Satanic Panic is the worst movie of all time

Satanic Panic. Are you by any chance, a virgin? That's a very personal question. She's a virgin... I should stop drinking. Judi Ross: You really wanna face this shit sober? Yeah, not really. Comedy horror that is neither funny nor scary. That virgin line would have been okay if it weren't already done in What We Do in the Shadows. This was sort of a chore to get through. Though the main girl is alright.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: It isn't terribly devilish or particularly pulse-quickening, but Satanic Panic remains an entertaining midnight movie that forgiving genre enthusiasts will enjoy.

Gist of this shit is that a broke pizza chick goes to a rich neighborhood outside of their delivery area in hopes of getting a decent tip. She gets no tip. Gets pissed. Does a bit of B&E. Gets volunteered for sacrifice by an order of Satanists who need a virgin to birth a demon. You know, shenanigans. But shit gets all fucked up.

Stars you'll recognize include Rebecca Romijn who looks incredibly different with dark hair (still a very pretty woman, just not herself) and Jerry O'Connell who just plays sleazy dick-bags these days (total sleazy dick-bag who offers to bone the virgin so that, you know, she isn't a virgin). Others you probably won't: AJ Bowen who is in a shit ton of mumblecore flicks like House of the Devil, The Sacrament, and You're Next; Hayley Griffith who plays the pretty virgin girl that almost moved me to tears; Ruby Modine who was the killer in Happy Death Day; and Arden Myrin whom I swore I recognized from something before deciding it was Isla Fisher I was thinking of (it's this face she makes).

Giving the win to this Hayley Griffith chick for her monologue about her boyfriend with cancer who can't really have sex, hence her virginity. Surprising amount of feels there. Wasn't expecting that. You get it, girl.

The Hunt is the okayest movie of all time

The Hunt. "Globalist elite liberal cucks." This movie. Blumhouse flick. Extremely polarizing. Political satires do that. I thought it was fun but problematic. Controversial, supposedly. I get it, for sure. A lot of people saying it wasn't worth all that drama. Probably right. I mean, it was just a movie that no one was going to see that didn't really say a whole lot. Like The Joker but not exactly going to get a standing O at Cannes. I think it was supposed to offend pretty much everyone, but I suspect it gets Trump supporters more accurately than the "liberal elite." It is sort of lopsided. As a liberal, I don't identify with anyone. Maybe the main chick, but not really. For the right-wingers, there is probably a stereotype for you.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: The Hunt is successful enough as a darkly humorous action thriller, but it shoots wide of the mark when it aims for timely social satire.

It's alright. Love the main girl. Betty Gilpin from GLOW. Not crazy about the MAGA agenda. Gist of the movie is that twelve mostly "deplorables," self-identifying, wake up in a field and are hunted by liberal elites for being terrible. These are the type of people that kill endangered species and throw around words like "cuck" and "snowflake." This hunt was sort of a Pizzagate type of myth in conservative talk cirlces. People were getting shit for it like liberals do when jokes are made so they figure, if we are going to lose our jobs and what not for this joke, let's do it for real. Whatever. It's dumb. Also, this is basically how Trump supporters see themselves: persecuted by liberals for their racism and cruelty. Fuck off.

Most of the people are easily dealt with. They are all real dumb. Not Gilpin though. She is basically The Bride from Kill Bill. Like Kill Bill, the action is pretty sick. I'm usually not a big fan, but I love the close-quarter, hand-to-hand shit that this Gilpin chick and the heavy, played by Hilary Swank, do so well. Their final blowout is indeed amazing. Top three chick-on-chick fight scene, for reals.

Bone I have to pick is that there is a pig and it dies. Have to watch it used as bate and get shot. Too sensitive for animal shit. Favorite scene though was when everything that goes down in the convenient store. This is shit is cray and not going to spoil it. When they find out where they are is also pretty fun. Plus, you know, the fighting.

People I recognize are many.  Ike Barinholtz who is the dumb guy in everything who is probably most known for The Mindy Project (I like this guy), Macon Blair from Green Room and Murder Party which are both solid AF, Dennis from It's Always Sunny,  Justin Hartley from that show I don't watch This is Us (he is the drunk one, so I'm told), Amy Madigan who was the mom in Field of Dreams, Emma Roberts from American Horror Story and Scream Queens, the singer Sturgill Simpson who is really having a moment right now (see The Dead Don't Die), and a much thinner Ethan Suplee who was the fat guy in Varsity Blues among other things whom I was happy for but then realized he is a Scientologist so fuck him.

No way that Gilpin doesn't win the movie. This probably launches her into stardom. But maybe not considering COVID-19 is tanking everything and probably ruining box office numbers/careers that aren't super established.

Gosford Park is the greatest movie of all time

Gosford Park. If there's one thing I don't look for in a maid, it's discretion. Except with my own secrets, of course. What gift do you think a good servant has that separates them from the others? It's the gift of anticipation.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: A mixture of Upstairs, Downstairs, Clue, and perceptive social commentary, Gosford Park ranks among director Altman's best.

Been fixing to watch this movie for going on 20 years. Started it three times. Got confused. Gave up. Finally finished it this time. Love a good murder mystery. Wanted something like Knives Out. Yeah, sure, this was like Knives Out with 400% more people and 400% more confusion.

Gist of this is that a rich family and some socialites gather at the castle of this rich factory owner. They all have servants and there is a dichotomy between the classes. Everything that is happening above is also happening in the servants' quarters, just with less prestige. There is even a hierarchy based on who they work for which is a great little social commentary. You see, none of these rich people can do anything by themselves. Patriarch (played by Dumbledore) ends up dead. Everyone is sort of a suspect but the inspector is a complete idiot and lets everyone go. No just for Daddy Warbucks. Also, Professor McGonagall is also in the flick. They pretty much have the same relationship except slightly more tumultuous.

Directed by Robert Altman. Cast is pretty stellar. MVP was Helen Mirren, who is the head of the personal servants, but notably not the cooks. She is such an emotive star who has a lot going on. Close second for Clive Owen who is always damn cool.

Others you'll recognize are Stephen Fry, Ryan Phillippe who is this extremely rapey dickhead (no one likes him in either class, except for this rich bitch that he bones and the Hollywood producer guy [who played the President of NBC on Seinfeld] he is boning that brought him there), Tywin Lannister who is pretty much Tywin Lannister in this flick, that Richard E. Grant dude from Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Hudson Hawk, Emily Watson who was the blind chick in Red Dragon, and Kelly Macdonald (who I thought was Kate Winslet) who I guess was sort of the star. She's good. Reminds me of an ex I used to have. Everyone else basically looks like a rich person from 1930s England.

Issue I've got. Also, spoiler. Owen's character grows up in an orphanage. His dad was Dumbledore whom he is there to kill. Says his mom is dead and dad abandoned him. Has a picture of his ma that he takes with him everywhere. His mom is not dead, it turns out. She is fucking there, it's Helen Mirren, who poisons Dumbledore before dude gets a chance to kill him. Cops are sort of like, well it's weird that he was poison and stabbed. Oh, well. We are terrble at this. That is not what I took issue with though. It's that he has a younger picture of a highly visible woman that all these people know and see like all the time and he shows this photo to everyone. No one recognizes Helen Mirren? She looks under 50. I'm pretty fucking sure someone is going to be like, "hey, that looks like that bossy bitch who tells us who the fuck is what." But no one does. Could have reconnected with your moms, bro. But she cray.

So yeah. How was the flick in general? Greatest movie of all time, sure. Again, love a murder mystery, especially a period one. Especially of the Agatha Christie variety (fucking love that shit). But worth the 19-year wait? Nah. Also, the rich men go out and just shoot a bunch of probably now extinct birds. Great going, guys. I hope they all lose their fortunes in the war then get poisoned and stabbed post-mortem.

Bacurau is the okayest movie of all time

Bacurau. Movie I totally would have enjoyed 10x more had I seen it at the IU Cinema communally with a bunch of people on that amazing screen with that sick fucking sound system. In my bedroom, the only TV with a streaming device that supports Kino Now, where I rented this, not a great experience. But it was still a solid(ish) movie. It was the third Brazilian movie I can think of that I've seen and ranks third among those flicks. The other two were Black Orpheus and City of God, so distant third.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Formally thrilling and narratively daring, Bacurau draws on modern Brazilian sociopolitical concerns to deliver a hard-hitting, genre-blurring drama.

Ger

I generally like these sorts of movies. Twist on the whole home invasion premise. From the trailer, thought it was an alien invasion movie; spolier, it ain't. Flying saucer is a sweet-ass drone. Would totally buy that fucking thing with my stimulus check, if you know what I mean. But this takes place in the future and we don't have that shit yet. Anyway, gist of the movie is that townsfolk are being hunted by white people, one of them a Nazi, all of them sociopaths. Never exactly clear why. Thought it was over a water dispute, but it might be because the mayor of a near-by city is going to maybe lose reelection. Apparenlty they are able to vote for some city's mayor even though they are in what I'd say looks like the county. I have no idea how elections work in Brazil, but I guess these 100 people are really going to make the difference in Bacurau.

Speaking of there being 100 people, they get shipments of water and coffins every other day or so. The coffin-to-person in town ratio is way off as they get like 15 to 20 on the regular. What are you doing here? One person dies naturally in this town and like nine people, including the gringos, are killed. In what I hope is an outlier of a fucked up week, they still have a surplus of coffins.

Even has the gap in his goddamned teeth

Speaking of dumb shit, so the way we find out the mayor is in on it is the dumbest shit I've ever seen in my life. This guy, the fucking mayor that everyone hates, after all the gringos have been killed, shows up at the end like WTF. He walks past the village people who are all covered in blood and have guns and are obviously controlling the fuck out of this town. Goes up to like "the guy", who is more or less the Brazilian Lawrence Fishburn of the early 1990s, and some narco guy who has wanted ads coming over the radio, is living the Mad Max lifestyle, and has a truly incredible mullet (he is clearly not to be fucked with), and is all, "uh, what happened to all those white people I hired to kill you guys?" Holy shit. What the hell did I watch? He then tries to backtrack but he is obviously totally going to die.

Starred the Brazilian Larry Fishburn (Thomas Aquino) who was cool as hell and probably won the movie, some attractive woman with curly hair named Bárbara Colen, and Udo Kier who I think of as the asshole that owned a shark in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Also, some lady I sort of recognize named Sônia Braga who dated  David Lee Roth, Robert Redford, and Clint Eastwood, which is one hell of a trifecta. Her character starts out unhinged for some reason and then we see she is a doctor and reasonable, but strange. Yeah, this movie was weird.

Ma is the okayest movie of all time

Ma. More like meh. "There's something off about Ma." "That bitch is crazy." That she is. Personal favorite quote is "There can only be one of us," Ma says whilst painting the black dude's face white. This movie was really not the best.

A movie about kids that "hey miss" a lady, she buys them booze, has them over to her house, and plots to murder them all in this act of revenge that is out there and completely implausible. Not really going to poke a bunch of plot holes in this. Just, like, what was she going to do if they never stopped her outside of the liquor store? I guess this was sort of a crime of opportunity, but this bitch was fucking ready for this shit. Don't really need for this shit to be possible, I guess, but it just adds to the overall, well-I-guess-this-is-happening vibe of the movie.

Speaking of, there were about five times in the movie where I had to back up and be all, what the fuck is happening? Where are they? Juliet Lewis is just going to sleep on this shit? Wait, they went back Ma's house? What is happening? Why the dog's blood? So forth.

Who are they even?

Bunch of people I sort of recognize and kids I don't. Crazy ass Ma is that Octavia Spencer chick from The Help. Juliet Lewis playing the shitty mom of the main girl. That Luke Evans dude from The Hobbitt movies who I always think is another dude from Game of Thrones. Missi Pyle who is a total "that chick" whom I always think of as the sexy alien from Galaxy Quest. Kids I may have seen but no idea. Also, Kenyon grad Allison Janney, for some reason.

Lot of ignoring red flags in this one. I was once a kid who wound up in a situation like this. I would have more been like an extra in one of Ma's big parties near the end for this comparison. It went down like this. I was a freshman or sophomore in high school. Dude I was buddies with who I was actually distancing myself from who was headed down a bad path (not really a friend you call when going through a rough patch, in case you couldn't tell) talked me into going to a party. He drove. This was pre-driving days for me. I get there and it was a bunch of kids (dudes, almost exclusively) I either didn't know or didn't care for and like one obviously 50-year-old man who was claiming 28. Everyone was fucked out of their minds except me. Yeah, got a bad feeling and demanded someone take me home. Got called a bitch or what have you, but I was not fucking around. Have a hard-fast rule about immediately leaving a fucked up situation on foreign land, if you know what I mean. Well, don't talk to any of these people for like a month when dude I was originally buds with shows up for the old surprise visit with 50-year-old dude. My parents were not around and I had enough sense to not let this dude in my house. It was awkward as shit but fuck that, main, and fuck you for bringing this creep here. More time passes. Bud calls me up for my now monthly disinterested call. Tells me that that dude was drugging the guys he was bringing over, molesting them, and was indeed 50-years-old. Cops want to talk to everyone. You aren't telling me anything I don't already know and also we are not friends anymore. This is what was going through my mind the whole fucking time I watched this meh fucking movie. Hey, I wonder whatever happened to that guy.

Anyway, on to more out-there shit. So I don't want to sound super insensitive, but I am about to be super insensitive. The shit that Ma can't get over, she gives a dude a blow jay in a closet at school with her whole class waiting outside, isn't really that bad. I mean, yeah, these people fucking suck. That shit would not have gone over well at my high school, bullying was completely socially unacceptable, but this isn't the type of shit where you plot to kill everyone in your graduating class's children 30 years down the line.

Winning the movie was that Evans guy. He was way too good for this flick. His performance was really strange in that he was so solid in a movie that so wasn't. Basically, didn't call for all that. Don't waste your effort, my man. Plus, dude almost get's his man cut off. Instead, Ma pumps him full of dog blood, as mentioned, and slits his wrist. Lot of weirdness in this one.

The Lighthouse is the greatest movie of all time

The Lighthouse. Why'd ye spill yer beans? What the fuck, man? Hark! Hark! This movie is batshit. Not for everybody. I'm sure some people loved it. People around me in the theater indeed loved it. I'm not sure what is wrong with these people but that movie was not enjoyable. I'm into weird shit, sure. Mandy, Midsommar, I've got a David Lynch related tattoo for fuck's sake. But this movie. Good god man. This is out there and tough to watch. Though I couldn't stand it, though, it was not without its extraordinary merits. Therefore, greatest movie of all time.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: A gripping story brilliantly filmed and led by a pair of powerhouse performances, The Lighthouse further establishes Robert Eggers as a filmmaker of exceptional talent.

Gist is that a pair of lighthouse keepers, wickies as they call themselves, played by Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, get stranded on the remote and fucking harsh island on which their lighthouse sits, drink the fuck out all their rum, turn to kerosene, and completely lose their fucking shit. Conditions are just fucking brutal. You can't fake that shit. These guys are in the shit. True human suffering. That's the subject matter. I can indeed relate.

Liquids are very much not life giving. Surrounded by salt water. Water strands them there and beats down on them. Drinking water is putrid, kills a gull. Booze, which is not good in this situation (maybe any). Then kerosene that they end up drinking when they run out of booze.

In black-and-white with a weird  1.19:1 aspect ratio that I guess was done partly to see the lighthouse and to make you feel boxed in. Robert Eggers, The Witch guy, wrote and directed. Based on a Edgar Allan Poe unfinished story and some real shit. Extremely talented filmmaker. Lot of style. Substance? Meh. I think the point is to make you as uncomfortable and disorientated as the characters. Mission accomplished, I guess.

Acting is great. Pattinson fucking crushes it. Total MVP. Have basically two people acting in this in. Him and Willem Defoe. Pattinson wins it. Dafoe is the sea captain from The Simpsons. Aye. But he is fucking great, too. Lots of fart jokes. Pretty funny until they aren't. Pretty much how the whole movie was. I can deal with this... Now I want to leave. Pretty much how I felt the whole time.

Shares DNA with The Shining, especially felt this at the beginning when they are doing mundane shit and towards the end when they are fucking in it, and "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner," one of my favorite poems of all time (don't fucking kill birds, okay?).

Purgatory or Hell or something. This could be totally be watched on a loop with the last shot being the same as the first so he has to keep reliving this shit over and over again, ending with (spoiler) the gulls eating his entrails like Prometheus and shit. Won't get into my interpretation of the ending other than that and say that a lot of it is debatable. Also, thought I was going to get some Dafoe on Pattinson action, this was what I kept thinking people were referring to with the weird sex. Instead we got some dude on mermaid with a fish vagina fucking. Obviously super hot. Shan't be watching this flick ever again, but I appreciate it and admit that it is indeed a truly great flick.

Blade Runner 2049 is the greatest movie of all time

Blade Runner: 2049. You newer models are happy scraping the shit... because you've never seen a miracle. Fuck, man. One of my favorite movies of the decade. Sequel to a top 10 of mine from all time. Totally does that film justice and stands on its own. I fucking loved it. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Visually stunning and narratively satisfying, Blade Runner 2049 deepens and expands its predecessor's story while standing as an impressive filmmaking achievement in its own right.

Basic gist is that K, a police officer/blade runner/replicant, discovers some crazy shit when putting down a rogue replicant working on a protein farm. Buried on the farm is Rachel, Sean Young's character in the original, who it is discovered had a child, which should be impossible for a replicant. Thinks would give the replicants hope or something. They would realize they have souls and rise up and smash their oppressors. Fuck to the ye... So, K finds a little bit of evidence, goes to a place where a false memory of his actually happened (whoa), thinks, “hey, I'm that kid.” Spoiler, he is not. But it leads him to the real chosen person... Harrison Ford. Rick 'fuckin' Deckard. Who unlike Hans Solo doesn't yuck it up.

A lot to unpack here. First, the cinematography is incredible. Won Roger Deakins--his previous work includes most Ethan and Joel Coen bros movies, Kundun, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Shawshank Redemption, and a bunch of other stunners--an Academy Award. You need two watches for this movie just to take it all in. It's sick. In addition to Ryan Gosling and Ford, the movie stars Ana de Armas, Dave Bautista, beauty Mackenzie Davis (lots of pretty ladies in this), Sylvia Hoeks who plays Luv, Carla Juri, and lovely Robin Wright. Was a little nervous going in about Leto but this flick has a tolerable amount of Jared Leto though he says a bunch of nonsense and does weird shit... as he does.

You need two or more watches because there are things that change depending on your mood or what sticks out to you on that watching. For example, like the original Blade Runner, it is unclear whether Deckard is a replicant or not. It doesn't matter, this film says. Still human. Not the most original message, you know, but still one that we need to be reminded of in 2019, don't ya know. By the by, the first watch I was sure that he was a replicant. Thought they even said as much. The second, yeah, not so sure and what I heard was much more ambiguous. 

Then there is Joi, played by the lovely Ana de Armas (Knives Out) who comes up just short of winning the movie. Joi is the holographic girlfriend of K, whom she has dubbed "Joe", designed and sold by the Wallace Corporation, the bad guy in the film. On one hand, she is something like we think of TV wives from the 1950s. She brings him food, lights his cigarettes, makes him drinks, and listens to his retelling of the day while not sharing any of hers. On the other, there is definitely some connection and meaning there, though she may be programmed to make it seem like there is.  She seemed special. So did Joe, for a while, when he thought he was Deckard and Rachel's love child. So did their relationship. But she was wrong about him, he was not in fact the kid of replicants, and he was probably wrong about her and their relationship as well. She is the only "person" who doesn't think he is a piece of shit in one way or another. First viewing I thought that relationship could be meaningful. She seems as real as the replicants, at least. Feel it when she dies and says she loves him. Second time, she is just there to be what he wants. Programmed as such. After she dies, Joe/K walks by a Joi advertisement saying "Everything you want to see. Everything you want to hear." He realizes as much... Or maybe not. Suspect I might feel differently the next time I watch it. Next time it may seem that he is sad for the loss. Even though he has the opportunity to try again with another Joi, she won't be the same. Deep shit. That's what is so great about this movie.

Winning the movie, in my opinion was Ryan Gosling. Lot of depth with this character and his performance is moving. Joe, like Joi, is programmed a certain way. Can't really overcome that, or can he? Once he figures out that he is not Deckard's child, he still makes the decision to help Deckard find her. His experience gives him the tools to make that decision based on his emotions, rather than programming. It is quite powerful. I have a coworker who didn't want to watch the film because he didn't want to see Gosling "crying in the rain." He had also never seen the original. I told him there was an iconic scene in that film known as "crying in the rain," but he wasn't phased, saying Gosling does that in every movie. No, there is no Gosling crying in the rain. But the part and the film was more powerful than such a cliche. Great shit. 

Holiday Inn is the greatest movie of all time

Holiday Inn. It's Christmas so I'm writing about the movie with the greatest Christmas song of all time. Love a musical. Loved this movie. Most of it, anyway. Then  we get to Lincoln's Birthday (which they celebrate in February, pretty sure they are confusing it with Washington's Birthday). Then it is holy shit. The Bing Crosby character, Jim, is trying to hide the Marjorie Reynolds character, Linda, from the Fred Astaire character, Ted, because he fucking sucks. But Ted is looking for Linda as a mystery woman he danced with on New Years and wants to steal her away. Jim's idea, to conceal Linda's identity, is for him and her to dress in blackface and do a minstrel show number of the song "Abraham". It is fucked up. AMC and other channels even cut the scene out entirely. Apparently former British Prime Minister Theresa May said Holiday Inn was her favorite Christmas film, causing controversy due to, you know, racism. I mean, other than that, it is a great film. But that shit is pretty much impossible to ignore or give a pass since it isn't like this was from the days of D.W. Griffith or something.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: With the combined might of Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and Irving Berlin working in its favor, Holiday Inn is a seasonal classic -- not least because it introduced "White Christmas" to the world.

Gist of the flick is that Astaire can dance and Crosby can sing. They both pursue the same ladies, Linda and Lila, played by Virginia Dale, who can do both, basically mesmerizing them with their insane crooning or dancing, depending on the guy. First it is Lila whom they go after. When she breaks Crosby's heart, he goes and opens a hotel that has large, extravagant holiday shows. This with the help of his new love interest, Linda. After the Astaire/Dale pairing falls apart, Astaire weasels his way into the Holiday Inn where he ends up dancing with and instantly falling in love with the Reynolds character. Crosby tries to hide her identity for a while but Astaire eventually finds her and more or less demands that they immediately go to Hollywood to work in the pictures and get married.

The plot barely matters as this is just a vehicle for Crosby to sing and Astaire to dance and those two do the shit out of those things. But if you pay attention to the plot, the movie is pretty fucked. You've got your overt racism. Then there is what a son of a bitch Astaire's character is. His modus operandi is basically wait for Crosby to get serious about a girl and then do everything he can to steal her, even as Crosby shows him insane kindness for someone who does this twice in the same movie. Dude needs his ass kicked and Crosby needs to learn to be a fucking man. Eventually, Crosby grows some balls and tells his "friend" to go fuck himself. He then gets with Lila or Linda or whoever and Astaire gets with the other one. Happy ending all around.

Of note, the song "White Christmas" came out of this movie. After Irving Berlin wrote it in some California hotel, he went back to the office and told his secretary that he "just wrote the best song I've ever written." Adding that "heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!" Not a modest one, this Berlin. And, at least in pure numbers, he was right. The Bing Crosby version is the all-time best-selling single with sales in excess of 50 million copies. Was extremely popular with the soldiers away at war during WWII. Combined with other versions of the song, we are talking in the 100 million range. Crunched some numbers and did some half-assed internet research to put this in perceptive. A single goes "Gold" when it sells 500,000 units. "Platinum" when it sells 1,000,000. A single goes "Diamond" when it sells 10,000,000. Only like 20 something songs have ever done this. This is the only song that reached over 25,000,000. No one else have even come close. Not even half way to 25 mill. That is insane. For this alone, going to say that Irving Berlin won the movie. For creating the Christmas song to end all Christmas song.

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is the greatest movie of all time

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. How's your head? I haven't had any complaints yet... If they ever ask about me, tell them I was more than just a great set of boobs. I was also an incredible pair of legs. Not going to win any awards but it was a lot of fun. A lot of talking around Elvira's breasts, which are stunning. Witty one-liners a plenty with some semblance of a plot. That'll do. Greatest movie of all time.

Gist is that Elvira inherits her aunt's dilapidated mansion in an uptight New England town. The treasure, however, is her book of "recipes" which consist of spells. You see, her aunt was a witch and her surviving uncle, who wanted the book for himself, a necromancer of some persuasion, tries to steal the book and kill Elvira. That is the gist but the flick is mostly humor that comes out of Elvira being an outrageously groovy chick in the repressed town that was probably a lot like the one in Footloose. Also, dudes are basically constantly trying to rape her.

In addition to the lovely Cassandra Peterson (still gorgeous as a senior citizen) as Elvira, more on her later, there are actually some actors I recognize. Some include Edie McClurg (she was a high school student in Carrie and was the one who called Ferris Bueller a "righteous dude" in Ferris Bueller's Day Off) plays one Chastity Pariah, the guy who played Kenickie in Grease (his name was Jeff Conaway), Frank Collison who I think of as the "she r-u-n-n o-f-t" guy in Oh, Brother Where Art Thou and the guy obsessed with hotdogs in The Happening, William Morgan Sheppard who is such a that guy, Kurt Fuller who always plays someone who is super punchable, and Dick Miller, he was the guy that knew what gremlins were in Gremlins, is in a movie that Elvira watches at some point.

I am sort of in love with Elvira/Peterson here. Doing half-assed internet research I saw that an unknown Brad Pitt auditioned for one of the teenage boy roles. Peterson thought he was way too hot and felt that Elvira would not be interested in Bob if Pitt was one of the teenagers trying to get her. On her casting notes of his audition, she wrote next to his name, "Yum Yum!" She is a different breed, this one. Into horror, has a cool-ass dog, gorgeous, funny, lovely assets, you get the idea. A lot like my female companion, now that I think about it. Two things cemented it for me though. The first was her dance at the end, which is just indescribable. Then, whilst reading her Wikipedia page, I saw that she is a vegetarian who appeared in a humorous Halloween-themed ad for PETA. Right on, girl. Also saw that she was scalded on over 35% of her body in a kitchen accident when she was little. She said that her Elvira costume "showed only the good bits" but there isn't much you don't see in the movie. Anyway, totally wins the movie and life.

Chopping Mall is the worst movie of all time

Chopping Mall. Let's send these fuckers a Rambo-gram. It is bad. Also, it is very bad. Not a single chop was made in this film. Was pretty sure they came up with the name of the movie, which is amazing, and then built a film around it. That, however, was not the case. Laser Mall or Fire-Extinguisher Throwing Robots Mall doesn't have the same ring to it. But yeah, worst movie of all time.

Gist of the movie is a shopping mall installs a trio of robots to police the mall at night, killing anyone that isn't an employee that is there over night. But them shits malfunction and then just kill anyone in the mall. Alright to kill anyone breaks in in this universe. Killing employees of the mall that are there to bone in a furniture store, that shit is fucked up and wrong though. Instead of smoking cigarettes and drinking, though, post-coital activities for these kids includes shooting at robots trying to kill them and dying. The robots malfunction after the building gets struck by the infamous blue lightning, ever present in the 1980s, which gets featured a lot in electrocution scenes in this flick.

Directed by one Jim Wynorski, a guy out of the Roger Corman school of film making, has over 150 titles to his name. Kelli Maroney, who plays the part of Alison, and Tony O'Dell, as Ferdy, are the survivors who are notably the only pair of "teens" that don't get it on. O'Dell is one of the Cobra Kai punks in The Karate Kid and is also in the YouTube spinoff Cobra Kai. You may recognize Maroney from Fast Times at Ridgemont High or as one of the leads in dope 80s horror flick Night of the Comet which I'm going to have to rewatch. Director Wynorski claims to have cast her because he wanted to date her. That is one way to do it, I guess. Get a Dick Miller cameo. He was the guy that knew what gremlins were in the movie Gremlins. There are a couple attractive ladies in the film who have a little bit of gratuitous nudity but the only one I recognized was Barbara Crampton who is horror royalty in my book. She was the lead chick in Re-Animator and Castle Freak and more recently was in You're Next. She is great and very beautiful but was pretty annoying in this flick. She completely gets herself killed in a grossly unnecessary way. Her and the other girls are on their way out of the mall via the air duct but she keeps saying shit like, "my boyfriend needs me, I have to go help him!" She tries and immediately gets herself killed although the dudes have the situation sort of in hand at that point.

There is this raging asshole who is boning the mall owner's daughter who I thought was funny as a character. This was the guy with the mullet played by one John Terlesky. Oh he is over-the-top unlikable and offensive. You don't mind when he gets killed after going out to get the lady he just boned smokes out of an old fashioned cigarette machine. He has a super solid one-liner to the robots when they ask for his badge which is what I think set them off to rampage. When he shows them his badge he tells it "Klaatu barada nikto" which was the phrase used to stop Gort, the robot in the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, from destroying the world. It was also the line that Bruce Campbell flubs when he picks up the Book of the Dead in Army of Darkness which I am sure is also a reference to the Cold War-era film. This guy's girl's death is pretty solid, too. She gets shot with a laser and her head explodes. Always solid.

With a brief 77 minute run time, I still felt they could have tightened this movie up. Not a great sign. Also, nothing with the killer robots really makes sense. Deploying killer robots to work security at the mall, what could happen, am I right? Pity, that this movie isn't more watchable with a cast that includes Crampton and Maroney. Maroney, I guess, wins the movie though there really aren't what you would call winners here. She also has the worst camel toe I have ever seen in khakis of all things. It is fucking crazy. Googling that I see there was a How Did This Get Made? where this phenomenon in the movie was discussed. Will need to give that a whirl.