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!

Video Nasty #13- Faces Of Death

(1978)
Director: Conan Le Cilaire (John Alan Schwartz)
Writer: Alan Black (John Alan Schwartz)


Ah Faces Of Death, a film more notorious than it probably deserves to be. That's not to say that I don't like Faces Of Death. In fact, one could say that I love Faces Of Death. But let's face facts, it's corny as hell.

If you've never seen Faces Of Death, you've no doubt heard of it. Made in the style of the many "mondo" films of the 60's and 70's, Faces Of Death is a documentary style film that showcases scenes of "real" deaths. It's narrated by a supposed expert in the study of death, Dr. Frances B. Gross. As the story goes, Japanese investors were dissatisfied with the amount of death in the original cut. Most of the scenes in the original version were just of the aftermath of accidents taken from news archive footage and the investors wanted to see the whole incidents. As that footage wasn't available, the makers of the film decided that they would fill in the gaps with staged scenes and try to match it to the original footage as closely as possible. The results vary, but most of it is actually pretty good and it's not always easy to tell what is real and what is not.

It's easy to see why Faces of Death was banned by the BBFC. The scenes of real animal cruelty are enough to make anyone consider becoming a vegitarian. And any film that purports to show scenes of actual death is just asking to be banned. In fact, being banned in multiple countries certainly helped the film garner it's infamous reputation. Oddly though, a full 30 minutes were cut out of the film's British release even before it was banned. Included in this 30 minutes is the entire execution scene that is displayed so prominently on it's cover.

In my youth, Faces Of Death was the stuff of legend. The VHS teased and terrified me at local video stores with it's lurid cover art and claim that it had been "Banned In 46 Countries!". Or 43. Or 40. The number changed with every release and was likely a bold-faced lie. If you had seen it, you were allowed to wear that like a badge of honor. I, unfortunately, was not one of those people. I didn't have the pleasure of seeing Faces Of Death until I was in college. By that time, it had become common knowledge that a lot of the scenes in the movie were faked and I doubted that it would hold up to it's reputation. Many scenes were certainly difficult to sit through, but I'll admit that I was pretty underwhelmed on my first viewing. I felt like it was interesting, but it's not really the type of film that ages well. But like any good film, it stuck with me. I never forgot about it. And over the years, it's really grown on me. I love the dramatic flair of our narrator, Dr. Gross. I love the cheezy heavy-handed environmental message that crescendos with a man burning alive to the tune of "Jesus Doesn't Live Here Anymore". I love the morons that get attacked by a bear. I even love when it goes completely off the rails with a "real" seance. And of course, the ending credits where we're reminded of the miracle of life through stock footage and bad music. Faces Of Death is a dumb movie. But somehow, it manages to do what very few movies can. And that is to pull off both dumb and disturbing in equal measure. And you have to give it credit for that.

Enjoyability: 10 out of 12 beers

Quality: 8 1/2 out of 10 skulls

Video Nasty #12- The Burning

(1981)
Director: Tony Maylam
Writers: Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein, Tony Maylam, Brad Grey, & Peter Lawrence

I'll admit it. I was REALLY late to The Burning. I saw it for the first time a little under a year ago (not realizing that it was one of the movies on my video nasty checklist), but that's okay because I saw it under the best possible circumstances and it quickly became one of my favorites. My friends and I had headed up to a fantastic drive-in theater (still in operation today!) near Pittsburgh for their bi-annual horror movie marathon weekend. We got there kind of late and had missed most of the first feature, Friday The 13th. But I had seen Friday The 13th so many times that I wasn't too disappointed. As we were setting up camp (yes, you can camp out at this drive-in too), The Burning started up. I had heard of The Burning and was pretty excited to see it, so I kind of crapped out on setting up tents and whatnot pretty early. By the time the movie was about halfway through, everyone else was fully engrossed as well. The were some other fantastic movies playing that weekend, not the least of which were Day Of The Dead and Return Of The Living Dead, but The Burning really stood out for me. So once I found that it was part of my required viewing of video nasties, I was real excited to revisit it.

The real star of The Burning (aside from the incomparable George Costanza) is Tom Savini's makeup effects. Fresh off of his work on Dawn Of The Dead and Friday The 13th, this is Savini at his peak. The effects, and the raft massacre in particular, are no doubt what got this film put on the nasties list.

The Burning centers around the campfire legend of Cropsy, a summer camp caretaker who is burned alive in a terrible prank gone wrong. He then wanders the woods seeking out victims to take revenge upon. It's not a particularly complex movie, but it's a lot of fun and unlike many other summer camp slasher flicks, the teenagers are actually, for the most part, pretty likable characters. If you enjoy a good slasher and you haven't seen this one, you're missing out.

Enjoyability: 11 out of 12 beers

 Quality: 9 out of 10 skulls

Video Nasty #11- Absurd

(1981)
Director: Joe D'Amato
Writer: George Eastman

Absurd (a.k.a. Horrible, a.k.a. Rosso Sangue, a.k.a. The Monster Hunter, a.k.a. Zombi 6, a.k.a. Anthropophagus II: Anthropophagus Harder) is a fairly paint-by-numbers slasher that could only have come from Joe D'Amato. While not actually a sequel to Anthropophagus (and having absolutely nothing to do with any of the other Zombi films), the film does take a few elements from D'Amato's previous film. It takes place in the United States during Superbowl weekend. Although the fact that everyone at the Superbowl party is eating spagetti and the idea that anyone in the U.S. would refer to the game as "american football" gives it away as being from the mind of someone who has never actually been to the United States. George Eastman reprises his role of a crazed madman, who this time has been driven crazy by Catholic scientific experiments which have left nearly every part of him, minus his brain, completely invulnerable. Absurd and Horrible are in fact very appropriate titles. The film even throws in a few Halloween plot devices with the unstoppable boogeyman terrorizing a babysitter while being tracked by someone who knows how to destroy him, this time a priest.

Absurd does contain quite a few gory kills, but was more than likely added to the video nasties list because of it's association with Anthropophagus. It's pretty entertaining and certainly has a good cheesy slasher vibe to it. I'll admit that I got a bit bored at times, but overall I feel like it was certainly better than Anthropophagus.



Enjoyability: 7 out of 12 beers

Quality: 4 1/2 out of 10 skulls

Video Nasty #7- Mardi Gras Massacre

(1978)
Director: Jack Weis
Writer: Jack Weis

The first word that comes to mind when I try to describe Mardi Gras Massacre is "awkward". Everything about this movie is awkward and clumsy; the acting, the dialogue, the soundtrack, the special effects, the plot. And I loved every minute of it.

The plot is a pretty thinly veiled rip-off of Blood Feast. A bizarrely mannered well-dressed man (played hilariously by William Metzo) strolls into New Orleans bars and strip clubs asking for the "most evil" woman there. He then takes her back to his place where he ties her to an altar and ritually sacrifices her to his god Quetzalcoatl while absolutely terrible disco music plays in the background. Meanwhile, two police officers are trying to get to the bottom of the strange series of murders. The video box promises that the film concludes in a "climactic nine-person sacrifice", but that never actually happens.

There's not a lot a whole lot I can say about Mardi Gras Massacre except that, aside from Return Of The Boogeyman (which as it turns out is not actually on the list), it is definitely the most ineptly made film I've seen on the video nasties list so far. Although unlike Return Of The Boogeyman, Mardi Gras Massacre is actually delightfully bad. I had a blast watching it and was constantly on the edge of my seat waiting for the next inexplicable line of dialogue, inappropriate use of disco music, or side-splittingly awful jump cut. If you're a fan of so-bad-they're-good horror films, it is definitely worth seeking out.

Enjoyability: 8 1/2 out of 12 beers.

Quality: 2 out of 10 skulls.

ULLI LOMMEL!!!!!

I have some very disheartening news to report. Maybe not disheartening to you, but absolutely devastating to me. I have to watch another Ulli Lommel film. It seems that I suffered needlessly through Return Of The Boogeyman, as it was actually Revenge Of The Boogeyman (aka Boogeyman II here in the states) that was banned. The fact that Return Of The Boogeyman was released in 1994, well after films were being added to the video nasties list, should have thrown up a red flag for me. I could take credit for my mistake and admit that I probably just had a copy of Return Of The Boogeyman lying around, didn't do my research, and just assumed that it was the correct film. I could do that. Or I could blame the nefarious hand of Ulli Lommel and declare him my nemesis. Somehow he is responsible for this. Batman has The Joker, Spider-Man has The Green Goblin, I have Ulli Lommel. I think I got the short end of the stick here. So, the next video nasty I review will be retroactively numbered #7, and normal numbering will commence from that point forward. The worst part is that I've already seen Boogeyman II and I know how terrible it is. I am not looking forward to this...