Look out! He's got a knife!

24 hour movie marathon

So we did the 24 hour movie marathon and lo, a mere two weeks later I blog about it.

Here's what we had.

KONGA
They did a nice King Kong fake-out before this movie, but it was spoilt when the projectionist screwed up and the title never came up. Michael Gough plays a mad scientist back from the jungle with huge-ass carnivorous plants and secret serums and a baby chimp that grows up first into a full-grown chimp, then into a man in a gorilla suit, then into a man in a gorilla suit matted into a rear projection. It was an awesome black & white b-movie that didn't fuck around. Gough was wonderfully nasty and lecherous, and the rest of the cast (prim assistant with unrequited love, innocent girl Gough lusts after, Indian scientist, man in gorilla suit) do fine.

THE DESCENT
Despite a bravura opening, it took me a while to warm up to this movie. However when the six main characters (all women) go caving, things get very harsh very fast. Scary and claustrophobic and quite gory at times (Chris Gilman supposedly fainted during one scene), this is one of the best new horror movies in quite some time.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SNOW WHITE
Marie Liljedahl (from Jess Franco's Eugenie) plays the title character, but this is really a mash-up of a bunch of Grimm fairy tales connected by two dimwit brothers on a quest to lose their fortune. The print was faded to a glorious pink. There's some unexpected gore, all taken from the original stories. It contained the first adaptation of Cinderella I've seen where they retain the scene of the stepsisters hacking off their toes & heels to fit into the glass slipper. Overall an entertaining, delerious, sometimes disturbing movie. Instead of sending for Snow White's heart, the Queen wants her sexual organs, which she eats with relish; and the scene of Snow Shite sucking on a cow's udder is unforgettable. Demented movie.

DEAD MEAT
One of the few duds of the evening, this was a zombie movie from Ireland. It copped its attitude straight from Peter Jackson's and Sam Raimi's early movies, but could not come within a country mile of Bad Taste or Evil Dead. The zombie cow was good for a laugh, but most of the movie was people wandering around and every now and again being attacked by zombies. Full marks to the incomprehensible guy though.

TOP SECRET
Yes, the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker movie starring Val Kilmer. Funny movie.

SACRED KNIVES OF VENGEANCE
The dullest movie of the evening was this Shaw Bros. kung fu epic, a true snoozer. Lots of jumping around on wires and arm-flailing fights. I wandered off to get a bite to eat and some fresh air for a bit during this one.

CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE
Seemingly-endless soft-core porn starring three very good looking women, one of whom is constantly eating. A daugher turns her mom on to the swinging scene, and the movie barely pulls back from lesbian incest. Despite all this, it was curiously boring and lifeless. This probably helped soften us up for the sucker punch of...

FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE
This movie was goddamned rough. It was a Desperate Hours/Last House on the Left sort of "prison escapees kidnap and terrorize innocent people" deal. This time a muli-racial gang lead by an utter scumfuck white-trash racist hold up a nice, middle-class black family in their home and terrorize and brutalize them for a whole movie. Endless racist monologuing from the chief asshole just makes it all harder to take. The sarcastic comments from the audience dried up for this one, though the sassy black grandmother got some cheers. All in all it was nerve-wracking and deeply unpleasant, never boring but impossible to recommend.

Breakfast was odd. Was that another movie?

THE DEVIL'S REJECTS
Rob Zombie's second movie was a vast improvement over his first. Even more than House of 1000 Corpses this was a '70s-style horror/sleaze epic, but it was more spare and grimly effective than its predecessor. I really enjoyed it, and admired its utter lack of a moral compass; 1000 Corpses's biggest flaw was that the victims were too unsympathetic, and Rejects turns that into an advantage by making the killers the audience identification figures. Sherri Moon Zombie, Bill Moseley and (especially) Sid Haig are fantastic. Ken Foree is almost a match for Haig in a smallish role as his brother. It's all good nihilistic fun.

THE CHRISTINE JOURGENSEN STORY
A very sensitive movie about the first sex change recipient, told with deep sympathy and tolerance. Shame it comes across like a dull tv movie remake of Glen Or Glenda. I yawned, I fidgeted, I drank too many cans of V.

THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE
Almost everyone else seemed to hate this courtriin drama horror movie, but I thoroughly enjoyed most of it. A priest is on trial for negligent homicide after a young woman he was trying to exorcise dies. The story is told as flashbacks. Laura Linney is great (of course) as the lawyer, Tom Wilkinson is great (predictably) as the priest, and whoever plays Emily Rose is great in the flashbacks. There's a lot of philosophy, some great scares, and a really dumb ending. It's supposedly based on a true story.

THE THING
John Carpenter's classic remake, back when he could still make movies worth a damn. I've seen it many times before, but watching it on the big screen was a kick!

Then we all got out, and I started getting txts saying that Rod Donald had died. Total bummer.

Posted by pearce at November 19, 2005 6:08 PM