!Facebook Event Page!

The Setup

Horror movies derive a great deal of their tension from our darkest fears of everyday places and things. In this case, those very things are the fauna of Mother Nature herself. That’s right. Our pets, our animal bretheren, and those cute fuzzy creatures that always populate the background of the latest Disney animated “classic.” These films seek to prove to you just how…terrifying a fluffball of fuzzy furry fury can truly be.

Squirrels are adorably harmless creatures that populate our back yards and woodlands. But what about rabid squirrels? Dear god! That’s scary!!! But wait, what if they were wait-for-it. . . Radioactive Rabid Vampire Squirrels? That’s our movie! R.R.V.S: Curse of the Blood Acorn

Every era has a flagship “Killer Animals” movie, in which animals are corrupted by whatever the culture was afraid of at the time. Radiation, disease, communism, technology, fast food, etc. turn animals into some sort of rabid killer…or otherwise piss them off so much that they decided-collectively or on their own-that they’ve had enough.

The Formula

Take the cutest animal you can think of. Now expose it to a nuclear, biological or chemical agent that makes it more blood thirsty than a drunk hockey fan snorting a fistful of speedballs and ground up PCP. Stand back and watch the fun. Additionally, every Killer Animal movie will have one of the following scenes:

• “Awww. .  . how cute. .” Some idiot will attempt to pet, snuggle or capture the now amazingly dangerous animal and loose a limb, possibly their life.
• “Dear God, They’re everywhere!!” It will turn out that either one animal is so fast it’s everywhere at once, or it spreads it’s ichor through the local animal population turning them all against the humans.
• There will be an “Expert” Someone who has dealt with this of thing before, back in the 50’s, but it was covered up by the government.
• KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!: At some point one of the formerly domesticated monsters will be set ablaze.

The Menu

In addition to our typical selection of chips, beer, liquor, and snacks-there will be:

The Booze: Wild Turkey, Warm Woolly Sheep

Because in the face of such terrifying and horrible movies, we need a warm glass of milk to calm down our nerves (mixed with booze, of course).

The Food: The Flesh of Deadly Animals! Or, you know, Peeps

That’s right: BEEF JERKEY to prove who’s at the top of the food chain, and marshmallow animal effigies for ritual burnings.

The Movies

Night of the Lepus (1972): A regular feature of Sunday afternoons in the 80’s, this movie proves that with good sound production, you can almost make rabbits scary. Almost. The beasties terrorize a barely populated western town for an entire evening.

Black Sheep (2006): Chris Farley is back from the grave and looking to eat EVERYONE! No. Wait. Even scarier! This movie is about killer sheep rampaging through the gorgeous landscape of New Zealand. It has everything: flesh-eating zombie sheep, flying Terry Tate sheep and…wait for it: WERESHEEP. Already a cult classic everywhere else in the world, we’re going to give this movie its due.

Suggested Alternatives

Orca (1977) : A strange fever dream of a movie, whose lesson is this: DO NOT KILL BABY WHALES, or their parents will hunt you to ends of the earth.

Tentacles (1977): Wow, ’77 was a year for movies about dangerous marine life, eh? An “all-star cast” (read: Henry Fonda) are terrorized by a giant octopus. The IMDB error page says it all: “Factual errors: Octopuses don’t roar.”

Slugs (1988): Cavalcade Staff Writer John Higgins was seven when he first saw this movie. It was funny even then.

This article was co-authored with John Higgins.

They’re making a sequel to Forbidden Zone (1982).

For those of you who weren’t at our recent Event 24: Fucked up Musicals, first of all: SHAME. Secondly, you missed out on what was described by one attendee as an, “Acid-laced skull-fucking of weird. I want to hate it, but I can’t look away!”

Yes, somehow the movie wasn’t voted off the island, and there was even enjoyment had. We loved its surreal tale of Frenchy Hercules (Marie-Pascale Elfman), a nubile girl who decides to check out the Sixth Dimension out of bordom and finds, among other things: King Fausto ( Herve Villechaize) , a few torture chambers, a frog person, some concubines, The Princess (who never puts a shirt on), the Kipper Kids, a number of cross-dressers, and Danny Elfman. As Satan. Doing a  Cab Calloway impression.

Yeah. It was like that.

There isn’t much information available, but if the sequel’s plot description on IMDB is any indication, it’s still going to be rocking the weird:

Ma and Pa Kettle leave the depressed Dust Bowl with their kids, Stinky and Petunia, and drive their old jalopy down to Crenshaw in South-Central Los Angeles. Stinky is a hyper-active 12-year-old; Petunia is a lumbering 13-year-old; Ma is a corn-cob pipe-smoking inbred, and Pa is a craven, drunken carnival geek…with a bad disposition…even before his carnival job folded after the last dust storm. Together, they hope to find a better life in California. Unfortunately, the little shack they rent has a basement connected to the Sixth Dimension, ruled by a horny midget king who is growing an army of dead zombie babies…to take over Earth.

That, by the way, was written by the film’s director, Richard Elfman.

We’re not sure whether another excursion down the poop shoot rabbit hole is necessary, warranted, or whether our bowels can handle it, but in this age of cookie-cutter blockbusters, it’s kind of heartening to hear that a film that was so weird that the original audience members threatened to take the film reels and burn them is getting a sequel. So tell us what you think in our poll below!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. ]]> http://cavalcadeofschlock.com/2010/05/forbidden-zone-2-the-forbidden-galaxy-2010/feed/ 1 http://cavalcadeofschlock.com/2010/04/cavalcade-event-24-fd-up-musicals/ http://cavalcadeofschlock.com/2010/04/cavalcade-event-24-fd-up-musicals/#comments Thu, 22 Apr 2010 23:17:51 +0000 Micah P. http://cavalcadeofschlock.com/?p=3599

The Setup

A message from our founder: “When I first came up for the idea of the Cavalcade group, I did so out of a heartfelt love of the classic B movie, and it’s descendants: The Modern Hollywood A-list Blockbusters. With their combination of silly scripts, ham-fisted acting, and sloppy direction-these bits of, well, Schlock cinema hold a place near and dear to my soul.

“That said, I too have another cinematic passion, and that, my friends, is the Musical. There’s just something awesome about people randomly breaking into song to describe their feelings about situations like love, family, friendship, and…uh…the Russians expelling the Jews.

“Point is, I never thought I’d be able to merge the love of gore, horror, cinematic satanism, and low-budget film making. But ask, and the Cavalcade provides!”

The Formula

Take a movie script and cut out anything more than three plotlines, plot twists, or subtle characters. Next, add four to five musical numbers. Then…film it.

The Menu

The Booze: The Purple Rain

Every problem can be solved with a generous injection of Prince. It’s true.

• 1 1/4 oz. Curacao, blue
• 1 1/4 oz. Vodka
• 2 oz. Grenadine
• 1/4 oz. Lime Juice
• 2 oz. Pineapple Juice

The Food: Red Velvet Heart Cake

Complete with aorta and spurting goodness. This was volunteered by a guest who is both disturbed…and kinda awesome. That first line was her description.

The Movies

Forbidden Zone (1982): Before his incredible collaborations with Tim Burton, Danny Elfman was part of a musical theater group called The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, they created one of the most disturbing things ever captured on film, and we’re gonna watch it.

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008): The year is 2056, and an epidemic of organ failures has crippled our society. A billionaire industrialist saved the world by manufacturing and providing organ transplants for any and all who could afford them, and has assassins doing repo on the organs of those who can’t. Anthony Stewart Head stars in this blood-soaked story of betrayal, murder, corruption, insanity, and implied incest in this wholesome film filled with family fun.

Suggested Alternatives

Horror of Party Beach (1964): The Beach Boys meet The Creature from the Black Lagoon in a film dubbed “The First Horror Monster Musical.” Yeah. It’s like that.

The Fall Of The Louse Of Usher (2002): Found guilty of murdering his wife, rock star Roderick Usher is sent to an asylum where, in a padded cell, he’s at the mercy of Dr. Calahari (the director, Ken Russel), whose mind-blowing shock treatments set off a series of bizarre, nightmarish adventures.

I have to admit to a certain fondness for musicals. Fred Astaire was an idol of my childhood, as was Gene Kelly. Especially when he danced with Jerry Mouse (of Tom and Jerry). Though as much as I like a good musical, which is essentially a play/movie with more than a few dance numbers thrown in, I can’t bring myself to dig operas. With every line of dialog done through song, my patience wears thin long before the story comes to a close. As such (and much to the dismay of my Grandmother), I always steered clear.

But hey, I like a good disembowelment as much as the next guy! Which brings me to Repo! The Genetic Opera, and the source of our discussion today.

Weaving a tale of betrayal, murder, corruption, insanity, and implied incest, this film is wholesome family fun, pure and simple. Taking place in a very dystopian 2056, it’s been 26 years since an epidemic of organ failures crippled our society. Paul Sorvino stars as Rottissimo “Rotti” Largo, the billionaire industrialist who eventually saved the world by manufacturing and providing organ transplants for any and all who could afford them, eventually creating predatory financing plans to bring them to the poor.

Talk about your sub-prime loans.

Anthony Stewart Head is Nathan Wallace, who was Largo’s chief rival for the affections of Marni (Sarah Power ) 17 years prior to the story’s beginning. When Marni left Largo and married Nathan, and eventually became pregnant, the distraught industrialist poisons her. Nathan, at a loss as to why his wife is dying, carves out his daugher Shiloh (Alexa Vega) and raises her in a tower, a prisoner to his own grief.

Meanwhile, having been convinced by Largo that he was responsible for his wife’s death, Nathan becomes the lead Repo Man, an assassin who’s job it is reclaim organ’s who’s owners defaulted on payments. This burden, combined with his own guilt over Marni, causes his personalities to fracture. One is the caring/obsessed father that is Nathan, the other is “the Monster”-the personality that takes over when it’s time for daddy to go to work. Whew! This is not a story afraid of melodrama.

I haven’t even gotten to Rotti’s children, who serve as the primary comic relief. When a Serial Murderer (Bill Moseley ), Serial Rapist (Nivek Ogre), and a drug-addicted spoiled Daddy’s Girl addicted to plastic surgery (Paris Hilton) are your comic relief…Well, let’s just say you’re in some dark territory. Even so, the plot has a breezy pace, punched up by a couple of really great musical numbers that mix traditional rock power ballads with a bit of Marylin Manson-style Industrial. Tony Head in particular, who last flexed his pipes on screen in a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, belts out his songs with a gusto while he hunches over, knawing on the scenery like a dog with a bone. In most rock operas, you’re lucky if you like 3 or 4 songs. There are 16 here that have found permanent residence on my iPod.

A campy, blood-soaked joy of a picture, it’s highly recommended for any viewing, Cavalcade or otherwise. Pair with Cannibal: The Musical, or Forbidden Zone for an event featuring fucked-up musicals. Or compare it to Repo Men, which has a LOT of similar elements, but slightly less gore.

The Setup

A foot splashes a puddle on a slicked alley street as the man runs away from the hustle and bustle of the busy street behind him. He quickly looks over his shoulder in search of pursuit, and this distraction costs him dearly, tripping over the garbage and refuse littering the path and sprawling headfirst into the muck. It’s a dirty place, these recesses of the city. Just then, he’s bathed in a light that silhouettes his form to any looking from the street he was fleeing just moments ago.

He didn’t hear his pursuers approach. The whisper-net tech the force installed on the latest spinners was completely worth it, thinks the officer as he lowers his bike down to street level, with the perp still locked dead in his sights. His deck was already matching the musculature and bone structure of the mope before him to at least a dozen burglaries and muggings in the area. Once the paperwork was done, this idiot was going be in cryo for at least a year.

It’s no secret that audiences love cop shows and procedurals A simple look at the TV schedule will tell you that, what with three different CSI’s, Law & Orders, The Mentalist, etc.-all vying for your attention.  Hell, even House is a cop/mystery show disguised as a medical drama. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this carries over to movies with budgets both big and small as well.

But we in the audience are a jaded sort, are we not? How can we be expected to slog through yet another cop mystery-thriller plot? Come up with well-developed plots and characters? Oh, noes-that would take far too much time and effort-and time is money, after all. So why not just set it in the future, slap in some special effects of varying quality, and call it a day.

The Formula

Simply put, most future cop movies follow the exact same formulas as your average cop flicks. The differences usually come in the details:

• The hero cop still has a really cool gun. Only this time it’s some sort of technological marvel (as opposed to simply being bigger, louder, and more accurate than the others).
• The forensic tech will be spiffy and different. The best part of this is in older films that end up predicting technologies that eventually became real. The classic photo analysis scene in Blade Runner provides the best example of this.
• The Criminal will typically have a “sci-fi” super ability, making him/her the “most dangerous threat to civilization as we know it”^TM the hero has yet faced-be they a clone, a living computer program, a hologram, etc.
• In a Utopian future, the hero cop will either start out with, or eventually end up acquiring, a present-day or classic car.

The Menu

In addition to our typical selection of chips, beer, liquor, and snacks-there will be:

The Booze: Irish Coffee

We here at the Cavalcade don’t exactly run from stereotypes. Hell, we watch exploitation pictures, and they revel in ‘em! As such we’re rocking two for this particular event: The diet and traditional ethnicity of a movie cop. You can guess which part is which.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 oz Irish whiskey
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 6 oz hot coffee
• heavy cream

The Food: Doughnuts

Really, did you even have to ask?

The Movies

Virtuosity (1995): Some of the most A-list talent we’ve ever had in a feature. Well, before one of the stars was “A-list,” actually. A virtual villain’s successful attempt to escape into the “real world,” SID 6.7, the villain program (Russell Crowe), is eventually transplanted into an android body and escapes. A reinstated police officer played by Denzel Washington, is given the chance to catch him.

Judge Dredd (1995): An adaptation of the UK Comic that takes place in a dystopian future, Dredd (Sylvester Stallone), the most famous judge (a cop with instant field judiciary powers) is convicted for a crime he did not commit while his murderous counterpart escapes.

Suggested Alternatives

Split Second (1992): In a futuristic London, the rising sea levels mean that large areas are under feet of water. Rutger Hauer is a cop who previously lost his partner to a strange creature. Now the creature is back, and its after him.

Runaway (1984): In the near future, Sgt. Jack R. Ramsay (Tom Selleck) is a police officer that specializes in malfunctioning robots. When a robot turns out to have been programmed to kill, he uncovers a conspiracy to sell the deadly technology on the black market. Gene Simmons costars.

Trancers (1985): As a whole, this doesn’t really fit with our overall theme. But it has Tim Thomerson battling time traveling future-zombies. Did we mention that it’s got Helen Hunt?

Event Page on Facebook

The Setup

In digging through the dregs of the illustrious history of motion pictures, we can sometimes end up with some rather esoteric thematic selections for our Cavalcade events (Blaxploitation Horror, anyone?). We embrace this, for this is part of our love. We embrace this facet of our nerdom, this fetishistic desire to find the worst that cinema has to offer and share it with others. So as the hands of fate wended us from theme to theme, until leading us inexorably towards video game adaptations, we looked to the skies and gave thanks: because it was good.

Enough florid prose, let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?

There’s no way to avoid a simple truth: All video game adaptations suck. The rare exceptions are the Tomb Raider films. The first Mortal Kombat movie also qualifies, just because its dumb fun. But even its sequel was a total mess.

The Formula

There really only seems to be one formula for video game adaptations.

1. Take an existing successful game franchise.
2. Warp it beyond all recognition
3. Throw in a few nominal references to the source material
4. Chuck it in a meat grinder
5. Shove it out the door.

Now, the first step makes complete sense from a business point of view, which is why we see so many adaptations of other materials. If you have an established property, you have an established audience for that property. Hell, even step 2 makes a kind of sense. The video game properties frequently adapted tend to exist very much in their own reality, one where it makes sense to have structured street fights as part of a martial arts tournament held by an evil multinational conglomerate, terrorist organization, invading dimension, or demonic overlord.

Other games feature brightly-garbed latex fetishists diving through the air while shooting rabid cybernetic zombie alligators in the face. The point being that in some games, the central tenet required for fun is the gameplay, and not necessarily the story. In others, such as Role Playing games, they have so much story to tell that there’s no way it’s going to fit into a movie.

Again, these are all problems that occur in other adaptations, but they are exacerbated tenfold by a singular belief that Hollywood has about fans of video games, and that is that we’re all 16-year-old slack-jawed idiots with limited intelligence, and most of our social skills running down our torn jeans and piddling on the floor. This is the same belief that held comic book adaptations back for as long as they did, and hell; they’ve been around for over 80 years.

The Menu

The Booze: The Yoshi and The Big Mario/Luigi

Blessings of the nerd gods on the people of Denmark! Specifically the students of the IT University of Copenhagen, who held a ridiculously cool bash dedicated to Super Mario Brothers at a local bar, and posted the entire menu of drink concoctions online! The drinks we’re borrowing:

Yoshi

Fruity, tongue-pleasing cocktail

• 2 cl Sour Apple liqueur
• 1 cl Melon Bols
• 1 cl Lime juice
• 4 cl Apple juice

Directions: Shake. Serve with ice.

Garnish: Two lime wedges

and

Big Mario and Luigi Shot

Layered shot… with a Vodka power-up!

• 1 cl Grenadine
• 1 cl Kiwi Bols
• 1 cl Vodka

Directions: Grenadine first. Then pour Bols – slowly! – over a bar spoon. Vodka goes on top.

The Food: Chips and Pizza, of course!

This may, in fact, be the easiest menu we’ve ever had to come up with. One stereotype that is fairly accurate for gamers is our predilection for junk food. So look for a wide variety of chips and such!

The Movies

As we are bridging from Event 21, we had to get creative in our first selection…

Double Dragon (1994) : Mark Dacascos and Scott Wolf as Jimmy and Billy Lee, along with Alyssa Milano as Marian, and Robert Patrick as the “evil I want to take over the world with shadows and my freaky bleached hair” dude. Taking place in the “future world” of 2007, this movie is so full of sucktastic awesome, it has to be seen to be believed.

Super Mario Bros. (1993): Mario (Bob Hoskins) and his brother Luigi (John Leguizamo ) in a comical dystopia ruled by King Koopa (Dennis Hopper).<—This is the straight-up description of the movie! It has NOTHING to do with the games, and it. Is. TERRIBLE. We have to admit, we’ve always wanted to share this one with people.

Suggested Alternatives

Well we certainly aren’t hurting for candidates for alternatives, that’s for sure. The hard part is narrowing it down to 3.

• We would be remiss if we didn’t mention Uwe Boll’s entire filmography , as he has failed utterly at ever making a decent picture. But special attention has to be paid to his turn on House of the Dead (2003). To save money on production, Boll actually used game footage to stand-in for some of the action sequences-and to convince us he wasn’t whoring an already nonsensical game franchise.
• Wing Commander (1993): Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Matt Lillard “headline” this terrible space opera supposedly based on the fantastic game series that featured, at the time, Mark freakin’ Hammil! What makes this even worse is the fact that it was written and directed by Chris Roberts, the guy who created the game franchise. That’s right! He has nobody to blame but himself.
• Street Fighter (1994): Words cannot express how bad this movie is. It really does kinda have to be seen to be believed. Featuring Jean Claude Van-Damme and Raul Julia in his last role before his death, this movie is simply a glorious exploration of how many ways a movie can go wrong. But really, it’s a laugh-a-minute, and firmly recommended for a Cavalcade.

Further Information

For further information regarding the February 6th, 2010 event, please check the following resources:

Cavalcade Event 22 Flyer

Event Page on Facebook

Back in 2001, comic writer Garth Ennis wrote an interesting mini-series called Just a Pilgrim. In it, the earth is a wasteland after an event called The Burn, where the sun expanded and literally scorched the earth. An unspecified time later came The Pilgrim, a mysterious man walking across the great plains of the Atlantic ocean, driven by his faith, and pursuing a personal holy mission. Along the way, he comes across a wagon train besieged by pirates, and joins on as their protector.  The story was one-part comedy, two-parts western and post-apocalyptic adventure, and finally-a disturbing look at the power of faith.

I couldn’t help but be reminded by this as I sat down in the theater to watch The Book of Eli, the latest film from the Hughes Brothers and starring Denzel Washington as the titular Eli, a man of immense faith walking across the post-apocalyptic American wasteland 30 years after a world-war followed by a massive solar event killed off most of humanity, leaving the survivors scrambling for leftover scraps. In the 30 years since the solar event, civilization has regressed into a perfect post-apocalyptic version of Hollywood western society, with the horses replaced by motorcycles, and the good sippin’ whiskey replaced by pure water.

In this world filled with bandits, cannibals, and general hopelessness, Eli walks-following in the footsteps of Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name and Alan Ladd’s Shane. Filling out the western conventions are Gary Oldman as the “Robber Baron”, returning to the deliciously tasty side of Evil after playing heroic sidekicks the last few years, Jennifer Beals as the “Kept Madam”, and Mila Kunis as the “Wide-eyed Innocent”. It’s to Kunis’ credit that she hold her own in the face of Washington and Oldman-it’s almost enough to forget that she’s Jackie from That 70’s Show.

In classic form, Eli only wants to travel in peace and live by The Word, but keeps getting harassed, leaving him no choice but to rather reluctantly kick the living sin out of everybody in the room. By reluctantly, I mean of course with “great speed and flourish”, with limbs flying akimbo after meeting with his machete. Eventually people stop trying to stab Eli, and go the way of the Gun-where he proves to be the kind of marksman that can make guns have 2 times their effective range and stopping power. Eastwood would be proud.

Between these wicked fun bits of violence, there’s well-acted scenes where people discuss some incredibly silly things with utmost gravitas and emotion. The movie has the story it wants to tell, and by God it’s going to tell it. If you haven’t seen the trailers. Eli’s got a book to deliver, Oldman wants the book for himself, wackiness ensues until the big twist at the end, and the credits roll. High concept nonsense, but done with such panache you won’t mind at all. The movie is beautifully shot, great score, and as stated already-solid performances, even if Oldman’s Carnegie is not nearly as menacing or fun as Norman “Stan” Stansfield, or The Count

This is not a Cavalcade movie. It’s too well executed and takes itself far too seriously for a proper bit o’ the mockery. It’s definitely worth a look however, and I’d fully recommend a double feature with Eastwood’s seminal Pale Rider.

The Setup

Borne of myth, creatures of legend. Dragons haunt the dreams of just about every culture on the planet. Deriving from the Latin Draco, the term originally simply referred to any great serpent. However, as time has passed our idea of dragons has evolved to refer to two very specific and distinct types in our culture.

Oriental Dragons

Yes, they predate the Latin term. However, as the west was exposed to these creatures of old, it was the word that best fit, and so it stuck. Serpentine creatures with long bodies and four squat legs, these dragons frequently represent potent powers of nature, or forces of the universe. Much like the Greek gods, only less humanized.  We touched very lightly on these dragons in our Giant Monster event screening of D-War, as it was a better fit.

Why? Because this month, we wanted to focus on:

European Dragons

Of tooth and claw, fire and destruction, European dragons are the stuff of nightmares. These creatures have bodies more like lizards, often with large bat-like wings with which they typically use to fly or glide. Frequently depicted as maliciously intelligent, these monsters are focused primarily on destruction and eating. Oh…and they usually breathe fire.

We’re not ashamed to admit it: Flying fire-breathing lizards make our jeans fit a little tighter.

The Menu

The Booze: Flaming Dragon’s Breath

Cinnamon Schnapps, Bicardi Rum, and FIRE. This has the potential to be quite interesting. And yes, we’ll have fire extinguishers on hand.

The Food: We’re going to go with our standard snack-fare, as we don’t immediately know what dragons eat, other than virgins and the like.

The Movies

Reign of Fire (2002):Christian Bale, Matthew “I’m too sexy for my shirt” McConaughey , fire breathing dragons in a post-apocalyptic wasteland….mmmm TASTY.

Dungeon & Dragons-Scourge Of Worlds (2003): This is a Dungeon and Dragons CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. That’s right, the first-ever interactive feature screened at the cavalcade! We predict that this may devolve into some bizarre drinking game, and possibly get voted off. But that’s ok, because we’ll have backup.

Suggested Alternatives

Dungeons & Dragons (2000): Based on the popular fantasy role-playing game of the same name, the movie follows a small band of adventurers who set out to free their Empire from its oppressive rulers. Featuring Jeremy Irons having a field day with the concept of overracting. Marlon Wayans is in it too. Sadly, he doesn’t die.

Dragonheart (1996): There’s a dragon, and a heart, Dennis Quaid and Sean Connery’s voice. This is a very seriously done-yet very silly movie that has some of the best VFX the late 90s could offer.

DragonSlayer (1981): WE. LOVE. THIS. MOVIE. Some of the most astonishing visual effects of the 80s in a deadly serious dark fantasy. We’re not mentioning it for a Cavalcade though, as it’s a bit slow in parts for a big gathering. We just think you should see it. Immediately, if not sooner.

Also! Don’t forget Q: The Winged Serpent! Read Tom O’Reily’s review of it here!

The members of Wild Zero are the Ramones of Japan, however they also have the divine calling to kill zombies with a thick gooey coating of Japan’s Rock and Roll Spirit. This movie is just that goddamn awesome. As such, we’ve decided to resurrect one of our dead features, the live stream event, and rock it out-jingle style-on this Christmas evening. However, as opposed to just having one of us here tonigh, we’ve got a full cast of characters who are going to be offering input across the twitter-verse

(Oh. Yeah. Keep your eyes peeled for the Japanese Steve Buscemi)

Standard rules apply here, everything here is something shouted out during the course of the movie. By the way, it had its own drinking game, so things became kind of incoherent near the end as all the participants started slurring their words a bit. The lines in quotes are actually taken straight from the film. So don’t blame us.

Enjoy!

• Why are all Asian zombies blue?
• Hubcaps…in SPACE!
• Japanese Rockabilly hair combing!
• We should mention that Wild Zero ships with its own drinking game as a special feature
• WHY CAN’T I SHOOT LIGHTING OUT OF MY GUITAR?!?
• “There’s a wallet on my ass with a rock and roll license!”
• Did we REALLY need the POV shot of him peeing in the urinal? SQUEEEEZE it out, SON!
• Seriously, how many f***ing times do you need to comb your hair in a day?
• What’s with those shorts. . oh, that’s a woman.
• Why. Does. his. underwear. tie. up. on. the side? And did the actor REALLY have to have an erection during the ENTIRE scene?
• Because cocaine in the milk is like a protein shake?
• ZOMBIES!
• And…uh…why is that zombie holding sandals?
• Big. Giant. Hearts? on the screen? WHAT?
• Stick your penis in it, the zombies go away.
• That tiny bike says his penis is at LEAST a full pinky length in size. No overcompensating there!
• never. Ever. Faint in front of the zombies.
• The zombies are going to east Asian Moby! We won’t hear it though, because his shirt is too goddamned loud.
• Mop against zombies= WIN
• At some angles she looks like a man, at other angles she’s a very cute girl? Winona Ryder?
• Why do zombies go straight for the panties?
• Naked Marksmanship FTW!
• Who has fire shooting out of their MICROPHONE?
• They’ve wandered into some sort of building and um. . . SHE IS A MAN!
• It’s the crying game all over again!!! AGGGHHHH! *Runs away to the bathroom*
• “LOVE HAS NO BORDERS NATIONALITIES OR GENDERS!! DOOOO IT!”
• Atheism Limit Break CROWBAR ENGAGE!!!
• God, Guitar Wolf is like this sexy Terminator-alien-thing-man-beast. . .
• That gun’s not a penis. No. Not at all.
• His package has luster. Billy Mays here for the package buffer. . . Giggity.
• Every time they fucking back-fist Asian Steve Buscemi, take a drink.
• Why are they naked . . . and blue. . . and wearing. . .cod. . pieces?
• They’ve just found ALL the guns. . .
• charred barring hips. . . . . . charles brawlin’ herps. . . charlz broilin hips. . . she’s got ‘em. . .
• Ok. Higgins is apparently tweeting everything I’m failing to say during the drinking game.
• Guitar Wolf has got so much rock n’ roll he can kill zombies just with Guitar Picks. . .LIGHTNING GUITAR PICKS!
• Let’s do a bunch of drugs and kill some zombies. Yep, sure. That’s what I’d do.
• “THERE ARE NO BOUNDARIES IN ROCK N’ ROLL! BELIEVE IN ROCK N’ ROLL.”
• He still has an erection. . .
• Gosh he is cute. Wait. That’s not right. . .
• Nipple twist! Tune in Toyko!
• Oh, that’s right, because he’s a wolf. He’s a Guitar Wolf. STILL A MAN!!!
• He took off the wig and he’s EVEN GAYER, how does that work?!
• Well, If this going to be that kind of party, I’m gonna to stick my dick in the mash potatoes.
• ZOMBIE LOVE CAM!
• “I swear by my leather jacket, and by rock n’ roll, I swear, I love you.”
• “Courage and Rock n’ Roll, that’s what he taught me that night.”
• Ladies and Gentlemen, this concludes this mass of the Church of the Cavalcade, we thank for your attendance and my penis is not that big.
• The previous is what happens when you leave the twitter window open for random people to type. BAD Christmas guests! BAD!

When this movie was made, it didn’t realize it was among a dying breed: The big-budget R-rated action flick. I’m not counting the Matrix films, because I can’t really understand why they were rated R in the first place. It was released around the time that people really started complaining about the violence in the media or Hollywood making R-rated movies and marketing them to kids. An argument this picture did nothing to dissuade.

With its comic-book type premise and execution, the 11-17-year-old boy will find this movie irresistible. Yes, there’s a lot of violence. Yes, there’s even some gore (but not much). Yes, there’s even some nudity. But, make no bones about it. It was marketed straight at teens. I actually remember the commercials appearing during cartoons after school.

That doesn’t change the fact that this is the perfect dumb action movie. Lots of explosions, lots of humor, and a great villain in Wesley Snipes. It even goes the extra mile of having an interesting premise with a charming supporting cast in Sandra Bullock (pre-Speed), and Benjamin Bratt. Hell, even Rob Shneider manages to make an appearance and not make you want to see somebody step on his head repeatedly.

With Malice.

Any arguments about story and logic are moot here. They don’t even really try. Stallone plays John Spartan (not an action hero name at all), your typical “renegade cop”. Snipes is Simon Pheonix, a psycho killer criminal cut straight from the Jack Nicholson Joker cloth, only with more physical violence. Starting out in a dystopian future (of 1996), the two arch-nemesis battle it out in a supposedly empty building before spectacularly blowing it up. Then, in a glaring display of forensic ineptitude, the courts-convinced that said building contained living hostages at the time- sentence both Spartan and Phoenix to life sentences in cryogenic stasis. Yes, it makes as much sense as it sounds. No, it doesn’t matter. Because 36 years later, a villain gets Phoenix paroled and unleashes him on a city that hasn’t seen a violent crime in almost 2 decades.

With the police force overmatched, they of course have to turn to the one man who brought him down in the first place. Cue the Demolition Man. Brought back to save a world where the most popular radio station plays nothing but commercial jingles, people only have virtual sex, and all the restaurants are Taco Bell.

A movie that has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek, it never pauses long enough for you to get bored, and keeps building until its explosive finale (complete with running from a fireball in slow-motion). While some parts of the film do feel a bit dated-such as the casting pre-Rescue Me-Dennis Leary so they could feature one of his trademark rants in a role that serves no purpose save to distract from the more fun story between Stallone and Snipes, the joke regarding the “Arnold Schwarzenegger Presidential Library” took on a whole new signifigance after he was elected Governator. For a while, I really wondered how long it will take the Republicans to get that amendment passed.

The Verbal Morality Statute, which gave a ticket anytime you used one of George Carlin’s infamous 7 Words is only a few years away. Just you wait and see.