(1990)
Dir - Gérard Kikoïne
Overall: MEH
Not to be confused with the Frank Darabont-directed made-for-television film of the same name which featured Jennifer Jason Leigh and was released in the same year, this Buried Alive, (Edgar Allan Poe's Buried Alive), was the last full-length from French filmmaker Gérard Kikoïne. Shot in South Africa two years before it was released direct-to-video, veterans Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence with a goofy accent and wig, and, (in his first of two posthumous releases following his death), John Carradine all share screen credits with Ginger Lynn Allen and Karen Witter in what is a lackluster girls reform school slasher dud. As many genre films +.do, it throws the Poe name into the mix arbitrarily as this is neither an adaptation of any of the celebrated author's works nor does it bother to disguise itself as such, outside of one or two vague allusions to "The Premature Burial"and "The Black Cat". Sleaze wise, the gore is appropriately grisly for the era and Kikoïne does not skimp on the nudity when it is called for, plus he and cinematographer Gerard Loubeau get flashy with the camera movements and Gothic atmosphere. Mostly though, this is a low-rent B-movie with known actors who have all done better stuff and are merely collecting a paycheck/embarrassing themselves here.
(1991)
Dir - Mark Pirro
Overall: WOOF
Overall: WOOF
Mark Pirro keeps his groan-worthy shtick going with Nudist Colony of the Dead; another D-grade bit of stupidity that is too amatuerish to be offensive. As the title correctly advertises, the zombies here are all naked, making a pact to murder any religious folk who venture onto their land that was taken away legally by a bunch of zealots. They do this after Jim Jonesing a bunch of spiked Kool-Aid, which then fasts forwards a few years to a buss full of wacky youths arriving there so that a lone park ranger can rap about their doom because he is played by a black man. Worry not, a few other racial stereotypes are utilized for no-effort gags, but the primary focus is on making fun of religious people and bombarding the running time with the worst kind of musical numbers, meaning the kind that are annoyingly catchy. As is always the case with Pirro's Super-8 crud rocks, some of the humor is ridiculous enough to land and it gets by to a degree on how not-at-all seriously it takes itself. Still, most of the goofy attempts are just embarrassing and cheap, unless you think it is hilarious to watch an Asian/Mexican guy speak in an over-the-top accent, cringe-worthy mugging during the song and dance moments, an asshole who takes way too long to get killed starting every sentence with "The Bible says...", two hillbillies with single digit IQs talking about hot dogs and having to shit, and one of the nudists in a rubber skin suite who looks decades dead before she even becomes a zombie.
(1996)
Dir - Charles Band
Overall: MEH
One of the more ridiculous entries in Charles Band's vast filmography, (which is saying much), Head of the Family is the type of campy D-budgeted hogwash that makes no qualms about how stupid it is. Southern accents, sparsely decorated sets, flat direction, naked boobs, and a family full of freaks which is HEADed by a wheelchair-bound, torso-less, mega-craniumed J.W. Perra, the presentation is well-suited to the blackmail/mad scientist plot by Band and Neal Marshall Stevens, (Benjamin Carr). The cheap production values are more adorable than insulting, yet the make-up effects on Perra seem to have gotten the lion's share of whatever meager budget was available since he looks wonderfully demented and hilarious. On that note, any movie with such an asinine plot and knowingly goofy tone is bound to land at least some of its intended laughs, and the cast thankfully rises to the occasion. Besides the aforementioned Perra who chews the scenery with his syllable-heavy dialog, Blake Adams makes for a fun and sleazy conman, Gordon Jennison Noice also makes for a fun and sleazy conman, and the charming softcore B-queen Jacqueline Lovell manages to be both naked and funny in equal measures. The movie is no masterpiece and no one of sound mind would label it as such, but it stays in its lane, plus everyone on board nails the oddball assignment.
No comments:
Post a Comment