jokes.

The only laughter we ever heard during his show was when he was ruin his own bad joke by laughing in the middle of it, all the whilst shaking his head furiously to one side, a la Night at the Roxbury. I knew Dennis Miller from his stint as a Monday Night Football commentator, and before that, as a Saturday Night Live cast member. Never once during that span did he do or say anything remotely funny.

The idea to pitch together two of the world’s most awkward and uncomfortable one-liner artists may have seemed like a good idea on paper, but it wasn’t until that plan was put into action that we saw how great of a combination it truly was. The result: BORDELLO OF BLOOD!

Miller plays are sleazy pervert/hero of the film, Rafe Guttman. With in the first three minutes of meeting Rafe, we learn that he is a divorced, alcoholic, deadbeat, private investigator who is struggling to stay in business and who’s office may of may not be in the back of an old movie theater. He stalks/meets Katherine (Erika Elianak, of Dracula 3000 fame) at a local police station, and offers to take her case after the local authorities pass on it. After a few minutes of awkward advances and even more awkward Dennis Miller trademark humor, we are off!

Where are we off to? To find Corey Feldman of course! Corey Feldman plays the role of Katherine’s brother, Caleb, but it looks like he though he was in the sequel to Lost Boys.

Dressing like Edgar Frog didn't pan out so well for Corey this time around.

Anyway, just like most teens in horror films, Corey Feldman and his buddies are just looking to get laid, and, on this fateful night, they believe their best best chance of getting lucky is doing what a crazy, high, strung out Diamond Dallas Page tells them – to go down to the old funeral home after midnight. If a strung out stranger comes up to you at a bar and starts snorting and screaming at you, wouldn’t you trust him?

And it is at this funeral home/bordello where we meet a bevy of undead prostitutes, led by Lillith, the undead vampire madam (Angie Everhart). Lillith needs to drink your blood to keep herself young and alive, and she does just that throughout the movie. This post is getting pretty long and I don’t want to spoil too much of the fun, so here is just a short list of things you can expect when you make one of the smartest moves of your life and watch Bordello of Blood: A Fender guitar-shredding televangelist (played awesomely by Fright Night's Chris Sarandon!), a midget excavator, CGI effects that would trump anything you'll ever see on SyFy Channel, Dennis Miller having a Super Soaker fight with a bunch of half-naked vampire chicks, a nod to the other Tales From The Crypt movie, Demon Knight (starring THE Billy Zane!) and of course, plenty of playful banter from both Dennis Miller and the Crypt Keeper that will keep you laughing (or looking around in uncomfortable silence) all night.

"Is it just me, or is that broad in the photo above me completely Bazzoo Bazzoo? You dig what I'm sayin?"

The Phantom

One word comes to mind when one thinks of The Phantom. BADASS. Just look at this movie poster. The Phantom doesn't wanna just fight crime or prevent muggings. He wants to "SLAM EVIL". Just full out body slam the crap outta Evil. All of it. Every Evil thing he can find. If you're Evil, he's gonna put on his purple pajamas, find you, and punch you in the face with his skull ring. Of course, that could take forever so instead he sits in his Skull Cave on the island of Bengalla until Evil comes his way.



"As soon as someone does evil, I'm gonna slam the crap outta them. Just wait."

 The villains are BADASS. Before we watched it, we trusted Treat Williams. Ok, we only knew Treat Williams from some movie we watched for 6 mins where Meg Ryan loses her kids and we were SURE that Treat Williams was gonna beat Meg Ryan at the end of the movie... Regardless, he sounded like a nice guy. "Treat" is usually something good. Brace yourselves. Treat Williams plays the villain! He's Xander Drax a meglomaniac and he proves just how BADASS he is by killing people in insane ways. He kills one guy with a trap microscope that shoots knives outta the eyepieces when you turn the focus knob. It's a lotta set-up but it's supremely BADASS. When a member of his organization tries to leave, Drax hurls a spear at him. A spear! Now he's questing for the Skulls of Toguanda: three magic skulls that when assembled, produce a force 1000x greater than a bomb! 1000x!!! This is a most BADASS weapon. Unfortunately one is on Bengalla and you know what that means. Only one man can stop Treat Williams now.... Billy Zane.

Billy Zane fails to stop Drax from uniting the Skulls

The Phantom is played by the only man born for the job: Billy Zane. Let's face it. Billy Zane is the greatest actor of all time and he knows it. That's why in all his movies, he plays the role like he's doing the world a favor. Just look at the way he nonchalantly saves Kristy Swanson from Catherine Zeta-Jones http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOMsiHwYg6Y&feature=related

"You're Welcome"

Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Drax's henchwoman and Kristy Swanson plays the Phantom's love interest, Diana Palmer. She ends up in Bengalla when her uncle sends her there to collect information about Drax's acitivities. Also she knows Billy Zane from college but doesn't realize he's the Phantom. Either way they're both pretty hot and they're into the Phantom. Who are we kidding? Of course, they're into the Phantom. It's Billy Zane. He was in Titanic. We haven't seen Titanic but we would if Billy Zane slammed Evil in it. Maybe towards they end, he fights the Titanic? That'd be worth watching.

 Now we know what you're thinking. You're saying "Ryan, Dennis, Chris Film Appreciation Society, this movie is so BADASS I can't take it. Please just let me watch 'Slumdog Millionaire' before I implode". And when we say it gets even more BADASS, you're pleading for us to stop. Well we won't stop because we can't stop. We used to be like you. We guffawed at The Phantom when we saw the DVD, laying there in a 2 for $5 bin at Wal-mart. But we watched it and now we're spreading the word so you'd better listen up. Ok here it goes... towards the end of the film, Drax (with the Phantom pursuing) head to the Devil's Vortex, a most BADASS place, to find the final skull. As you watch the film, you're thinking "Oh this is where the film wraps up I guess". Heck no. HECK NO. Drax can't get his hands on the skull cuz freakin' Shang Tsung shows up. That's right. The guy from Mortal Kombat.


On a side note, when Shang Tsung gets mad in the film,
he becomes impossible to understand. It's a lotta "puh" sounds.


There's a lot of spoilers in the above paragraphs but we feel no remorse. The film came out in '96. It's time the rest of the world caught up. Besides there's plenty of BADASS scenes we haven't even mentioned. Here's one: "No smoking in the Skull Cave". See? What's that about you wonder? Who's smoking in the Skull Cave? Shang Tsung (or whatever his name is in The Phantom)? Just trust us. There's no possible way you can go wrong with this masterful achievement in American cinema.