Movies You’ve Probably Never Heard of #32: The Lost Continent (1968)

There’s something about a boat-full of boozed up British wankers that always ends up in on the wrong side of seaworthy. In this Hammer Horror effort various 1960s British stereotypes board the tramp steamer Coritia bound for Caracas from Freetown. Now I’m no Geography George but I’m pretty sure Freetown is in SIerra Leone (that’s West Africa to all you “me no know places so good” loathsome types) and Caracas is in Venezuela (South America). That’s a lot of British people who are a long way from home that happen to meet a bunch of other British Hooray Henry’s to head even further from home. Various exposition is given to explain why these Brits are all heading from random port A to random port B, but it’s so bloody convoluted in the first place that you already don’t give a shit. Oh, and the Captain’s smuggling chemicals onboard that explode when they come into contact with water. What a twat. Anyway the ship starts to sink, the chemicals might explode, so everyone abandons ship only to find themselves lost, adrift, engulfed in some wacky tentacled seaweed, and in some timeless vortex (aka The Lost Continent). But hey the Coritia turns up unharmed, meaning abandoning ship was a complete waste of fucking time (yours and theirs!). The titular Lost Continent is populated with various figures from naval history (Conquistadors, pirates etc) who wear snow-shoes on their feet and balloons on their backs and have taken up some cult that worships a kind of vagina sea plant.., this happens. I don’t know. I’m confused. Characters flip-flop so frequently between douchebag and hero that I didn’t know who to root for. An absolute car crash of plotting and characterisation. Crazier than a Greek sank’n'crack wax. Needless to say, I fucking loved it.

PS This also features smoking hot Suzanna Leigh.

Mile Fright Club: Top 5 Airplane Horror Movies

Airplanes (or aeroplane to use the correct spelling IMO) are fantastic narrative devices for horror; claustrophobic, isolating, and miles away from help. It’s like being locked in a Camp Crystal Lake cabin that also happens to be hurtling through the air at 5,000 feet. Personally I soil myself from fear on most commercial flights with or without airborne zombies, demons, or William Shatners. Aviophobia and international terrorism aside let’s explore the horror genre’s best entries into the mile fright club (that pun tastes like the sweetest honey). Reader note, I’m going to keep this to horror and sci-fi so that rules out all aeroplane action and disaster flicks. I’ll also list movies largely set within the plane, ruling out the likes of Final Destination and Twilight Zone The Movie.

Deadly Movies Cameos: Ray Harryhausen in Spies Like Us (1985)

Cameo pens at the ready to check-off the who’s-who of industry folks on show in John Landis’s Spies Like Us. There’s Frank Oz, Terry Gilliam, Joel Cohen, Sam Raimi, and Larry Cohen, as well as Bob Hope and BB King (amongst others). During the ‘doctor, doctor’ sketch (also starring Gilliam) one of the Pakistan stationed UN doctors encountered Dan Akroyd and Chevy Chase is non other than creature feature legend, the late, great Ray Harryausen. It’s a nice nod from Landis who’s career in creature horror was clearly influenced by the wondrous practical effects and stop-motion that Harryhausen gave life throughout his career. There’s also a cameo for another practical effects specialist Derek Meddings. It’s cameotacular, and while it’s certainly no high point for Harryhausen, any recognition of the great man’s work is more than welcome.

Deadly Movies Cameos: Roger Corman in The Howling (1981)

Director Joe Dante started off his filmmaking career under the guidance of B-movie supremo Roger Corman, getting his big directorial break with the Corman produced Piranha (1978). Dante gives Corman a brief, but lingering, appearance at the beginning of The Howling as an impatient man waiting for Dee Wallace to finish a call in a phone booth. Dante fills The Howling with nods and winks to horror’s past including TV footage from The Wolf Man (1941), a sketch of Lon Chaney Jr in full Wolf Man makeup, and there’s small roles for Corman regular Dick Miller and B-movie leading-man icon Kenneth Tobey. Dante would up the cameo ante in Gremlins (1984) with Steven Spielberg, Robby The Robot, HG Wells’ Time Machine, and animation legend Chuck Jones all getting a little screen service (see all Gremlins cameos here).

Great Moustaches and Beards in Horror History 1979: Robert Foxworth in Prophecy

Dr Rob (Foxworth) is on the hunt for environmental pollutants which he fears are causing mutations on a grand scale amongst the animals of Maine. Look deep into those greys, browns, and blondes within that beard tapestry. What are the filmmakers trying to tell us? Clearly the grey is the wisdom of years at University, job and tax dodging. The brown is the masculinity to wrestle a mutated bear-pig in the wilds of New England. The blonde is the kind of sexual man musk that makes women’s panties slip themselves off. Tie all of that into a crop of blonde head curls that Adonis himself would sweep-up off the barber-shop floor to glue unto his undeserving scalp. Dr Rob; smarter than you, stronger than you, and having sex with your wife and sister right now. All because of a three tone Neapolitan beard that today is a designated campus in its own right with an all female faculty and student body numbering 50,000. Majors at The University of Dr Rob’s Beard (or UDRB) include Beach Volleyball, Locker-room Leg Oiling, and Woodland Promiscuity.

Movies You’ve Probably Never Heard of #31: The War of the Gargantuas (1966)

Depending on whether you watch the Japanese or US subtitled version this is or isn’t a sequel to 1965′s Frankenstein Conquers the World (is if it’s the Japanese version, isn’t if it’s the US one). The one thing you can guarantee in any language is that this is as wacky as a frozen turd Sunday and more fun than a frozen turd Tuesday. Gargantuas by the way are giant humanoids – a departure from Toho’s usual giant creature output – which bare little-to-no resemblance to Frankenstein’s Monster, save for the flat-top. In true Toho style there is naturally one good beast and one bad beast; how else would there be a good old-fashioned Tokyo Throw Down? The kindly brown Gargantua is from the mountains, the nasty green motherfucker’s from the sea. Thumbs up to the filmmakers for making it a little more complex than that, with one touching scene featuring good Gargantua rescuing evil Gargantua from the military before their differences become insurmountable. This is great stuff, with green Gargantua getting some especially epic moments such as an opening ocean attack on a fishing boat and an unbelievable crazy camp sequence at an airport. The end fight is spectacular with the rubber suited stuntmen permitted way more freedom of movement as a humanoid when compared to their lizard clad colleagues. It’s whimsical giant monster wonderment.

Arghh Canada: Top 5 Canadian Horror Movies Eh!

“O Canada! Our home and native land! Tax breaks and incentives that all thy US producers command” and so on..,

Canada. The true north, strong and free and home to more horror movies than you would ever realise. I know this as I live in the glorious city of Vancouver BC. “But I’ve never seen a horror movie set in Vancouver Mr Deadly Movies“. No you haven’t my good lad. But you’d be amazed at the times you’ve watched San Francisco, Seattle, LA, New York, and my personal favourite, unnamed American City on the big screen and the whole thing was shot right here in Hollywood North (that’s Canada in case you drifted). Here’s Deadly Movies’ Top 5 Canadian Horror movies:

Do you remember when.., Jeff Goldblum rides atop the T-Rex’s nose in Jurassic Park (1993)?

It’s a rather blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in Senor Spielbergo’s dinosaur classic, but it does indeed happen; Jeff Goldblum sits legs akimbo the T-Rex’s nose (snout? I’m not too up on my dinosaur anatomy). Think back to the glorious T-Rex attack sequence.., It’s dark, it’s raining, the fences have failed, and Jeff Goldblum self proves chaos theory by running inexplicably, with emergency flare in hand, towards a bamboo public-washroom. As the T-Rex bursts through the washroom walls to devour the cowardly lawyer inside, Goldblum is shown falling to the wayside. But hold-up. rewind that sequence a few seconds and slow it down. Goldblum isn’t brushed aside by the T-Rex, but is actually saddling the beast’s nose like a bride-to-be on a bucking bronco. It’s a pretty wild sequence which lasts all but a second on-screen and isn’t made any easier to see as Goldblum’s dressed head-to-toe in sultry black.

But it is there, and it does exist. Jeff Goldblum rides the T-Rex.

Evil Dead 2013: At times insatiable and inconsistent, irritating and wonderfully icky

It’s hard to  know what to expect from the Evil Dead remake: Homage? Remake? New take? Sequel? The answer is a bit of all and not enough of one. Like many a contemporary remake Evil Dead doesn’t quite have the conviction to play its own hand (but plenty of conviction to sever two). That doesn’t, however, mean that there isn’t plenty to enjoy and even marvel. Some spoilers ahead.

Happy Easter: Deadly Movies Top 5 Giant Movie Chickens

Cute yellow chicks; an Easter must. Boiled or fried, your choice. So while you ponder that decision most fowl join Deadly Movies in a self indulgence Easter exercise in eggceedingly prodigious poultry. AKA a list of fucking big chickens from film and TV. Carry on:

Movies You’ve Probably Never Heard of #30: The Devil Times Five (1974)

The 70s saw quite the splurge of evil children flicks, and while this offering has never made a splash as a game changer it did precede  the likes of The Brood (1979), The Omen (1976), Who Can Kill A Child (1976), and even same year killer baby movie It’s Alive (by all of four months). That being said what you you can expect here is a bunch of kids who couldn’t look less psychotic or menacing (but doesn’t that make them more scary? No. No it doesn’t) escaping from a crashed looney-bus and making their way across a snowly landscape (yeah that is cool) to terrorise a gaggle of adults held-up in their alpine lodge. Most of the kills are group beatings in slow motion, which is kind of creepy as well as an editing copout. Although there is one ingenious kill sequence where the kids dump a bunch of Piranha into a bath tub! The best part is probably the trouser bulge enducing bitch-fight between two of female adult leads.., which is nice. As for the kids, keep an eye out for 70s pop star Leif Garrett and his little sister Dawn Lyn as two of the adolescent slow-mo assassins.

PS, check out the badass Lobby Card from the movie below (with alt title The Horrible House on the Hill), which is actually quite disturbing.

That’s 30, count’em, 30 Movies You’ve Probably Never Heard Of, here’s the other 29.

Do You Remember When Frank Smiled like a Maniac During The Fall Sequence in Cliffhanger (1993)?

This is one of the first ever scenes in a movie where I remember thinking “what the fuck is happening here?” When Frank (played by the marvellous Ralph Waite) looks upon Stalone dropping Michael Rooker’s girlfriend from a zip-wire and down to her certain death you’d think director Renny Harlin would be barking out orders to emote fear, shock, awe, and horror. Instead old Frank is grinning away as if he’s hallucinating about winning the puppy lottery. How the shit-bags did this scene make it past Harlin, the editor, the studio execs, and the test screenings? It’s like Martin Van Buren, it’s there, it’s real, but no one really remembers it (Van Buren was the eighth president of the United States – remember him? Exactly.). Frank literally stands there while Rooker’s heart breaks into a million pieces, clutching the zip-wire, and smiling hysterically as if he were staring at a circus bear juggling shaved rabbits rather than witnessing the end of some poor girl’s life. Inexplicable, totally random, and beautifully preserved forever.

Happy St Patrick’s Day 2013: Top 5 Irish Contributions to Horror

St Patrick’s Day – a day when people who hate Guinness drink gallons of the stuff to celebrate a heritage they don’t really have, pour green food colouring into, otherwise, perfectly good beer, and wear a lot of novelty green items (too cynical?). It may surprise many, but Ireland has produced more than just green felt leprechaun top-hats, including its fair share of horror fables, actors, movies, and authors. So join Deadly Movies in a celebration of Ireland’s greatest horror contributions: