Tuesday, October 18, 2011

John Don't Carradine

Our friend Anntichrist S. Coulter wrote to suggest a film we might want to consider reviewing for the sequel to Better Living Through Bad Movies, and her email reminded me that we've been meaning to poll you guys (no, not like that).

Which movies would you most like to see us abuse in the new book?  More recent films are preferred, since we've got a fair number of classics in the on-deck circle, but we're happy to consider any movie -- new or old -- that has gotten under your skin and festered sufficiently to raise a hot, throbbing little boil of resentment.

So if you've been heavy petting with a peeve, please share your pain in comments, and by Grabthar's Hammer, you shall be...avenged.

Anyway, I thought Annti's recommendation was so evocative, that it was selfish to keep it all to myself.  Enjoy!

By Our Dollar Store DVD Cut-Bin Curator, Anntichrist S. Coulter:

Please tell me that you've seen this flaming pile of horseshit, sadly and strangely bereft of horses (especially for a "western"! Mebbe Frau Blucher got to the horses first... huh...) known as, I shit you not...Billy the Kid vs. Dracula.

If not, dig up this truly classic piece of melodramatic manure so that you, too, may thrill to the demonic timbre of Carradine's sotto voce attempts at "otherworldly intimidation" (whilst "whispering" and "mournfully speaking 'softly'" no less) that could be heard out in the parking lot of Dodgers Stadium during a game when they're actually WINNING. The man had pipes, this we know. What in the fuck kind of Drāno he imbibed to get to this point of pre-mortem decomposition, I really don't wanna know.

And, I gotta tellya, the stagecoach with no horses didn't bother me nearly as much as the 99-cent rubber bat that is always flying IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STRATOSPHERE, no clouds, no smog, no fog, no insects, no birds, no stars, no buildings, no trees, no NOTHING but a medium-blue cobalt scrim and "magical" twinks of light-sparkles on every fourth wing-flap. And the poor fucking thing can't even flap his/her/its wings like a real bat would, y'know, with bones and skin and fur and all that shit, nope, they're like a pre-Wright Brothers attempt at a "hover-plane" with rigidly-arched "wings" that just turn, up and down, up and down, as if poked by a medium-blue cobalt-colored stick on a repetitive basis, as "squeaky bat noises" are squished out of somebody's guinea pig in a very cruel manner. It never flies, it never dips or soars or ascends or descends, even before Carradine's about to re-embody and suck on a neck. Just bouncy-bouncy on the rubber/elastic string that it came with, alternated with the pivoting/dead & rigor-mortised "wing" movements that remind one of a hang-glider who wants to die.

I can't decide which is sadder... the rapid decline and decomposition of one of the last truly trained actors in this country, who could have been so influential (aside from us, Rick Baker, and FANGORIA), but missed it by thatmuch; or, that emphysemic but once-grand pipes like his are being so wasted on the bug-eyed "hypnotic" stares that remind one more of Aqualung than Dracula.
 The crap "co-stars" are beneath notice, aside from the fact that they're either cliche' "Eastern European ignorant superstitious immigrants" who try to warn all of the vampire, or the overly-apple-cheeked, secret-alcoholic townfolk/stagecoach rats who profess a "faith in humankind" that even Billy Graham would call "bullshit!" upon.

The 2:36 blurt of "exposition" from a "folk-tale" book handily whipped-out by the female "doctor" (Alcoholic #1), explaining the mechanics (the story says that, according to the old myth...) of vampirism and necrophiliac love-matches with all of the sincerity of the pimply-faced "Mormon missionary" who tried to force his way into my house one Saturday morning with his equally-greasy "co-Elder" --- I've heard more-convincing exposition in informercials, dood. They just don't make pulp western-vampire shit or opportunistic-attempted-home-invasion criminals like they used to... *sigh*

[Below, the key scene from Billy the Kid vs. Dracula which demonstrates that while vampires are immune to bullets, you can still pistol whip the crap out of them.  Also, while we see "hero driving a stake through Dracula's heart," thanks to the Foley guy we hear "Chinese immigrants working on the Transcontinental Railroad." --Scott]

I can't take any more tonight, I'm going to Coma Town.

Sweet dreams of rubber bats and John Carradine's eyes nearly popping-out of his skeletal skull, barely sheathed in parchment-dry mummy skin and over-Bryll-Creamed stringy grey hair...

24 comments:

lacp said...

Shoot, I actually saw the damn thing many years ago and don't really remember any of it. Of course, I had a couple thousand mics of acid on board at the time.

Ugluks Flea said...

That clip shows the only time I've ever seen the old "throw the gun at the baddie when you run out of bullets" trick actually work.

Oh, and you should give the treatment to "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time". I still feel ill from watching it, and that was 8 months ago.

Anonymous said...

how's about some generally-acknowledged horrible failures such as Ishtar and Gigli being given the ol' Scott n Co treatment?
Suezboo

Anonymous said...

Atlas Shrugged Part 1 (and hopefully last)
Excalibur - I just couldn't get Nigel Terry's performance as Prince John in the lion in winter out of my head
Prince John: Poor John. Who says poor John? Don't everybody sob at once! My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out!
Prince Richard: Let's strike a flint and see.

James Briggs Stratton "Doghouse" Riley said...

1) If that's John Carradine at sixty I'm in much better shape than I realized.

2) What I remember about BKvD was that it was one of the few bad movies I couldn't sit through, no matter what I had on board, and that it co-starred caffein pitchlady and marriage counsellor Mrs. Olson, before she lost her American accent.

heydave said...

Sharks in Venice is so very, very bad that it must be treated reverently. Meaning fully, repeatedly stoned. With good Scotch nearby. And your fingers taped to the pause and rewind buttons for those "Huh?" moments of clarity.

Seriously, don't watch this one straight, it'll scar. But having said that, it is so bad that, just before passing out, you get a glimpse of the beyond.

With sharks.

And that less talented, born again Baldwin

Pope Incontinentius XIII said...

10,000 BC, Whiteout, Battlefield Earth, Old Dogs, and Burlesque, just for starters. (If you've done any of these already, I apologize.) All of them suck a whole lot.

Lucy The Wonder Dog said...

What, you didn't watch it as a double feature with Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter?

trashfire said...

"Miracle of the Bells" with Fred MacMurray playing the romantic leading man, and Frank Sinatra playing a priest. Maybe if they'd switched parts....
After watching this sappy mess drag on for an hour and a half, you'll be playing Marilyn Manson CDs at train-whistle volume just to clear your head.

Bill S. said...

Annti, that was hilarious, particularly your describle of the bat.

Bill the Splut said...

Oh, GREAT, now I'll be scouring every dollar store for Billy v Dracula!

By William "One-Shot" Beaudine! So the cowboy's corpse has a huge grin on his face--don't reshoot! So that endless minute of Dracula wandering around a stagecoach with a fat stagehand in a t-shirt and glasses clearly reflected in its windows until someone tells him to get out of the shot, and he waddles away--that would take a whole MINUTE to reshoot!

So the script says that you get rid of vampires with garlic--no, "wolfsbane!" That line could take SECONDS to rewrite! So it says you don't kill them with a stake, but a "stick," which is a tiny scalpel! We can't afford a stake, LEAVE IT IN!

6 slugs from a 45 at point-blank range just make Dracula laff! So have Billy the (45 year old) Kid do the same thing, then throw the gun and knock him out! So...wait, so you could shoot Drac with a cannon and he'd laugh, but drop the cannonball on his foot and it'd kill him?

Crimeny, was this thing made in a few days? Oh right, it was.

Anonymous said...

I think that Face Off with Nicholas Cage and John Travolta is one of the worst movies ever. I hate the premise and the ending is ludicrous. I see on Wikipedia that this movie was acclaimed by audiences and critics. Acclaimed as what, they do not say.

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Suezboo, dear heart, I actually and unfortunately DID see that abortion/black-hole tax-write-off clusterfuck known as "ISHTAR" the other afternoon (there really WASN'T anything else on the TV and I couldn't find anybody's knitting needles to cram through my pained orbs!!!), and honestly, honey, who here has EVER harmed/insulted/robbed-at-gunpoint you to the point that you would wish to inflict such a CRUEL AND SADISTIC punishment upon them?!?!?!? (Excepting Darth Cheney, of course, but he NEVER lurks around here as frequently as he used to do, the bastid...)

Just to REMIND myself of that abysmal crime against all things aural and dramatic AND comedic is an extended and ridiculously relentless exercise in masochism. Really, Suezboo, I never took you for the VICIOUS kinda person... *sigh*

And "GIGLI"?!!?!?!?!!? What in the flying rat-fuck have I, Scott, Keith, Mary, Bill or S.Z. ever done to *YOU*, woman?!?!?!?!

Though it seems that I need to move "The Lion In Winter" further up my Netflix queue and quickly, 'cause I sure as HELL don't remember THAT deliciously snarky niblet!

Every time you post something, Heydave, I am treated to the startling revelation of how TRULY sadistic a person that you are!!!!!! I hope that you were aiming THAT Baldwin at SCOTT, and not MOI, 'cause then I'd have to hunt you down with a 10-lb. maul and a woodchipper, and honestly, I am SOOOO not in the shape for frolics like that.

And I can NOT possibly be the only person who broke into her parents' (to use the concept of "parenting" as loosely as is linguistically possible!) record collection at age almost-5 and wore Bill Cosby's "I started out as a child..." down to the NUB, can I? Seriously, the entire 12-minute "SEATTLE" (esp. Bobo the Gorilla @ the Seattle Zoo!) bit is absolutely fucking OBLITERATED from overuse, I ACTUALLY WORE THE DAMNED GROOVES OFF OF THE RECORD!!

Anywho, there's a bit on there called "The Lone Ranger," and after letting TLR get loaded & sing, then Tonto revolts and sez that he AIN'T going BACK INTO TOWN *AGAIN*, DAMMIT! --- and then it's SILVER'S TURN. "And every time that the bad guys run outta bullets in the middle of a chase, and they throw the gun back at you, they don't hit YOU, do they? NO! They throw the gun back and hit ME, right on the old shins, {knock-knock-knock!} and Silver SICK OF IT! Hii-yo-Silver NOTHIN'!!"

(Continued to to stoopid fucking CHARACTER LIMITS!!!)

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

(Continued... and LACP? *NOBODY* likes a fucking BRAGGART, expecially when SOME of us have been without for over THIRTEEN FUCKIN' YEARS!!!)

(BTW, fucking google tried to MURDER this ENTIRE COMMENT THREE FUCKIN' TIMES, the rat-bastids!!!)

Can't prove that Cosby was the first to ever take that tack on goofy western pursuit scenes, but it's damned well the only one that's stuck in my DNA. And yup, after DECADES of bad westerns (teh late Dick & I had two things in common: Wyle E. Coyote as our personal hero, genius that he was, and Saturday afternoon westerns, from Gary Cooper classics to John Wayne near-cartoons to the "brave whaaat chrischen settlers who braved the wilderness of the Wild West and fought-off them bloody heathen savages!"-type horseshit, esp. once Pat Robertson got a fucking TV "network" on cable...), I can confirm that yes, indeedy-doo, sir, that THIS abysmal hell-ride through the darkest, dankest, most-dark-matter-slash-negative-gravity-in-one-crappy-movie-studio *is,* indeed, the ***ONLY*** TIME IN CINEMA OR TELEVISION HISTORY WHERE THE "EMPTY OF BULLETS? THROW THE GUN!!" SHTICK HAS ***EVER*** FUCKING ***WORKED***!!!!!!

And honestly, it looked like they actually made genuine CONTACT with the desired target (i.e., not poor ol' SILVER! *OR* Tonto!), 'cause despite decades of theatrical training & experience, even John Carradine would never INTENTIONALLY collapse like a ton of bricks, FACE-FIRST, into the rubble & shrapnel at his feet. That shit HADDA hurt like hell and leave one HELLUVA MARK!!!

(Continued YET AGAIN!!)

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

(This had better be THE LAST ONE!!!)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, many thanks to all of you sick, demented, sadistic and delightfully sordid bastards for the many & sundry suggestions for future slash-and-burn/scorched-earth treatment by the Wo'C editorial staff. I'm sure that our HollywoodLand auteur-in-residence, Scott, will handle the majority of the heavy lifting (in viewership speaking, not ACTUAL heavy lifting, as he might end-up like ME!) and then hand out assignments to those of us on the WO'C farm teams as needs be. Or something to that effect, depending upon the unemployment/searching-for-employment/broke-as-fuck-and-selling-plasma status of any and all of us at any given time. Throwing some shekels at the Scott, Mary & Sheri offerings basket sure as hell wouldn't HURT! And as long as Scott doesn't re-injure his back any time soon, I'm sure that we'll see a LOT of new material, seeing as how we ARE kinda the testing lab for all of the previous Scott-and-Sheri attacks, er, um, TREATMENTS for those oh-so-speshul flicks that have meant so very much to them and us, their favorite guinea pigs.

(TRUNCATED YET AGAIN!!!)

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

(I'm gonna have to HURT SOMEBODY...)

Having wasted over sixteen grand and way too many years on an alleged "film school," I can honestly vouch for the World O'Crap School Of Better Living Through Bad Movies curriculum as being more thorough, less stressful, and certainly more USEFUL than any Liberal Arts degree on the books! When they decide to get on the Dumbya gravy-train of unaccredited "trade schools" that now pepper every strip mall in this country (as Dumbya taught us back in '07, that's as GOOD as idjits like us DESERVE, anyfuckin'way, so we oughta be DAMNED GRATEFUL to have so many fly-by-night diploma mills and nursing-home-sadist-attendant training dungeons sucking-away our tax money and our paychecks both!!!), I'm volunteering for the first round of "Reading Film As Literature," "Rocky Horror Picture Show As A Model For A FASCINATING Life!", AND a variety of lectures & presentations upon the basic theme of "THIS is why REAL films can't get funding but "DUDE WHERE'S MY CAR?!??!4 is already in POST-PRODUCTION!!!!!!" etc. I imagine that I'll need a coupla T.A.'s for that series, as they'll undoubtedly be filled with bitter grad students who can't sell scripts, local "film festival" volunteers who think that they can take the Quentin Tarantino "self-taught" approach, even to spelling, and of course, the "not-quite-an-ingenue" self-proclaimed "actors" who still have to VOLUNTEER at dinner theatres.

BTW, does it make me even weirder that my favorite version of the whole King John/Evil Prince Peckerhead/genocidal-crusades genre involved animated talking foxes in middle-ages drag?

OH! I almost forgot!!! Lucy The Wonder Dog!!! Actually, believe it or not, BTK V. D really and truly WAS booked in a three-flick back-to-back schlock MINI-MARATHON on "AntennaTV" (sub-channel on teh rabbit-ears) @ 10A this morning, but since I'd been up all night, I had to deprive myself of such a thrill, as well as missing "My Son The Vampire"!!!!!! I could've been hallucinating from sleep-deprivation, but I could have SWORN that a semi-sober BELA HIMSELF made an appearance in that particular, um,... "endeavor" into the vampire genre. Or it could be a brain fart.

What I *did* see, later in the day, esp. since I never made it to the grocery store, yet again, was an ACTUAL Lugosi piece, horribly written, stage, costumed & cast, but as always with a true artist, Bela was STUNNING in his sincerity, charm, wicked-fun intimidation of his targets AND that sexy-as-hell accent and those eyes. He's the only reason that such a piece of shit ever made it into theatres, with the copyright-baiting title of "Return Of The Vampire," as if Vlad Dracul The Impaler had spent quality tourist time IN THE BRITISH ISLES. Despite the multitudes of Grand-Canyon-scaled holes in the plot, costumes, "acting," dialogue, exposition, staging, props, scenery, etc., Bela held it all together, apparently 10-15 years before Ed convinced him to "take the cure," but he never ONCE flubbed a line, chewed the scenery, phoned it in or didn't show up, no matter how this p.o.s. must've carved enormous chunks out of his deep, brilliant, romantic soul.

Yup, he's been dead longer than I've been alive, but I still have a crush on Bela. Sue me. But thanks for the kind words, esp. my dear Bill, the encouragement and all of the delightfully-evil suggestions!

P.S.: In a darling twist of Manos-flavored fate, my Secret Word, no duck, no cigar, no shoe-polish moustache: "MANDED." Google toys with us mere hoomins, don't it. This last word? "TOME DOC." Not touchin' that one... it was obviously meant for Scott.

John Borrego said...

If you're going back to the real classics, I suggest "Bwana Devil," a masterpiece starring Robert Stack as a booze-addled white hunter, Nigel Bruce as a comical bumbling Brit (yeah, I know--a real stretch for him as an actor), several hungry lions, back-lot African natives, and a number of no-names. It was, apparently, the first movie in 3D.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, Annti.I have always been partial to musicals - South Pacific is one of my faves but I reckon it could use a little deconstruction. And then there's Flower Drum Song (shudder) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (never have so many leaped for no good reason); the grins alone will smite you.
Ben Affleck deserves his own chapter, IMHO.
Suezboo

Brian Schlosser said...


Night trainnnnnn to Transylvania!


"They didn't call John Carradine 'The Voice' for nothing"


You really took a bullet for us all, Annti. It takes a strong constitution (or fifth of Old Crow) to sit through any William Beaudine movie.

(You Ex-Mouseketeers out there may be interested to know that Beaudine directed 6 episodes of "Spin and Marty"! Some say his ghost still haunts the Best Western where Tim "Spin" Considine's nude corpse was discovered tethered to a Roy Roger's booster seat...)


As for movies for BLTBMII: The Squeakquel, I suggest the following...

White Noise: Imagine 90 minutes of Michael Keaton frowning at a radio. Yet the movie is actually more dull than that.

The Stepford Wives: Q. What happens when you take a scary but darkly humorous allegorical tale and remove all traces of humor, darkness and allegory? A. You decide that despite Ms Piggy, Grover and Yoda, you want to strangle Frank Oz!

Marie Antoinette: No, it turns out she IS a better actor than director, after all.

I could go on, but those are three stinkers that come to mind at the nonce.

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Thanks, Brian. Actually, my surviving this hellspawn was truly thanks to pain-caused insomnia and med-deprivation detox by malfeasant turds who call themselves "doctors"... how and why else would ANYONE sit through that entire bile-fest?

Does it make me severely demented or just ever-so-slightly-evil-er-than-usual that I actually ENJOYED the late remake of "The Stepford Wives"?????? Yes, I have a lifelong weakness for Frank Oz, though I'll never forgive him for falling-out with the TRUE genius, Henson, and giving Henson's evil spawn an excuse to SELL OUT TO FUCKING DISNEEYYYYY!!!!!!!!!

Bitter? Moi? Nahhh, that NEVER happens!

Borrego, I have seen the 2D broadcast of the White Devil, and you will never OWN a gun big enough to hold to my head to make me relive the experience. And no, sadly, no fifths of dry-county Wild Turkey or any PALATABLE alcohol were involved, as I can't fucking HAVE THOSE ANYMORE.

Please kill me. Just don't let the ghost of John Carradine do it, or it'll take all fucking day and half the night, unless somebody throws a prop revolver at his fuckin' head.

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Oh! I almost forgot Suezboo!

Punkin', whilst I agree wholeheartedly that Afleck should be dis-assembled with a rusty weed-whacker and a gallon of clorox, ***YOU*** just VOLUNTEERED FOR THAT DUBIOUS HONOR!!!!!!

Suck it up, sister, you named it, you're blamed for it. And if you wanna do miracles, how about everybody's favorite RAPE-FEST, "OOOOOOKLAHOMA!!!"???

Unless, of course, you know of someone here who has been concealing their shameful existence AS an Okie, for which they should justly be punished...

Jay Schiavone said...

Someone said you're looking for bad movies for analysis and appreciation. The one I found the most difficult to sit through as a lad was at the Loews College Street Cinema in New Haven in 1974: Amazing Grace, starring Moms Mabley. Perhaps if I were to see it again I might have the patience of an adult to discern its manifold charms. It seemed like a "nice," though frank narrative that reminds us that not all African American filmmaking in the 70s was Blaxploitation. The movie was made in Baltimore, so it is likely that John Waters has written it up already. If not, a diamond in the rough for Wo'C.

pajzilla said...

The worst movie I've seen was the sci-fi fart-fest "Def-Con 4." If anyone can find a print ... that's the problem ... "Battlefield Earth" looks more like "Lawrence of Arabia" by comparison.

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Jaytingle, where can I find a copy of that Moms flick??? I've never even HEARD of this one before, but I am a HUGE fan of Moms Mabeley. Small world time: today, a syndicated episode of Cosby's FIRST sitcom in the '70s, nope, not "Fat Albert," the one where he was "Chet," the P.E. teacher in L.A. --- guess who played his constantly-battling aunt & uncle???

Yup. She even got her hair did, dyed & curled!!! Moms, and, if I'm not completely blind & deaf & senile, the one and only "Rochchester" of Jack Benny Program fame, Eddie Anderson as the uncle. Hilarious team there, with those raspy, viciously-funny voices and yet the remarkably-underplayed facial expressions that spoke VOLUMES. Loved it. Cosby was astutely humble, when not pitching a bitch-fit, in the presence of pioneering geniuses.

C'mon, pirate us all a copy of "Amazing Grace"!!!

(Oooky spooky secret word: "basee," as in, homophone for COUNT Basie!!!)

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