We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
Good, evil, Tiny Tim, and Joe Bob.
BLOOD HARVEST (1987) - Hosted by Joe Bob Briggs on The Last Drive-in
I grew up watching the likes of HBO and Cinemax, but my family didn’t get The Movie Channel until sometime in the early 1990s – and that’s when I became aware of the existence of drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs, who had a show called Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater on the channel at that time. In 1994, Joe Bob arranged the world cable premiere of director Bill Rebane’s low budget slasher movie Blood Harvest to be held on The Movie Channel... and while I don’t think I had the chance to see Joe Bob talk about the movie, I did catch a glimpse of Blood Harvest when it was airing on cable in the ‘90s, presumably on The Movie Channel. I only caught a couple minutes before I had to move on, but what I saw was enough to stick in my mind and guarantee that I would be watching the full movie someday.
The script credited to Chris Vaalar, William Arthur, Ben Benson, and Leszek Burzynski (a.k.a. Emil Joseph) centers on Jill (Itonia Salchek), a college student who returns to her home in rural Wisconsin to find that the house has been vandalized and her parents are missing. The moments I saw involved someone lurking in the basement of the house, messing with the water valves while Jill attempted to take a shower. Of course, it only a matter of time before the bodies start piling up. That creepy concept got me hooked... and I’m not even sure I saw the character Mervo walking around in his clown makeup. When I was finally able to watch the whole movie (and see Mervo in action), I loved it, with its weirdness and rural vibes. Blood Harvest will always have a special place in my heart due to those ‘90s memories.
Because of that, I was very glad to see the film make it into the line-up for the first season of the Shudder series The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs, where Joe Bob returned to the film 25 years after he brought it to The Movie Channel.
Of course, he takes a while to start talking about the movie in the episode where he showed Blood Harvest. It starts with a moment of Joe Bob singing his own original country song while sitting outside of a drive-in – which is a fitting way to open, since Blood Harvest happens to star musician Tiny Tim as Mervo.
Following the title sequence, we catch up with Joe Bob outside his trailer home set, where he goes on for several minutes about checking into a hotel room in a strange city that feels like you’ve dropped into a 1960s style love-in staged at the Museum of Modern Art. I can’t say I’ve ever had such an experience, but apparently Joe Bob has had to endure it multiple times.
Then, it’s time to begin the final double feature of the season – and Joe Bob says that since this was the season finale, they decided to get a little bit crazy, to veer off the midway and take a side trip to the freak show. Starting with Blood Harvest... which, despite his history with the movie and the fact that he gives it 3 stars (out of a possible 4), he says isn’t a very good movie, aside from two or three good moments. He says the script is mindless dreck from screenwriters and a director who didn’t have any idea of how to tell the story – but it does have Tiny Tim. That’s why he brought it to The Movie Channel. He thought a movie that features Tiny Tim as a neurotic religious nut in a clown costume, was filmed in rural Wisconsin, and was loosely inspired by the life of Ed Gein (the same person who inspired the likes of Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Deranged, and The Silence of the Lambs), could not fail to attract an audience. Apparently The Movie Channel audience just yawned at the movie, but Joe Bob figured he’d try it again on Shudder.
As the movie plays out, Joe Bob’s hosting segments primarily focus on the life of Tiny Tim, which is why he was joined by two special guests: Tiny Tim biographer Justin Martell and Tiny Tim’s former manager / record producer / president of his international fan club Bucks Burnett. We hear the history of Tiny Tim and his habit of renaming himself, see video of him watching Joe Bob show Blood Harvest on The Movie Channel in 1994, are informed that 45 million people watched Tiny Tim get married on The Tonight Show in December of 1969 – and so many people were watching, there were electricity brownouts in New York, less crime reported in Chicago, less traffic seen in Los Angeles, and that broadcast was the second highest viewed broadcast of the ‘60s, behind man’s walk on the moon. It’s said that Tiny Tim dreamed of an acting career that would see him becoming the next Lon Chaney, but that dream was hampered by the fact that he couldn’t remember scripted lines. His greatest professional desire was to be in a Raid commercial, but that never happened, either.
We also get some history on filmmaker Bill Rebane and some information on cast members (although little is known about Itonia Salchek, who vanished from public view after this movie). In the end, Joe Bob has been touched by the story of Tiny Tim and has warmed up to the movie so much that he calls it a classic of drive-in history.
After the movie, Darcy the Mail Girl delivers some viewer mail that gives an explanation for the ending of the Takashi Miike movie Dead or Alive, which Joe Bob hosted on his Thanksgiving marathon Dinners of Death the previous year. Then, Joe Bob tells a joke about a Scottish couple.
HELLO MARY LOU: PROM NIGHT II (1987) - Hosted by Joe Bob Briggs on The Last Drive-in
Joe Bob knows that his viewers are always eager for him to show stuff from the 1980s, so the season wraps up with an ‘80s double feature, with Blood Harvest being followed by Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II. This is a movie that Joe Bob considered to be a neglected ‘80s classic – he saw it at a drive-in in Dallas on opening weekend (and it only played for one week), and he gave it 4 stars then and still considers it to be a 4 star movie to this day. It’s also a top 5 favorite of Darcy the Mail Girl’s. Not only has Darcy seen the movie over one hundred times, but she also has a poster hanging over her bed (just like Jill has a Commando poster hanging over her bed in Blood Harvest), she considers the character Mary Lou Maloney to be a role model, and she counts a certain locker room scene in the film as one of the best scenes of any movie ever made.
The "Hello Mary Lou" part of the title comes from a 1960 song that was co-written by Gene Pitney and most famously recorded by Ricky Nelson in 1961. That song is on the soundtrack, which gives Joe Bob the chance to mention that Nelson died in a plane crash in De Kalb, Texas on December 31, 1985, and De Kalb residents will proudly let visitors know that Nelson died in their town. Since teenagers have usually been the primary audience for horror movies and Prom Night II is set in a high school, Joe Bob also takes the opportunity to go on a rant about zero tolerance policies.
Prom Night II was directed by Bruce Pittman from a script written by Ron Oliver. The story begins in 1957, when Mary Lou "Hot Stuff" Maloney (Lisa Schrage), a rebellious, gleefully promiscuous hellraiser of a seventeen-year-old girl, was elected Prom Queen at the Hamilton High School prom and accidentally burned alive on stage. Thirty years later, Hamilton student Vicki Carpenter (Wendy Lyon) opens a trunk filled with items related to the ‘57 prom and becomes possessed by the spirit of Mary Lou, an evil supernatural force on a mission of violent revenge.
Prom Night II is actually a very well made and well written film with a good sense of humor, some funny dialogue, and a couple characters who are given a bit more substance than they might usually have in a movie of this sort. There was a time, not so long ago, when I would say that this was my favorite of all of the Prom Night movies - and while I think the (completely unrelated, other than the title and the name of the high school) first one has taken its place at #1 for me, it's still a really good movie. Especially when you take into account the fact that it's a sequel that doesn't have anything to do with its predecessor.
Although Joe Bob questions some plot elements, he compliments the script for this film (even though it has a slut-shaming aspect to it), calling it tight and proficient while pointing out that it lifts from Carrie, The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the works of Dario Argento. He says this is one of the best movies ever made with a no-name cast (other than Michael Ironside), and that horror movies usually work better with no-name casts. For example, he feels that any weaknesses The Changeling had were caused by the fact that it starred George C. Scott. He does give some information on cast members, including one (Brock Simpson) who is in all four of the initial Prom Night films. Which makes sense, since he was the son of producer Peter R. Simpson. This was Ron Oliver’s first script, and when the film got bad reviews in its home country of Canada but was called the “Blue Velvet of teen horror” in a Los Angeles review, Oliver moved to California. Oliver gets a lot of attention in the hosting segments, as Joe Bob mentions that he went on to write and direct Prom Night 3 (which Joe Bob recommends that you skip), which was set up at LIVE Entertainment Inc, founded by Jose Menendez. Oliver had dinner with Menendez, his wife, and his two sons on a Thursday, and on Monday morning he learned that Menendez and his wife had been shot and killed by the sons. But that horrible situation only caused the production of Prom Night 3 to be delayed two weeks. Oliver also had character actor Udo Kier as the officiant at his wedding, much like Full Moon founder Charles Band had Joe Bob as the officiant at his wedding to Robin Sydney.
Along the way, Joe Bob shares some of his own high school prom memories, which prompts Darcy to admit that she didn’t go to prom, or even to high school. So Joe Bob decides to end the episode and the season with a mini-prom where Darcy, in Mary Lou cosplay, is crowned Prom Queen and the crew dances to a Prom Night II song composed by music supervisor John Brennan.
It was a great way to end the first season of The Last Drive-in. By the time the episode aired, Shudder had already announced that they had ordered another season of the show (and more holiday specials), so fans watched this episode, which first aired on May 24, 2019, with the assurance that there was more Joe Bob to come.
SEE NO EVIL (1971), a.k.a. BLIND TERROR
Three years after starring in the horror classic Rosemary’s Baby, Mia Farrow took the lead role in the British thriller See No Evil (which is known by the title Blind Terror in some territories), a film which seems to have faded into obscurity for the most part, but really should still be in the conversation as a great movie.
Farrow plays Sarah, a young woman who was recently blinded in a horse-riding accident. After leaving the hospital, she tries to settle back into normal life at the home of her aunt, uncle, and cousin (that’s Dorothy Alison as Betty, Robin Bailey as George, and Diane Grayson as Sandy). Unfortunately, there’s a creep lurking in the nearby town. A guy who goes to theatrical porn double features, wears goofy-looking cowboy boots, and seems to have excessively itchy calves, judging by how often he uses one boot to scratch the back of his other leg. Director Richard Fleischer always shoots this guy from the level of his cowboy boots, keeping his identity hidden because this movie will, soon enough, become a murder mystery.
While Sarah is out with her boyfriend Steve (Norman Eshley), that creep in cowboy boots shows up at the door of her family’s home. Unbeknownst to Sarah, she returns to a home full of corpses – and there’s a gravely wounded gardener, Brian Rawlinson as Barker, in the yard. Sarah spends the whole night in the house without realizing that her family has been murdered... or that she’s sharing the property with the killer, who is sleeping in one of the bedrooms. It isn’t until the next day that Sarah becomes aware that something is very wrong – and then the killer sets out to add her to the body count.
Scripted by Brian Clemens, See No Evil is a very simple and straightforward thriller. Sarah’s family has been murdered within the first 30 minutes of the 89 minute film, and we spend the rest of the film anxious to see how Sarah is going to make it out of this situation. Fleischer did a great job directing the suspense sequences, and the last 40 minutes of the movie are basically one long chase and attack sequence.
It’s a shame that See No Evil isn’t more popular, because it’s very much worth watching, providing an intriguing and often tense viewing experience.
The following review originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com
GARDEN OF EDEN (2025)
Director Marcel Walz and screenwriter Joe Knetter have collaborated multiple times over the years, and the results that viewers have seen so far have been stalker / slasher movies that were soaked in colorful lighting: Blind, its sequel Pretty Boy, and That’s a Wrap. Now, Walz and Knetter are back with a horror movie with a very different style and approach. Their latest collaboration, Garden of Eden, does still have its colorful moments, but the fun slasher tone has been set aside. Instead, this movie comes off like a relentless assault on each and every viewer, as it goes hard in its attempt to be as dark, disturbing, and disgusting as possible.
The color that’s likely to stick with viewers the most, aside from the red of all the blood that gets spilled, is white. The story gives us a look into several months in the lives of the wealthy Eden family, who are so devoutly Christian that they’re planning to build a church on a plot of land they own in the desert. They like to wear white outfits, reflecting how pure they believe their own souls are. And, quite frequently, they hold costume parties where they accept donations and hand out boxes to attendees. At every party, one specially chosen person will open their box to find that it holds the key to their fondest dream – and in every instance, their fondest dream is get violent vengeance on someone, who they will be allowed to torture and kill in the cellar of the Eden family home. Which was, of course, built on consecrated ground.
Walz and Knetter push boundaries and break taboos throughout the movie, filling it with every sort of detestable character they could come up with. There’s a rapist, a gay basher, a pedophile, a child-molesting priest, a fetus flusher. And they all meet violent ends from people who often seem to get way too much enjoyment out of the bloody act. Some of them even get a sexual thrill out of it all. Garden of Eden is a movie of excess, from how far it goes with its gross-out elements to how long it is. It has the ridiculous running time of 127 minutes, which is probably around 30 minutes longer than a movie of this sort really should be, and much of that running time is taken up by a series of torture / murder sequences. Did you think the “torture porn” trend had come to an end? Garden of Eden is here to make you think again. The Edens and their pals go so far with the torture, there’s even a scenario that’s very reminiscent of a Hellraiser movie, hooked chains and all. Then a fishing pole gets involved.
Between its appalling moments (and sometimes during), the movie does feature some solid acting performances. The Eden family is brought to life by Sarah Polednak as Dominique, the daughter who doesn’t enjoy the “eye for an eye” events as much as the rest of the Edens do; Sarah French as Dominique, the daughter who finds the events to be the only really enjoyable part of life and has to pop pills to get through the rest of her days; Monique Parent as mother Eloise, who has spent more than thirty years with family patriarch Matheo – who, as the movie goes on, becomes quite envious of the womanhood of his wife and others around them. Matheo is played by Robert Rusler, who’s best known for playing the ill-fated friend Grady in A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge. He has many other credits to his name, but if you haven’t seen much of him since that 1985 Freddy movie, you might be surprised to see just how strong his performance in this movie is forty years later.
Outside of the Eden family, we get appearances from the likes of, among others, genre regulars Gigi Gustin and Sarah Nicklin, both of whom have intense emotional moments, as well as Dazelle Yvette as a zoning inspector who has some antagonistic exchanges with Matheo.
Garden of Eden is not an easy movie to watch. It’s not pleasant at all and it goes on for way too long, but it’s not without its merits, especially in the acting department. (And the special effects department, with veteran FX artist Vincent J. Guastini and his crew providing all of the gross stuff.) This is not the sort of movie I enjoy watching at all, but I can’t write it off entirely. If you’re ever in the mood to spend a couple of hours being confronted by some of the darkest things about the world while being disturbed and disgusted, this movie is out there, waiting to give you just that sort of experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment