Voyage Of The Rock Aliens

(1984)
Director: James Fargo
Writers: Edward Gold, S. James Guidotti, Charles Hairston

Voyage Of The Rock Aliens is something special. Not necessarily good. Not necessarily bad. Just "special". The movie begins with a cheesy-looking robot scanning video feeds from other planets, trying to find the source of "this rock and roll" that the aliens manning the ship have become obsessed with finding. Cut to a music video of Jermaine Jackson and Pia Zadora's hit (?) duet When The Rain Begins To Fall, which is apparently about forbidden love in the post-apocalypse. Is this the rock and roll they've been searching for? No. Apparently not, because the robot then decides to go to Earth instead because "why not?". What follows is a fever-like arrangement of scenes that could only be a product of the 80's. The main plot concerns the previously mentioned aliens (Tom Nolan and new wave band Rhema) landing in the small town of Speelburgh (get it?) and posing as a music group entering the local battle of the bands, all while gathering information on Earth. Ruling over this town with an iron fist for no apparent reason is Frankie (Craig Sheffer), who leads a rockabilly band/gang called The Pack. Frustrated by his decision to not allow her to sing ever, Frankie's girlfriend Dee Dee turns to the alien commander ABCD (pronounced Absid). We also get subplots involving the alien-obsessed and completely ineffectual sheriff (Ruth Gordon), a giant tentacled monster that lives in the nearby polluted Lake Eerie (get it?), and two escaped homicidal maniacs known as Chainsaw (Michael Berryman) and The Breather. The last of these is definitely the most entertaining of the bunch.

If you're a fan of eighties' culture, dumb movies, and/or musicals, Voyage Of The Rock Aliens is definitely worth checking out. The music is passable, the story is out there, and there are more than enough unintentionally hilarious scenes to make it an enjoyable hour and a half.

8 out of 12 beers

Video Nasty #14- The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue

(1974)
Director: Jorge Grau
Writers: Sandro Continenza, Marcello Coscia. Juan Cobos, Miguel Rubio

Take Night Of The Living Dead. Strip it down to its bare essentials. Now give it a British disposition and add elements of 70's psychedelia. Mix with an entrancing experimental soundtrack and you've got The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue (a.k.a. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie; Don't Open The Window). It obviously owes a great deal to Romero's film and many parallels can be drawn between the two, but The Living Dead stands apart as a great film on its own. It's rare that a movie can boast "One of the best zombie movies ever made!" on its packaging and actually deliver on that promise.

The movie begins with a departure of scenery from the busy city life of Manchester to the tranquil English countryside, where our main character George is planning to spend the weekend. Along the way, his motorcycle is run over by a young woman named Edna, who proposes that he borrow her car for the weekend after he drops her off at her sisters. When they stop to get directions at a nearby farm and Edna is assaulted by the walking corpse of a drowned vagrant, plans begin to unravel and our protaganists are caught up in a web of the living dead and angry policemen. While there are actually very few zombies in the film, the flesheaters on display are very intimidating and display a rudimentary intelligence that makes them even more so. The explanation for the dead's return is also pretty unique. Their nervous systems are re-activated by an experimental piece of farm equipment that emits ultrasonic radiation. Which is really no sillier than "space radiation". Subplots involving Edna's sister's heroin addiction and the police sergeant's aggressive suspiciousness of youth culture really add to the already unique and captivating film.

The film was marketed in the U.S. as Don't Open The Window, paired on a double bill with Last House On The Left and unashamedly lifting its infamous tagline "TO AVOID FAINTING Keep Repeating It's Only A Movie... Only A Movie... Only A Movie..." for its poster. It may be this association with Last House On The Left that caught the film the attention of the DPP in England and landed it on the video nasties list. While it certainly has a few gory scenes, overall the movie seems fairly tame compared to other movies of its kind. That said, while The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue is a bit of a slow-burn, once it gets going it proves itself as a very effective and intriguing zombie film and is a must-watch for any fan of that sub-genre.

I give it 11 out of 12 beers.

Alone In The T-Shirt Zone

(1986)
Director: Mike B. Anderson
Writers: Mike B. Anderson, Kathleen Beeler

Alone In The T-Shirt Zone is a strange creature. I was initially drawn to the VHS copy of this film by the cover art. If there's one thing I can't resist it's a dumb 80's sex comedy, and this certainly looked like one. But then I turned it over to read the back and saw this:

Oookay, that doesn't look like a comedy to me, that looks like a straight up horror movie. I puzzled over the VHS for a few minutes, turning the tape back and forth in my hands, trying desperately to grasp the angle this movie was going for. The slyly evasive description on the back also straddled the line between sex comedy and horror movie and was no help. My curiosity and confusion finally got the best of me and I ended up paying a little more for a VHS tape than I usually would, just so I could figure this one out. Before I left with the tape, the guy selling it warned me. "That's a weird one."

He was right.

Directed by Mike B. Anderson, who would later go on to be a major force on The Simpsons, Alone In The T-Shirt Zone blazes a weird path that not everyone will be able to follow and even fewer will enjoy. The story begins with our main character Mike, nearly catatonic, in a psychiatric institution. When his female psychiatrist locks the door and begins raping him, he drifts off and remembers the events that led him here. Pretty dark stuff, huh? Well, not so much. You see, every dark plot twist and subplot somehow comes off fairly lighthearted. Like we're supposed to be laughing except for the fact that it isn't really funny. It's probably a good bet that the character of Mike is autobiographical for the director. Mike is an under-appreciated artist stuck in a dead-end job creating sexually suggestive t-shirts who finally snaps, escapes his job and, as the description on the back of the box puts it, "it spells trouble for all concerned". It's seems that Anderson was trying to craft a dark story to vent his frustrations, but it's filled with too many surreal and jokey moments to take seriously. And then the movie just sort of ends.

If it sounds like I didn't like Alone In The T-Shirt Zone, that's not my intention. It was very well made and kept me interested the whole time. And I thoroughly enjoyed the weirdness of it all. It's less like watching a movie and more like taking a strange journey where plot twists go nowhere and the things that you see may not actually be happening. I even got obsessed halfway through the film with a t-shirt I spied in the background that made as little sense to me as the movie itself:

I don't know why that's funny, but I also need a shirt of it just so I can confuse people!

Overall, it was a pretty enjoyable little film that I'm sure I'll revisit every once in a while. I'm also pretty curious to check out Mike B. Anderson's other film, a strange sounding sci-fi comedy called Kamillions. If you're a fan of weird experimental films and t-shirts, I would recommend Alone In The T-Shirt Zone. Just be careful. It's a weird one.



8 1/2 out of 12 beers.

There's Going To Be Some Changes Around Here...

As anyone who follows this blog knows, I update it very rarely. Although I enjoy writing about movies, it does take time. Time that I don't always have. So before I watch a video nasty for this blog, I like to make sure that I'll have time to absorb it and then sit down and write about it while it's still fresh in my mind. There are actually a handful of video nasties I've already watched since starting this blog that didn't get an entry because something came up and by the time I was able to sit down and write about them I felt that I needed to watch them again before I did so. I also sometimes feel limited by the fact that whenever I do have time to view a film and write about it, it has to be one of the video nasties I've got set aside for just that occasion.

So during a rousing personal viewing of Kick Or Die and L.A. A.I.D.S. Jabber on National VCR Day, I decided that I should open myself up to a little bit more. As such, I will no longer be focusing on just video nasties. There are so many other trashy and bewildering movies out there that the world needs to know about! I haven't given up my quest to view all 72 video nasties, they will still be chronicled on this site. I just feel that both myself and anyone who reads this blog deserve to be exposed to any movies that the world of DVD and Blu-Ray and the gutters of thrift store VHS tapes have to offer.

There will also be a few other minor changes. I've already started playing around with the graphics on this page and they're not set in stone just yet. I am also in the process of starting up a Facebook and Twitter page for Bastard of Cinema. And last but not least, I am abandoning the skull scale. Having two different scales (especially with one being out of 10 and one being out of 12) seemed like a good idea at the time, but has proved to be just a little too confusing. And if I'm confused by it, I'm sure others are too. So from now on, movies will simply be graded on a scale of 1 to 12 beers. I'm excited by these changes and I hope that anyone who follows this blog is too. Look for a new entry in the next few days, along with the Bastard of Cinema Facebook and Twitter pages. Excelsior!