Demonic Toys

By now, Everyone has seen The Dark Knight. As far as pop culture goes, it's a necessity to to view this. In fact, You'd owe it to your country according to pop-culture analysts and Hot Topic completists. Little did I realize that scribe David S. Goyer created the screenplay for Demonic Toys. That's quite a huge jump in the industry; Full Moon fare to Hollywood record-breaking material. It's only appropriate that I only now became cognizant of Peter Manoogian directing Eliminators, a film I plan on writing on soon.


Demonic Toys destroys the basic fundamental guidelines of killer doll films. It's too true that in a film concerning murderous inanimate objects, one needn't focus on plot or early developmental stages. Golden rule being to include frequent enemy interactions and unsavory language and carnage. Demonic Toys disobeys like a good rebel but the film slightly becomes a more cluttered film despite its desperate attempt to differ itself from the crowd with a thought out plot.

A pregnant cop gets caught in a satanic ritual to convert her unborn baby into a vessel of Satan's lovely child (As if anything else). This demon summons (or inhabits, it's never fully realized) a trio of iconic demonic toys to trim the already tiny potential body count trapped in a toy warehouse. Child's Play 2 featured a truly memorable scene in a toy factory.


The impromptu adnexa surgery that was so horrifically drilled into our youth's brains is a scene that marks most that grew within that early 90s horror rush which produced many instant classics. Demonic Toys, being a Full Moon film, borrows heavily from the most mainstream doll film and incorporates the entire setting from the most popular scene in Child's Play 2, albeit not as adventurous and rather dreary.


That character of Baby Oopsy-Daisy is portrayed as the hellish ringleader of the bunch but suffers from one-liner syndrome. The director/writer combo intended too much for this film to be an impassable force in "B horror" that they turned every line into a cheesy quip. This only halts down the given momentum thanks to the terrifying image of the evil incarnate Jack-N-The-Box. The bear however looks silly, that is until his transformation. I displease the satanic storyline as it makes every previous altercation an event in vain.


Demonic Toys is definitely one of the better Full Moon catalog titles. The context of killer toys can be placed within any title for instant success. I'm still unsure of what to expect from the final product of Black Devil Doll. The trailer only makes the film look cheap and terribly unfunny but only time will tell. Demonic Toys is a stoic satanist story with enough low budget "punk rock rebel" attitude to keep most things at bay, including your social life, so please do not quote any lines from this film for your own sake.

-mAQ

Basket Case

Basket Case is a low-budget film about questionable brotherly love. Duane and his brother Belial were born Siamese twins so they were extra close as brothers. The brother’s father was quite an insensitive man and wanted Belial cut off then thrown away like a cancer infected wart. Belial was probably not loved by his father because he looks like a large tumor with two arms and a few hideous facial features. Duane, on the other hand, is atomically correct but lacks in the mental health department.

After killing a doctor that helped separate them, Duane carries Belial to degenerate New York City in a basket. The basket in the film is probably the only thing that doesn’t look filthy so Belial keeps a fairly clean home. For some irrational reason, a young blonde hits on Duane very assertively and he can’t help but to give in. Belial, on the other hand loses his cool and wrecks their apartment. The sounds that come from Belial sound similar to that of a homeless freestyle rapper raping a freshly groomed kitten on the lower eastside. The folly artist from Basket Case sure does deserve acknowledgment.

A middle aged mulatto woman that looks like a prostitute (and probably is) also takes an interest in Duane. The two drink a few beers together and talk about family matters. Later, Belial tries to molest the woman and she goes into hysterics. I can only assume that those types of shrieks and screams are commonplace in degenerate cities where the animals roam wild. A killer tumor like Belial certainly fits in.

Basket Case features enough ridiculous gore and killing to keep perverted horror fans happy. Belial even kills and rapes Duane’s blonde girlfriend. Although supposed to be dead, you can see the blonde actress clearly breathing in the film. Basket Case director Frank Henenlotter deserves to be commended for his keen eye. But I doubt this director has flaming bloody eyes as Belial when he’s looking to rape a real live girl. In the end, jealously ruins the Siamese twin brothers extra close relationship. Thankfully, a couple of cheap prostitutes get to enjoy a cool sight, courtesy of the brothers last gripping moments on earth.

Most trash films are just trash. That also includes all the trash films that are often noted as “good” trash. Basket Case is one of the few pieces of “good” trash. Although I don't know the directors true intentions, Basket Case is a wacked out film that will touch a nerve at some point for everyone. Whether it be Belial engaging in Negro panty sniffing or nude footage of Duane running down the street, this film delivers.

-Ty E

Howard the Duck

Howard the Duck presented itself as an avid surrealistic experience for me. The film also served as a spiritual holistic medicine that had a very fast affecting rate. I'd always heard internet sites and common folk degrading the film and slamming it constantly. Having half a mind of a child suits me better, as I actually looked forward to watching the most embarrassing moment of George Lucas' career, besides The Phantom Menace.


There I was, browsing the VHS selection at a pawn shop looking for exquisite 90s horror titles to review for the festive month of Halloween when my peripheral vision lay claim on a mint VHS of Howard the Duck. Scrambling, I snatched the film without a second glance. Paying for the bundle, I gave my first shot at Howard the Duck, but first I watched the trailer online just to get a glimpse of this "family" film. The future results left me shocked and horrified. Duck tits? This had to be the live-action equivalent of Fritz the Cat.


When I was watching the film, It took no time to jump right into a cataclysmic event with no explanation. I found myself visually excited to see duck references to "classic film" with little time to get comfy in his alternate mallard universe. I kept repeating the name Willard Huyck in my head. Suddenly, It hit me that the name Willard Huyck rhymes with Mallard Duck. It's been said that Huyck wrote the script with his wife, Gloria Katz. Perhaps this is a pseudonym created by George Lucas, or a fake name. But I won't hold my breath.


As we encounter the interactions between Howard and Beverly, the result is a bit of romantic chemistry between many dwarfs in a costume and a 80s vogue punk rocker. I was amazed with how cutting edge on adult humor this film was. Misplaced references to sex and alcohol are meticulously placed within the elongated running time of the film. Howard the Duck might be 10 minutes under 2 hours, but the film grants the illusion of it being twice as long. A bit near the end, the pacing seems to slowly chug, which ends my only fault with the film.


Howard the Duck captures the punk rock scene as well as Return of the Living Dead did. The flashy studded leather jackets and the rebellious hair. You walk outside and you encounter this everywhere. The charm's gone and the novelty is non-existent. Something that was so risque has become a necessity to become noticed. Howard the Duck was a pretty rad & sarcastic dude for being covered in feathers and only standing 3'something.


To even add to the charm that Howard the Duck had, I experienced the film with an amazing person. To relive that childhood feel with someone you care about is a flashback to end all nostalgia. Howard the Duck has accidentally became a film very close to my heart, and not even because of its own aesthetics. There's no doubt that the film can't touch the rudeness of the comic, but what was created in its place was a brash and very mature film for all ages. Children's films don't have many cult classics, and it feels like Howard the Duck was the first.

-mAQ

Splendor

To seamlessly blend his style of surreal and perverse sexuality into the mainstream was a 2-step program. Gregg Araki settled upon us a fine film depicting a titillatingly road trip not complete without a Ménage à trois of madness and murder. Araki took the same concept existent in The Doom Generation and layered it over a chic film along the lines of Clueless. The result is pertinent to the outcome of his latest film, Smiley Face.

Splendor is a film that reminds me vaguely of the Edward Norton film The Painted Veil. Both films have a slow build up subversively hinting towards the stupidity and errors of women. In Splendor, you will watch as a "good girl" fucks and teases a literate "tortured artist" guy who eventually turns into a final form of Chris Kattan, and also a lug head band drummer with spiky blond hair. Both of these men seem to be very personal to Gregg Araki as he spends most of the film building atop their relationship and heterosexuality is challenged and "love" comes from all angles.


Our main female is given many narrative segments in which she sits in a pristine white backdrop and discusses her many mistakes. Filters and after-effects are digitally added to give her eyes a sparkling halo within and a virgin-esque aspect of her perfect face. For once, Araki is approaching the situation at an entirely new angle, but this move is fatal on his mainstream career. A year later, he will have directed a pilot for MTV of a show that marveled with surrealism and oh-so quirky situations. He finally perfected his mainstream endeavors but at a fatal time. He would later release Smiley Face, a film starring the retarded Anna Faris as a pothead who winds up in "outrageous situations" with the Communist Manifesto.


To call Splendor romantic is as much of a sin to call A Night at the Roxbury romantic. The only difference between the two is that one retains humor and by the tone of my writing, you can guess the latter takes the award home. Splendor is a doctrine of misled misandrism. The females in the film are over forced to be the exquisite saints but the truth is far from. The female lead in Splendor is a spoiled, slutty princess who abuses men and later giggles about it. The same could be said with most of the younger female population. They cover the sexist discrepancies with a half-spoken message of true love.


Splendor ends with a cookie cutter version of everyones favorite motif - Girl loves guy, girl leaves guy(s), girl realizes she is a dumb whore and reunites to a happy ending. Araki isn't one for these measly stereotypes and is better off without them. Rather than suiting the mainstream, Araki should continue "sticking it to the man". He's one of the few auteur's producing homosexual, heterosexual, and everything in between that I can appreciate. Splendor is entirely passable and isn't even worth a viewing, even for fans of angst and antirealism.

-mAQ

8mm

Snuff films are hard to come by. I have yet to talk to someone that has claimed to see one. In fact, it is doubtful that any such films exist. I have heard rumors that the Israeli mafia and the Russian Jewish Mafia have made a few with the eastern European girls that they have put into white slavery. I wouldn’t put it past these international criminals, but until I see proof I will not believe. Joel Schumacher’s 8mm follows a private investigator as he obsesses over finding out the authenticity of a snuff film. Maybe Schumacher being in the “know” might know something that the general public does not.

I cannot help but like Nicholas Cage as he seems like a swell guy. Despite how serious a role he plays, he still comes out as a goofball that is truly oblivious to the evils of the world. Watching Cage as a private investigator obsessed by something that would most likely burn a hole in his soul can be quite “thrilling.” The private investigator’s response when he finds out the truth is both reasonable and admirable. It is good that at least someone has a logical set of morals instead of believing in “the law.”

The private investigator also hires a porn shop employee named Max California. Max is a guy that wanted to become famous playing music. Instead, he ended up being surrounded by degenerates and human filth. The private investigator can see that Max has intelligence and shows the young lad some respect. I could not help but notice a homoerotic element to their relationship. After all, director Joel Schumacher is an outspoken homosexual and has always had his eyes on the right actors. It also doesn’t surprise me that The Lost Boys is still the directors favorite movie that he’s directed.

Bloated Sicilian James Gandolfini has a role in 8mm as a sleazebag pornographer (“Talent Scout”) who is connected to the assumed snuff film. I believe Gandolfini’s role in 8mm is even more fitting than his role as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos. The way in which Gandoflini’s character excremented words at the private investigator seemed to be a little too natural for the Italian-American. The beating the pornographer took from the private investigator was more than fitting.

8mm is one in a handful of worthy films directed by Hollywood director Joel Schumacher. Unlike most thrillers, 8mm is not insulting to the audiences intelligence like Schumacher’s more recent film The Number 23. The film even features a homicidal fan of Glenn Danzig that wears a mask and goes by the lame name “Machine.” Schumacher has described himself as a “sexual outlaw.” Is 8mm an attack against degenerate heterosexual fetishes of rich old guys? Or is the film just an outlet for the director to present “outlaw” sexual degeneracy in Hollywood? Either way, 8mm is a surprisingly enjoyable thriller.

-Ty E

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

Ignoring the previous Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, Leatherface intends to strictly stay parallel to the source material of focusing mainly on the masked killer. Instead of sticking to the same structure the series was headed - expanding the cannibal family's mythology, director Jeff Burr attempts to humanize Leatherface in a blundering embarrassing spectacle which builds up a scene of the mad butcher typing "food" repeatedly into a Speak N' Spell like toy.

The film turns from bad to worse as soon as you meet our 80s caricatures that illuminate the screen with a deep-seated lust for annoying the piss out of you with their moldy dialogue and abominable screen presence. To sit still during a barrage of horror cliches that acknowledge their own existence is the worst and this film, being a horror circle jerk, doesn't make this experience any more warm and/or inviting.

Don't bother.

Ken Foree joins in on the fun as not a cameo, but the only reason these wastes survive the ordeal (Or some of them). Concluding on a high note, the ending might be the only acceptable asset of the film. While Foree isn't throwing his bad boy black dude attitude at you full force, he's spouting nonsense about being a top notch survivalist. One might find several disputable claims about said boast, but the result is never-the-less still painful. Almost as painful as watching Flyboy slowing turn into a member of the legion of dead.

As horrible as the sequel adheres to, the "controversy" that the film isn't present. While there is a workprint floating around, the film proves entirely that a bloodier version isn't needed. Leatherface is a slow mirage of a dying idol. Leatherface (character) is slowly fading into a world of contemporary hell. As with most horror genre classics, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake was funded by Michael "Explosion" Bay.


Ty E previously stated that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) was a propaganda film of sorts, catering to the city folk and college kids. The trend started in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre saga before the remake. While the 2nd entry embraced its southern roots, In the third film, they bump the anti-rural accusations up full blast slightly echoed by Viggo Mortensen posing a solid question - "So? How do you like Texas?". This eerie line resonates through out the film leaving a sulfur smell of national deceit and timeless propaganda.

Posing Southerners as mentally defiecient socials isn't anything new to the film industry. To add to their already decrepit status in modern film, Burr creates an atmosphere in which these "yahoo's" attempt to learn, advocating the wonders of technology, hence the "learning" scene in which Leatherface plays with an educational toy, ending abruptly when he goes in a blind rage. All this forms the sense that Jeff Burr or the scribes believe that the rural folks are resistant to change and ignorant to the classic saying from Bob Dylan - 'The Times They Are A-Changin'


A childhood friend's mom actually told me that she used to date Gunnar Hansen (The Original Leatherface). The stories proved Gunnar to sound like an endearing fellow. I've heard of such love letters but I've never perused through them. As the myth of Leatherface stands, Gunnar should be disappointed with the outcome of an idol he created. His manic swings and staggering figure added to the horror.

Leatherface claimed to have suffered from many cuts and reshoots. These claims may be the truth but even the workprint didn't touch what was spoken as the "original vision". What was once is not anymore. I don't fancy watching a hypothetical documentary on a film I have no respect for to theorize how the film could have turned out. Jeff Burr created a product regardless of show big of a flop it was, and marketed it. I blame Jeff Burr solely for the slaughtering of an original and fresh massacre.

In an eagle eye view, Leatherface has no real material to it; nothing to differ it from the rest. I enjoy the fact that they suited up Leatherface with a leg brace to bring memories flooding back from the climatic ending of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but not much else exists. There's a couple of entertaining southern archetypes floating around, mainly Alfredo, but Leatherface is as dry of a film as the trailer would lead you to believe. No Excalibur here, just a rancid slasher film.

-mAQ

The Godfather

The Godfather is the Don of all Sicilian-American guinea (a word quite often used in the film) mafia films. Francis Ford Coppola did an excellent job as an artisan directing a film about undesirable yet respectable members of his Mediterranean race. The Godfather is after all a master craftsman piece if not a work of art. A film that retains its power with each viewing. The editors of the film also deserve to be noted as the baptizing montage during the end of the film is one of the greatest of American cinema. The Godfather is a true teamwork project and not an auteur piece.

A young Al Pacino shines in the film staring as Michael Corleone, a war hero and college student turned master exterminator. Marlon Brando proves that he could dominate a film that he is not featured in very much. He also proved that he could use his method acting schools to play a top crime leader of a group he shares no blood with. Brando came out of the film as the actor making the most cash with his role as Don Vito. Few actors can claim they have such a varied and successful career with films like A Streetcar Named Desire, On The Waterfront, Last Tango in Paris, and The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola knew that Brando was worth the extra money for his irreplaceable acting abilities.

Robert Duvall does an excellent job as Tom Hagen, the stoic adopted son of Don Vito. Being not of Sicilian blood (but “Kraut” and “Mick” blood), Hagen was the lawyer and consigliere. The Coen Brothers made the Italian mafia look like a bunch of moronic buffoons in Miller’s Crossing. I guess Francis Ford Coppola figured they would need a Mc-Aryan to be the “brains” of the Sicilian mafia family. Sicily is not known for its scholars. Tom Hagen is the man that demonstrates “self-control” and rationality in The Godfather.

Federico Fellini’s favorite composer Nina Rota lent his music making to The Godfather. A film such as The Godfather wouldn’t be complete without the emotionally engulfing sounds of Nina Rota. Martin Scorsese decided pop songs would be the best choices for his mafia flicks. Maybe Coppola has a little more class (or maybe not)? Francis Ford Coppola certainly did his time at film school when he decided to hire both Marlon Brando and Nina Rota. Now most American’s have heard a score from the composer that created musical works which brilliantly complimented the fantastic visual works of the legendary Federico Fellini.

It is no lie that The Godfather is one of the top ten best American films ever made. American film has always been a business, and with business comes the desire to create marketable products. The Godfather combines violence, a memorable score, competent directing, Eisenstein inspired editing montages, and good storytelling for a film that Hollywood can be proud. Francis Ford Coppola also owes his Sicilian ancestors and relatives a little credit for their film influence. I have always been more a fan of Italian cinema than Italian-America cinema. The Godfather is something the Italian-American community can be proud of.

-Ty E