"Basket Case 3," with 100% more PERSONALITY!!

Way back in the glory days of VHS, Frank Henenlotter's movie Brain Damage was one of the first horror movies I ever saw. Since I was something like nine at the time, I thought it was awesome. Weird and occasionally disgusting, but awesome nonetheless. Imagine my surprise when I grow up to find out that the guy actually has an entire filmography (well, if you want to call six movies a "filmography") of equally as weird, equally as unique blood-soaked epics.

Since they make up a full-blown movie SERIES, the Basket Case movies have to be the guy's crowning achievement. Whatever some snobby English major wants to say about them as "artistic endeavors" or what have you, they're completely unlike anything you've ever seen. The first is the freakin' Taxi Driver of the slasher era, in tone if not in quality, while the second is a freak show masquerading as a horror flick. Still, even though I'd watched three hours of the sad, unintentionally hilarious tales of former Siamese twins who occasionally go on murderous rampages, nothing could have prepared me for the true levels of bizarrity that Basket Case 3: The Progeny manages to achieve. Unleashed on video store shelves (no theatrical release this time) a scant year after its predecessor, I fully expected a half-hearted effort. What I got was...just wow. It's just too goofy, even for me.

The cool thing about the BC series is that they're all very much direct sequels, picking right up where the previous one left off, and this one is no different. For those keeping score, the second movie ended with Belial giving it to "Eve," a similar deformed human being, and Duane going crazy and sewing his brother back on to his body. Well, the movie then warps forward in time, as Granny Ruth (once again played by Annie Ross), the lord and master of a safe haven for special individuals, has locked Duane in a padded room after his temporary bout of insanity. Oh, and the crude re-attaching thing didn't take, giving us one of the better retcons in horrordom.

We're also blessed with Kevin Van Hentenryck again for the duration of the movie, although this flick doesn't seem to have much to do with him. He's basically window dressing, as Henenlotter seemed to be actively trying to make this movie as holy-fuck weird as possible. The first movie was essentially all his, as the central conflict was Duane's quest for personal happiness and Belial's jealousy of him leading to their downfall. The second had Duane debating with himself whether or not he was a normal human being, ultimately realizing that he was completely alone. In this one, he spends 90 minutes begging his brother to talk to him again. To be sure, it's a little weak, and the story behind the scenes that Henenlotter really didn't want to make this movie seems to carry some credence.

ANYHOO...Duane is able to convince Granny Ruth that he is all sane and able, and it just so happens that Ruth is about to take the entire caravan of freaks on a road trip to the home of Doctor Hal (Dan Biggers), her ex-husband and also the father of the not-so-aptly named Little Hal (Jim O'Doherty), a prodigious inventor who also just so happens to have a massive glob for his lower half complete with about seventeen arms.

There's also something very important to mention about this section of the movie - while en route to Hal's residence (on a SCHOOL BUS), Ruth channels her vaudeville showbiz roots and unleashes...one of the most wonderful things I've ever seen.

It's almost as if Henenlotter said, "well, we've got a classically trained singer in this godforsaken movie...might as well use it."

Also while en route to the Hal family farm, some other crap that I wouldn't even bother recapping unless it had a bearing on future events takes place. The caravan stops at a gas station, where Ruth meets the friendly local Sheriff (Gil Roper) and Duane (still in a strait jacket, as Ruth still doesn't firmly trust him) attempts to convince the Sheriff's daughter Opal (Tina Louise Hilbert) to set him free. And it's all just as riveting as it sounds.

After what seems like forever, the group finally gets to Hal's residence, where the glorious birth sequence begins. Belial is, of course, present for this, but during the birth his 46K cache memory pulls up a little video for the audience to watch (the unintentionally hilarious "separation" scenes from the original film, marking the third time this has been shown in the series). The idea is that this prompts his rage against all doctors, and he throws himself at Hal, severely mauling him and impairing the oncoming birth operation. But not enough, I guess.

Now, the movie had been decidedly slow and boring up until this point, but this birth scene changes it up in a big way. Maybe too much. Little Hal takes over his father's position as the chief birth-giver, and spends a legit five minutes of screen time watching these mini-Belials pop out of Eve while screaming like a cheerleader. There's weird. There's abstract. And then there's just annoying as shit.

It's also worth noting that while this is going on, Belial has been drugged and locked in his basket by Ruth after the whole attempted murder incident, and spends this valuable time daydreaming. And we even get the video representation of just what he's thinking about. Yes, sir, this movie proudly features Belial Bradley sexual fantasies.

So, all of the little bastards are born now. End Movie A, commence Movie B.

Movie B of Basket Case 3: The Progeny is our proverbial "shit hits the fan" segment that pretty much every gore flick prides itself on, and thankfully it's a bit more tolerable than the opening segments of the film. Earlier in the movie, Duane had escaped from Hal's house only to be promptly captured by Opal (in a Hulk Hogan Bash at the Beach '96 esque heel turn) and several officers. While in jail, there's this whole fascinating scene where Opal even clues us in that she's an extreme sexual deviant of sorts, stripping down to practically nothing and attempting to whip him dominatrix style. Don't believe me?

A couple of the dumber town deputies make their way to Hal's, eager for the million dollar reward on the infamous "Times Square twins," as they're known in the confines of this movie's universe. They break in and promptly mistake a groggy Eve for Belial, killing her in the process and stealing the litter of babies before the celebrating freaks can get them. By the way, these two bozos (I didn't even bother to learn their names) have LONG sequences of dialogue together, and they make very good endurance tests. They make James Karen and Thom Mathews in Return of the Living Dead look super-dignified.

I think you all know where the movie was going from here - Belial is outraged at the death of his lady-friend, Ruth gives another Vince Lombardi rally the troops speech (although it's not quite as awesome as the one in the previous movie), followed by Belial singlehandedly decimating the officers on staff in the police station. During the course of this scene, Opal eats a shotgun blast from one of the hick policemen, ending her reign as the best damn dominatrix semi love-interest...there ever was. To give the movie some credit, it also has its fair share of gory, over-the-top murders, most of which happen in this sequence. If you like your Belial Bradley to be as sadistic as possible, this is your scene, baby.

Anyway, pretty much all of our principal opposition characters are dead now except for Sheriff My Daughter is Dead, leading to a final showdown between himself and Belial. Only there's a slight wrinkle thrown into the formula in the form of the robotic body that Little Hal has built for him. Yeah. Believe it. And there's also a little stinger at the end of the movie involving a stand-in for Geraldo Rivera eating it for his exploitation of freaks.

Having seen this entire series now, I'm going to revise my ratings somewhat and say that the first movie is definitely my favorite. The sleaze factor alone makes it - the graininess and the location filming gives it this undefinable quality, almost as if Frank Henenlotter just showed up in the slummiest section of New York and grabbed whoever was in eyesight for cast members. The second movie has an infinitely higher budget and way more intricate makeup effects sequences, removing some of the soul from the experience, but it's also such a polar opposite from the first movie in terms of tone that it still felt like a necessary movie.

This one, though, basically felt like a repeat of the second movie, only one that cranks up the goofy factor even more. It contains almost all of the same cast, and all of the freaks that seemed novel in that movie elicited nothing more than "eh" reactions from me this time around. The supporting cast definitely isn't as strong - Judy Grafe's dirtbag reporter character in the second movie was hateful to the core, which the army of dumb and/or greedy cops in this movie just can't compare with. Overall, the entire movie just had a very "been there, done that" feel to it, especially after watching its predecessor just a few days earlier, as there really isn't any tonal shift from that movie to this one. Most importantly, it just doesn't have the emotional kick that the first two movies did, mainly due to its relegating of Kevin Van Hentenryck to afterthought status. The dude had really grown on me.

Having said all that, I've walked away from this series with nothing but the utmost respect for Frank Henenlotter as a writer and director. As AFOREMENTIONED, it's widely speculated that he really didn't want to do this movie, and was generally sick of the whole Basket Case saga. Even with that handicap, he still managed to craft some unforgettable sequences ("Personality" anyone?) just as he has with all of his films. These movies are exploitation cinema crossed with schlock crossed with horror, and it's a shame that he took a 17-year break from making movies after the release of this particular flick. I can report firsthand, however, that it was well worth the wait, as his 2008 comeback film Bad Biology was 100% pure awesomeness.

One final word - I watched this movie on VHS just like the last one, and if you're going to check this one out, that's the route that I would suggest taking. There's just something so much more awesome about watching long-just-for-the-sake-of-long birth scenes and police officers' heads being twisted off in low-resolution VHS.

** out of ****. Recommended only for hardcore Frank Henenlotter fans, not recommended for horror fans at large.

There's only one way to watch a movie about messed-up freaks and killer Siamese twins: It's "Basket Case 2"...on VHS!!

Last October, I gave the full Blood, Guts and Tears review treatment to Basket Case, the all singing, all dancing, Siamese twin boob fondling exploitation film from 1982 that stands today as a beloved cult classic. While I hated the film when I first caught it on AMC at three in the morning some long ago night ten years ago, the film's one-of-a-kind plot, sick murder scenes and wry self-aware campiness won me over the second time around, ultimately resulting in my personal favorite blog review. For those of you who missed it (and if you did, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? It's RIGHTCHERE), it's a movie about a dude who carries his Siamese twin brother - or, more specifically, a freakish-looking head and arms beast - around in a wicker basket, hence the name, as they attempt to murder the doctors who separated them. Along the way, devil-child Siamese twin boy - named Belial - attempts to mack it to several ladies. Suck it, Shakespeare. You've got nothing on this.

At any rate, while I loved watching the sharp picture quality and listening to the pristine Dolby audio on my DVD copy of the film...something just didn't feel right. Here's this trashy, grimy, sleazy movie from the early '80s with a five-piece chicken tenders budget and enough buckets of fake blood to make Bob Keane piss himself with envy...and I had to witness some expertly-created animated menu screens? And didn't get to soak up any upcoming horror movie trailers first? And, of course, the real shot to the nuts - after the movie's hilarious, sad, and tragic (it's all simultaneous, believe me) conclusion, the credits began rolling and I DIDN'T have to press STOP and hit REWIND? What the hell is wrong with the world?

At any rate, the Horror Nerd is ready to revisit the world of Duane and Belial Bradley, and he's doing it the RIGHT way!!

Yup, that sexy beast that you see in the above picture who may or may not be the author of this manifesto is tackling Basket Case 2 the way that God himself intended - on an old, beat-up VHS former rental copy, found via various personal dealings and acquired for the low-low price of three bucks.

It depresses me on so many levels that there is an entire generation of kids out there who have likely never used or watch a VHS tape, due to the newfangled discs and digital video recorders and what not. So Generation Z, let me be the one to break it to you that you missed out big time, because VHS is STILL the greatest home video format of all time. Gloriously inefficient, wonderfully clunky and a pain in the ass to store due to their bulky size, watching movies on VHS is simply more FUN than watching a movie on any other format. You know why? Because they have SOUL. So get ready, BG&T readers, because it's time for some good ol' curmudgeonly old man ranting.

Almost all of the community experience has been stripped away from watching movies at home, be it by rental or by purchase. We buy films on Amazon, and they're at our door within a matter of days. We swarm to Netflix and other onlne rental places like misguided bats, browsing the virtual title listings and adding titles to queues (or even worse, watching our movies via...*holds back gag reflex*...instant streaming), reducing the act of sampling or purchasing movies to acquiring the services of a prostitute for the evening. Or a mail-order bride, I guess, if you're buying the damn thing on Amazon or eBay. Yes, Mr. Movie Pimp, please send me the action movie from last summer with that guy who was in 300. I hear it's got a real pretty mouth. OK, I've shot my load now - you can deduct my money at the end of the month from my credit card. But my preference for VHS over the discs that replaced them goes deeper than that.

I don't care how technologically advanced and cool Blu-Ray discs are. I don't care that if anything was more sharp-looking the human eye wouldn't be able to process it, or that the sound gives home viewers the true "movie theater experience," whatever the hell that means. There's no soul to that format whatsoever. Screw perfection, I enjoy being able to SEE the imperfections that come from a video device being watched a thousand times. It reminds me that I'm not alone, that some other sad soul out there, on some lonely night, thought that watching Ghoulies or Sleepaway Camp sounded like a good idea. Thus, it's almost because of the limitations of VHS technology that the very act of watching a movie on this format was so damn much fun. You were part of a community, and you could actually friggin' SEE it.

It's not like I'm innocent - I've bought plenty of movies on Amazon and have a pretty sizable DVD collection, but at the video store that I frequented during college, if given a choice between DVD and VHS, I'd go with the dusty old VHS copy every time. In addition to that, I've never bothered to upgrade many of the most beloved movies of my youth, despite the fact that I've had plenty of opportunities to do so, as my VHS copies of the Star Wars trilogy (the originals - what prequels do you speak of?) and the Indiana Jones trilogy (what fourth movie do you speak of?) will always be the only way I'll ever watch those movies. And I still refuse to give any money to Netflix. To me, that company is the devil incarnate.

Where was I? Oh yeah - Basket Case 2. Back in the days of the childhood of Jon Lickness, the local video hut was the place to be on Friday or Saturday night, and at this time VHS ruled the roost. Remember when we used to drive or WALK to brick-and-mortar stores to peruse actual, physical aisles - sometimes ROWS UPON ROWS of them - without a clear destination in mind, waiting for that special film to call out your name? When the format exploded in popularity in the early '80s, we were in the golden age of the slasher film, and for yours truly horror films and VHS tapes go hand in hand. Hell, they do for a lot of people. There was nothing quite like bringing a tape of some cheaply made and overtly schlocky gore flick up to the clerk (or, even better, actually TELLING the guy what movie you wanted if all the movies were behind the counter - yes, kids, this occasionally happened!), and either getting a confused stare in response or a hearty, humorous "Dude! I've seen that movie!" I can't say that the time of brick-and-mortar video stores and rental tapes was simpler, but add it all together and this whole experience just can't be matched with all the sparkly new formats and pointing and clicking at what goddamn movie you want to watch.

It is from this ancient method that the Horror Nerd watched many, many fine and not-so-fine horror films throughout the years for the first time - all of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, all of Chucky's flicks, Stephen King's The Mangler, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, The Toxic Avenger...you get the idea. And a few months after re-seeing and highly enjoying Frank Henenlotter's sick splatterfest Basket Case, I'm not just going to watch this sequel on VHS and call it a day. I'm going COMPLETELY old-school, affording myself research on only the cast since it makes the review a bit easier to read but no other background information, because we didn't get that back in the day. No photos culled from the internet - all the screenshots you're about to see are photos that I personally took of my television screen as I watched this movie. And, just to show you all how dedicated I am, no subtitles. Made all the easier because this tape doesn't have them.

THE MOVIE!!!

Starting things RIGHT [/Public Enemy] is the old-school FBI warning and a few crackles of audio difficulties of some unknown origin. I already feel at home. The movie itself kicks off with a montage of the ending of the original film, as Duane and Belial toss themselves out of a window and fall to certain doom. And it ranks right up there with Red finding Andy in the "instant tears" department. Selling the story even more is an attractive blonde reporter who gives us the story, complete with a cameo from the skaggy prostitute from the original film. Wow. Now that's continuity you CAN'T get in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Only the fall from their second story apartment WASN'T certain doom, as doctors rush the siblings away to a nearby hospital It doesn't take long for this movie to turn into a laugh riot, as one of the hospital security guards is a lecherous deviant (kind of like Bud in Halloween II) who uses a few cheesy come-on lines on one of the hottie nurses only to be rebuked. Security guard goes to check on Duane, whose vital organs and fantastic hair are hooked up to various forms of life support, while the nurse checks on Belial. It's here where we get our first glimpse of the little (big) guy in this film. But it gets better. Since this is a horror movie, Belial of course springs to life and makes his way to his brother's room, killing the d**k out of lecherous security guard with a quickness.

It became apparent right away that this movie had a much bigger budget than the original. In the first film, whenever Belial was on the move, it looked like he was warping across a room faster than the speed of sound due to some truly terrible stop-motion photography. In this movie, he's clearly a puppet for the entirety of his onscreen exploits, and the movement and mannerisms are much more fluid. Just ask lecherous security guard. He doesn't seem to be enjoying the new, improved Belial Bradley's newfound agility.

After a daring escape from the hospital (during which Duane shoves his brother into a towel cart), they are picked up by two new characters. Earlier in the movie, two women - one older and one younger - had been shown watching news reports of the Belial rampage, and in a shocking twist these are your two rescuers. And, well, if you're a possessor of a glorious semi-fro with an evil human mass for a brother who has also just murdered several people, you should immediately trust anyone who offers you a ride.

In the morning, we find out who these people are, and it's here where Basket Case 2 gets an identity. It turns out that the older woman, named Granny Ruth and played by Annie Ross (who amazingly enough has more than ten ALBUMS to her credit as a musical performer), was a friend of Duane and Belial's crazy aunt who assisted them in escaping from their evil parents all those years ago. She runs a kind of halfway house for...uh...strange human beings, and it's safe to say that Belial fits into this category. Before Duane can process all this (in addition to the sight of Ruth's hot granddaughter Susan), she takes him upstairs to meet the freaks in person.

Apparently somebody else on some long-ago night found these scenes as fascinating as I did, because the video quality lagged severely during the "meet the weirdos" scene. And man, what a cast of mutants this movie has. One of them is nothing more than a massive head who sings like Pavarotti, one of them is some kind of bizarre human-frog hybrid (complete with RIBBIT sound effects, holy Christ), and yet another one is a former conjoined mass eerily similar to Belial but also decidedly female. While the movie has TONS of shots of the freaks as a group, I decided not to snap a photo of any of them. This movie's sideshow supporting cast is just something that you have to see for yourself.

The movie then warps forward in time a year, as an ace reporter (called only "News Woman" in the ending credits but called "Marcie" by a few unfortunate souls in this movie) working at a trashy tabloid newspaper is given an assignment by her boss - come up with some new theories on the long-missing "Bradley twins" case, and if possible, find the weirdos. Sounds like a license to print money to me. At any rate, Marcie (and yes, at some point in this movie they say her last name, but apparently I wasn't paying enough attention to write it down in my notes) is played by Judy Grafe, better known as the FREAKING MOM FROM PETE AND PETE. AMAZING. Much like the first movie, I didn't know what to expect when I popped in this videocassette, but the mother from one of my favorite shows as a kid in a dislikable snooping reporter role wasn't one of them.

Meanwhile, Duane and Bradley appear to have adjusted to life at Granny Ruth's commune. In a strange way, Ruth is a really likable character, and it's here where we get the line of the movie. While sitting Belial down (or at least as much as one can sit when they're a legless tumor) for therapy, she speaks a few soothing words to appeal to Belial's good side and feelings of resentment but then adds that "ripping people's faces off might not be in your best interest!" I'll let the cat out of the bag, I fell off my chair. Duane has struck up a close friendship with Susan, walks with a cane to sell the fall from the first film, and has CUT OFF HIS SAMSON-ESQUE LOCKS. For the record, Duane is still played by Kevin Van Hentenryck, and the eight-year layover between these two films has actually done him some favors in the acting department. He's got this kind of William Shatner presence in this movie, more than aware that he isn't a master thespian and exploiting that to the fullest by being as goofy as possible.

We get clued in on one of our key subplots within the epic scope that is Basket Case 2 here. See, Duane now feels that he is completely "normal," and wants to get away from his brother and murderous revenge plots for good. He has a deep, meaningful conversation with Susan here where he says that he wants to leave and take her with him. By the way, the chick playing Susan is bad beyond compare, delivering her lines with as much raw emotion as Christian Bale on sedatives. As it turns out, she doesn't want to go with, saying that she "belongs here" in some beat-you-over-the-head foreshadowing that we'll be getting to later. Immediately after this stirring scene, he heads upstairs to break the news to Belial, who is holding hands with the female conjoined entity. Yes, sir, Basket Case 2 proudly features the "Belial gets a girlfriend!" plot.

We're about to get some decent complications in the plot. Marcie, along with her photographer friend Artie, heads out to Granny Ruth's to get her expert advice on strange-looking people. While there, she spots Duane and recognizes him and quickly makes her exit, and both Ruth and Duane realize that the jig is up. As Marcie immediately begins scheming with her cameraman about how to exploit this story for all the monetary gain possible, Duane realizes the error of his ways and offers to stay behind until this threat to the commune's privacy has been extinguished. And there's only one way to do that. In the scene of the movie, Ruth wanders upstairs to the freakatorium, giving this epic, over-the-top rah-rah speech to her charges about "STAAAAAYIIIINNNNGGGG!!!" and "FIIIIIGGGGHHHTTTTIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!" Knute Rockne has nothing on this shit. Even better, the freaks pump their fists in the air and chant "FIGHT" along with her. It's completely ridiculous, completely out of place...and I love it.

The first guy up on the kill train is Artie, who offers to wander into the house to try to get some pictures after dark. In the annals of dumb horror movie plans, this ranks right up there with the great ones. He gets boxed around by the brigade before Bradley performs the coup de grace. The body count in this one is keeping pace with the first movie, since earlier there had also been a completely inconsequential death of a sideshow host who claimed to have Belial's body on display only to be hunted down by Granny Ruth and Belial. One thing about this movie - it's not quite as over-the-top as the first one, at least in the gore department. However, since we're given a singing head and a girlfriend for Belial, I think we're given more than enough compensation in the weirdness department. Thank you, Frank Henenlotter.

Since Marcie was right outside Granny Ruth's when her photographer friend bit the dust (and hearing his girlish screams, no less), she consults a private detective friend for help, who promptly calls the commune and arranges a meeting with Duane, feeling that he is the key to winning the fight since he is the supposedly "normal" one who can be turned, not unlike switching from the light side to the dark side. And this guy...wow. His name is Phil, and when he wanders into a dark, smoky bar to meet Duane, he looks like he wandered straight out of a 1930s film noir thriller, complete with the trenchcoat and hat. At any rate, this is actually a very skillfully done sequence of dialogue, as Duane goes on a long-winded tirade about what is normal and what isn't, before it's revealed that IT'S A TRAP (/Admiral Ackbar) and that Granny Ruth's entire army is inside the bar with them. The cherry on top? They're wearing "human masks" that barely cover half their faces. Awesome. After knocking Phil around for a while, Belial once again gets the honors of killing the dude, but not before engaging in a fierce game of "gun tug of war." Unintentional hilarity at its finest.

We cut to Marcie in her apartment, who is on the phone with her boss, still trying to salvage the story. Everyone has to give it up for the movie here - between the script and Grafe's performance, they really do an excellent job making this sleazy reporter dislikable, and by the end of this movie, you REALLY want her to get what's coming to her. While in the bathroom, she hears her window break, and is surprised by Duane sitting in one of her chairs. Soon enough, the rest of the weirdos have come for her...and finally, Duane opens his old wicker basket. But instead of killing her, Belial stops in the middle of the act, as Duane says "now you're one of us!" The camera gives us the payoff shot...and it is a cheer-out-loud moment.

Since the VHS display says that we have five minutes to go, it's shocking conclusion time. While a lot of Basket Case 2 had felt like a fairly straightforward revenge horror film up until this point, get ready for some insane weirdness. The freaks are celebrating back at Granny Ruth's, now free of roving reporters who want to take their privacy away, while both Duane and Belial begin romancing their girlfriends. See, the first movie had this legendary scene where Belial chokes Duane's love interest to death and has sex with her corpse, but even THAT couldn't prepare me for the weirdness that is his love scene in this movie. We're talking full on humping, gasping, moaning monkey sex between two legless, 18" tall monstrosities. Even weirder since it's pretty clearly shown that Belial doesn't have a d**k, but whatever. Duane's attempts to profess his love for Susan don't go quite as well, as she reveals her own freakdom in the midst of making out.
Confession time - this movie pulled one over on me big time. I fully expected that the female significant other for Belial would turn out to be Susan's sister or something, but what we get is so much more glorious. Just check it out.

Yup, turns out that she has been pregnant for SIX YEARS and that the thing in her belly - a miniature version of one of the creatures from Tremors - "isn't ready to come out yet." Despite her cries of "but he's not dangerous," Duane is beside himself with grief. After a brief tussle with Susan, he accidentally tosses her out of a window, and she tragically falls to her death. Realizing that he is now completely alone, and that even Belial has someone to share his life with, he does the only sane thing - sews his brother back onto his side, laughing maniacally in the process. And this is where the movie ends, my friends.

Overall, my experience with this movie was much the same as the first. It doesn't have that same dirt-cheap quality that the first movie did, but even blessed with a budget approximately 1,000 times as high, Basket Case 2 manages to be a very emotional movie despite its huge gamut of terrible qualities. Kevin Van Hentenryck as Duane has this very relatable, shy, awkward quality that endears himself to an audience in a very unique way. No matter what you might be thinking from reading the plot description above, you want this guy to find happiness. In an even weirder way, the audience finds itself pulling for Belial, relating to his rage at the ostracization he suffers and his jealousy at his normal brother. It might not even be intentional, but the script by Henenlotter really pulls you in.

It's also got a couple of GREAT supporting performances, from Grafe as well as Annie Ross as Ruth. Ross in this movie reminds me of Betsy Palmer in the original Friday the 13th; on the outside, she seems like a caring, nurturing, sweet old woman, but underneath she's got this ruthless, dark, vengeful side that Ross does a great job of busting out whenever the script calls for it.

More than anything, though, this movie was just loads of fun to watch, due in no small part to watching it on VHS. In addition to the times I pointed out in the plot description, there were many more occurrences of video and audio distortion, along with the usual foibles of VHS use - adjusting the tracking (*sigh* - remember that?), fast forwarding past the FBI warning (which is one thing that you CAN'T do on DVD/Blu-Ray) and maybe even checking out the ending credits to get a few actor names is all part of the experience that gives watching a cheap horror movie on VHS so much soul. I knew that other people had watched it, likely laughing to themselves for all the right and all the wrong reasons on more than a few occasions. And yes, this movie that proudly displays WAY over-the-top freaks and explicit sex between deformed Siamese twins would have felt right at home coming home with me sometime in the early '90s for a night of popcorn and schlock.

*** 1/2 out of ****, and I don't feel I need to give any other reasons. However, just like every horror franchise, I need to point out that this is a work in progress. TO BE CONTINUED...

Belial Bradley is about to be a DADDY!!

Sex, murder, and rock and roll: Dario Argento presents "Four Flies on Grey Velvet"!!

Bold blanket statement time - this is the most detailed review of Four Flies on Grey Velvet that you will find...anywhere on the internet. Or at least the most detailed of anything that you'll be able to find by typing "Four Flies on Grey Velvet review" into Google and looking for about five minutes like I did. Until something bigger is on the first three search pages, I'm declaring myself the champion.

For those of you who have followed my reviews for an extended period of time (all three of you), you're likely aware that I hold filmmaker Dario Argento in a pretty high regard, to the point where I've reviewed more than a few of his more well-known flicks and bored everyone who will listen about the awesomeness that is "the Italian Alfred Hitchcock" (media nickname, not mine). The dog-and-pony show that we're looking at today is Argento's third film as a director, having been released in 1971 during the height of the "giallo" genre's popularity.

It's also one of the rarest movies in his catalogue; a few years back when I went on my Argento buying splurge, I was able to find most of his films for somewhere between $4-$6 a pop. This one cost me 17 cool ones for the cheapest copy they had on Amazon. According to the ever-accurate Wikipedia, this flick didn't even GET a DVD release until 2009 for whatever reason - made all the more odd since the two movies that precede it in Argento's career (Bird With the Crystal Plumage and Cat O' Nine Tails, which make up a series of nonconnected giallos known as the "Animals trilogy" - clever, I know) are readily buyable.

Finally, before we get this show on the road, BOOO-URNS to Mya Communication for being LAZY BASTARDS and not doing subtitles for this DVD, forcing my hard-of-hearing ass to crank the volume up to 100 just to barely make out what the actors are saying. It's made all the more ridiculous that the DVD contains subs for the "director's cut" scenes (which total about thirty freakin' seconds). So why couldn't they do it for the rest of the movie? Who knows. At any rate, the Horror Nerd's hearing ain't the greatest anymore, and any DVD without subs is a major annoyance.

That bit of bitching aside...THE MOVIE!!!

The movie starts out with an extended (maybe a bit too extended) opening title sequence that introduces us to our main character, Roberto (Michael Brandon, who all things considered is pretty bland in this role). Roberto, like a lot of early Argento protagonists, is kind of a surrogate for the director himself, and is a drummer in a groovy early '70s rock band as we're treated to one of their jams throughout the credits. In fact, this opening sequence kind of plays out like Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" music video, as it shows Roberto constantly being hounded and shadowed by a mysterious man wearing all black.

Moving RIGHT ALONG...apparently this has been going on for quite some time, since Roberto is quite annoyed by this dude's presence at his band's rehearsal. He follows him away from the studio space, eventually winding up at a dark, shadowy (lots of shadowy things in this movie) old theatre. After the usual bit of "why are you following me?" merryment, the dark man pulls out a knife, and in a dodgily choreographed fight scene Roberto winds up accidentally killing his would-be stalker. While all of this is going on, there's yet ANOTHER mysterious guy present...

Most of Argento's non-supernatural films follow a pretty cut-and-dried formula - everyman hero with a somewhat artistic job finds himself wrapped up in a murder investigation while badass killer wearing either (a) mask, or (b) black gloves, goes about murdering the holy hell out of people. And...yeah. Take it from Dario Argento, kids - all-white puppet masks are creepy. At any rate, this guy just happens to be hanging out in the loft of the theatre and witnesses the murder, conveniently snapping several photos of the incident, as well. This is the lynchpin event that sets your movie in motion.

Roberto goes home to his wife Nina (Mimsy Farmer), who constantly seems to have a revolving door of random partygoers floating through their house. After kicking all of these random miscriants out (and believe me, they're pretty random - two of them are writers/journalists - not sure which - who constantly blather on about which one has the more sickening war atrocity story; nice, light party talk, ya know), Roberto is randomly attacked by the blackmailer, who kindly informs him that he won't kill him yet before departing. The next morning, we get our heartwrenching scene where Roberto reveals to his wife that he has killed a man.

Soon enough, photographs begin showing up at Roberto's abode, and three guesses as to just what they contain. Yup, it seems that the kid-masked killer is now hell-bent on fucking up Roberto's shit, and a noticeably freaked Roberto and Nina head outside the big city for some all-star backup. Said cleanup hitter is a private investigator friend named Godfrey (Bud Spenser), and it's thanks to this character that we get one of the most downright strange dialogue exchanges in movie history. I'm not going to describe the whole thing, but first Godfrey derides that his name isn't God Almighty, then proceeds to introduce his friends to his pet parakeet named Jerkoff. I swear I'm not making this up. The point of this scene is so that Godfrey can recommend them to ANOTHER private investigator, pointing them in the direction of a man named Arrosio.

Meanwhile, while all of this (fascinating, I'm sure) exposition is going on, the blackmailer has already begun going to work, sending some sort of incriminating evidence to the helpful maid (Jesus - from what we ever see of him, Roberto is just some low-level musician, and he has a MAID?? I'm in the wrong field). This sets up a park murder scene that is actually very skillfully laid out. Everybody has to give it up for Argento in this regard - when it's time for money scenes, this guy knows how to get it done, and the shrieking soundtrack by Ennio Morricone (a frequent Argento collaborator) really sets the dreadful mood well. A+++ for this sequence, even though it involves a character who was given a grand total of 54 seconds of screen time before being involved in this murder scene.

Roberto finds his way to the office of Arrosio, a flamingly gay investigator played by Jean-Pierre Marielle and easily my favorite character in this movie. Now, a lot of the other reviews of this movie deride Argento for including such a flagrant stereotype in the film. Truth be told, almost all of the other characters in this movie are Jinder Mahal-esque levels of bland. At least Arrosio breaks the monotony. What more do you need to know? Roberto has an investigator working for him, and the killer is still out there. Let's move on.

It should be clear by this point that this movie meanders a lot, but whenever an Argento movie starts to drag, he seems to know the precise moment to spring another murder scene on the audience, as Roberto's agent/friend/what-have-you bites the dust in short order. It isn't that creative of a sequence, so it's not worth recapping in detail. Again, we'd only known this guy for about two minutes before his death, so the impact is lessened considerably. Hilariously enough, Roberto and Nina manage to keep their social life afloat, throwing another party attended by both gory-story obsessed writers as well as Nina's cousin Dalia (the impossibly attractive Francine Racette).

After another very incriminating note and series of photos arrive at the house, Nina finally decides to leave, fearing for her own safety as well as for Roberto's future (since, if he goes to the police, he likely goes to prison for the accidental murder of the stalker and all). Dalia stays behind to watch after Roberto, which results in the hot cousin offering to run him a bath and give him a massage. Since Nina rocks the androgynous Annie Lennox look and is, in general, a shrewish bitch, this sequence leads to...

Yeah. Sex scene. It's one of the most disjointed and unintentionally hilarious sex scenes of all time in the realm of slasher/giallo gratuitous nudity sequence, but Francine Racette is indeed very good to look at. Amazingly enough, she's been married to DONALD SUTHERLAND of all people for the past thirty years. Proof that there's hope for everyone.

From this point on, the movie becomes a bit more interesting and even speeds up its very deliberate pace. First of all, Arrosio is fairly successful in tracking down the blackmailer (although we the audience aren't clued in on the various people he talks to during a handy-dandy musical montage), leading to his death scene, which is very cringe-worthy if you're a wuss like me and cannot stand the sight of a needle entering a body. In a way, I dug the arc of Arrosio's character in this movie - a detective who has never solved a case, and as he lays in a toilet stall dying from whatever the insane killer has injected him with, he seems oddly satisfied that he has finally been right in his profession. Good stuff.

In short order, the movie gives us its true ace in the hole - the stalk-and-slash death of Dalia. While the movie started off pretty emotionally hollow, the death of the red-hot Dalia - a nice girl all things considered, but nonetheless the cause of Roberto's infidelity - hits the audience in the gut with plenty of force. The dread in this scene is actually pretty intense, as the killer first shuts the lights off and seems to cut off all exits for Dalia, leading to a very Hitchcockian series of camera shots as he moves in for the kill.

Wrapping things up, the movie enters its final act, as Roberto buys a gun with plans on waiting around his house for the killer to show up and utilizing some Charles Bronson-style justice. Seems like a sound enough plan to me. Only, since this is a horror film, none of the stuff like this ever goes to plan, leading to another admittedly tense scene leading up to our killer's reveal. And the streak that I'm almost ashamed of continued, as I'm presently zero-for-life in attempting to guess Dario Argento mystery killers, despite the fact that I should have seen this one coming a MILE away.

While I enjoyed this flick, it has more than its fair share of problems. For starters, this movie takes a LONG time to hit any sort of stride, and much of the first hour of it is terminally boring. It dilly-dallies to an almost criminal level, particularly during the never-ending scenes involving the various party scenes and the godawful stuff involving Godfrey. In addition to that, the character of Roberto may very well be the most dislikable of any Argento protagonist. This is partially by design, as a big part of the mystery killer's motivation involves how much of a douchebag he is, but most Argento films give us a colorful and engaging lead to follow around while he goes about building tension and atmosphere.

That build isn't quite as effective for this go-round, especially compared to the earlier "Animals" film Bird With the Crystal Plumage (for the record, I still have yet to check out Cat O' Nine Tails). While many giallo films are about anything but plot, Four Flies on Grey Velvet might very well contain too much plot for its own good. Too many characters are introduced, too many dialogue scenes go absolutely nowhere, and some of the most out there character and dialogue sequences in movie history are given to us as the killer goes about setting up the master plan.

Now for what this movie does right...namely, pretty much everything past the halfway point. While it seemed extremely out of place at the time, the sex scene between Roberto and Dalia is the point that this movie begins to turn the corner and sees Argento as a screenwriter finding the groove that he would turn into his next movie, the almost universally praised Deep Red. As usual, the camerawork in the movie is exceptional, as this movie more than Bird With the Crystal Plumage sees Argento practicing several techniques that would become trademarks later on, including an early example of the "bullet time" gunshot and a phenomenal film-ending super-slow-mo car crash. When it comes to visual style, ol' Dario is almost second to none. For fans of moody film music, the score by Morricone does a fantastic job setting the psychosexual themes of the film, and during the various chase and murder scenes, you'll find yourself tense even if what surrounds these scenes is anything but.

So, in conclusion, Four Flies on Grey Velvet is an early work by a guy who hadn't quite mastered his craft yet. And...it shows. If you dig a little deeper, however, you'll find more than a few glimmers of style, a couple masterful murder sequences and that unmistakable Italian horror movie atmosphere.

*** out of ****. Recommended if you're a fan of Italian giallo thrillers or if you're an Argento completionist, not recommended if you're neither.

"Texas Chainsaw Part Who the Hell Cares," starring MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY and RENEE ZELLWEGER

You know, if you're a serious horror fan, it's quite a commitment. I wouldn't even want to see the sum total of everything I've spent on this hobby over the years, from DVD's to VHS tapes to convention tickets to posters to memorabilia. This is where horror is different from other genres; you don't see your average fan of, say, romantic comedy movies lining their walls with images of their favorite characters and scouring the web for spoilers on upcoming releases. More than any monetary expenditure, however, is the expense of time - the TIME we spend watching movies, attending conventions, and discussing cheesy '80s slasher flicks with fellow fans on the internet.

And I spent my 2011 Christmas night watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. Yup. Fortunately for everyone, I don't have a big, boring nostalgia trip to take you on first, because this was my first viewing, so let's just warp right ahead to the Wikipedia research phase.

TCM: The Next Generation was originally released in 1994, written and directed by Kim Henkel (who co-wrote the original film with Tobe Hooper). Much like the original film, it had a microscopic budget (in this case $600,000, lower than the thid film in the franchise and MUCH lower than the second) and was filmed to be as authentic as possible. Namely, in the most remote, backwoods sections of Texas. Originally titled Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the movie hit the film festival circuit, promptly flamed out, and sat around for three years until its two main stars became huge Hollywood properties. More on them later. Eventually, the producers cut the movie down by nine minutes and were finally able to release it theatrically in its current incarnation, which is what we're about to look at.

While nobody would confuse the setup of any TCM movie as being particularly realistic with the exception of the first one, this one is...a pretty big stretch. We're immediately introduced to Heather (Lisa Marie Newmyer) and Barry (Tyler Shea Cone), two arguing beefcake-y teenagers at their HIGH SCHOOL PROM (holy Christ) who make their way into a car and continue arguing while they speed away from the prom. After they get a respectable distance away from the school, they discover that another couple is stowing away in their back seat, for reasons that might have been explained but I won't bother to because I wasn't paying particularly close attention. Oh, and Jenny, the female of this second couple, is played by Renee Zellweger.

Now, she became a big star after this movie came out and all, but personally I've just never seen what the big deal is with her. I've seen her in maybe six or seven movies, and really don't remember her for much of anything, other than almost having sex with Rex Manning and winning the Oscar for one of the worst performances ever on film. AIN'T NO MAN BETTER THAN ME. If anyone wants proof that the Weinsteins bribe the goddamn Oscar committee, Miss Zellweger's Oscar is the smoking gun. At any rate, she's your star victim of this film, so enjoy her Randy Orton-like charisma for the film's duration. Or don't.

There's something else I should point out about the film that I gleamed from the opening ten minutes. Rob Zombie did a reboot of the Halloween series that was heavily criticized for being too hick-influenced, completely lacking in subtlety, and beating its nonstop parade of profane dialogue down the audience's throats. Because Zombie's relative strengths appear to be grittiness and making the audience uncomfortable, it's been pointed out that he would have been much better suited for a TCM remake. Well, here's your Rob Zombie Texas Chainsaw movie, since Barry's dialogue contains no less than 15 uses of the word "fuck" in the introduction alone. And guess what? It sucks. Lesson learned for the day - Rob Zombie sucks. Even when he's not technically directing movies.

Well, the introduction comes to an end when our fearsome foursome (the fourth one, by the way, is named Sean, is Jenny/Zellweger's boyfriend, and is played by John Harrison) have to take a detour, go down an expectedly middle-of-nowhere-ish road, and get in a car accident. The driver of the other car is still alive, and so our quartet makes their way to this film's version of the Last Chance gas station - in this case an insurance office manned by Darla (Tonie Perensky), who likes to flash her fake boobs to passing cars. You can't make this stuff up. After an extended (read: never-ending) sequence, Darla calls in her husband Vilmer to take care of the wreck.

Soon enough, Vilmer shows up, played by Matthew McConaughey and driving an old beat-up wrecker truck. He also has a pretty cool-looking bionic leg. The deep, suspenseful build of this movie lasts for all of one minute before Vilmer goes bat-crazy insane, breaking the guy's neck and running Sean over with his truck, all while partaking in the absolute most ridiculous of mannerisms and evil laughs. For what it's worth, I actually found McConaughey to be a pretty good, convincing villain. You buy the guy as an insane killer, and unlike Zellweger, I'm not surprised at all that the guy eventually became a big star. Until the movie turns extremely loopy, the character of Vilmer is definitely the strong point of the movie, without a doubt.

Meanwhile, Jenny, Heather and Barry get tired of waiting around the insurance office, and go out into this strange mini-town in search of Sean. Sometime in this time span, Jenny becomes separated from the other two, who promptly find the old, beat-up Sawyer farmhouse. You might notice that in this review I'm not mentioning any of these people's personal traits, and that's because, other than some VERY shallow characteristics (Barry=asshole, Heather=prom queen, Jenny=troubled stoner, Sean=nice guy), they're nonentities. Don't take it that I'm being lazy. I'm only reporting what we're given.

Having said all that, we're about to enter the movie's money sequence. Barry and Heather enter the Sawyer abode and immediately get brutalized by Leatherface in a manner very similar to the way that the original victims in the first TCM film bit the dust. Barry getting hit in the head with a mallet is a cheer-out-loud moment, to say the least. The Leatherface in this film is played by Robert Jacks, who does a decent-enough job given the material. The Face Man for this go-round is, by this point, merely a prop, window dressing for a plot that takes more nonsensical plot twists than all nine seasons of The X-Files combined, so don't expect too much gushing about one of horror's main luminaries from this point on. Oh, I also forgot to mention that we've just been introduced to another member of the Sawyer family - W.E. (Joe Stevens), a shotgun-wielding dude who speaks only in classical literature quotes. Once again, you can't make this stuff up.

From here, we get our tribute/ripoff of the Marilyn Burns/Sally Hardesty chase sequence from the original film, as Jenny runs across Vilmer and uses her Scooby Doo-like detective skills to deduce that the crazy-eyed guy spouting off about fear is a homicidal maniac. After escaping Vilmer, there is a lengthy (and actually quite suspenseful) "Final Girl" scene between Jenny and Leatherface. After managing to get away from Face, she finds her way back to the insurance station, where (in another tribute/ripoff of the original film) Darla (remember her?) makes a HEEL TURN and calls in the Sawyer family to bring Jenny back to the family abode.

And...wow. What a "dinner/Sawyer family gathering" scene you're about to...uh...enjoy. Get ready.

With the above picture as evidence, McConaughey continues to perfect the "frothing at the mouth villain" role on Zellweger before she makes no less than three escape attempts that get cut off by either Vilmer or Leatherface. At a few points during this long sequence (it takes up the last half-hour of the movie), Darla shows signs of remorse which Jenny begins to play on. Eventually, Darla breaks down and says that Vilmer works for a "secret organization" of some sort, and after a tribute/mockery of the original film's dinner scene, the boss of this shadowy organization shows up in the form of Rothman (James Gale), a black-suited guy who kindly informs us that all of this - the Sawyer house, the murders, the macabre fascination with dead bodies - is all about an experiment to show people "the true meaning of horror."

Ok, first off - HAHAHAHAHAHA. That is, by far, the greatest film plot I've ever heard, but it gets better. Earlier in the film, it had been shown that "Illuminati" was written on the side of Vilmer's wrecker truck. For those not in the know, the Illuminati are a long-rumored/speculated/never-seen secret club of some sort that supposedly controls the world. Or something. Yeah. The idea that the all-powerful, all-knowing bureau of controlling the universe runs a beaten up old farmhouse where people like to engage in cannibalism and spout off cryptic philosophies about the meaning of fear is quite amusing to me. I can only presume that it's a tax writeoff for the Illuminati.

Time to give this stallion the Euthanasia treatment. Jenny's four millionth escape attempt finally proves fruitful when she is able to gain control of the remote that manipulates Vilmer's bionic leg (don't ask) and runs out into the balmy Texas morning in yet another tribute/ripoff of the original film. She runs down a camper with Leatherface and Vilmer in HOT PURSUIT (/Roscoe P. Coltrane). Meanwhile, somewhere, a plane takes off. We don't know why, but it does. After Leatherface - while riding in the back of Vilmer's wrecker - manages to run the camper off the road, the plane swoops down and nails Vilmer in the face, killing him instantly and causing Leatherface to cease his HOT PURSUIT (/Roscoe P. Coltrane). Jenny hops into a waiting black car that whisks her away from the farm, and inside, Rothman informs her that this experiment was an "abomination" and that it was supposed to be a "spiritual experience."

And then, after being taken to a hospital, Jenny sees Sally Hardesty being wheeled around on a stretcher, once again played by Marilyn Burns and ending the movie on an admittedly creepy note.

Oh boy, time to pass judgment on this film. You know - from reading that convoluted and scatterbrained plot description, do you really need me to spell out that it sucks? The experience I had with it was the following - the first twenty minutes or so were actually pretty atmospheric, but when all of the "danger" elements started making their presence be known in the second act, I was completely bored because I didn't care. The movie has a gold mine here in the form of four potentially likable, potentially innocent and undeserving people going to their high school prom and finding their way to hell, and much like pretty all of Rob Zombie's opuses, the movie left me cold because I hated every victim character.

Now, it's time for a pseudo-intellectual rant. It is entirely possible to create an unconventional movie and make it deep, emotional, and resonant. The Korean horror film A Tale of Two Sisters is a perfect example of this - it doesn't make much sense in the traditional manner of things, but the two main characters are drawn so well, and we as an audience are given plenty of reasons to care about them as people, therefore when the weirdness begins it becomes a positive rather than a negative. These are people we like, and they are trapped in an impenetrable maze.

This movie? Not so much. Kim Henkel chose to write one of the most bizarre stories I've ever seen play out in any horror movie, giving the Texas Chainsaw series a mythology that it really didn't need to have, but all of that would be forgivable if we cared about it. Since we don't, the movie's hackneyed plot involving a secret organization fronting the Sawyer clan's murderous tendencies isn't even laughably bad. It's just horrible. After 86 minutes, I couldn't wait for this abomination to be over, and I've suffered through plenty of crap in my day. The third movie in the series seemed to have the idea for a TCM sequel right - the Sawyer clan moves their stakes to a newer but equally backwoods section of Texas and waits for potential victims. Introducing the Illuminati and voodoo mind control into the proceedings is not the way to do it, and it's thanks to this movie that we have the entirely forgettable Platinum Dunes remakes.

Positives? As mentioned, McConaughey is definitely game for his role. No matter how goofy the movie gets in its final trimester, he'll keep you from hitting the eject button just because he plays the Vilmer role so completely over the top that you can't take your eyes off the train wreck. Other than that, though, don't expect much in the way of redeeming qualities. The victims are vanilla, the look of the film is flat and dingy, the music sucks, and the story sounds like something that would be right at home on the Satellite of Love.

* out of ****. Avoid this one like the plague.

I AM "LEATHERFACE: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre III"!!!

Confession time: I had never seen this movie in my life before the obligatory research viewing for this review. I'm far too lazy to go back and check, but I'm pretty sure that I have lied about this at one point at a few message boards, so if you're one of the people who were under the impression that I had a half-assed nuanced opinion of this flick, much apologies. I now have a slightly more educated half-assed nuanced opinion.

So here we are - the third film in the Texas Chain Saw series. Without a doubt, a series that deserves its place on the virtual Mount Rushmore of modern horror film icons along with Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers, this is also one of the many franchises that hold a special place in my heart for having the power to creep the holy hell out of me as a kid via its BOX ART alone. When I was just a little bastard, I would peruse the horror aisle looking to get creeped out due to nothing more than masochism, and the images of the beastly man with creepy masks brandishing large implements seen in the aisles at Sears always did the job with shocking ease. Nonetheless, curiosity eventually got the better of me, and I eventually caught the first movie on TV sometime in my sixth grade year.

So, to give this whole thing some vague semblance of completion, my brief reviews of the first two films in the franchise:

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Man oh man, the Horror Nerd loves him some Texas Chain Saw Massacre! Throughout my dalliances with fellow horror fans out there on the interwebz, I've learned that it's very much a "love it or hate it" thing, and feel free to put me in the former camp. It traumatized the holy hell out of me as a 12-year-old, and while I've seen plenty of films since then that are technically scarier and plenty more that are gorier, the atmosphere, dirtiness and grittiness are off the charts to the point of making this one unforgettable. To me, it's beauty in simplicity - a group of kids goes on a trek across the backroads of Texas only to chance into running across an insane family of cannibal meat merchants, most notably Gunner Hansen as the legendary muscle of the group, Leatherface. The remake? It tried - I won't fault Michael F**king Bay and his foot soldiers for not putting out a solid effort. But this is a flick that just CAN'T be repeated with slickness and professionalism. It's got the budget of an order of McNuggets and the uncanny screaming ability of Marilyn Burns to carry it...and that is why it's immortal.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Part 2: Good, although nowhere near as memorable as the first film. Also directed by Tobe Hooper (the same guy responsible for the first installment), this one is more of a parody of the original. The theatrical poster is a spoof of the promotional material for The Breakfast Club, but that fact was lost on me during my formative years, and this is one video cover that scared the bejesus out of me. It's Leatherface along with three other like-minded cannibalism proponents. Yikes. At any rate, Hooper piles on the humor and the plot is pretty goofy - a small-town Sheriff (played by Dennis Hopper - the budget for this flick was approximately 90 times that of the original) remains hot on the trail of the Sawyers long after the crimes seen in the first film, while a radio DJ (Caroline Williams, who looks great in the tiny jean shorts she wears throughout the film's running time, I must say) is the star victim in peril/object of Leatherface's affection for this go-round. It's also got the always amusing Bill Moseley as the "comic relief" villain, although this indirectly may have led to Rob Zombie having a film career, so take it for what it's worth. In short, a lot of fun, but not a revolution like the first film was.

And that brings us to...this flick. Leatherface: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre III was released in January of 1990 and directed by Jeff Burr of Puppet Master 4 and 5 relative fame. More or less, it pretends that the second installment doesn't exist, which seems like a prudent course of action since that film ended with, ya know, every villain character dead. For the most part, it also junks the jokey, almost mocking tone of that film and takes a more serious approach. Maybe a bit TOO serious - it was originally saddled with the dreaded X rating before several MPAA cuts netted it the R needed for a mainstream release, although the uncut version is now widely available on DVD. End Wikipedia research phase.

Before we get going on this particular go-round of reviewing madness, allow me to play like Vince Russo and/or the Daniel Craig Bond films and pull back the curtain (you know - remove all the fun) on the proceedings. I had my next series of reviews slated to be either the lesser-known TCM films or the Evil Dead series and was leaning toward the latter, even dropping a reference to it in the Phantasm IV review. However, since I hate the ED series with a passion and seemingly every other horror fan adores it, I figured I'd save myself the hate mail and go with the movies that have much more variance in their reception. So thank everyone's favorite skin-wearing psycho for saving you the trouble of reading 30-or-so paragraphs of me bitching about how Ash Williams isn't quite the end-all-be-all hero character that everyone thinks he is. Although I just said it.

With that...FINALLY...the movie.

After the expected (and quite awesome) opening narration followed by a skull-bludgeoning murder scene, the flick immediately calms down and stays that way for a nice long, slow build. In one of my favorite rapidly-becoming-cliche phrases, this is a move that is always appreciated. The two saps above are your star victim characters for TCM III, a college couple on their way to Florida to "work out their differences" or some vague thing that isn't quite spelled out. Maybe it was, but I wasn't playing particularly close attention during this phase of the movie. At any rate, Kate Hodge (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ashley "Kirsty Cotton" Laurence) plays Michelle, the brunette on the right who serves as your Final Girl, while Bill Butler is the slightly nerdish-looking Ryan. Butler is one of my favorite bit part horror veterans, having been killed off in Friday the 13th Part VII, the Tom Savini version of Night of the Living Dead and Terror Night, and it was good to see him have a pseudo-starring role here.

While attempting to tune in some bitchin' late '80s tunage, they catch wind that there's an upcoming road block due to a massive mass grave (redundancy alert) being unearthed. There's some very nice special makeup effects involved in the mass grave scene where we're also clued in that Ryan is a pre-med student. Why I mentioned this, I don't know. After continuing past the road block, they find their way to the Last Chance gas station, where they run into...

Viggo Mortensen wearing a cowboy hat. Of course, there's also the requisite Texas Chain Saw Massacre creepy guy (this time an eternally skeevy dude with a glass eye named Alfredo), but hell...it's Viggo Mortensen wearing a cowboy hat. Definitely not the thing I expected to see in a TCM movie. For those of you who have seen the original film (which, let's face it, should be damn near all of you), this would be the "building up dread before the victims head out into deepest, darkest Texas" segment, as Alfredo eventually winds up trying to shoot them and the car speeds off into desolate countryside.

And you know what that means in a Texas Chain Saw movie. Eventually, they get blindsided by a large truck (driven by LEATHERFACE - seen live and in the flesh for the first time since the intro) and our two protagonists find themselves on the run. A lot of the midddle segments of this movie take place in the woods for some good old-fashioned stalk-and-slash action, where amazingly enough a few more characters are introduced. Michelle and Ryan run into Benny (played by amazing horror film luminary Ken Foree), a survivalist who fills the role of being a worthy adversary for the Sawyer clan, and then run afoul of Tinker (Joe Unger, and man, what a sleazeball he is), yet another Sawyer-in-hiding with hooked hands and a swarthy dimeanor. Anyway, after the graphic Leatherface-izing death of a survivor from a recent meat raid, Michelle and Ryan are brought into the Sawyer abode for the finale.

For those of you who are extremely uninitiated, the Sawyer clan in the TCM flicks...yeah, just think Ed Gein taken to the nth degree. In the first film, it was strongly implied that they weren't just cannibals...they were merchants who sold their barbeque creations on roadside stands. Since the second movie is mostly comedy, we'll just look at this one as the "official" sequel for the sake of posterity, and we get yet more sickness thrown our way as it's strongly implied that the captured females in their missions serve as "breeders." Hell, one of the villains in this flick is a cute little blonde girl who takes great delight in pushing the button that smashes Ryan's brain in. Great stuff.

At any rate, the ending sequence of TCM III isn't quite the religious experience that the infamous "dinner scene" from the original film is, but it's definitely a strong showing in the pantheon of "Final Girl" fight sequences. There's lots of sickness, lots of screaming, lots of gore, and even some cool badass moments for Ken Foree. What more can you ask for?

So, with that, we begin the analysis segment of the review. It's been almost two years since the last time I've taken in TCM 2, and since that film and this one are somewhat competing entities for the title of "official sequel to the original movie," I'm going to have to side with this one. The second movie is loads of fun, but the stylistic shift from grit, grime and uncomfortable realism (indeed, that first movie is so cheaply filmed that it looks like a goddamn documentary, and that a lot of the horridness was stuff that the cast actually did without the aid of makeup because that was probably a lot easier than faking it) to over-the-top slapstick was a little offputting. This one is a lot more faithful to the tone of the original, which should have been made more than apparent by the oh-so-handy plot description above, so 50 cool points to the movie for that. It's also got Viggo Mortensen making a *gasp* heel turn right before the third act, and Viggo plays a great heel. Kind of like he is in real life.

I also highly enjoyed the little nods to the first film. Leatherface slugs around in a leg brace due to the chain saw blow to the leg he took in the original, we get yet another cameo from Grandpa (although he's just a withered-up corpse in this film, as opposed to the withered-up barely-living bloodsucker he was in Hooper's movie), and we get some stellar production design work inside the Sawyer home, with bones and trophies tucked into every corner.

What's more, the characters actually end up being a strength. I was a little worried at first - I'm fond of Butler, but Hodge was pretty cookie-cutter. However, she gets a lot more likable as the movie goes along, and that final shotgun scene...cheer-out-loud moment. Of course, Foree is always game for any role. Even in the absolute dirt worst Rob Zombie-written material, he brings every bit of emotion that he can bring to a role, and this movie is no exception. You buy the dude as a legit threat to the clan of inbred cannibals, because he has a strong presence that can't be denied.

Not really a whole lot more to say about the film, other than that I greatly enjoyed it and would heartily recommend it to my horror-loving fans. However, I'm told that the NEXT movie in the franchise...isn't quite the minor classic that I found this one to be. Foreshadowing.

*** 1/2 out of ****.

The endgame (so far) comes in "Phantasm IV: Oblivion"

Alright, let's finish this bitch off. And not a moment too soon. Hopefully it hasn't been made clear, but while I've mightily enjoyed this series, sweet Mary, writing about them is exasperating. When I first sat down to watch these Phantasm movies, I envisioned...something entirely different from what wound up taking place. Some standard stalk-and-slash action, a badass villain, and different victim characters in every movie. Kind of like an all-dudes version of Friday the 13th. And, well, if you've been reading these reviews, that has wound up not being the case.

Before we get going, I have to disclose something - I'm not happy at all with how my reviews of these movies have turned out. They've been something like 95% recap, 5% all other shit. The series is just SO freakin' weird that it's difficult to describe it in handy-dandy condensed form without confusing the holy hell out of readers, but it's a sorry excuse. So, from the Horror Nerd to all of you, much apologies for the piss-poor performance on these flicks, and I shall do my best to streamline the whole experience with this go-round.

Phase one of that plan: Some introductory comments on THE FILM ITSELF. Phantasm IV: Oblivion was unleashed upon the world of direct-to-video patrons in 1998. Once again, Don Coscarelli returns to man the directing and writing duties, and since he is the guy who has concocted perhaps the most baffling long-running series I've ever taken in, does about as well of a job as anybody in the history of the world in making a series about killer spheres, hooded dwarves, and mystical otherworldly Undertakers (but not Mark Calloway) seem cool and relevant. What's more, Bill Thornbury and A. Whitney Brown are once again back as Jody and Mike, the brothers who serve as the lynchpins of the action, as well as Reggie Bannister, who in my book is a far cooler "baptism by fire/unlikely hero" character than Ash Williams could ever hope to be. Maybe a good inflammatory comment like that will make this review a bit less sucky.

Whoo boy...are you ready, kids? Ready for the final (to date, and MORE ON THAT LATER) movie in this confounding series? Christ, I don't even know if I am.

But first...LET'S ALL GO TO THE LOBBY!
Now that we got that out of the way, welcome to the crazy world of Phantasm IV. It starts off with what's actually a pretty cool bit of recap/narration by Bannister that makes me all wishy-washy for the two months' worth of nostalgia I have for these movies. Like the previous three flicks, it then resolves the cliffhanger ending from the last installment, which had Reggie pinned to the wall by the Tall Man's sentinel weapons and Mike tearing away from the Bolton mortuary/lab. For whatever reason, the Tall Man decides to let Reggie live and pursues Mike.

The one really nice thing about this movie is that it's much, much easier to follow than the others. Don't get me wrong - it's still off the charts insane, but while the other flicks were all about rapid-fire events and action, this one is more restrained, and only has two plot threads to follow instead of the 17,000 that I'm used to.

First, we get Movie A - the Mike show, and man, is it something else. Apparently Mike ran away from the mortuary so as not to be turned into one of the Tall Man's drones, or something, and eventually winds up in Death friggin' Valley. While there, he seems to be preparing for his death, as he periodically writes these cryptic notes to his buddy Reggie, but his primary goal seems to be unlocking the mystery of the cosmos that is the Tall Man's back story.

Yup, we finally get some semblance of an idea of who this guy was before the whole heinous body-stealing world conquest plot started. There is a fascinating little scene involving the guy working in the battlefields of the Civil War, obviously a doctor of some sort before the big reveal. As far as we can tell, he was an undertaker named Jebediah Morningside who became obsessed with finding the line between life and death (possibly due to witnessing so much of the latter in the war). And golly gee, he actually succeeded, inventing the very first dimensional poles sometime in the 19th century and crossing the gate, eventually being reborn as the evil Tall Man. I never told you it was a definitive answer.

The rest of Mike's story in this film isn't worth recapping quite as much. All you really need to know is that he follows his brother Jody around through a bunch of dimensional gates, unlocks past segments almost as if you would unlock content in a PS3 game by accomplishing little tasks, and eventually gains the power of telekinesis, which he immediately uses to kill a scorpion. I wish I was making that up.

Then, there's Movie B - the typical Phantasm "cool Reggie in pursuit of pussy and the Tall Man" story. This time around, there isn't much action from ol' Reg, which is really a shame, since Bannister has really grown on me as this series has gone on. He went from being a nonentity in my mind in the first movie to a cool alternative to Bruce Campbell in the second to legit badass (and somewhat lecherous) antihero in the third, and I was particularly fond of him here. This time around, all he is doing is tracking down his buddy Mike. Along the way, he defeats a demonic cop (YES!) and engages in a Phantasm classic sequence for the ages.

OK, here's the deal - for those of you who have been keeping score, all of the sequels have featured a young hot chick for Reggie to attempt to mack on, and this one is no different, as he rescues a hot young blonde named Jennifer (Heidi Marnhout) from certain doom after her car flips over. After driving to an abandoned hotel and falling asleep for the night, Reggie is awoken from a nightmare only to discover that Jennifer's...uh...chest is heaving. Ever the sexual harassment proponent, he opens up her shirt, and, well, take a look.

Yeah. Sentinel boobs. You can always count on Phantasm movies to have SOMETHING in them that will stick out in your memory forever, and this one is no exception. Anyway, he destroys the sentinels and demon-Jennifer and continues on his merry way, eventually catching up to Mike in the desert for the AFOREMENTIONED "crossing of the poles/Jebediah Morningside" revelation.

What else do you need to know? Well, not much. This flick doesn't have much of a big, rousing ending action sequence like the other films do, and as it turns out really wasn't supposed to. There's only a couple other things worth mentioning: (1) Mike gets the honors of offing the Tall Man once again, this one with some sort of strange interdimensional bomb (don't ask), and (2) we get ENDING TWIST #4, as a new Tall Man immediately comes through the gate and completes the wackamaroo transformation that he had been putting Mike through, removing the sphere from his skull and leaving him for dead as Reggie dives through the gate in HOT PURSUIT (/Roscoe P. Coltrane). Our closing scene is an outtake from the first film of child Mike getting into Reggie's ice cream truck, and the two of them driving off into the distance. And it's a scene that could bring a tear to a glass eye.

I'm not sure I know why, exactly, but I enjoyed this movie. The relaxed pace was a welcome change after the all-out frenetic campy weirdness of the first three films, and simultaneously despite and because of that tone-down, the movie gives us some classic moments. The stuff with the Tall Man's past is really awesome, and it's great seeing Angus Scrimm play something other than the slow-stalking, slow-talking killer for a change during his scenes as Jebediah. In addition to that, both Movie A and Movie B have some decent scares, and the killer breasts? Immortal.

Of course, there's also a wholly boring story associated with the possible future of the franchise. Way back in the mid-'90s, Roger Avary (the co-writer of Pulp Fiction) wrote a screenplay for the final movie in the Phantasm saga, which would pick up from the events of Phantasm III and take place in a dire, post-apocalyptic landscape. As cult movies often do, the project ran into financing difficulties, prompting Don Coscarelli to create this movie as a way to bide time and keep interest until enough money could be raised for the endgame film, and Avary even has a cameo as one of the civil war soldiers in the movie. And no, there hasn't been any headway in raising the finances for said movie, which would be titled Phantasm's End, although Coscarelli hopes to make it sometime in the future. Hope you enjoyed the information I was able to impart due to the five minutes' worth of Wikipedia research I afforded Phantasm IV.

Thus, for that reason, while I ordinarily hate open endings to horror series, I'll give Phantasm IV a slight pass since it's not OFFICIALLY over yet and award it *** out of ****.

Now, a few words on the series as a whole. This series is the very definition of "cult" - it's out there, it's definitely not digestable to the masses, but it's off-kilter wackiness and cool hero characters easily lends itself to a small but very diehard group of fans, which this series no doubt has. After taking in every movie in the series, I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore fan, but the films should get regular play during my daylight hours sleep schedule while so many of my other DVDs sit in the shelf for all of time after one watch. They're oddball, they're loads of fun, and as a whole experience, I can't recommend them enough.

More than that, however, I'm sure all of you out there reading this who consider yourselves horror fans have people in your lives - be they family, co-workers, significant others, etc. - who give you funny looks for some of the things you watch. You know, the usual "how can you watch this crap" look. According to some people (not looking at you at all, Roger Ebert), we are only supposed to watch cerebral, artistic works of social and cultural importance that make us reflect on who we are as a society and human beings. And just TYPING that last sentence almost made me hurl.

Are these films high art? No, not by a long shot. But movies can be good in different ways, and yes, the Phantasm films are good. Not in the way that they should have walked away with bagfuls of Oscars, but the best movies are the ones that are able to make you feel something. Shocked, confused, invigorated...these are the effects that these films had on me while watching them, and I'm a slightly curmudgeonly 28-year-old man. God only knows what I would have thought if had I seen this in my impressionable childhood. So shut it, Roger, or else Reggie, his awesome ride, and his cavalcade of weapons will be pointed at YOU.

Far out, indeed.