X is the greatest movie of all time

X. I thought it was amazing up until a somewhat stupid thing thrown in at the end that sort of changes how you can interpret the movie but doesn't really change anything. Without giving anything away, it is one of those, "oh, um, okay, whatever," things that are sort of irritating. However, movie redeems itself with an incredible last line. Fantastic. Glad Ti West is making horror again. 

Set in 1979, a group of young people set out to make an adult movie in a rural Texas farmhouse. The elderly couple, it turns out, has some creepy shit going on and shit hits the fan when the wife gets all riled up. It's what you'd call a psycho-biddy movie. 

All the men in the movie, in true final girl genre fashion, are extremely incompetent. They are the first to die, are sexually worthless (except for Cudi's character), and don't recognize when they are in extreme danger. Typical dudes in slasher shit, except they each display a little complexity. Not as much as the women, who are extremely well done, but come off as real people instead of just existing to die. I'm currently reading The Final Girl Support Group so this is all fresh in my mind. 

Some real talent on display here in this A24 picture. Not only is it West's return to horror, it stars Mia Goth from the Suspiria remake, Jenna Ortega (who is having a real moment), this Martin Henderson guy I only know from Smokin' Aces, and Kid Cudi (the rapper guy). Rounding out the cast are ones Brittany Snow, Owen Campbell, and Stephen Ure, none of whom I know. 

This Jenna Ortega chick is on fire right now. She was dope in Scream and is in two other movies at the top of my watch list -- American Carnage and Studio 666. She's great in this flick, too. But the real star and MVP of the movie is Goth. She plays both the final girl porn actress and the old psycho lady. They are two sides of the same coin, sympathetic victims, both of them, one getting opportunities because of her looks and drive, the other who is old and has lost much of her self-worth. She is incredible in both parts. 

See it as something of a love letter to the movies West grew up on, like Tarantino for horror, especially Tobe Hooper's 1974 masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The layout of the murder house even appears to be the same as the one the family occupies in Chain Saw. There is a lot to love here. First off, I am a sucker for a meta treatment, the whole film-within-the-film with an adult twist with The Farmer's Daughter. This is the way to go with a contemporary slasher if you want it to be any good. 

Other obvious influences include Psycho (1960), Hardcore (1979), Alligator (1980), and Boogie Nights (1997). Also 1970s pornography--I hear, though I am not familiar. 

Lastly, West secretly made a prequel, Pearl, which was shot back-to-back with X. It's part of a trilogy, apparently, which I am stoked about.

Body Bags was the okayest movie of all time

Ah, body bags. You see, if it's murder, suicide or a nasty accident, they put them in here. Checked off a lot of boxes for me. Anthology comedy horror with two "masters" of horror directing. A rip off of Tales from the Crypt with lots of fun cameos. Stacey Keach, Debbie Harry, and Sam Raimi. I figured this would be dope. But in the end, not really my cup of tea. 

Three segments. John Carpenter hosts and introduces each story. He is this morgue employee, it seems, who is into some weird shit. Sort of tells us about how some of the people there die and are brought in in body bags. These are their stories. 

The first segment was the slowest and most traditional/run of the mill of the three. Slasher stalks a gas station attendant. Cool setting and lots of great bit parts, but it doesn't hold up at all when it comes to logic. The plot holes in this one are too distracting, and I'm not one to care about that generally. But you ask yourself a couple of questions and it comes undone as shit. Robert Carradine, bro of David, plays the killer. Get cameos from David Naughton from American Werewolf in London, and directors Wes Craven and Sam Raimi.

Second segment is easily my favorite. Stars Stacey Keach, the obvious MVP of the movie, as a dude going bald who is fucking obsessed. He has a pretty girlfriend who is supportive, but dude just won't let it go. Fucking paints his head and shit like that. It's fucking gross. But everywhere he looks he sees dudes with like 80s rockstar hair, or some dog with a golden mane, and dude loses his shit. So he goes to this Hair Club for Men type place and gets some hair treatment whilst nurse Deddie Harry is all over him, telling him how sexy he'll look with long flowing locks. He's fucking stoked when he pulls off the bandages and has hair down to his ass. It's crazy ridiculous and obviously looks like shit. But he gets what he wanted, but, you know, this is a horror anthology, so that shit comes at a price. 

Third segment is sort of the same as the second. Dude loses a part of himself, his eye, is obsessed with getting it back. Does an experimental surgery. Gets what he lost back. Is ironically tortured by the eye. It's the old, got an eye from a dude that got executed, now I see his crimes and will start killing myself bit. If you're a Simpsons fan, it's the same plot as "Hell Toupée" from "Treehouse of Horror IX" where Homer gets Spike's hair after he got the chair and then Homer starts having urges to kill and what not. The guy that gets the eye, by the by, is Mark Hamill. He is basically out there playing hero ball during his whole segment. 

Directors are listed as Carpenter and Tobe Hooper. Carpenter did "The Gas Station" and "Hair" while Hooper did "Eye". Not what either are going to be remembered for, for sure. But definitely not either of their worsts. Plus, I think Carpenter is a genius and generally love his work. That said...

There were moments that I had fun, and the casting was amazing. But overall I thought it was sort of meh. I thought the bookend segments with John Carpenter as a morgue attendee ghoul were especially disappointing. Too much a really bad rip off of Tales from the Crypt without the humor. I mean, they tried, but the jokes were shitty and sad. 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) is the greatest movie of all time

Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Classic. Wouldn't watch it as a child. Was fucking scared out of my mind from the little bits I had seen flipping through the channels or from the five second clip from the second movie in the series in The 'Burbs. Didn't see it until like junior year of high school at which point I thought it was a comedy in the way that The Evil Dead is sort of comedy albeit way more brutal. Also dark. The second flick in the series just goes completely camp, by the by. This is totes director Tobe Hooper's masterpiece. Completely changed the direction of horror and invented the concept of the final girl with original final girl Marilyn Burns. Greatest movie of all time. Probably legitimately.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Thanks to a smart script and documentary-style camerawork, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre achieves start-to-finish suspense, making it a classic in low-budget exploitation cinema.

Group of five college aged kids, a brother, Franklin, and sister, Sally, and their friends, the other ones, are going to stay at their dead grandfather's place when they are attacked by a family of cannibals. The group's most memorable member, Leatherface, wears the flayed faces of people he kills like a grotesque Halloween mask and kills with both a sledgehammer and a chainsaw. After easily killing the other four, Leatherface chases Sally who puts up an impressive fight before she eventually gets captured and is forced to sit through an insane dinner where her friends are the entree that culminates in her attempted murder. When the group of cannibals--consisting of Leatherface, The Hitchhiker that we meet early in the film whom the college kids give a lift to before he attacks them, and The Cook who doesn't like killing but sure loves cooking and eating long pig--decide to let grandpa, who is 120 years old, perform the kill, Sally manages to wriggle free and get to the high where she makes her escape.

Directed by the ever misrepresented Hooper, who wins the movie for producing such an influential masterpiece of horror, this marks the early apex of the director who never earned the respect of Hollywood. He would later direct The Funhouse and Lifeforce which I have since grown to appreciate. All of these movies are out there. Surprising amount of humor in this one about a family of murdering cannibals that include one among them wearing human faces and what not. Not completely sure if this is intentional or not. The humor.

But here is some stuff I compiled that supports this being a comedy. At the beginning, just after an insane and terrifying voice over, Franklin, the character in the wheelchair, starts out the movie pissing in his pee can and then rolls down a hill, falling out of his chair screaming. It is close to Mac and Me bad. Then there is the Hitchhiker with the scar or birthmark on his face who they pick up. He jokes about working in a slaughterhouse and shows them pictures and stuff. Hilarious, right? He then starts talking about how the new, more humane method of killing livestock eliminates "good jobs" for people. This guy would freak out if he saw all the automation or walked into a Kroger with the whole self-checkout shit. This is all before he takes Franklin's pocketknife and starts cutting himself. Everyone freaks and Franklin takes the knife back. The Hitchhiker then pulls out a straight razor while everyone is screaming and slices Franklin's arm. All hell breaks loose and they boot him out of the car. It all goes south so fast that it ends up being like WTF funny. Then, once they stop and stumble upon the house where Leatherface and the rest of the killers reside but before anyone has died, Franklin spazzes out, saying stuff like "come on Franklin, it'll be a great time," and repeatedly blows raspberries and makes fart noises for an uncomfortable amount of time.

Plus, there is the scene where couple Kirk and Pam keep ignoring insane warning signs that they are in danger whilst dicking around out in front of the murder house where both of them will die. This includes finding human remains. Kirk finds a tooth, obviously human with a filling in it and shit, and like touches her with it to gross her out and is like "I got something for you" which is fucking insane. A minute later he goes inside and dies within 10 seconds as Leatherface busts out and smacks him in the head with sledgehammer. That shit ain't funny.

Then we get the stuff with Sally, played by actress Marilyn Burns, towards the end. First she is chased by Leatherface who is a first-time stoned Gunner Hanson. That is the reason for all the Keystone Cops swerving and shit. She eventually gets to this gas station that doesn't sell gas that they stopped at earlier. The old guy inside, whom we only get referred to as "The Cook", ends up being in on the killing and eating folks and attacks Sally, screaming hysterically, with a fucking broom and a burlap sack. Once they have Sally in the home, the group brings out grandpa to kill her with a hammer like he used to use on animals (not cool with that shit) but he is so old he can barely hold it. This allows her to break loose and hit the highway where we get the iconic Leatherface raging and twirling like a dervish.

Night of the Creeps is the greatest movie of all time

Night of the Creeps. An all-time fave. Female companion loved it as well. Watched this last the night before the eclipse with an unwanted house guest. Wanted a weird space invader movie and this fit the bill, for me at least. The guest was not into it. Too crazy for him. Had to turn it off. Punished him with Detention instead which he also wasn't really able to handle. Time to revisit. Better than I remembered. Greatest film of all time indeed.

Something cool about the flick is that all the character names pay homage to other horror directors. These include characters named after James Cameron, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg who did Jeff Goldblum The Fly movie, Joe Dante of The 'Burbs and Gremlins fame, Tobe Hooper who's most remembered for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (going to be watching all of those flicks soon) who also did Funhouse and Lifeforce which I called "the worst movie of all time" but am seriously reconsidering as maybe the greatest movie of all time as I remember it fondly (it is a naked, space-vampire movie after all),  John Landis who did An American Werewolf in London among other things, Steve Miner who directed Friday the 13th: Part 2 and Part 3 as well as Halloween H20, Sam Raimi of The Evil Dead and Drag Me to Hell fame among other awesome shits, and George A. Romero who more or less invented the zombie movie. I'm not really sure why the director of this flick, one Jeff Dekker, never made it to the level of the directors he pays homage here. After this movie, Dekker's second film was 1987's Monster Squad which is universally loved. Other than that he directed an episode of Tales from the Crypt and the film Robocop 3 which he co-wrote with Frank Miller and is not remembered fondly.  He also wrote the story that would be used for the basis of the film House from 1985 directed by the aforementioned Steve Miner. He has a couple of producer credits for stuff I've never seen and a handful of writing credits, most recently for The Predator from earlier this year which was not well received. Does get much better than this or Monster Squad. Would have totally watched anything else horror related he would have made but alas. There is basically none.

Oh, wow

Pros: Extra cheese here. Over-the-top and doesn't take itself seriously though it obviously loves the genre. The worms and gore are great. The first zombie/alien movie that I know of, it is a pretty unique crossover film with an interesting/engaging plot. Cast is surprisingly solid and features Tom Atkins from Halloween III: Season of the Witch (among other things). What I consider a perfect self-aware, horror/comedy film.

Cons: Aliens in the opening scene look pretty stupid. There are also some dead animals.

Gist of the movie is that to impress a girl, dweeby college student Chris and best bud JC pledge a fraternity full of douche bags and are forced to steal a body from the college morgue when shit goes wrong. Must be a different breed of chick than I am used to that would be impressed by what frat a dude would join or whatever. The movie opens with a bunch of aliens chasing this other alien who ejects a weird canister out into space. The canister crashes to earth in the 1950s and a coed couple goes to investigate. Meanwhile, there is an axe murder on the loose who is in the area. When the dude leaves his date in the car, the murderer shows up and hacks her to bits. We later see that a cop named Ray Cameron, who had dated the girl when they were in high school, stumbled upon the scene and shot the killer to death. Fast forward 30 years in the future and the male coed in the car is the body that the dudes try to steal. Turns out the guy is infested with these sentient worms that turn people into zombies by flying into their mouths. The first person to discover the issue ends up being the female crush, Cynthia, who ends up working with the pledge to stop the college from getting overrun with these worms/zombies. Eventually the axe murderer gets possessed and shit is fucking on. On the whole, the film is an early kitchen sink type movie that throws everything out there and sees if sticks. Parasitic alien worms, B movie alien spacemen, slasher madmen, teen comedy, cop/medical drama, this film has basically everything and enjoys something of a cult following these days.

The Bradster

It stars Tom Atkins who fucking goes for it in this flick as Ray Cameron, Jason Lively who was Rusty in one of the National Lampoon's Vacation movies (European Vacation) plays Chris Romero, Steve Marshall as James Carpenter "J.C." Hooper who is the handicapped best bud of Chris, and Jill Whitlow as Cynthia Cronenberg who is the semi-rare attractive survivor girl that shows a little boob. Also appearing in the film are cutie Elizabeth Cox from Intruder as Kathy, Allan Kayser who was Bubba in Mama's Family as Brad with the vanity plate "BRADSTER" on his whip who is the generic dickhead frat douche who dates the character Cynthia before he kicks the crutch of the crippled kid which prompts her to do the classic crank flipping the bird and then later (once he has turned to an alien zombie which she doesn't notice for an insanely long time) break up with him, Robert Kino as the Asian janitor Mr. Miner who barely speaks English and just keeps repeating "screaming like banshees" which he thinks is the funniest thing he has ever heard in his whole fucking life, Dick Miller from Gremlins and The 'Burbs and a million other things has a small part, David Paymer who is a guy you sort of recognize but have no idea where from as a medical student that gets murdered, Vic Polizos (another I-sort-of-recognize-that-guy guy) who plays this coroner that is constantly eating while poking around horribly murdered individuals, David Oliver who died of AIDS in the early 1990s as Steve with the uni-brow who is basically just a generic meathead, and the very attractive Suzanne Snyder from Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Return of the Living Dead II, and Weird Science. Lot of people you sort of know, I guess.

The zombie ax murderer. Lot going on here

Best line of the movie is a tough one with this flick and Atkins going a mile a minute. The first thing he says, something of a swing and miss, came after a guy asks him if he is the detective when he replies, "No, Bullwinkle Moose." Later that same scene we get "That's fine. Candy-ass, but fine." and when talking about a body that suddenly wasn't there he says "What, did he have a date? Whaddya mean it isn't here?" and later "Zombies, exploding heads, creepy-crawlies... and a date for the formal. This is classic, Spanky." Chris also has a pretty good one. Atkins basically out of nowhere starts telling Chris, a college freshman whom he calls "Spanky", before they really know much of what was going down, that he shot and killed that ax murderer though he didn't need to. Chris then replies, shocked, "detective, other than confessing to a murder, is there a point to this conversation," which is bold. Also of note here, Cameron buried the guy under the floor of the sorority mother's home. The guy ends up coming back to life and they have a zombie ax murderer situation on their hands that they have deal with. But my fave line is probably, from Cameron, "What I'm going to need is your standard flame thrower."

"Your date's here! And he's looking good!"

Best scene of the movie is easily the zombie formal. The sorority girls at this point know shit is going down. Cameron, Chris, and Cynthia have let them know what's up. Meanwhile, down the way, the Beta Frat that they seem to have some sort of thing with, had a bus crash because of a possessed dog and all of them end up getting infected. Once they show up shit really hits the fan and it becomes your typical zombie/home invasion flick. Well sort of. It kicks off with a Cameron zinger, "I got good news and bad news, girls," he says, "The good news is your dates are here." "What's the bad news?" one of the girls asks, taking the bait. Cameron tells her, "They're dead." At that point one of the dead guys breaks into the sorority house and attacks a chick. Atkins unnecessarily pushes her down after she breaks free from the guy and tells her to duck. He then looks the zombie guy in the eye, says "it's Miller time", and shoots him in the face. When the worms come crawling out, he takes an aerosol can to his cigarette and lights those shits on fire. Bad ass. From there all hell breaks loose and it descends in complete chaos. Sort of like Re-Animator. Dope ass scene.

It is during that best scene that we get the best kill as well. While Cameron is busy flame throwing people to death, Chris and Cynthia remain outside, getting overwhelmed by the zombie hoard. But they end up making their way over to this little shed with all the sorority's landscaping equipment. It's then that Steve, with his unibrow and all, among other Beta zombies comes at the pair and breaks through the shed's walls. Steve eventually grabs Cynthia and is going to turn her when Chris grabs a lawnmower and fires it up, saying "later dude" as he mows the guy down. While not nearly as insane as when the main character in Peter Jackson's Dead Alive does it several years later, but this put that instrument on the map as a viable and gruesome tool to dispatch zombies with.

MVP of the movie is 100% Tom Atkins. It's not even close. As you can see from best scene and best line, he is all over this movie. He really swings for the fences in this flick. Every damn line from the moment he is on screen is quotable and absurd. As someone at Horror Freak News put it, "Tom Atkins steals scenes with one-liners like there was a prize for it," one JC Richardson wrote. Pretty much as every damn line is a joke. Sort of like how Deadpool 2 was. They just keep coming at you. This was also Atkins favorite of his 81 movies according to the source. That's saying a lot considering he was a huge overachiever for his shtick being an over-the-top chain-smoking drunk that cracks wise whilst looking hungover. He was Michael Hunsaker, the guy who got involved over his head with paramilitaries in Lethal Weapon, for god's sake. "Never before has a C Level actor risen so high."

Lifeforce is the worst movie of all time

More Tobe Hooper. This one is infinitely weird and completely incoherent. People feel strongly about this movie. I am one of those people. It is trash. Except for that ending which really got my dick hard (metaphorically). 

So, the movie follows these three alien beings that are found riding this space ship near Halley's Comet. They end up possessing some of the crew and kill them minus one poor man's Harrison Ford. He torches the ship and exits out an escape pod. With everyone on the ship dead, the British space program goes up and brings it all back down including the three naked aliens. From there the vamps bounce and cause extreme mayhem on their way to stealing half the people of London's souls to fuel their ship. The city basically comes down to the work of this detective guy and the lone remaining astronaut. This is the most what the fuck movie I have seen in a long time and I seek out what the fuck movies. The end, however, was fucking amazingly cool. 

Ger

Pros: Completely unique. I don't you see a better alien vampire movie any time soon. The vampire lady is attractive and naked basically the whole movie. Young Patrick Stewart. 

Cons: Incoherent as shit. Most of the movie I was all, "what the fuck is happening?" Not a taut movie. Lots of pointless dialogue. Felt so fucking long. 

Disclaimer: My notes pretty much always contain some spoilers but I rarely give away the ending.

Notes: Like the way this moves along early. Space ship going to Halley's Comet where they find an alien space ship. Convenient earth gravity on the one ship which they feel the need to mention. Captain is a Harrison Ford lookalike. Don't waste a lot of time getting to the space vampires. Get out of their ship to space walk to the alien one. They float there, it looks ridiculous, and find these giant bats that are all dried up, they say. This movie came out in 1985. Halley's Comet showed up in 1986. There is one year later and they can swim untethered in space and land on a comet. Taking one back to the ship because why not. The vampire ship comes alive. Looks like a space octopus or umbrella. Later we learn it is a soul harvester. It stops suddenly. Everyone is like, “huh, is that bad? It's fine, I guess.” Farther in the ship they find naked people. Two Ps. One V. One guy practically ejaculates at seeing this naked lady. He keeps saying she looks perfect. She is super pretty by 80s standards. Taking them back with them as well. Again, why not. 

Three days later. Back on earth everyone is pretty sure the crew is dead. No idea what is going on. Send up another ship to figure it out. The inside looks like the ship was abandoned millions of years ago. Fire, apparently, and they are indeed all dead, it appears. They don't bother to count them up or anything though. Get the equivalent of the black box which was destroyed. Three naked people are still cool though. Bring them back to earth. Hell, why not. Another guy gets rapy with the girl one. She wakes. Starts making out with him. Steals his “lifeforce” which involves infamous blue lightning. Dude is now all withered up. Guy watching the video runs down. She makes out with him now. Another guy sees that on the monitor. Is this just going to keep happening?

Still naked. She is just walking about. Security guards are like, “holy shit!.” One offers her a cracker. She telepathically chokes him to out. She finds his lack of faith disturbing. Blows her way out these giant glass windows. She casually moseys on out. Did I mention she is naked?

Keeping an eye out on the dudes, the soldiers are like, “no big, they dead,” and immediately they explode out of their tubes. Are basically invincible except for grenades which sort of slow them down. The guy who had his lifeforce drained during the makeup sess wakes up suddenly and like makes out with the doctor. Sucks out his lifeforce. Now he is back to normal. Now this other guy probably needs a lifeforce since he looks withered and raison esque. Have a real lifeforce situation on their hands here. The one guy deflates again. He doesn't get lifeforce and combusts in a poof of dust which was totally insane. Find another naked, deflated chick. She gets no LF. Dies. She isn't going to combust? When I give up it finally happens. Harrison Ford looking dude shows back up in the escape pod. He disappeared like three days ago and now has a three month old beard. Cut to his debriefing. Completely clean shaven. Maybe in the next scene he'll have a beard again. 

Get the official word with what happened with thems on the spaceship from the source himself. It's pretty obvious but when he tells the part about how he got off the ship it looks like he puts a quarter in the slot of the escape pod and off it goes. Telling this stuff Harrison Ford dude is at home now maybe. Might be in Transylvania or a graveyard or church. Vampire busts in. Or more explodes in in bat form. What the fuck is happening. They get it on. Took some of the life force telepathically. He can sort of see what's going on with her too. Feel like most of this movie is doctors and police investigators talking. Around here I keep waiting for Patrick Stewart show up and decide I am watching the wrong movie.

And here is Stewart in all his glory. Looks exactly the fucking same, as expected. A doctor, of course, so it would appear that doctors consulting each other is on the way. Main dude tracks this redhead down. They make it out and she passes out. I'm not sure if she's one or not. Maybe I missed something? Anyway, this guy she may have turned is locked away somewhere. They are talking about giving him truth serum or hypnotizing him or something. Sort of feel like all this is happening in real time. This is Stewart's patient. Get into a long discussion on patients rights and medical ethics. They are apparently doing this against his will. And fake out, they give it to Stewart. He's the vampire alien I guess. He screams like a mad man for like a long time and eventually seizes out. In a wheelchair now. Looks like he did in Logan. More truth serum is pumped into him. Lulls me in with whispering. Crank up the volume to hear what he saying and he starts screaming. Sneaky bitch. Start seizing and now he has the vampire chick's voice. What the fuck is happening? Things are infinitely fucking weird. I'm not sure what the vampire is. Claims to be the feminine part of HF dude's brain. Now Stewart opens his mouth and blood starts pooling out. The main vampire/alien chick then briefly materializes from said blood. I don't even know. 

You'd think a spaceship hitching onto Halley's Comet, alien/vampire movie would be more straightforward. Getting near the endish (there is still so much movie left) London is in freefall. The astronaut and cop end up in the talks with the military who are talking about nuking the city. The military guys are fucking jazzed about it. Meanwhile the naked chick is collecting energy from human souls and sending up to her ship using that umbrella thing from the beginning. Someone explains that the two male vamps build the energy by killing while the female transmits it. Some such shit. HF, whose name is Carlson, goes into London, where shit is going down, to kill her. The cop one goes back in too. Both of them are just driving over zombies for like 10 minutes. Cop dude kills his old chief inspector guy after he vague talks for awhile about being a zombie, and then he is on foot running from zombies. London is still completely insane.

The HF looker is getting it on with the vamp in a church while the cop approaches. One of the dude vampires, the other died at some point, says, “it will much less terrifying if you just come to me.” Dude is like, "ok," and walks up to him and stabs him with this sword he got from his old boss right in the chest. Vamp briefly turns into a bat before exploding. It was dope. Then he goes in the church. They are getting it on in the church still. This is where shit goes the fuck down. I watched this part while on substance and it was fucking awesome. Blue lightning, swirling souls, naked stabbing. Twas a sweet ending. Maybe check it out. Mayhap not. 

The Funhouse is the greatest movie of all time

The Funhouse was a very enjoyable flick. Director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre Tobe Hooper, now relegated to the shittiest straight to DVD trash, presents a solid, dare I say underrated, movie with plenty of scares and surprises. It follows four teenish kids who go to the carnival--where two girls went missing the year before--as they make the mistake of hiding out overnight in the funhouse ride. There they witness a murder, one of them steals the gate fee from the killer carneys, and are then stalked by the deformed monster throughout the eerie ride. Though it takes FOREVER to get going, once it does it is a complete free-fall into what the fuck, which you expect with a movie about carneys. 

Speaking of carneys, my female companion was at one point employed as such, which I like to bring up often. Watched most of the movie with me. This, she claims, is not an accurate depiction of the carney lifestyle. So keep that in mind when you give this the old viddy on the electric internet machine. 

Pros: Cool monster. Atmosphere is dark and strange as fuck. Very intense last 1/3 of the movie.

Cons: Basically only one likeable character (the survivor girl). Takes a while to get going. 

Disclaimer: My notes pretty much always contain some spoilers but I rarely give away the ending.

Notes: Opens with puppets and abrasive music. This goes on for several minutes. I don't like it. The real opening is POV. Looking around a room of someone obsessed with monster movies. Is actually a cool ass room. Was like mine in high school. Minus the torture devices. Grabs a knife off the murder wall. Now some young girl getting in the shower in the same house. She looks so fucking young. Yeesh, and she is completely naked. Jesus, man. Dude in the room grabs a clown mask. Just like the opening scene of Halloween which it obviously pays tribute with the POV with eye holes of a mask thing. Also homage to psycho as he goes after the girl in the shower. The knife is rubber. It's her younger brother. Man, that is some fucked up shit to do to someone. She tracks him down and is like, “I'm going to get even with you! Also, not taking you to the carnival tonight.” She totally freaks out on him. Totally justified. This family has some weird shit going on.

Girl is going on a date with her loser BF to the murder carnival. When he picks her up he just repeatedly beeps the horn until she comes out. Basically the easiest way in film making to show us that the guy is a dick. She comes out and is like, “hey, maybe we not go to the murder carnival?” “Nah, babe, we going.” Do a jay with some other couple. Chick is blonde. Other dude looks like a young Al Franken. Drone on about god knows what. Little shithead boy who stabbed his naked sister with a rubber knife sneaks out. Makes way to the carnival. One point almost gets picked up by a hitchhiker who is a complete psycho. Pulls a gun on the kid and laughs like a maniac. Kid runs off. Girls are talking in the bathroom about boning and such. Some gypsy lady comes in and is all judgy and shit. Says, “god is always watching you.” She shows up several more times in the movie. It isn't clear if she is like a carney or just some crazy homeless person who hangs out there. Anyway, she keeps saying shit like "He's always watching!" until they leave. Whatever. Go to a freak show. See a two-headed cow and an alien baby. Go to a magician. The crowd heckles the shit out of him while he goes on and on about Vlad the Impaler. Does a trick where he stakes a girl in the heart. Fake. She didn't really die. Daughter of the shifty magician. The kiddies do another jay.

Now it is off to see the fortune teller. They are so fucking rude to her. Laughing, fucking with her setup, talking about how stupid it is. She ends up kicking them out when they knock her crystal ball onto the floor. Tells the main girl to “get the fuck out” and “if I ever fucking see you again, I'll break every bone in your body.” It is a very tense situation. I'd have been terrified. Now it's off to a strip show which is weird for a carnival to have at that point. Naked ladies. Some subtle racism of quoting Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer. Fuck that guy. The women are all incredibly unattractive. The couples peep in the back. The dudes up front are going insane with lust which is disgusting. We keep seeing a guy in a Frankenstein costume who is all over the place. He ends up being the monster at the end. His main job is working the funhouse. One of the idiot dudes in the foursome wants for them to stay the night in the funhouse which seems like a great idea. They make this decision without the main girl's input. This is not a good idea. See the maybe homeless gypsy woman in the background eating out of the trash. You might remember her from her "God's always watching you" rant from earlier. Little brother sees them all going about their business. They've hopped off Frankenstein is confused. The brother, watching from afar, is confused as well. I definitely like this so far.

Park shuts down. The foursome is in the funhouse. Kid hides out and after everyone is gone, he walks up to it. One of the animatronics seems to come to life. The kid gets freaked. Starts to run. Gypsy evangelist lady pops up cackling, saying her bit about “He's watching you” yet again. Weird, she is just sort of hiding out in the field in front of the funhouse. Scares the piss out of him. Nothing happens for basically the first 48 minutes of the movie. Up to this point it is just a group of kids going to the fair. Then it gets weird. Frankenstein pays the fortuneteller for sex. He gets a handy which cost him $100, roughly a few million in today's money. He's pissed, doesn't want to pay. Chokes her to out instead. The foursome watch it and do nothing. They are also locked in.

The funhouse mouth, some old curly-haired dude, comes in. Is like, "well, shit, you shouldn't have killed one of our own, and $100 for a handy, that is outrageous." Goes to put the money back in the cash box and the rest is missing. He is surprising cool with all this until he finds his money is missing. Frankenstein freaks out. Jumps about hitting himself. Mask comes off. Fucking disgusting. He looks like a cross between a generic alien and of the evil dead in The Evil Dead. Come to find out this thing is a child murderer. Find out Al Franken stole the moneys. Bitch. Drops his lighter, too. Fuck this guy. They know that others are in there now. Well, shit.

Outside, kid bumps into Frankenstein monster thing. Practically shits himself. Carneys catch him. Those outside the funhouse are just normal, nice folk, which is weird. Inside the funhouse the dudes turn on the animatronics. That’s a bad situation. Big dude takes over. “We have to deal with this shit,” is his general vibe. He is the only one making sense at this juncture. Al Franken is the first to go. Gets hanged, by some miracle when a noose drops out of the sky. The carneys don't seem to be above them so it was presumably done randomly by the animatronics. What? But that doesn't make sense either since he ends up coming down on the ride. They don't know this at first, they just see a dark figure on a car. Meat head dude hits him in the head with an ax he stole from an animatronic. The blonde falls through a trap door. Bad things happen to her. It occurs to me here that the monster sounds like a small dog going crazy.

The eventual survivor girl chick looks out this window with an industrial fan in it. Her parents show up to pick up her little bro. She screams for her dad at the fan in a pretty hopeless scene. The fan basically filters out the sound and she remains trapped.

This is how every horror movie would really end

Getting close to the end here so I'll wrap it up. Not to give too much away but things really intensify in the last couple of scenes. I'll focus on the final death, which, spoiler, is the monster, is fucking brutal. Gets clogged up in the gears of the machinery. The scene lasts about a minute and basically this creature, who had an extremely shitty life, screaming in horror as he dies horribly. And that is how it ends. Shitty way to go, man.

Edit: For people that were into Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs, a fucking Saturday treasure for younger version of myself, here is the YouTube vid if you get a hankering to watch the movie.