Category: Movies
VHS Verdict: ‘Wild Thing’ Is The 80’s Greatest Homeless Hippie Superhero!
I recently picked up an obscure 80’s flick called ‘Wild Thing’ (aka Asphalt Kid) on VHS and to my surprise it was quite an enjoyable little oddball ‘superhero’ flick. Yeah, ‘Wild Thing’ is the alias of the homeless hippie hero who’s parents were killed by a crooked cop in 1969 when he was just a toddler. His parents were full on flower children too, as the opening scene shows them looking like members of the Grateful Dead driving around in an old VW van around the big city. Instead of living with his aunt and uncle after this tragic event the lil’ dude is chased down by the cops and leaps into a nearby river. He finds shelter with a homeless lady who takes him in as her own. Over the years he learns the ways of the streets, hunts pigeons with a tennis racquet for food, mimics a martial arts master who practices in the park, learns to speak from radio disc jockeys and figures out ways to communicate with alley cats. Yep Wild Thing is a bit of a “Jack of ALL trades”.
Wild Thing grows up a bit and by the late 80’s he’s become somewhat of a local legend and protector of the streets, rumored to have superhuman abilities. He’s a full on hippie vigilante who roams the rooftops looking for trouble. This one’s got quite a plot. Things get interesting when a woman from Wisconsin named Jane (Kathleen Quinlan) moves into the area to work at a priest’s half way home. Sure enough she arrives for the job late at night and is attacked by some crazy local hoodlums, well guess who arrives to save her? Continue reading
Let’s Get Phantasm’s Reggie Bannister to Appear on ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’!!
Bruce Campbell is horror icon & ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ is definitely here to stay now with season three announced recently. Heck, season two was even BETTER than the first and gave a more detailed look at just who Ash really is as we hung out in his hometown for the majority of the show. This all got me thinking about other horror franchises and their unique heroes who haven’t quite gotten the level of respect that Bruce has gotten over the years. I recently re-watched the entire ‘Phantasm’ series and found myself drawing parallels between Bruce’s ‘Ash Williams’ and Reggie Bannister. Heck I’d say that Reggie from ‘Phantasm’ is just as badass as Ash and that the two of them would likely end up being good buddies if they ever met up to kick some evil monster booty.
Interestingly enough I ran across a petition online that someone had made that actually proposes the idea of getting the Phantasm’s Reggie into the ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ series on Starz. It hasn’t gotten much publicity yet but I actually think it’d be an incredible idea to incorporate characters from other similar franchises into the series. I guess it’d be a little bit like an ‘Expendables’ of horror with some grizzled, aged heroes teaming up together. I think a cool place to start would actually be introducing ‘Reggie’ into the series to give Ash a hand. Both have a lot in common and it’d be comic gold to have these two older ass kickin’ dudes team up and let’s face it, I think fans would eat something like this up. To be clear I’m not just proposing that the actor Reggie Bannister makes a small cameo, I’m saying he should appear as the character ‘Reggie’ from the ‘Phantasm’ series.
Reggie’s got the attitude and even in the somewhat lackluster “Phantasm: Ravager” he proved he’s still got what it takes to kick evil right in the ass. Ash may have his boomstick but Reggie’s got his signature quadruple barrel shotgun and can use a chainsaw like the best of ’em. Yep this retired ice cream man still’s got the moves & the charm with the ladies (or so he likes to believe). Another thing him and Ash have in common. He’d be a perfect addition to the Starz series and Ash could pay him a visit hearing lore about another older dude who’s spent his life fighting evil while hopping into different dimensions. It might take some convincing from Ash, Pablo & Kelly to get him on board but I could see the four of them teaming up being quite a incredible little slice of horror history in the making.
How likely is this idea? Probably slim to none, but let’s consider at least that Don Coscarelli (The mastermind behind Phantasm) has already worked with Bruce Campbell, giving him one of his best roles of his career in ‘Bubba Ho-tep’. To my knowledge the two of them are friends despite not ever being able to agree on how to proceed with ‘Bubba Ho-tep 2’ which for a while was going under the title of ‘Bubba Nosferatu’. It’d be amazing to see Don Coscarelli direct a couple episodes of ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ as well wouldn’t it? We also saw a cameo in ‘Bubba Ho-tep’ from Reggie Bannister so it’s very likely the two of them already know each other. Bannister is also still working in horror, in 2016 he starred in Phantasm: Ravager, The Obsidian Curse & Bonejangles. I’ve gotta check out the latter two.
I even took a moment to send Reggie a message on Facebook about the possibility of an appearance on ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ and got a response saying “Anything could happen but no one has approached us”. So it sounds like he’d be open to it but really fans have to make a stir in order for anything like this to actually ever materialize. What do you think? Would you like to see Reggie and Ash team up? Are there any other horror icons you think would fit nicely on the series? Share this post if you wanna see Reggie & Ash together!
Netflix: Why You Should Watch ‘Hap & Leonard’ & The Final Verdict on ‘Iron Fist’!
Ok so I wanted to take a minute to briefly comment on Netflix’s ‘Iron Fist’ as I FINALLY finished the whole damn thing. So at first I admit I thought the series wasn’t too bad but as I completed the finale it was clear that this show just didn’t deliver much of anything interesting. Now I’m not saying it deserves a 19% rating on Rotten Tomatoes but hey let’s be honest it kinda sucked. The show was pretty damn boring and I admit EVERY one of the Marvel Netflix shows reach a point where this becomes the case. There’s simply way too many episodes, way too much exposition and it just gets to be a bit of a LOOOONG ass process trying to get to the end of these shows. Some of these Iron Fist episodes felt like they were hours long. Combine that with the terrible meandering plot of ‘villains’ Harold and The Hand and the corporate board room BS and it just drags on and on.
I really wanted to like this one but god damn am I glad it’s just over with. One thing this series excelled at was being totally consistently mediocre. Even the finale was a bonafide snoozefest. He barely ever even used the ‘iron fist’ at all throughout this damn show but damn was he hyped on telling everyone he was “the Iron Fist” every damn chance he could. I even kinda liked Finn Jones as the clueless, largely directionless, tantrum throwing rich brat superhero. And to be clear Danny Rand was most definitely not a “white savior” in any respect in this series. He actually was more of a “white screwup” – so to all of the people who had their undies in a bundle I suggest watching the show before you throw your online tantrums. Iron Fist could and should have have been great, pushing the kung fu action to crazy new levels, sadly I give this one a solid D+. Oh well let’s hope they get it right in The Defenders!
On the brighter and more exciting side of things I did start a relatively new series on Netflix last night called “Hap & Leonard” it hooked me right away and I ended up watching three of the six episodes last night. SIX episodes thankfully NOT thirteen!!! I had to mention this one because it’s got some damn good things going for it & here’s a few reasons why you should check it out. First it’s based on the Joe R. Lansdale book series based on these characters. He’s responsible for writing some incredibly cool stories that have been adapted to film like ‘Bubba Ho-tep’, ‘Incident On and Off a Mountain Road’, ‘Cold in July’ & ‘Christmas with the Dead’ to name a few.
Next the directors Jim Mickle & Nick Damici have done some cool flicks like ‘Stakeland’, ‘Mulberry Street’ & ‘We are What We Are’. There’s a big horror connection to this series but so far it really doesn’t quite fit into any genre really. Instead I see aspects of horror, mystery & adventure all crammed nicely into this series. Another plus for me is that it takes place in 1988 and damn do I love the eighties. It’s got some real interesting characters as well, Hap’s a poor rugged private investigator and his best friend Leonard is a gay, black, conservative cowboy who finds more in common with Elvis than Martin Luther King. Both guys are also martial artists and into getting into all sorts of mayhem in the backwoods of east Texas.
It also stars Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks (who’s a total babe and a great actor) as Hap’s ex wife who’s sent them on a wild goose chase to find a sunken getaway car supposedly filled with a million bucks somewhere on the bottom of a alligator infested river. There’s also a weird ass serial killer duo on the loose, one of them is Pollyanna MacIntosh who’s known for her intense role in Lucky McKee’s horror flick “The Woman”. She’s just as wild n’ crazy in ‘Hap & Leonard’.
Yeah it’s a breath of fresh air after Iron Fist that’s for sure. Check it out, it’s a thrill so far and full of surprises!! I’m thrilled this one’s got a second season as it appears there’s plenty o’ crazy source material for out there already from Mr. Lansdale!
Is Netflix’s ‘Iron Fist’ Really Rooted in Racism?
It’s a hot topic here the past couple days surrounding the upcoming Netflix series ‘Iron Fist’ online. The series starring Finn Jones as the legendary kung fu playboy vigilante has come under fire for it’s supposed racist roots and just plain shitty all around reviews. It’s been slammed pretty hard by the critics calling it “boring” and “racially uncomfortable” with it’s white male lead. Apparently Finn Jones shut down his Twitter because of the online backlash from people who’re calling him out personally as part of the problem.
Now I’m not sure whether the show really sucks or not, I haven’t seen it. I’m curious to see if it’s indeed as bad as critics are saying or if perhaps this racial controversy is really the root of all the negative reviews. I thought the previews looked ok but the whole set up looks a bit too familiar. The problem seems that people are upset that the character, who is a white male in the original comic books, should have been recast and played by an Asian actor in the new series. Then it was stated that many were against the idea of a recast because having an Asian actor in the role of the “martial arts guy” played too strongly into racial stereotypes. A bit of a double edged sword it seems. Continue reading
Guillermo del Toro is NOT Hellboy!! Will The Movie Continue On Without Him?!
Oh man, how many damn times do we have to go back an forth about ‘Hellboy 3’? The news came out recently that Guillermo del Toro was having a sit down with Mike Mignola, Ron Perlman and Co. about the serious possibility of finally getting started on the third and final chapter of the Hellboy movie franchise. I’ve gotta admit I was pretty excited. I really enjoyed the two Hellboy movies, not as much as I love the comic books as they’ve got two very different tones but still they were a totally solid attempt at bringing the Mignola-verse to life. Apparently though the general public wasn’t as taken with the movies, perhaps because of the truly bizarre nature of the characters or the occult horror undertones of a “superhero” movie. Whatever the case I’ve stated before that I simply think the movies were a bit ahead of their time and if released in the current climate they’d have fared far better.
Well it seems the whole ‘Hellboy 3’ thing fell completely apart in the last few days with Guillermo del Toro tweeting “Hellboy 3 Sorry to report: Spoke w all parties. Must report that 100% the sequel will not happen. And that is to be the final thing about it”. Damn. That’s pretty harsh coming from the usually jovial Guillermo. Soon after Ron Perlman tweeted “Superhero seeks employment. Likes, pizza, cats, and the Marx bros.” Sounds like a tragic end to the whole debacle doesn’t it? It makes me really wonder just what the hell (no pun intended) happened in this “meeting” and what led to such a dramatic end to the film’s future? Well amidst my disappointment on the whole thing I found Hellboy creator Mike Mignola’s response extremely interesting as he tweeted “No GDT Hellboy 3 does not mean there is no future to the Hellboy franchise…” Continue reading
1960’s Superhero Box Office Bombs: Who The Hell Is Argoman?!
Are you reeeaaally feeling the urge to check out some superhero movies while waiting for ‘Logan’ to hit the theaters on March 3rd? Well for all you superhero diehards have I got a suggestion for you! I am willing to bet you’ve likely never heard of Argoman?! If not don’t worry, your cred is most definitely NOT at stake because the fact is 1967 wasn’t exactly the biggest and best year for the silver screen stud of a superhero. Argoman surely gave success a run for his money though way back when as this Italian superhero attempted to take the spotlight away from Superman.
He looks something like Cyclops from the X-men with a cape and yellow spandex. Argoman is pretty damn arrogant too and spends most of his time on an island where he uses his special powers to bring beautiful women there (right into his lap) to try an woo, make his leather clad S&M reject enemies fight each other and basically do any damn thing he pleases. What a guy huh? Oh Argoman…
Yep he’s a rich 1960’s playboy who’s got everything at his disposal even radioactive cigarettes. Yes you heard that right, anyway I don’t wanna waste too much time explaining the ridiculousness of this flick but if you’re looking for something to pass the time and or severely numb the brain check this crazy ass shit out! Luckily the whole movie is on Youtube for your total and complete entertainment!!
‘Superstition’ from 1982 = Good Ol’ Retro Scares Galore!
You ever have those movies that sit in your Netflix dvd Queue forever and then after years FINALLY arrive?! First off yeah I still got a dvd account with Netflix, the selection is totally way better and I also have the streaming too-so there. Anyway, get over it people, my point is I’ve got like 200 movies in that damn thing and most of em’ I probably will never get the time to check out. Surprisingly a movie snuck it’s way into the mix, ahh yes….’Superstition’ from 1982. I was pretty happy when it came in the mail, I’m always down for a good 80’s flick but I’ve been under the assumption these days that if I haven’t heard about a movie by now then it probably isn’t anything to write home about. Yep, I watch way too many movies, a lot of clunkers but every now and again I see something pretty damn cool that takes me by surprise.
‘Superstition’ (AKA “The Witch”) is one of those movies, from the opening scene it’s clear that you’re in for a bit of a treat. It’s essentially a haunted house movie, with some creepy witch business cleverly thrown in. The opening sequence has a some numb nut teenagers making out near a creepy old house in the woods, their sexy times get cut short by some meddling pranksters who give them a scare with some creepy props they’ve fastened in the trees above. After the two lovebirds flee for safety of course the pranksters can’t resist going into the house to fuck around. What follows are some impressive over the top gory kills, one of them gets thrown up into the ceiling, then winds up decapitated with his head in a microwave oven & eventually we get to see it explode. The other kid witnesses this and ends up being severed in half by a closing window. This opening sets the stage for a pretty entertaining little horror story. We have a bunch of religious nonsense as our main character is a priest who decides to fix up the property which belongs to the church readying it for a family to move into. Weird shit goes down almost instantly but you guessed it, the show goes on with little worry from anyone!
This one is definitely worth a watch, it’s only about 80 minutes long too, which I love, because one thing I’ve been noticing is there are a lot of movies from the 1980’s that would be fucking fantastic if you just cut 20 minutes out of their run time. Superstition succeeds in bringing some cool ass scenarios to life while trimming all the usual boring 80’s B.S. plots that go nowhere out of the mix. It’s a lean mean super solid retro haunted house movie, with some cool old school 17th century possessed witch flashbacks neatly inserted to give you the scoop on just what the hells going on. It’s got a ton of ridiculous characters in the frenzy of things as well with some comedic moments sprinkled in for good measure. I also think it’s got a pretty rock solid finale where the priest runs around with a magic cross he uses to ward off evil and blast open doors. Anyway I could go on but hey if you’re looking for a good gory 80’s haunted house movie look no further Superstition has got the goods!
Split: M Night Shyamalan’s Best Twist Yet!
I saw M Night Shyamalan’s new movie ‘Split’ a couple nights ago and I’m quite happy to say he’s definitely found his footing once again. I’d pretty much given up on him after ‘The Happening’ and then came ‘The Last Airbender’ and then ‘After Earth’ which I admit I never even gave a chance. However when he was given a small budget to make ‘The Visit’ I had a feeling that maybe, just maybe he’d deliver once again. I really enjoyed that one and liked that Night kinda took the gloves off and made a straight up fright flick. So Split was a movie I was pretty excited about for a while. If you’re a fan of his older movies you’ll most definitely like Split for different reasons, one of the strongest being James McAvoy’s performance as some one who suffers from extreme multiple personalities. 23 to be exact.
He’s clearly the star of the show here as he brings to life many of the strange & dangerous personas that threaten three teen girls he’s taken captive in a subterranean maze. The movie builds pretty nicely to an intense climax and Shyamalan’s skills are once again top notch in creating a chilling atmosphere that really could lead you anywhere by the film’s end. Also I was delighted to see Anya Taylor-Joy co-starring here she was great in “The Witch” and once again shines as the final girl here. I wouldn’t be surprised if she returns for Night’s next film too.
SPOILERS AHEAD: Continue reading
Hellboy 3: Will It Really Finally Happen?!
Hellboy 3 has from nowhere, suddenly become a real possibility and I’m pretty damn excited about it! I’ve been ranting about getting a third movie made here for a long ass time and with Guillermo del Toro’s recent fan fueled poll bringing the movie back into the limelight it seems it now has a real chance of happening. The movie has been talked about now for almost a decade and because it didn’t make a killing at the box office, making a third movie has been a tough sell for those big greedy Hollywood Studios. Over the years however the popularity of the unique oddball superhero franchise and comic book have gained quite a bigger following than they had back in 2008. So it could it finally be time for Hellboy to get the praise he deserves? I’d certainly say so!
For me the comic book series and all of it’s offshoot titles that Mike Mignola has produced over the years remain to me the most solid superhero comics of the past decade. Though the movies and the Hellboy comic series differ in many ways, mainly in terms of comedy, I think the movies did a great job delivering the heroic demon to the masses. The characters look absolutely amazing and del Torro is likely the one responsible for that. Ron Perlman fits the part like no other could and the rest of the crew like Abe Sapien, Johann Krauss & Liz Sherman couldn’t be represented any better in my opinion. The movies perhaps give us a bit of a lighter side of things than what you will see in the comics and added some romance into the story (which I actually kind of like as the Mignola comics rarely touch on that aspect of things) while visually making the seemingly impossible come vibrantly to life. I don’t think there’s a director I would have trusted more with Hellboy. Continue reading
Movie Review: ‘Mosquito’ the Proper Sequel to ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’!
I finally hooked myself up with a copy of ‘Mosquito’ from 1994 and was quite pleased to find it was worth the effort tracking down. I’d been curious about this movie for a long time, I actually have owned a ‘region 2’ dvd for years but never could get it to play on any player. So recently I found a proper American copy of the movie, which boasts a couple interesting people in major roles. Ron Asheton (R.I.P.), legendary guitarist for The Stooges as a heroic but bumbling park ranger & Gunnar Hansen (R.I.P.), the original Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a tuff guy military dude. What a random combo huh? That alone was enough to peak my interest.
Being that this movie was released in 1994 I was always a bit skeptical on whether this one would rely on some horrendously shoddy amateur CGI for it’s pesky monster insects. Boy was I wrong, Mosquito ended up being a comically inspiring practical effects creature feature that could have easily been released in 1984. It feels like it’s an 80’s flick in every way imaginable. We get some nifty fx here done by way of puppetry, animatronics, cartoons and full on stop motion animation. Talk about utiltilizing all aspects of the fx spectrum, Mosquito goes the distance or at least tries it’s hardest with the budget it had. That’s not to say the special effects are amazing, quite the contrary, however the movie has some serious charm for the effort it goes to try an make this as epic as possible. This is clearly because the film’s director Gary Jones has been an fx who’s worked on films like Evil Dead II & Army of Darkness. There’s also cool RV crash and a real exploding house too. So yeah they were trying to cover their bases here on the action.
The plot is your basic ‘ufo crashes near a small town and pesky monsters attack the locals’ and that’s a good thing because it’s trying it’s best to be on par with movies like Critters or The Blob. It’s pretty heavy on comedy but at the same time really tries it’s damnedest to be fully bad ass. I really dig Gunnar Hansen in this movie too, he’s a total asset and they make sure to give you exactly what you want from him. A wise choice to give Gunnar his trusty signature chainsaw to do battle with the blood sucking beasts. There’s a line where he comes busting out with his chainsaw and says something like “Man, I haven’t handled one of these babies in 20 years”.
As Hansen never reprised his Leatherface role in a sequel you might be able to say perhaps the man behind the mask made good and helped fight off some killer mosquitos 20 years later! Hey maybe this is cannon in the Texas Chainsaw universe?! The further adventures of Leatherface…Anyway This is a super fun, totally cheezy 90’s monster movie if you are looking for a good party movie ‘Mosquito’ delivers the goods and then some!
Universal Dork 