Parents (1989)

Parents is one of those flicks that I remember renting as a kid. I didn't remember much about it other than that it had Uncle Eddie in it and the parents ate people, so it must have been good, right?

I grabbed some dvd multi-packs from walmart and much to my surprise Parents was one of the flicks included. So I took the dvd with me to work, popped it in, grabbed a pizza and began my excursion in to cannibal-ridden suburbia.

If you've never heard of this movie, its basically "A young boy begins to suspect that his too-normal parents are up to something strange as they continue to push him to eat his meats at dinner." It takes place during the 50's and has that "Leave it to Beaver" way of living.

Straight off the bat, this movie is pretty damn weird. I definitely didn't remember all of these scenes as a kid and I assume its because I didn't really understand them. The only way to describe this movie in my opinion is a Lynchian/50s/Cannibal NIGHTMARE. Its so weird and creepy and screwed up idk how this didn't mess me up as a kid.

This boy is kinda out there and says weird stuff, but starts watching his parents. He notices they move a lot, and becomes friends with a girl at his new school, which happens to be his dad's boss's daughter. The dad and mom are weird and say strange things, and do even stranger things. There is blood, lots of meat, weird moments where the mom and dad are rolling around in blood naked on their bed while the camera shot is in black and white, and more totally bizarre moments.

As in all my reviews, I hate to give too much away, but thats really the whole movie in a nutshell. It is a pretty slow burn style of movie, especially the first half, but its weird, really really weird and I think fans of David Lynch will dig it.

Oh yeah and after such a creeeeeeeeeepy climax, the end credits are such a freaking weird change of pace, you just have to see it.

Good flick and I totally recommend it. Its available on DVD as part of an aforementioned budget multi-pack or for streaming on Netflix.

It Came From Netflix Streaming: Uncle Sam (1997)

Slasher films and holidays go together like chocolate and peanut butter.  It gives the makers of such films two easy starting points in their creation.  On the one hand holidays have built in name recognition.  “There’s a movie called Happy Birthday to Me!  Why I have birthdays!  I must go see it!”  On the other, it gives them an easy to explain back story and motivation for the slasher.  His mother was killed on Christmas by a dude in a Santa suit so he must now don a Santa suit and kill folks.  Of course, by now, most of the good holidays have been used ad naseum.  So, what’s a poor film maker to do? 

This brings us to Uncle Sam, the first horror movie, not involving aliens or Tom Cruises, to take place on the 4th of July.  

Our film begins in Kuwait, where random army guys find a chopper shot down by friendly fire.  In the chopper is a guy lucky enough to be named Sam and have a nephew.  He is also a rather spry dead guy who shoots the guys who find him.  I’m guessing the army sent more guys out and those guys weren’t at all put off by the first set of guys being shot, because…

Next we head to Small Town, USA a few days before the 4th of July.  Sam’s nephew has a room full of military related stuff, because he rather liked his uncle, Sam.  The kid may or may not be having a bad dream and knocks over a photo of Sam and promptly steps on the glass.  The kid’s blood has better self- control than an alien-infected guy’s in Antarctica.

A brief interlude about the kid:  It’s said that Disney has a cloning facility where they make perfect clones to star on their T.V. shows and sing terrible songs and generally just part tweens from their cash.  I imagine it as a sterile state of the art facility with a really nice cafeteria.  There is also a dilapidated factory on the seamier side of town that grows fairly hideous B-movie kids.  This kid and the kid from Troll 2 look to have been grown in the same vat.  End of interlude.

So anyways, the kid really loved his uncle and wants to be like him.  It a not-so-shocking twist later is turns out that Sam was –spoiler alert- an abusive asshole.  Yeah, I know, shocking.  He takes Sam’s medals to school for a bit of impromptu show and tell.  His teacher, a former conscientious objector, gets called a coward and somehow doesn’t smack the kid.  The teacher, it should be noted, is played by Timothy Bottoms.  Bottoms was on the short lived show “That’s My Bush” where he was George W. Bush.  Yeah, “suck it future draft dodging former president,” says the film makers in an oddly psychic moment.  

A military guy delivers Sam’s body straight to his sister-in-law’s house and puts the coffin right there in the living room.  No one seems to be terribly sad about the death or in any hurry to arrange a funeral.  I guess the coffin really ties the room together.  The kid loosens 1 of the locks on the coffin.  Not all, mind you.  Just one.  But it proves to be enough to allow Sam to exit later.  So that’s alright.

Sam is resurrected by some asshole teens who practice their constitutionally protected right to burn an American flag right over his freshly dug grave replete with a tombstone.  So, I suppose, the widow did make some hasty arrangements while nothing  was happening, which in this movie could have been at any time.

Meanwhile, across town, a guy on stilts and in an Uncle Sam outfit decides to do what comes naturally; stares at tits on the second story of a house.  Well, either that doesn’t sit well with zombie Sam or he just needs the outfit.  He kills him and steals his outfit.  Staring at tits is as American as apple pie and baseball.  I'm sure the Founding Fathers, if not for the 20 layers of clothes that women wore and general lack of porn, loved tits as well and would have stared at them if given a chance.

This leads me to my next major issue.  Slasher villains have to follow certain rules.  This is what defines them.  Sam ostensibly kills people for being unpatriotic.  As the film goes on he tends to lose his focus and kills people for dating his widow or cutting ribs poorly.  

The big July 4th celebration begins.  Sam stalks around killing a kid who sings the National Anthem poorly, a shady politician and several other people like the above mentioned girl who seems less than enthused about preparing ribs.  

A burned, blind, crippled kid is introduced.  He looks suspiciously like the kid who is the ½ in 2 and ½ Men after a particularly vicious burn from Charlie Sheen.  What does he do in the movie other than demonstrate the dangers of fireworks?  Nothing.   His parents are played by P. J. Soles and Thom McFadden.  Oh look!  People from Halloween and 976-Evil are in this!  Get a camera.

Burned kid get talked to and creepily touched by Sam.  Why?   The burned kid and the creepy kid are friends.  How does Sam know this?  No idea.  It probably doesn’t matter.   Burned kid tells creepy kid that his uncle is skulking about.  So the kids seek the aid of Isaac Hayes to kill Sam.  Isaac Hayes and Sam have some sort of past.  We learn this by a quickly glimpsed present given to Hayes, a pair of balls in a rather nice case with a note suggesting that Hayes lacks balls.  Hayes and the kids find Sam and kill him with a cannon of all things. 

 The kid decides that maybe the military isn’t for him, because they produce evil zombie killers or something, and throws away his toys at the end.  The movie can’t even be bothered to sequel bait.  

Should you watch this?  Probably not.  But it will make you feel as if you are getting your $15 per month’s worth out of Netflix.  

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

"I Live, I Love, and I Slay. I am Content"

Thats a quote from Conan in 2011's Conan the Barbarian, and it pretty much sums up the movie.

Not being a traditional "horror" movie in the sense of the term, I wasn't necessarily planning on reviewing Conan the Barbarian for the site, but due to several of you guys asking me to, I decided to go for it. 

Conan the Barbarian, as most of you already know, is a remake of 1982's Conan the Barbarian starring the immortal Arnold Schwarzenegger. A lot of you have probably seen the original, so I am not going to go into detail comparing the differences in the two.

2011's Conan the Barbarian starts out with Conan's mother being stabbed on the battlefield, knowing that she will die, she tells Conan's father that she wants to see her baby before she dies.  At this point, we see Conan's father cut Conan out of the mothers stomach and hand Conan to her.  She holds Conan while she dies, thus, Conan is born on the battlefield.

Over the next few scenes, we see Conan at the age of probably 12 or so, he is sent out on a "test" with other kids in the village with the task of running around a mountain while keeping an egg unbroken in the mouth upon return.  Shortly after departing, marauders appear to kill the kids in the woods. The other kids decide they need to go back, but Conan stands resilient and proceeds forward by himself.  He ends up killing 4 or 5 marauders, cutting off their heads and returning, with said heads and an unbroken egg.

Conan spends time training with this dad, forging a sword, etc. when some bandits come into town wanting a piece of a mystical mask that the village has hidden (im not going to go into detail on the mask plot).  Needless to say, Conan's father is killed by the actions of the lead bandit and his "partners in crime."

Next scene, we see Conan grown up, still searching for his father's murderers.  He has gone from a dark, brooding kid to a cocky, chauvinistic, womanizing adult.  He knows he is good and proudly displays it.

I'm not going to go much into the story more than that, you basically see Conan make his way toward the lead bandit and his sorcerer's daughter to get revenge, along the way killing off his cohorts. Might sound simple, and it is, but its a lot of fun.

I like the fact that Conan the Barbarian is mindless, guy-centered fun.  Conan is awesome in the fact that all he wants to do is screw (for lack of a better term), kill, and party.  He is extremely cocky and never turns down or away from a fight.  He knows that he has the ability and proudly lets everyone know.  One of my favorite scenes entails Conan in an arm wrestling competition with his friend.  His friend is starting to win, so Conan spits beer (or ale or whatever) in his face, slams his hand down, winning and laughing.  His friend punches him in the face, at which point Conan smiles, laughs, and says "I still won."

I thought all the effects were really well done. Acting was above par. Even Rose McGowan, whom I really don't usually like, was pretty decent here. I actually left the theater pretty pumped.

Don't go into this movie expecting deep, character driven drama or even a compelling storyline.  Go into this movie expecting to have a lot of good, mindless fun.  I loved it and hope to see many more of Conan's future adventures.