Entry Twenty: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Dir: Paul W.S. Anderson

"Whoever wins, we lose."

Dark Horse Comics had real "chocolate and peanut butter" moment when, in 1990, they decided to combine their Aliens and Predator licenses into a comic book miniseries event.  The series was an instant hit; a no-brainer for fanboys that went on to spawn more comics, novels, several video games and a toy line.  A film seemed like a given, but Fox was reluctant after Predator 2 and Alien3 under-performed at the box office.  When New Line's Freddy vs. Jason proved to be a surprise hit in the fall of 2003, Fox finally decided to jump on the bandwagon.  However, instead of doing it right (an A-budget film that would bring the Predators in to the futuristic Alien universe), the studio gave the project to schlocky auteur Anderson (Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil), who promised to have the low(ish)-budget film in theatres within a year.  You can practically FEEL everyone involved not giving a fuck with every scene.

When one of his geo-mapping satellites discovers a mysterious temple deep beneath the ice of Antarctica, terminally-ill industrialist Charles Weyland (the great Lance Henriksen, who looks pretty bored here) assembles a team of tired stereotypes (tough hot chick, tough butch chick, sinister corporate British guy, macho guy who goes to pieces when the shit hits the fan, sensitive, male-model-looking archaeologist, wide-eyed scientist who guarantees his early death by showing off pictures of his cute kids to everybody) to explore it and claim it in the name of Weyland, giving him one final, great legacy.  Once there, the team discovers that the pyramid is actually an ancient training ground for the Predators, who use human beings to breed Aliens for hunting purposes.  The humans are killed off one-by-one, until only Tough Hot Chick Lex (Sanaa Lathan, Blade) is left to take on the alien queen with the final surviving Predator.

This movie is really stupid.  It shits all over the mythologies of both franchises: the contemporary-Earth setting is problematic from an Alien standpoint, for if Weyland-Yutani knew of the existence of the aliens because of this encounter, why didn't they focus their future resources on digging beneath the arctic, rather than sending the Nostromo off to check a suspicious signal on an out-of-the-way planetoid.  The aliens have always been shown to take several hours (maybe even more than a day) to gestate and emerge from their host bodies, yet in this film face-hugged victims are birthing creatures in a matter of minutes.  Due to budgetary constraints, effects company ADI was forced to re-use and modify alien suits and designs from Alien Resurrection, which were designed to be extra-fleshy looking due to plot elements unique to that film and make no sense here.  From a Predator standpoint, the predators had, in the previous films, been shown to be proud hunters who only attack armed targets.  Here, they kill the shit out of everybody, including a crippled guy and a sick old man.  Also from the previous films, we're told that the predators choose hot, steamy climates to conduct their hunts...THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING IN THE ARCTIC?  The newly-designed predators in this film look like 'roided-out fucking linebackers and move like the Michelin Man.  Did I mention yet that this movie is fucking PG-13?  If you're expecting any graphic chest-bursting, spine-ripping or corpse-skinning (and why wouldn't you be, in a movie that combines Alien and Predator?), look elsewhere.

If this film has one saving grace, it's ADI's redesigned alien queen.  They use a nice mix of practical and CG effects to bring her to life, I just wish it had been in a better movie.  If you can divorce this canonically from it's source material and take it as it's own thing, I suppose you might get a few chuckles out of the (unintentionally funny) fight scenes (a few beers wouldn't hurt).  This is certainly the spiritual successor to Universal's classic monster mash-ups Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and House of Dracula.  Those movies signaled the END of the Universal Monsters era, and this film (and it's even shittier, rushed, "strike-while-the-iron's lukewarm sequel) marks the end of the once-dignified Alien franchise (alien-less sort-of-prequel Prometheus doesn't really count, though at least it wiped this shitpile from continuity).

At least they got the tagline right.    

Entry Nineteen: Vicious Lips (1986)

Vicious Lips (1986)

Dir: Albert Pyun

"They're lost and loose in outer space."

Rock n' Roll space babes (what more do you need?)!!!

Small-time band manager/big-time loser Matty Asher has a problem: he has one day to get his all-girl new wave band, the Vicious Lips, across the galaxy to play the Electric Dream nightclub before all-powerful booking agent Maxine has him killed (or worse, ruins his career).  When Lips lead vocalist Ace Solo suddenly dies, Max recruits high school talent show contestant Judy Jetson (copyright infringement?) to become the new Ace.  As they make their way across the starstream to the Dream, Matty and the Lips are forced to deal with in-fighting, bad space drugs, asteroids, a desert "passion" planet, zombies, vampiric aliens and an escaped Venusian serial killer.

Writer/director Pyun (The Sword and the Sorcerer, Cyborg, the 1990 Captain America), treats the entire film as if he's directing an 80-minute Thomas Dolby video; quick cuts and green lighting abound.  He makes the most of his (barely existent) budget, dressing up obvious sound stages with lots of Shop-Vac tubes and exposed air ducts.  Homages/ripoffs of then-recent sci-fi films abound; characters are named "Solo" and "Lucas" and some Giger-inspired alien corridors appear.  An alien warthog/elephant/human hybrid is a visual effects highlight.  The performers are all stock Empire pictures players, but take to their roles enthusiastically.  Best of all, the new wave soundtrack is pretty great (the Lips can wail; they remind me quite a bit of the undervalued Scandal).  "Lunar Madness" in particular kicks ass!  Take note: this movie played the three-titted space hooker gag four years before Total Recall.

Entry Eighteen: Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Dir: Charles E. Sellier, Jr.

"You've made it through Halloween, now try and survive Christmas."

Silent Night, Deadly Night is neither the first nor the best of the "killer Santa" sub-sub-genre, but it's surely the most widely-known.  Because they were bored with railing against drug users and metalheads that week, the moms of America decided to organize a protest against this film, a movement that gained national media attention and resulted in Siskel and Ebert publicly shaming the filmmakers on their television show and the movie getting removed from theatres.  That just resulted in it becoming an even bigger hit on home video!  

Young, oddly-lipsticked boy Billy takes a Christmas Eve trip with his parents to visit his grandfather in a mental hospital.  The demented old coot warns Billy that Santa Claus doesn't just bring presents to the good children, he severely punishes the naughty.  Later that night, Billy witnesses a criminal in a Santa suit shoot his dad and slit his mom's throat.  At this point, you'd be forgiven for expecting Billy to grow up and become Batman, but instead he gets shipped off to an orphanage and, when he comes of age, a kindly nun gets him a job stocking shelves at a toy store (why the clearly adult Billy is still living at the orphanage is never explained...but the kindly nun is somewhat young and attractive...maybe Billy's hitting that?).  Billy excels at his new job, and develops a crush on cute co-worker Pamela, but as Christmas approaches, he begins to grow irritable and short with his co-workers, and "naughty" behavior gives him flashbacks to his parents' murder.  Forced to fill-in as Santa on Christmas Eve, Billy snaps and begins offing his less-than-well-behaved co-workers in various novel ways: his supervisor get strangled by a strand of Christmas tree lights, Pamela get disemboweled with a box cutter, the drunken store owner get his brain bashed in with a hammer, the secretary get an arrow through her sternum.  After Billy escapes into the suburbs, Linnea Quigley shows up, gets topless and ends up impaled an the horns of a mounted elk head.  In the movie's best kill scene, a kid who'd stolen a sled gets decapitated going downhill!  In another great scene, cops after Billy shoot the wrong Santa to death in front of a bunch of kids!  In the end, Billy returns home to the orphanage and is blown away by the cops.  He dies in the arms of the kindly nun.

This is a pretty minor slasher that would have faded into total obscurity if not for the fervor and panic surrounding it's original release.  The performances are all pretty indifferent, director Sellier makes no attempt at creating atmosphere or suspense and the whole thing just feels perfunctory.  On the plus side, the gore effects are slightly better than average, as is the score by Perry Botkin.  The best thing about the whole movie, however, is all the toy porn in the toy store that Billy works at: rows and rows of vintage Star Wars, G.I. Joe and Masters of the Universe toys in beautiful original boxes!  I paused the move several times just to check out the shelves.  Anyway, merry fucking Christmas!

Entry Sixteen: The Funhouse (1981)

The Funhouse (1981)

Dir: Tobe Hooper

"Pay to get in, pray to get out."

Hey folks, I'm taking a break from holiday movies with this entry, but I promise I'll get to one more yuletide gem before the year is out.  In between his indie smash The Texas Chain-Saw Massacre and hitting the absolute mainstream and ruining his career with a massive coke habit, Tobe Hooper directed The Funhouse, his first major studio release.

Four teenagers; Amy (Elizabeth Berridge, Amadeus), Buzz (Cooper Huckabee, Django Unchained), Liz (Largo Woodruff, Bill On His Own) and Richie (Miles Chapin, Howard the Duck), decide to spend the night in the funhouse of a traveling carnival.  While getting ready to engage in some serious deep-dicking, the quartet are interrupted by a noise and witness Zelda the fortune-teller (who they pissed off earlier) accepting money for a handjob by a drooling freak in a Frankenstein's monster mask.  Zelda's too effective at her job, however, and this masked maniac throttles her to death when her magic mitts cause him to cum too quickly.  This man-beast is the mutated son of the carnival's barker (Kevin Conway, Jennifer Eight, TV's Oz), who discovers our trespassing teens spying on the murder when Richie fumbles his lighter.  At his father's request, the albino mutant begins to slaughter the teens in various ways (Richie gets hanged AND gets an axe through the head, the comely Liz gets disemboweled while trying to seduce the freak).  Buzz kills the barker with a sword, but ends up impaled upon the same blade.  In the end, Liz is forced to do battle with the mutant amidst the industrial machinery operating the funhouse behind the scenes.

The Funhouse is very much a transitional film for Hooper; it features the unusual camerawork of his indie days, but is set to a bombastic orchestral score (by John Beal, who had worked with Olivia Newton-John and The Captain and Tennille!); it's shot on low-grade film stock, yet features recognizable actors.  On the plus side, Hooper manages to recapture much of the grime and grit of Texas Chainsaw; on the negative side, his teenage heroes are pretty vapid and beg nothing but indifference.  Having attended a county fair late-night in rural southern Florida, I can tell you that Hooper damn well nails the atmosphere here.  Keep your eyes peeled for William Findlay (The Phantom of the Paradise) in a brief role as the magician.  I like Hooper a lot, and I'll recommend this one.  He made some great flicks (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Poltergeist, Lifeforce), and I really wish he hadn't just given up (see anything he's made in the past 20 years).

Entry Fifteen: You Better Watch Out (1980)

You Better Watch Out (1980-AKA Christmas Evil, Terror In Toyland)

Dir: Lewis Jackson

"Better watch out...Better not cry...Or you may DIE!"


In 1947, two boys, younger Phillip and older Harry, witness Santa Claus arriving down their chimney.  While Phillip is convinced it's their father in disguise, Harry truly believes.  Later, unable to sleep, Harry creeps downstairs and witnesses "Santa Claus" making time with his mother.  Enraged, Harry smashes his treasured snow globe and uses a shard of glass to slice his hand.

Years later, pathetic, middle-aged Harry (Brandon Maggert, Dressed to Kill) lives in an apartment full of Santa memorabilia and spends his free time creepily spying upon the neighborhood children, of whom he's compiled "naughty" and "nice" lists.  This poor schlub works as the line manager at a toy factory and is scorned by his more successful younger brother (Jeffrey DeMunn, Dale from TV's The Walking Dead).  Harry grows increasingly frustrated by his callous co-workers and corporate bosses, none of whom understand the "true" meaning of Christmas.  After a particularly rough Christmas party, during which he discovers that his company is lying about charitable donations, Harry snaps.  Donning a Santa suit and glued-on beard and tooling around in a van with a sleigh and reindeer painted on the side, he doles out gifts to good children, coal to naughty ones, and kills the ever-loving shit out of his scumbag CEO, a co-worker who claimed to hate Christmas and a trio of yuppies who mock his holiday spirit.  After being saved by children from vigilantes, Harry has a final confrontation with Phillip and is chased through the streets by citizens bearing FUCKING TORCHES until his van...and I can't fucking believe I'm writing this...LIFTS OFF INTO THE SKY, and Harry is transformed into the TRUE Santa Claus.

Holy shit.  This film is fairly difficult to wrap my brain around.  For the first 45 minutes, it comes off as a vaguely pedophilic Taxi Driver riff, then segues into a slasher flick before veering into outright fantasy.  I WILL admit that, looking back to my own childhood and remembering how badly I wanted to believe in Santa Claus, I can buy that an unbalanced adult could carry that need for belief into adulthood and be willing to kill to preserve it.  It's also refreshing to watch a film that endorses/reinforces the "Christmas spirit" in a totally secular manner (if you still think of Christmas as a Christian holiday, you're fucking kidding yourself).  A few notes: Brandon Maggart is GREAT as Harry, the sound design was done by the late Sally Menke, who edited all of Tarrantino's films through Inglorious Basterds, and John Waters has proclaimed this to be his favorite Christmas movie of all time...

Entry Fourteen: Black Christmas (1974)

Black Christmas (1974)

Dir: Bob Clark

"If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl...IT'S ON TOO TIGHT!"

The late Bob Clark had an interesting cinematic career; not only did he direct this film and future Basement of Sleaze entrants Shock Waves, Deathdream and Porky's, he was also responsible for A Christmas Story (yes, the one that TBS plays on continuous loop through December) and, um...Baby Geniuses.  Next time you're family forces you to watch little Ralphie worry about receiving a Red Ryder BB Gun for the umpteenth time, remember that the same director made this holiday movie, in which an obscene phone caller talks about Margot Kidder's "fat cunt" and implores her to "suck my juicy cock."

It's Christmas break at the sorority house, and the sisters are dealing with obscene phone calls by "the moaner." while also trying to cope with their own, individual issues.  Chain-smoking, hard-drinking leader Barb (Kidder, The Amittyville Horror, Superman I-III) is having family problems, new pledge Jess (Olivia Hussey, Romeo and Juliet, Turkey Shoot) is pregnant and wants an abortion against the wishes of her musician boyfriend, Peter (Keir Dullea, 2001: A Space Odyssey) and Clare (Lynn Griffin, Strange Brew) is a rotting corpse, having been suffocated with plastic wrap by an unseen assailant and hidden away in her room.  While the missing Clare is searched for by her father and sorority sisters, police Lieutenant Fuller (motherfucking John Saxon) searches for a missing 13 year-old girl.  When evidence is discovered that links the two cases, Saxon orders a wire tap placed on the sorority house, leading to a tense scene in which it's discovered that the obscene phone calls are, of course, coming from within the sorority house.  Eventually, Barb, Jess and Phyl (Andrea Martin from SCTV) are stalked through the house and dispatched one-by-one by the mysterious killer.

Black Christmas is often credited as the first true "slasher" movie, and while it does introduce some of the soon-to-be-cliche hallmarks of that genre (young, female victims, POV stalking scenes, a "final girl") and was certainly a big influence on John  Carpenter's Halloween, Clark's stylish use of shadow and light and the jarring, violent setpiece murders remind me more of the giallo thrillers of Dario Argento.  This movie also introduced the now-tired "the caller is inside the house!" five years before the far more famous When a Stranger Calls.  The whole cast is good, but Kidder and Dullea are standouts as the bitchy sorority queen and volatile, artsy boyfriend, respectively.  The "twist" ending (which I won't spoil) is totally out-of-left-field.  This is a good one, folks; pop it in instead of watching White Christmas for the umpteenth time again this year.