Ack's pre-gaming October thread

[Ack]

Noise, email sent.

Jmustang, I'm glad you liked it! It's not great, but it is certainly amusing and entertaining. I hope your grandpa liked it too.

Nemoide, dude, do you still have it on laserdisc? Demon Wind was... something. Something hilariously terrible. I love when a movie is so bad, I keep asking myself what the hell I'm watching. When the jock dude starts flat out making out with the hero's girlfriend, I had a moment like that. And then the magicians showed up. Comedy gold.

[noiseredux]

I saw The Predator last night, and thought it was a good throwback to early 90's cheese. It felt like the kind of thing that could have been on Cinemax back then or something. Which, I mean, Shane Black and Fred Dekker - so yeah. It was a good time. Fun and mostly mindless.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Great thread. I’m gearing up some movies for this year, and I am excited to delve into Prime Video’s collection of horror films. As Michi undoubtedly knows, that service has some really obscure titles.

[Ack]

7. The Flying Serpent

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but Q: The Winged Serpent is a better movie than this.

A greedy archaeologist discovers Montezuma's sacred treasure as well as Quetzacoatl, a half-bird/half-lizard critter that's really picky about letting folks have its feathers. The archaeologist uses the lizard bird to kill anyone who gets in his way. Unfortunately, he murders a famous ornithologist in the process, which leads to a radio station sending a mystery writer./amateur detective to investigate and do a live radio broadcast each day. In the process, said radio personality falls in love with the archaeologist's step-daughter as the lizard bird kills more people...until eventually our amateur figures everything out, and the archaeologist accidentally gets himself killed by his own animal, which is then shot to death and revealed to be a little larger than a football...which is odd, because it was man-sized previously. Oh well. Meanwhile, the radio station boss gets all mad that the detective dude didn't bring him any treasure and commits workplace harassment by slugging a producer. Oh, the 1940s were a magical time when you could beat subordinates, harass women, and treat minorities like dirt without a care in the world! Truly, it was the greatest generation.

Look, I gotta give it some credit. This movie is from 1946, and while it's basically a remake of a previous horror film that used a giant bat instead of an Aztec god, it feels like a crappy B-movie of the 1950s, except with less atomic fear. And that's all the credit I feel like giving it. The acting is hammy, the camera work and lighting shoddy, and the big monster changes in size and is a crappy looking puppet. The radio hosting plotline serves solely as a vehicle to get the amateur hero out there and then serves no more purpose beyond letting the radio crewman act as comic relief...which he does fairly well, constantly cracking wise and acting goofy. He's pretty much the only character I liked because he was such a blatant goofball. That sums up the movie entirely.

I'll also praise the run time: it's an hour, so you only lose one of those in your life watching this. Any longer would have been pure agony.

1. DeepStar Six
2. Harbinger Down
3. Island Claws
4. Rabid
5. Attack of the Killer Donuts
6. Demon Wind
7. The Flying Serpent

[Michi]

I’m gearing up some movies for this year, and I am excited to delve into Prime Video’s collection of horror films. As Michi undoubtedly knows, that service has some really obscure titles.

Oh dear god, yes. I've got a huge watchlist already queued up in preparation. I think I'm going to do a combination of Prime and the pile of VHS tapes I've found this year.

[marurun]

Anyone wanna borrow my VHS copy of Demonicus for October?

[Ack]

8. Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings

It should be stated that Blood Wings means something very different to me than what it was supposed to mean in this film. If you don't know what they are...well, you're a lucky fella.

In the first movie, Pumpkinhead is used as a tool for revenge. In the second film, Pumpkinhead is getting revenge for his own murder. Or the murder of his feral son. Or he fathered himself to get revenge for his son's murder. I don't know, the important thing is that Pumpkinhead is his own grandpa, and he's accidentally summoned as a prank by a bunch of dumb teenage hoodlums and then goes on a killing spree against the bunch of dumb teenage hoodlums who are now offensive stereotypes of rural people for murdering his son/himself. It's like a weird demon mobius strip of violence and revenge.

The important thing is that one of the new dumb teenage hoodlums is also the daughter of the new local sheriff, and he's got his backwoods childhood but also his slick city ways and city education to solve the mystery and fight the demon. Also, he's got a sidekick: a black woman who's the local doctor/coroner and happens to know the local legends but doesn't necessarily believe them. Also, the black guy doesn't die first. In fact, the black guy dies near the end, but he has time to enjoy his interracial romance with a white girl, so props for this movie being woke way before that was a term. Good job, Pumpkinhead II!

Did you all know there are four Pumpkinhead films?

So yeah, the sheriff and coroner eventually figure out that it really is Pumpkinhead/Son of Pumpkinhead out there killing folks and go to confront it as it goes after the last set of victims, culminating in a showdown in which the sheriff shouts angrily at a posse of farmers with shotguns as they shoot a bloody Pumpkinhead pinata over an abandoned but surprisingly well-maintained mineshaft/well. Oh, and the film starts in color in the 1950s but immediately goes to black and white, then back to color for the present, then back to black and white for flashbacks, particularly around the mineshaft/well with Pumpkinhead/Son of Pumpkinhead...

Most importantly, this film has shovel-cam. And for that, it deserves your attention.

As confused as I am, I actually kinda liked the film. There are also a bunch of folks in it who are there for horror fans to enjoy: Andrew Robinson, Linnea Quigley, Kane Hodder, R. A. Mihailoff...you'll even see Punky Brewster get murdered! Woo!

1. DeepStar Six
2. Harbinger Down
3. Island Claws
4. Rabid
5. Attack of the Killer Donuts
6. Demon Wind
7. The Flying Serpent
8. Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings

[prfsnl_gmr]

I’m gearing up some movies for this year, and I am excited to delve into Prime Video’s collection of horror films. As Michi undoubtedly knows, that service has some really obscure titles.

Oh dear god, yes. I've got a huge watchlist already queued up in preparation. I think I'm going to do a combination of Prime and the pile of VHS tapes I've found this year.

Awesome. Here’s what’s on my watchlist currently:

Bone Tomahawk
Phenomena
Tales from the Crypt
Asylum
Shivers
Children Shouldn’t play with Dead Things
Attack of the Mushroom People
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Frightmare
The Invasion
It Comes At Night
Little Shop of Horrors (In Color!)
Behind the Mask
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Monkey’s Paw
Dan Curtis’ Dracula Starring Jack Palance
The Stepfather
The Day of the Triffids
The Killer Bats

Any I should drop? Any good, obscure titles I should add? There’s just so much there...

EDIT: I just added The Ghoul and Burn, Witch, Burn! There’re just too many down the “customers also watched” rabbit hole!

[Michi]

I’m gearing up some movies for this year, and I am excited to delve into Prime Video’s collection of horror films. As Michi undoubtedly knows, that service has some really obscure titles.

Oh dear god, yes. I've got a huge watchlist already queued up in preparation. I think I'm going to do a combination of Prime and the pile of VHS tapes I've found this year.

Awesome. Here’s what’s on my watchlist currently:

Bond a Tomahawk
Phenomena
Tales from the Crypt
Asylum
Shivers
Children Shouldn’t play with Dead Things
Attack of the Mushroom People
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Frightmare
The Invasion
It Comes At Night
Little Shop of Horrors (In Color!)
Behind the Mask
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Monkey’s Paw
Dan Curtis’ Dracula Starring Jack Palance
The Stepfather
The Day of the Triffids
The Killer Bats

Any I should drop? Any good, obscure titles I should add? There’s just so much there...

EDIT: I just added The Ghoul and Burn, Witch, Burn! There’re just too many down the “customers also watched” rabbit hole!

Ooh. Nice list. I've got a few of those on my list as well (despite remembering a cartoon version of Killer Tomatoes I've never actually seen the movie) and have seen a couple of the others. Phenomena is neat, but I didn't care for the soundtrack. Frightmare is...okay. But it's Troma, so there you go. I enjoyed Usher, but I also enjoy most things with Vincent Price. And Prime actually has the entire trilogy of The Stepfather up for streaming. The first film has it's issues, but I think the performance of the main actor makes up for most of it's faults and it's definitely the strongest of the three films. The second one is...alright, but then the third one sort of jumps off a cliff. So if you plan on watching past the first film, keep that in mind.

[Ack]

Is that Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon? If so, yes, you definitely should watch it. I find that movie spectacular.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is hilarious, and the way it incorporates and builds gag after gag works so well. My favorite involves a photograph of the USS Arizona. I groaned so hard, I loved it. Also, remember when you watch it that the helicopter crash is real.

Usher is the 1960 version directed by Roger Corman? That is my favorite film adaptation of that story. It's delightfully drab and colorful at the same time, and Price is impressive as usual. Please check it out. And if you get the chance, try to track down Witchfinder General. It is my favorite Price film.