Johnny Got His Price Gun

When I was a little kid, several intersections in my hometown had service stations on every corner, each with a sandwich board declaring a "GAS WAR!" on their surrounding competitors with all the Prussian hubris of a Großer Generalstab convinced Imperial Germany could prevail in a two front war. Failing to grasp the metaphorical nature of the taunt, I spent a lot of grammar school worried I would die as collateral damage in the coming conflict, never knowing love's first tender kiss, or even if the castaways ever got rescued from Gilligan's Island.

Later, after Omega Man came out, I was pretty sure I'd catch some biowarfare bacterium and become a crazed, mime-faced vampire who just wanted to kill Charlton Heston, even more than I already did after seeing Omega Man.

And even later still, when Ronald Reagan was president and Civil Defense tests of the Emergency Broadcast System suddenly returned to TV after a ten year hiatus, I became confident I'd end my existence toasted, like so many Lucky Strikes, in a nuclear conflagration.

I'm easily panicked, is what I'm saying.

But now that a genuine pandemic is finally here, I find I don't have the energy to panic. Fear is another matter; fear is on a pilot light and can be turned up at will, but panic requires a spike of freely available glucose that I can't seem to manage without sucking on a couple Pixy Stix. Instead, I'm filling the emotional gap with bafflement and disgust at humankind as I try to buy supplies for my invalid mother-in-law and confront aisles of denuded shelves at Ralphs and CVS. It makes me surprised that by this point God hasn't grabbed the earth, tucked it under his arm while angrily scrubbing away tears with the heel of his hand, and shouted, "Hoarding toilet paper? When it's a respiratory, not even an intestinal infection? Fine! FINE! If that's how you assholes wanna be--greedy and stupid--I'm taking my planet and going home!"

There doesn't seem to be much I can do to make things better, except sit here and not interact with the world more than I normally do, which is really only not making things worse. So I'm plowing through my Kindle library at a non-sustainable rate, and in looking around for fresh reading material I see a number of authors that I follow are cutting the cost of their books. I investigated how to do that, and now, armed with the knowledge and a mad sense of power...I'm declaring a "BOOK WAR!"

Until further notice, the ebook version of Better Living Through Bad Movies is 99¢. And unlike toilet paper, they can't run out of digital copies. Of course, unlike toilet paper you can't wipe your ass with it, but hey, that's what the Op-Ed page of the New York Times is for (and there's a new Bret Stephens column today, so eat plenty of roughage!).

Stay safe and sane everyone.

Now Is The Autumn Of Our Discontent

 Sorry for the lack of posts, but I'm coming down to the wire on this deadline (Monday morning -- I can already hear the Boomtown Rats in my head).  I'd wanted to honor the holiday with a review of the 1981 slasher flick, My Bloody Valentine, but that'll have to wait till next week.  In the meantime, here's our take, from Better Living Through Bad Movies, on the Most Romantic Movie Ever Made about intergenerational pre-necrophilia.

Autumn in New York (2000)
Directed by Joan Chen
Written by Allison Burnett

Suggested tagline: “It’s ‘Lolita’ meets ‘Camille’ in the feel-bad hit of the summer!”

Our movie begins with the gray-haired Richard Gere flirting with pregnant women in Central Park. Clearly Richard is a womanizer who must be taught a
lesson—so God decides to make him fall in love with Winona Ryder. Yeah, it seems kind of harsh to us too, but remember what He did to the Cities of the Plain for roughly the same offense.

Richard is a successful restaurateur who has just been named “Sexiest Man Alive” by The Journal of Industrial Food Service when he is introduced to Winona by her grandmother. Richard used to date Winona’s mother, and Grannie thinks it would make a nice tradition to pass him down through the generations. According to Grandma, Winona is a talented hat maker, and in fact designed the chapeaux that everyone at her table is wearing. Since they look like those pipe cleaner spiders that you made in grade school for Halloween, we begin to suspect that what’s so special about Winona is that she attends Special Ed.

Richard asks Winona to design a hat for his date to wear to the big charity ball. When she delivers it, he tells her his date cancelled and she’ll have to go with him (because there’s nobody else over the age of eight who would be caught dead wearing the Deely-Bopper antenna thing she made as a headpiece). She giggles, stammers, hiccups, and then accepts, telling him that he’s not too old for her because she “collects antiques.” You can smack her if you want to.

Richard pulls out a dress for her to wear—it’s a low-cut, form-fitting sheath
with a shawl made of Slinkies; he obviously knows her tastes. Instead of thinking
this is creepy, she is charmed and scrunches up her face for a kiss. When he
doesn’t oblige, she looks into the distance and remarks, “I can smell the rain.
When did I learn to do that?” Probably while attending the school where she
learned to make hats out of pipe cleaners.

The Rainman bit makes Richard hot, and they spend the night together. The
next morning the commitment-phobic Richard tells her that there is no future to
their relationship, but the wily Winona has the perfect riposte to that line—she
says she’s dying. Yes, it seems that she’s suffering from a fatal movie condition
that has no symptoms except for an occasional fainting spell and a lovely glow.
(Although these are also the symptoms of “movie pregnancy”, we are assured that
Winona is afflicted with a chest tumor that will cause her demise within the year—maybe less if we’re good, since she has decided to forego all treatment.)  Now don’t you feel bad for hitting her?

Winona and Richard realize that they are totally wrong for each other, but
decide to have a romance anyway since she’s dying and it’s not like they’ll have to
spend a lot of time together. Which is a good thing, since Winona says adorable
things like, “Your friends like me better than they like you.” Then she steals his
watch, telling him he can have it back when he forgets she has it. She is just so
precious that we don’t want her to suffer another minute—let’s call Dr.
Kevorkian!

Instead, Richard takes her to a costume party. She goes as her heroine, Emily
Dickinson, so she can reuse her costume from Little Women and quote lines like
“Love is a thing with feathers” at us. It’s no wonder that while Winona is reading
stories to the host’s hapless children, Richard is on the roof having sex with the
dead A.D.A. from “Law and Order.”

But being sick has given Winona super powers, and when she puts her hand
on Richard’s heart she knows he slept with Claire Kincaid. Richard finally admits
it, claiming he did it because “You’re a kid and I’m a creep.” We certainly can’t
argue with that.

Richard returns to his apartment, only to find it infested with cards inscribed
with Emily Dickinson quotes (“This is the hour of lead” would be an apt descrip-
tion for this movie, except that it lasts way longer than an hour). Winona goes
home and actually whimpers like a puppy. Grandma tries to cheer her up by tell-
ing her that Richard also broke her mother’s heart. The parallels with the Woody
Allen story are uncanny!

One day Winona enters her bedroom to find an unkempt bum in there. It’s
Richard, who has neglected his personal hygiene in an effort to convince Winona
to take him back. “Could you let me love you? Please? Please? Please?” he
entreats. Just as this kind of tireless wheedling finally persuaded your parents to
let you have the illegal fireworks that blew your hand off, his whining causes
Winona to relent and let him dote on her.

But now it’s winter—and Winona isn’t dead! This is clearly a violation of the
Geneva Convention! The movie tries to mollify us by having Winona go ice-skat-
ing, suddenly remember she has a heart condition, and collapse into an adorable
heap. Richard, who is evidently her legal guardian now, decides that she will have
the experimental surgery that could save her life. Now he only has to find a doc-
tor who saw How to Make an American Quilt and still thinks she should live.

Winona is mad when she finds out Richard tried to save her life behind her
back. But Richard explains, “You don’t want to die! You want to live!” She’d never thought of that before and agrees to the surgery, eloquently informing
Richard that “I don’t want to leave you. Ya know?” It’s dialogue like this that
demonstrates the screenwriter’s literary aspirations. Ya know?

Then there are the tense hours of waiting while the surgeon does his stuff. He
finally exits the operating room, his head bowed, his shoulders slumped. But he’s
just funning us, for it’s good news—Winona finally died! Richard goes home,
finds his watch, and lives happily ever after. The end.

So, what does this movie teach us about winning a man’s heart? Oh, just
oodles and boodles of stuff! (Sorry, all the Winona cuteness still hasn’t worn off.)
Anyway:

1. Know what type of guy you’re looking for. Make a list of traits that appeal to
   you, such as intelligence, mutual interests, compatibility of temperaments,
   being born in the same century, etc. Then throw that list away and fall for
   someone completely wrong for you. If this person is a serial adulterer with
   bad personal hygiene who used to have frequent intercourse with your
   mother, so much the better!
2. Develop a special skill that will bring you fame and success, and will also
   impress guys with your creativity, talent, and sense of style. We suggest fabricating designer hats that make the wearer look like a Cootie, but you could also try gluing wagon wheel macaroni to a frozen orange juice can and spray-painting it gold, or you could make an ashtray out of clay—the beauty of this approach is that the ashtray can double as a Father’s Day gift for your lover in case it turns out he slept with your mom one too many times.
3. Be winsome and adorable and as cute as a bug! Practice simpering at least 30 minutes a day.
4. Try employing The Rules. Don’t talk to a man first, even if he might be your long-lost dad. Keep things light and fun—only have heart attacks in the cutest, most amusing ways. And above all, be unavailable. Don’t see him as often as he wants, deny him your time and attention, and always leave him wanting more. The best way to do this is by dying.

Nothing Sucks Like a Black Hole

Last month I was invited to appear on the Mike and Ike All Star Jamboree (or "ASSJAM") podcast to debate the merits and demerits of Disney's big budget disaster, The Black Hole.  So I figured, since I've just rewatched the movie for the first time since its release, I might as well write up a summary for the sequel to Better Living Through Bad Movies now, while the wounds are still fresh.  Because there's no way I'm ever sitting through this thing again.

(By the way, a special shout-out to Ike (Happy Birthday, man) for reminding me of the crucial role that automaton genitalia play in the film.)

The Black Hole (1979)
Directed by Gary Nelson
Written by Jeb Rosebrook and Gerry Day

Tagline: A journey that begins where everything else ends!

Starting with your patience.

The Black Hole gets a lot of crap for being just another Star Wars rip-off, which I consider unfair, since it’s actually a rip-off of Disney’s own 1954 picture, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but with two crucial differences: this version is set in space rather than at sea, and instead of Nemo being a tortured genius using ruthless means to achieve a noble end, he’s just an asshole.

Another criticism of the film is that nearly every performance is lifeless or just plain bad. No surprise with that talking wig-stand, Yvette Mimieux, but even normally fine actors like Anthony Perkins and Robert Forster sound like they’ve been roofied, possibly because they were forced to go back and re-record all their dialogue, something unusual for a studio film shot on a stage.  But in all fairness, if I’d been working on the that movie, I’d have been drinking too.

It’s the Year 2130. NASA has launched the spaceship Palomino (which, as my friend Jeff points out, looks like a butt-plug on a camcorder tripod) and sent it on a mission to boldly go and wander around for a while. It’s a harsh task, because the Palomino is no Enterprise; it’s cramped, filled with fey robots, and has a zero-gravity environment which is tough on the wardrobe. Fortunately, it’s the future, so everybody’s double-knit leisure suits have memory. Also helpful is the fact that the crew is aggressively middle-aged, and prone to simulate weightlessness by standing on an off-camera plank while sweaty Teamsters pump it up and down like a teeter-totter. The exception is Joseph Bottoms, who really throws himself into the zero-g effect, joyfully and repeatedly dangling from wires in his tight jumpsuit with his pert, shapely buttocks aloft, and which has inspired me to invent a drinking game. Every time he does it, yell “Bottom’s up!” and take a shot.

Anyway, we join the Palomino as it executes an unscheduled course correction, which makes the entire crew irritable, because now they’re going to be late for work. They demand an explanation from their GPS device, V.I.N.CENT, a highly sophisticated Coors Party Ball with the voice of Roddy McDowell and the eyes of that Kit-Cat Clock, but less expressive. He explains that the ship has encountered a black hole, “a rip in the very fabric of space and time,” so they’re going to have to take an alternate route.

Anthony Perkins, the ship’s astrophysicist, stares at the black hole (which is depicted as a constant swirl of fluid blue energy that kind of looks like a toilet in mid-flush) and pronounces it, with attempted awe, “the most destructive force in the universe,” although he sounds so bored he might as well be declaring it, “the most disappointing cheesesteak I ever ate in Philadelphia.”

Surprisingly, there’s a ship parked in the Black Hole’s driveway, a massive experimental craft called The Cygnus (the first time I saw this movie I thought they were calling it “the Sickness,” and an hour and 38 minutes later, I realized I should have taken the hint and snuck into an adjoining theater to see one of the many other, better films that came out that year, including H.O.T.S., C.H.O.M.P.S., Roller Boogie, or Caligula).

By an amazing coincidence, Yvette’s father was on The Sickness, which she tells us was sent out some years ago to find “habitable life.” Personally, I’d be satisfied with a habitable planet, but I guess the first step in space exploration is to find aliens big enough that we can live inside them like maggots, or immature marsupials. (Frankly, if this movie had been about the search for an intelligent race of giant space kangaroos, I probably wouldn’t have left in the middle to go buy Junior Mints.)

Newspaper reporter Ernest Borgnine, who’s embedded with the crew, tells them that The Sickness was commanded by mad scientist Maximillian Schell, who “talked the Space Appropriations Committee into the costliest fiasco of all time – and refused to admit failure,” a technique he learned from the cryogenically preserved head of Dick Cheney.

The Palomino trips and plunges headfirst into the Most Destructive Force in the Universe, which causes their muffler to fall off, so Captain Robert Forster orders Joseph Bottoms to land on the Sickness, which Joseph takes as a cue to stick his butt in the air.

Cheers!

The Sickness abruptly turns on the porch light, and we get the full sense of her size and majesty. A mile-long rectangle of glass and steel, it looks as if NASA just decided to launch the West Edmonton Mall into deep space. The crew takes the jetway and emerges into what looks like a Frontier airlines terminal – lots of uncomfortable plastic chairs, but no passengers -- and Robert tells Joseph to stay with the ship. Joseph responds by pouting, then pulling his ray gun and doing a quick series of poses like that silhouette from the opening credits of Charlie’s Angels.

The Palomino crew arrives at CNN Center in Atlanta, where they discover the ship is being operated by “robots” dressed in Mylar hockey masks and roomy space muumuus. Suddenly, the mad-eyed Maximilian Schell, whose shaggy beard and unbelievable bouffant makes Lon Chaney’s Wolfman look like Pluto from The Hills Have Eyes, pops up to announce that Yvette’s dad is dead and to backfill the back-story. Like every spacecraft in virtually every space movie ever made, The Sickness had the crap kicked out of it by a meteor shower, so Max ordered the crew to abandoned ship. Meanwhile, he stayed behind, and has spent the last twenty years alone, building robot companions and making fun of bad movies.

For some reason, the incredibly secretive and paranoid Max lets the Away Team wander freely around his ship, collecting spare parts to repair their butt-plug. They snoop in closets, admire the matte paintings, and desperately try to avoid stunts or action. At one point, Ernest Borgnine’s suspicions are aroused by a robot with a bad limp, and he gives chase, but he’s on a slightly raised platform that looks a little slippery, and he runs so gingerly, with his arms flailing to maintain his footing, that you can almost hear him chanting, “Don’t break a hip, don’t break a hip…!”

Mad Max and Anthony Perkins get flirty, and Max invites them to dinner in his wood paneled formal dining room, lavishly appointed with chandeliers and candelabras, making The Sickness the only faster-than-light, interstellar space craft to be decorated by Liberace.

Meanwhile, VINCENT makes friends with B.O.B., a levitating beer keg with the voice of Slim Pickens, and we get to watch the robots play a video arcade game. It’s a slow sequence, and sadly, putting your quarter on the machine doesn’t speed things up any.

Let’s cut back to the dinner party, because what action-packed space adventure is complete without a leisurely soup course? Max announces that he’ll be flying The Sickness straight into the Black Hole, confident he can open a portal to another universe, one which is sorely in need of a Camp Snoopy and a Wet Seal.

After dinner, the crew is served mints and exposition, when B.O.B. reveals that all the robots are really the former crew of The Sickness, whom Max lobotomized, using a special automated lobotomizing assembly line. It seems unlikely NASA included this feature as factory standard equipment, so Max would have had to get the crew to build and install it for him, and frankly I would’ve loved to have been at the staff meeting where he assigned Action Items to Team Automatic Lobotomizer.

Captain Robert snaps into action and decides to take over The Sickness! Or maybe just leave. It’s kind of unclear. Then he reads ahead in the script and sees that he’ll be spending the last twenty-two minutes of the film running from blue screens and matte paintings, so he decides he’d better conserve his energy and just do nothing. Maybe have a Gatorade and a Power Bar.  Anthony Perkins, however, announces that he has decided to stay aboard The Sickness with Max, because he finds that he really enjoys being only the second most creepy person in a movie.

Unfortunately, Max’s senior robot, Maximilian, a recycled Cylon that somebody painted the color of Gallo Hearty Burgundy, gets jealous or something and uses his juicing attachment on Anthony’s lower intestines. Then Mad Max decides to lobotomize Yvette, because it’s not like anyone would notice.

Meanwhile, Robert and the Party Balls sneak around the mall some more. Since the movie was released in December, I can only assume they’re looking for Santa. Instead, they find Yvette, who has been stuffed into a quilted, full-body oven mitt and had her head covered with aluminum foil. Seriously, her scalp is wrapped up like a rump roast; apparently, this is the exact point where the Special Effects department said, “Fuck it,” and cracked open the Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

Anyway, Max’s man-bots are using Lasik surgery to burn their initials into Yvette’s pre-frontal lobe, but Robert shoots the machine with his plastic laser horseshoe. Was he in time to save her from being lobotomized? There’s no way to tell from her performance, so we’re just going to have to wait and see if her insurance company sends her a bill.

You know what? We could really use a big action sequence right about now. What we get are repetitive shots of our heroes as they squat behind those big pastel colored pipes that kids crawl around in at Chuck E. Cheese, and take pot shots at a row of immobile robots who appear to have all malfunctioned in mid Conga Line.

Robert, Yvette, and the Party Balls are pinned down by hostile fire. Joseph, who’s been sitting in the butt-plug the whole movie, runs to save them. Ernest tags along, then decides, “aw, screw it,” and fakes a leg injury like an Italian soccer player. Then he steals the Palomino and blasts off, leaving the others behind. Immediately, however, he loses control of the ship when he starts sweating, grimacing, and needlessly crouching; in other words – and I’m just going by his performance here – he has a suddenly attack of diarrhea, and crashes into The Sickness, taking out the Fashion Bug and a Cinnabon.

Our heroes decide to escape in “the probe ship.” Yeah, whatever. Meanwhile, as promised, the next 22 minutes consist of B-list actors jogging in front of cheap sets and back projection, interspersed with SFX shots as The Sickness is slowly – let me rephrase that: SLOWLY! – pulled into the Black Hole. On the bright side, we learn that V.I.N.CENT ’s large, telescoping testicles can be used as offensive weapons (try that, Jackie Chan!), when the Party Ball deploys his party balls to coldcock Mad Max’s garage sale Cylon.

Now let’s rip off the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with five minutes of half-assed psychedelic effects as the probe ship penetrates the Black Hole, played at this performance by five gallons of strawberry Jell-O flushed down a john.

But what about Max? Well, he’s just floating in the vacuum of space without a pressure suit, apparently none the worse for wear, although his hair is extremely staticky and tangled from the event horizon, and in need of a good cream rinse. He bumps into his burgundy Cylon which – spoiler alert – is filled with the brain and guts of Yvette’s lobotomized Dad. They do a touching Bro Hug, then suddenly Max is inside the robot himself! Because, irony! He looks confused, a feeling we immediately share when the camera pulls out and we see that he’s standing atop the Matterhorn ride in Disneyland.

Wait. No. Pull out a little farther, and…Oh! Hey. We’re in Hell. Flames, demons, and dozens of skull-faced penitents in black hooded robes. Okay, thanks, Disney.

Cut back to our heroes as they pass through the Black Hole and emerge in another universe, ready to begin life anew, like the story of Genesis. Except it’s Robert Forster, Yvette Mimeaux, and the dewy, fresh-faced Joseph Bottoms, so it’s like Adam and Eve and the twink hustler they picked up for a threesome, making the whole ending less the Garden of Eden and more the Garden of Allah on Sunset Boulevard.

The Importance of Being Ernest

Academy Award-winning actor Ernest Borgnine has passed away at the age of 95.  I always admired his range (he played both the violent, racist hayseed in Bad Day at Black Rock, and the gentle, Bronx-born Marty in the same year, 1955), and career longevity (the most recent film I saw him in was 2010's RED), and when Mary came in to tell me the news, she scolded, "Now don't you feel bad for trashing him?"

Okay, I plead guilty to that, but with an explanation.  Over the 4th of July weekend I made a return appearance on Mike and Ike's All Star Summer Jamboree (ASSJAM) podcast, in which I spent a solid half hour ranting about the 1979 sci-fi snoozer, The Black Hole -- co-starring Ernest Borgnine.  (If you like the film, fear not, because Ike is there to defend it. Also, what's wrong with you?)  But I didn't really trash him, just everything and everyone around him.  Anywhere, click here for the podcast.  My segment is the first, starting at about the 2:45 mark, and running for 28 minutes of pure, spittle-flecked Disney hate.

However, I will confess that we kind of trashed him -- just a bit! -- in Better Living Through Bad Movies.  Specifically, the essay on 1975's The Devil's Rain (the mid-to-late Seventies were not kind to Ernest), which I reprint here as a warm and heartfelt tribute, because I'm too lazy to go down to the grocery store and get one of those $12 bouquets of carnations from the Produce department.

The Devil’s Rain (1975)
Directed by Robert Fuest
Written by James Ashton, Gabe Essoe, and Gerald Hopman

It is a dark and stormy night. Ida Lupino is worried about her husband—and she has cause, because when he shows up, he’s missing his eyes. Mr. Ida tells son William Shatner to take “The Book” to Ernest Borgnine, then melts into a pile of goop—a thing which apparently happens all the time, since neither Ida nor Shatner are much impressed by it.

Next morning, Shatner rides out into the California desert until he reaches Satan’s Subdivision (which, though it reeks of unholy corruption, is convenient to schools and shopping). He and Borgnine exchange fraught dialogue until it’s apparent they are equally matched in the overacting department, so they agree to a Faith showdown. As they enter the New England-style white clapboard chapel where the duel is to take place, we notice that the whole congregation is wearing black robes ornamented with Hello Kitty insignias—and they don’t have any eyes! Apparently, Borgnine’s entire following consists of a Braille Academy graduating class that he recruited in mid-commencement.

"Rock on, dudes.'

Borgnine and Shatner each offer prayers to the deities of their choice, and then Shatner shoots a bunch of parishioners. This is not only improper behavior in a house of worship, but the judges rule that it constitutes illegal use of a foreign object, so Ernest gets his soul.

Meanwhile, over in Hooterville, Shatner’s brother Tom Skerritt and Tom’s vacant wife Julie are playing the Kreskin Home Game with Eddie Albert. Just then, Tom receives word that his family is missing and presumed damned. Tom and Julie head over to the Satanic Suburbs, where up-and-coming cult member John Travolta (who is listed in the credits as “Danny, the Littlest Satanist”)
roughs them up. Julie then has a flashback to their previous lives in Colonial Salem. It seems they sold their souls to Satan (through his licensed representative, Ernest Borgnine) in exchange for acting careers. However, the good times ended when Shatner’s wife stole Borgnine’s book of names and ratted everybody out to the HUAC, which burned them at the stake.

The Satanists are impressed by Julie’s uncanny ability to provide exposition, and they kidnap her. A shaken Tom seeks help from Eddie Albert (Arnold Ziffle was busy). Eddie deduces that “The Book”, which has been in Tom’s family ever since the flashback, contains the signatures of those who sold their souls back in Salem. Eddie further explains that Satan won’t accept delivery of the souls without proof of purchase, which explains why Ernest wants The Book so badly—it’s the end of the quarter and he needs to get his expenses in.

Tom and Eddie explore the quaint Satanist chapel, discovering a manhole that leads directly to Hell. While browsing around the underworld, they pick up a lovely souvenir at The Ungodly Giftshop: Satan’s Sno-Globe, a vessel containing the souls of Borgnine’s followers. These unfortunates are continually subject to the Devil’s Rain—which must be even ickier than golden showers, to hear the
people in the paperweight moan and groan about it.

But while they were sno-globe shopping, Borgnine grabbed The Book, causing Ernest to hideously transform into the physical embodiment of Satan—which means that he puts on a white fright wig, a sheep’s nose, and ram horns. Or maybe he suddenly became a spokesmodel for Dodge Trucks—the
movie’s a little vague on this point.

Tom puts on a Hello Kitty Satanic cap 'n gown and infiltrates the coven, but he blows his cover by objecting mildly to Borgnine’s plan to sacrifice Julie (allowing John Travolta to deliver his only line in the movie, “Blasphemer! Blasphemer!”). Score so far: Evil 5, Good 0.

Suddenly, the filmmakers spring their horrible surprise: William Shatner is still in the movie! And now he has the sno-globe. Fortunately, he succumbs to Eddie’s plea to break the cursed knick-knack, assured that this will free his soul (and everybody else’s) from the devil’s power. Unfortunately, this doesn’t end the movie, it just causes it to rain—and, as it turns out, devil worshippers are highly
water-soluble. So, everybody starts to get gooey and then to melt. For nearly ten minutes. What a world, what a world. While the copy on the video box promises “Absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture!” this sequence actually contains all the thrills of watching a carton of Neapolitan ice cream you’ve left out in the sun. But if you’re lactose intolerant, you might feel vindicated by it.

Eventually the landscape is littered with sticky piles of pastel goo that used to be Borgnine and company, and Julie and Tom are free to go on with their lives, released from the curse that has hung over their family for centuries! At last, Good (represented by the star of Green Acres) has triumphed over Evil (embodied by the co-star of Airwolf), just as it was foretold in the Book of Revelations. The End.

So, what did we learn from this movie? Mainly that the disposition of one’s immortal soul depends not upon good works, or mortal sin, but on whether Satan’s middle managers turn in their paperwork on time.

We also learned the importance of keeping good records. IRS Publication 552, “Record Keeping for Individuals” makes the same point, albeit without William Shatner or John Travolta, so it’s more entertaining. This pamphlet, written for Americans of all ages, asks thought-provoking questions, like “Why Keep Records?” and then provides faith-affirming, weirdly ungrammatical answers (“In
addition to tax purposes, you may need to keep records for getting a loan”).

IRS Publication 552 also deals with specific situations that may come up in the life of you, the taxpayer. For instance, if you are in the second-hand soul business, and somebody happens to steal your inventory, here is vital information about what records you need in order to file a tax write-off on those souls:

Casualty and Theft Losses of Souls

Before filing a deduction, you must complete form 666-EZ, indicating the amount you paid for each soul. (For intangible payments like “fame” and “power,” provide a fair market estimate by checking comparables on eBay; the fair market value of “love” will be determined by whatever the women
are willing to sell themselves for on the current version of “The Bachelor.”)

To support your claim for a casualty loss, your records should show the type of mishap that destroyed the soul or souls (e.g., “water damage.”)

Hint: keep a journal, making note of all the information you will need to file your IRS claim. For example, “Dear Diary, On June 2, 1975, I asked the satanic intern, John Travolta, to check on the souls that I keep in a sno-globe stored in a pit of hell. He said he couldn’t find the sno-globe, as it had been stolen. Probably by blasphemers. Those souls were my property that I purchased in a flashback. Before I could get them back, they all melted, so they were a complete loss. (Well, the William Shatner soul had already been depreciated to worthlessness by those Priceline commercials, but the rest were pretty valuable.) I must remember to claim a loss on this year’s income tax return, which I fully intend to file in January. Because, as we all know, it’s intending to pay taxes that pave hell’s roads.”

R.I.P. Ernest.

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Mad...Or When I'm in a Hercules Movie

Not to go all Jimmy Wilson from I Accuse My Parents, but it's my birthday, so I'm giving myself the day off from wingnuts.  Instead, I thought I'd post another preview of the sequel to Better Living Through Bad Movies, plucked fresh from the Low Hanging Fruit tree.  The movie itself is a sequel to the 1983 Golan-Globus epic, Hercules, which is perhaps most famous for the scene in which Lou Ferrigno is sodomized by a bear.  Enjoy!

The Adventures of Hercules (1985)
Directed by: Luigi Cozzi
Screenplay by: Luigi Cozzi. Story by: Luigi Cozzi (this credit subject to change, as Mr. Cozzi has received a cease and desist letter on behalf of Homer from the law firm of Dithyramb, Dithyramb, Hungadunga and Pederasty).

The sequel begins with another planetarium show, narrated by Ileum, the God of Making Shit Up. “There existed an angel-like figure,” he tells us. “A goddess.” (If you’re a goddess, but you can only get work as an angel, I would suggest going back to night school and getting your GED.)

“From within her came the seed of fire and light, that was to issue forth all stars, planets, and moons. “ To demonstrate this concept, a large sperm wearing Eva Gabor’s chiffon house dress from Green Acres wanders past the camera. Suddenly, the Foley guy drops a shopping bag full of cowbells, waking up the Eye of Sauron, which immediately starts hurling bowling balls from its tear duct, knocking down two-thirds of the audience, but leaving itself with a tricky 4-10 split. Naturally, all this adds up to the gods creating… HERCULES! (Presumably they followed the Biblical paradigm of molding a man from the earth itself and breathing life into his nostrils. Except in this case, Zeus was a little low on modeling clay, so he fashioned Hercules out of Muscle Juice brand posing oil and a tube of Sudden Tan.)

Zeus has been ruling the universe thanks to his “seven mighty thunderbolts,” but then four gods (represented here by three aging Italian starlets and a Michael Rennie impersonator whose spiral-permed beard gives the impression he killed the lead singer of Dead or Alive and glued the victim’s scalp to his chin) went rogue and stole the lightning bolts as part of an elaborate scheme to electrocute Lee Trevino.

Cut to Earth, where a drag queen in a maribou-trimmed muumuu and Lucille Ball fright wig brings a whimpering girl to an ancient altar, which is all that remains of a once-mighty civilization that was apparently based on Masonite and corrugated boxes. Lucy bellows, “the fires await her silken flanks!” So, we’re having flank steak. Yum. Good thing I brought my Mom’s famous German potato salad. Say, how long do you like to marinate your ingénue?

He spread-eagles her over a granite sphere that vaguely resembles the kind of exercise ball Wilma Flintstone would have used to work on her obliques, then Anteus, the guest of honor shows up. Anteus consists of some rotoscoped footage of the Id Monster filched from Forbidden Planet, and he burns the girl to a smoldering crisp, which completes the sacrifice but ruins the barbeque (I hope everyone’s hungry for potato salad). A Hippie Chick observes the ritual, then jumps on a horse and rides over to the next scene, where she proceeds to bitch about the whole thing to Pocahontas.

It seems their tribe is being flame-roasted like Whoppers by a monstrous copyright infringement, but Pocahontas reminds Hippie Chick that she is destined to save them with her power of prophecy, and maybe she should, you know, get off the pot. Hippie Chick (whose name is Urania – which prompts the question, “How can you have Uranus without Us?” It just seems snooty and elitist) -- sinks to the ground and says No, she’s not ready. And Oh, by the way, I just predicted you’ll be the next victim.

Well! I guess the Color of the Wind this season is black. In desperation, Urania goes to consult “the Little People.” My hope that Peter Dinklage will show up in this film is immediately crushed, however, when we see that the Little People are just the Mothra Twins, who've been forced by a poor job market to move into a double-wide Hibatchi.

They tell her that Rebel Gods stole Zeus’s thunderbolt collection, and now the Moon is going to crash into the Earth, and she really should look up that Hercules guy.

“But nothing has been heard from him in ages,” Urania complains. Or at least not since the first movie came out in 1983. Not so, say the Mothra Twins, for their gift of prophecy and access to imdb.com reveals that in the past two years Hercules has appeared on both Night Court and The Fall Guy.

Meanwhile, on Olympus (which, for some reason, is on the runaway Moon), Zeus wonders if he’s actually guest starring on Space: 1999, and if so, can he get Catherine Schell to sign an 8x10 glossy? But his secretary Della Street convinces Zeus to hire Hercules to recover the stolen thunderbolts and offer him the same 10% finder’s fee Banacek used to get.

Cut to Herc, standing in out space, arms akimbo, and sporting a flesh-colored posing pouch that brings the phrase “anatomically incorrect” to mind. Seriously, thanks to the steroids, he makes G.I. Joe look like Johnny Wadd.

Herc uses the Enterprise transporter to beam himself down to Earth, where he's attacked by American gymnastics champion Mitch Gaylord, who is dressed as an Afghan hound. Mitch uses the ancient art of Gymkata on Herc, but the fight quickly winds up, as most fights do, on the ground, with the guy in the pedigreed dog costume straddling the weight lifter with the Ken Doll groin.

Herc impales his foe with a fallen tree branch, and Mitch quickly evaporates, leaving behind a lightning bolt! So remember, if you’re ever attacked in the woods by an Olympic gold medalist dressed like a Westminster Dog Show contestant, stab him with a stick, because there’s a prize inside.

Cut to the Rebel Gods (which would make a cool name for a rockabilly band), who discuss their scheme to crash the Moon into the Earth by hiding thunderbolts inside of furries. Hercules must die, and they decide that the only man who can beat him is King Minos, the guy Herc killed at the end of the last movie. So the gods murder a member of the USC Trojan marching band in order to use his blood to resurrect Minos, and to prevent him from breaking into “Tusk.”

Back in the forest, Herc comes upon a gruesome scene. A riderless horse grazes in a clearing, empty leather man-purses are scattered about, and a mannequin lies on the ground, pierced with spear and drizzled with pizza toppings.

Suddenly Pocahontas bursts from cover and throws herself into Herc’s massive arms, weeping that Urania was taken by “Slime people! They rise out of the mud and the mire and hold you by suction!” What’s more, they took her “toward the Great Mouth.”

Fortunately, they’ll be easy to find, because they advertise in the “Adult Entertainment” section of the L.A. Weekly classifieds.

Herc shakes her violently and admonishes, “You should know, this is a very dangerous region!” Which the director illustrates by cutting away to a random shot of a moss-covered stone tortoise in a sculpture garden.

Hercules and Pocahontas find Urania tied up outside a Lions Club haunted house. They cut her down, and are immediately tackled by the Slime People (they vaguely resemble Morlocks who fell into a septic tank, except without the Rod Stewart hair).

Mitch Gaylord is back, and is still quite nimble for a man hand-dipped in human waste. Herc punches away (each time he connects with one of the bipedal turds, fireworks go off, making the epic battle scene resemble a combination of a German Scheiße fetish video and the opening credits to Love, American Style).

They retreat into the haunted house, but their feces-flocked attackers feel that the $7 door charge is a bit pricey for some foamcore tombstones and a bowl of grapes masquerading as disembodied eyeballs, so they shamble off to the showers.

Inside a cavern, Herc and the girls are met by a regal woman who has teased her long, silken tresses into a stately dunce cap of hair. She conducts them through a wax museum consisting of spray-painted models from the life drawing class at the local community college, then points out the back door to the cave, which she assures our hero is almost completely free of crap-coated tumblers.

Suddenly, blindingly bright creatures burst out of the walls! They’re seemingly made of light, and humming with electricity, but kind of tubby and ill-defined, due to the bad post-production matte job, so they look a bit like laser Shmoos. And the best part? They pop when you punch ‘em!

Hercules deduces that nobody but the Gorgon Medusa would keep laser Shmoos inside a wax museum. Fortunately, he saw Clash of the Titans back in ‘81, and we’re treated to a cheap, shot-for-shot remake of the shield-mirror-decapitation scene, leading to 9 seconds of actual stop motion animation! Granted, it’s a really crappy claymation model that makes Davy and Goliath look like Jason and the Argonauts, but it’s a relief from all the Mitch Gaylord cameos.

Herc and his two groupies wander down a scenic jogging path, until they come upon some crudely made plaster of Paris dolls dangling from the trees like Christmas decorations.

“It’s like Hell on Earth!” Urania whispers, deeply unnerved by the lack of twinkling lights and popcorn strings. Actually, it's more like a wind chime clearance at Pick 'N' Save, but an outraged Hercules charges into the bushes, determined to find the fiend responsible. Or maybe that Big Gulp kicked in and he just has to pee real badly.

Herc is attacked by the Ajax White Knight, who is not only stronger than dirt, but armed with a neon battleaxe that shoots blaster bolts. But before he can use his unholy powers to remove the stubborn grass stains from Herc’s loincloth, our hero gives him a clumsy, playground-style push. The White Knight obligingly dies, and a piece of lightning falls out of his pants.

So: three thunderbolts down, four to go, with three minutes left in the first half.

You remember that Dedalus chick from the first film? The greatest artificer known to Man, who expresses her belief in the supremacy of science over myth by wearing a shower curtain cape, a vinyl singlet and a protective groin cup? Well, she’s back, and she and Minos are hatching a plan: they will exterminate all life, both human and divine, then Dedalus will recreate Mankind in her own likeness; so if these two maniacs are successful, we can look forward to genocide, deicide, and a severe shower curtain shortage.

To beat Anteus, the Forbidden Planet monster that’s scheduled to fricassee Pocahontas, Herc needs to fire-proof himself, so he and Urania wander around the bottom of the ocean looking for the cast of Spongebob Squarepants. Instead, they find three telepathic, sub-aquatic strippers, who are sitting in a cave wearing pasties and mermaid tails that appear to be made from shiny foil gift wrapping paper.

They tell Hercules that he can survive the fire of Anteus if he just nips down to Hades and siphons the Styx with a turkey baster, because the River of the Dead is made from sunblock with a 35 SPF rating. So, we’re all primed to follow Herc on a trip to the Underworld, and watch him battle an army of corpses in a major action set piece. Instead, one of the mer-strippers reaches into her make-up bag and just hands him a bottle of Styxblock.

Meanwhile, the drag queen from the opening sequence has returned, and has Pocahontas bound in chains and spread-eagled over Wilma’s fitness equipment.

Anteus appears, and Pocahontas screams, ‘it’s Hell on Earth!” Actually honey, it’s scratches on the emulsion, so relax. Then our hero shows up and challenges Anteus to a clash of titans, which takes the form of Hercules punching a blurry white cursor around the screen until we’re not sure if we’re watching a duel to the death between god and demi-god, or if Herc is just playing Pong.

Hercules wins, is awarded another thunderbolt, and advances to the next level. But we’ve still got 30 minutes to go, so all I can say is, the End Boss better be worth it.

A giant skull slips Urania a roofie and she goes on a cosmic trip; by which I mean she stands in outer space in a cheesecloth bikini while the itinerant sperm from the opening credits zips around her like Tinkerbell.

Meanwhile, Herc and Pocahontas are attacked by Amazons, which sounds fun, but the women warriors are clearly the same stunt men who played the poop monsters earlier in the movie, except now they’re wearing body stockings to hide their hairy Italian forearms, and sporting darts in their breastplates. The fight ends when the Amazons drop a net on Hercules, which, as fans of the genre know, is the equivalent of giving Superman a kryptonite suppository.

They lay Hercules out in a web-shaped hammock, then summon their “spider queen” from the Tri-Wizard Tournament Goblet of Fire (it’s a small role, which the Goblet only took in order to get its SAG card). She means to do the nasty, in the long tradition of Herc-bedding evil queens, but Herc just rolls on top and strangles her in a rather ugly scene that feels like it was lifted from the 1976 film Snuff.  But then she dissolves and we see that she was just another mule who had swallowed a condom full of lightning.

The Rebel Gods bitch about how Hercules is repo-ing all the thunderbolts, then Minos shows up, and thanks to SCIENCE!, he can shoot lasers from his eyes. He disintegrates two of the gods (it’s not clear who, exactly, but I think he kills Poseidon, God of the Sea, and Debbie, Goddess of Pore-Tightening Astringents).

Herc and the girls climb up through the Eye of Sauron, and emerge in the Attic of the Gods, where they find the Sixth Thunderbolt, some squirrels chewing on the fiberglass insulation, and Apollo’s secret stash of bodybuilding magazines hidden behind the water heater.

Then Minos climbs into the Attic to confront Hercules and look for his water-skis. He gives Herc the old, “Join me, and we will rule this Galaxy as Father and Beefcake!” speech. But Herc refuses, so Minos Tasers him with SCIENCE!

But all is not lost, because Athena bequeaths Hercules a shield that will protect him from “evil science.” Unfortunately, it’s a Dalkon Shield, and Hercules is immediately tied up in litigation, sued for compensatory and punitive damages, and later forced to file Chapter 11.

Herc and Minos meet in outer space, where Minos turns a couple of stunt men into rotoscoped line drawings; then Athena rotoscopes Hercules, and they have an epic battle of crude coloring book illustrations which lasts exactly 17.7 seconds, because I timed it. But hey, special effects this lavish are costly.

Minos turns himself into a menacing stick figure, and he and Make Sure You Color Inside the Lines Hercules dance around until Herc impales Mr. SCIENCE!, causing Minos to turn into a Tyrannosaurus Rex. And where did they get the rotoscoped dinosaur footage? Funny you should ask, because Herc suddenly transforms into a line drawing of King Kong, and we get to watch that famous giant ape versus thunder lizard fight sequence again, but this time acted out by neon Magic Marker sketches on one of those black dry erase boards they use to post drink specials in sports bars.

Finally, Kong Herc throws neon reptile Minos at the green screen, and he explodes. Great! The villain’s dead. But there’s still 10 minutes to go in the running time. Crap!

It turns out that Hera hid the seventh thunderbolt inside Urania’s heart, which explains the young woman’s history of heartburn and acid reflux. Urania begs Hera to give her “the kiss of death.” By this point, I’m beyond hoping for a lesbian make-out scene, and if the kiss works as advertised, I’d like to get one myself, please.

Meanwhile, the Moon is hurtling toward the Earth, so Zeus turns Hercules into the Amazing Colossal Basketball Player, and tells him to block the shot. Hercules stops the worlds from colliding, then holds them apart while the Earth gives the Moon a Golden Shower (again, I assume this scene was inserted to increase box office and VHS rentals in the German market).

All is well. Urania is appointed a Muse, which is a great honor, although she later quits when she realizes the job involves sharing a cubicle with Olivia Newton John. Hercules turns back into a line drawing, and uses the Enterprise transporter to exit the movie, because he's just booked a guest spot on Matt Houston.

So, what have we learned? Well, from the closing credits we learned that the single biggest department working on the film was “Cell Animation and Rotoscoping.” We learned that the wigs were by “Sexy Wigs.” And we learned that Cannon Films had the brass-plated balls to slap a copyright notice on this thing. The End.

The Pod is Cast

Still Life: Falcor with Stoners, designed by Matt Dillon (@geekplanetmatt on Twitter).

First, I want to thank you guys for the many fine horror movie pets and peeves you left in comments; they were indispensable in putting me in the proper frame of mind to be ASSJAM'd.

As I mentioned on Sunday, our friends Mike and Ike, the marihuana-fueled pop culture critics who produce podcasts and videos (such as this Long Days Journey into Larry Buchanan's It's Alive) for GeekPlanetOnline, were good enough to invite me onto their show this week, and I was bad enough to oblige, because who am I to go around rescuing people from their own questionable judgment?

My conversation with Mike & Ike (mostly Ike, although Mike puts in an appearance toward the end to talk about dinosaur eggs and self-surgery) is now up, and you can listen, if you feel so inclined, by clicking here.  It's a rambling chat about Better Living Through Bad Movies, a preview of the As Yet Untitled Sequel, TV shows old and new, horror movies good and bad, Mark Singer, and the best way to darn a scrotum.

It was my first experience of the medium -- as a participant, anyway -- and I was a little nervous.  Also, I couldn't find my USB microphone (although I suavely covered its absence by shouting hoarsely in the general direction of my computer), so I may be both unintelligible and incomprehensible, when I'd only planned on being the one.  But I had fun.

And I have another quick poll question for you. The podcast experience has inspired me to do a BLTBM-style review for Halloween, in the spirit of our annual Christmas movie extravaganza, and I wanted to solicit your suggestions:  What movie would you like to see us to do?  Please feel free to nominate films of any vintage, high or low budget, infamous or obscure, just as long as it can reasonably be considered horror (or you can make a case that it should be).

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...