Fine cheeses of Wisconsin and Italy
Hey, whoops. Too busy to post yesterday. I think I'm fighting a cold, or at least a sinus infection. Anyway, you know what a day without a review means... today's a two-fer. Go out and have some green beer for me, ye merry pretend-Irishmen!
"The Beast of Bray Road"
(2005)
Have you ever met somebody who's totally hot and acts like they totally want you, yet you suspected that they were a werewolf? Sure, we all have. In most cases, we're proven wrong. In Southeastern Wisconsin, however, it's perfectly feasible that a comely lass who catches your eye at nightfall may be tearing it out come midnight. After all, that's where the Bray Road Beast lives. According to local lore, a werewolf or a Bigfoot - maybe even a Frankenstein - is running amuck somewhere just north of the Illinois border, around Delavan or Elkhorn. I've driven past that area a bunch within the last couple of years. Perhaps one of those cute, corn-fed waitresses who flirted with me along the way was actually the gut-snacking monster of today's feature. Yes, it's another low-budget howler from The Asylum ("Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove," "Leeches!"), this time based on "a true story." Anyone from the area will appreciate the geographical references - a couple of the grimy townies even pick up some teenage hoochies from Schaumburg. Writer/director Leigh Slawner, who for some reason uses the pseudonym "Leigh Scott" here, grew up in Wisconsin, so we can expect that his portrayal of its denizens is accurate. Naturally, most of the men in "The Beast of Bray Road" are ignorant, misogynist alcoholics, while most of its women are attractive, man-crazy alcoholics. They don't call Wisconsin "the South of the North" for nothing.
At the center of the story is a guy from Chicago who was recently elected sheriff. Every dame in town is making eyes at this guy, but he's only interested in the Gina Gershon-ish lady who owns the town's hick bar. Not that he has time to hook up with her, what with someone or something running around slaughtering cattle and alcoholics. When a family comes in to the police station and reports seeing a monster, one of the deputies follows the rules of Z-movie exposition and blurts, "That sounds like the Beast of Bray Road!" The sheriff, being a big-city guy, doesn't buy the local legend, although a bewhiskered cryptozoologist (played by the police chief from "Jolly Roger") is certain he can make his name by identifying the creature. Eventually the sheriff comes around, the cops and alcoholics fill their guns with silver bullets and the hunt is on. Such a standard monster movie plot would be a chore to absorb if the monster sucked. Thankfully, the Beast is not a digital effect but a guy in a suit. It looks pretty cool and when it attacks someone, you actually get to see it. Slawton knows that very few people can pull off the tension of "The Haunting" or "Jaws," so there's none of that "it will be scarier if we don't show it" bullshit. Furthermore, the gore is plentiful - lots of intestine-spilling and meat-chewing by the Beast. I may have blown the "surprise" ending in my lead to this review, but if you don't see it coming, you probably haven't seen "Dog Soldiers." The Asylum is a spotty little studio, as even when their flicks are as enjoyable as this one, they include plenty of amateur tics such as flubbed dialogue and a wildly uneven sound mix. Yet, those are the kinds of flaws that make old exploitation flicks so warmly personal. The Asylum folks obviously care about their modest creature features. This is a different trailer than is on the DVD, but it does feature the amazing scene where the Beast tears a hoochie's head open like a grapefruit:
"Gli Sterminatori dell'anno 3000"
(aka "Exterminators of the Year 3000," 1983)
More Italian post-apocalyptic action! Boy, "Road Warrior" rip-offs thrived like cockroaches during the '80s. It seems that for every one of these things I watch, I learn about two more. The crazy thing is that while they never live up to their poster art, most of them are pretty awesome if you enjoy this brand of cheese. The only names I recognized in the credits were screenwriters Dardano Sacchetti and Elisa Briganti, who previously collaborated on such classics as "1990: I Guerrieri del Bronx" and "Zombi 2." I'd never heard of director Giuliano Carnimeo before, nor any of its cast, although searching through the IMDB I see a few familiar titles in which they appeared. Carnimeo (his pseudonym here is "Jules Harrison") made a lot of spaghetti westerns and sex comedies, but this was his only entry into the holocaust warrior genre. He does a pretty good job, and by good, I mean "entertaining." The title is misleading, because there is only one Exterminator, a badass future car which is very clearly an '80s model sedan (of the Year 3000) with sheet metal armor bolted onto its exterior. The ostensible hero, a bearded lowlife in a headband named Alien, is driving the Eliminator when we meet him, but it's soon stolen by a bandit. On this dystopian future Earth, scorched barren by the sun after humans stupidly destroyed "the ozone belt," water is the greatest commodity, so when he meets the little kid from "City of the Living Dead," whose settlement is trying to transport water from a secret facility, you'd better believe Alien wants in on the action.
A true '80s man (of the Year 3000), Alien intends to steal the water and sell it, leaving the kid, his people and humanity's last hope for sustained agriculture in the lurch. Complicating things is your standard band of motorcycle-and-dune-buggy-riding marauders, this one led by a bald guy with funny eye makeup called Crazy Bull. He treats his minions in the manner of Skeletor, sending them to beat up people and then cursing at them when they fail. He even has an Evil-Lyn in the shape of a sexy leather-bound black chick named - with typical Italian racial sensitivity - Shadow. Crazy Bull's favorite curse seems to be "mothergrabber," as he frequently hollers things like, "Come on, you mothergrabbers! Go get them!" It's not like he doesn't swear at all, he just says that a lot. Crazy Bull wants the water too, and he's extra pissed at Alien because the Exterminator was originally his. Then, a girl from Alien's past shows up and understandably tries to kill him. Her name is Trash, which you'll remember was also the name Sacchetti and Briganti gave the hero of "1990." They must believe that in post-apocalyptic times, "Trash" will become a popular unisex moniker, sort of like "Pat." Alien tries to get Trash to turn on the kid, but she's a softie. For the kid's part, he gets drunk and kills people, and he gets his arm ripped off by a motorcycle - thus revealing that he's biomechanical. In the end, everybody gets screwed after Shadow dumps out the water tanker in a spiteful dying move and the water factory gets blown up by one of the Hazmat-suited mutants that run it. Then it starts raining, which hasn't happened in forever and makes everyone happy, Trash living up to her name by smearing mud all over her face in joy. Despite this corny happy finale, "3000" is another winner, although I'll bet there's a version out there with even more violence and mayhem in it.
"The Beast of Bray Road"(2005)
Have you ever met somebody who's totally hot and acts like they totally want you, yet you suspected that they were a werewolf? Sure, we all have. In most cases, we're proven wrong. In Southeastern Wisconsin, however, it's perfectly feasible that a comely lass who catches your eye at nightfall may be tearing it out come midnight. After all, that's where the Bray Road Beast lives. According to local lore, a werewolf or a Bigfoot - maybe even a Frankenstein - is running amuck somewhere just north of the Illinois border, around Delavan or Elkhorn. I've driven past that area a bunch within the last couple of years. Perhaps one of those cute, corn-fed waitresses who flirted with me along the way was actually the gut-snacking monster of today's feature. Yes, it's another low-budget howler from The Asylum ("Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove," "Leeches!"), this time based on "a true story." Anyone from the area will appreciate the geographical references - a couple of the grimy townies even pick up some teenage hoochies from Schaumburg. Writer/director Leigh Slawner, who for some reason uses the pseudonym "Leigh Scott" here, grew up in Wisconsin, so we can expect that his portrayal of its denizens is accurate. Naturally, most of the men in "The Beast of Bray Road" are ignorant, misogynist alcoholics, while most of its women are attractive, man-crazy alcoholics. They don't call Wisconsin "the South of the North" for nothing.
At the center of the story is a guy from Chicago who was recently elected sheriff. Every dame in town is making eyes at this guy, but he's only interested in the Gina Gershon-ish lady who owns the town's hick bar. Not that he has time to hook up with her, what with someone or something running around slaughtering cattle and alcoholics. When a family comes in to the police station and reports seeing a monster, one of the deputies follows the rules of Z-movie exposition and blurts, "That sounds like the Beast of Bray Road!" The sheriff, being a big-city guy, doesn't buy the local legend, although a bewhiskered cryptozoologist (played by the police chief from "Jolly Roger") is certain he can make his name by identifying the creature. Eventually the sheriff comes around, the cops and alcoholics fill their guns with silver bullets and the hunt is on. Such a standard monster movie plot would be a chore to absorb if the monster sucked. Thankfully, the Beast is not a digital effect but a guy in a suit. It looks pretty cool and when it attacks someone, you actually get to see it. Slawton knows that very few people can pull off the tension of "The Haunting" or "Jaws," so there's none of that "it will be scarier if we don't show it" bullshit. Furthermore, the gore is plentiful - lots of intestine-spilling and meat-chewing by the Beast. I may have blown the "surprise" ending in my lead to this review, but if you don't see it coming, you probably haven't seen "Dog Soldiers." The Asylum is a spotty little studio, as even when their flicks are as enjoyable as this one, they include plenty of amateur tics such as flubbed dialogue and a wildly uneven sound mix. Yet, those are the kinds of flaws that make old exploitation flicks so warmly personal. The Asylum folks obviously care about their modest creature features. This is a different trailer than is on the DVD, but it does feature the amazing scene where the Beast tears a hoochie's head open like a grapefruit:
"Gli Sterminatori dell'anno 3000"(aka "Exterminators of the Year 3000," 1983)
More Italian post-apocalyptic action! Boy, "Road Warrior" rip-offs thrived like cockroaches during the '80s. It seems that for every one of these things I watch, I learn about two more. The crazy thing is that while they never live up to their poster art, most of them are pretty awesome if you enjoy this brand of cheese. The only names I recognized in the credits were screenwriters Dardano Sacchetti and Elisa Briganti, who previously collaborated on such classics as "1990: I Guerrieri del Bronx" and "Zombi 2." I'd never heard of director Giuliano Carnimeo before, nor any of its cast, although searching through the IMDB I see a few familiar titles in which they appeared. Carnimeo (his pseudonym here is "Jules Harrison") made a lot of spaghetti westerns and sex comedies, but this was his only entry into the holocaust warrior genre. He does a pretty good job, and by good, I mean "entertaining." The title is misleading, because there is only one Exterminator, a badass future car which is very clearly an '80s model sedan (of the Year 3000) with sheet metal armor bolted onto its exterior. The ostensible hero, a bearded lowlife in a headband named Alien, is driving the Eliminator when we meet him, but it's soon stolen by a bandit. On this dystopian future Earth, scorched barren by the sun after humans stupidly destroyed "the ozone belt," water is the greatest commodity, so when he meets the little kid from "City of the Living Dead," whose settlement is trying to transport water from a secret facility, you'd better believe Alien wants in on the action.
A true '80s man (of the Year 3000), Alien intends to steal the water and sell it, leaving the kid, his people and humanity's last hope for sustained agriculture in the lurch. Complicating things is your standard band of motorcycle-and-dune-buggy-riding marauders, this one led by a bald guy with funny eye makeup called Crazy Bull. He treats his minions in the manner of Skeletor, sending them to beat up people and then cursing at them when they fail. He even has an Evil-Lyn in the shape of a sexy leather-bound black chick named - with typical Italian racial sensitivity - Shadow. Crazy Bull's favorite curse seems to be "mothergrabber," as he frequently hollers things like, "Come on, you mothergrabbers! Go get them!" It's not like he doesn't swear at all, he just says that a lot. Crazy Bull wants the water too, and he's extra pissed at Alien because the Exterminator was originally his. Then, a girl from Alien's past shows up and understandably tries to kill him. Her name is Trash, which you'll remember was also the name Sacchetti and Briganti gave the hero of "1990." They must believe that in post-apocalyptic times, "Trash" will become a popular unisex moniker, sort of like "Pat." Alien tries to get Trash to turn on the kid, but she's a softie. For the kid's part, he gets drunk and kills people, and he gets his arm ripped off by a motorcycle - thus revealing that he's biomechanical. In the end, everybody gets screwed after Shadow dumps out the water tanker in a spiteful dying move and the water factory gets blown up by one of the Hazmat-suited mutants that run it. Then it starts raining, which hasn't happened in forever and makes everyone happy, Trash living up to her name by smearing mud all over her face in joy. Despite this corny happy finale, "3000" is another winner, although I'll bet there's a version out there with even more violence and mayhem in it.
posted by SoulReaper at 2:22 PM
1 Comments:
You know, you still owe us a recipe this month.
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