Sequels Rebound: Sorority House Massacre II: NIghty Nightmare

Hello there boys and girls and welcome to Day 1 of Sequels Rebound. Quick question for you all, aren't you a little sick of sequels in name only? That for me gets a bit tiresome. It's almost like the next director didn't even bother with the homework of the previous movie, sit down with the writer and take a few notes.

Why do I mention this? Well, let's just say my one of my least favorite directors is helming this particular talkie of shame. Oh no, don't worry. It is not Uwe Boll. Yes, breathe the sigh of relief. Instead, we have the schmuck that brought us illustrious titles like: Chopping Mall, Deathstalker II, Scream Queen Hot Tub Party, Vampirella and The Bare Wench Project. The master of Jiggly Girl himself, Jim Wynorski. This is Sorority House Massacre II.

Tee hee, we're gonna die horribly.

Unlike the thriller/slasher that was Sorority House Massacre brought to us by writer/director Carol Frank, this film has NOTHING to do with the previous. GASP! Instead we get some convoluted story arc of the house was the scene of multiple murders with lifted footage of Slumber Party Massacre. Yeah the flashbacks couldn't even be the original story arc and salvage any dignity available.

Five college girls buy this ran down house, the Hokstedter home for their new sorority house. They got it cheap and with a few supplies and elbow grease they can put it back together. Let me just say I have full confidence in these girls handling plumbing, woodwork and electrical. With two scream queens Melissa Moore (Evil Spawn, Scream Dream, Samurai Cop, Caged Fury, Vampire Cop and The Invisible Maniac) soft to hardcore Adult star Gail Harris (Takin' It Off, Electric Blue 38, Electric Blue 41, Savage Harbor, Dream On, Treasure Hunt and Curse of the Komodo) and Adult Star the late Savannah (The Invisible Maniac, Autoerotica, Hot Holes, Surf City Sex, Made in Heaven and Happy Endings) rounding out our cast, it gives you the mindset that this girls may be here just to jiggle. Coupled with shower scenes of full front nudity in a house that has no hot water. How do I know this? Well the girls made mention of it and their nipples were hard enough to shear through titanium. Next door neighbor/creeper/red herring Orville Ketchum (Peter Spellos of Black Jack, Night Shade, Bound, The Assault, Vice Girls and Men in Black II) narrates the stolen flashback footage as though the father of the household went completely of the rails and starting killing everyone with a power drill...like in Slumber Party Massacre. Almost as though it was the very film in fact.

Portrait of the sexually deprived...and depraved.

Meanwhile Lt. Block of Wood (Jurgen Baum of Sorority House Massacre II, Hard to Die, The Stand,Wishmaster, The Dentist and The Dentist 2) and Sgt Ditzy Shawlee (Toni Naples of Hard to Die, Munchie, Prison Heat, Dinosaur Island and Munchie Strikes Back) play a round of exposition of the very same story WE JUST HEARD!!!! So after the lenghty shower scenes, the girls decide to break out an ouija board to contact the ghost of Hokstedter but they get too creeped out and never finish. Suzanne (Adult Actress Barbii of Deep Inside Barbii, Backdoor to Hollywood 14, Fantasy World and Confessions of Professional Centerfolds) squabbles with Janey (Dana Bentley of L.A. Vice, Repo Jake, Lethal Games, Karate Cop and Rangers) so much that Janey goes back downstairs to finish the booze while Suzanne goes to the attic to step in a bear trap and be done in by the murderer.

What is there to say about this movie?

Well it was written and shot in seven days. The shower scenes are clearly for...well any guy that didn't want to get teased for renting porn so he went with this instead. The acting is pretty wooden, the practical effects were decent enough. I saw the boom mic and the shadow of a boom mic a few times and this is the only horror film where a six shot revolver suddenly fires ten times. Yeesh.

Clearly their parents' money well spent.

Sequels Rebound!

Hello my readers and welcome back to the week. Now this time around I thought I would look at some forgotten sequels of the Horror genre.  Yes I know I did this same cop out almost a year ago but I have found some real stinkers that need to be addressed, mocked and avoided like a cabbage fart in a hatchback car doing 90 mph. Bet that is a visual you never expected to have...or if you are a fan of this blog you were probably wondering when I was going to get that graphic again.

CRAIGSLIST, YOU LIED TO ME AGAIN!!!!

With this in mind I am referring to direct-to-video B-Horror movies that while their predecessor may have gotten some screen time in the theaters, these releases were a huge crock of crap. So I will take my precious time and view these stink nuggets for you, give you my take on them and make like the wizened old man archetype Crazy Ralph and warn you of death curses, haunted houses and books bound in human flesh to avoid. Not sure if I have flannel plaid shirts and a pork pie hat but I will look around, zip around my ten speed that I don't have and announce evils in a cryptic fashion that will only help you minutes before your movie on-screen death. Keen? Well the ax or machete will be.

So again join me for unnecessary sequels and let's see if any of them are remotely entertaining or not.

How to not get head.

Fusion of Film: Scream Blacula Scream

And greetings to you, gentle readers for Day 4 of Fusion of Film. Well we have had some thrills, chills and in general screwy flicks... So how about a sequel? Oh c'mon... Okay to relieve some of your anxiety it is not a latter A Nightmare on Elm Street because, well I don't want to put us all through that crap. I mean you are just reading it, I have to watch the piece of crap. No, this time I am reviewing a sequel to a blaxploitation horror film. Yeah imagine trying to say that five times real fast. American International Pictures brings us the continuation of Prince Mamuwalde, voodoo and some seventies funk. This is Scream Blacula Scream.

No hickeys!!!

The aging Voodoo priestess of L.A.? Is dying and Mama Loa picks her adopted daughter and apprentice Lisa Fortier (Pam Grier of The Big Doll House, Women in Cages, The Big Bird Cage, Black Mama White Mama, The Arena, Coffy, Foxy Brown and Jackie Brown) as the next Voodoo priestess and her son and blood relative Willie (Richard Lawson of Streets of Fire, Poltergeist, All My Children, Wag the Dog, Angry Boys, Royal Family Thanksgiving and Royal Family Christmas) who vows revenge, gives a false front of everything is cool, baby and hustles outta there. What a toolbox. Willie goes to a former Bokor (practicioner of black magic and zombification)of the group and buys the bones of Mamuwalde from the last film when he burned in the sunlight. The Bokor warns him of the power he is trying to enslave and he take heed but our boy again is a total tool so what could happen? Willie brings back Mamuwalde (William Marshall of Star Trek, Skullduggery, Zig Zag, Blacula, Abby, Rosetti and Ryan, Pee-wee's Playhouse, Maverick and Dinosaur Valley Girls), screws up his circle of protection and Mamuwalde puts the bite on him making him a servant of darkness. Back to life or undead, Mamuwalde walks the streets and ends up at a party former officer Justin Carter (Don Mitchell of I Dream of Jeannie, Ironside, Short Walk to Daylight, Ironside TV series, Wonder Woman, Perfume and The Return of Ironside) is an amateur archaeologist and collector of African antiquities when the prince finds a stirring, an attraction to Lisa... well given it is Pam Grier the prince may have seen Foxy Brown.

What do you mean tips are mandatory??!!!

A string of bizarre murders happen and Carter with an interest in the occult proceeds to have a look around with no one on the force really busting his chops that he is an ex-cop looking into existing homicides. Lisa's friend Gloria (Janee Michelle of The Love-Ins, The Mephisto Waltz, Scream Blacula Scream, The House on Skull Mountain and In the Heat of the Night) dies at the party has returned from "BEYOND THE GRAVE" and tries feeding on Lisa but is stopped by Mamuwalde in time. He begs Lisa to lift the vampire curse from him so he can be a normal man once more. Carter gets his former lieutenant on board with him and they prep stakes medium rare...um I mean they sharpen some wood to be driven into bodies.

Can Lisa end Mamuwalde's curse? Will he have to atone for his vampiric crimes? Can the undead serve a life sentence?

A few thoughts on the film.

So no mention of Tina or Dr. Gordon Thomas from the first film. Apparently they just up and left L.A.or maybe they went on a honeymoon as this is only a week after the first movie.

I did enjoy the film goof of Mamuwalde knowing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata that was composed in 1801 when Mamuwalde was imprisoned in his coffin around 1774 so pretty sure he never heard it, let alone had an instructor to teach him to play. No I am not a historian but my younger brother was a pianist so kinda became familiar with composers.

While there were none of the original cast from the first film, this movie's mood, setting and atmosphere holds it own and you still feel bad for Mamuwalde as he is truly cursed by Dracula all those centuries ago. Its tone is a bit softer and yes it is a bit on the cheesy but most exploitation films were lacking a huge budget to work with. All in all, not a bad movie nor was it a bad sequel.

A.K.A. Coffy A.K.A. Foxy Brown.

Fusion of Film: Candyman

Welcome back to Day 3 of Fusion of Film. This time around let's take a peek at the genre known as Horror. Yes I was feeling a bit whimsy today. We partake of a film in 1992 that is based on urban legends and a figure caked in the blood and whispered as a vengeanceful spirit that did horrible things for the fact of his own tormented soul. This is Candyman.

Y'know...my brother made Evil Dead.

Our story follows a graduate student Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen of Highlander II: The Quickening, Love Kills, Blue Tiger, The Prophecy, Frasier, American Dreams and Justice League) does research on various urban legends. After extensive study she came across a local legend of a man known as Candyman. The story says Candyman can be brought forth by saying his name five times while looking directly in a mirror but the story ends with whomever summons him will feel death with his hook hand. Similiar to the Bloody Mary story.

Helen and her skeptical friend Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons of Another World,Vampire's Kiss, Silence of the Lambs, Hard Target and Disconnect) decide to invoke Candyman's spirit with both of them calling Candyman out and...nothing seemed to happen. Further poking around Helen finds out that Candyman was the son of a slave, whose dad became well-to-do after creating a system of mass-producing shoes during the Civil War. Candyman (Tony Todd of was raised with privilege and became an artist and was so well known for his works that he had a waiting list for him to create portraits. But life became difficult falling in love with a white woman who he knocked up. Spurned by this woman, her former lover made up a lynch mob to cut Candyman's painting hand off, smeared his face with honey leaving him to the bees. AHH THE BEES!!!!

Candyman's foreplay gets a bit rough.

In this crime-ridden Cabrini-Green via Chicago claim the horrors about this area is all Candyman's doing, shedding blood of the innocent. Yet again ignoring all those that were superstitious and fearful, they warn Helen over and over again that she has released the evil into the world and know what can happen. Husband Trevor (Xander Berkeley of Apollo 13, Leaving Las Vegas, Heat, Bulletproof, Air Force One, Gattaca, Shanghai Noon and The Mentalist) warns Helen that this has gone a bit far as she and Bernadette went to Cabrini-Green to pursue a story of a child that was castrated in a public bathroom alledgedly linked it to Candyman. Checking out the ran-down bathroom a gang member attacks Helen with a hook claiming to be Candyman for his street cred. Helen gets away and sicks the cops on the child killer.

Candyman appears to Helen saying her talk of him being just a legend and he is obligated to prove his existence. Helen wakes up in Anne-Marie's (Vanessa Williams of New Jack City, Melrose Place, Candyman and Soul Food) apartment spattered in blood with a dead dog and Anne's baby is missing. Anne-Marie jumps Helen thinking she did this and Helen fights back when thankfully the cops take Helen away.

Trevor bails Helen out of the hoosegow and Candyman stalks her down, slashing her enough to cause blood to flow and make her pass out only to wake and see Bernadette dead. Off to the rubber room for a month because... well Helen cannot be trusted clearly. I mean look what she has done already.

Will Candyman cut a bloody swath through Helen's life? Can she stop him? Will he take everything she loves away?

A few notes on the film now:

Using practical effects the bees used in the movie were bred for the movie, they were only 12 hours old so they looked large enough to be mature bees but no stingers were able to do real damage.

Eddie Murphy was considered for the role of Candyman but it was Tony Todd's gravelly voice and 6'5" height that impressed the director for the title role. Virginia Madsen is allergic to bees, so an ambulance was always on set while filming the bee scenes. Composer Philip Glass was asked to create the score and give the movie a Gothic feel with chorus and pipe organ. He was less than thrilled that the movie was a low budget slasher flick. Can't please everyone I suppose.

Oh yes, I am the title role.

Fusion of Film: Mega Shark vs Mecha Shark

Day 2 of Fusion of Film and I realized we have not covered a cheezy Sy-Fy Saturday feature in ages. Yes my stomach and colon can only handle so many of those at a time. So for your reading pleasure and my viewing agony this title just begged me to look away. Naturally I ignored the warnings of : NO!! TURN BACK!!! and DEAR GOD, ARE YOU INSANE??!!! Our esteemed director Emile Edwin Smith (The Grove, Age of Ice and Flight World War II) is primarily known for being a CG supervisoer on TV and films that don't blow. Does that help us? Writer H. Perry Horton (A Haunting in Salem, 2-Headed Shark Attack, Shark Week,40 Days and Nights and 100 Degrees Below Zero) has penned a few stinkers so let's see how far the sinkhole will take us.

This is Mega Shark vs Mecha Shark.

Ahh!!! It's NOT Bruce!!!

This has all the vibes of straight to DVD monster/disaster film of which SyFy has been known for the last 20 years. Released from The Asylum productions our opus opens with a tugboat dragging a large iceberg through a port in Egypt, when all of the sudden!.. the iceberg cracks, shattering open and releasing an ancient megalodon making impossible for fishermen to earn of living as it dominates the seas that several countries put their ports on lockdown and create a ban on fishing to save lives. Yup countries hundreds if not thousands of miles away are doing this that it creates a drag on the planet's economy.

This is the third installment in the Mega Shark series giving the previous films a bit of history and knowledge of those fights of kaiju. The UN is apparently already prepping a prototype submarine to combat the creature that is yes a mecha shark. Cue the Godzilla music.

WHO FARTED???!!!!

Piloting our new craft is Jack Turner (Christopher Judge of Stargate SG-1, Andromeda, X-Men: Evolution, Masters of the Universe vs. The Snake Men, Stargate: The Ark of Truth, Stargate: Continuum and Paradox) and Rosie Gray (Elisabeth Rohm of Bull, Angel, Law & Order, Heroes, Lake Placid: The Final Chapter, Aftermath and The Client List) and commanded by Captain Reynolds (Steve Hanks of Island Claws, Hold Your Breath, Jailbait and Listening). Shiny!  Reprising her role is Debbie Gibson as esteemed Oceanographer, Dr. Emma McNeil who has become the foremost expert on Megalodons warns the U.S. Navy of the dangers of this creature as it no doubt is searching for a mate and spawning grounds. Channel that Matt Hooper, Debbie!

With the Mecha Shark submarine giving chase, Mega Shark is most vexed by this. Our Sea Quest vessel also has an A.I. onboard with tactical analysis, awareness of its surroundings and how to best to serve their crew and captain. Yes I didn't stutter. An A. I. Program added to our prototype submarine and why not? We broke the goofy meter minutes prior. From a massive shark leaping out of the waters to nail a plane 30,000 feet in the air, Australia having a fishing fleet near Botany Bay and sharks pimp slapping a torpedo away from itself with its tail.

Green screened to death as well as CGI Asylum brings this trilogy to a grinding halt capitalizing on the Godzilla franchise under the sea. There is more cheese than a dairy farm, its campy nature is not meant to be taken seriously...or at least I hope not. So if you have 90 minutes to kill then have at it. Me? I think it gave me a migraine.

Seagate Soggy Bottoms 1.

Fusion of Film: Suicide Kings

Hello folks. Welcome to the Fusion of Film week...which sounds better than saying Grab Bag yet again. This time around I will be bouncing around from various genre of film and film only. I know that sounds a bit limiting to not add TV or video games but trust me you will enjoy it... or I will chase you down with a clown hammer.

I bring you Peter O' Fallon. This producer/director/writer brings everything to his work. Cutting his teeth on Thirtysomething and Northern Exposure gave him an experience dealing both Comedy and Drama which embraces so many emotions to collect and work with. A former mob boss is enjoying the spoils of retirement when he encounters four kids that are interested in being around him and then... things get dicey. This is Suicide Kings.

Eh, I've had stranger Saturday Nights.

Charlie Barett (Christopher Walken of The Deer Hunter, The Dogs of War, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, The Prophecy and Last Man Standing) heads to his private table in the restaurant seeing a couple of kids in their twenties sitting at his table Avery (Henry Thomas of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Cloak & Dagger, The Quest, Valmont, Psycho IV: The Beginning, Legends of the Fall, Hijacking Hollywood and Moby Dick) and Max (Sean Patrick Flanery of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Powder, Eden, Pale Saints, Suicide Kings, Simply Irresistible, The Boondock Saints, The Insatiable, The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day and Saw 3D: The Final Chapter) who apologize for snagging his table and ask if he wants to have a night on the town with them and their buddy Brett (Jay Mohr of Saturday Night Live, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, Local Heroes, Jerry Maquire, 200 Cigarettes, Action, Ghost Whisper and Saints Row 2) and they grab the check and get the car.

So lemme do my Walken impression.

The guys try to drug Charlie as he kicks and squirms to get away, they almost wreck the car in the process. Charlie wakes up duct taped to a chair as Brett explains why he has been kidnapped while their buddy T.K. (Jeremy Sisto of Hideaway, Clueless, White Squall, Now You Know, Thirteen, Wrong Turn, Dead & Breakfast, Six Feet Under and Law & Order) checking his vitals as they explain that Avery's sister was kidnapped by a couple of loan sharks that have Avery's marker now want $2 million dollars. Between the guys they don't have it. Brett explains that Charlie is also known as Carlo Bartolucci and $2 mil is pocket change, not to mention his connections to the underworld to find these bastards that snagged Avery's sister.

Charlie's bodyguard Lono (Dennis Leary of Who's the Man?, Gunmen, Judgment Night, The Ref, Two If by Sea, The Thomas Crown Affair, Ice Age, Rescue Me and The Amazing Spider-Man) is pissed getting abducted and starts his own investigation to find friends of Charlie that may know where he went or where he might be. Hiding out at a buddy's house the fellas try to keep it together but each of them are starting to have doubts on this being a good idea... kidnapping a capo.

With the clock ticking, accusations being thrown at one another, Charlie has the boys where he wants them. Off their game and stalling them until Lono gets there and then... all bets are off.

Folks, what can I say to improve this?

From hand held, car mounted some dolly track work all this film is 35 mm in Spherical via Panavision bringing some great looks to it. Leary is wonderful in this play a mob lieutenant. Bitching and complaining about his wife having 300+ shoes when all he has is some running shoes, boots, basketball and now these $1200 Stingray boots that she can't believe he wasted all that money on and so on. Our kidnappers are character actors Frank Medrano (The Shawshank Redemptionm The Usual Suspects, Kissing a Fool and Sleepers) and Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond, Superman: The Animated Series, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, 'Til Death and The Crazy Ones) and I swear their characters are written as Heckel and Jeckel. 

Still grumpy he had to give up smoking.

 

Fusion of Film

Well hello readers and welcome back to that conglomeration of cinema, that moasic of movies , that union of movie pictures. This week will be known as Fusion of Film. Why? WHY??!!! Well because I grew weary of calling it grab bag. My only other idea was calling it Moving Pictures Mishmash and that just sounded far too long for some of my readers who like it neat and simple.

Could have some anime!!!

Well we have lots going on this week. Rotten Ramblin' On 2.0 is back, up to date and generally looking pretty nice. I am pestering guest stars as I have typed this up and hopefully we will hear back. Going through agents is... a necessity but kind of a pain at the same time. Of course these actors/directors/writers what have you, may have contended with a few wackos in their day. I am doing my level best to assure them that we have no desire to turn their clients into a laughing stock, wear their skin in our own flesh nor write a scathing pack of lies about them.

It is slow going as you can imagine. But Shawn and I shall return for Rotten Ramblin' On probably this week.

That in mind this week shall consist of whatever film I feel we have not reviewed or given a chance as I randomly select them. This can be a treat or a turd either way.

FEEL FREE TO MAKE SUGGESTIONS!!!

Might need a Doctor or two.