August 1, 2006

WELCOME TO THE VAULT OF THE FORGOTTEN AND OBSCURE!!!

ALTHOUGH THESE OVERLOOKED FOOTNOTES OF MOVIEDOM HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE ANNULS OF FILM HISTORY, THEY STILL EXIST IN THE MEMORY OF OUR CINEMATIC SUBCONCIOUS!

THESE ARE THE FILMS YOU DONT REMEMBER THE NAMES OF, BUT ARE SURE YOU SAW THEM!

THESE ARE THE FILMS WHO’S TV SPOTS SCARED YOU WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD!

THESE ARE THE FILMS THAT WERE MADE IN A TIME WHEN MOST OF THE COUNTRY WAS COKED UP!

SOME ARE HITS. MOST ARE MISSES. BUT EVEN THE FAILURES ARE SO SPECTACULAR, THEY CANNOT BE DENIED!

DO YOU DARE ENTER THE VAULT OF THE FORGOTTEN AND OBSCURE??? READ ON, AT YOUR OWN PERIL! -JSYN.

8/06: Hey Jerks it’s me, Jsyn, creator of The Vault back in action!

Yeah, yeah I know it’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve been a little busy… MAKING movies now and I haven’t really had time to simply write about them. Especially the shitty ones you guys keep pestering me about. Honestly, I’m a Hollywood big shot now, I don’t have time for wise-ass reviews of Z-level bombs that are only relevant to a handful of celibate horror geeks with no lives.

Ugh, YES I see the irony in the fact that I AM sitting here writing wise-ass reviews of Z-level bombs that are relevant only to a handful of horror geeks with no lives.

At least I’m not celibate. I got a girlfriend… she, uh, lives in Canada, yeah so what?

(sigh)

We may as well flip the tracks on this train wreck, so here goes:

THE DEVIL’S RAIN (1976) d: Robert Fuest

…Woah woah woah woah woah… This is not my Batman cup… And there is a satanic horror movie from the Seventies starring Tom Skerrit, John Travolta, Bill Shatner and Ernie Borgnine that I haven’t seen until now? What the hell is wrong with me? How did this one fly under my radar for so long? I guess my head is totally up my ass! I watched this on cable the other night and it fucking ruled. There’s no point in explaining it because it was fucking crazy. I loved the end with the melty people and GoatBorgnine. Watch for the cameo by Anton LaVey. Yes, a real life Satanist in a satanic horror movie. Where the fuck is Criterion ’cause I got something for their “collection”? Go get this now.

FRIGHT FACT! Dig the special makeup effects by the legendary John Chambers (PLANET OF THE APES)! –jsyn. -8/06

5 DEAD ON THE CRIMSON CANVAS / MACHINES OF LOVE AND HATE (1996/2003) d: Joe Parda

Let’s get serious for a moment… the name of this column is “The Vault of Forgotten and Obscure” so I’m gonna get really obscure on your asses with these two picks.

5 DEAD is a love letter to Italian giallo films of the sixties and seventies. Giallo itself is a very specific subgenre that not everyone has a taste for, so if weird Italian slasher flicks aren’t your cup o’blood, move along. But those who are open-minded enough to seek this one out and appreciate what the filmmakers were going for will be pleasantly surprised. With all the hoopla around a “retro” horror flick like GRINDHOUSE where the filmmakers set out to recreate the experience of a period subgenre, it’s easy to see 5 DEAD get some belated and well-deserved recognition. Basically, two guys from Long Island made a 70’s Italian giallo movie in the 90’s… entirely on Long Island. Bravo!

Now MACHINES OF LOVE AND HATE on the other hand, is fucking trippy and frankly I’ve never seen anything like it. Here’s what it says on the box, “A mysterious hitchhiker, who can only remember nightmarish fragments of his past is picked up by a car driven by a beautiful, but deeply troubled young woman. He is whisked to her secluded home where he meets her strange parents. Here, in this dysfunctional house of horrors, will his past, present and future, intersect with supernatural phenomena, blasphemous resurrection and apocalyptic revelations.” Werd. Combining some disturbing elements, a little bit of an erotic thriller, maybe even a little bit of dysfunctional family drama in there, MACHINES is wholly original. Eileen Daly (RAZOR BLADE SMILE) and the ubersexy Tina Krause are reason enough to check this out, but there is much more here than just some cheesecake. These two flicks almost feel like they belong in another place and time. The closest I can compare the filmmaking style would be to that of David Lynch or Dante Tomaselli, and I mean that as a sincere compliment.

For those hungry for something radically different, raw and maybe even a little bizarre, seek these out and feel good about supporting truly independent visionary filmmakers. –jsyn. -8/06

RETURN TO OZ (1985) d: Walter Murch

Make fun all ya want, but if you haven’t seen it, umm…. shaddupa you face!

Bizarre, horrific, insane, wonderfully irreverent. I don’t know what that last one means but I saw it in a review of a Woody Allen movie. Picking right up where the original left off, Auntie Em thinks Dorothy is nuts so she drops her off at a Children’s Hospital for the Mentally Insane, where they actually perform shady procedures on children! Dorothy escapes and ends up back in Oz somehow to stop somebody from doing something to the Munchins or whoever. Don’t ask too many questions and just marvel at the sheer audacity of the studio (yeah, DISNEY) that greenlit this “sequel to the Wizard of Oz”. See, the 80’s were ALL about sequels. Remake Fever is definitely a post-Millenium thing. Ah, the good ‘ol days…

For those of you out there with actual living, breathing g-g-girlfriends (or the like), surprise ’em with this one night and get ready for some heavy petting!

FRIGHT FACT! This was Faruzia Balk’s (the hot wacko goth chick from THE CRAFT) first movie. Isn’t it weird watching a movie from the 80’s with a little girl that you know turned into a hot woman in the present? Deliciously weird! –jsyn. -8/06

BURNT OFFERINGS (1976) d: Dan Curtis

Ok, here is another absolute gem of Seventies horror which has gone mostly unnoticed by audiences today. If you were born before 1980, you might have seen this on WWOR or WPIX one lazy Sunday afternoon. A family moves into a big scary house to act as caretakers and nursemaids to the reclusive old hag that lives in the attic or some shit. That alone should have tipped them off, but hey, there’s a swimming pool! The Mom starts to take her duties a little too seriously and the Dad has visions of a ridonkulously creepy chauffer who wears his sunglasses at night. And the house seems to clean itself up after any unfortunate “accidents” occur. You wanna talk about star power? This one’s got Karen Black! Oliver Reed! Burgess Meredith! Bette freakin’ Davis! Great cast, and great stuff from the guy who made “Dark Shadows” and like a zillion other atmospheric genre pieces.

One of the coolest “the house is alive” movies ever, this is kinda like an amped up, adult version of MONSTER HOUSE. Close this window and head over to Amazon.com right quick, before Hollywood remakes it with some twat from One Tree Hill.

FRIGHT FACT! Bette Davis supposedly hated this film, the script, the director, the crew and told them off daily. I heard she was an old bitch anyway. –jsyn. -8/06

REFLECTIONS OF EVIL (2002) d: Damon Packard

Simply one of the greatest films ever made.

The term “genius” is thrown around much too freely these days. My friends, true genius comes from a place where precious few dare to tread. It comes from a place of utter obsession and passion, a place where the mainstream and the fringe are one and the same, a place where ideas and images flow together like thoughts. My dear friends, I give to you a film that has changed my life forever. I will never look at my art or my passion the same way again. I honestly think Mr. Packard is not of this Earth. He simply vibrates on a different frequency than most human beings. Is he our savior? Our Messiah? Only time will tell, but I will ask you this, my dear, dear friends… Do you have the inner strength to decide for yourselves? www.reflectionsofevil.com

FRIGHT FACT! I met Damon Packard before I knew who he was. Since watching REFLECTIONS OF EVIL, I have been working nonstop to tune myself onto different levels of consciousness in order to travel back in time to that fateful day with the knowledge I now possess. –jsyn. -8/06