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

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.

They Live

Indeed they do. Near Swansea

Another big favourite of the Gutterbox, They Live (1988) was directed by John Carpenter and is a mix of horror and science fiction with a hefty dollop of dark humour thrown in. This movie is a classic and needs your attention like yesterday. Obey.
Okay let me fill your wine glass and give you the intel. John Nada (Roddy Piper) is drifting through America looking for work but he finds more than a job on his travels when he chances upon a box of....wait for it...sunglasses! But these are not your usual Gucci goggles, oh no. These glasses allow the wearer to not just look cool but see aliens (who look human without them) and read subliminal messages on billboards and newspapers, where the naked eye sees only adverts and news. Gulp! Those pesky space hopping fiends have duped us again. Will they ever stop? Well they'll have a fight on their hands because Nada likes to "chew bubblegum and kick ass." And he's famously all out of gum.
The film is basically a comment on money, greed and consumerism with humans willing to become aliens in exchange for big job promotions and lots of loot. Kinda like a galatic pact with the devil. Nada and his buddy Frank (Keith David) want none of it however and are disgusted with how easily folk sell out their own kind. (By the way the fight the pair have in an alley at the beginning is one of the best movie scraps EVER. You can almost feel the pain.)


Consume

With the police gunning for them (literally), John & Frank end up in an underground base (complete with cool airport type teleports) and its here they see the big picture. E.T. is using us! Cue more guns, clever watches and a double cross by sultry eyed alien collaborator Meg Foster who kills big Frank. Nada almost gets offed too but wins Meg's heart with a sneaky bullet fired into it. Romantic guy! He then destroys a broadcasting antenna disguised as a satellite dish that is holding us humans under a cosmic spell and the games up for the skull faced critters. Its also the end for our Johnny when he is plugged by a baddie in a whirlybird. Boo! *flips bird to alien*
But now the American public can see the truth and it all ends in whoops and cheers. And some poor sap discovering he is actually doinking a female alien.
They Live is super fun and were this site going to hand out gold stars, it would award this movie a bag filled to the brim of the shiny f**kers. Such is the delicious taste of its retro sauce, I could probably watch it on loop. There is a definate creepy vibe throughout courtesy of both hidden messages and those big shiny eyes of the skulled ones which if were real would read your every thought leaving you helpless. Thats what I get from them anyway and it never fails to send a shiver down my spine.
Then of course theres Nada's cheesy one liners not to mention the fact that it stars the great George 'Buck' Flower, who seemed to be in every single film made in the 1980s. He has one of those faces you instantly recognise but are not sure where from. Sadly the actor died in 2004. RIP Buck!
So a huge thumbs up from the Gutterbox then, and if you haven't seen this movie yet (and a lot haven't) head on over to Netflix and right your wrong. You'll thank me later over beers.

Gutterbox rating