5/25/14: Those Belmont Avenue Blues

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apartment-living, B-movies, bad cops, bad films, bad movies, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, David Pasquesi, film reviews, films, Hezekiah Confab, horror-comedies, independent films, indie comedies, John LaFlamboy, Justin DiGiacomo, landlords, low-budget films, Mary Seibel, Mike Bradecich, missing pets, Movies, obnoxious cops, Police Academy, Robert Englund, slumlords, terrible films, The Mole Man of Belmont Avenue, Tim Kazurinsky, writer-director-actor, X-Zanthia

There’s a fine art to making a “good” bad film, almost a recipe, if you will. You need to begin with tons of energy: lack-luster, anemic B-movies are more commonly known as “terrible films” and you’ll very rarely find any cults dedicated to them. You need a really crazy idea, something that you just wouldn’t find in a movie with more…I dunno…taste? If you’re Troma, you might do something like zombie chickens at a fried chicken place that turn people into other zombies…or you could get really weird. Perhaps this is just me but a “good” bad film really needs to be stuffed to burstin’ with outrageously bad taste: the more offensive, the merrier. Troma, again, seems to get this right more often than not, although there’s still only so many squished heads, dead baby jokes and vomit that one person can take. Another great way to make a “good” bad film is to fill it with songs. Nothing helps a rough film go down a little easier than a few choice, hilarious, original songs. I’m probably in the minority of people who actually liked Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) in toto but I like to think that almost anyone could have found at least a song or two to hum on their way out of the theater.

There are all kinds of ways to make a bad film “good” but there’s one common thread to all of them: despite how craptacular the film ends up being, there has to be at least one (preferably more but let’s be generous) aspect to it that is genuinely enjoyable. Otherwise, you’re just left with an amateurish, silly, disposable production, rather than the bad films that become truly legendary, like Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) or Troll 2 (1990). When a bad film is really fun, energetic and batshit crazy, it can be the best movie-watching experience ever. When a bad movie, especially one that sets out to be quirky and batshit crazy, fails, however, we’re brought back to the sobering reality that it’s a very fine line between stupid and clever (thanks Tap!). The Moleman of Belmont Avenue (2013), despite its best intentions, is a pretty awful film…and not in the “good” way, either.

The Mugg brothers, Marion and Jarmon (co-writers/directors Mike Bradecich and John LaFlamboy), are landlords who could, most charitably, be described as slumlords. Their building has no heat or gas, very few tenants and precious little hope of new ones. This might have to with the fact that the Muggs are complete idiots, but it could also have something to do with the murderous Mole Man (Justin DiGiacomo), who has turned the remaining residents’ pets into his personal buffet line. These residents are…well…let’s just say they don’t do much to class up the joint. We have aging lothario Hezekiah Confab (Robert Englund), doddering old lady Mrs. Habershackle (Mary Seibel), a bunch of idiotic, interchangeable stoners, a reclusive hermit named Dave (David Pasquesi) and a dominatrix named Eliza (X-Zanthia). None of these are particularly interesting characters and Eliza seems to exist solely to walk around topless: were this a truly transgressive film, they would have had ol’ Mrs. Habershackle and the “girls” but this opportunity, alas, is a wasted one.

In short order, Marion and Jarmon are on the trail of the Mole Man: at first, they hope to stop it but, later, seem to be happy just to placate it. When the apartment building runs out of pets, however, the Muggs have to head out for replacements. When that doesn’t work, they decide to pick up a drifter (Police Academy’s Tim Kazurinsky) and see if the Mole Man will accept some delivery. When that doesn’t work, it’s time to suit-up, head into the basement and go mano-a-mano with the mysterious, blood-thirsty and pet-hungry monster. Better grab your super-shovels: shit’s about to get average.

It’s hard to really put a finger on what worked the least for me in Mike Bradecich and John LaFlamboy’s debut feature but right near the top of the list would definitely have to be the two writers/directors/lead actors. To put it bluntly, the two have no chemistry together whatsoever, which is pretty much items 1-5 on the attributes list for best buddies in schlock films. It’s hard to buy that these two were ever really friends, let alone actual brothers, which requires more constant suspension of disbelief than the film warrants. It’s kind of like the shields in old Star Trek episodes: the more energy expended trying to protect the ship from asteroids, the more vulnerable the ship becomes, in the long run. You waste so much energy trying to convince yourself that Bradecich and LaFlamboy “work” as a comic duo that there’s no energy left for deflecting things like the bad acting, Poverty-Row production values or staggeringly unfunny comic scenarios. For Pete’s sake, this is a film that attempts (and “attempts” should never indicate “achieves”) to posit that listening to Robert Englund make disgusting sex talk is hi-lar-eye-ous simply because he was Freddy Krueger. Poor Englund has acted in so many non-Nightmare on Elm Street-related productions in the last couple decades that I’m pretty sure most actual genre fanatics (the exact audience I would assume this is pitched at…what “normal” people would care about a goofy, ultra-low budget horror-comedy?) don’t automatically assume he’s playing Freddy whenever he’s on-screen but, hey…maybe they do and I’m the weirdo…who knows?

Another massive problem with the film is that, for a comedy, The Moleman of Belmont Avenue is startlingly unfunny. I have a pretty broad, fairly tasteless sense of humor (those aforementioned dead baby jokes? I laughed at most of ’em) but there were still only two points in the entire film that made me actually laugh out loud. The scene where Marion keeps dropping things on Jarmon, culminating in Jarmon getting hit in the crotch with a lantern, is a complete winner and the most effortlessly funny thing in the film. It’s stupid humor, to be sure, but it works great, proving that there’s no comedy stand-by quite like the old “kicked in the nuts” gag. The second genuinely funny moment comes in the scene where the Muggs go to get Mole man-fighting gear and wind up with “super shovels.” This bit was smart and pays off in another nice gag later on (so three funny moments, if you want to be technical). Other than that, the movie is a veritable wasteland of silly mugging, pratfalls, idiotic montages (filmmakers mocking the traditional “suiting-up” scenes in horror/action films have started to become as ubiquitous as those damned “bullet-time” scenes were after The Matrix blew up) and toothless attempts to be “edgy.” As far as “edgy” goes, we get a pair of truly obnoxious cops, a dominatrix neighbor who walks around topless and a gag involving a box of kittens that gets left in the trunk of a car for too long. Compared to something truly transgressive, The Moleman of Belmont Avenue is about as in-your-face as a white-bread-and-mayo sandwich with a side of sawdust.

If it means anything, the cast all seem to be having a pretty good time (or they fake it well), so Bradecich and LaFlamboy must be pretty okay guys. As such, I feel a little bad for savaging their film: after all, is it really as bad as something like The Last Rites of Ransom Pride (2010)? You know, in its own way, The Moleman of Belmont Avenue is as bad as The Last Rites of Ransom Pride. Maybe it’s not as weirdly tone-deaf as that bizarro-world “Western” but it’s just as lifeless, sloppy and brainlessly kinetic. The Moleman of Belmont Avenue reminds me of that one drunk guy who always tries to tell you a joke at a party: he’s loud, he’s sloppy, he’s belching stale beer into your face and spitting all over your eyelids whenever he talks. It takes him a good 10-15 minutes to get the joke out, mostly because he keeps forgetting elements and going back to add them. Finally, he gets to the very end…and forgets the punchline. At this point, you could wait patiently for the whole mess to play itself out again (even though you’ve already heard this knock-knock joke a hundred times) or you could just fake a laugh and vanish backwards into the crowd. If you need me, I’ll be over by the door, trying to avoid that damn drunk guy.

3/25/14: If Wishes Were Horses, They’d Eat Your Face

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Andrew Divoff, Angus Scrimm, cinema, djinn, djinns, film reviews, films, gory films, Greg Nicotero, Harry Manfredini, horror, horror films, horror franchises, horror-fantasy, Kane Hodder, Movies, Nightmare on Elm St., practical effects, Robert Englund, Robert Kurtzman, SFX, special effects, special-effects extravaganza, Stan Winston, Tammy Lauren, Ted Raimi, Tom Savini, Tony Todd, violent, Wes Craven, wishes, Wishmaster

In some ways, I like to equate watching films with eating. Sometimes, I’m really in the mood for a complex, sprawling, four-course meal: at those times, nothing less than the twistiest, most difficult foreign film will do. Other times, I want a good, hearty steak and look towards any of the numerous “classics” that I’ve re-watched enough to memorize the dialogue. There are times when I want a little lighter fare: those are always good opportunities for a music documentary, a slapstick comedy or an old musical. At certain times, however, there’s really nothing that will hit the spot better than junk food: gimme the cinematic equivalent of a Ho-Ho, from time to time, and I’m a happy boy. On those occasions when I want to turn my brain off, kick my feet up and satisfy my horror jones, there really isn’t much finer than the first Wishmaster, a snack-pack of goodness that I’ve been enjoying for nearly 20 years.

Right off the bat, it helps to know one very important thing about Wishmaster: the film series began as the labor of love of Robert Kurtzman, one of the premiere special effects/make-up guys in the industry. Along with Greg Nicotero (any horror fan worth his salt should recognize this name immediately) and Howard Berger, he formed KNB EFX Group in the late ’80s. Naming all of Kurtzman’s projects would require its own separate blog entry but we’ll list a few that folks might recognize: Evil Dead 2, Phantasm 2, From Beyond, Predator, Tremors, Cabin Fever, Misery, Army of Darkness, Pulp Fiction, From Dusk Til Dawn, Scream, Boogie Nights, The Green Mile, Hulk…basically, if it was released in the past 28 years, Kurtzman probably had a hand in the makeup, effects work or both.

As with other directorial efforts by special-effects experts, specifically Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead and Tom Savini’s remake of Night of the Living Dead, the focus in Wishmaster is squarely on the astoundingly gory, over-the-top special effects, most of which are jaw-dropping…sometimes literally. The nifty hat trick here is that Kurtzman has taken an entirely serviceable idea for a B-horror film and tricked it out with an immaculate, shiny coat of candy-apple-red primer. As mentioned earlier, this is pretty much the epitome of junk food: delicious but nearly devoid of any actual nutrients. Wishmaster is like an amusement-park thrill ride: a blast to sit through but essentially incapable of changing your overall world view.

As far as a story goes, Wishmaster is pretty lean and mean: an opening inter-title explains that there were once men, angels and djinn. The djinn didn’t want to play nice, despite their ability to grant wishes, and were banished to the furthest regions to prevent their complete destruction of humankind, an event which they can bring about simply by granting the same person three separate wishes. Cut to Persia in the 1400s and we see all hell (quite literally) bust loose as a djinn grants a king’s second wish. Before the djinn can grant the king’s third wish and damn humanity to an eternity of servitude, a court magician imprisons the djinn in a gemstone. Cut to the present and a drunken accident at a dock has led to the discovery of the gem: the gem changes hands until it ends up with Alexandra (Tammy Lauren), our spunky heroine. As can be expected, the djinn is eventually released and goes on a wish-granting rampage, all the while trying to get back to Alex: if he can grant her three wishes, mankind can kiss its collected asses goodbye. Will Alex be able to save the world? Will she be forced to use her third wish? Will the djinn help them throw the craziest party in 600 years? As if you had to ask!

Let’s get one thing absolutely clear: Wishmaster will never win any awards for acting or its script but that’s not really why we’re here: we’re here because this thing is a party in a can. Decades before audiences thrilled to “in-on-the-joke” junk like Snakes On a Plane and Sharknado, we all had to make do with good, old-fashioned B-movies, films that took themselves at least seriously enough to avoid winking into oblivion. Wishmaster is a film with plenty of heart (all over the damn place, pretty much) and isn’t so terribly removed from the effects extravaganzas that Harryhausen created back in the day…just with a lot more viscera and exploded rib-cages, of course.

Although the film is jam-packed with eye-popping moments, it’s book-ended by its two biggest, most extravagant set-pieces: the opening Persian bloodbath and Beaumont’s (Robert Englund) climatic cocktail party. Both scenes are chock-full of the kind of explosive effects that would be the centerpiece of any other film: someone turns to crystal and shatters, spraying deadly shrapnel around the room; a skeleton rips itself from a man’s body and stands for a moment, pondering the chaos, before running off to cause some more; a collection of bronze and stone statues depicting warriors from various countries and eras comes to shuddering life, in a scene that directly references Harryhausen’s classic films, and massacres a group of armed mercenaries; someone is cut to pieces by living, levitating piano wires, etc etc…In truth, the two aforementioned scenes actually pack in more amazing special effects moments than at least four lesser horror films combined. Even better, the effects are almost all practical, lending the film yet another point of reference to classic films like Clash of the Titans and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

I’ve gone on and on about Wishmaster’s effects but what about the rest of the film? While it’s certainly not An Officer and a Gentleman, Wishmaster ends up being a pretty sturdily constructed affair. The film looks great, with a vibrant color palette that really lets the gore pop off the screen. In a nod to old-school horror fans, Friday the 13th’s Harry Manfredini handles the score and it’s a typically good one, even featuring a few pieces that directly recall the “adventurous” music from the aforementioned Harryhausen films. Wes Craven produced the film and, in many ways, it’s pretty comparable to the latter-day Nightmare on Elm Street films, particularly films like Parts 4 and 5, which tended to be more special-effects showcases than the earlier entries. The djinn even gets a massively ooky regeneration scene that manages to give both NOES and Hellraiser a run for their collective money.

The acting, as can be expected from B-movies, is rather hit or miss. Andrew Divoff is a complete revelation as the djinn, playing the villain with just the proper amount of smarmy charm, deadpan sarcasm and dead-eyed seriousness. His quipping never really gets old (although it will get more tedious over the next few films in the series) and I’m constantly surprised that he never became a more prominent face in the horror world, similar to co-star Robert Englund. Englund is quite good as the slimy Raymond Beaumont and it’s also nice to get cameos from a couple other familiar faces: Candyman’s Tony Todd and original Jason Kane Hodder make appearances as a bouncer and security guard, respectively. They don’t get to do much but it’s still nice to see them.

More problematic, unfortunately, is Tammy Lauren. As the lead, we get to spend an awful lot of time with Lauren and her progressively hysterical performance makes this a bit unpleasant, after a while. She’s alright for the first half of the film or so but she sets the controls for the heart of the sun after that and her overacting even begins to compete with the special effects, after a while. A lesser, but still noteworthy, issue is the rather lackluster ending: while necessary to paint the film out of its corner, it comes across as a real head-smacker and more than a little uneventful.

If you can look past the film’s small handful of problems, however, I can see absolutely no reason why any horror fan wouldn’t love this movie. Here, at the very beginning, we saw the groundwork being laid for a franchise that had the potential to rival Elm Street for prime real estate on the horror map. If the series ended up dropping the ball and limping off the sidelines way too soon (Part 2 is merely okay, whereas Parts 3 and 4 are completely execrable), that does nothing to take away from the achievement of this first edition.

Sometimes, I just want to kick back with an old friend and kill 90 minutes: whenever Wishmaster comes knocking at the door, I’m always ready to party.