(1987)
Dir - Bill Rebane
Overall: WOOF
This later crud rock from Bill Rebane continues to establish his long-standing legacy as one of the worst filmmakers who ever lived, with the added ingredient of also being a footnote in the bizarre, less than ideal career of Tiny Tim. Blood Harvest has what many infamously bad movies have; inept direction, painfully embarrassing performances, incoherent plotting, sluggish pacing, and obviously barren production qualities. The "best" case scenario is that many of these elements can make for a riotous viewing experience, but the results here are only inconsistently amusing. In her only acting role ever, Itonia Salcheck comes off as the most hilariously awful and the poor woman spends more than half of the movie either without pants or just passed out and naked. It is unfortunate that the walking anomaly that is Tiny Tim does not get enough screen time since his performance as a mentally-handicapped clown who bursts into song is as head-scratchingly fascinating as it sounds on paper. There is definitely more enjoyable sleaze out there than this, but it is still probably worth a curious viewing for the trainwreck trash fan.
(1988)
Dir - Ken Wiederhorn
Overall: MEH
Nearly everything goes not so good in writer/director Ken Wiederhorn's Return of the Living Dead Part II, a more deliberately stupid and silly sequel to a horror comedy masterpiece. Essentially telling the same story except in a different, less interesting setting, this one adds Forest J. Ackerman not taking the material seriously, a stupid kid, and the concept that workout tapes can distract and electricity can now kill the previously unkillable zombies. The lousy choices are not limited to those though with both James Karen and Thom Mathews inexplicably returning as two different characters with the exact same arc that they had for the last go-round and they each turn in comparatively more obnoxious performances than in the previous film, joining a cast that mostly screams and complains their way through every scene anyway. The makeup effects are definitely on the cheap end yet fine for what they are, plus the hard rock soundtrack gets the job done, but Wiederhorn is no Dan O'Bannon as his script is littered with incessant, failed attempts at humor as well as typical zombie movie cliches, none of which are cleverly skewed.
(1989)
Dir - James Hong/William Rice
Overall: MEH
With a filmography listing well over four-hundred acting credits, James Hong only got behind the screen a comparative small handful of times and The Vineyard stands as his lone directorial horror outing. Sharing such duties with William Rice and others in the screenwriting department, Hong plays a variation of the mad scientist seeking immortality who does so here through a series of mystical rituals plus wine making for some reason. The production is given a knowingly silly approach that works well enough with the quirky premise as it does not try to be anything besides what it is. Thriller-style zombies, scantily clad and/or naked women, California bros, fog, menacing keyboard music, gore, elderly monster make-up; it has plenty of fun trappings for the 80s horror fan. The wheels fall off a bit in the third act though which bounces around too much in general and looses momentum when it should be ramping up to a fittingly goofy conclusion. Still, there is a charm to it at irregular intervals and Hong makes a campy if underwritten villain so for a deliberately wacky B-movie, you can definitely do far, far worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment