October 30, 2007

10/30/07: THE VAULT LATE SUMMER/ EARLY FALL EDITION

Hey Jerks,

Wanna know what sucks? I’ll tell ya… the weather here in Brooklyn. Most people think Brooklyn is part of New York, but it’s not. It’s actually part of Hell. I know this because the Good Lord would not allow such punishment of His children to go unnoticed. Al Gore was right; Ming the Merciless is sending our sun crashing into Earth, and the big “X” is squarely on the top of my building. There is no other explanation. For the past, I don’t know… ten months or so, Brooklyn has been a hot, humid, stinky, sweaty, smelly, stifling mess. I am a very temperature sensitive person and when my eyelids stick together because of the swamp that once was my neighborhood; I can only seek solace in extreme air-conditioning which those Republicans at ConEd have been more than happy to provide at a butt-raping rate.

But there is hope. There is something to look forward to. Yes, the cool, breezy, wonderfully fragrant autumn air which is precursor to winter’s icy chill. It’s almost hoodie season and I for one, could not be happier. Fuck you summer. Get the Hell outta here with your heat and sun and sweaty stinky people all over the place. Although I will miss your wonderful bra-less boobies under skimpy t-shirts and tanned, leggy, tattooed art school co-ed’s with the shorty shorts and cute haircuts.

That being said, the summer was not wasted (truthfully it was but that’s another story) as I delved even deeper into my beloved Vault, plucking the dingle berries of cinema from the damp, sweaty, stinky nether regions of moviedom all for your reading pleasure.

THE OUTING (aka THE LAMP) / 1987/ d: Tom Daley

Way before the Wishmaster was the Djinn, the first evil genie in a bottle. A group of teenagers whose looks betray their age sneak into a Museum after-hours to eat snacks and get laid. Cool! Points for originality right there because who even thinks to do that kind of thing? They fuck around, somebody rubs an evil magic lamp and you know the rest. For real though, this movie is a true lost gem. Really good story, direction, performances and some great production design from Bob Burns of TEXAS CHAINSAW fame. I also really dug the makeup FX work and the Djiin design was fucking awesome. The way the FX team handled the physical genie smoke effects was pretty cool. This is way above average across the board compared to most horror movies made at that time and I strongly recommend hunting it down on eBay or at the next horror convention. I’d even push for a sweet Special Edition DVD if anybody reading happens to have the time, money and inclination. My one gripe is that the producers should have stuck with THE LAMP because “THE OUTING” is a suck-ass title that sounds like something your drunk, 43 year old “bachelor” uncle would do at Thanksgiving dinner.

THE DARK /1979/ d: John “Bud” Cardos

The always fucking awesome William Devane takes on a zombie serial killer from space that can shoot lasers out of his eyes and has like, psychokinetic type powers and whatnot. I gotta say this one has its moments and is rather entertaining. I think I like it as much as I like C.H.U.D. which is saying a lot. Supposedly Tobe Hooper was replaced as director at the last minute with Cardos jumping on board. Interesting. I seem to remember another film that Hooper was also supposed to “direct”, something about ghosts and a little girl being sucked into a TV. Or something. Anyway, if you scoot down to your local Best Buy you can pick up this movie in a three-pack along with THE BEING and some other movie I can’t remember for like 15 bucks. Devane is worth 15 bucks ALONE buddy boy, so you got yourself a real bargain right there.

NIGHT LIFE /1989/ d: David Acomba

A lost zombie movie starring Scott Grimes as a nerd who is picked on by preppie douche bags who all die in an accident and later come back as zombies because of a lightning strike and bother him some more. I stress the words “lost zombie movie” because I’m not sure it will ever be found…or should. The zombie pics I remember from an old issue of Fango looked pretty neat, so maybe its worth checking out just for that. Lemme know how you make out…

THE POWER /1984/ d: Stephen Carpenter and Jeffery Obrow

All I remember about this one is the title. Never saw it, don’t know anything about it except the synopsis on imdb. If anyone out there has seen it, write me and I’ll update this listing, stealing all the credit for myself. Ha! No seriously, if it means that much to you, by all means claim the bragging rights to remembering some utterly forgettable dung bomb from the Eighties and then taking the time to write about it for our uber-geeky website so all our ubergeek readers (all seventeen of ‘em) can appreciate it. Be sure to include your full name and email address so I can make sure I got all the info right for the byline. Nerd!

(Editors note: we have more than seventeen readers.)

SILENT RAGE /1982/ d: Michael Miller

The closest we’ll come to seeing Chuck Norris vs. Jason Voorhees. Well maybe not exactly in the literal sense of Chuck fighting an undead killing machine hell bent on revenge for the death of his Mom and I guess to an extent himself; more like Chuck vs. a human test subject being tinkered with by unscrupulous scientists who enabled this bipedal guinea pig to instantly regenerate injuries. Thus being the perfect foil for the ass-whompin Chuckster in his “moustache of death” heyday. The first 20 minutes or so are really great, shot like a horror movie with said indestructible loony going berserk with an axe in his boarding house. Things start to fall apart slightly when the sci-fi nonsense kicks in, but the fight scenes later make up for it. There is some futile attempt at sidekick humor by “you’ll know him when you see him” actor Stephen Furst, as well as some painfully ham-handed attempts to bring out Norris’ inner sex symbol. Yikes! Awwk-ward! Also starring the only man in the world more evil than the Evil Barnick… the dastardly RON SILVER! This one is always good for a chuckle, a chortle or a snicker. -Jsyn 10/07