Belated Birthday Wishes to The Klaus

Somehow I think Klaus would actually be happier that I forgot to mention his birthday yesterday. He never seems like the guy who would be up for warm and fuzzy birthday wishes.

Anyway, the irascible Eurotrash star would have been 84 years angry yesterday and like Beavis & Butt-head oh how I wish that Klaus had stuck around long enough to experience the internet, blogs and reality tv.

If you've got a lot of time on your hands and want to practice your German translation skills, here's a 1961 cover story on K2 from Der Spiegel.

If you're just looking for some great images of our man here's a link (NSFW) to some scans from Cine Girl.

Thanks to Holger Haase and Neil Vokes for the links.

Elvira's Going to Washington!

Nice to see Elvira back with a timely poke at a certain Senate candidate...

Adrien Brody Sues to Stop Release of GIALLO?

This was certainly one of the odder stories to pop up on-line the last few days. My initial reaction to the headline was, "Wow, is it that bad?" but it seems the suit is more driven by bad blood on the business side than any fears the film – or his performance – is worth suing over.

Frankly, I enjoyed this summer's PREDATORS and more than a few trusted sources have encouraged me to check out SPLICE. I was hoping that this was all leading to Brody having a healthy career in upscale schlock.

According to some on-line sources the flick is already on shelves in video stores (they still have those?) and it can be purchased from Amazon. I reckon that Brody's suit has probably drawn more attention to a film that would have quietly disappeared for all but us horror fans.

Have you seen GIALLO? What did you think?

ER receives a small referral commission for items purchased through Amazon links. Thanks for your support.

Vote for THG in the Mushroom Recipe Challenge

As some of you may know I'm not just a trash lover and unredeemable gorehound but I also love to cook. I recently entered some recipes in the Marx Foods Mushroom Recipe Challenge and I'm hoping you'll show us a little love. Simply click on the graphic below and vote for The Hungover Gourmet's 'Mini Morel Meatloafs'. Plus, after you vote you can enter a random drawing to win some fresh truffles. Thanks for your support!

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: House of Shock Spooky Tunes Comp

If you're like me your iPod is probably filled with spooky tunes year 'round, not just when it's socially acceptable to listen to stuff like horror film soundtracks and kitschy novelty tunes like "Dinner with Drac".

The biggest problem I have with Halloween music, though, is the availability. Tons of Christmas compilations seem to hit the shelves and download sites each year – even from bands like Los Straightjackets – while us horrorphiles have to dig through used vinyl bins in the hopes of finding a track here and there.

Luckily, there's stuff like HOUSE OF SHOCK. Not to be confused with the New Orleans haunted house or the side project from Go-Go's drummer Gina Shock, this free compilation features 24 haunted tracks that run the gamut from jazz and cha-cha to surf-inspired instrumentals and garage rock from the awesomely-named Little Tibia and the Fibulas.

The comp even tosses in some vintage radio spots like a bored-sounding Colonel Sanders imploring you to give away Kentucky Fried Chicken to trick or treaters!

This ghoulishly great collection is free but only available till Halloween, so get your copy now!

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: If It Had a Mind, You Could Reason With It

Remakes, remakes, remakes.

With all the hand-wringing and protestations going on with the release of LET ME IN – largely before anybody had seen a frame, mind you – you'd think remakes and "reimaginings" hadn't already been a large part of the Hollywood fright factory.

While I'm not crazy about the latest trend toward remaking stuff that came out when I was in my 20s – mostly because it makes me feel really old – I'll be the first to admit that a good remake, done right, in capable hands can be more than just a ton of fun.

Sometimes, it can even be better than the original.

Give me Carpenter's THE THING or Cronenberg's take on THE FLY any day. And some might consider it blasphemy but I'd probably rather watch Zack Snyder's DAWN OF THE DEAD than Romero's at least half the time. Maybe more.

But perhaps my favorite 80s remake of a dusty old "classic" has to be Chuck Russell's gooey, gloppy version of THE BLOB.

Russell, responsible for the highly entertaining third installment of the ELM STREET series, continues his winning ways with this excellent, inventive, gory, fun horror flick that holds fast to one of Joe Bob Briggs's all-important requirements: "Anybody can die at any time!!!"

Future ENTOURAGE scene-stealer Kevin Dillon stars as the town tough-guy, a leather-wearin', beer-drinkin', motorcycle-ridin', earring-sportin' rebel who inadvertently stumbles upon a drunk who's been "blobbed." This brings him into direct contact with Shawnee Smith (the preggo chick from SUMMER SCHOOL) and Donovan Leitch (son of 60s singer Donovan and brother of thespian Ione Skye). In an excellent twist Leitch, the nominal hero, gets blobbed and Dillon inexplicably gets blamed for the murder.

Soon, the blob is running, err, oozing rampant all over town, gobbling up everything in its path including a diner owner (Candy Clark) and the town sheriff. Dillon and Smith are forced to team up when government "medical experts" quarantine the town in an interesting and effective twist reminiscent of Romero's THE CRAZIES which lets the flick stay true to its roots while also verging into new territory to satisfy us conspiracy-minded viewers.

Eventually Smith and Dillon save the day, but not before we get some excellent deaths, great tough guy standoffs, a killer revision of the famous movie theatre scene, some brilliant acting from ER fav Art LeFleur (TRANCERS, ZONE TROOPERS) as Smith's dad, an appearance by the deceased Jack Nance and fantastic behind-the-scenes work from Dillon's hairdresser who keeps the star's flowing locks from looking mussed as he saves the world from the titular monster and various government baddies.

THE BLOB's $20 million budget is all visible on screen, although some of the matte work is pretty cheesy. However, the sum of the parts more than make up for a few minor gaffes, and the twist ending is effective instead of groanable. Way to go!

And to prove that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, THE BLOB is slated for what I can only assume will be a CGI-packed 21st century update. The much-maligned Rob Zombie had been attached to helm the flick but he has reportedly dropped out of the flick so he can direct the witchy LORDS OF SALEM.

Check out the trailer for the 1988 version below.

Freaky Friday Halloween Giveaway #1: HEAVY MENTAL on DVD

Want to win a copy of Troma's HEAVY MENTAL on DVD?

Just e-mail your mailing address to editor@dantenet.com and HEAVY MENTAL in the subject line before noon EST on Friday, October 8, 2010. We'll select one winner at random to receive a free copy of the DVD thanks to the fine folks at Troma.

Welcome to Detroit, home of the automobile, the assembly line, and heavy metal warfare! Ace Spade, a young metal head, gets his life turned upside down when he receives a guitar possessed by the spirit of rock god Eddie Lee Stryker, who was murdered by the beautiful and deadly crime boss Mrs. Delicious. After discovering that Delicious plans on blowing up the local Battle of the Bands, Stryker endows Ace with heavy metal powers and the ability to turn into a gigantic metal monster so he can shred Delicious and her minions to pieces! Full of action, comedy, gore, and killer music, HEAVY MENTAL is a metal masterpiece that takes no prisoners and goes all the way to 11!

If you don't win you can always pick up a copy at Amazon and look for a review coming to the pages of the Exploitation Retrospect website soon!

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: This Year, There Will Be No Leftovers

At times it's difficult to remember that Thanksgiving was originally intended as a way to celebrate something other than the start of the Christmas shopping season. The proclamation creating the holiday was delivered on this date in 1863 by President Lincoln (apparently taking a break from his duties as a vampire hunter) in a speech written by Secretary of State William Seward, who I assume is not related to Dr. John Steward of Stoker's Dracula fame.

As holidays go, Thanksgiving has always gotten short shrift when it comes to exploiting the horrific potential of the day. I suppose all that family gathering stuff is terrifying enough.

On the short list of turkey day terrors I'd like to see are 1981's HOME SWEET HOME which features an escaped mental patient making his way to a family's Thanksgiving celebration. Currently out of print, the flick commands big bucks for copies of the DVD and VHS releases. More promising is the 2009 low-budget flick THANKSKILLING which takes a more straightforward approach and features a homicidal turkey. Gobble, gobble, motherf*&%er, indeed.

Of course, no discussion of Thanksgiving horror is complete without a fresh look at Eli Roth's faux trailer for his slasher flick titled, duh, THANKSGIVING (included with GRINDHOUSE, finally bowing in its original form on BluRay on Tuesday, October 5). Though Roth has suggested that he'll go the MACHETE route and spin the gag into a full-length feature there's part of me that's just fine with the glorious three minutes shown below.



Are there any other gobble gobble gorefests I should be adding to my viewing list?

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Now You See Him, Now You Don't

I'm always up for a good reimagining of a classic monster.

Having grown up on the Universal Monsters of the 30s – first in the Abbott & Costello flicks and later in their standalone efforts – I was delighted when I discovered Hammer's groovier, sexier approach to Dracula courtesy of Doctor Shock and his Saturday afternoon 'Creature Double Feature'.

In the 80s cable and VHS gave me such fresh takes as HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP (oversexed versions of the Creature from the Black Lagoon), THE HOWLING and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (the Wolfman, obviously), and even a few twists on the Frankenstein tale like THE VINDICATOR and ROBO-COP.

One classic monster that nobody seems to be able to get right via modern storytelling is The Invisible Man. The usually reliable John Carpenter bungled the job with the schizo MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN while ROBO-COP director Paul Verhoven gave it a shot with HOLLOW MAN, a vapid, sometimes unseemly, cliche affair that unfortunately lives up to its ironic title.

Kevin Bacon stars as Sebastian Caine, a research scientist working on a government-funded program to render animals – and eventually people – invisible, and then make them, um, not invisible. As the film opens, the driven Caine has broken the barrier and discovers the formula for making a currently invisible subject, um, visible again.

Of course, we know he's driven because he's up late while the other researchers – namely Elizabeth Shue as Linda, his perky former lover and Josh Brolin as Matt, her current beau – are enjoying some post-coital sleep. Man, these must be some well-paid researchers – they all drive Porsches and Benzes and live in snazzy apartments in some of DC's tonier 'hoods.

Unfortunately, this is about as much character development as HOLLOW MAN gives us. We get some additional peeks at Sebastian's obvious drive (people call him "genius," he refers to himself as "God," and he spends an inordinate amount of time looking at tail when he should be doing other things), but the storyline is really there to serve one purpose and one purpose only: get us to the cool special effects sequences that were the (deserved) highlights of the trailers.

From here the flick follows a paint-by-numbers trail that won't surprise anybody that has seen more than a half-dozen mad scientist flicks: genius makes breakthrough, decides to further experiments by testing the serum on himself, madness and wacky hijinks ensue. And that would've been all fine, well and good had Verhoven kept the thing going on the thriller course and not let it veer so wildly off-track.

I'm more than willing to ignore plot holes that you can drive a truck through and I'm more than willing to accept a flick that establishes certain outlandish rules, but you have to play by them. Two of Verhoven's earlier films – ROBO-COP and SHOWGIRLS – are classics that I can watch over and over again, without pausing to question character motive. But, like in SHOWGIRLS, Verhoven lets a nasty side creep into the flick that isn't really necessary.

To its detriment, HOLLOW MAN turns into THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF HOLLOW MAN a bit too quickly and conveniently for my taste. Yes, the Sebastian Caine we meet pre-invisibility is a cocky, egotistical asshole, but he doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would be capable of rape, assault, and murder. And, since the film never suggests that the formula increases aggression or strength it's a little hard to buy into his almost-automatic slip into homicidal pervert!

Were that all that was wrong with HOLLOW MAN maybe I could give it a grudging recommendation. Too bad the idea of it even being high-brow escapism gets tossed out the window during the last 40 minutes as it sinks even further into the morass and becomes nothing more than a Z-grade slasher flick with name stars. Okay, well, Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Shue. And William Devane used to have a career!

The flick's "exciting conclusion" is a mind-numbing hodgepodge of clichés that Sean Cunningham, Tom Holland and Steve Miner would be embarrassed to trot out. Watch as Sebastian gets clobbered with a crowbar! See Elizabeth Shue torch his invisible ass with an industrial-strength flamethrower! Marvel as he continues to fight on despite being shocked silly by a buttload of power cables!

It's too bad this effects-laden but empty-headed "hi-tech thriller" couldn't deliver on the promise of its trailers and given The Invisible Man mythos a worthy rebirth. And though I doubt HOLLOW MAN II – with Christian Slater as an invisible government assassin who has, wait for it, "gone rogue" – is any more effective you can bet your booty that I just added it to my Netflix Instant View queue.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Wanna Rethink the Model T, Henry?

It's October 1st and regular readers of the ER blog know what that means.

It means I shake off whatever funk that has caused my posting to become erratic and I fully embrace the spirit of the season and post (or at least attempt to post) something Halloween and/or horror-related each day.

Though it's not always possible to relate the day's post to an actual historical event it's always nice when it does happen. Like today!

Little did Henry Ford know when he introduced the Model T back on October 1, 1908 that he'd be paving the way for an entire genre of "possessed vehicle" movies in which automobiles, hearses, trucks, etc. are controlled by an unseen force intent on killing people. From DUEL, CHRISTINE and THE CAR to MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, killer cars can be some scary – or not so scary – stuff.

I'm guessing that if Ford could have gotten an advance copy of 1986's THE WRAITH and seen what his invention was leading to he might have been happy to stick with the horse and buggy.

Packed to the gills with the mutant offspring and siblings of more famous (at the time, at least) Hollywood stars, THE WRAITH features Charlie Sheen as the mysterious "new kid on the block" who shows up in town after some poor kid gets offed by a gang of murderous car thieves led by one-time-B-movie-thug Nick Cassavettes. Why? Because the dopey kid was with the gal (a then-scorching hot Sherilyn Fenn) ol' Nick had his eyes on.

Cassavettes and his motley crew – which includes Griffin O'Neal and Clint Howard – have been laying waste to their desert town while the ineffectual and cliché-riddled Sheriff Loomis (Randy Quaid) barely lifts a finger.

One by one, Jake (Sheen) wipes out the gang by racing them, pulling away and then placing his killer Dodge M4S in their path. As the titular Wraith he can't die and the car continually regenerates so we repeat the cycle until Cassavettes is killed in a crash and the Wraith and Fenn's character ride off into the sunset.

Writer/Director Mike Marvin – who also wrote the classic HOT DOG: THE MOVIE and directed HAMBURGER: THE MOTION PICTURE – might have been in a little over-his-head on this non-fast-food-related epic. The flick fails to explain why this kid, of all people, gets a second chance. We never know why Fenn's character doesn't tell the cops she knew who killed her boyfriend, even though she admits to knowing at the end. We never find out why the kids never get caught, how they built this amazing chop-shop with all the latest equipment, or where the their parents are!

Oddly enough, Marvin would later use the Sheen character's name – Jake Kesey – as his alias on such follow-up directorial efforts as TREASURE, MADAM SAVANT and MAUI HEAT. He must have really identified with the character and perhaps was simply waiting for his career to regenerate after this disaster.

Sheen, whose career-making role in PLATOON was still a few months away, is hardly ever shown in character, making his top billing more of a mystery than the film ever delivers. And the car chases, which should have been the flick's saving grace – a la the delicious car porn that is THE FAST & THE FURIOUS franchise – are terminally dull affairs that all end the same way.

Frankly, only Cassavettes and Quaid save the flick from being a complete waste of time.
And before you give me any crap about THE WRAITH not being fodder for a seasonal post, please be aware that a wraith is defined as a "ghost, apparition or specter". So there.