Who hasn't dreamed of killing someone with just their mind? If you answered "No", then you are a liar and deserve to have your head exploded in 80's gloriously gory fashion like a pepperoni Hot Pocket by Michael Ironside. It also explored the emerging paranoia of "modern" medicine and pharmacology along with the subplot of subverting pregnancies toward a malicious unethical corporation.
Darryl Revok is the most powerful of all the scanners, and is the head of the underground scanner movement for world domination. Scanners have great psychic power, strong enough to control minds; they can inflict enormous pain/damage on their victims. Doctor Paul Ruth finds a scanner that Revok hasn't, and converts him to their cause - to destroy the underground movement.
This movie taught me many valuable lessons:
Nosebleeds only occur from one nostril, never both
No man with a beard or mustache will survive to the end of a movie
The best way to inject IV drugs is into the palm of your hand by your thumb
Computers in the 80's actually were smarter than now and you could just type in what you wanted it to do
Call an old bearded man "Doctor" and have speak slowly in a tweed jacket increases his credibility and likelihood-to-molest-you ratio by 1000%
Somehow when 9 Scanners are concentrating as one, this causes them to be completely oblivious to thugs cutting them down with shotgun blasts at a 6 inch range
Trying to drill a hole in one's own head leaves a nasty scar
Scanners arguably had 4 sequels all written by David Cronenberg
Scanners II: The New Order (1991)
Scanners III: The Takeover (1992)
Scanner Cop (1994)
Scanner Cop II (1995)
Just in case you want the goodies, here is the Michael-Ironside-just-mind-fucked-you scene:
Prickly poop, it affects everyone AGGGGHHHH! 1980's gore is unmatched 4 Comments
This movie contains arguably the worst kept "hidden monster" gotcha of all time when they put the god-damn monster on the front of the movie poster and VHS box. It also portrays one of the least believable latex monster puppets (that resembles a crazed California Raisin with scoliosis) outside of Thankskilling.
Charming country bumpkin Duane Bradley takes a motel room in New York with no other luggage then a basket. In a flash back-series we learn it contains his surgically removed Siamese twin who is not only physically deformed so badly the doctors hesitated to consider him a human, but is also the vindictive drive of their trip, with the purpose to kill off all those he blames. But in the reception of one of those doctors, Duane gets his first ever date, with the receptionist, and wants to start a positive life too - when the freak twin escapes, these scene is set for a grim finale.
This movie taught me that all deformed siamese twins are natural sociopathic homcidal maniacs, don't require any sort of lungs / heart / gastrointestinal system, have a vertical to match most NBA ballers and there is no upper limit to head jokes.
This movie apparently did well enough to spawn two monster-puppet-humping sequels:
Basket Case 2 (1990) - Duane and Belial's aunt, known as Granny Ruth, takes them under her wing at her mansion, which serves as a safe haven for hideously deformed freaks of all shapes and size. This film also introduces a "love interest" for Belial in an apparently female "Basket Case" which culminates in a disgustingly sweaty love scene of two basketballs rubbing on each other.
Basket Case 3: The Progeny (1992) - Belail's about to become a proud monster father - and no basket is big enough to hold this ungodly brood! But when a pair of warped sheriffs deputies kidnap Belai's babies Granny Ruth and the family strike back. Belial single handedly decimates the local police station with crazed, Terminator like fury
It's time to change your diet when your turds can climb out and communicate emotively Belial earns a bit of pocket money temping as a window stop And they said Ferengi and Jeff Goldblum from "The Fly" couldn't reproduce God damn it, at least let me guess what's in the basket! 1 Comments
Vegetarians unite, this is the movie that supports your cause. What is more gross than eating small liver flukes infesting the tastiest "Tender Meat" burgers and steaks? When they decide to continue to grow and bust out of you like the Kool-Aid man through a wall. And this doesn't even take into account the "stellar" performances by William Forsythe as a crazy-ass rancher and Rachel Hunter as a corporate teet-sucker.
In Host, Missouri, the newcomer Dr. of Veterinary Science Eli Rudkus is called by the farmer Jacob Long to exam one of his cows. The veterinarian finds a strange parasite in the animal and sends it to a friend in the Department of Agriculture for research. Later, he finds the same parasite in a creek and he summons the population for a meeting, warning that the cause might be the animal food. However, Fletcher Odermatt, the wealthy owner of the local Host Tender Meals that has been providing free animal food for the farmers, brings his lawyer Hayley Anderson and discredits Eli. When a huge mutant parasite attacks Eli and Jacob, they discover that the meals are actually an experimental genetic cocktail that is growing parasites inside the kettles and people.
Oddly enough, this movie is about liver flukes and nothing to do with larva. Some people have "innies", some have "outies", some have "big ass gaping hole in their abdomen" You had to wait far too long to see one of the full sized flukes (just like in the movie) 2 Comments
Ah, the unholy child of a pornography director and Clint Howard made for roughly $2,000,000 whipped up with salt, milk and human flesh for a delicious B-horror cult classic.
Gregory Trudor, a young child, witnessed the murder of his favorite idol, an ice cream man. Gregory suffers from a mental breakdown, and is taken to an institution. He is released years later, and hoping to follow in the footsteps of his idol, opens his own ice cream business. However his insanity soon takes over and he begins kidnapping people, killing them, and adding them to the ice cream.
As mentioned above, this film was actually produced and directed by Paul Norman, who is a director of pornographic movies, under the pseudonym Norman Apstein and was his first and only attempt at mainstream filmmaking. Writers of this frozen nugget include Sven Davison, and more well known, David Dobkin who would go on to write and direct "Wedding Crashers" and "Fred Claus".
The movie is instantly charming with it's unbelievably campy production values and oozing that B-horror magic red-colored corn syrup. Clint Howard can't help but be a creepy ass dude in every film and his face is proof there is a god and he has a mean streak. The film hits it's peak with the "severed head ice cream scoops" and when he befriends "Small Paul", and teaches him that everyday is a happy, happy, happy, day.
Clint Howard's face proves that God can carry a grudge Double the head, double the fun AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! 1 Comments
Alright, alright, I already hear everyone saying "That's not a B-movie, it has Kevin Bacon for god sake!", but you're wrong. It has some decent acting talent (Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross, Reba McEntire) and grossed just over $16,000,000 and is about killer worms with worms for tongues that eat your ass through the ground. So, B-movie it is and we can move onto the trailer and discussion of this oddly epic film.
Trying to escape their dead-end life in the desert town of Perfection, Nevada, Valentine "Val" McKee and Earl Bassett find themselves sidetracked when corpses mysteriously start piling up around them. When Val and Earl have a run-in with some creepy tentacled creatures that have made lunch out of a road crew, they retreat back to the town to spread the news. Although these monsters are not exactly intellectuals, their mental powers are still mind-boggling. Detecting a human hiding in a car, they dig under the vehicle, causing it to sink into the earth. Val and Earl get help from several townspeople. With the help of Rhonda, Val and Earl kill one of the monsters. But there are three of them left, and they are each about 30 feet long. Walter starts calling the monsters graboids. When the survivors think they have outwitted the graboids by taking refuge atop the roofs of buildings, the graboids merely destroy the buildings' foundations, killing two people. The graboids are quick learners when it comes to stalking their prey, and the humans must continually be on their toes if they are to stay alive while they try to find a way to defeat the graboids.
There were a total of four Tremors movies and only Michael Gross from the original was in all four films. Here are the four films and the key highlights / new graboids from each one.
Tremors (read above, yeesh) Tremors II: Aftershocks (No Kevin Bacon, but still have Fred Ward and Michael Gross and introduces the next evolutionary stage of graboid - the Shrieker) Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (buh-bye Fred Ward, but Michael Gross stays around for the paycheck - introduces the Ass Blaster [yes really]) Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (Set in the 1800's as the prequel to the original Tremors when the town was named Rejection - introduces the small leap-from-the ground killer graboids that are unnamed)
Tremors II - Shrieker
Tremors 3 - Ass Blaster
"Old West" Michael Gross
The second biggest white worm my wife has every seen Every single person in this scene has had sex with Kevin Bacon
Well, it has Seth Green, Clint Howard (more deformed than usual) and Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air) and a whole herd of killer, marijuana-growth-hormone fueled ectoparasites.
Problem teens in Los Angeles join an inner-city wilderness project in and attempt to get back in touch with life's priorities, led by do-gooders Holly and Charles. When they get to the campsite, they begin having problems adjusting to the wild life, particularly local marijuana growers using herbal steroids to accelerate plant growth, and the mutated ticks that the leaky steroid system has created.
What this movie taught me:
If there is a large moving lump on your chest, you probably should not shoot it with a gun
Anabolic steroids are equally as effective as narcotics for use as pain relief
The knee, even if stabbed and largely destroyed, does not affect your ability to run
Clint Howard on his way to the set enjoying a jawbreaker
I think he is giving the tick a blowjob as it shoots up heroin
This movie is argued as the goriest movie of all-time involving scenes of cutting a scathe through a zombie horde with a push lawnmower and the escape from an enormous zombie uterus - this final scene reportedly used 300 liters of fake blood. Then it smacks you right in the nuts that the director of this oddly genius film is Peter Jackson. YES, THAT PETER JACKSON. It is difficult to describe in words how truly disgusting and disturbing many of the scenes in this movie are presented and range from zombie sex, zombie birth, non-zombies eating pudding where zombie pimple-juice has been squirted and more. Check out the pictures below after the plot summary and hopefully you haven't eaten this month.
In 1957, a zoologist traps a rare Sumatran rat-monkey on Skull Island and brings it back to New Zealand with the locals hot on his trail. Later, a young man falls in love and takes the young woman to the zoo. His overbearing and disapproving mother follows them and gets bitten by the rat-monkey. The monkey's bite turns her into a zombie, and her doting son has to keep her and the others she's bitten tranquilized in the basement while trying to preserve his love life.
Well, I warned you, here are more pictures. I apologize in advance.
Christopher Lloyd enjoying some unique heroin injection techniques Actual child birth is much more disgusting than this This scene would take roughly 30 minutes and a dry erase board to explain So many BJ jokes, so little space
Today is another crucial movie to add to your B-horror / B-scifi holster and we will be visiting the 1985 classic of killer ice-cream-like substance in "The Stuff".
Industrial spy and former FBI agent David 'Mo' Rutherford is hired by executives of the ice-cream industry to disclose the recipe of the phenomenally successful marshmallow- and yogurt-like desert called the Stuff. Somehow, its consumers become addicted in the product, and competitors want the formula. With the support of Nicole, the the designer of the Stuff's advertising campaign; and a boy named Jason, who refused to eat it after his family became consumed, Mo tries to prove that the Stuff is a malevolent, possibly sentient, natural substance that is trying to take over the minds of the population of Earth.
This movie is worth watching solely for the old security guard who decides to randomly shove a bubbling handful of a semen-like material coming from the ground and utter such pearls such as "It's tasty too!" and an amazing exploration of 1980's commercialism and the free of the huge corporations out to "control our minds" with mass marketing and cookie-cutter products. That, and awesome ice cream infused zombies and a kung-fu wielding cookie magnate!
This is a John Carpenter classic with surprisingly decent performances by Roddy Pipper and Keith David and is the birth of a famous Duke Nukem 3D line along with arguably the longest real hand-to-hand fight scene in movie history.
Nada (Roddy Piper's character), a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like "Stay Asleep", "No Imagination", "Submit to Authority". Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.
A few fun trivia facts! (shamelessly adapted from IMDB)
The line "I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubble gum" (made even more famous in Duke Nukem 3D) was ad-libbed by Roddy Piper. According to director John Carpenter, Piper had taken the line from a list of ideas he had for his pro wrestling interviews.
Roddy Piper's character never gives his name nor is he referred to by name throughout the entire movie. He is simply referred to as "Nada" in the credits, which means "nothing" in Spanish. The name is most likely a reference to George Nada, the main character of Ray Nelson's short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning," which was the basis for 'They Live'.
The fight between Nada (Roddy Piper) and Frank (Keith David) was only supposed to last 20 seconds, but Piper and David decided to fight it out for real, only faking the hits to the face and groin. They rehearsed the fight for three weeks. Carpenter was so impressed he kept the 5 minute and 20 second scene intact.
The movie poster with you lookin' real fucking ugly
Pat Robertson is actually looking healthier than usual
1950's subliminal advertising becomes just liminal 3 Comments
I am usually not a large "contributor" to damn near anything, but after hearing about the possibility of getting XP and doing quests just by interacting with the GiantBomb site, that got me to sign up. It is also exciting to hopefully have a bit more civil game discussion than on the NeoGaf forums of late.
This also prompted another outlet to promote the coolest B-horror (or C- to D-horror) movie ever conceived about a killer Thanksgiving turkey, Thankskilling. It is even available on Netflix Streaming, so quit reading and watch it now!
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