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

Ozombie

He wasn't dead afterall *shocker*

£5. You don't get much for a fiver these days and what you do get (in the way of entertainment) can pretty much be guaranteed garbage unless its an old classic. (Check out the prices of a new Playstation 3 triple A title to see what I mean.) Long gone are the days of Chinese takeaway, a four pack and an evening on the tiles. If you happen to be stuck indoors with a fiver, you are limited to the oodles of fun you can have without renting from Blockys or Netflix.
Luckily for you cheap horror films like Ozombie exist. Believe me, mucho fun can be had for just five of your British pounds as long as you don't take your fun so seriously.
Ozombie. This movie looked such a perfect title for the Gutterbox. The bloodthirsty undead. Sexy women. Loud guns and cheesy one liners. Hell count us in! Just add alcohol and its a sure fire hit. Or is it? Well it would have been if only certain things had been erased. Some pointers: weedy boy band lookalikes are never a good idea in horror films. They end up looking like tone deaf X Factor rejects, scrambling around looking for mummy. (And incidentally when filmed in slow motion, bitch slapping mannequins just end up looking like an episode of Jackass on rewind.)
Oh and female hard asses. Either hire Leila Ali and do that shit proper or dont. Avoid booking some bubble haired tease who looks about as threatening as Minnie the Minx. Oh and steer clear of attempting Terminator type killer lines. Hmmm...what was it again? "Hey Bum Face!" (True line taken from Ozombie.) Yes that ought to send the baddies screaming for them thar hills.




Touch! Ozombie's on it! Ruuuuun!

Anyhoo you wanna hear the story? Its wafer ham thin but here goes: Dusty is on a desperate mission to save her brother Derek, a lad convinced Osama bin Laden is alive, nevermind the whole buried at sea lark. Over in Afghanistan, Dusty meets a gang of special forces on a hush hush mission (aint they all?) And whaddya know? Derek is not so crazy, and Bin Laden has returned the grave. Shit! Not only that but he's creating a zombie terrorist army. Double shit!
Guess what happens? You're ahead of me right? Yup the soldiery macho gang, crash into the middle of the apocalypse and must battle their comical asses out of the undead infestation.
Now I like zombie flicks. I FKING LOVE 'EM! But Ozombie is dead from the start. Its worse than dead, its slopping out as the disc spins while your cellmate sizes up that cute ass of yours. I went from wondering if this was a boy band video gone down a bad alley, or a MTV dress rehearsal. Its craaaap in other words, bereft of any cool ideas whatsoever. Of course the Gutterbox know only too well what happened here. After a few too many bourbons at the movie lot, some guy primed on scotch fumes pitched a 'real rad idea' about a pissed off Osama wanting to kick Western ass in revenge for his inglororious end. "Make him a f**king ZOMBIE!" Said film man. "Everyone loves zombies, look at The Walking Dead. It will rock!" And the nodding heads (none too wiser from the same bourbon) gave Ozombie a green light. Lucky us eh? Wheres that fly swatter?
Let Gutterbox put you lovely readers right here: as we've already said, you don't have much options on what to waste a fiver on but quite frankly you'd have more fun lighting the note and watching money burn than buy this dvd. Unless you really love zombies, and we mean really REALLY love zombies, like having zombie pyjamas and zombie flavoured toothpaste (hmmm idea there), Ozombie isn't much fun. Or much good. Or isn't much anything.

Gutterbox rating

Ghoulies II

Scream until you like it

Ghoulies (1985) is a rarity in movies in that the sequel is actually better than the original. Its more fun and 'in yer face' making the first one rather dull in comparison. All that seems to happen in Ghoulies is a a guy and his squeeze move into an old creepy looking mansion (aren't they all creepy?) and he gets into witchcraft and the 'dark arts', bringing demons to the place. The fool. And you know what? Its not much more than that. No chilling atmosphere, or gory deaths, it is the ready salted to the sequels salt and vinegar.
Ghoulies II (1988) on the other hand, is a good outing and was accompanied by a banging "Scream Until You Like It" theme song by metal band W.A.S.P. Its everything the original wasn't and you could be forgiven for thinking they are not even part of the same 'series'. The second movie rocks (and not just because of W.A.S.P.) hell it even has a Shakespeare quoting dwarf called Sir Nigel Penneyweight who looks like Lionel Ritchies mad (shorter) twin and a tanked up Royal Dano. (Theres another actor who like George 'Buck' Flower, seemed to be in every movie of the 1980s.)
The story is simple: the ghoulies hide in "Satan's Den", part of a travelling circus and fortunes are about to change for the struggling attraction when the fiendish demons begin killing off its customers (customers who initially believed the monsters were part of the act.) So its up to uncle Ned (Dano), his nephew and Sir Nigel to put a stop to the bloody shenanigans and a roaring little romp it is too. If you haven't seen it yet (where have you been?) then I suggest you head on over to Youtube where some kind soul has uploaded it in handy 10 minute parts.
Don't be suprised if you find yourself rooting for the beasties either. This film, much like Critters which was released around the same time, is one of those horror films where the audience gets taken in by the 'charm' of the baddies. For instance in a scene at the fairground where a Ghoulie pulls the bolt out of a ride which sees the unfortunate occupants hurtling to their deaths, I found myself punching the air and laughing like a drain. (And I know others have too so it wasn't down to my macabre sense of humour.)
Just avoid the first film, theres nothing worth punching there apart from yourself if you spent money buying it.



Bang that head

Retro Evening

Im 41 today, and now that birthdays are coming sooner because with age the years get shorter, I thought it good to watch the movies that were released when I was 14, my age today with the kindest number first. Years seemed longer back then, much much longer.

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