Cowboys & Zombie Thingies

In the realm of straight-to-Netflix-Instant horror, we find a lot of repeated patterns. Pretty young people traveling to a supernaturally haunted location. Saw ripoffs with single three-letter word titles. 

We’ve seen a lot.

It’s why any time a movie with an uncommon setting or preference will catch my attention. In today’s case, that means a horror western starring Wesley Snipes (in between IRS hearings) as a gunfighter forced to battle the rising undead whom he has already killed.

Yeah, I’m in.

Quick Plot: Aman (Snipes) is a whispery badass in fringe who issues some serious vigilante justice to baddies. The problem, as so many of us experience in our daily lives, is that every time Aman puts a rapist or murderer down, the body eventually comes right back up. Such creatures, as you might guess, are known as ‘gallowwalkers.’

Yes, it’s one word, and yes, SpellCheck is having a major freakout about it.

Thankfully, Aman befriends the amazingly named Fabulos. There’s nothing that amazing about Fabulos aside from his fabulo(u)s name, but having a handsome sidekick provides Aman a sounding board for exposition. Here’s the scoop:

A pregnant prostitute found herself in a nunnery that happened to be located in a gateway to hell (or to the Sunnydale smart, a hellmouth). There, she gave birth to a son who was then sent away to wander the world until he befriended a slaughterhouse owner who raised him beside her daughter, whom he eventually fell in love with. One day, the man (I’m sorry: Aman) left his lover alone for a few hours and came back to find her gang raped and impregnated by a band of nogoodniks. Aman left her to seek vengeance, during which time she had a blond dreaded hair son and died. Meanwhile, Aman found the villains and killed them (including the leader’s loyal hooker), only to quickly discover that his place of birth now causes any man who dies at his hand to come back.

That sounds vaguely interesting, right? We’ve got hell-guarding nuns, slaughterhouse mamas, black hats, hookers with hearts of gold, hookers being shot in the heart, and zombie bad guys. THIS SHOULD BE AWESOME.

It could be, if aforementioned sequence wasn’t narrated by Snipes with less tone variance than Brad Pitt’s entire performance in Interview With a Vampire. Still, we stick with Gallowwalkers because, you know, horror western.

Honestly, a lot of it is. This is the kind of film that has, for no real reason, a beautiful Old West prostitute being kept around by the big bad villain because her skin texture will be perfect to garb the resurrected corpse of his beloved son. For goodness sakes, said beautiful prostitute is called a “painted cat” and later kills a priest with the line “forgive me father, for I have skinned.” There is very little reason why Gallowwalkers isn’t the greatest film since 7 Mummies.

Nah, I kid. VERY FEW THINGS come close to the glorious ridiculousness of Seven Mummies. Directed by the fabulo(u)sly named Andrew Goth, Gallowwalkers is a far better film than the one that involved stock footage tarantulas and kung fu flying mummies dressed like jawas. Henner Hofmann’s cinematography is genuinely gorgeous, and some of the design choices (particularly in the villains’ bag/bucket/alien twizzle headed garb) offer a surprisingly surreal touch. I say, without irony, that Gallowwalkers has some chops.

It’s also a little silly. From the Village of the Damned-styled villagers to the never-effective use of the big bad demon voice, some viewers will find a lot to chuckle at in this film. Snipes was right in the middle of his IRS criminal proceedings, and perhaps the real-world stress of that contributed something to his bizarrely listless performance.

Gallowwalkers is not, by any means, of high quality in conventional terms, but it tries to offer something new. In the world of modern horror, that’s always welcome.

Also, there are A LOT of beheadings. Beautiful, ridiculous, hilarious beheadings.

High Points

Filmed in Namibia, the setting of Gallowwalkers is positively stunning. It’s always nice to see a genre movie embrace sunlight, and while it doesn’t always flatter the CGI head explosions, the bright pallet is genuinely refreshing

Low Points

While I appreciate any film that tries to include a strong female character or two, Angel (that’s the ‘nice’ hooker) is ultimately such a wasted opportunity

Wesley Snipes is a good action star. Wesley Snipes is not a good narrator

Lessons Learned

Wearing a hat in the rain is a good idea

Trouble with the damned is they never stay put

Makeup in the Old West held up amazingly well to the elements

One just can’t go wrong with a white shirt (particularly if you one has no skin)

Skullbuckets present quite a few challenges to peripheral vision, even if you’re Diamond Dallas Page

Rent/Bury/Buy

Hey, for a 90 minute stream on Instant Watch, Gallowwalkers has a lot more to offer than most of its competition. No, it’s not a ‘good’ film per say, but it’s visually quite striking and in terms of its story, there are a lot of fresh choices. Know what you’re getting, then, when the mood strikes you, go get it.

Another Buggish Swap, This Time With 2x More Jan Brady

"Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."--Someone

"Writing about bad movies is easy. Writing about comedies is hard."--Me

The only people that challenge us more than our enemies are generally our dearest friends, and that's probably why the one and only T.L. Bugg used this month's movie swap to assign me Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury. It's not that it's not my KIND of film--a meta movie-within-a-movie lampooning made-for-cheap '80s action romps? Sign me up!--but more the fact that I find reviewing comedies to be incredibly difficult. Sure, if we're talking about unintentional comedies--Twilight, Cool As Ice, and the like--then the words seep through my MacBook like a blue liquid in the offbrand maxipad on a commercial for Kotex. But straight-out humor is hard to discuss. Over at The Lightning Bug's Lair, I've repaid my debt by sending the Bugg to Instant Watch for the 1993 ...And God Spoke, an underrated mockumentary with juicy cameos from Soupy Sales, Andy Dick, Lou Ferigno and more. To find out if he had as hard a time writing and as good a time watching, head on yonder.

But enough stalling. Let's get wet.

Quick Plot: Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury is essentially presented as the special edition watching experience of Poolboy 2. Are you confused yet?

Our director, writer, producer, dubber, and occasional actor Saint James St. James (ACTUAL writer Ross Patterson,  a game performer with an eerie vocal resemblance to Will Arnett's GOB Bluth) serves as our narrator of sorts, announcing we’re about to watch the long out-of-print film he made as an entitled one-eyed 10-year-old in 1990. Throughout the main narrative of Poolboy 2, St. James interrupts to give us some behind-the-scenes tidbits, such as why one character in a group shot was shot on green screen (because he was in prison), why flubs weren’t edited out (because a non-actor pulling a gun on your crew sells tickets), and why there’s not much nudity (St. James didn’t understand that “more nudity” didn’t mean “more penises” to the studio).

As you can probably guess, Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury is not a traditional film. It’s a fictional making-of detailing a fictional Rambo knockoff about a Vietnam vet (Kevin Sorbo as John Van Hammer playing Sal Bando—got that?) who promised his fallen soldier friend that they would open a pool cleaning business together, only to return to California to discover all such companies are now owned by—gasp!—Mexicans. In a sort of reversal of Machete, Bando becomes a crusader for white American rights, eliminating anyone who steps in his way with EXTREME prejudice.

Sure, the Mexicans in town aren’t innocent, having murdered his cheating wife and sorta son (or at least, drowned dummies that vaguely resembled them). Under the control of—whaddya know! --Machete and more importantly, 7 Mummies’ Danny Trejo, Bando’s town becomes a hotbead of violence as he skims some pools, goes to parties hosted by Children of the Corn’s grown-up Malachai, and has sex with inflatable dolls/neighborhood blonds. One of whom is played by…

JAN BRADY CONNECTION!!!

I’m not embarrassed to say I saw 1995’s The Brady Bunch Movie three times in the theaters. I found and still find it to be insanely enjoyable, as is its slightly lesser followup, A Very Brady Sequel. One of its secret weapons was Jennifer Elise Cox’s charmingly mad performance as Jan and thusly did it bring a Marcia Marcia Marcia bright smile to my face to see Ms. Cox show up as one of Bando’s most loyal clients.

But guess what? It gets better!

You see, the gods of movie recommendations looked upon we two bloggers, one from the northern Bronx hood and the other strumming a banjo made from dead pool cleaners' skin on his South Carolinian porch (that's how I imagine he spends weekends not spent at HorrorHound) and bestowed upon us a gift: TWO JAN BRADYS! As Cox costars in Poolboy, so does the original Jan Eve Plumb playing Noah’s wife (actually, playing Eve Plumb PLAYING Noah’s wife) in …And God Spoke.

So that's exciting. At least if you're me.

But back to Poolboy! Or the making of Poolboy 2! I'm still confused!

Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury (the real one on Instant Watch) is a fun, deliberately goofy homage of sorts to the kinds of filmed-in-the-Philippines action romps you now find rusting in the gray market. If you don't have much love for that sub sub sub genre, I don't imagine you'll find Poolboy overly amusing, although much of its randomness might work for the kinds of comedy fans who dug Wet Hot American Summer before it was cool to do so (or maybe I just like to use that comparison because I'm one of the few truly cool people who did and I like to brag about it).

I found Poolboy an odd viewing experience because initially, it seemed positively genius. As the film went on, the hit vs. miss percentage of the jokes became a little more evenhanded. For a lot of them, the idea of the joke was amusing--terribly dubbed actors, for example--though the final execution felt a tad off. I won't say it was director Garrett Brawith's fault necessarily, especially since he demonstrates a wonderful strength with getting his actors (be they Jason Mewes or Courtney Gains) to nail the tone to near perfection. Maybe the new filmmaking team just need a little more time in honing style, but it's a minor criticism for something that proudly declares itself wacky and follows up on it in every scene.

High Points

One of the biggest faults of so many spoofs is that they cave in to tradition and try to force actual heart or development on their not-supposed-to-be-real characters. Poolboy thankfully avoids such a trap and instead, everybody and thing onscreen exists solely for our laughs. Sure, not all of them work, but I admire the filmmakers' spirits in going all out

Kevin Sorbo has a fairly thankless role here in playing a mediocre action star that deliberately lacks the charisma or talent of his more famous peers. When you think about how he downplays it, his performance here is actually incredibly generous, letting both Sal AND John come across exactly as they should

Low Points

As explained above—including my own inability to write well about comedy—there are simply some jokes that, well, don’t quite work

Lessons Learned

Nobody hates Menudo. Everybody in the world loves Menudo!

The present participle of ‘rap’ has two p’s

Answering the phone a thrust before orgasming will have serious effects on a man

Rent/Bury/Buy

Comedies are perhaps the hardest types of films to recommend or warn against because even if I KNOW you, it doesn't NECESSARILY mean I'll know what makes you laugh on any given day. Poolboy made me laugh, then made me not, then made me laugh again. I think some film audiences--particularly those with a soft spot for third world country '80s action cinema--will appreciate a lot of the jokes in Poolboy simply from a movie fan point of view, even when plenty of them don't really snap as sharply as we’d like. If nothing else, you can thoroughly ravage IMDB spotting all the cameos, with everyone from Richard "Al" Karn to Ahmed "JarJar" Best popping up in small roles. 

Want more meta comedy about the making of a low budget bad film? Head on over to The Lightning Bug’s Lair for T.L. Bugg’s thoughts on …And God Spoke. It's guaranteed to have equal parts Jan Brady!

Nah, I'm Just a Worm

There's a whole lot to love about Tremors. Big hungry worms. An adorable bromance. Kevin Bacon's feathered locks. Pole vaulting. Reba McEntire. The fact that it's an easy go-to when defending '90s horror as having at least SOME merit.

As for the sequels, I know not much about them. I watched Part 2 back in the days of VHS and all I remember was the lack of the Bacon. As with breakfast buffets or cobb salads, that's usually a bad thing.

Parts 3 & 4 were apparently made for the SyFy Channel before it got hip with the Ys. Now you might call me a wild one for daring to jump ahead to the last film without the continuity of its predecessors, but guess what? There's a lotta things about me you don't know anything about. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you COULDN’T understand. Things...you shouldn't understand. 

I’m a loner. A rebel. You know the rest.

Wait, where was I? Right, see, Tremors 4 is actually a prequel set in the old west and co-starring Billy '7 Mummies' Drago, a fact that results in the following:

1. I can skip parts 2 & 3
2. I must watch this movie

Quick Plot: Welcome to Rejection, population: dwindling. When 17 miners are mysteriously (and savagely) killed, only a handful of townsfolk remain. Among them are Juan, a hard-working Mexican with dreams of owning a range, Christine, a spunky redheaded innkeeper, the Changs, Chinese immigrants turned general store owners, and Tecopa, a Native American. There might have been a few more pieces of fodder--er, characters, but let's answer the question that's really burning your bottom:

Michael Gross (he to the Tremors-verse what Brad Dourif is to Child’s Playland or Costas Mandylor is to the Saw movies) is top-billed and yet, you say, this film is set a good 70 years or so before the birth of his franchise character, Burt Gummer, the gun-loving trucker-hat wearing country boy so handy with a firearm. Taking a note from Back to the Future, Tremors 4 casts Gross as Hiram, the great great (maybe still great, I'm bad with numbers) granpaw of our modern hero. 

A good deal of humor comes from Gross's portrayal of his previous character's exact opposite: Hiram is a prissy, sheltered investor raised with a silver spoon shoved so far in it reaches his prim mustache. Those who know the series will be amused by his mannerisms, chuckling at how he holds a gun as if he were Denise Richards trying to figure out how to open a dictionary.

But as much as we love Mr. Keating, the reason to watch any Tremors film is a little less complex: carnivorous worms! On that front, Tremors 4 is...okay. It’s refreshing that the creatures are done with practical effects (though some gooey splatter bares the mark of SyFy quality CGI) and the film adds some fun by playing with the size and age of the creatures. We came for the worms, we get the worms, and while they’re not spectacular, they’re still worms. 

Speaking of worms, Billy Drago shows up! The genre movie slummer gives a fun turn as

a sharp shooter hired to fight the tremors and teach Hiram how to handle a pistol. It’s amusing.

And ‘amusing’ is pretty much the best way to sum up Tremors 4. Does it capture the energy of the first film? No, but that’s a juggernaut too special to be repeated on a straight-to-Sci-Fi-Channel original. Still, the movie is a good time in a bag-o-microwave-popcorn kind of way, and sometimes, that’s the snack we need.

High Points

You have to love any film that begins with a clean decapitation played for gentle laughs

Low Points

MINOR SPOILERS

Tremors has never been a mean franchise--in a way, it’s almost like the Brendan Fraser of horror comedy--and therefore, once we reach a point a good 30 minutes from the end where the only characters left alive are the friendly batch of townspeople with big dreams, it’s pretty obvious that none of them will be wormed

Lessons Learned

No one goes without a hat in China

Naming your town ‘Rejection’ ain’t such a bright idea

Rich people are always fat. Even if you think ‘hey, he’s rich and rather slim,’ you’ll probably learn that said he has actually lost all his fortune and is therefore not required to be fat

Rent/Bury/Buy

Tremors 4 is a good-hearted TV-PG rated monster film, one fit for a busy Sunday afternoon filled with sorting laundry or making your office lunch for the rest of the week. It’s not an overly exciting time, but hey, it has a nice spirit about it and offers plenty of wry smiles for those who love a good worming.

The Greatest Movie Since Gangland

Of all the movie monsters lurking in the vaults of your local horror section, mummies tend to fare the worst. Perhaps any sense of terror was destroyed by The Monster Squad, which reminded us that essentially, those ancient Egyptian beings are really just a mega Price Club pack of toilet paper draped over the 6’ frames of lumbering moaners.

Hence, I didn’t expect to be frightened by 2005’s 7 Mummies. I also didn’t expect to be so giddily entertained.

Quick Plot: A pair of prospectors (maybe) uncover a box of gold (not chocolate) coins, smiling through squinty sunlight only to then get sliced up by a shadow on horseback. Cut to a lone tarantula crawling over the desert as extended opening credits roll. 

Stock footage can go a very, very long way.

Now to our main characters, a van filled with prisoners in transit and their two inept police guards. The cons shoot one and make a hostage out of the other, mostly because she’s a hot female and they maybe have plans to do something with that. “Something” means nothing really, though the grizzled ringleader does beat up one of the lesser cons who attempts to rape her. So I guess they’re good guys, except they’re also supposed to be jerks with intense criminal records. It’s all quite confusing.

Anyway, much like that fine Tales From the Crypt episode of decades past, the crew starts hoofing it through the desert under the hungry eyes of vultures. There they meet Apache, a giggling and talkative Native American played by none other than Danny Trejo. He laughs. A lot. And if you’re human, you will probably laugh too.

A lot.

Eventually, they reach a ghost town populated by extras wearing whatever was in the studio’s costume closet marked “Old West.” Oh, and Billy Drago, who has an unhealthy amount of fun as a preacher-y town sheriff. He also gets about 2 minutes worth of maniacal laughter, probably to ensure in his contract that he would be getting the same treatment as Danny Trejo. Trejo, however, gets the last laugh of the film because for whatever reason (really there’s none), 7 Mummies ends with a flashback to Trejo...laughing.

I realize this review is making little sense, but I can only work with the material given to me. I’m not a magician--hahahahahahahahhhaaaaaaaahaaaaaahahahahahahaaaacoughcough

Sorry. I just felt left out.

Right, so in the Old Westy saloon, the cons get their grind on with a bunch of free, well-groomed, and artificially busty prostitutes. Billy Wirth, looking exactly the same as he did 20 years ago (i.e., exactly like Luke Wilson today) does not grind though. He has to look serious, because that’s how Billy Wirth rolls. Also, he might be hitting on the female corrections officer named Lacey, which is about the least believable name for a highly unbelievable corrections officer ever laughed out loud.

The hookers are vampires, or something. And there’s hidden gold that the grizzled con leader really wants to find, even though it might mean releasing kung fu flying mummies. 

Yes, that was not an impressive typo. This movie has KUNG FU FLYING MUMMIES. And they’re dressed like Jawas.

Also, a guy that shoots himself in the foot while arguing with the sun. And a race between a motorcycle and horse that rages from night to day to a different dimension. Oh, and best of all, a rumored $5 million budget that explains where that tarantula footage came from.

High Points

Any film that ends with an extended “Noooooooooooooooo!” will instantly earn four stars from me (maybe that’s why I didn’t like The Fighter?)

Low Points

I’m not asking for character development in a film that features KUNG FU FLYING MUMMIES, but when you have the chance to play with prisoners as your antiheroes, why not take advantage of that by making them actually tough or interesting? 

Lessons Learned

Breast implants, tattoos, and hoop earrings were popular choices for 1880s saloon prostitutes

Your first and last drink are always free. You should have no reason whatsoever though to think that there’s any relationship between the two

Time traveling in the desert happens sometimes, so there’s really no point in spending any time considering the fact that you’ve just time traveled

Rent/Bury/Buy

7 Mummies is a film I’d compare to Gangland, that kickboxing block of cheese that tried hard, just never at anything that would make it a good movie. At around 80 minutes, it’s an easy bit of fun on Instant Watch that makes for a giggly good time unworthy of even .3% of your brain cells. Queue it up with some liquor or friends and laugh maniacally like the cult movie character actor you know you want to be.