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