31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 17 Dawn of the Dead extended Mall Hours Cut

 

TITLE-Dawn of the Dead Extended Mall Hours Cut

SOURCE-Youtube

For years now I knew of this cut of Dawn of the Dead,but never saw it. Sure I had seen the US theatrical cut. Seen the Cannes cut and the Argento cut. But this super long cut,which uses all the footage from those 3 cuts plus stuff never seen,was one I could never track down. Well never track down and not have to pay 40 bucks. Sure I've seen a few SumGuys selling copies at cons. But I wasn't going pay 40 bucks for a dvd-r. And could never talk any of the "collectors" dvd dealers down to 20 bucks. Never thought to look for it on Youtube until the other day.

Of course this film is a sequel to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.While we are never told it appears to happen a few weeks after the end of Night. Starting off in a news station,where we meet Flyboy and his girl. We see how society has started to collapse already. After this we are taken to a big ass apartment building. This is where we meet our other two leads. They are cops who are invading the building.

Eventually our four leads all meet up and take off in a helicopter. After a stop to get gas,and this scene is amazing,they end up landing on the roof of a shopping mall. The mall has everything they need so they make this into their new home.

The four clear all the zombies out of the mall. Use 18 wheelers to block all the entrances. And it seems like they are going to be OK. 

But a gang of roving bikers spots the mall and invades it. After this invasion of course the mall isn't safe anymore. And we are down to two of our leads,Flyboy got bit and became a zombie and one of the cops had got bit earlier. Our two living leads manage to make it up to the roof get in the helicopter and take off. Knowing they are low on fuel and having no idea what will happen next.

I had first seen Night of the Living Dead in about 1980,thanks to an airing one Halloween night. Not sure how but I had learned there was a sequel. It took me a few years to find a copy for rent at a local video store. Thanks to Fangoria magazine I knew there was at least 2 cuts. What I found to rent was the US theatrical cut. During the late 90s I managed to get the Cannes cut on VHS. A local K-mart was closing and had it for 5 bucks. The Argento cut I didn't get to see until I got that Anchor Bay DVD set that had all three cuts.

The quality of the Extended Mall Hours cut on Youtube is pretty good. It lists that it can be viewed in 1080p,I watched it in 720p. You can tell when it goes to footage that isn't from the US theatrical cut cause the picture quality drops a bit. But never is the picture or sound horrible.

For a long time this was my favorite of Romero's Living Dead series of films. But as I got older I started to enjoy Night even more. Dawn is a close second.

Now that I have seen every cut that is out there. I still prefer the Cannes cut. But this extended Mall Hours cut is pretty damn good. Just the film runs a bit long.

Dawn of the Dead Extended Mall Hours Cut gets a B+.

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 16 Santo Contra los Zombies

 

TITLE-Santo Contra Los Zombies AKA Santo Vs the Zombies

SOURCE-Bootleg DVD

Back in 90 or 91 I discovered the Santo films. I caught half of one on a Spanish channel I could sometimes get on the antenna and was hooked. So maybe 4 years ago as a birthday gift a friend gave me a DVD,turned out to be a DVD-r,of Santo vs the Zombies. Did a bit of research and learned this is the 3rd of the Santo films,but the first to get a release in the USA.

Santo was a wrestling legend in Mexico. In 1958 Santo got talked into making 2 films in Cuba. These were both huge hits so a long line of Santo films followed.

In Santo vs the Zombies a crime spree is happening. And the cops discover through fingerprints that one of the people in these crimes is someone who has been dead for years. So they call in Santo to solve the case.

Now one drawback to the DVD I have is there is no English dub or subtitles. My Spanish skills are shit. I took Spanish for 2 years in High School and did ok. But after high school was over didn't use them for years and forgot all I learned. The little Spanish I know I either picked up from watching CMLL and AAA Lucha Libre for years and the bit I learned the 10 years I lived in Texas. So when I watched the movie I was lost a few times. But these Santo films are not hard to follow even when you can't understand what is being said.

Santo vs the Zombies came out in 1961,so I predates NOTLD. Which means the zombies in this are the voodoo kind not the flesh/brain eating kind we are use to now. Still the movie has a few creepy moments. And I had fun watching it.

Santo vs the Zombies gets a C.

King Kong 76 Dvd Showcase

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 15 The Giant Claw

 

TITLE-The Giant Claw

SOURCE-Mill Creek DVD

Years ago when I was a kid I saw pictures of the monster in various horror reference books. 

Look at that thing!! It looks stupid as fuck. But since the movie only got one release on VHS I never got a chance to see it as a kid. And I know it aired a few times on AMC and TCM over the years. But I never saw it. Then it was October 2008. I was doing home healthcare. Basically I would show up at 8pm 4 nights week.Help this 80 something year old WWII vet take a shower and get ready for bed. Then we would look through the TV channels to find a movie to watch as he dozed off to sleep. It was I think Friday night. He wanted "Something scary to watch." I turned the TV to Turner Classic Movies and The Giant Claw was about to start. In the movie once they showed the creature Mr Perkins started laughing. "That is one messed up looking turkey." We watched the movie and were laughing so much and so loud his wife came down to tell us "Keep it down I'm trying to sleep."

That year for Xmas I found the DVD set that had The Giant Claw,plus 3 other films directed by Sam Katzman. The smile on Mr Perkins face when he opened the package and saw "That messed up looking turkey!" made my day.

The film is your standard mid 50s era creature feature. You get the military vs our creature.And of course atomic energy is used to defeat this horrific creature.

There is no one in the cast I know from any other film. But they all do a good job.Ben H.Kline does an amazing job as the cinematographer. I doubt the budget was high on this. But it looks like it had a pile of money behind it.

One neat bit of trivia is that no one in the film knew what the creature looked like until the film hit theaters.And reports are when the film premiered the crowd would burst into laughter every time the Giant Claw appeared. Which makes sense cause it is one odd goofy looking monster.

So if you want something goofy to watch. Plus something you can watch with kids or others who aren't fans of gory horror,The Giant Claw is perfect.

The Giant Claw gets a B+.

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 14 Horror Hotel

 

TITLE-Horror Hotel AKA The City of the Dead

SOURCE-Cinema Insomnia on OSI 74 Streaming App

Pretty much every year for the past 10 years I've tried to watch a horror hosted film for 31 Days of Horror. Over the years I have covered the bigger known ones like Elvira and Svengoolie. And the lesser known ones like Kreepy Koffee Movie Time or Count Gore De Vol. One of the better known ones I haven't covered is Mr. Lobo of Cinema Insomnia. Cinema Insomnia started back in late July 2001. And as far as I know is still going on. I hear that Cinema Insomnia airs on various tv stations all over the US. But I have only ever watched it on either Vimeo or the OSI 74 app.

Mr. Lobo starts each episode off promising us a fairly well known horror film.But something always happens were that film can't be shown so we get a lesser known film. For this episode Mr Lobo says he is going to show us Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem. But nope we end up with Horror Hotel Aka City of the Dead.

Horror Hotel is in the public domain here in the States. So shouldn't be hard to find online or on many of the various streaming apps that are loaded up with PD films,tv shows and cartoons. Made back in 1960 this film was made by British filmmakers but is set in the US. With Christopher Lee being the best known member of the cast.

The film starts back in the 1690s. Set in Massachusetts we see a witch being burned at the stake.Before she died this witch and her helper have sold their souls to Lucifer. This way they get eternal life and revenge on the town that killed them. All they have to do is sacrifice two virgins a year. On Candlemas Eve & Witches' Sabbath.

Skip ahead to present day,well present day as of when the film was released. A college prof tells one of his students to goto the town from the prologue. This student goes and ends up being the sacrifice on Candlemas Eve.

A couple of weeks later the student's fiancee and her brother head to the same town. They get there seperately. With Bill the fiancee almost dying in a car wreck. This was caused by him seeing the ghostly image of the witch from the start of the film.

Bill and the brother make it to the town. Find out that a coven lead by the witch have taken control of the town. We find out the prof ,played by Christopher Lee

,is part of this coven. And appears to have been providing the town with the needed virginal scarifices two times a year. Our two heroes manage to stop the coven and break the pact with Lucifer.

The above cover is one I remember seeing many times in video stores back in the 80s. Not sure why I never rented it. Might have been because it was b/w. Back when I was a kid and early teen I wasn't much into b/w horror films.

I had forgotten about this movie.Then earlier this week I was driving to town. Listening to one of the many Misfits CDs I keep in my car. Their song Horror Hotel came on and while singing along with it I thought "Man I really need to see that movie". Looked around online and it was easy to find. With copies being on Youtube,Internet Archive and pretty much every streaming app that has "Free Horror movies". Seeing that it is public domain I figured it would be easy to find a version with a horror host. And I've been wanting to watch more Cinema Insomnia with MR Lobo. Looked on the OSI 74 streaming app and they had the episode with Horror Hotel.

You can tell after watching this movie that Rob Zombie was inspired by this when he made Lords Of Salem. But then Lords of Salem was pretty much Rob taking his favorite parts of various Euro Horror films and making that into a damn good movie.

Horror Hotel is a pretty entertaining film. It might feel a bit slow to people use to modern horror. But it has great atomosphere. And Christopher Lee is great in this.So if you want to watch an older horror flick. And don't want to spend any money go track down a copy of Horror Hotel.

Horror Hotel gets a B-.

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 13 Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost

 

TITLE-Scooby Doo and The Curse of the 13th Ghost

SOURCE-Warner Brothers DVD

Back in the fall of 1985 one of the odder and most fun Scooby Doo series started. 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo ran from early September until early December the same year. With only 13 episodes it is also AFAIK  the shortest of the many Scooby Doo tv series.

In this series you had Scooby,Shaggy,Daphne and Scrappy teaming up with Flim-Flam and Vincent Van Ghoul. If you think Scrappy Doo is hated by Scooby fans go ask any of them about Flim-Flam. Flim-Flam was a kid conman that got added to the gang. Vincent on the other hand was great. Voiced by the great Vincent Price. 

The basic plot was Scooby and Shaggy had opened up the Chest of Demons. Which releases  the 13 most terrifying and powerful ghosts and demons ever to walk the face of the Earth.  This of course happens in the first episode. And you would think well there are 13 ghosts and 13 episodes,they catch one per episode. Nope! One ghost was never caught. The series got cancelled,being replaced by re-runs of Scooby Doo's Laff Alympics.

Pretty much now if people talk about this series they are gonna mention how it was the first Scooby series where the ghosts and demons were real and not just people in costumes. And this was the last tv show to use Scrappy.

As a kid back when this aired I missed a few episodes. Then in the mid to late 90s caught it one weekend on Cartoon Network saw all 13 episodes and thought "Well this series is forgotten they will never wrap it up."

Then in late 2018 I hear that early the next year a DTV Scooby movie is coming out. Titled Scooby Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost. Which after over 3 decades would resolve this dangling plotline. At the time I figured I would catch the film on Cartoon Network.

Skip ahead to back in the spring of 2021.I was looking at the dvds at a local store. Saw the above pictured set. Which contains all 13 episodes of the tv cartoon plus the follow up DTV movie. And with it being 7 bucks I grabbed it. One lazy weekend I re-watched the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo and had a blast. Then this DVD set got put in a box and I kind of forgot about it until a week ago.

After a prologue where we see Vincent and his assistant Mortifer capturing all 13 ghosts and sealing them in the Chest of Demons it skips ahead to present day. The Scooby Gang is solving a mystery in a local mall. And get told by one of the local cops that with them turning 18 soon they run the risk of being arrested for criminal negligence.

The gang decide to break up. They hold a garage sale. Selling off everything including the Mystery Machine. Then in a box someone finds the crystal ball Vincent used to communicate with Scooby,Shaggy and Daphne. There is no Scrappy in this film and the one time he gets mentioned Fred and Velma act as if they have no clue who Scrappy is. Which is a nice inside joke for the long time Scooby  fans.Vincent contacts the gang and now Daphne,Shaggy and Scoob must explain to Fred and Velma what happened one summer while Fred and Velma were gone. And how there are real ghosts.

The gang meets up with Vincent and we find out Shaggy sent the Chest of Demons to the Himalayas. So the Scoobs head that way. We find out the last Ghost/Demon they must catch is Asmodeus. Who is one of the creepier looking and acting villains I have seen in Scooby.

I love how Fred feels left out cause Daphne takes charge in this adventure. And how Velma keeps trying to prove that there is no ghosts,demons and magic. Flim-Flam shows back up. Grown up and running a Chest of Demons inspired gift shop.

Asmodeus attacks Vincent in a castle. And thanks to Velma's ever spying eye she figures out that Asmodeus is another human in a costume. So yea really the 13th ghost isn't caught. But we get a nice wrap up. And it is left up to the viewer to decide if the ghosts are real or not.

Most of these DTV Scooby animated films are ok at best. This one I fucking loved. Being a sequel to one of my favorite Scooby tv series. And all the little inside jokes and references they have in this film had me laughing and shaking my head through the entire film.

Now of course Vincent Price is dead. So Maurice LaMarche does the voice. He sounds enough like Price to work. All the voices worked in this. The animation is pretty good. With a few scenes with Daphne's Misstery Machine being CGI and not looking that great.

For the cheap price and including the entire 13 Ghosts series I'm happy with this purchase.

Scooby Doo and The Curse of the 13th Ghost gets a B+.

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 12 Return to Return to Nuke'm High AKA Volume 2

 

TITLE- Return to Return to Nuke'EM High AKA Volume 2

SOURCE-Troma Blu Ray

Back in 2013 Troma released the first part of what is the 4th film in the Nuke'Em High franchise.  I got it as soon as it hit Blu ray and figured in a year or at most 2 years and the second part would hit home video.

It was 6 years. In 2019 Volume 2 hit home video. And by then I had kind of forgot about the film. Then this year back in the end of March a buddy of mine suddenly passed. Blade Braxton was the name most people knew him by. He was a huge Troma fan. And had been one of the Cretins in Return to Nuke'Em High. After seeing the first part I contacted him and got told "Ya most of my scenes will be in the second part." He passed all of the sudden and after getting over the shock of him dying at a young age,he was 45 or 46,I thought damn I need to see Volume 2. Went and saw that Amazon was sold out. But found a copy at Troma's website.

This film picks up right were volume 1 ended.Lauren is in the shower and like in the movie Carrie blood starts to run down her legs. Seems Lauren is pregnant. She got raped by a duck in volume one. After spraying blood and slime all over the shower. Which causes damage to some of the other girls in the shower,Lauren gives birth to a human/duck hybrid. That looks like a chicken nugget mixed with a duck.

Now this is a Troma film so the plot doesn't always make the most sense. The film is mostly about Lauren and her girlfriend,Chrissy trying to stop an evil corp from poisoning the word. This corp is ran by Lloyd Kaufman.

While I did enjoy this movie it does feel like there was at most 40 minutes leftover after volume 1. So Lloyd used stuff that was filmed years before,like the scenes with Lemmy from Motorhead as the President of the USA,and of course the Sgt Kabukiman NYPD car flip stunt is reused. Then there is a pile of new stuff filmed with Lloyd on very limited sets.

This isn't a film that will convert someone into a Troma fan. But if you already are this is one of the wildest Troma films in a long time. You got piles of nudity,male and female. Piles of gore and offensive material.

As far as Blade. Now I've only watched this movie twice now. And spotted him in 2 scenes. One of them he is on camera for a decent amount. The other it is a pause to find him moment. 

This Blu Ray has two discs. And the second disc includes a documentary on the making of the 2 volumes of Return to Nuke'Em High. This documentary is titled 2 Girls 1 Duck. And it is great. Troma makes movies on a low budget. Lots of the time with a crew that is either not getting any pay or getting paid very little. In this documentary there is a great scene of Blade on set. And you can tell he is having a blast. 

So if you are a Troma fan you should go out and get both volumes. If you want to see a decent documentary on the making of a low budget film get Volume 2 and watch 2 Girls 1 Duck.

Return to Return to Nuke'Em High aka Volume 2 gets a B+.

Splatter Farm Dvd Showcase

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 11 Tammy & the T-rex (GORE CUT)

 

TITLE-Tammy And the T-Rex(GORE CUT)

SOURCE-Shudder Streaming Service

While this movie came out at the tail end of 1994,I had never heard of it until sometime in 2010. Someone mentioned the film to me. They had seen it on USA years ago. I thought ok this sounds pretty dumb but I will give it a shot. Found a rip of the hard to find VHS on Youtube. Downloaded it and then it sat on a external HD. And I never watched it before that drive died.

Skip ahead to 2019 and I saw that Vinegar Syndrome had found the lost "GORE CUT" and was releasing it on Blu Ray. In most countries outside the USA this film got an R rating. But in the US it was cut down to PG 13 to attract a family audience. But the film bombed. And really would have been forgotten about. Except that it is early roles for both Denise Richards and Paul Walker.

Tammy's(Denise Richards) new boyfriend Michael (Paul Walker) ends up getting mauled by a lion and is in a coma. A local mad scientist wants to take Michael's brain and put it in this T-rex robot he has.

This T-rex robot,after Michael's brain is put in it,escapes and finds Tammy. She figures out it is Michael. And her and her best buddy try to find Michael a new body. The mad scientist comes after the T-Rex. The police get involved. T-Rex gets destroyed. 

Tammy saves Michael's brain. Hooks it up to speakers a video camera and a computer. And the film ends with Tammy doing a striptease for Michael's brain. Which causes the brain to shoot out sparks.

Sounds insane right? Well it is. But wow this was a flat out fun movie to watch. Add in that I watched it as part of Joe Bob's Valentine's Day special. 

Tammy and the T-Rex(GORE CUT) gets a C+.

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 10 Funny Games

 

TITLE-Funny Games (1997)

SOURCE-Bootleg DVD-R

Back the first year I did 31 years of horror here on the blog I covered the 2007 remake of this Michael Hanke film. At the time I had lost my bootleg of the original film. A few weeks ago I was going through a stack of unlabeled dvd-rs off a spindle. So figured today was the perfect time to cover this fairly contraversial film.

A family is headed to their vacation home. It is way out in the woods and on a nice lake. Once they get there we see them preparing a sailboat. And a knife gets dropped in the boat. The camera zooms in on this knife. Setting up something for later in the film.

While the husband is gone 2 young teenage boys come and knock on the door. They tell the wife they were sent by the neighbors to borrow a couple of eggs. These two boys start to act odd and the wife asks them to leave. They refuse. The husband returns and this is when the two teens take the family hostage.

Now this sounds like your standard home invasion movie. And in some ways it is. But Hanke also wanted to make a statement on how we movie viewers enjoy seeing violence as long as at the end the villains get what is coming to them. 

Through out the film one of the teens keeps talking to the camera and addressing the viewers. Like one scene where the son is killed. He mentions how the kid would normally survive in a film like this. Or the scene where the teens leave the house and the one says something along the lines of "We have to give them a chance to escape. That is what is expected." 

Then there is the most famous scene. The mother manages to get the gun the teens are using. She shoots one of the murderous teens. The other one grabs the VCR remote. Hits the rewind button and the film rewinds to back before the mother gets the gun. And this time she doesn't get the gun.

Near the end the two teens take the mother,the only hostage still alive. Tie her up and toss her into the sailboat. They are headed across the lake to the neighbors that were mentioned earlier in the film. The mother sees the knife that was dropped in the boat. It looks like she is gonna get the knife,free herself and kill the teens. But they stop her. Then toss her into the lake.

This is a film that either you love it or you hate it. I get why. Without giving our the movie viewers our cartharsis by having a survivor and the villains getting killed ,well that bothers most people. And Hanke has said he doesn't consider the film a horror movie. For me it is. It has all the tropes ,even if a lot of them got turned upside down,of a horror film.

As far as which is the better film,this one or the remake with Naomi Watts and Tim Roth? For me the original just works better. Something about it not being in English and having to read subtitles makes it feel more cold and cynical to me. 

Funny Games(1997) gets a A-.