Maniac is the greatest movie of all time

Maniac. "You wanna meet me someplace?" "Where?" "The back seat," Disco Boy, played by Tom Savini, says from the front seat of the car. My grandpa told my dad to never let me watch two movies,   knowing the type of kid I was, The Fly and Maniac. I was five and all. But my grandpa worked nights, and the next time I spent the night with my grandparents immediately told my grandma I wanted to see The Fly. She encouraged my watching crazy shit at a very young age. But I never got around to Maniac. I think I'm pretty glad I indeed waited 33 years to watch this. I fucking hated it and found it extremely disturbing. But I recognize it was quality. Greatest movie of all time.

Gist of the movie is a very sad, completely antisocial psychopath, one Frank Zito, played by Joe Spinell, murders a shitton of women in New York City, stealing their scalps as his trophy. Only reason I watched it was because it was Joe Bob Brigg's Last Drive-In with Tom Savini as a special guest. Otherwise, probably would have turned it off after the first 10 minutes. There is a fucking brutal garrotting with piano wire in the opening scene that doesn't bode well. Then we hear the killer drone on in his antisocial way, frequently brutally killing women and gruesomely slicing off their scalps. And I'm checking out. Tom Savini's head exploding scene is fucking incredible, though. Like Scanners except better. Warning, this shit ain't fucking around.

Directed by one William Lustig, the film was released in 1980. Got remade in 2012 with Elijah Wood as the killer, which is weird and something I'll never watch. Most the women in the 1980 version of the movie were porn actresses, including one Sharon Mitchell who seems to be have done some good since leaving porn, check out this NSFW link, or maybe not. Only person I recognized besides Savini was actress Caroline Munro. She plays this fashion photographer that killer dude is obsessed with but doesn't try to kill until late and she fucks him up. She was in the infamous Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter and The Spy Who Loved Me. She's a pretty lady. I think she can do better. Also, I'm gonna need to go through the Bond flicks at some point here.

Hard to say who won this among Lustig, Spinell who stared in and co-writer of the film with one C. A. Rosenberg, or Savini for doing what he does. Lustig puts it all together, and Savini made his own head realistically explode. But I've got to give it to Spinell for writing it and his acting. I mean, this is Last Podcast on the Left shit. I was really disturbed through the whole movie. This was legit what I'd imagine a real psycho's day-to-day to be like. It really ain't pleasant.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is the greatest movie of all time

Overall the movie is pretty okay. More of what the people want except maybe it's a little too much of a good thing. Highest kill count for the series so far with 13 fatalities, they start pretty much immediately and significantly cut down on the time between murders. There is also so much more gratuitous nudity in this flick than those that came before it. It also stars Corey Feldman as Tommy and Crispin Glover as more or less himself.

When you watch these things back-to-back, like I've pretty much done every time I've watched these as TNT and USA used to have a Friday the 13th marathon from sun down to sun up every single Friday the 13th, the thing that really sticks out is how fucking insane the timeline for these movies are. Part 2 takes place entirely on Friday the 13th. Part III, which takes off right where Part 2 ends, starts with Jason on the loose the night that all the killing takes place and spans one full day. For The Final Chapter we have kids still going to the fucking lake after multiple days of Jason massacring people. There are at least two days that pass in this film with the majority of the flick taking place on Monday the 16th. In this time Jason's appearance has drastically changed and a Jason expert/hunter whose sister died in this universe technically on that Friday (she was the one that was speared during sex in Part 2). In Part 2 Jason looks like a hairy elephant man, in III he is completely hairless and has a pit bull face, while in this one his face is sort of melting off. Not meant to be thought too hard about I would imagine.

The Jason expert though, his shit really falls apart in this timeline. So his sister just fucking died on Friday. This dude would have started his Jason research immediately upon hearing of her demise on Saturday, wrapped that up and gotten into the woods by Sunday, and then have his showdown (which doesn't end well) on Monday. While that is possible, it is heavily implied that he has been out in the woods on quest for vengeance has been a long time coming with newspaper clippings and supplies and all that.

Pros: Up the kills. Tom Savini is back so they are fucking sick too. Up the breasts. Feldman is fucking cool.

Cons: Cripsin Glover is too fucking weird to live, man, and is seriously freaky. The ending makes no sense. Much of the movie makes no sense (but I guess it doesn't really matter). Some of the acting is bad.

Notes: Started this one with the female companion. Won her over with Tom Savini, Crispin Glover, and Corey Feldman. “See, it's almost a legitimate movie,” I said. She didn't last long. We get started with the standard recap of the three movies that came before. She says something along the lines of “What the fuck is this a highlight reel?” and she was out. So here we are, now at Sunday the 15th or whatever. And the police are still just letting people come to the lake to get slaughtered. They don't know for sure who did what or if this person had an accomplice. But by all means. Camp on at the murder lake. But I digress.

So following the goings on of Part 3, the paramedics take Jason to the morgue and just put him on ice. Like, “oh, no big, just a guy that has mastered this whole not dying thing, eh, he's probably dead now though.” With this coming in you'd also think the coroner would be on high alert. Not this morgue attendant, or whatever his official title is. Axel, as he is called, gets incredibly rapey instead. He freely talks about doing one of the corpses and sexually harasses a nurse to boot. His final sin comes when he taunts Jason, winning over the nurse, apparently, as she is now into it. But then Jason's hand pops out touches her and she is once again turned off. Long story short, they both die horribly.

Grrr

We start meeting the people we are going to start watching die. Starts with the family. Mother, daughter (a pretty lady), son (Tommy played by Corey Feldman). The ladies we see running if you can call it that. With Tommy we get his weird masks. He “made” them. Obviously Tom Savini's efforts as they are fucking works of art making Tommy some sort of savant. This also comes up later when he fixes the sister's car despite no training or anything and being 12.

Now on to the campers heading to the house next door. A girl, a heartthrob, a horrible couple, a high computer guy, and Crispin Glover. They mock this fat hitchhiker chick on the side of the road. She is just there to die, basically. Pad the kill count a little bit while she holds a banana she mashes as she dies. Whatever. When we cut back to the high computer guy with his vagina lips he tells Crispin Glover that his computer says that he is a “dead fuck” because no one knows how computers work in the mid 80s. But yeah. He totally is. He's a fucking train wreck in this movie.This dude's weirdness, which has been addressed ad nausea, is on full display here. I feel like he isn't really acting. Like when he does this dance which is beyond belief. This thing is out of control. He is flailing about aggressively in a way that is fucking indescribable. All the actors are like trying not to stare or laugh. It is pretty hilarious.

Once they all get to the lake they go skinny dip just to give the people what they want, I guess. Feldman and his sister show up. Feldman lose his little mind. He gets exposed to naked breasts repeatedly throughout the movie. The sister is like, “uh, let's move it along” and they head back. On the way they pick up a hitchhiker because insanity. There's a murderer on the loose who is slaughtering the shit out of everyone in your area and these two pick up a hitchhiker, bring him into their home, and take him up to the boy's room. They need to call the police. My dad would have already been waving his gun around. He is fine though. He seems homeless but ends up being a Jason expert. Jason is a fictional creature at this point on a three day killing-spree yet here we have an expert.

Eventually get to it here. These twin chicks, who they picked up in town or something, are there coming on a little strong with all the dudes except the high one with the vagina lips. One of them straight up steals one chick's boyfriend. The way the girl friend deals with is to go skinny dipping because that happens. It might've been like a last ditch effort to save the relationship. Swims to a little inflatable boat alone. Jason jumps out of the water and stabs her through the bottom of it. Not the best kill. Her boyfriend grows a conscience inside and comes out to look for her. Takes off his shirt. Little Jean shorts he's wearing go up to his nipples. Sees the dead chick. Swims back to the dock where Jason stabs him with a harpoon in the dick. Back in the cabin, Glover improbably gets laid by one of the twins, must have won her over with his dance moves. Other twin decides to bike home. See her shadow get stabbed with a spear again. Post sex, Glover asks the girl if he is a dead fuck. Aggressively kisses the girls when she says it was excellent. He's going to celebrate with a bottle of wine but can't find the corkscrew. Jason stabs it into his hand in the meat cleaver is his face. Eventually the rest of the redshirts get killed off. Some of them are okay but I won't go into detail.

Here are some things... The dog hasn't been in the movie since long before Jason showed up but suddenly and for no reason jumps out the window. Like through the glass and everything. Was that a suicide? Completely random and totally insane. Does not get addressed. Also, the mom is missing, she was walking around outside and screamed or something, but that goes unexplained. Sister is out looking for her while Feldman walks about the house like an idiot. She comes to the expert's camp. The homeless guy freaks out she is in his tent which he machetes like an idiot. Once the sister comes back to the house, the one that the kids are staying in, with the Jason expert, the maniac instantly attacks him. He just stands there and takes all these lashes while yelling, “he's killing me! He's killing me!” I shit you negative, he was fucking screaming that. So he obviously dies. But the sister does the thing where she sort of runs, gets just out of sight, stops, then runs back to check on the guy that is clearly dead. This is standard Friday the 13th survivor girl behavior but she makes it out. Jason has blocked each entrance with the body of one of his victims. She jumps out the window and runs home at maximum effort. She is flying. Jason comes out. Sees the dude he has crucified the railing of the side door. Just pulls him off with the nail through the guy's hands pealing flesh away. It is a nice little touch. 

She goes back to the house and finds Feldman. Jason busts through a window while she is telling him about it and grabs Feldman. The sister goes fucking apeshit on Jason with a hammer. This girl is all out. She deserves to live, damnit. She is tough as shit though not the smartest. Jason is just exploding through front doors at this point. They lock themselves in a bedroom and just wait for him to bust in. Nail him with a TV. She gets cornered and dives out of the second story window. They show the landing and all that. It is fucking brutal. Feldman was supposed to leave. She comes back. He is there cutting his hair. It is fucking weird. She is like, “WTF, man?” She machetes Jason's hand. It's a nice effect. Meanwhile, Feldman is Bicing his long ass hair with a disposable. Yeah, unlikely. If this were real life, either Feldman would have bled to death from self-inflicted razor wounds or he'd want to die that would be so painful. Sister is fighting Jason, she is beating the shit out him. This actress is really just going at it. Feldman distracts him by looking so weird. This gives the sister enough time to whack him, knocking off his mask. See his face. Again, completely different. Now Feldman picks up the machete and gives Jason a chop to the head. He falls. His face slides down the blade. It's a pretty cool effect. 

No way Jason comes back from that! Yeah, he twitches. Feldman sees it and is not fucking around and goes on to machete him for a solid 20 seconds. Sister is screaming for him to stop, but why? So that's it. Jason is dead(ish) and Feldman is looking like he is going to become the next killer. Sort of a letdown of an ending for a supposedly last movie for the franchise. It was otherwise solid though and we all know there are a crap-ton more of these that get made over the next couple of years. 

MonsterVision

Let's check in to see what MonsterVision host Joe Bob Briggs has to say... Yeah, didn't have the rights. 

Friday the 13th Part 3 is the greatest movie of all time

Two for two after the original Friday the 13th, which was trash, with Part 3 not quite living up to Part 2 but not bad on the whole. The movie is the same movie as Part 2 with a hockey mask instead of a sack of potatoes, the biggest loser in all of film, a brunette only cast, urban thugs, and some implied rape. It is what it is: more dumb kids getting killed in creative ways (but with less nudity).

Pros: Decent kills. Some of them you can tell were shot just for the 3D (like the harpoon to the eye and the POV kills) but are still pretty good, especially the guy walking on his hands. 

Cons: Basically just redo the second movie but not as well. Less of what we want in terms of killing and boning and what not. 

Notes: Starts with the standard recap. We get the “you've done your job well; mommy is pleased” bit from Part 2. Like the first 15 minutes of the movie are the last 15 minutes of the previous movie. I already saw this shit. Get to the credits, finally. Sort of a nice intro. Decent, weird song. Coming at you lettering. Obviously was in 3-D. Also, directed by Steve Miner who is maybe a bit overrated but this film is indeed solid.

"It's me, Haroldo"

Starts with with this guy Harold, some pretty cool looking mustachioed Camp Crystal Lake convenience store proprietor, walking around outside his store. His bitch of a wife goes off on him. She is watching the news which features the Jason murders which just happened. She thinks she sees Harold walking about outside among the clothes she has hung to dry. It is obviously J. Back to Harold in the store, eating fish food. Has a bunny in the produce. Animal lover. He also samples all of these packaged items in the store. Wifey catches him and bitches at him some more. Goes out to put the bunny up. A snake has killed the rest of them. He runs out and goes and takes a shit, leaving the rabbit there. It is the weirdest thing. I like this guy. He'll probably make it. Starts to go outside. Rethinks it. Turns the light on. Now goes outside. Immediately takes a clever to the gut and dies. Bitchy wife dies not long after.

"We should go do it!" "Yeah."

Now it's the next day. So this is Saturday the 14th, technically. More campers. Already talking about boning. One of the girls had something happen to her at the lake and now she is going back as the fifth wheel in a double-date situation. Go pick up the fifth girl who is actually the weird guy's date. He sulks around talking about how ugly he is. The girl they pick up is like, “are you my date.” He apologizes. This guy. All three of the girls look exactly the same. They think the van is on fire so they run back. Turns out the hippies are just toking, man. Yet another brunette. The dude is a Tommy Chong ripoff. One of them is preggers. What? They get pulled over. With weed in 1982, I can only assume they'll get consecutive life terms. But the cops just roll on by. Dealing with mass murder and all. I guess Paul and Amy Steel are dead. Probably Muffy, the dog, too.

Every damn movie

Come up on an insane old person in the road. Why is this shit necessary? They pick him up. He starts right in with the crazy. “You are indeed, all of you, kind and generous young people,” he says. “Look what his grace has bestowed upon me,” and whips out an eyeball. “I found this today. There were other parts of the body but he said he wanted me to have this. We wanted me to warn you. Look upon this omen. Go back from whence ye came. I have warned thee.” Yeah, the kids are fucking ghost. I can't believe how much more annoying this guy is than Ralph who was insanely irritating in his own right. 

They get to the camp which should so be shut the fuck down. The one chick who had the issue speaks about being back there in the vaguest way possible. "I've been emotionally scared by years of unspoken verbal abuse by my father... It's not what he said; it's what he didn't say." Her BF, Rick, shows up. He is extremely unpleasant. Basically everything he says to Chris, the final girl, is pressuring her into sex. Talks about how he can't take anymore cold showers and tells her she is getting fat. She is like, “oh, you, stop.” Back to the van. The door is open. She is like, “huh, I thought I closed that,” implying Jason opened it. But then the kid with no self-esteem, Shelly, is in there. Huh? She is like “why aren't you at the lake.” He is like, “everyone went skinny dipping and I'm not skinny enough.” Whant Wah. This dude is a walking advertisement for abortion. I can't think of a bigger buzzkill than this idiot. He is like Debbie Downer without the irony. The next time we hear from him he is screaming. They go look for him and he has made himself up to look like he has an ax in his head. Fuck this asshole. This guy better die soon, for real.

"Sorry you're in the car with such a loser cuck."

Shelly and the brunette he is into go to a convenient store. It is insane. First, the chick behind the register tells the camper chick, who hasn't pulled out a wallet or anything, that they “don't accept no food stamps.” She is like, “oh, I guess I need money.” The one idiot, Shelly, is looking at porn magazines. He tosses her his wallet and this urban street gang shows up out of nowhere and strong-arms it. The lady in the group pulls out a condom from it and mocks everyone with it as well as other threatening gestures. They leave and the black dude comes out. Nervous Shelly puts the car in reverse and smashes into their motorcycles. "Like I've ever drove before." The black dude smashes windows of Rick's car with a chain. Shelly is pissed and has a car which he weaponizes and runs over their bikes, again. Biker shakes his fist and swears he'll get his revenge.

Shelly shows up with the smashed car that he borrowed from Rick and trashed. He shows no remorse for this. He may be a borderline personality. Rick has had enough. Wants to leave. Chris wants him to stay but he sees no point as his dick wasn't at that moment wet. Chris dooms him by convincing him to stay. 

Bikers show up to get their revenge. Just end up stealing their gas. Seems a pretty reasonable, nonviolent way of get back at the kids who trashed their rides. For this they get killed horrible. (Later see the black dude is still holding on).

Get a bunch filler stuff for the next half hour. The super horny guy, not Chris's dude but the other one, just starts walking on his hands for no reason and does this for the rest of the movie. Shelly tries to score with the brunette he is there with. Her vagina recoils in horror. She isn't brutal about turning him down though. When she is out of earshot he calls her a “bitch.” End this guy already. Chris keeps being vague. Reminded me of the girl in Futurama, hence the above quote, until we find out that Jason may have sexually assaulted her. We Jason's face for the first time since the very beginning of the movie which was actually from the last movie. Here he looks completely fucking different. That shit happened yesterday in this universe.

And even more dicking around with no killing. Tommy Chong and the stoner chick go into the barn where Jason has set up camp. They leave and it is uneventful. Chong also goes to the outhouse where he takes a shit and smokes a doob. They really need to cut some of this shit. Shelly scares the one girl he was trying to score with by grabbing her foot that she is toeing in the water from the dock. He is wearing the infamous hockey mask and has a harpoon gun for some reason. He is like, “haha, you need to relax, stop being an uptight bitch.” Fucking kill this guy already. 
 

And now we get to it

After more real-time walking around and checking shit out we finally get some kills and they just keep coming. The chick Shelly wants to do gets a harpoon to the eye. The one dude walking around on his hands gets a machete chop upside down to the crotch. We see him later and it is gnarly. His lovely GF takes a post coital shower and then does some light reading of a Fangoria mag. Article about Tom Savini, the legendary makeup guy from 1 and 4, also Sexmachine from From Dusk Till Dawn. Blood trickles down on it. Looks up, sees her dude chopped from stem to sternum. Jason stabs her from under the hammock. Jason then kills the stoner by throwing him into a fuse box. Stoner chick, who is just the worst actress, gets stabbed with a hot poker. Dickhead sexual predator dude's head gets crushed. His eye pops out. 

Chris eventually sees all the carnage. Jason chases her about. Stabs him in the hand. Comes at him like a fucking maniac. Bashes him with a giant log. Gets in the van. Tries to run him down. Out of gas. The punks stole it. Stuck on the bridge. Jason's hands get stuck in the window of her car. She bolts. Falls multiple times. She heads to Jason's body barn. Bonks him with a shovel and hangs him. He looks dead. He is not. 

Get the full frontal Jason. Totally different guy from 2. Black biker shows back up to save the day. I mean die. Gets his arm immediately chopped off and macheted to overkill. Chris comes at Jason and gives him an ax to the head. Reaches out like a freak. She doesn't realize he is a supernatural being. He is bleeding after all. But the old "if it bleeds we can kill it" rule of thumb does not apply. She gets in a canoe so we can have that standard Jason pulling the girl down into the lake from behind scene. Get like 30 jump scares. Jason sees her from upstairs in the house. Sprints at her with maximum effort. And it is the rotting mother that pulls her down. What the hell?

She is now a lunatic. The cops just leave Jason's body there to chill. Sweet Jason music to end it. Also, obviously room there for a sequel. And here we go.

Friday The 13th is the worst movie of all time

Did not fucking like. Out of the big four horror franchises that began in the 10 years ranging from 1974-1984, this one is easily the weakest. While it does have some excellent kills, it is not a very interesting movie. My plan is to watch all of the movies in the franchise... So if this is how the series begins, I can't wait to see the rest of them!

Pretty sweet

Pros: A few of the kills are pretty good. Ditto on Tom Savini's make-up effects.

Cons: Extremely unoriginal. It adds nothing to the movies it rips off—The Town that Dreaded Sundown, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre—all of which I'd rather have watched. The pacing is shit. Long scenes where nothing happens that go nowhere.

Notes: The movie starts out in 1958. Counselors telling ghost stories about a kid that just fucking died. The follow that up with a little coitus. Get the “ch, ch, ch, ha, ha, ha.” And they are kilt.

This fucking idiot

Fast-forward to present day (so 1980). Chick shows up in a gas station/diner thing looking for Camp Crystal Lake. One of the locals, I guess, starts taking her part of the way there when some bumpkin named Ralph comes up saying “oh, you're going to 'camp blood,' the murder camp, not coming back from there. You're doomed. You're all fucking doomed.” Stop being such a drama queen. She hitchhikes, again. First ride is OK Second not so much. Jeep doesn't stop. She jumps out. Hurts her leg and gets chased down and murdered.

Meet the counselors. One is Kevin Bacon. They go for group lake swim. One asshole faked drowning so he can get mouth-to-mouth. Snake gets into the cabin, they brutally kill it for being harmless. Motorcycle cop comes to check things out for no reason. Accuses them of smoking weed. Looking for wild man Ralph. Gets called away on the radio. Immediately Ralph shows up. “I am a messenger of God. You're damned if you stay here. This place is cursed. Cursed. It's got a death curse.” They are like, “yeah, that was probably Ralph.”

Yes!

Now they start to get picked off one by one. Kevin Bacon's death is the coolest and probably jumpstarted his career. He gets arrowed from underneath the bed in the throat. This makes up for nothing.

One of the glaring faults of the movie is the lack of editing that happens. We see one girl getting ready for bed in real time. Just when she is about to nod off she hears what sounds like a child calling for help and she goes out in the pouring rain, in a night gown, mind you. I mean, she just had a slicker on like one minute before. If there were an award for most inappropriate attire imaginable, this chick wins it. But that is not a thing and she ends up getting killed at the archery range instead.

Once they get down to two is when things really start to drag. So much just like waiting around. There is still 35 minutes left and it all happens in real time. Building suspense, I guess, but feels like just watching people go about their evenings since they never really feel like anything is going down. Here they haven't noticed anyone was missing. They finally realize something is up when they find a bloody ax in someone's bed.

They separate somehow. At some point she is finally like, “huh, haven't seen that other guy for a while,” and goes out looking for him. Eventually finds him when she opens a door and he is hanging from it via an arrow in his eye. Freaks out and runs back to her cabin. Barricades it. Body comes through the window. The killer is just on the outside of the cabin. She sees a jeep show up which the killer is totally driving (she must be able to teleport). She lifted it off the new camp owner or whatever. Seeing the familiar jeep, the survivor girl unbarricades the door, runs out, and runs right to Mrs. Vorhees. She is like, “who are you? Thank god! Halp!”

Put it out of its misery

She goes into the cabin with her to check things out. The craziness escalates and it becomes obvious that Mrs. Vorhees is unhinged. Survivor girl goes on the offensive, a bold move, and beats Ms. Vorhees down. She then runs off but keeps running into bodies and freaking out. Meanwhile Ms. Vorhees is completely losing her shit. Talking to herself in Jason's voice, “don't let her live mommy” and so forth. They fight again. Survivor girl cunt punches her. For the next like 10 minutes we get the survivor girl beating down Mrs. Vorhees repeatedly only to have her come back yet again. Survivor girl finally has to chop her head off with a machete to end it once and for all in an infamous scene where we see some stand-in's hairy, meaty hands doubling for Mrs. Vorhees's. Movie is over now except for the final scare when Jason pulls the survivor girl down out of the canoe she is floating around on. You probably know this scene because it happens in every fucking one of these movies thereafter. At that point it might have been a dream or something but the 10 or so sequels that follow suggest that no, he was really there and really pulled her down. He is still a little kid here, though. By the next movie he is like 6'3”. From there he just keeps growing until he is like professional wrestling huge. 

Get used to seeing a lot of this action

Jesus, this movie was indeed shite. There was, however, the consolation prize of this gem of a MonsterVision episode. This was the first part in a 1998 Halloween night marathon, a great night of high school shenanigans which ended with TNT. During the course of the night Joe Bob Briggs is stalked by a would be killer that he discovers to be Ted Turner in the end. I can see why the show didn't last much longer. But man was it worth it. Part 1 of the show below. I post the rest as I watch the films.