SPOOKLEY THE SQUARE PUMPKIN -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/19/17
 

 

It's funny how computer-animated cartoons that would've amazed people and won technical awards back in the 80s have become such an everyday thing now.  Still, I sometimes get a kick out of seeing one of these CGI cartoons with the colorful 3D-ish characters and elaborate backgrounds that remind me of moving Viewmaster reels.  And if the story is engaging enough, all the better.

Disney Junior's SPOOKLEY THE SQUARE PUMPKIN (Cinedigm) meets those criteria well enough for a TV production, at least for me anyway.  The characters are expressive and likable, the settings eye-pleasing, the songs enjoyable, and the story by children's book author Joe Troiano is sweet, simple, and comfortingly predictable.

It all begins when a square pumpkin is discovered in the pumpkin patch of Holiday Hill Farm.  This causes grave unrest among the more intolerant in the garden, embodied by a George-and-Lenny pair of pumpkins ("Big Tom" and "Litte Tom") joined by a weirdly umbilical-like vine and very vocal against any pumpkin who isn't properly round as they are. 

These bullies and their bigotry against anyone different from themselves form the basis for the story's lesson on acceptance, which, thankfully, doesn't pile-drive us quite as much as one might suspect. 

In fact, most of the characters, including friendly scarecrow Jack (the patch's amiable leader), brother and sister bats Boris and Bella (Boris craves bugs while Bella admonishes him for wanting to devour their sentient friends), spiders Edgar, Allan, and Poe ("With an 'E'!"), and vain beauty-queen pumpkin Bobo, are actually more-or-less pretty decent toward Spookley.

Square peg Spookley remains insecure even when his comical spider friends persuade him to enter Jack's "Jack-A-Lympics" competition to decide the Pick of the Patch (mainly so they can get their hands on the candy corn crown). 

Naturally, his unusual shape dooms his chances in each round, inviting a fair amount of thoughtless ridicule from the others.  It isn't until a raging storm hits the farm and everyone comes frighteningly close to a bad end that the little square pumpkin's shape enables him to rescue everyone.

As I said, it's all comfortingly predictable.  I must confess to not knowing just how kids these days react to this kind of stuff--I would've been entranced by it, and even now find it pleasantly watchable.   

The characters are pretty funny, and the frequent song-and-dance numbers--some with backup by Pointer Sisters-like trio "The Honey-Doos" and even a few musical ghosts--not only entertain with their clever lyrics and bouncy choreography but also come and go without outstaying their welcome. 

The 2-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo from Cinedigm is in standard television format with English, Spanish, and French 2.0 soundtracks and English SDH subtitles.  Extras consist of five (non-HD) video storybooks, each based on a Joe Troiano book and lasting about five minutes: The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin, The Legend of Beacon the Bright Little Firefly, The Legend of JellyBean and the Unbreakable Egg, The Legend of Lyla the Lovesick Ladybug, and The Legend of Mistletoe and the Christmas Kittens. 

The first of these, "The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin", is read by none other than Bobby "Boris" Pickett of "Monster Mash" fame.  Pickett also sings the main feature's "Monster Mash"-like end titles song, "The Transylvania Twist."

SPOOKLEY THE SQUARE PUMPKIN is ideal small-scale fun for (say it with me) "kids of all ages."  The little ones won't suspect they're being taught a lesson about tolerance even as Spookley's ultimately heartwarming tale leaves them with a Jack o' Lantern smile.

SPOOKLEY THE SQUARE PUMPKIN -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

Slumber Party Girls Meet The Sea Monsters! ("Horror Of Party Beach", 1964) (video)

In this low-budget classic, a teen girls' slumber party is crashed.

Not by boys...

...but by scaly, bloodthirsty mutants from the ocean's depths.

The lucky ones will perish quickly...

...while others are carried away by the horrible creatures!


(Read our review of the movie HERE)


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Slumber Party Girls Meet The Sea Monsters! ("Horror Of Party Beach", 1964) (video)

MONSTER A-GO GO -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/19/10

 

I can't really tell you why I love bad movies.  It doesn't make sense.  I mean, some of my favorites, such as TEENAGE ZOMBIES, FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER, and CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE, are pretty much total, blithering dreck.  Still, there's just something about them that makes them both entertaining and strangely compelling.  But whatever that "something" is, MONSTER A-GO GO (1965) definitely doesn't have it.

It starts out promisingly enough with some of the crummiest-looking opening titles I've ever seen.  As soon as they're over, unfortunately, the movie begins.  "What you are about to see may not even be possible!" declares narrator Herschell Gordon Lewis (of BLOOD FEAST fame) in solemn tones as the military investigate the crash site of a downed space capsule.  Near the prop capsule, which is actually much too small to contain a full-sized human being, a man's body is found mangled and burned by radiation.  (He looks okay to me, but that's what we're told).  We soon learn that the missing astronaut, Frank Douglas, has grown to a monstrous height and is extremely radioactive.

As the killer astronaut wanders around frying people, various military and scientific types investigate and discuss the matter ad nauseum.  The only semi-prominent actor among them, Peter Thompson, who had a fairly busy TV and movie career, was forced to exit the production halfway through, leaving the film a character short.  Writer-director Bill Rebane simply called back actor George Perry, who had played one of the monster's early victims, and recast him as that character's brother, also a scientist.  (The brief closeup of Perry's death-rictus after being fried by the monster is one of the film's few laugh-inducing high points.)

While many cheap sci-fi films of this kind start out with a lot of talky, boring scenes and eventually get interesting as the monster makes more frequent appearances, MONSTER A-GO GO chooses to stick with being talky and boring for its entire running time.  Just about the only sequence with any "pep" is a party scene featuring 20-something teens doing the Twist.  Rebane himself plays a jealous boyfriend who drags his girlfriend away from the party and stops the car on a deserted road for a little necking, where they encounter you-know-who.

The monster, played by eight-foot-tall vaudeville performer Henry Hite, is so rarely seen that we begin to wonder why more footage of him wasn't used, including some shots of him attacking Rebane's character which appear in the trailer but not in the film. There are a few closeups of Hite in his dried-oatmeal monster makeup and glimpses of him stalking around, but for the most part we get either POV shots, nocturnal attacks in which we can't see anything, or lengthy views of the monster's silver-booted feet as he staggers around.
 

The interminable dialogue scenes which are peppered with scattered glimpses of the monster (or, more often, his feet) finally give way to a series of lengthy night shots with military and civil defense personnel standing around in downtown Chicago.  "The long wait began," Lewis tells us, and boy, he's not kidding.  I've had more excitement reading fishing magazines in my doctor's office.  Finally, two of the main characters get outfitted in hazmat suits and follow their geiger-counter readings into the sewer, where astronaut Douglas (inexplicably lacking his monster makeup here) has sought refuge.

With only minutes left in the movie, we're sure that something is finally about to happen.  But guess what?  It doesn't.  As Rebane tells us in the commentary, he wasn't able to film the planned ending, so the story just runs out of gas with some head-scratching narration by Lewis that tries to explain why we've just spent 70 minutes in this cinematic sensory-deprivation tank waiting for a climax that's D.O.A.  There isn't even anything for bad-movie fans to laugh at. 

As it turns out, Rebane ran out of money and had to turn the troubled production (sans ending) over to H.G. Lewis to try and complete.  Lewis filmed a few extra scenes and then cut Rebane's footage together into something that bore just enough resemblance to an actual movie so that he could stick it onto the bottom half of a double bill and run it in drive-ins down South (with ads that openly mock it).  Rebane tells us that he was less than thrilled by the final result, originally titled TERROR! AT HALF DAY and intended as a serious sci-fi thriller.  But it's hard to imagine anyone being able to turn this woodenly-acted and profoundly inept monstrosity into a passably good film. 

For those hardy fans of MONSTER A-GO GO, Synergy Entertainment's "Special Collector's Edition" DVD is definitely worth seeking out.  Aside from the movie, which probably looks about as good here as you're ever going to see it (in full-screen with mono sound), the disc contains two amusing short films by Rebane, "Dance Craze" and "Twist Craze", which come as a refreshingly fun and colorful diversion.  (The three young flappers who do a mad Charleston in "Dance Craze" are awesome.) 

There's also a trailer, a stills gallery, a rather dry director's commentary, and a recent eight-minute interview with Rebane in which he states, when asked about the film's lingering popularity:  "I keep asking myself, 'Why do they want to see sh** like this?'"  Included in the DVD box is a 24-page booklet featuring an in-depth article from "Scary Monsters" magazine, which is cool except that the print is almost impossibly small to read.

The oft-heard term "so bad it's good" is most aptly applied when the filmmakers aimed for something worthwhile and failed miserably.  Here, the combination of a young Bill Rebane's good intentions being thwarted by budget and union problems, his stunning lack of talent as a director and writer, and the fact that his meager footage was placed into the hands of a seemingly indifferent Lewis for completion, makes for a viewing experience so utterly bland it's almost depressing.  It makes one yearn for the coherence and technical prowess of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.  It even makes something as profoundly drab as THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS seem like an Indiana Jones picture by comparison.  If there's any sort of odd fascination to be had from viewing MONSTER A-GO GO, it would be from how resolutely, almost nightmarishly unentertaining it is. 

MONSTER A-GO GO -- DVD Review by Porfle

CAESAR AND OTTO'S PARANORMAL HALLOWEEN -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/7/15

 

Petulant, petty, puerile, cowardly yet arrogant, incredibly vain, and prone to violent temper tantrums, struggling would-be actor Caesar Denovio is once again the "Ren" to lovable slob Otto's "Stimpy" in their latest laugh-packed horror comedy, CAESAR AND OTTO'S PARANORMAL HALLOWEEN (2015). 

As the hapless half-brothers, Dave Campfield and Paul Chomicki first hit the screen in a reality TV spoof that was aptly titled CAESAR AND OTTO.  After that, they veered into slasher territory with CAESAR AND OTTO'S SUMMER CAMP MASSACRE and CAESAR AND OTTO'S DEADLY XMAS while paying homage to classic horror in the short films CAESAR AND OTTO IN THE HOUSE OF DRACULA and CAESAR AND OTTO MEET DRACULA'S LAWYER. Here, they're back in action facing more supernatural perils in their most fast-moving mashup of the horror genre yet. 

The story starts off running with a hysterical spoof of HALLOWEEN that SCARY MOVIE wishes it had thought of.  In addition to the ghastly sight of Caesar and Otto dressed in drag so that they can score high-paying babysitter jobs, we also get a jab at Dr. Phil thrown in for good measure.  And this is before the credits have even rolled.

Before long the boys find themselves house-sitting for highly unpopular governor Jerry Grayson (series stalwart Ken MacFarlane, THE MILLENNIUM BUG) in a dream mansion that seems too good to be true.  What the governor fails to mention is that it's haunted.  I mean really, really haunted.

This is just the jumping off point for director and co-writer Campfield to start lampooning every fright flick from THE SHINING to PARANORMAL ACTIVITY to INSIDIOUS to THE AMITYVILLE HORROR.  THE EXORCIST is given its due when the boys' roguish dad Fred (Scott Aguilar) shows up and gets possessed (actually, it turns out he's just extremely drunk) which draws the questionable involvement of priests Sean Whalen (LAID TO REST) and Deron Miller (SUMMER CAMP MASSACRE, DEADLY XMAS). 

As usual, rank silliness is elevated to a sort of rough-hewn art form in this installment of the ongoing series, with sharp editing and a cartoon-like pace giving it the giddy feel of a live-action Looney Tune.  The gags are non-stop with barely a breath between them, and most of them score (if not a guffaw, then at least a knowing titter). 

Production values, while still not quite on the level of a Spielberg film, are the most lavish for an entry in this series.  This is probably Dave Campfield's best work as a filmmaker so far (although his first film, the serious thriller DARK CHAMBER, continues to impress). 

Besides its inventive script, the film's main strength is a cast that many indy filmmakers would die for.  Scream queens Tiffany Shepis (BONNIE AND CLYDE VS. DRACULA), Debbie Rochon (THE THEATER BIZARRE), and Brinke Stevens (JONAH LIVES) are on hand along with SLEEPAWAY CAMP's Felissa Rose and Beverly Randolph of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. 

Vernon Wells (THE ROAD WARRIOR's iconic "Wez") shows up as an axe-wielding psycho in a creepy old 8mm film the Denovios discover in a hidden room.  Rising stars JamieLee Ackerman and Josephine Iannece make an impression as the mansion's mysterious cook and gardener.  And as the titular non-heroes, Campfield and Chomicki just might be the greatest comedy duo since Abbott and Costello.

The DVD from WildEye Releasing is in anamorphic widescreen with 2.0 sound.  No subtitles.  A wealth of bonus features include two commentary tracks (one with Campfield, Ackerman, and Iannece, the other featuring Chomicki and other cast and crew), a gag reel, a tribute to the late Robert Z'Dar, trailers, behind the scenes videos and podcasts, and the delightful "Son of Piggyzilla" trilogy of shorts about everyone's favorite giant carnivorous guinea pig. 

Several cool Easter Eggs can also be found on the various menus.  Click on everything!  (I'm even mentioned in one of them!)

All the slapstick gore and goofy thrills you expect from a Caesar and Otto flick, and then some, are lurking in the delirious CAESAR AND OTTO'S PARANORMAL HALLOWEEN.  So check it out, but beware--you just might die laughing. 

Official Trailer

CAESAR AND OTTO'S PARANORMAL HALLOWEEN -- DVD Review by Porfle

Which Looks Dumber: "THE GIANT CLAW" or "REPTILICUS"? (video)

Two of the silliest-looking creations in horror movie history...

...are the jerky marionette monsters of "The Giant Claw" (1957) and "Reptilicus" (1961).

But which looks dumber? You decide from the trailers...


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Which Looks Dumber: "THE GIANT CLAW" or "REPTILICUS"? (video)