Tagged: slime

Movie Review: J.R. Bookwalter Returns with Gooey Horror Social Satire ‘SIDE EFFECTS MAY VARY’!

Lately I’ve been checking out a bunch of J.R. Bookwalter’s movies that I somehow missed out on over the years, films like ‘Ozone‘ and ‘Robot Ninja” (which I can’t wait to review) as well as recently hooking myself up for a rewatch with the blue ray of his bonafide cult jam- ‘The Dead Next Door‘!  But most interesting is that he’s just released a brand new film after a 20 plus year hiatus. His latest ‘Side Effects May Vary‘ is currently on tour. Yes the director himself has gone on the road to exclusively show this bizarre new film in select indie theaters only, well before it streams anywhere or has any other physical release other than an exclusive VHS (I need one of these!).

However I was able to check this nasty little nugget out early and soak up all the gory goo drenched shenanigans that ensue in this weird little adventure. Basically what we’ve got here going on is a fairly simple story, flashback a couple of years to the height of the latest pandemic when everyone was getting the covid vaccine like it’s a god damn McDonald’s hamburger! We have our main character a mild-mannered middle-aged man named GLENN ROLLINS (um yeah I love that obviously) who just doesn’t wanna get the jab despite pressure from his wife as well as currently being sick as a dog at home. Meanwhile we get a glimpse into what’s going on with the newest safest, state of the art Covid-19 vaccine that’s getting ready to hit the market. It’s set to safely treat the entire population of the planet. So deep inside a secret pharmaceutical research center that’s tucked away in the countryside, we witness a test subject get injected with an unknown substance that immediately causes some, shall we say, interesting reactions to say the least. It seems this new vax does indeed have some intriguing side effects and our main dude Glenn finally gives in to the mounting pressure. Essentially to satisfy his wife by “doing the right thing”, he reluctantly agrees to the latest, safest and MOST utterly effective, state of the art, yet totally experimental covid vaccine at a doctors appointment. This thing is supposedly gonna save the world from the sickness- so what’s the goddamn fuss about already – right?


Initially the thing makes him feel like a million bucks, but soon his normal boring life begins to drastically change – first off his wife immediately finds him more attractive (woohoo!) and feels the urge to get frisky with her hubby. There’s surprisingly plenty of gratuitous nudity here in Bookwalter’s latest (remember what that was back in the 1980s?!) to behold and that’s the first sign that I was seeing something that felt ripped from the “golden era of horror” but also cleverly grounded in modern times. Yeah, let’s be honest here you just don’t really see good nudity like this anymore in current films. There I said it! It was kind of a breath of fresh air as an avid 80s horror fanatic, especially seeing Brinke Stevens playing the nosey neighbor next door watching some genuinely shocking events go down eagerly with her binoculars. Yeah the scream queen who’d spent plenty of time in her “birthday suit” was now on the opposite end of the spectrum in a completely charming little role in this film.

Including her here was a treat  – 1988’s ‘Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama’ is a fave of mine & that reminds me I NEED to see the sequel! Ok though, from this point on things do get pretty perverse, but in that old school low budget, practical effects heavy way that I’ve really missed so damn much over the years. It’s really all quite charming. Not just all the fx work on display-but the general vibe of it. This one might even make a good double feature with something like ‘Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama’. It has that same sort of playfulness and disgusting charm.

Ok, well sadly for Glenn, he does develop a few “side effects” that sort of put the kibosh on his passionate sexy time session, at least for the moment. Confused and most likely humiliated by his sexual performance or lack there of, he races out into the city while his side effects do indeed “vary” in to the next level. This leaves him to encounter a zany cast of colorful characters along the way. He’s also develops a new hobby: SPOILERS: killing people! It’s quite obvious this safe and effective vaccine might’ve caused him a few more problems than the initial covid infection-but hey at least he’s not worried about relapsing with latest current strain I suppose?

Luckily the cops are on the case. One of his pals Jack, a former police officer, teams up with his old boss from the force. They quickly go on the move to find this heavily vaccinated freak of nature as he ventures deep into the night. So yeah, there’s lots to enjoy here not only as a horror film but also equally a social satire that puts a lot of our human behavior during the covid-19 pandemic under the lens of the microscope. The societal pressures to conform, big pharma propaganda, public paranoia, conspiracy theories & general trust in our Gov’t institutions are all addressed. But not in any sort of weird polarizing way. Instead Bookwalter lets the audience forget about the real world stresses of it all & just shows the whole damn thing play out in an entirely entertaining, absurd fashion. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a courageous effort of dark satirical commentary but it’s also really just a wild little old school splatter flick at heart. The kind of movie Romero might’ve even crafted if he’d still been alive today.

It also pleasantly breaks the usual tropes in sweet yet subtle manner, one of my favorites being the ex-cop character Jack and his boss Chief Tom Danvers. Their rather unique past on the force together, erupting with emotions tied to an intense night off the job at a holiday party is an interesting character study.  I love the way their interactions were handled in response to this unforgettable event at least for one of them. That being said as much as I enjoyed the film-the way it was shot looked maybe a little too crisp. Bare in mind I just recently watched Ozone & Robot Ninja, two bonafide 80’s & 90’s horror classics IMO. So coming into this one the look of it all was a bit shocking coming directly off his older work.

I love the grimy look of ‘shot on video’ stuff and the beauty of shooting a movie like ‘Robot Ninja’ on film. I know, it’s 2024, so to actually shoot on film is expensive and probably pretty annoying BUT Bookwalter fans I know personally really do crave the look of his earlier work. A small criticism, but if ‘Side Effects May Vary’ had been shot in a similar manner I think it’ve been that much more impactful to longtime fans of his productions.

At the end of the day though it’s most definitely a gory little horror character study for the modern times that really pushes the envelope, takes risks and dresses it all up in a bloody, slimy mess of old school oozing practical FX very reminiscent of Bookwalter’s cult classics. An absurd cautionary tale for the polarized pandemic era that we’re hopefully on the other side of-if you dig his earlier flicks check this out with a live audience – likely coming to the big screen in a city near YOU!


 

 

Wisconsin’s Lost 80’s SOV Teen Horror Tale: THE BOY’S NIGHT OUT Coming Soon On VHS?!!

I’m super excited to announce something very special to me that’ll be finally be seen by the public! THE BOY’S NIGHT OUT is a 30-minute “supernatural slasher” horror film that my friends and I shot on video with a camcorder in Wisconsin waaaaaay back in 1989! I’ve been holding on to the VHS copy of the tape for 34 years, the raw footage was essentially a loose story that we tried to our best to cobble together with no re-shot scenes, in “one take” chronological order. Hey, I know that of course isn’t a great way to film a movie-but we didn’t have editing apps or cellphone tech of today to do it all-this was the REAL deal. To make things even more difficult in our film making endeavor, a few of the “key dialogue” scenes were accidentally shot with NO sound (we were sooo bummed!) and many of the scenes needed a big volume boost as well as a music score. The film’s music was recorded by the camcorder, with a boombox being played next to it (we used the Halloween 5 soundtrack) and the “special fx” sounds done by teenagers snapping sticks etc in close vicinity. This was indeed a HIGH quality production!

That also doesn’t mean the sound fx dudes always did their job and there were always a few scenes where we wish we’d have tried a second take. But for a bunch of teens in the midwest back in the 80s we made it work and it was still a project to remember for life. Well flash forward to present times, for years I’d alway thought about how awesome it’d be to edit the movie for real, especially since there seems to be a new appreciation for shot on video relics. So after reviewing the footage again it was clear that some changes were needed to shape the narrative of the story. So I wrote a new “script” to our old story that my friend John Kundinger and I came up with back then.  I got some of the original cast members to lend their voices to fill in the gaps where the camcorder failed to record dialogue and we even added some new dialogue to round out the plot points but never erasing any of the the original lines that were clear and audible.

The problem was, back in the summer of 1989 we didn’t have any way of editing footage and to make it cohesive everything had to be put in the exact order on the first take of filming each scene. If this didn’t happen the story just wouldn’t flow so we did our best to plan it all out every time the record button was pressed. Since the 80s only a handful of people saw the movie. That being said we did have a “premiere”, a one time showing in class at Neenah High School in Wisconsin. The teacher was kind enough to let us show it during class to my fellow classmates and pulled up that big TV/VCR from the AV department into the classroom. Quite a big deal to us at least! Of course we had to explain a few key scenes to everyone while the movie played due to sound issues etc. Despite that, the class loved it and it was a pretty great day at school in 1989 that I’ll never forget! There were even a few fx shots that had the class in awe….ahhh the 80s….

 So here I am 30 plus years later, I just got a new laptop and finally got that classic footage uploaded to ensure my lone VHS copy of the movie lived on. Then my friend who runs ‘Black VVideo‘ (a Portland, OR movie label that specializes in unearthing long lost movie relics specifically on VHS) encouraged me to try to give the film the edit or let’s now say a “director’s cut”. I followed her advice and finally I think was able to give the film’s story more of the original narrative we were trying to convey, even adding a little extra to mix this past summer when I’d luckily gotten my hands on a real life camcorder. I’d also gave it an improved soundtrack where music was missing (yeah there’s still the original ‘Halloween 5’ cassette score in the scenes, recorded directly from the boombox positioned next to the camcorder), but now there’s a few local punk/metal bands from the Fox Valley area in the movie’s mix (from demo tapes of that era) and an additional synth score added where needed that a couple of my friends here in Portland provided. This little film obviously isn’t the greatest SOV horror flick, but it is a time capsule of 80s teenage life in the midwest and working on it really brought me back to simpler times. But I’ll never forget it because we caught it ALL on tape!

“Shot in 1989 with a camcorder on VHS in the Fox Valley, Wisconsin. ‘The Boys Night Out’ follows a group of mischievous teen bullies whose plans to “eliminate” two nerds during the final weekend of summer takes a dark unexpected turn. Can they survive to see their junior year of high school begin on Monday? Or will they fall prey to the vengeful supernatural forces they’ve somehow awoken? It’s anyones guess in this coming of age tale of betrayal, murder & retribution.”

That’s ‘The Boys Night Out’ in a nutshell and it’s coming soon on VHS from Black VVideo & Hollywood Babylon Home Video-so pull out your VCR from the attic and dust it off-I’ve got an old school authentic midwestern horror relic from 80’s that’s coming your way soon on VHS! Stay TUNED!

 

KIDS vs. ALIENS: If “Goosebumps” was Rated R!

I’ve been looking forward to Jason Eisener’s ‘Kid’s vs. Aliens’ since I heard the ‘Hobo With a Shotgun’ director was making a feature length film based on his awesome short horror segment in V/H/S/ 2. Granted it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, I remember really digging the concept and execution of it.

The simple premise of this movie is so right up my alley it feels like it almost was tailor made just for me. In a nutshell some kids have a Halloween party that goes off the rails when evil aliens descend upon their lakeside household. The alien visitors for the most part resemble our traditional “Greys”, which I find to be one of the most terrifying creatures of the more modern era. I guess though they’d be more in line with what we saw in 2014’s ‘Extraterrestrial’ though (minus the CGI) than say the brilliantly bizarre 1989 Whitley Strieber biopic ‘Communion’. That being said, you’ve gotta admire how ambitious this movie is with all of its practical effects work and not a shred of CGI really anywhere to be found. Add in a lean run time of around 75 minutes (68 of them actual movie time) and you’ve got a nice, fast paced horror adventure at the ready. 

Plus the main kid protagonists of this movie are also quite charming for the most part. None of them get bogged down in modern online politics or social commentary, they’re just kids in danger with wildly filthy mouths being….kids. In essence they’re a fairly solid attempt of mixing the kids in Stand By Me with The Goonies. I’d say for the first 3rd of the movie I was pretty sure this might end up being one of my favorite horror films of 2023. It’s got a lot of heart at its core as well (maybe trying a bit too hard at times) and characters who you can for the most part get behind on this weird little ride.

However with ALL of that going for it, still there’s something here that in my opinion just didn’t quite click the way it should’ve. That’s not to say this isn’t a fun little movie, becuz it is. It just misses the mark at being a modern horror classic, maybe because they’re trying just a bit too hard at mostly everything they attempt to sell the audience. It’s same problems I had at times with 2013’s ‘Knights of Badassdom’ a movie which I do admittedly still enjoy quite a bit.

I guess I would say what it does succeed at being is a pretty excellent R-rated “Goosebumps” movie. In many ways, even the way it’s filmed looks a little bit like a vintage Goosebumps episode for better or for worse at times. I guess my problem was maybe my personal expectations weren’t quite met in the way I’d initially hoped for. Though this movie in many ways borrows heavily from the likes of classics like Fire In The Sky, it really lacks the intensity, atmosphere and mystery that could have pulled from it, even if just a little bit of it. The aliens In my opinion are shown way too much in plain sight. All of the things that make grey aliens so terrifying is completely absent here, they run around roaring like enraged grizzly bears. 

The aliens also look a bit too much like men in rubber suits, which I usually don’t mind, but easily hiding them a bit more might have benefited this greatly. More of the monsters isn’t always better. Overall though I do appreciate the almost entirely practical nature of this film’s special effects. It’s refreshing to see filmmakers getting a bit more old school these days!

Though the characters for the most part are fun wonky children, they do try a bit too hard to sell us that on all levels. Much of the character development feels a bit forced. The kids and their antagonist teen enemies end up being somewhat over the top caricatures and don’t always feel like “real’ people. The kids are NERDS, the older teen sister-hero is a NERD and the teens are really reeeeally meanies who don’t like NERDS. By the middle of the movie I found myself wishing their personas had been toned down. They started to feel like they were written by the “modern day Kevin Smith” or something. Ok, well maybe not that bad. Instead of growing to like them more as the movie progressed, I found myself becoming slightly annoyed with everyone’s behaviors and actions even if they were good in nature. 

Looking at it now though with zero expectations, it’s still one I do plan on revisiting again. It’s got plenty of action and really does try to feature a cast of heartwarming lead characters and pathetically almost unbelievably evil teen villains to you are basically told to hate anytime they appear. It also takes place on Halloween and makes it prime viewing for the holiday. There’s a lot of good here so don’t get me wrong, I just feel like someone needs to put together an amazing home invasion Grey alien horror film and do it the right way. In the perfect world I was hoping this would be a mix of 1989’s Communion and maybe like Evil Dead. (here’s a still photo  from Communion).

Instead it leans hard into the campy territory and doesn’t skimp on some impressive Gore FX either. Perhaps it’s really my own expectations that took this down a few pegs for myself, with all the crappy stuff out there streaming I do think there’s a lot of fun to be had. Check this one out, it’s worth a rental, but don’t go in expecting it to be quite as cool as his segment was in V/H/S 2. Still thank you Jason for adding an entertaining alien invasion flick to the cinematic horror library!

 

 

 

The Top 5 Most BAD ASS He-man Action Figures! Plus Kevin Smith’s He-man Hatred?!

So it seems that the ‘Masters of the Universe’ right now are all the rage for ALL the wrong reasons!  Yes, Kevin Smith is in the hot seat for his Netflix masters”He-man” series, having watched the first 5 episodes I will admit, I was pretty freakin’ underwhelmed. The animation was indeed pretty great but some of the voice work I wasn’t a fan of and the general storyline feels like Kevin Smith’s failed attempt at recreating the Transformers movie from 1986 while trying to model the series after what’s trending on Twitter. Killing off He-man twice in the first 5 episodes was a bit of a disappointment and having the “new & improved” Teela take over the entire show was all too predictable in this current landscape of the oddly forced “strong female lead” narrative. I mean if we wanted a female He-man we already got one: where the hell is She-Ra dammit?  The show is only halfway finished so maybe Kevin Smith will redeem himself with some masterful storytelling, however I don’t have too much faith as the guy hasn’t made a good movie in about 15 years. I mean has anyone actually ever been able to finish ‘Yoga Hosers’? DOUBTFUL! 

All this  made me want to take a moment to go back to my childhood as I was a huge collector of the Masters of the Universe toy line and a BIG fan of the cartoon. My favorite thing about the toys were most definitely He-man’s cast of colorful villains!  So I wanted to take a moment to throw out there my top 5 favorite He-man action figures which were most def always the bad guys!

Trap Jaw!!

 Of all of them I’ve gotta say that ol’ Trapjaw was easily my favorite as a kid! His movable jaw, his interchangeable weapon arms and just his rad look in general made him my all time favorite Masters of the Universe action figure! This guy was a true bad-ass, I literally carried him around everywhere with me.


Modulok!!

 I really love this fucked up bad dude, he’s so damn bizarre & cut from a different cloth than the regular Masters of the Universe action figures.  I’d spend hours trying to configure him into the weirdest shapes and sizes that I could, big & small! Modulok was one of the coolest, and also a bit frightening! If you bought two Moduloks you could make him even bigger and weirder!


Two Bad!

 Oooooh yeah this guy was a damn gem, a true freak of nature! When I first saw him in Shopko I was so PUMPED! He was also cut from a different mold with his 2 heads and strange giganto torso along with his spring action arms made him a true freakazoid enemy of He-man!! Two Bad was double the pleasure and two time the EVIL!!

Whiplash!!

 Oh boy, I couldn’t get enough of Whiplash!! the first time I saw him in the package at Toy R’ Us I begged my mom To let me take him home with me. This bad-ass, green reptilian, half breed alligator man was one of my favorites and his rubbery tail could certainly give Prince Adam the ass whoopin’ that he always needed. Easily one of my favorite action figures of all time! I’d take this dude in the tub with me for a swamp alligator style  MOTU adventure – He-man was truly put to the test…thos were the days. Get bent Kevin Smith! Ahhh!


Clawful!!

Oh I just loved this freaky crab human hybrid baddie SO  damn much! As a kid I had hermit crabs and as an adult I still got one! So when I saw this guy At K-mart it was love at first sight!  I don’t know why, but as a kid I was obsessed with crabs and crayfish. When Skeletor added Clawful to the mix you wouldn’t hear me complaining. Nope, I dig his fiddler crab style look and his spring action giant claw hand was his greatest selling point! 



BONUS: Hordak!!

Damn it how I fucking loved Hordak! I was so happy with his introduction a fresh new bad guy and IMO he was cooler than Skeletor. He was a truly exciting addition to the evil gang and not only a rival to He-man but ALSO to Skeletor. So many good times with this evil asshole, but you know what, the whole damn ‘Evil Horde’ needs to make this list, they were all so bad ass and unique and screw anyone who thinks Grizzlor and Manteena were stupid-they were fucking rad-Kevin Smith you could redeem yourself by bringing in Hordak and his crew to kick Teela and Skeletor’s butts and just bring She-ra back to fight them ALL! 

 

How Cool Was Hasbro’s Monster Face?!!

The year was 1992 and I gotta admit I had taken a break from playing with toys-though I still kept them all (I still have them all to this day) and still went to the comic book shop every week. However when I look back today at some of the early 90’s toys I have to say there were some pretty great ones on the market! One such toy I remember was Hasbro’s “Monster Face”, as I never really stopped watching cartoons I fondly remember this commercial!

Really monster face was kind of a Fuck You to Mr. Potato head! Back in those days everything was 10 times as rad when you added slime to it-and monster face  oozed some mean ass slime! Seriously had this come out in the mid to even late 80’s I would have been al over that shit-now today I just may have to hunt one down!!