Guilty Pleasure No. 9: The Principal (dir by Christopher Cain)

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A confession:

I have a weakness for films about idealistic educators who try to teach and change lives in the inner city. You know which films I’m talking about. These are the films that always take place in a decaying high school and there’s usually at least one scene where the teacher is warned not to care too much about their hopeless students and then the teacher goes, “Someone has to care!”

Why do these films fascinate me so?

To a large extent, it’s because they take place in a world that is so extremely outside of my high school experience. I was recently doing a search on my school and I came across a video on YouTube that was made by some students from my alma mater:

As I watched this video, I realized that neither the students, the campus, nor the neighborhood had really changed in the 9 years since I graduated.

I also realized that, even though I didn’t realize it at the time, I went to one of the most suburban, white bread high schools in the DFW metroplex. At the time, of course, a lot of my classmates thought they were tough. They would make a big deal about blasting Jay-Z and 50 Cent while they were driving down to Starbucks during lunch. For the most part, though, we put the suburb in suburban.

That, I think, is why I’m fascinated by inner city high school films. It’s even better when those films are totally over-the-top and feature a hero who not only teaches but who kicks some ass as well.

Perhaps that’s why I recently enjoyed watching The Principal.

Originally released way back in 1987, The Principal is one of those films that seems to regularly show up on the lesser known television networks. A few weeks ago, I saw that it was going to be broadcast on Ion Television so I set the DVR to record it and I finally ended up watching it this weekend.

In The Principal, James Belushi plays Rick Lattimore. (You can tell that this movie was released quite some time ago because Belushi has a lot more hair and lot less chins than he does now.) Rick’s a teacher with an anger problem. When he sees his ex-wife out on a date with his divorce lawyer, Rick loses it and physically assaults the lawyer. The next morning, Rick is called into a meeting with the school board. He’s expecting to get fired. Instead, he’s promoted. Rick is now principal of Brandel High.

Brandel High, it turns out, is the most troubled high school ever! Drugs are sold and used openly in the hallways. Few students bother to attend class (but yet they still come to the school). The teachers spend most of their time hiding in either their classroom or the teacher’s lounge. The school’s head of security, Jake (Lou Gossett, Jr.), spends most of his time making sarcastic comments. When Rick pulls up on his motorcycle, the first thing he sees is a fight between rival drug dealers.

Rick responds to all of this by holding a school assembly. As every student at Brandel jeers him, Rick announces that he has only one policy: “NO MORE!” It’s at this point that the school drug lord Victor Duncan (played by Michael Wright) stands up and announces, “You talk too much!”

Things continue to build up from there as Rick divides his time between educating and getting beaten up by resentful students, Jake starts to actually care about his job again, and Victor wanders through the school hallways, dressed like he’s in one of the Underworld films and saying stuff like, “Try to reach me and I’ll just cut off your hand…”

The Principal is such an over-the-top, silly, yet heart-felt film that it’s impossible not to enjoy it in much the same way that you might enjoy eating junk food. As I watched this film, I found myself wondering what had happened to James Belushi in the years since it was originally released because, in The Principal, he’s actually likable. However, the film really belongs to Michael Wright. Seriously, as played by Wright, Victor Duncan is the most evil student in the history of high school cinema. When he tells Rick that he’s willing to cut off his outstretched hand, you believe him.

The Principal is a thoroughly predictable film that promotes a dubious educational policy of zero tolerance. However, it’s also a lot of fun.

In other words, it’s the epitome of a guilty pleasure.

Trailer: Ghost Shark

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, I was recently talking to someone on twitter and he essentially said, “Nice blog but enough with Sharknado.” I have to say that I agreed with him. We do have a pretty nice blog here and Sharknado has been the overhyped, overrated film of 2013.

What’s distressing is that a lot of people think that Sharknado is the epitome of a good, silly SyFy film. By SyFy standards, Sharknado was nothing special. Certainly, it could in no way compare to previous SyFy films like 2-headed Shark Attack, End of the World and Flying Monkeys. The only thing that set Sharknado apart was the fact that it was watched by a bunch of celebs who proceeded to tweet some the lamest film commentary ever seen on twitter.

Myself, I’m much more looking forward to August 22nd of this year. That’s the day that Ghost Shark will premiere on SyFy. Not only was Ghost Shark directed by the great Griff Furst (director of such classic SyFy films as Arachnoquake and Swamp Shark) but, judging from the trailer below, Ghost Shark appears to deliver exactly what it promises: a shark that’s also ghost which eats a lot of fat people.

What more could you possibly need?

Official Trailer: Anchorman 2

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Dazzling Erin

The legend of Ron Burgundy continues in this trailer for Anchorman 2.

6 Trailers For A June Moon

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there! I am happy to say that the trailer kitties with another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film trailers! Without further ado, here are this week’s trailers!

1) Splitz (1984)

2) The Folks at Red Wolf Inn (1972)

3) Class (1983)

4) Cocaine Wars (1985)

5) Racing Fever (1964)

6) The Death Curse of Tartu (1966)

What do you think, Trailer Kitties?

I agree, Trailer Kitties! Those trailers were kinda confusing…

Guilty Pleasure No. 8: Paparazzi

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I once got into an argument with a friend of mine about whether or not a film could actually be so bad that it was good.

His argument was that bad, by its very definition, was the opposite of good and therefore, nothing bad could be good and vice versa.

My argument was Paparazzi.

First released back in 2004, Paparazzi tells the story of Bo Laramie (Cole Hauser). Bo is an up-and-coming super star. As the film begins, we’re told — by a breathless correspondent from E! News — that Bo has arrived. He’s starring in what promises to be “the world’s biggest action franchise.” Bo has a wife (Robin Tunney), a son, and a beautiful house on the beach. Whenever he goes jogging, huge groups of women magically materialize so that they can giggle as he runs by.

However, not everything is perfect in the world of Bo Laramie. Like far too many defenseless celebrities, he’s being harassed by the paparazzi. At first, Bo attempts to be polite. However, a demonic photographer named Rex (Tom Sizemore) refuses to stop trying to take pictures of Bo at his son’s soccer game. Things escalate until eventually, Bo’s son is in a coma and Bo is coming up with ludicrously elaborate ways to kill all of Rex’s colleagues.

The thing that distinguishes Paparazzi is not that it’s a revenge film. What distinguishes Paparazzi is that it seems to seriously be arguing that celebrities have the right to kill people who annoy them. Rex and his colleagues are portrayed as being pure evil (one even laughs maniacally after snapping a picture) while Bo is the victim who has to deal with the issues that come from being a multimillionaire. Even the homicide detective played by Dennis Farina seems to be continually on the verge of saying, “Right on!” while looking over the results of Bo’s handiwork.

It’s so ludicrous and stupid and over-the-top that it can’t help but also be a lot of fun.

Don’t get me wrong. Paparazzi is a terrible film. In fact, it’s so terrible that, if a group of aliens ever somehow saw Paparazzi, they would probably hop in their spaceship and come to Earth specifically to wipe out the human race. However, as bad as the film is, it’s also one of those films that you simply cannot look away from. Watching this film is like witnessing a tornado of pure mediocrity coming straight at you. You know that you should just stop watching and get to safety but it’s such an unexpectedly odd sight that you can’t look away. Once you’ve seen it, you’ll never forget it and it becomes impossible not to become fascinated by the fact that such a terrible film could actually exist.

Consider the following:

1) When he’s not busy killing photographers, Bo Laramie is filming a movie called Adrenaline Force 2. Seriously, that title is so generic that I couldn’t help but smile every time it was mentioned. Can you imagine anyone saying, “I want to see that new movie, what’s it called, uhmm… Adrenaline Force 2?”

2) Speaking of generic, do you think that anyone named Bo Laramie could ever possibly become the biggest film star in the world?

3) In the role of Bo Laramie, Cole Hauser seems like he’s as confused by this movie as everyone else. However, towards the end of the film, he starts to flash a psychotic little grin and the contrast between that grin and Laramie’s previously stoic facade is oddly charming.

4) You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Tom Sizemore play the world’s sleaziest photographer.

5) Vince Vaughn has a cameo as himself! He’s co-starring in Adrenaline Force 2.

6) Mel Gibson has a cameo as himself! He’s seen sitting in a psychologist’s office. (No, seriously…)

7) Matthew McConaughey has a cameo as himself! He shows up out-of-nowhere, tells Bo that it’s a pleasure to meet him, and then goes, “Alright, alright…”

8) Chris Rock has a cameo as a …. pizza deliveryman! At first, I assumed that Chris Rock was playing himself and I kept waiting for him to explain why he was delivering a pizza to Bo Laramie’s house. However, according to the end credits, Vaughn, McConaughey, and Gibson were playing themselves while Rock was playing the role of “Pizza Guy.”

9) Plotwise, this film invites the viewer to play a game of, “What if everyone in this film wasn’t a total and complete idiot?” For all the effort that Bo puts into plotting his revenge, it’s hard not to feel that he just got extremely lucky.

10) The film manages to be both silly and completely humorless at the same time. As a result, it’s a good for more than a few laughs.

11) There’s a scene where, out of nowhere, Bo recites an inner monologue about the price of fame that will remind observant viewers of Tony Bennett’s classic narration from The Oscar.

12) At one point, Tom Sizemore says, “I am going to destroy your life and eat your soul. And I can’t wait to do it.”

13) The film’s director used to be Mel Gibson’s hairdresser.

14) Finally, the film was produced by Mel Gibson and that probably means that the film actually is making a sincere case for murdering members of the paparazzi.

If ever a film has deserved the description of being so bad that it’s good, it is Paparazzi. Between the sense of entitlement, the feverish fantasies of revenge, and the out-of-nowhere celebrity cameos, Paparazzi is a film that has earned the title of guilty pleasure.

Guilty Pleasure No. 7: Final Destination 2

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Arleigh

The Final Destination series started off as a nice little horror film with a pretty original take on the slasher genre. We don’t have a psycho maniac on the loose killing off teens and pretty young adults. No, this film had Death itself stalking the usual photogenic and stereotypical young people (and the token adult). The film didn’t just have Death stalking and killing them but doing so in the most complex Rube Goldberg-like death scenes ever on film.

As with any horror film that has any sort of success this one received a sequel and then more sequels until it has become an almost bi-yearly event. My favorite of the series will always be the second film in the franchise.

Final Destination 2 is not a good film by any stretch of the imagination, but what it lacked in the fresh originality of the first film it more than made up in the inventiveness of it’s kills. Final Destination 2 makes absolutely no sense whatsoever other than Death decides to kill off a bunch of new young people. The film’s plot doesn’t even follow the same rules brought up in the first film. But none of that matters because it’s all about the kills and deaths. From the eye-opening freeway pile-up in the beginning of the film to a large plate glass literally squashing a teenage boy straight into the pavement, the kills in this film could never truly be topped by any of the others later on in the series.

As a guilty pleasure this one is always a must-see for me. Though I make sure I’m not going out on a drive any time soon after seeing it.

Guilty Pleasure No. 6: The Golden Child

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Arleigh

During the 80’s there were three names who earned the title of megastars. There was Sylvester Stallone with his Rocky and Rambo films. There was also Arnold Schwarzenneger who was pretty much the biggest action star of the decade. Then there’s Eddie Murphy who pretty much redefined the role of comedic action star. Yes, Murphy was an action star in his own right.

Once Murphy made a huge hit with the odd couple action comedy 48 Hours he began making one action comedy after the next. They all made money and to certain degree they were actually pretty good. There was one Murphy action comedy vehicle that was initially well-received by many when it came out in December of 1986, but has since seen a revisionist take from those who originally hyped up the film. I’m talking about The Golden Child.

Many who seem to have enjoyed and loved this film when it first came out has since backtracked to calling it one of the worst films of the 80’s. A film that indulges the ego of it’s star. While I agree with everything people have said about this film with each passing year I still can’t keep myself from enjoying it whenever it comes on cable (been awhile since it has). It was a fun flick when I first saw it as a 13 year-old and it continues to be fun.

Yes, it hasn’t aged well, but I think how it encompasses the kitchy-style of the 80’s not to mention the egocentricity of Murphy at the height of his stardom makes this one of my guilty pleasures. It even has a much y ounger, but still badass, Tywin Lannister playing the role of the main villain Sardo Numpsa aka Brother Numpsy.

Guilty Pleasure No. 5: Invasion U.S.A.

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Arleigh

Time to put up a new guilty pleasure that goes way, way back for me. This flick came out a year after the ultra-violent, thus equally awesome Red Dawn. As a very impressionable young boy that film had me and my brother and a select group of friends coming up with ways to form our very own Wolverines. While our plans were really just an excuse to play war games in the playground it was the following year in 1985 when this latest “guilty pleasure” had my brother and I moving up to a new level doomsday prepping.

That film was the Chuck Norris classic bloodbath: Invasion U.S.A.

Instead of the Soviet military invading the U.S. mainland this time around it would be Latin American communist guerrillas led by a Rogue KGB agent who would be doing the invading. Well, invading the suburbs and malls of Florida at least. Just like in true exploitation fashion the film would use the fear Americans had of foreign terrorists (this was the era of the airline hijackings, hostage takings and cafe bombings) finally putting it in their heads to strike at the American heartland.

But who would stop them if none other than the poor man’s Sylvester Stallone. He was no Rambo, but his name has become even more feared in popular culture. He is Chuck Norris and he’s the country’s only savior against hundreds of well-armed terrorist guerrillas and the rogue Soviet leaders. For a pre-teen set this was a flick that opened up the imagination to new levels of violence (thus awesome playground wargaming afterwards) and epic action. It’s not a surprise that it would be the Cannon Films group led by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus (proprietors of some of the 80’s best and most violent action films of the era).

This film has become a sort of cult classic amongst action film aficionados. It’s literally a film that puts on the action gas from the start and doesn’t let up. Even has grindhouse stalwarts like Richard Lynch and Billy Drago to give it some exploitation creds.

They sure don’t make action flicks like this anymore. Which really is a damn bloody shame.

On a side note: this is one flick I hope Lisa Marie, Leonard and these Snarkalecs they seem to be hanging about it to view one night if it ever airs on TV.

Grindhouse Classics : “Pick-Up”

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

One word that doesn’t usually (if ever) come to mind when you’re talking about the drive-in fare churned out by Crown International Pictures in the 1970s is weird.

Yeah, okay, fair enough — I suppose just about any CIP flick looks a little bit “weird” to a contemporary audience, given that they’re all very much products of their time, but honestly, pretty much everything released under their banner boils down, story-wise, to a simple morality play with a generous helping of sex (always) and violence (sometimes) thrown in — and more often than not, as with most exploitation fare, the most common themes in the Crown back catalog are “don’t set your sights above your station in life” and “don’t talk to strangers.”

At first glance, 1975’s Pick-Up, directed (and produced, and shot, and edited) by Bernard Hirschenson, would appear to fit comfortably into the “don;t talk to strangers” category, since it’s the story of two footloose-and-fancy-free hippie chicks named Carol (Jill Senter) and Maureen (Gini Eastwood — no relation, at least that I know of, to you-know-who), who hitch a ride across Florida with a far-out guy named Chuck (Alan Long) who is, like them, at loose ends and just “taking in what the world has to offer, one day at a time, man” in his fuck-pad RV.

Come on — he’s gotta be trouble, right? I mean, he’s an Aries, and according to the supposedly-metaphysically-tuned-in Maureen, Aries guys are bad news these days because of some state of flux going on in the universe or something. Still, the girls hop in for a ride anyway —

Trouble eventually does come their way, but Chuck isn’t the cause. After a deluge, the RV gets stuck in the Everglades mud, and that’s when things, as I promised at the outset, get weird. Chuck and Carol get busy screwing their brains out, but Maureen in between reading star charts and tarot cards and having waking (and sleeping) visions of her childhood, is visited by Pythia, a priestess of Apollo, who gives her a sacred dagger for some reason or other. And if you think that sounds strange, wait until the slimy politician and latex-faced clown show up.

Okay, yeah, none of this makes a tremendous amount of narrative sense — or even common sense — but it sure is interesting. It turns out that Maureen was molested by a priest as a child (guess they were into girls in the ’70s) and this is at the root of her psychological disturbances, which culminate in quite possibly the most bizarre scene (of many contenders) in the film, where she and Chuck finally “make it” on a stone altar with the clown, the politician, and the priestess watching on. And all this right after Chuck kills a wild boar (be warned, this film does feature genuine animal slaughter, although hardly of Cannibal Holocaust proportions) What does it all mean? Who knows. And honestly, who really cares? Pick-Up was clearly made with the stoner crowd in mind and, frankly, was probably made by members of the stoner crowd, as well. It’s all good, man. Just go with the flow.

There are some notable things to point out in relation to this film while we have a moment — the Florida Everglades locations are authentic, and were probably an absolute bitch to film in (good thing everybody was probably high), and both Senter and Eastwood are not only reasonably talented actresses, but absolutely gorgeous, as well — yet neight ever made another film. Go figure.

Like most of the Crown stuff we’ve covered both here and at my “main” site — http://trashfilmguru.wordpress.com , for those of you who don’t know — Pick-Up is available on Mill Creek’s 12-disc, 32-movie “Drive-In Cult Classics” DVD boxed set collection. There are no extras, but the remastered widescreen transfer looks surprisingly crisp and clean and the mono sound is, at the very least, perfectly adequate. This may not be the best film in the collection by any stretch, nor is it the most fun, but it’s definitely one of the most interesting, and it’s well worth the 80 minutes of your life it takes to watch it.

Enough With The “Bates Motel” Stuff Around Here, How About Some “Mayhem Motel” ?

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Don’t get me wrong, folks — by and large I kinda like Bates Motel, and I certainly enjoy reading Lisa Marie’s write-ups on each episode here on TSSL, but let’s not kid ourselves —- that show is a soap opera less- than- cleverly-concealed beneath some standard horror genre trappings. You can, of course, say the same for The Walking Dead, another show which I also dig for the most part, but it’s high time we stopped pretending either of these were anything but — well, crap. Enjoyable crap, sure, but crap nonetheless. And I’m certainly not above enjoyin’ me some crap.

Writer/director Karl Kempter’s 2001 shot-on-video offering Mayhem Motel, for instance. This is most definitely crap — hell, it’s even weird crap, disgusting crap, nauseating crap (less than five minutes into the proceedings a character billed in the credits as “Pukey” throws up in a bathtub — for real — and then proceeds to sit down in his own regurgitated mess), but then, it never pretends to be anything else. There are no affectations here toward “quality character drama,” Kempter isn’t fooling himself that his film has anything “important” to say, and in fact there’s no real story here to speak of at all, just a series of vignettes centered around a bunch of degenerate fuckwads and various other products of the gene pool’s decidedly shallow end who all happen to be staying (perhaps at the same time, perhaps not — it’s never made clear and frankly doesn’t matter anyway) at the same fleabag motel.

I don’t know about you, but I find that refreshing lack of anything even remotely approaching an agenda to be a strangely noble thing.

It also means that Mayhem Motel is both a difficult movie to explain, and an easy one to review — plot recaps are completely unnecessary since there literally is no plot, but at the same time simply saying “you’ve really just gotta see it and decided for yourself” sounds like something of a cop-out, even though — well, you really do just gotta see it and decide for yourself. There’s definitely not much of anything resembling a “point” to be taken away from this at-times-self-consciously-weird-for-its-own-sake string of mish-mashed, completely unrelated events — apart from maybe some vague overall suggestion that sex with strangers can get ya killed — and most (okay, all) of the scenes seem more designed to provoke some sort of visceral reaction (even if it’s only “okay, what exactly was that all about?”) from the audience rather than actually involving you in them, but what the hell — it certainly makes for a one-of-a-kind 70-minute viewing experience.

What I can’t say with any certainty, however, is whether or not it’s actually a good one — that’s up to you. The movie’s a mass of contradictions — I mentioned that’s it’s both unpretentious and self-consciously-weird-for-its-own-sake, and trust me, both are true — but the acting (roughly half the parts are played by a guy named Matthew Biancaniello, the other almost-half by a woman named Sara Berkowitz) is of a generally high standard for this type of production (i.e. one shot for a reported $22,000), the lighting is uniformly interesting (if not uniformly effective), and in between the midget, the floating plastic Easter eggs, the guy with a tracheotomy, and the blow-up rubber fuck doll, Kempter really does succeed in creating both a sleazy and genuinely otherworldly atmosphere here. And besides, we ll know that most people will do just about anything for money, but seeing what they’re willing to do for no money is so much more interesting.

So yeah — it’s fair to say that Mayhem Motel does what it sets out to do, I just can’t say whether or not what it sets out to do is really worth doing. That’s a purely subjective call, and while I enjoyed it for what it was, I can certainly see why some folks might turn this off a few minutes after the opening credits. I’m not prepared to say this is one of those things you’re either gonna absolutely love or absolutely hate — like, say, White Castle hamburgers — since I don’t see it as being able to elicit strong reactions along either of the emotional poles like that, but you’re either gonna find it interesting or completely pointless.

Or, perhaps, both interesting and completely pointless.

Mayhem Motel is available on DVD either as a stand-alone release from Brain Damage films (I can’t speak to its technical specs or any extras on that version as I haven’t seen it), or as part of the “Decrepit Crypt Of Nightmares” 50-film, 12-disc box set from Pendulum Pictures, the Mill Creek sub-label that specializes in zero-budget indie and homemade horror. That’s how I caught it and it’s presented full-frame with fairly lousy stereo sound (something of a surprise since Kempter apparently makes his living as a sound mixing guy on various other projects) and no special features or other frills of any sort. Considering the whole package retails for no more than twenty bucks, whaddaya want, anyway? I’d say give it a go if you’re feeling adventurous — beyond that, you’re on your own.