Sunday, November 7, 2010

Exhumed Films Horrorthon Year 4: Attack of the Sequels


It is exactly 1 week after the 2010 Exhumed Films Horrorthon and I think I have finally recovered fully, both mentally(oh my god Boardinghouse) and physically(why the FUCK were my shins hurting?). This year was especially hard for me, as I had got ZERO sleep the night before. I decided to crash at my friend Jenna's apartment, as she lives a brisk 10 minute walk from the venue housing the event(a walk that sucks when your shins are falling apart). The problem with Jenna's place though was that she lives on the 4th floor of a building, meaning that it collects heat like it's baseball cards, and I'm a heat generator to begin with. The point I'm trying to make is that I was hurting bad walking into the Horrorthon this year, worse than any previous year, but I persevered. But you guys don't wanna hear my bitching & moaning...

The whole fun of EF's Horrorthon is that you have NO IDEA what films that will be shown, and the list of clues that is given to you beforehand is barely any help, but this year they wanted to make things interesting for us: a chance to win a Blu-ray player to whomever in the crowd was able to guess the most movies correctly. Let it be known right now that I only got one movie right, which I'll go over in my review.
So after a few announcements and a full-on lambasting from EF's own Dan Fraga, we start the festivities off at 12:15pm with 15 minutes of slasher movie trailers, which lead us into our first film(i'll give the clue, then what my guess was, then obviously the right answer):

12:30PM - Silly Slasher Sequel that is not quite as good as the original...
My guess: Child's Play 2 - We were really hoping for this one, but what we got was:

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors

Ironically my 3rd favorite of the franchise, this was certainly a nice surprise as I had never seen it with a LIVE crowd before and let me tell you it makes all the difference. Kincade wa never funnier, Dr. Gordon was never dopier(and it was never so obvious that he was doing whatever Nancy asked of him because he wanted to fuck her bad) and this scene never seemed as stupid as it did this past weekend:


Yes Nancy... it's a door. Ugh...maybe you deserved to have John Saxon gut you like a fish.

2:00PM - Giant Monster Movie
As usual, my guess was "Godzilla's Revenge", but what we got was:


















The Mighty Peking Man


I was hurting at this point, as I had not slept now for 23 hours, but I'm glad I stayed awake for this goofy gem. This BLATANT King Kong/Tarzan rip off was a bloody masterpiece! Fuck Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg, as they NEVER had a cheetah fighting a cobra in their so-called movies.

3:30PM Nifty, Creepy Horror Anthology
My best guess for this was Creepshow 2, but I don't think anyone refers to that film as "Nifty", so what we got was:




















Tales From The Crypt 2(AKA The Vault Of Horror)

Sorry, folks, but this was the movie I napped during if I was to survive the rest of the marathon. I did catch the last half hour, though, as it featured a maniacally bearded Tom Baker killing people with his art.


5:15PM Campy Creature Feature Sequel that may be a little bit better than the original
I don't remember having a guess for this one, but it ended up being:



















It Lives Again!

The sequel to the mutant-baby movie It's Alive, neither of which I had ever seen. This movie was fun enough but didn't have the crazy ending I was hoping for. These movies might benefit from a remake, but keep the babies animatronic, NOT CGI!

7:15PM - Zombie Movie
Ah, the ONE AND ONLY movie I guessed right:





















Dawn of the Dead

Obviously the original; this print was the British cut if I'm not mistaken(and I probably am). This is just a good movie that any self respecting horrorphile loves, but I'm sure there are some "too cool for the room" pricks who say that this movie "isn't as good as people say it is".



9:30PM - Goofy, Gory Horror/Sci-Fi Exploitation Flick
My guess was the awesome Galaxy Of Terror, but what we got was:



Return of the Alien: Deadly Spawn(AKA The Deadly Spawn)

What a fantastic movie this ended up being. Just a silly, violent movie that needs to be seen with a full audience who will appreciate what ridiculous fun is to be had. Just look at this monster:


                                                           He's almost cuddly!

11:00PM - The movie that "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" wishes it could be
We were strongly hoping for Little Shop of Horrors, and a lot of others thought Repo: The Genetic Opera, but what we got was:



The Phantom of the Paradise

My brother was trying to get me to watch this movie for years, and for whatever reason I just never got around to seeing it. I'm glad I waited because seeing it for the 1st time on the big screen made all the difference. I'm pretty sure nobody I came with liked this movie as much as I did. This movie had fun songs, a great cast and a "hero" that looks like he fell out of the cartoon Battle of the Planets(G Force or Gatchaman) and had a voice that sounded like the torture droid from Jabba's Palace in Return of the Jedi. I'm surprised their has never been an action figure based on him.


12:30AM - Holy shit, the greatest, bloodiest Kung Fu movie of all time! I don't even know what else to say, I just...I mean...this movie is...holy fucking shit...

My friend Joe guessed Ichi The Killer and some guy near us was guessing Ricki-Oh or whatever it's called. I personally had no guess, but the movie was:



Five Element Ninjas

Yeah, I missed most of this one. I do not mind a subtitled film, but after 12 hours and closing in on 1AM, I just could not handle it at this time. Plus I may have been a little lit, so a walk was in order. I did come back in time to see a very nice "drawn & quartering".

2:15PM - Sleazy Slasher Movie Directed By A Genre Favorite
I had no guess here, for whatever reason, but it ended up being:


The Funhouse

This was a nice surprise, as I had never seen it and always wanted to. My only complaint here was the body count was way too low. 

4:00AM - Tongue In Cheek Monster Movie Classic Directed By A Genre Favorite
No guesses, I was tired.


The Howling

Another nice surprise as I had never seen this film, either. E.T.'s mom battling werewolves? Dick Miller: occult store owner? Kinda crazy-ass ending? Awesome stuff.

5:30AM - Supernatural shocker that is so utterly ridiculous it must be seen to be believed, and even then you still probably won't believe this movie exists in our universe. Maybe the most inept movie Exhumed Films has ever screened.

Some goofballs in the audience were positive that this was going to be HAUSU, showing how little they know Exhumed Films. What we got was....wait for it:





Boardinghouse

What. The Fuck, Exhumed Films? Was there nothing more pleasant to be shown, like footage from Columbine or the Challenger explosion? 
The opening to this film, which consisted of almost 5 minutes of LOUD beeping text, took years off our lives. This does not play like a straight forward, coherent movie, but instead is like your watching a collection of deleted scenes from an unfinished college film. The best you could scramble together after one viewing is that some creeper-looking dude inherits a house that MAY be possessed by a terrible special effect. The creeper dude proceeds to rent the house out to an infinite number of beautiful(for 1981) women, who seem to be haunted, tortured or murdered by someone or something. As the movie progresses you find out that creeper dude has mind powers and proceeds to move a bar of soap around while taking a bath in what could be the silliest thing I've ever seen in a movie not involving muppets. 
From what I'm told this was the 1st "shot on video(shiteo)" horror movies to come out on VHS, and for some reason they felt it needed to be released in theaters, too. This movie will give cancer to you soul. Four stars!

7:15AM - Breakfast Break!
They served free cereal and showed a Mr. Magoo cartoon while I covered myself with de-lousing powder, called my mother and wept openly.

7:45AM - Influential Slasher Sequel That Many People Feel Surpasses The Original
Once again, hoped for Child's Play 2, but what we got was:



Friday the 13th Part 2

At this point I was contemplating suicide, what with the visions of Mr. Magoo killing women in a boarding house...I'm pretty sure that was the last movie I had watched at this point. Now a man with a bag on his head is scampering through the woods. I don't know what's real anymore.

9:15AM - "Animals Attack" Film With A Snazzy Sci-Fi Twist
We fucking HOPED TO MAGOO for Tremors, which would have been awesome, but what we got was:



Bug

No, not the one that came out like 2 years ago, you goose. This was William Castle's final film, about bugs(duh) that burned at the touch, and prolonged touching would result in you bursting into flames. Great movie, just hard to handle at 10 in the morning... Not the content of the movie but the screaming from the people towards the end was the worst I've ever heard. I think at the end the whole planet blew up. Or maybe that's what I saw in a dreary haze. And I think Mr. Magoo was in there somewhere.

10:45AM - Historically, the horrorthon has always ended with a zombie movie. I guess this counts...kind of.
Our guess? Evil Dead. But what we got, for the final movie, was:




The House By The Cemetery

The Lucio Fulci classic! Another nice surprise of a movie I had never seen before. Squeaky-voiced brat and his family are tortured by a super-zombie in their basement, at least that's what I was able to piece-meal together in my fogginess. This is not a movie I would've ended with, as I believe you need to go out with a bang(like Return of the Living Dead & Re-Animator from previous years), but this worked fine.

After it all ended, I went home and slept till 1AM, missing Dexter, Walking Dead and all of the Halloween festivities. Boo.

Thank you for another great year, Exhumed Films!