The Undertaker and His Pals (1966)

Written and Directed by T.L.P Swicegood

Starring Ray Dannis, Warrene Ott, James Westmoreland, Marty Friedman, Sally Frei, and other people you never heard of.

Reviewed by Billy Bob Biggs

This is a movie about a trio of motorcycle riding, masked thugs who show up in people's tiny apartments, or while they're in the steam room, or sitting in their car in broad daylight on a California seaside highway to beat them, stab them, and cut off their tasty bits and cook them up in a seedy greasy spoon that no one eats at. The two crazies at the greasy spoon have come up with a sure-fire recipe for their troubles, along with the undertaker. The crazies get fresh meat that no one will eat and the undertaker gets mutilated bodies for which he can overcharge whoever's paying for the funeral.

This was an impressive directorial debut for T.L.P. Swicegood (amazingly, apparently his real name), who had a couple of writing credits prior to this innovative gem. He had a lot of new ideas on how to make a horror flick which I'll note as they come up. Sadly, he was not allowed to make any more movies after this one so we'll never know how far he could have taken the art of blood-spattered gorefests.

• New Idea #1: Undercut the tension in horror with a boppy jazz soundtrack.
  

The movie opens with our motorcycle trio breaking into a woman's crappy one-room apartment, and, after a brief chase across the room, stabbing her to death and escaping with her meaty gams (apparently they had looked up in the phone book girls with big legs who lie around their apartments writing letters with no pants on.)

• New Idea #2: Having a photo comedically change expressions, from smiling, to alarmed, to saddened, while the victim is dismembered.

Cut to a private detective whose secretary moons over him and wants to marry him. In an apparent attempt to change her mind about his appeal he takes her to the aforementioned greasy spoon, where the owner behaves weirdly and has only one dish to offer per day. Then the p.i. takes her home and leaves her on her doorstep.

• New Idea #3: Completely disregard the Hollywood tradition of shooting a scene that's supposed to take place at night, at night. Audiences in 1966 were mature enough to not care when the sky goes from dark night to broad daylight to twilight and back again in one scene. Innovative!
  

The secretary immediately changes into her pajamas and goes outside to see who is strangling her cat. Upon finding three leather-clad motorcyclists in her backyard she neglects to scream or run back into the house, but cowers against the side of it in horror as the men advance on her like snails across 30 feet of open lawn. Finally, she attempts to run away when they are within grabbing distance but too late!

• New Idea #4: Have the murder happen off-camera and pan toward the body for a minute or two, until the audience has lost interest in watching, and just about the time they have decided to scoot out to the concession stand for another box of Raisinets, have the dead, impaled body of the victim peek into the screen for a split second and cut to a new scene. Peekaboo! Didja see it?

I don't want to spoil the rest of this cinema classic for you, but here are some of the other innovations of T.L.P. Swicegood:

• New Idea #5: When a woman is being chased by the men on motorcycles, reversing and skidding and revving their engines while she zigs and zags on foot across the blacktop, ignore the tradition of having the sound effects match what's going on. The sound of a softly purring motorcyle engine will suffice.
• New Idea #6: Have your villains be broadly silly and comedic before, after and during scenes of menace and mayhem. That won't undercut the terror.
• New Idea #7: Have your hero disappear inexplicably before the end of the movie so the villain can be killed by a supporting character, by accident!

Zero breasts. 5 buckets blood. Legs roll, internal organs are played with. Cleaver to the head, chain to the face, multiple stabbings, full-body acid dunking. Three stars.

Billy Bob says check it out.

Children of Men

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron

Released 2006

Starring: Clive Owen as Theo, Julianne Moore as Julian, Michael Caine as Jasper and Clare-Hope Ashitey as Kee.

Review by CINEMAGIRL:

Children of Men starts in a time much like our own, with a horde of disconnected people glued to the action unfolding on a television screen in a coffee shop, as it is announced that the world's youngest person has died. However, the year is 2027 and in this time human beings are infertile, making the youngest of us semi-miracles and celebrities and society's tie to the once hopeful past.

As our leading man, Theo (Clive Owen) breaks from the mesmerized and traumatized coffee shop crowd and exits to the street, the shop explodes, showing us that not only is the human race screwed with infertility but random violence, terrorism and chaos. Sort of like today, but on steroids; a frighteningly grim picture of the not-so-distant future.

In this tragic world, Theo has one ally, Jasper played by a long-haired aging hippie version of Michael Caine. Jasper lives in hiding in a wooded compound with his catatonic wife, a victim of government interference and control.

In this age, there are two forces at work, the government, which is fighting an enormous war on immigration and shipping illegal immigrants to camps, and the Fishes, a radical group working to undermine the government.

Theo is quickly recruited by his ex-wife, Julian - the leader of the Fishes - played by Julianne Moore to help her move a refugee out of the country, a miraculously pregnant African girl named Kee.

Theo doesn't want the job, but ends up roped into the situation and accepts his fate as the Joseph to this Mary. There's even a great scene with the two of them in a barn where Kee reveals her pregnant belly to her protector.

Along the way, there are violent action sequences and chase scenes, but rather than carried out in the typical Hollywood fashion, there are long, single-shot sequences, almost POV, where the camera looks around to give the viewer an eyeful. The look is similar to documentary, or more-so, reality television, which again, is a clever connection to today's viewer and the path our destructive actions may be taking us down.

One scene in particular is gut-wrenching in its slow, mesmerizing pace. After Kee has given birth to the miracle baby and is attempting to hide it amidst a violent refugee uprising and military retaliation, the child is revealed, putting a halt to the war and bloodshed as onlookers stop for a moment of reverence. This scene was incredible and clearly drove home the point that the hope of a child and the future tied to it are powerful enough reasons to end violence.

Children of Men is an excellent ride. Not so much fun as enthralling. Science fiction thrillers like this that are set so near in the future that they don't feel like a stretch at all are often the most disturbing because of the possibility that this really could be the fate of humanity.

I definitely recommend this the rental. Watch it on the weekend when you have time to pore over it and consider all its attributes.

ACTING: 8

LOOK: 8

STORY: 9

OVERALL: 8.5

Friday the 13th (2009)

Directed by Marcus Nispel

Starring Jared Padelecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Aaron Woo and Derek Mears.

Review by Billy Bob Biggs

The new Friday the 13^th reboot starts out pretty good, showing newbie director Marcus Nispel knows what puts butts in seats for a Jason flick, namely teenagers getting drunk, getting nekkid and getting killed in creative ways by everybody’s favorite hockey-mask wearing psycho. In the first 15 minutes we are treated to 5 pot-head idiots who think it’s a good idea to venture out to Camp Crystal Lake, pop their tents, pop their tits and make the sign of the double-backed woodchuck.

Soon Jason notices the zit brigade and shows up with his trusty machete and a bear trap he happened to have handy. He makes Jiffy Pop out of one of them and goes all Frank Booth on another. Heads roll, legs are flayed, flesh burns, roll opening credits. Off to a good start.

If you don’t know Jason, where have you been since 1980? He’s got mama issues; he’s not a big talker. He pretty much kills anybody who wanders into the woods. He’s not into torturing them or eating them afterwards or anything, pretty much wants to kill them as quickly as possible, with whatever’s handy. Gardening implements are a favorite, but knitting needles or the occasional flare gun are not out of the question. He likes to sneak up behind people and stand there until they notice him. He does sometimes get creative with the corpses afterwards, a favorite gag being stringing them up in the ceiling or the trees so that pop down like a reverse jack-in-the-box to scare the crap out of his next victim. I always wanted to see him go through the mechanics of doing that; maybe it’ll be on the DVD extras.

This flick plays like Jason’s greatest hits. First we get a quick recap of mama Voorhees, we move through Jason’s awkward teen years with a sack on his head, and then he discovers hockey. We also have the teenager who reminds Jason of his mama and the usual spam-in-a-cabin gags.

One of my faves is always the creepy, half crazy local who warns our group of victims about how Crystal Lake is a sucky camping spot, but in pretty unhelpful terms, like “People go missing around here, they’re gone for good. Outsiders come they don’t know where to walk…We just want to be left alone, and so does he.” They never say anything truly helpful like “You teenagers need to turn your car around and get the fuck out of here ‘cause there’s a crazy man living around here who kills everybody who so much as stops to change a tire within 5 miles of Camp Crystal Lake. I’d move myself but my property value has totally gone to shit because of that psycho.”

Our next group of victims is 7 friends who go to this preppy jerk’s house near Crystal Lake. The preppy jerk’s name is Trent, but he’s not Trent Reznor and you pretty much want him to die as soon as he starts talking. He does have a way with the women, though, and says stuff like “You got perfect nipple placement baby .” When Trent finally does die (hope that doesn’t spoil you too much) you can be happy to know that that annoying Trent guy---the dicky football player in Transformers---got killed too. ‘Cause it’s the same character, played by the same actor.

There’s a token black guy and a token Asian in the group, and a couple of girls…they soon hook up with a good looking, motorcycle-riding sincere guy who’s looking for his sister that disappeared with the group before the credits (can you say hero?)

There’s a great scene where Jason kills a couple out water skiing topless. Gratuitous Chrissie from Jaws. Jason proves what a great shot he is, really impressive, and the director gives us one last look at the girl’s boobs before she sinks back into the lake.

Anyway, it’s a pretty good reboot, though Jason didn’t leave anybody’s severed head in the refrigerator. Probably saving that for the sequel. 14 dead bodies, 3 gallons blood, 7 breasts, 1 ass. Heads roll, ears roll, machete to the head and throat, machete whackamole, arrow thru the head, speedboat to the head, spike thru the throat, axe and machete to the back, antlers to the back, tow truck to the back, fireplace poker through the eye. Gratuitous Blue Velvet and “Sister Christian.” 3 ½ stars.

Billy Bob says check it out.