Short Attention Span Review: Troll (1986)

Short Attention Span Review: Troll (1986)

Is it merely a bad movie?  Or is it so bad that it's good?  That is the question.  Honestly, as much as I want to pardon this turkey because it was a staple of my childhood, I think the verdict is clear.  Like most any movie featuring the name "Charles Band" in the credits, Troll is lousy.  Now, it has a few things going for it, to be sure.  Sonny Bono is a riot, the basic premise is silly enough to guarantee a few outlandish thrills along the way, and Michael Moriarty is always a joy to watch in pictures like this.  In fact, his madcap dance scene where he grooves/suffers a seizure/goes gleefully insane while listening to "Summertime Blues" by way of Blue Cheer, is not only the highlight of this particular show, but it may be my favorite scene from Moriarty's career.  And if that doesn't do it for you, the big musical number performed by the trolls will definitely convince you that were a lot of drugs floating around on the set of this 1986 oddity.  So, yeah, all that stuff is fun and all, but that's where the fun ends and the ineptitude begins.  Aside from Bono and Moriarty, the cast struggles to bring much to their parts, and in fairness, the script does no one any favors.  The plot is clunky and littered with gaping holes.  While some of the effects are actually kinda gnarly, most of them are so pitiful that they wouldn't cut it if we were talking about a children's puppet show and not a motion picture.  To summarize, Troll is zany enough to make a viewing tolerable and yet amateurish enough to make the overall experience regrettable.

Final Grade: D-

Sonny Bono is one of the few good things about Troll.

Short Attention Span Review: Best of the Best (1989)

Short Attention Span Review: Best of the Best (1989)

I do this out of love, peeps.  Writing this review feels a lot like baring my soul in some new and thoroughly uncomfortable way.  Why?  Well, because this cliched and entirely too emotional offspring of a kung fu flick cross-pollinated with a soap opera is most certainly a guilty pleasure of mine.  Crafting this blog will require me to profess my undying love for a picture that is remarkably bad.  As far as I'm concerned, Best of the Best is a case study in the rare art of getting everything wrong--and somehow getting it right.  Yes, the plot finds room for every staple of both motion pictures about sports and plucky underdog tales in general.  Yes, it shamelessly mines each of these tropes for every single ounce of melodrama.  It mines many of them twice.  Some of them may be mined a half-dozen times or more before everyone hugs it out at the weepy conclusion.  Yes, Eric Roberts takes over-acting to new heights, playing his role with less restraint than we might expect from Bill Shatner and Wings Hauser--if they were shitfaced and engaged in a fierce competition to see who could get booted off the set first.  Yes, the closing reel morality play is so overdone that it roughly equates to cooking your steak until it becomes jerky.  All of these things are true (and I haven't even touched upon the glam-rock soundtrack or Eric's hair, dear lord) and yet it is both entertaining and touching in spite of its glaring flaws.  Shit, much of the entertainment is reliant upon Eric's dedication to turning every other scene into an opportunity to work through the five stages of grief in one take.  In terms of competence, originality, and believability, Best of the Best must be considered an abject failure.  However, it bypasses the realm of "so bad it's good" filmmaking and somehow lands in "so bad it is marvelous" territory.   Yeah, I'll stand by that.  You'll marvel, all right.  You may even cheer.  You may cry a bit, doing your own Eric Roberts Lite routine, and you'll certainly feel like a dumbass for falling prey to this crap when that happens.  Honestly, I love it.  No shame, peeps.  I'm going to bat for Eric Roberts like Mickey Rourke here.  I would have given him the Oscar, no bullshit.  His performance in Best of the Best leads me to believe that his acceptance speech would have been the greatest thing to happen in the history of time.

Final Grade: C+

Eric Roberts, man.  Eric Fucking Roberts.  Unbelievable.  And I still wind up so invested in his character.  If I was the only one who felt this way, I would chalk it up to mental illness.

Short Attention Span Review: Devil Fish (1984)

This week I've been reviewing some quality Italian horror films for those of you who dig my blog.  I've provided my take on one of the late Lucio Fulci's better films, City of the Living Dead.  I also gave you my thoughts on my favorite chiller from Dario Argento, Deep Red.  Well, today we're taking a look at another Italian horror film, but I can't really vouch for the quality of this Lamberto Bava movie from 1984.  In fact, I think it's safe to say that Devil Fish is a terrible movie.  No, it's worse than that.  Calling it terrible is an insult to all of the movies out there that are merely terrible, and not so awful that it is downright embarrassing.  Yet, I have some affection for this turd, and here's why: it is absolutely one of those "so bad that it's good" pictures.  Scary?  Shit.  Hilarious?  Absolutely.  It is entirely possible that Devil Fish represents a high-water mark for unintentional comedy.  There are special effects that are so pitiful that one might wonder if the filmmakers let their children design and operate the creature.  There are death scenes that are so poorly acted that you may wonder how anyone on set was able to keep a straight face during filming.  You won't be able to keep a straight face while watching, I can promise you that.  The direction is woeful, the score sounds like the work of inept musicians playing broken instruments, and the script is idiotic at its best and dumber than Dumb & Dumber at its worst.  As a result, the laughs are frequent, and I am being 100% sincere when I say that Devil Fish is funnier than a lot of comedies that I've watched.  Like many films of this sort, it probably wears out its welcome long before its over, but if you turn it off at any point, it's not like you have to worry that you're missing a cool part.  There are no cool parts.  Lamberto Bava is the son of notable director Mario Bava, a terrific filmmaker whose worst feature film was surely about 100 times as good as this atrocity.  Lamberto would go on to direct Demons (a personal favorite of mine), so he was capable of making a good flick.  With that in mind, it's hard to say what went wrong with Devil Fish.  Actually, it's pretty easy, I guess, as obviously EVERYTHING went wrong with Devil Fish.  It's a blatant attempt to produce a Jaws ripoff on a shoestring budget with a lousy script, a lousy cast, lousy effects, and a lousy score.  The end result is a lousy movie that only finds redemption by virtue of failing so badly that it winds up being amusing.

 Final Grade: F+

"Do as I say or I'll make you watch Devil Fish again!"

Short Attention Span Review: Frogs (1972)

Frogs is silly, but that probably doesn't need to be said.  It's a movie called Frogs, after all.  No one should expect high art from a film about killer amphibians.  Surprisingly, Ray Milland was available for this flick, and he's joined by actors like Sam Elliot and Adam Roarke in a campy spectacle that takes itself a bit too seriously to be as fun as it probably should have been.  It's still entertaining so long as you like cheese more than you like wine, but in spite of a ludicrous premise and some less-than-inspired writing, this isn't one of those "so bad it's good" laugh-riots that I frequently recommend.  No, it's kooky, but it's also a bit somber and some might even find Frogs to be rather dull.  I enjoyed it largely because I'm a sucker for stuff like this and I liked Sam Elliott's super-cool approach to playing the lead.  Milland might get top billing, but Sam's the hero.  He makes it look easy--dude is every bit as chill when he has to do battle with pissed off water moccasins as you or I would be while making a sandwich.  Though the title might lead you to expect an avalanche of frogs wreaking havoc, that's only a small slice of the pie.  Members of the cast also fall prey to spiders, snakes, lizards, turtles, and alligators along the way.  Apparently someone thought Frogs was a more inspiring title than Swamp Creatures on the Rampage.  The frogs do act as upper management while man suffers for his crimes against the environment and their ghastly croaking could easily be mistaken for the film's score.  Yes, it's another eco-friendly fright flick from the 70s (I love those!) as well as a man vs. nature throwdown (I love those too!), so the fact that I have a soft spot for this oddity should come as no surprise. 

Final Grade: C

Killer frogs?  Sam Elliott ain't go no time for that.

Short Attention Span Reviews: Shock Waves (1977)

 

I don't know why, but when it comes to cheesy horror movies I'm a modern era snob.  Try to introduce me to a low-budget horror movie from 2015 and odds are I won't care to view it.  Find me a low-budget horror movie from 1977 and I'll buy the popcorn.  Honestly, I think the old crap is a lot better than the new crap.  Yet that isn't always the case and films like Shock Waves stand as proof of that.  Now, I knew that Shock Waves was either going to be bad or "so bad that it's good" going in, but one of my fellow horror fanatics is really keen on this particular nazi zombie flick and that gave me high hopes.  He was wrong.  I was misled.  I'm sorry, Peter Cushing, but Shock Waves is a lousy movie.  Before we start discussing things that the movie didn't do well, let's talk about areas where Shock Waves managed to succeed.  Well, . . . that was a short list.  No, seriously, they cast Peter Cushing and the atmosphere was a bit charged at times, though that probably happened by accident.  The sets are cool, though the fact that the camera was apparently operated by an orangutan makes it hard to enjoy the locations.  I'm assuming the director was drunk because I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.  The editor must have gone missing long before he finished his work with the picture.  The score could only be deemed impressive if it had been provided by small children.  On a similar note, the effects could only be deemed impressive if they had been provided by small children wearing blindfolds.  If there was a movie about people having to sit down and watch Shock Waves, that movie would be far more frightening than Shock Waves.  Seriously, if you're thinking about watching Shock Waves, I implore you to take your copy of the movie and toss into the depths where it belongs.  In fact, I should have given it the Spinal Tap treatment.  Hell, it's not too late--here's my alternate review of Shock Waves: "Shit Waves."

Final Grade: F-

This is what will happen to you if you ignore my advice and watch Shock Waves.