Evil Dead 2013

Im with you Ash.

Just watched the Evil Dead remake (2013) directed by Fede Alvarez and oh woes, just as I expected it was nothing to write home about (or even bother going to buy a stamp.) Even watching for free I felt cheated, so seriously, do not get excited about slapping that £5 Morrisons DVD into the player. The original has not been bested, not by a long shot. And I was one of those pumped at the time by those excellent trailers. In the words of the interwebs; I iz disappoint.
So what was different? Well this time the five chums head out to the famous spooky, remote cabin to help a friend withdraw from drugs (and admittedly I liked this idea) but besides that nothing changes. At all. The dopes (pun intended) discover the awesomely titled "Book Of The Dead", end up summoning mad demons from a properly f**ked up universe and its evil spirit possession a-go-go! The fight for survival is on baby!
Now don't get me wrong, it IS a gore filled jamboree, that I will grant thee, any vampire watching will be in raptures over the lashings of human claret spilled but other than that (and to be fair, some aren't looking for more) this remake isn't a patch on the original. In fact the full on turbo gore gets a tad tedious by the end because its used so much. "Oh, theres another severed limb scene? Ho hum, pass the cider." By the finale all those falling guts and innards only serve to make the viewer feel bloated and fed up, and you can forget any hopes of getting freaked out like you were in the original (and you were admit it), it just ain't happening in the 2013 version. By the end, the more the chainsaw screams, the more I was belching out the yawnage. "More blood sir?" "No thanks Jeeves, pass the Watership Down."
Oh and the female 'Ash'? Weak man, no more a boomstick than a tickling stick.

Gutterbox rating

Cabin In The Woods

The Gutterbox doesn't usually cover mainstream movies but after watching "Cabin In The Woods" recently and being a tad impressed by it, it deserves a quick mention. This is a chunky funky film which reminded me of "Evil Dead" dropped into the grinder with a touch of "Saw" and a smidgen of "Fear No Evil". To be honest I wasn't expecting much but quickly got into it. There are not many modern horror flicks worth a second glance, afterall its all been done before, how many new bloody deaths can one dream up without repeating oneself? Also directors are dealing with a largely desensitised audience, it can't be easy revving those eager, bloodthirsty pulses.

Sharktopus

Mexico beware

Eric Roberts has had better gigs I can assure you. And yes, that even includes DOA: Dead or Alive. Poor guy must have had an unexpected elecricity bill to pay or something because its the only reason I can think why anyone would willingly be involved in Sharktopus. Hey theres no shame, we've all had to do it at some point (okay perhaps not feature in rubbish B-movies but you know what I mean.) GutterBox had high hopes for this movie too, its a sucker for 'creature features' but alas there is little of either here. Turn back folks! It is disappoint.
So what gives? The good ol' U.S. Navy goes hunting for a new weapon and when a group ('Blue Water') create a half-octopus, half-shark beast, the Navy decides this nightmarish hybrid would be perfect. Submarines? They are SOOO 1980's. Far better (certainly cooler) to have the love-child of Jaws and the Kraken on the team and unleash THAT onto the enemy. S-11 (codename) is the pet of a mad professor from a videogame and its got to be said he (or she) does look pretty neat. I mean you wouldn't want one swimming off the Pembrokeshire Coast or anything but S-11 is definately the stuff of horror films. Shame this one makes him look rubbish.
Basically Sharktopus is a t!t parade with a rubber shark monstrosity poking its head in and out of cleavage every so often.
You can guess what happens right? Yup, Sharktopus escapes and is soon snacking on a smörgåsbord of beach worshippers. MMmm! Lovely! Pass the sauce tartare. And suddenly its up to a reporter, her cameraman (nice tatts by the way) and a mercenary to slay the beast. Seems the U.S. Navy are kinda woosie when it comes to clearing up their own mess.


Jaws gets owned

Gutterbox rating

Zombie Attack

Museum Of Zombies?

See where it says Zombie Attack on the dvd cover? Well it ignore it because according to the menu screen this movie is called Museum Of The Dead. And before you think ive drunkenly mixed up my films, no siree! It has the words Zombie Attack slapped on the disc in sickly yellow. Splendid! Before we even begin, we don't know what the actual movie is called. How about we jumble it up a little: Zombie Attacks In The Museum Of The Dead? Dead Museums Attacks Zombies? To be honest you could call it Zombie Does Dallas, it makes no difference because the pulse to this movie has truly left the building. Or museum.
So what gives? American students decide to spend Halloween in a museum that is exhibiting skulls and ancient relics. Oh and its haunted by psychotic, painted warriors in grass skirts and 'zombies' with torches for eyeballs. Where they came from, or why they are prowling around a Californian museum (I assume its Cali) we are never really told, only that some bad guy called "Boli" decided it would be sorta fun.
Seriously this is one of those movies that feels like it was knocked up as the cameras rolled. No story or script, just make shit up as we go along! "I know! Lets have two idiot women wander around a maze-like museum and have them act really stinky when something nasty pops up!" Yup, its exactly as if the director thought this.
Now usually in movies this awful there are funny scenes (albeit unintentional) but Zombie WhateverItsCalled has none which was disappointing because I needed something to keep me watching. (Why do you think those pints of cider always appear in the photographs? Those aren't props man, they're medicinal.)


Don't look into its eyes!
It has the stare of 1000 Miseries.

To cut a long story (what story?) short, Zombie Attack is a f**king shambles of a horror movie, (or any type of damned movie) and ive watched gentle, summer clouds pass over with more sense of panic than this painful abomination. Think of the time you made your first catapult as a youngster. There you stood, clutching a new weapon, feeling all badass and plotting the first rabbit kill on a hunt. You were going to lay waste to all but all you ever hit were empty baked bean tins. This is what this movie must have been like for its makers. An abysmal failure.

Gutterbox rating

EvilBreed: Legend of Samhain

Breasts roam these woods

There ought to be warnings on certain movies: "Caution this film contains porn actors, as a result this dvd has a strong probability of being garbage". Then again when delving into the bargain bin of a cheapo shop , one mustn't expect Citizen Kane. Or even Citizen Wolfy (fans of 70s British television will understand.)
Now lets be clear here, Gutterbox is not saying porno stars in films are a bad thing. Oh no quite the contrary, watching the gorgeous Ginger Lynn Allen adopt an 'Irish' accent and call herself Pandora is a good thing in a pervy kinda way and gets a thumbs up from this site. And having Jenna Jameson's famous tittyfallays plastered over the dvd cover is a welcome sight indeed. They are a thing of beauty indeed! The pair of 'em.
Its just that....well acting is not their strong point. (Although I could argue that horror movies are not 'serious cinema' and therefore porno actors suit the genre perfectly but anyway *shrugs*)
EvilBreed sets out its cheapo stall early on with a coastal flyover that is the opening credits. Come on director chappy! This was nicked off an old British tourism advert right? I half expected Leonard Rossiter to walk into shot carrying a bottle of Martini. Its possibly one of the most weird starts to a horror film ever, and ruins any creepy vibe that should be there in its place. But I should have known, especially when just a few screens later we witness a woman in obvious distress being swallowed alive by what appears to be quicksand, and her 'boinking pardner' asking, "Amy, are you okay?" Erm...drowning in quicksand is fun?
Possibly more fun than this movie.

Fer Crissakes stick to the path!




Best enema EVER

EvilBreed sort of admits its rubbish when one of the students comments that all bad slasher movies star sex hungry teenagers and virgin heroes but I got the feeling it was being serious. "Yes we know other films are bad but we are aware of how bad thus making us cool". Thats the vibe I got from it. And it IS bad folks, trust me when a dvd is paused as much as this just to grab daft photographs to post on Twitter then the director has f**ked up. Yup its boring.
There was one hilarious bit though. When Jenna Jameson's character gets nabbed by the monster who after gutting her, reaches under her breast bone and yanks out a bag of silicone which he tries to eat. The WTF look on his mug is priceless and if he was a descendant creature of Sawney Beane (an old Scottish cannibal) then he must have wondered what humans had done to themselves in 500 years.
So anywhoo a quick synopsis: troubled teens go to Ireland with well meaning adult. Troubled teens ignore local traditions/folklore and get murdered in suitable grisly fashion by man in a costume made up of teeth and boils. The End. Its pretty much textbook horror by numbers and the only thing missing is a killer with a stoopid name and even stoopider costume (see my Killjoy review elsewhere on this site.)
I was really hoping for another addition to the Gutterbox Quid Club with EvilBreed because its been a while since we had a decent cheesy slasher-fest to put on the shelf, but alas where it qualified on the fact it only cost £1 from Poundland, it utterly FAILED on the So-Bad-Its-Great side of things. Would I recommend it? Only if you are Jenna Jameson or Ginger Lynn Allen's number one fans and had to buy ALL of their movies.

Gutterbox rating

Days Of Wine and Roses

Classic

Hitchcock's Vertigo has knocked Citizen Kane off the top "Best Films Of All Time" spot. Both great films but the Gutterbox greatest movie of all time is Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Directed by Blake Edwards (from a screenplay by JP Miller) and starring a brilliant Jack Lemmon alongside an utterly convincing (and beautiful) Lee Remick, it tells the story of an alcoholic couple who once hooked on the demon drink, find their lives falling from the blissful heights of happy families into the dirty and chaotic trenches of addiction.
I first saw Days Of Wine and Roses when I was surfing the movie channel late at night a few years ago and I almost (through tiredness) turned it off. Suffice to say im very glad I didn't press the red button. The film is brilliant! And the fact its black and white is wonderful too because it seems to highlight the fact that the subject matter (alcoholism) only ever has light and darkness, in that there is seldom any real choices with the disease.
If you haven't yet seen this movie, I strongly suggest you do so, I cannot recommend it highly enough. The script, the sublime acting, the stark snapshots of desperation, Days Of Wine and Roses is just BRILLIANT.

Gutterbox Rating

Broads Beneath the Light

Sizzle sizzle!

Inbetween checking out cult movies (and the plain old bad of course), Gutterbox will be tipping its glass to some of the sexiest women that have appeared in movies of 'ye olde'. But rather than follow the oft trodden path of the Winona Ryders and Molly Ringwolds, this site will feature the lesser known beauties. Like the gorgeous Joy Boushel (above) for instance.
When I first saw her being picked up in a bar by a rubbery looking Jeff Goldblum in The Fly (1986), I was smitten. Lust at first sight, and way way hotter than Geena Davis. Look at that photo up there. Look how seductive she looks, with drag-me-to-bed eyes and legs akimbo just waiting for your face to kiss the sunset that is her toned, sweaty stomach. Joy Boushel in this film is pure sex kitten.
Sadly she didnt hang around the acting lark for long and after roles in Look Who's Talking, Humongous (below) and Terror Train (among a few others) she went off radar for good.


Joy indeed!

Killjoy 2

Killjoy? He really is

So here we have Killjoy 2: Deliverance from Evil (2002), another movie (directed by Tammi Sutton) that I found for £1 in a discount store. Now as regualr readers of the Gutterbox will know, I have a 'Quid Club' which is just what it says on the tin: films I have spotted in shops that have only cost £1. But price alone doesn't automatically qualify movies for the 'Quid Club'. Oh no, they have to be entertaining too. They don't have to be necessarily good, these titles are allowed to be bad just as long as they are worth watching at least twice. You know, flicks so bad they're good type.
So does Killjoy 2 make the cut? Only if you can justify spending £1 just to see the funniest looking horror baddie this side of a LSD trip in a Nickolodeon nightnmare. Oh Killjoy! For a demon summoned up by black magic, this guy looks about as menacing as Dora the Explorer. Sporting a ludicrous wig, a red nose that looks more like a cold sore and daft oversized shoes (I know its a clown but still), if Killjoy were to suddenly appear before me on a walk home from the pub, im afraid Id be emptying my bladder on the spot. And it would have nothing to do with the beer. Just PMSL. Michael Myers he is NOT. He's more like Michael Moore but less threatening.
The movie opens with two cops (one the token female, the other the token badass) taking a group of gangbangers to a run down building so that they can renovate it as part of their community service. Of course this being a cheap horror flick, they encounter engine trouble on a desolate highway out in the sticks and end up stranded in the woods. So the guys leave the women in the van (naturally) and head off to find help.


Scary? Or plain rubbish? You decide.

Do you think they find it? Not on yer popcorn! Instead they find a static carvan but one thug gets plugged by the crazed woman owner who in turn gets a shot of lead to the head from Mr Badass Cop. To protect and serve! Cop wanders off looking for a phone, while the two healthy criminals carry their bleeding comrade back to the women in the van. You would think with all that training the female police officer would now take charge but instead what does she do? She hands her gun over to one of the hoodlums and allows him to take control. Good thinking lady! He leads the gang to yet another deserted place and they are welcomed inside by a voodoo witch with large breasts. It is here the legend of Killjoy is revealed but of course its met with disbelieving snorts. That is until the psychotic clown appears before them at individual stages and rehabilitates the young offenders. Permanantly. The first murder is particularly bizarre/funny as Killjoy lobs his dentures at a woman hiding in an outside toilet and she proceeds to get bitten to death (although its never shown in grisly detail). Another slashes his face to ribbons under the demons dastardly spell but in the end clowny is defeated by the person who had seemed the weakest during the entire movie, when she she melts his funny face with what looks like plain water. Oh and Mr Badass Cop returns shortly before the credits roll with a big shotgun as if to prove his bad assery. Why we never really discover only that he's useless with shotguns.
Killjoy 2 suffers from a few things but what hurts it most is the fact that A) the acting is God awful, and B) it feels like its been stitched together like its a series of sketches filmed by students after a night on the beer. And it oozes cheap. If the makers spent more than $100 making this they were fools to themselves. The 'star' of the show, Killjoy is a laughable character with no menace whatsoever and what makes it more pathetic is whoever played him probably genuinely felt he was creating a cinematic monster as evil as Jason Voorhees. Laughs Out Loud. Terrible film and so the Gutterbox Quid Club will have to wait for another cool member to join its gang. By the way I have never seen Killjoy 1 so there is mercy.


Gutterbox rating

Piranha

You never know when the nibbles may strike

Jaws only smaller, Piranha (1978) is a B movie that was directed by Joe Dante and like you have probably guessed, is about pesky carnivorous fish. (This film did for piranha what big J did for great whites). It wasn't the first horror I ever saw but its certainly one of the first five. And you know what? I like it! It has nice gory touches and has that 'small town Americana charm' like other old movies ive mentioned elsewhere on the Gutterbox. Its been remade twice, one in 1995 and more recently in 2010 in 3D and I must check them out sometime, though I highly doubt they are as good as the original.** Anyway, back to 1978.
Piranha starts with two teenagers skinny dipping in a deserted (they think) swimming pool, little knowing that the previous inhabitants of the pool were fish that love flesh. And the Army had been messing around with the piranha (they can't leave anything alone in B movies) with Operation Razortooth, making this fish even more ravenous. Uh oh. Notch up two dead teens and an insurance investigator named Maggie on the case to find out how they perished. (Bit of advice Mags, teens always die in horror films). She teams up with boozer Grogan and they end up draining the pool, letting loose hundreds of hungry piranha into the rivers. Oops! Enter a yelling Doctor Hoak who informs them of the mega boob they've just made. (The doc was in charge of the military operation).


He's feeling peckish

So off they go, saving children in summer camp and bugging the military to get the river system closed down which seems only fair as its their fault in the first place. A few scenes stand out for me: the part where Grogan drags his fishing chum from the rivers edge and we see his legs chewed down to the bone and the raft ride where pirahna attack and nibble on the ropes holding it together. Minor scenes in the great scheme of film granted but they stuck in my head all the same.
Piranha ends with a news repoter telling her viewers that theres nothing to fear because the waters have been cleared of hungry fish with sharp teeth but as she utters the words, we hear the ominous sound of the finny fiends making their way to the ocean. Presumably to keep Jaws company.

Check out the original trailer below


You can probably pick this movie up for pennies these days and Gutterbox recommends you do because while not being a classic in the usual sense of the word, it is a little gem to chill out with a few drinks. Also look out for the little creature dude at the beginning who peeps out from behind a few jars on a shelf in the army compound. I want one of those for a pet! Although he/she looks more like something from Star Wars than a horror flick.
Bit of trivia: Dr Hoak is played by Kevin McCarthy who appeared in over 200 films/television but will be remembered best for 1956's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Gutterbox rating


** I watched Pirahna 3D last night and can confirm that it is garbage. Yes it has an abundance of near naked hotties and gyrating asses (by the way Kelly Brook is not as pretty in motion as she is in photographs) but even that cannot save this turgid mess of a film. Flush immediately down toilet.


Jawsome? No it really isn't.