HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

LEVITY...?

30 WAYS TO DIE BY ELECTROCUTION

From Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern (Electrical Protection in 132 Pictures) by Viennese physician Stefan Jellinek (1878-1968). The Electro-Pathological Museum was founded by Dr. Stefan Jellinek in 1936.

See the other 27. (Thanks, Laura.)

WELCOME BACK

PATTON ON BLADE

 

I've only just now discovered The A.V. Club's late-2012 interview with comedian/actor Patton Oswalt, in which he touches on many different aspects of his professional career. Among these are his hilarious recollections of the train wreck that was Blade: Trinity. (I bet you completely forgot he was in that, didn't you?) I've always found Oswalt to be refreshingly candid, but not in any way where he comes across as offensive or arrogant. Below are a few selections from his pretty wonderful interview where he shares a few B:T anecdotes: 

Wesley [Snipes] was just fucking crazy in a hilarious way. He wouldn’t come out of his trailer, and he would smoke weed all day. Which is fine with me, because I had all these DVDs that I wanted to catch up on. We were in Vancouver, and it was always raining. I kept the door to my trailer open to smell the evening rain while I was watching a movie. Then I remember one day on the set—they let everyone pick their own clothes—there was one black actor who was also kind of a club kid. And he wore this shirt with the word “Garbage” on it in big stylish letters. It was his shirt. And Wesley came down to the set, which he only did for close-ups. Everything else was done by his stand-in. I only did one scene with him. But he comes on and goes, “There’s only one other black guy in the movie, and you make him wear a shirt that says ‘Garbage?’ You racist motherfucker!” And he tried to strangle the director, David Goyer.

...

So we went out that night to some strip club, and we were all drinking. And there were a bunch of bikers there, so David says to them, “I’ll pay for all your drinks if you show up to set tomorrow and pretend to be my security.” Wesley freaked out and went back to his trailer. [Laughs.] And the next day, Wesley sat down with David and was like, “I think you need to quit. You’re detrimental to this movie.” And David was like, “Why don’t you quit? We’ve got all your close-ups, and we could shoot the rest with your stand-in.” And that freaked Wesley out so much that, for the rest of the production, he would only communicate with the director through Post-it notes. And he would sign each Post-it note “From Blade.”

...

A lot of the lines that Ryan Reynolds has were just a result of Wesley not being there. We would all just think of things for him to say and then cut to Wesley’s face not doing anything because that’s all we could get from him. It was kind of funny. We were like, “What are the worst jokes and puns that we can say to this guy?” And then it would just be his face going, “Mmm.” “Smiles are contagious.” It’s so, so dumb. [Laughs.] That was an example of a very troubled shoot that we made fun. You have to find a way to make it fun.

Read the whole thing.

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

SHITTY FLICKS: BULLETPROOF

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant, camp-girl penis. 

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.

If you can believe it - if you go back far enough - Gary Busey was not always completely out of his mind. And if you go back farther than that, you'll find something surprising: Gary Busey actually played the good guy from time to time!

And in Bullet Proof, he plays McBain. (You read that right - McBain.) He's a cop, and because this was post-Lethal Weapon, his partner is an old, curmudgeonly black guy.

"Look McBain, you may be bullet proof, but I'm just human, all right?" his partner whines, giving us the obligatory titular line as well as some character development for McBain: Apparently he can't die. And he gleefully runs into dangerous situations with no back-up, and nothing but his awesome catch phrases.

"I'm your worst nightmare, butt horn!" he bellows with a wide smile and jumps into action, shooting men left, right, up, down, in their heads, in their backs, etc. When you throw him a grenade, he throws it back and ends your fucking life. Then he goes home to his hot, naked, European girlfriend, digs out the bullet he caught in his chest earlier in the night, and takes a nice swig from the bottle of booze he hides above his vanity mirror. Oh, and he somehow plays the alto saxophone without ever filling his cheeks with air. 

McBAIN!

But despite his theatrics and over-the-top methods, he's not the only thing causing strife to "the Man" and organized society. It would seem, not too far off, there exists a group of militants. They use the monkey bars, run in circles, and drive around together hanging off jeeps and pick-up trucks in dangerous numbers. They are terrorists. Well, the late-'80s version of terrorists, meaning they are a bunch of miscellaneous races, including Mexicans, Libyans, and "A-Rabs." They wear tight pants, smile, act incredibly fey, and shoot SMGs into 'Merica's few and proud. (They're the bad guys!!!!) After one particular trading of bullets with some American soldiers, many are killed, but the surviving soldiers are taken hostage to endure generic political rhetoric from men in berets.

Obviously, the terrorists' days are numbered, what with McBain existing and all. Bullets will fly, and enter bodies without prejudice.

McBAIN!

Following a brief dream in which we catch up on some unfortunate history - mainly McBain accidentally shooting his previous partner during a drug bust gone bad - government officials show up on his front steps and blackmail him onto the case of the miscellaneous terrorists. They ship him off to a warehouse, where they show him schematics for some kind of U.S. Army Official Bad-Ass Tank that the terrorists possess for some reason, yet can't operate because they don't have the required access codes. This meeting ends in a manner typical to most meetings with McBain: an ashtray ends up sailing into another man's testicles.

The mission begins. McBain touches down on the ground, looks lost for a moment, and takes the life of two foot soldiers with little effort. He offers their corpses a wave and an adios as he steals their jeep and moves onto the next kill point.

And then rape happens. (Not by McBain, but I wouldn't have ruled it out immediately, personally.)

After some further pushing through the forest/desert/wherever he is, and finding himself accompanied by a group of Mexicans (good ones!), McBain opens fire on another group of soldiers, telling them "Hunting season's over...butt horn."

McBain eventually gets himself caught and the soldiers tie him to a huge wire spindle to prep him for execution. Luckily, a rather resourceful female soldier, with whom McBain had once been intimate, has the idea to drop a grenade right near him and send him rolling rather hilariously down the hilly landscape. Watch in awe as the Gary Busey dummy screams "God damn it!" all the way down.

"God damn it!"

He frees himself and tears off into the desert, killing more men and saying more things in their language to add spite to their deaths. He soon reconvenes with his squeeze/soldier, who was freed for some reason, and the two take back the Bad-Ass Tank. But McBain, never one to disappear quietly into the night, drives that tank right back to the bad guys' hideout. Needless to say, all kinds of miscellaneous races are blown out of their shoes.

"Where is that idiot general?" he asks, mindlessly pushing the same button behind him over and over, as if to say, "This looks like I'm doing something, right?"

Well, McBain finds that idiot general, all right, and he leaves him where he found him - in PIECES.

McBAIN!

Total references to McBain being bulletproof:

1. "Look McBain, you may be bullet proof, but I'm just human, all right?"
2. "You may be bulletproof, but you're not love proof."
3. "This tank is made of titanium alloy. It's bulletproof...like you."
4. "I'd be privileged to call you 'Bulletproof Capitán McBain.' "
5. "There is a man coming this way! He has a strange name! They call him ‘Bulletproof’ Capitán McBain!"
6. "Now let's just see how...bulletproof...your friend can be."
7. "So...this is the infamous Captain Bulletproof?" ("You got it, butt horn!")
8. "Now let's see how bulletproof you are!"
9. "Why do they call him bulletproof?"
10. "This whole 'bulletproof' thing is getting old!"

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

LEVITY

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

SHITTY FLICKS: TINTORERA

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis. 

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.

Tintorera is a Spanish "horror" film about two men who look and act like they are fucking each other when no one is looking. Watch them bed beach bunnies, walk around naked, hunt sharks, and lay too close to each other. When dead bodies - victims of shark attacks - begin washing up on the shore, these two men opt to hunt the killer shark themselves. But the movie is less about sharks and more about two hairy men who fuck a lot and are completely deplorable characters. Also, it's one of the most boring movies I’ve ever sat through.

Tintorera, which means tiger shark in Spanish, is a bad, bad film. Not only is the movie utterly devoid of anything remotely interesting, but it also goes so far as to feature completely pointless footage of actual sharks being killed for the sole purpose of making this atrocity. Granted, that may not be a big deal to you, but that’s because you’re a cocker.

The DVD menu offers up either an English or Spanish audio track. I choose English and the movie begins.

The movie opens strongly enough, with stock footage of a shark slowly creeping along the bottom of a dark ocean, complemented by an ominous discordant theme by the always amazing Basil Poledouris, but then the established mood is almost immediately ruined with an awkward cut to a brightly sun-lit Mexican resort, with plain '70s women in their plain '70s bikinis. Lazy, generic Spanish-sounding music plays as people walk around and eat chimichangas (probably).

(Even though I chose the English audio track, the waiter and Mr. Banana Hammock blather on in Spanish for several minutes as I wait for my Rosetta Stone to load. Further, I also chose English subtitles...which appear in Spanish. Thanks for nothing, Desert Mountain Media.)

We meet Steven, who lies forlornly in a hospital bed. Turns out this poor man has suffered a nervous breakdown, so obviously being forced to spend time in a hospital is just what he needs.

We meet Miguel, who apparently has affairs with anyone who looks at him. He uses his circus training to do really unnecessarily showy flips up a balcony in order to get to his affair room.

Sure, vaginas were a hobby, but acrobatics were his life.

Then we meet two American college girls. They hitch a ride from two Spanish men, toting a large truck full of oranges. Then, the following happens:

1.) The truck pulls over.

2.) The girls spill out of the truck and climb on top of the oranges.

3.) The men begin to rape the girls.

4.) The girls attempt to fight off their rapers, but then relent and say, “It will only be worse if we fight.”

5.) One girl says to her friend, before they are raped, “Well Kelly, you wanted to see the world.”

6.) Kelly says to her rapists: “It’s OK. I am going to take off my pants.”

For a movie that already feels like an eternity, we certainly move along at breakneck speed, because we’re already meeting Francisco, a red-headed native whose boat is filled to the brim with a pile of massacred tiger sharks.

Francisco ends up chartering one of his boats to Steven, who plans to use the boat to relax and nurse his stupid brain back to health. Francisco, who is called Redhead by one of his associates, stacks boxes of food on the counter as he chats with Steven, who he calls Blondie, even though the man’s hair is clearly brown.

Two men calling each other Redhead and Blondie. Let that sink in.

Francisco tows up a line - shark traps that he set - and gasps in joy at the dead tiger shark attached to one of the hooks. "I am going to beat it in the head, just in case it’s not dead,” says Francisco. And boy does he. (We get to watch.)

Steven studied and observed Carlos for years,
but he could never figure out a way to grow such a
delightful push-broom mustache.

A nearby shark dive-bombs the dead shark on the line and takes a huge bite, annoying Francisco and pleasing me.

“I’d rather sit in the sun and watch the sharks in the bikinis,” says Steven. The men smile, and then we literally cut to Steven on the deck of his boat with a pair of binoculars looking at the naughty bits of the nearby girls.

Steven picks up a random girl, Patricia, offering her a tray of different drinks, and then uses his unsmiling charm to lure Patricia to his boat for some lobster and some hot hairy cock.

Then they have this meaningful conversation:

Steven: I am very happy because I think I am falling in love with you.

Patricia: Are you sure it is love, or just physical attraction?

Steven: I don’t know.

Thanks for even bringing it up, then, Steven. With crackling dialogue like that, who needs killer sharks?

I do. Please God, gimme gimme.

It seems Patricia didn’t like Steven’s “I don’t know,” because he catches her on the beach with Miguel, the affair man. The two men almost immediately begin fighting, and Steven clocks Miguel a good one across his Spanish face.

“Did you have to use your fists you stupid jerk?” Patricia cries.

I take a moment to ponder how else these two men could have furiously fought on the beach over a woman. Perhaps spirited debate.

Steven gets back on his rubber and farts away as Miguel taunts him from the beach, even though he was the one who got his ass punched to the ground.

Steven goes back to his boat and takes his frustration out on Francisco, who responds with, “Shit. This would even piss off a hermit crab.”

Thirty-four minutes in, and no shark attacks.

"Well, I just had a fuck with Miguel, but if you want,
you can come with me to mass."

Patricia decides to shack up with Miguel, and after a bout of sex, she leaves him lying on the bed, his pale, untanned ass sticking up in the air, and she decides to take a naked swim.

Then we cut to a shark.

Then we cut back to naked Patricia.

Then back to the shark.

Fucking finally.

The shark chews on a wigged-ball of bloody meat; though it’s terribly unimaginative and lazy, I’ll take it.

Steven pulls up to a dock/bar and climbs on. Miguel sits at a table, entertaining some fine-looking “gringas,” but when he sees Steve, he decides to be really funny.

“Get back, it is a wild animal!” he bellows, holding a chair up at Steven like a lion tamer would his beast.

“I hate it when people use me for their jokes,” Steven unemotionally retorts, as I laugh.

The two men inexplicably become friends. Steven sits down with the two college girls who turn out to be the ones who got raped. Seems they’re still enjoying their vacation despite the rape, and they welcome Miguel to bluntly discuss how their asses and boobs are incredible.

The four of them end up on Steven’s boat later, naked as the day they were last fucked, and they just kind of hang out. There’s no sex to be found. Steven swings in the hammock as the girls dance with Miguel.

And it’s not awkward or uncomfortable. Not at all.

Then, a shark swims.

Then it’s back to the naked boat.

Jesus Christ, I hate this movie.

The next morning, the college girls switch sex partners and everyone grinds mere feet from each other. And I don’t care what college you attended, from the School of Hard Knockers to Lost Highway University, that shit is creepy.

Debbie always ended her saying grace with: "And thanks again
for the two cocks to wake me up in the morning."

Later, at a party, everyone jams to some disco, as Francisco grinds with a gringa and ignores his master. Steven gets pissed off at the unauthorized use of his boat and throws everyone off.

It has been 24 minutes since the first and only shark attack, and at 54 minutes into the film, we still have more than an hour left to go.

Let’s pause for an amusing out-of-context excerpt of dialogue.

“What’s this rod for?”

“That’s the surprise I said I had for you.”

Continuing on, the men agree to “rock ‘n roll” and dive in an area known as “the caves,” where the plan seems to be to hunt some fish with a harpoon gun. Right around the time the fifth fish is harpooned, I fast forward until a shark shows up...a shark that is almost instantly shot. The real shark convulses, spewing blood from its wounds and gills, until it eventually succumbs to Miguel, the Speedo-wearing free diver.

Thanks, filmmakers. It sure was worth it, for this is irreplaceable art through which I am currently suffering.

Later, Steven and Miguel sit at a table, staring at a lonesome girl having a drink by herself.

“I bet you I take that girl to bed before you do,” Miguel challenges.

“That’s a bet I wouldn’t want to lose,” says Steven.

Boy, between shooting sharks in the face and making bets to fuck strangers, I can’t help but hope everything works out in the end for these two men.

After seeing the girl off to her hotel room, the men discuss the night’s events.

“The girl could not decide with whom to go to bed. This girl is a professional,” Miguel deduces, being careful not to end a sentence with a preposition.

“Do you think she is a whore?” Steven seriously inquires.

“This girl doesn’t open her legs for money,” Miguel answers. “She might even think we’re gay."

The two men then laugh, after a split second of subconsciously considering the possibility.

The next morning, Steve, Miguel, and their bet go fishing, where she gets to watch a shark be killed close up. They are almost attacked by a tiger shark, but unfortunately, they get away.

Last known photograph.

Then you know what I do? I skip to each chapter of this fucking atrocious movie until I get to the end, because I want to be finished sitting in front of this spewing mess.

The first few seconds of each chapter are as follows:

Chapter 16: Girl holds up a bottle of booze and then casts a hesitant glance behind her.

Chapter 17: Francisco lifts a large squid from a boiling pot and says, “This squid will be delicious.”

Chapter 18: Girl walks across the boat and says to Steven and Miguel, “I would like to have a child. It would be the first child to be conceived by two fathers.”

Chapter 19: Girl kissing her own hand as she looks upset.

Chapter 20: Uncomfortable '70s dancing.

Chapter 21: Steven and a large group of anonymous people walk across the beach. A girl shouts, “I have an idea: Why doesn’t everyone take off their clothes and we’ll go swimming?” All 30 people who are there agree this is a good idea. I am about to skip to the next chapter when a shark makes a rare appearance. He steals the girl from Steven like Winona Ryder steals from anywhere at all and disappears into the darkness.

I am pleased.

Chapter 22: Steven relives his shark encounter to Francisco. “It was horrible, Redhead.”

Chapter 23: A sea plane lands and Steven shows a Marlon Brando-in-The Godfather-looking fellow, Mr. Madison, where the accident took place.

Having reached the last chapter, I figure I can endure a few more minutes of trash.

Francisco and Steven prepare an arsenal of weapons in which to hunt the shark.

Say, where’s Miguel? Was he eaten? Written out of the script? Did he have a falling out with Steven?

I’ll never know, because I’m never sitting through this movie again.

Steven attracts the shark by shooting a skate, and he waits in apprehension for the shark to make its arrival.

Now, as we wait, let me just say this: If the director of this sleaze really wanted to make a point with this movie, he would have Steven, a man who has coldly bedded women and shot sharks in the face for no reason, be eaten by the shark that he was hunting. One shark devouring another, one might even argue.

Well, the music is mounting. Something is about to happen.

And…

Steven shoots the shark, which sinks to the bottom of the ocean, splooging blood from the wound. The assholes win, and we know this for sure, because the movie ends with a shot of Steven, Miguel, and the bet girl smiling and looking into the ocean.

So, to sum up, Tintorera is primarily about two men who fuck women all the time and hang out and discuss fucking women. Sometimes they dance, or have swim races. Sometimes they eat food. Every once in a while, a shark does something.

Tintorera does not attempt, at any time, to be thrilling, poignant, or entertaining. Its struggle for coherence is the only aspect of the film worth mentioning.

That’s pretty bad when that’s the only good thing I can say about your film: It didn’t not make sense.

This movie can eat my balls.

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

LEVITY

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

SANITIZE

LEVITY: HORROR ICONS IN LIGHT-HEARTED MOVIES

An alien is left behind by his spaceship and is adopted by Elliot and his family.
With his cuteness he’ll soon be able to enter their heart…

In “Roman Holiday,” Freddie Krueger is a reporter who offers to help a young
Princess visiting the most beautiful city in the world. Will she be charmed by his
kind and gentle manners?

In the musical “The Sound Of Music,” remarkable Pennywise gives another example
of his acting versatility.

All the rest.

UNSUNG HORRORS: TOURIST TRAP

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre. 

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. David Schmoeller
1977
Compass International Pictures
United States

For this edition of Unsung Horrors, we have a very different beast. Being a genre aficionado, I like my horror in all sizes, shapes, and colors - but I generally prefer a serious tone. I prefer feeling unnerved, and I enjoy the feeling of being in the presence of a filmmaker whom I don't entirely trust - not in the sense that I feel the filmmaker is not up to the snuff of delivering a good fright, but in the sense that said filmmaker might just be a little...off; perhaps eccentric, or even insane, to have delivered such a god damned strange, indecipherable, and flat-out bizarre little picture like the one we'll be celebrating today. To watch Tourist Trap is to wonder if the film had been accidentally made by an escapee from an insane asylum after he had held a mini-studio hostage so that his film may be realized. And when I insinuate the filmmaker was approaching this in as unconventional manner as possible, I don't allude to such high-brow works of art like E. Elias Merhige's Begotten or even Buñuel & Dalí's Un Chien Andalou, which are artistic to the extreme of defying convention. No, Tourist Trap is a different kind of insane - one that sports a straight-forward concept that became rather go-to in the late '70s and early 80s thanks to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: a group of kids getting lost in an unknown territory and falling victim one by one to a madman. On its surface, one would assume that's all it would seem to entail. But oh, how wrong one would be to assume such a thing. (That filmmaker, by the way, is David Schmoeller: read my interview with him here.)

Have you ever heard the expression "a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma?" Tourist Trap is that movie, in spades, but with mannequins. It, truly, is the most bizarre film I’ve ever seen - one that at some points is deeply unsettling, and at others completely ridiculous, whimsical, and odd. It’s almost as if two directors, whose styles completely contradicted each other, directed different portions. Picture an unhappy studio executive screening the latest film from David Lynch, then picking up a phone and requesting an immediate meeting with the guys who made Airplane.

The beginning of Tourist Trap introduces us to a group of young teens as they are temporarily stalled by a flat tire on their way cross-country. One of the unlucky boys, who is the spitting image of the late Steve Irwin but sans accent, rolls the flat to the nearest service station for help. Upon getting there, the boy is haunted by weird, ethereal, slightly erotic moaning emanating from an unseen source. The boy locates the source: a blanket-covered woman lying on a cot in the back of the service station. The boy approaches gingerly, asking the woman if she needs help. Suddenly, she springs forward, laughing in vicious glee, revealing herself to be...a mannequin.

Your mind barely has time to process what appears to be the film's first major development before all hell breaks loose in this little room. The mannequin continues to laugh, its plastic jaw clomping wildly in glee. The boy, understandably freaked, tries to escape the room, but windows close and lock themselves as doors slam themselves shut.

Another mannequin, this one headless, smashes through the outside window. The boy is then assaulted by yet another mannequin, bursting forth from the closet and laughing more creepily than the previous dummy. As the boy backs up in fear, he kicks a small mannequin head that lies on the ground. He looks on in fear as the head slowly turns and opens its mouth wide.

And your reviewer is utterly disturbed.

The room begins going insane as cabinets open and close and objects are mysteriously hurled at the boy as he tries to escape, and all during this fiasco the mannequins continue to laugh.

My God, is this what it's like inside Gary Busey’s head?

A metal pipe is suddenly hurled through the boy, killing him instantly, and the commotion comes to an end. We then pan around the room, taking in the sudden serenity, as if the mannequin-screaming, object-hurtling, window-and-door-slamming shitstorm of a fucked up Quaalude hallucination never took place.

This is certainly not a case of establishing something insane for the purposes of securing a massively crazy opener, but failing to live up to that insanity for the remainder of the film. Rather, Tourist Trap wants to hit the ground running. It wastes no time in easing the viewer into the insanity that is soon to unfurl. "We've only got 90 minutes here, people," the film is saying, "so strap in for the worst nightmare you've ever had while wide awake."

The dead boy's friends, among them Molly (Jocelyn Jones),  the "final girl," come looking for him, and this is when they meet Mr. Slausen (Chuck Connors), owner of Slausen’s Lost Oasis, who approaches them with a large shotgun and cowboy hat. Soft guitar music plays as Slausen lays down his airing of grievances he has with the local town bureaucrats as the girls, having previously stripped down and leaped into a nearby watering hole and are now naked as they day they were born, cover their dirty pillows and stare at him with a mixture of fear and confusion.

Despite the fact that he is clearly the last person anyone with half-a-brain would want to be around, they accept his offer of a lift back to his house under the guise of getting some tools to help fix their car. But don't worry, these kids aren't going anywhere. Both the audience and Mr. Slausen want to see these kids get haunted and slaughtered by sighing mannequins. And boy, will they.

To attempt to explain or make sense of what's soon to unfold is a fool's errand. To date, I have seen Tourist Trap three times, and I am completely unable to decipher anything that occurs. A rather simple-minded premise about mannequins with a life of their own soon morphs into a story featuring quirky and potentially dangerous twin brothers, split personalities, telekinesis, necromancy(?), and even heartbreak.

All of this, on the surface, feels easy to mock, and I fully admit the first draft of this column was written to be included as the newest edition to Shitty Flicks. But my latest viewing of this flick confirmed I could not in good conscience do so. Low brow concept it may have been, and populated with not-so-great teen actors as was often the case for low-budget horror, writer/director David Schmoeller knew exactly what he was doing behind the camera. Without hyperbole, every single solitary shot of a mannequin, or doll, or masked madman, is eerie, or disturbing, even deeply unsettling. Because nothing makes sense. And no explanations are provided. If you're looking for the James Bond villain-esque explanation at the end where the antagonist lays it all out on the table - "here's how I bring the mannequins to life / here's how I learned to move objects with my mind / here is how I resurrect the dead" - forget it. You're barking up the wrong tree here, and you're way way way in the wrong film. I've long said that gaps in logic can be detrimental to a screenplay unless you are in a filmmaker's such capable hands that you not only forgive those gaps, but actually respect them and allow them to enhance your reaction to the story. It gets to be that you want to ignore these gaps, because to do otherwise would result in over-thinking and ruining the experience for yourself.

Each insane development occurs with no for warning, because Schmoeller wants you to feel just as broad-sided as his characters. "Wait a minute, since when can this guy move shit with his mind?", etc. He wants every new occurrence of supernatural territory to slap you across the face. He wants you to feel uneven and on edge, honestly believing anything could happen at any moment. At one point someone could have opened their chest to reveal they were a robot the entire time and it would have felt right at home. (Not to mention something like that kinda-sorta happens.)

Schmoeller is also wise to exploit the hordes of mannequins found everywhere in Slausen's Lost Oasis to immense satisfaction and disturbance. At one point the killer is chasing one of our victims and holds out, at arm's length, a severed mannequin's head.

“See my friend?” the killer grumbles, as the mouth on the mannequin head opens widely and screams.

At this point we have seen enough insanity and unexplained activity that we know this is not a simple case of ventriloquism: This head is somehow alive, and it's screaming at our victim like it is being brutally murdered. This is later confirmed when the killer heaves the screaming head at her as she turns and flees. The head, landing on the ground in front of her, promptly turns by itself and yells at her again.

Adding to this insanity are the occasional bouts of humor. Not unintentional humor, mind you, but honest-to-gosh scenes in which Schmoeller forgot he was making a haunted mannequin, masked-killer movie and was perhaps instead directing a vaudevillian stage play featuring Abbot and Costello.

That decision results in the following scene in which our killer enters a room wearing a mask and sits down next to a mannequin. For no reason whatsoever, after the killer places a bowl of soup in front of the slumped-over mannequin, the dummy suddenly springs to life:

Killer: Eat your soup. It’s nice and hot.

Mannequin: Let’s eat.

Killer: That’s what I said, let’s eat. Is it good?

Mannequin: Yes, it’s very good.

Killer: Want some crackers?

Mannequin: I’d like some more crackers, please.

Killer: That’s what I said.

Mannequin: Yes, the crackers are very good.

Killer: Aren’t da crackas good??

The mannequin’s head falls off directly into the soup, ruining the rest of the date. All of this in the midst of teens being killed and transformed into mannequin parts, one by one. All of this while mannequin heads scream and move on their own, while objects fly across the room without having been touched, while people whom we thought were perfectly real and alive are torn apart limb-from-limb, revealing they were actually mannequins.

Also adding to this insanity is the completely wacko score by Pino Donaggio, perhaps most famous for having scored the majority of Brian DePalma's earlier films like Carrie and Dressed to Kill. Much like Tourist Trap itself, the score alternates between chilling, with stabbing strings, and goofy, with clumsy xylophone hits. It's an awkward pastiche that at some points is trying to drive you mad with fear, but at others is trying to convince you you're in the presence of someone whimsical and eccentric and you should be having a really amusing fucking time.

The last shot shows our lone survivor driving down the street with mannequin versions of all her friends filling out the car that now suddenly works, as Pino Donaggios’s score assaults your every sense, slamming home the fact that, yes, what you just experienced was real, and no, you will never forget it.

Tourist Trap was unofficially remade in 2005 and dubbed House of Wax, as that was the title Warner Bros. happened to own. And yes, while it includes a killer who turned his victims into wax dummies, the similarities end there. But it would go onto lift, from Tourist Trap, the killer-brothers concept, the broken-down-car concept, the weirdo-attraction-in-the-middle-of-nowhere concept, and hordes of mannequins/dummies particularly placed and posed to give off the illusion of being real people.

David Schmoeller would go on to direct more straight-forward genre fare like Puppet Master and episodes of "Silk Stalkings," but Tourist Trap will always be remembered as the movie that made people say: “That was fucking weird. I don’t feel good…”

God bless you, David Schmoeller.

God bless you, Tourist Trap.

God bless us everyone.

I’m gonna go take a shower and hide under a blanket, because I feel really uncomfortable.

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

SHITTY FLICKS: SHARK ZONE

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis.

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.

Shark Zone (originally given the much better title of Jurassic Shark), is a smörgåsbord of what we love about shark movies: attractive and untalented lead actors/actresses, recycled footage that looks a little narrow because the logo for the Discovery Channel had to be cropped out, and of course, little-to-no realistic violence.

Oh, and roaring sharks. Yes, the sharks here roar and roar aplenty. As I write this, I can picture the sound designer on this film staring at dailies of swimming sharks and asking himself, "After I'm finished this bag of candy worms, what can I do to make this shark scarier than the one from Jaws?"

But, I digress.

Let's get on with Shark Zone: A Return to Form for Dean Cochran (Motorcycle Villain from Batman & Robin).

"Jimbo, watch this! Grab that little doll. I'll put that
 in my mouth."

Our movie begins in the past with a pirate ship and men wearing Halloween costumes (of pirates). In a sequence that left even The Goonies laughing hysterically, badly created lightning strikes and the waves force the ship down into Davy Jones' locker. All the swashbucklers drown and their precious precious chest of diamonds sinks to the bottom of the sea.

God rest ye, merry gentleman.

CUT TO closer to the present, but still in the past, where our handsome hero, Dean Cochran, is introduced. I forget his name. Maybe it was Jimbo. Anyway, we find Jimbo to be charter-boating on the ocean with two couples and his father, Jimbo Sr.

What a party.

They're all there to search for the lost diamonds lost by pirates in the movie’s prologue.

This is funny, because the only ones who knew the diamonds were on that ship were the pirates. (The ones that died.)

But no matter. Delightful banter ensues between our divers, and boobs are flaunted. When it's time for Head Boat Guy to explain the dos and don'ts of scuba-diving, he tells one of the members that his shiny chain will attract sharks.

Shiny Necklace Guy almost makes the choice to live, but then gives a Curly wave and does not remove his necklace.

"I'd remove that necklace if I were you. If you don't, sharks might rip your fucking arms off."

"I'm good."

Up next, a completely unexpected and crazy-ass thing happens.

They all dive and they're all killed. Even Jimbo's father, whose last words were "Swim, Jimbo! Swim!"

Finally, we cut to the present: 10 years after this attack. Our hero hasn't aged whatsoever, but now he's married to a hot girl and has a disgusting kid.

Jimbo's loss of father and attack of sharks has left him permanently embittered by the water, and his bitterness has begun to rub off on his ugly son, who doesn't eat fish because he's terrified of the ocean.

Despite Jimbo's hate/fear of the ocean, he is apparently a lifeguard or coastguard or color guard or something having to do directly with the water. Sometimes, people are attacked by sharks. And when they are, the mayor (for some reason, the same actor who plays the father) refuses to close the beaches.

That subplot never gets old.

Jimbo attempts to kill the sharks. How? Not sure, since you never actually see how.

Come to think of it, he really never verbally discusses his plan, nor does the movie ever show you how he would plan to carry out the sharks' demise.

All you see is what you'd expect: a boat and some shark cages. But oh man, when his friends are sitting in the cages under water, and the sharks start bumping the cages a little bit, but in no way endangering their lives, Jimbo yells for them to "Swim to the boat!" They do, and of course, since they are idiotically vulnerable in the open ocean, they're all eaten. And when they are, Jimbo literally gives one disappointed pound on the rail of his boat, as if to say, "You've won this round, Zone of Sharks!"

Fact: Vending machines kill more people per year
than sharks kill Captain America.

Somehow, the Russian mob shows up and demands that Jimbo dive and help them find the missing diamonds lost in the beginning of the movie. Lead Villain Guy, Mr. Bulkhead, makes him dive by taking his ugly son hostage, threatening the "sleep with the fishes" routine.

Jimbo takes control of the situation by punching and kicking men and throwing them overboard, where, of course, the sharks eat them.

So how does this glorious movie end?

The sharks eat everyone, are not defeated, and nary a clue ever reveals any kind of hint as to why they are huge and all of a sudden attacking everything in sight.

Jimbo and his ugly son get away, because they're virgins, and virgins always live.

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?