Horror comedy, dark comedy, superheroism, and insanity.
UNCLE PECKERHEAD (2020)
Writer/director Matthew John Lawrence's horror comedy Uncle Peckerhead claims to be based on a true story, and while a lot of it feels about as realistic as The Return of the Living Dead (another horror comedy that mixed a "true story" claim with man-eating ghouls), some of this does ring true. The film follows a punk trio called Duh as they embark on their first tour, and the way Lawrence handles the "small time band on the road" aspect makes it seem like he and/or people he knows are very familiar with that life. The interactions members of Duh have with other bands they encounter and people who run venues feel like they were inspired by real experiences. If they weren't, well, Lawrence certainly presented them in a believable way.
Duh consists of Judy (Chet Siegel), the most driven-to-succeed of the bunch, ready to fully dedicate herself to getting the band a deal with a record label; downbeat and deadpan drummer Mel (Ruby McCollister); and Max (Jeff Riddle), who is really awkward and dim when he's not on stage, and isn't good at addressing the audience when he is on stage, but lets loose when it's time to belt out vocals. Riddle also had a hand in creating a lot of the songs featured in the film, so it makes sense that his character is most alive when the music is playing, even if it is surprising to see that from Max. I found the performances delivered by all three of these actors to be very entertaining, and enjoyed the time I spent watching the characters.
The fourth lead performance comes from David H. Littleton as the title character, a middle-aged man who - as far as we know - really is named Peckerhead. That's what his daddy always called him, but friends can call him Peck. The title Uncle Peckerhead is an attention grabber, but I did not have high hopes for the movie when I first saw what it was called. Thankfully, the person it's named after is a very likeable guy, someone who seems to have a good heart. Littleton makes Peckerhead fun and endearing, which is good, given that he's also someone who causes a lot of trouble. He's a homeless man who lives in his van, and Duh just happens to be in need of a van to tour in after their own vehicle is repossessed. Peckerhead agrees to be their driver and roadie, but he has some dark secrets that are revealed while they're on tour.
Greg Maness and Ryan Conrath make memorable appearances as members of other bands Duh crosses paths with on the road. Duh's first impressions of these guys are polar opposites; Maness is lusted after, while Conrath's amusingly pretentious singer/songwriter is instantly despised. Conrath's character gets even more unlikeable when you see his band perform one of their "deep and meaningful" songs.
Throughout Uncle Peckerhead's 97 minutes, I kept having the thought that this movie would have been perfectly fine if Lawrence had just made it a quirky comedy without any horror elements. The humorous story of Duh's seven stop tour could have sustained a movie on its own. But if a filmmaker wants to mix some creature attacks and gore into their quirky comedy, I'm not going to complain. You see, every night at midnight Peckerhead transforms into some kind of ghoulish creature that feeds on human flesh. There's no explanation for why he becomes a monster, the "why" of it is irrelevant, all we know is that he has this affliction and now the members of Duh have to deal with it, as he keeps killing people in front of them.
Although it's not a Troma release, the movie does have a bit of a Troma-esque sensibility. It's tamer than the average Troma movie, but it has a good sense of humor, goofy characters, blood spray, some cool gore effects, vomit, and explosive diarrhea. It's made clear that Lawrence was aiming to make something along the lines of that company's output when he includes a moment where the Toxic Avenger is glimpsed on a TV - and it's not a nod to the original The Toxic Avenger, which is usually the case. This movie features a clip from The Toxic Avenger 2. Troma fans are the viewers I would most strongly recommend this movie to, along with anyone who's familiar with the world of struggling musicians.
If you like horror comedies but you're put off by the title of this one, I would encourage you to give it a chance. It's a fun movie, better than I thought a movie with this title would be. Uncle Peckerhead is worth a look.
Writer/director Matthew John Lawrence's horror comedy Uncle Peckerhead claims to be based on a true story, and while a lot of it feels about as realistic as The Return of the Living Dead (another horror comedy that mixed a "true story" claim with man-eating ghouls), some of this does ring true. The film follows a punk trio called Duh as they embark on their first tour, and the way Lawrence handles the "small time band on the road" aspect makes it seem like he and/or people he knows are very familiar with that life. The interactions members of Duh have with other bands they encounter and people who run venues feel like they were inspired by real experiences. If they weren't, well, Lawrence certainly presented them in a believable way.
Duh consists of Judy (Chet Siegel), the most driven-to-succeed of the bunch, ready to fully dedicate herself to getting the band a deal with a record label; downbeat and deadpan drummer Mel (Ruby McCollister); and Max (Jeff Riddle), who is really awkward and dim when he's not on stage, and isn't good at addressing the audience when he is on stage, but lets loose when it's time to belt out vocals. Riddle also had a hand in creating a lot of the songs featured in the film, so it makes sense that his character is most alive when the music is playing, even if it is surprising to see that from Max. I found the performances delivered by all three of these actors to be very entertaining, and enjoyed the time I spent watching the characters.
The fourth lead performance comes from David H. Littleton as the title character, a middle-aged man who - as far as we know - really is named Peckerhead. That's what his daddy always called him, but friends can call him Peck. The title Uncle Peckerhead is an attention grabber, but I did not have high hopes for the movie when I first saw what it was called. Thankfully, the person it's named after is a very likeable guy, someone who seems to have a good heart. Littleton makes Peckerhead fun and endearing, which is good, given that he's also someone who causes a lot of trouble. He's a homeless man who lives in his van, and Duh just happens to be in need of a van to tour in after their own vehicle is repossessed. Peckerhead agrees to be their driver and roadie, but he has some dark secrets that are revealed while they're on tour.
Greg Maness and Ryan Conrath make memorable appearances as members of other bands Duh crosses paths with on the road. Duh's first impressions of these guys are polar opposites; Maness is lusted after, while Conrath's amusingly pretentious singer/songwriter is instantly despised. Conrath's character gets even more unlikeable when you see his band perform one of their "deep and meaningful" songs.
Throughout Uncle Peckerhead's 97 minutes, I kept having the thought that this movie would have been perfectly fine if Lawrence had just made it a quirky comedy without any horror elements. The humorous story of Duh's seven stop tour could have sustained a movie on its own. But if a filmmaker wants to mix some creature attacks and gore into their quirky comedy, I'm not going to complain. You see, every night at midnight Peckerhead transforms into some kind of ghoulish creature that feeds on human flesh. There's no explanation for why he becomes a monster, the "why" of it is irrelevant, all we know is that he has this affliction and now the members of Duh have to deal with it, as he keeps killing people in front of them.
Although it's not a Troma release, the movie does have a bit of a Troma-esque sensibility. It's tamer than the average Troma movie, but it has a good sense of humor, goofy characters, blood spray, some cool gore effects, vomit, and explosive diarrhea. It's made clear that Lawrence was aiming to make something along the lines of that company's output when he includes a moment where the Toxic Avenger is glimpsed on a TV - and it's not a nod to the original The Toxic Avenger, which is usually the case. This movie features a clip from The Toxic Avenger 2. Troma fans are the viewers I would most strongly recommend this movie to, along with anyone who's familiar with the world of struggling musicians.
If you like horror comedies but you're put off by the title of this one, I would encourage you to give it a chance. It's a fun movie, better than I thought a movie with this title would be. Uncle Peckerhead is worth a look.
The Uncle Peckerhead review originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com
EULOGY (2004)
The release of writer/director Michael Clancy's dark comedy Eulogy was so poorly handled, it sounds like a blunder Miramax would have made in the Weinstein days - this film was released in just twenty-two venues in the middle of October. But no, this wasn't a Weinstein Miramax release, even though it has a bit of a Miramax feel to it as well. This movie was released by Lionsgate. Oh well, I guess they were too busy focusing on getting the first Saw out into the world that October, they didn't care if Eulogy couldn't even crack $100,000 in its small-but-international release.
I would've thought Eulogy would be treated better, considering the impressive cast Clancy was able to put together. The story follows a dysfunctional family that consists of Zooey Deschanel, Piper Laurie, Hank Azaria, Ray Romano (then heading into the last season of Everybody Loves Raymond), Debra Winger, and Kelly Preston, with Famke Janssen also in the picture as the significant other of Preston's character. The characters they play gather under one roof after the death of family patriarch Edmund Collins, played by Rip Torn, and the film shows us their wacky yet often quite emotional interactions in the days building up to Edmund's funeral.
Lionsgate chose to bury this movie, and I don't know what their reasoning was but I don't feel like it deserved to be buried. The cast did great work bringing their characters to the screen, and the situations and dialogue are frequently amusing, occasionally hilarious. Some were given more drama to handle than others, while Romano and the kids who play his sons - Curtis and Keith Garcia - provide a lot of the laughs. Azaria also has one of the funniest scenes, when he tries to keep the fact that he's smoking a joint hidden from his daughter (Deschanel's character).
Secrets are revealed, lives are changed, Edmund is memorialized and drops a bombshell from beyond the grave. Underseen and undervalued from the day it reached theatres, Eulogy is a good movie that was never given a chance.
BATMAN AND ROBIN (1949)
Six years after Batman made his live-action screen debut in the appropriately titled serial Batman, the character - along with his "Boy Wonder" sidekick Robin - was brought back to the screen in another serial. Like its predecessor, the Batman and Robin serial was fifteen chapters long... and over the course of those fifteen chapters, this one really started to wear out its welcome in my opinion. Although it was packed with action sequences, it still felt like a slog to get through it all.
While the previous serial had made Batman a government agent, this one ditches that aspect and makes him what he's supposed to be: a masked vigilante who assists his local police force, which is undermanned and facing a crime wave that it can't handle without his help. The narrator informs us that "Batman and Robin wage an unending war on all criminals", but for the duration of this serial they're fighting against one very specific criminal. That would be The Wizard, a cloak-wearing kingpin who actually has the makings of a decent supervillain. He hangs out in a lair that his lackeys have to access by submarine, he figures out how to make himself invisible, he can hypnotize people, he can project his image to different locations, and he's in possession of a "remote control machine" that was meant to revolutionize transportation by being able to take control of any moving vehicle and guide it to its destination (within a fifty mile range). Of course, The Wizard doesn't use this machine for the good of anyone but himself.
The Wizard is relentless as he keeps Batman and Robin busy through all these chapters, dedicating himself to masterminding heist after heist in a quest for money and notoriety. The fact that the titular heroes are constantly around to thwart him doesn't bring The Wizard down at all; in one of the last chapters, his agenda includes announcing his plans to his enemies so he can "defy them to stop me". He causes so much trouble, I was almost surprised to find out that the character had never made his way into the Batman comic books. He was created for this serial and then never used again. He certainly seems like he would have been right at home on the Batman TV show in the '60s.
Although the identity of The Wizard is a mystery that Batman and Robin have to solve, the serial appears to give the answer right in the first chapter, putting the focus on the remote control machine's inventor Professor Hammill, who is said to have become "ill and eccentric" after creating the machine. When the remote control machine is stolen from its owners, Hammill is the viewers' top suspect, and becomes even more suspicious when we're shown he has a rejuvenation machine in his house that zaps him with energy that allows him to get out of his wheelchair and walk again. He keeps this rejuvenation machine a secret from the outside world. But is Professor Hammill really The Wizard? You'll have to sit through all of the chapters, which tend to be around 17 minutes in length, to find out.
The Wizard was a new creation, but the serial does have several familiar characters in it. The Gotham City police are headed up by Commissioner Jim Gordon (Lyle Talbot), who shines the Bat Signal in the sky when he needs Batman's help - and this thing is visible whether it's night or day. Batman, played by Robert Lowery, is actually Bruce Wayne, a wealthy fellow who's known for being lazy and perpetually sleepy. Robin is Bruce's young pal Dick Grayson, played by John Duncan. Bruce's love interest is photojournalist Vicki Vale (Jane Adams), who had just recently been introduced in the comics when this serial reached theatres. Bruce has a helpful butler named Alfred (Eric Wilton), who even goes out in the field with him and Robin at one point.
Batman and Robin has some cool action sequences, a solid villain, and throws a whole lot of trouble at the dynamic duo. Both Batman and Robin are nearly killed (or appear to be) several times during the chapters, and one of The Wizard's henchman is even able to figure out that Bruce Wayne is Batman... Which really shouldn't be so hard to figure out. As Vicki notices, Batman drives around town in the Mercury that belongs to Bruce Wayne. Batman just tells people that Bruce Wayne is a "good friend", and somehow that throws them off the trail.
There is fun to be had with this serial and some things to laugh at (like the fact that Batman pulls items out of his utility belt that couldn't possibly have fit in there), but it's also a bit dull and didn't need to be fifteen chapters long.
KINDRED SPIRITS (2019)
I wouldn't have expected The Woman director Lucky McKee to make a movie that would premiere on Lifetime, but that's exactly what happened with his 2019 thriller Kindred Spirits - and I think that's pretty cool, because those Lifetime thrillers can be really entertaining sometimes.
McKee's Kindred Spirits stars Thora Birch and Sasha Frolova as single mother Chloe and her teenage daughter Nicole, who aren't getting along very well these days. Then Chloe's younger sister Sadie (played by Caitlin Stasey) shows up, and this is a great turn of events as far as Nicole is concerned, because Sadie is the "cool aunt" who can understand the rebellious teen better than her mom does. It makes sense that Sadie is able to connect with the kid, because she still behaves like a teen herself, despite being way beyond her teens.
Problem is, Sadie turns out to have some serious mental issues, and when showing just how serious those issues are, Stasey proves that she can be incredibly convincing at playing crazy. Sadie directs her insanity toward Nicole, and there are shades of Single White Female as Sadie starts dressing up like her niece, messing with her personal relationships, and plotting to get rid of the teen so she can have all of her sister's attention. Chloe basically raised Sadie after they were orphaned at a young age, and Sadie wants things to go back to the way they were when they were kids.
Things descend into violence by the end, with McKee showing some of the mean streak The Woman had, but to a lesser degree. There are moments in the film that are painful to watch because of how terribly a likeable character is treated.
Featuring Macon Blair of Murder Party in a supporting role, Kindred Spirits is a solid thriller that's worth checking out, especially as a showcase of Stasey's ability to play crazy.
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