I once spent over two hours talking about this movie with Rob Zombie in a Los Angeles hotel when I was 15. True story.
If you're paying attention, you realize at this point that I will allow a great deal of amnesty toward a movie for low production value if they somehow manage to evoke an atmosphere with whatever ingredients they've been afforded. Bob Clark's "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" was made for a meager 70k, which would prove an agonizing task for most. Part of me thinks if this film had any more money than it did though, it might not be what it is. Sometimes, I think cheapness lends a grit that can help movies of this nature feel more effective. They also tend to feel more spirited. I think it's mainly because the people involved sure as hell aren't there for the paycheck. They're doing it because they're passionate about the project, and that really shines through. It's what truly gives something a soul and probably explains why low budget films garner cult followers.
This is probably one of my favorite zombie films, and in fact when I think of zombies, the image of lead corpse Orville is what comes to mind. The situation is familiar, but it is the characters - a bunch of eccentric college thespian types - who keep it fresh.
So, a bunch of pretentious theater assholes land on a rustic island replete with cemetery where they throw some Warholian rehearsal party, resulting in sacrilege and desecration. They also dig up a body, too. They tow the body back to the house where they're all staying, name it Orville, and proceed to have a party for it, which yields some pretty evocative imagery that should hang with you for a while. It's not so much gruesome as it is morbid. Eventually, the dead have had enough disgrace and rise from the earth to seek retribution against their trespassers.
It's pretty typical stuff, but like I said, the characters are fantastic and seldom likable, and the filmmakers manage to develop enough sympathy for Orville that you're really cheering for him once he's gunning for the living characters, who seem more like antagonists as they abuse and degrade the dead. In fact, they all pretty much have what's coming to them. Not in the sense that the characters are so one-dimensional and stupid that you want the guy with the axe to just get them off your screen. In fact, the characters are all very well written and acted, with one of the supreme highlights being Alan Ormsby's (also the film's writer) performance as the leader of the asshole pack. While this film has been routinely assailed for its bad acting and writing, these detractors are completely missing the satire of it all. The characters in this film aren't actually meant to be taken seriously as victims. In fact, they are a contemptuous skewering of the high brow "art fags" one routinely encounters in the world of art. These people take themselves way too seriously to respect anybody who isn't them, so there is definitely a great deal of satisfaction taken by the filmmakers in ripping them limb from limb.
The film was directed by Bob Clark, who also gave us "Black Christmas," the first two "Porky's," films, as well as "A Christmas Story." Check out the trailer, courtesy some asshole with no taste.
The production of Gary Sherman's "Dead & Buried" may have been fraught with conflict which resulted in all sorts of technical and continuity errors, but none of the resulting discrepancies can keep this film down. In fact, this is the best Stephen King story that Stephen King had nothing to do with.
For its time, this was far outside the "walking dead" norm that had been established by Romero and his Italian imitators by virtue of its traditional treatment of the zombie. The story occurs in a coastal Rhode Island town of Potter's Bluff, where an investigation into a handful of recent deaths reveal sadistic murder. The killings continue, and with each no body, pieces of a wide spread conspiracy float to the surface, suggesting that life in this New England town is not so much sleepy as it is just plain dead.
There are a ton of familiar faces here, including James Farentino and Robert Englund, but the MVP award goes to Jack Albertson ("Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory") as the town's eccentric mortician, William Dobbs. One of Dobbs' quirks is his affinity for big band and old jazz music, which he spins while restoring corpses for open casket affairs. This character detail is vintage writer Dan O'Bannon, and was recycled in "Return of the Living Dead" for Don Calfa's Ernie character. Sadly, this was Albertson's final feature film performance, as he passed away later that year.
The one negative thing I have to say about the film pertains to a wretched looking effect involving the death of the town doctor, where an artificial head is used for an acid injection. While Stan Winston provided the majority of the fantastic effects here, he was not responsible for this abortion. The acid head effect was actually tacked on by another team of FX guys at the request of producers, who wanted a more gore oriented flick. The final result is night and day compared to some of the other fantastic stuff Wintson provides. Otherwise, the film is fantastic. It brims with mood and strong performances from the actors. I wholeheartedly recommend this, but I would also urge you to avoid reading anything about it before hand. Go in fresh and you will be rewarded. Check out the trailer courtesy Deathdealeus1984.
This visually stunning drive-in cheapy is drenched in buckets of mood, and shockingly, the hand that did the hurling is also responsible for "Howard the Duck." This tale of a young woman who ventures to a town to find her missing father has hint of Giallo feel to it, though the blood comes in conservative portions. She is joined by a free spirited couple in her search, and together they discover that something spiritual has infected the locals, converting them into a cult of flesh eaters. Visual elements combined with a general dream-like atmosphere sort of lead me to believe that "Carnival of Souls" was a strong influence.
I obtained a Video Gems copy, which was marked as being very good. Unfortunately, when I got the tape itself, the actual Video Gems art had been butchered. Gone was the spine, while the shape of the front and back sleeves looked like they'd been carved up by a fever-damaged three year old with the aid of safety scissors and teeth. The tape itself was in great condition. I just wish more people would consider the actual quality of the box before saying the quality is anywhere near good. But sadly, this is a hobby for which there is little respect. If someone was trying to sell a first edition of a rare novel, they wouldn't grade it as "mint" if the pages themselves were nice in spite of the fact that the cover and back had feces all over it.
The film was co-written and co-directed by husband and wife team Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who were both also responsible for the screenplays for "American Graffiti" and "Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom." Worth seeking out.
Out of the five billion colorless twats inhabiting the face of our planet, if each one that had a blog were to spontaneously combust the Earth would light up like Christmas. And Diablo Cody would probably be sitting on top of the glowing mess like Kali, drowning stars in the intellectual vomit that courses from her laptop.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the internet, it’s that mediocrity travels in massive shitting flocks. Nothing comforts a dullard more than an equally dim companion, for in the middling existence of others they find validation. Ignoring the qualities their limited means cannot achieve, instead, they glorify a lower set of standards. Like the fat chick who doesn't have the discipline to lose the weight, she'll simply find a set of FATTER friends so she'll look thinner by comparison. This is how the ordinary man gets his green light. Sadly, the deafening mass of back patters has gained momentum, shifting from mere spill to mainstream in just two decades.
Things seldom turn out as intended. VHS Summer sat idle for close to a month before I started posting reviews here. The user for whom this blog was originally created had hoped to make this her journal while studying my tape-trading hobby from an anthropological perspective. However, when her work schedule swelled, she no longer had the time she needed for the project. Unwilling to let the inflammatory banner go to waste, she suggested that I start using the blog for my own purposes. At first, the idea left a sour taste in my mouth.
There are thousands of uninspired cult and horror cinema sites, most propagated by the ease of internet self-publishing communities. Honestly, Blogspot and Wordpress practically make this shit down's syndrome accessible. This stuff is easier to use than a handicap parking space. You could have a gallon of water in your skull and still manage to develop a false sense of importance with relative ease in spite of any physical or mental limitations that may stem from your hydroencephalitis . That said, I had no desire to be lost between the sweaty folds of the obese Voltron that bloggers at large join to form. No sir, I was going to keep my proverbial hot dog out of that gaping hallway, thank you.
However, my fondness for discussing film on a casual level probably enhanced the limited appeal of managing a low-life blog myself, and I began examining the websites and blogs I’d run across while collecting data on my weekly VHS acquisitions. Upon closer observation, one glaring trend came to light. Most reviewing “bad movies” didn't seem to be motivated by altruism, but instead by ego. One particularly shitty take on “I Was A Teenage Zombie,” hosted by somethingawful.com, was probably the impetus behind my first several posts here. The take was written by some shit-breather who basically used the movie to get his lame sense of humor over. The irony of honestly bad writing being used to put a bad movie down is pitiful, but attempting to build your brand at the expense of someone else's artistic effort is just fuckin' pathetic.
The writers at somethingawful epitomize everything that is wrong with the blogging community at large. They're lynching something for the sake of spectacle, to attract attention to themselves. They're sacrificing something completely innocent and damaging its reputation in the process, and all so they can build their own fragile egos up. I may occasionally bag on shit, but the primary motivation behind this blog isn't to sell you some z-grade personality or name. I'm not interested in celebrity. I'm simply trying to promote a fading segment of culture. It truly bums me out to see assholes who do not care about movies casually burying stuff like "I Was A Teenage Zombie" for little more than the approval of of a bunch of anonymous assholes who barely give a shit in the first place.
I’m the first one to admit that you don’t need to go to culinary school to justify the opinion that McDonald’s sucks balls, but there’s a big difference between cruelty and criticism. Labeling something as throw away just because it doesn't have multi-million dollar production values underlines a dangerous class-based mentality. People often perceive the under dog as an easy target, which is sad. A demonstration of power and cunning against a weak opponent only makes you look like a total pussy. If you've got something to prove, you should test yourself against the biggest dog in the yard. Go stick it to Michael Bay. Now there's a soulless asshole who, in spite of having more collateral than NASA, hasn't made a single good movie. Money isn't everything, people. Good art also requires ample brains and balls.
Speaking of which, in spite of the fact that this is an obviously low budget film, “I Was A Teenage Zombie” manages to create a couple of things that a lot of million dollar blunderfucks fail to conjure. Foremost, you can tell that the people making this film had a lot of fun doing it. Through it all, there is a spark of charm that creates a jubilant vibe. It takes a great deal of ingenuity to grow something so colorful from such meager seeds. There is a definite lack of intellectual prowess in most of today's mainstream productions.
Despite a heady cultural blend, the story is pretty rudimentary, following a pack of soda shop delinquents who knock off a sleazy weed dealer when he refuses them a refund for bunk goods. The miscreants dump the body into the river, and thanks to a nuclear melt down upstream, the pusher is soon back on the beat with super human powers and an appetite for vengeance. After the psychotic zombie bumps off one of their own, the soda pop jerks push their friend’s body into the same irradiated waters in hopes of creating a last line of defense.
It’s ironic that a movie directed by a sound editor would have audio for shit, but otherwise this is a good low budget piece of film making that stands up to similar films of a larger budget from the same period. The main thing working against the film is the marriage of intentionally bad story telling with the low budget. The less savvy critic probably has a hard time distinguishing authentic mistakes from the film's occasional doses of self-deprecating humor.
There's little information about the movie's production, and even the IMDb page is riddled with misinformation. This was apparently the end of the line for most of the cast and the crew of this underrated cult gem. This one is worth a second look and easily attainable via Amazon.
