Starman, meet Satan

Two new reviews, one of which is freakin' epic.

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Attack From Space

Grade: D

Starman takes on the Sapphirians in this turgid, incoherent, and (yes) draggy third entry in the series. Absolutely absurd fighting sequences -- reminiscent of a barroom brawl at the Cirque du Soleil afterparty -- are good for a few laughs, but after the tenth minute or so the humor wears thin, and there's really nothing else going. Still love that opening sequence, though.

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The Nightmare Never Ends (aka Satan's Supper, Cataclysm, and possibly Shiver)

Objective Grade: F
Make-Fun-Of-It-With-Your-Friends Grade: We want to say "A fuckin' plus", but it's really "A fuckin' minus". (Which, hey, is still an A.)

THE MOST COMPLETELY TARDIGRADED MOVIE WE HAVE EVER SEEN.

Seriously, we're not kidding. It's almost impossible to do justice to this mind-bogglingly incoherent, incompetent, incontinent trainwreck of a movie. The bald dude from Night Court (plus magnificent hairpiece) is a Nobel-Prize-winning author whose latest book proclaims the death of God. Naturally, this catches the interest of Satan, a light-in-his-loafers feyboy who apparently likes to pick up chicks at discos and show 'em his hairy legs hooves. Night Court dude soon ends up in trouble. Meanwhile, dude's wife -- a devout Catholic and accomplished surgeon (!) -- is having nightmares about Nazis, and Chef Boyardee is kickin' it in their driveway for some reason.

Forget the plot, though. And forget the horrendous editing, the phoned-in performances by Moll and others, the pompous dialogue and illogical plot. What matters in this movie is Faith Clift, who plays Claire (dude's wife), in what may be the worst performance by anyone, in anything, ever.

It's almost impossible to find words to do justice to this woman's acting. Imagine if a brain-trauma patient -- say, someone out of an Oliver Sacks book, with cognitive and emotional deficits -- were forced to work at a telemarketing job she neither understands nor enjoys. Imagine the furrowed brow, the halting diction, the flat affect with a vague undertone of resentment. That's how Faith Clift reads this script -- like she doesn't want to be there, but can't quite remember how she got there, and doesn't really know what else she'd be doing anyway.

Also, there's this one scene where Chef Boyardee (aka Papini) is roaming through the woods, looking for Satan or something, and the wind is howling and the trees are all, uh, linear, and it's as if Peter Jackson decided to remake that first Ringwraith scene (right after the "shortcut to mushrooms" bit, you know?) with himself as Frodo. Except instead of a hot chick using water to save him from the Ringwraith, the Ringwraith turns out to be a hot chick (in her undies!) who uses water to kill him. Go figure. Still, that Papini guy really does look like Peter Jackson. It's all uncanny and shit.

One from the vault

Though we watched these next seven movies in September and October 2008, i.e. prior to starting this blog, we thought they deserved some airtime. All of them can be found on various Mill Creek box sets, though several (Zontar, Battle of the Worlds, and Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory) were omitted from the 250-pack.

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Alpha Incident

Grade: B-

A half-dozen people are quarantined in the middle of nowhere, thanks to an alien microbe which makes your head explode if you fall asleep. Flawed and derivative, but oddly captivating in its way, with effective atmosphere and decent performances, though the last half-hour starts to drag. "Buck" Flower fans should see this one. (Why couldn't you just leave it alone, Hank?)

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Atomic Rulers (of the World)

Grade: C-

Starman takes on nuclear evil in this respectably mediocre effort, edited together from several Japanese shorts (complete with impressive codpiece). Some nice moments, but too bad the whole thing isn't as engaging as that fantastic, spastic opening sequence, which looks like a cross between a galactic Senate and an open casting call for Rain Man 2: To Count The Stars.

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Battle of the Worlds

Grade: D-

Italian take on When Worlds Collide, more or less. Dreadfully talky, this one draaaaags, but saved from total failure by ingenious set design and a pleasantly scenery-chewing performance by Claude Rains, as the brilliant professor who has a lot of what John McEnroe would call "personality" (i.e. he's a total shithead). Skip this one.

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Contamination (aka Alien Contamination)

Grade: C+

Egg-sized plot holes mar this Alien ripoff, but thanks to good atmosphere and decent pacing, it retains a certain charm nonetheless. Many folks seem to admire the score, by Goblin; we weren't so smitten. (Yet another movie about goo that makes people explode: puberty metaphor, anyone?)

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Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory

Grade: C

Between the title and the Monster Bop-style theme music, you'd expect something a bit more shameless, but this Italian production turns out to be a surprisingly low-key murder mystery -- probably too low-key, at that.

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Werewolf Woman

Grade: C+

Yet another Italian effort, and from the crazed opening nude sequence, you know you're in for a wild ride. Teeters endearingly between total exploitation fare and something a bit more ambitious. Gets bonus points for sheer enthusiasm.

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Zontar! The Thing From Venus

Objective Grade: D
Plutonium Ruby Crystal Laser Grade: B+

P. has an odd affection for this goofy little trifle, a made-for-TV remake of a Roger Corman flick from 1956; others should probably beware. Obviously made on the super-cheap, with a great deal of talk and very little action. Tony Huston has a terrific "evil nerd" vibe, kind of a cross between the young Bobby Fischer and P.'s other uncle. Available for viewing on the Internet Archive, but the print is horrendously, absurdly washed out; apparently, the Image Entertainment DVD looks far better.

Out of the box and into the chair

This one's not from any of the Mill Creek boxes, but it surely deserves an entry:

The Dentist (1996)

Grade: C+

You shouldn't watch this if: You're afraid of needles; you're looking for something to watch with your parents

This driller-thriller was an impulse choice, brought to us courtesy of FearNet and Comcast On Demand (which is marvelously convenient and, alas, often looks like pixillated crap). We didn't expect much, but it's a surprisingly well-constructed little bit o' schlock, with terrific visual effects. K. is hardly the squeamish type, but found herself covering her eyes at vivid scenes of dental picks -- and needles, and drills, and pliers -- doing unfortunate things to vulnerable mouths.

Stars Corbin Bernsen of L.A. Law fame, whose tight-assed demeanor vaguely reminds P. of his pedophile uncle (not a blood relation, he's pleased to say). The acting is surprisingly non-phoned-in, with solid performances by all, including that one chick (you know who we mean, you'll recognize her) and that one guy (ditto). Oh, and that Claire Danes-looking chick too -- she's probably the only sympathetic character in the whole thing.

Its biggest flaw is the ending, which goes on at least ten minutes too long -- the teaching/opera sequence is especially unnecessary. The one softcore sequence was a little uncomfortable to watch with (her) Mom nearby, though the T&A quotient was otherwise minimal, which will please some and disappoint others.

(But if you like your T&A in close proximity to scenes of periodontal mayhem, you've got bigger problems than we're prepared to address.)

Starting out

Hello, all. (She asks: "Who are you talking to?" and he doesn't know.)

We're P. (him) and K. (her).

We may tell you a bit more about ourselves later on, but for now, let's get to the reviewin'. We're using the letter grade system, by consensus (of two) ("it's unanimous!" says she). These are the three most recent movies we've watched:

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Beast of the Yellow Night

Grade: B/B-

Moody, atmospheric, surprisingly sharp little quasi-werewolf movie (though you wouldn't know it at first). Plot was a little bit hard to follow, but not as much as other reviewers have suggested -- this seems like a genuinely underrated little labor of love, with few exploitative/campy moments. The acting and dialogue are also better than others have claimed. The female protagonist looks like "some tennis player's ugly girlfriend" (says K.) -- tall, blond, thinnish, but kinda man-faced.

P. reluctantly admits that he didn't realize that the blind ex-bandit dude was, um, blind until late in the movie. Oops. He took inordinate pride in figuring out that it was set in the Philippines, though.

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The Day The Sky Exploded

Grade: D

It's "Armageddon", circa 1958 and without Bruce Willis or, more importantly, Steve Buscemi. Talky, dull, stock footage all over the place. Romantic subplots that go nowhere, and weren't likely to make us care even if they had. It's not all bad -- its heart is in the right place, and the dubbing and camerawork are pretty good given the budget -- but the end result is mostly boring, with long stretches of sheer tedium. Too bad. Bonus points for being set in Australia and not being heavy-handed about it.

K. liked the closing sequence with sparkly missiles everywhere. P. half-heartedly wanted to give it a better grade, but then he remembered that he slept through the last fifteen minutes of the movie and had to rewind it to see the sparkly missiles.

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Alien Species

Objective Grade: D-
Extra Credit for Entertainment/Camp Value: A-
Net result: C+

Now this, on the other hand -- this is a baaaaaad movie. At least The Day The Sky Exploded has some dignity about it; this, by contrast, is the very epitome of "straight-to-video piece of crap." A shameless ripoff of Independence Day, without the Goldblum to make it all worthwhile (well, tolerable at least). Bad acting (with a couple exceptions), lousy dialogue, very good makeup and set design, horrendous CGI.

The good news, however, is that it has camp value galore. To pick but a few:

• the imminent arrival of the flying saucers, depicted as something like a out-of-focus black blob moving across an astronomy screen saver;
• the cow getting beamed up, followed by
• the scene with the chick who gets beamed up, in which the director apparently couldn't decide between "make her dematerialize" and "drag her out of the window", so he hedged his bets and did both;
  
• the prisoner with the heart of gold who, as one reviewer aptly said, looks like at least two of the Red Hot Chili Peppers...
• ...and offers up lines like "Time for an attitude adjustment!" and "Why do I get the feeling we're not in Kansas anymore?" -- the latter being particularly egregious as, though it sounds plausible at first, once you think for a moment it makes no freakin' sense whatsoever;
  
• the nerdy character, named (we kid you not) Max Poindexter, with the Speak 'n Spell laptop that magically talks to alien hardware.

The ending doesn't just leave the door open for a sequel, it shoves us through the door while giving us a backrub and asking if our roommate will be home soon. Then we tell it we have a headache, and that our ex will be in town tomorrow and this is really a bad idea now that we think about it, so how about we call it a night?