Cult Classics

[buckethead]

THE TOXIC AVENGER
I have now attempted to get through this film 3X to no avail.
It is just bad. And not good bad, either. It’s bad bad, as in terrible. It doesn’t even have any unintentional camp value.
Perhaps if I had seen it back in 1984 at a packed midnight screening with a head full of beer and Mary Jane it might have been hilarious.
But watching, sorry, trying to watch it sober in 2023, well it just doesn’t fly.
Barely made it to the 42-minute mark (and even that took me a couple of weeks to get through) before cutting my losses.

Of note is the fact that there is a reboot on the way starring Peter Dinklage. Yeah. Go figure.

haven't seen toxic avenger but have you seen its sort-of spin-off?



trashy but has some truly hilarious visuals

[bobz]

THE TOXIC AVENGER
I have now attempted to get through this film 3X to no avail.
It is just bad. And not good bad, either. It’s bad bad, as in terrible. It doesn’t even have any unintentional camp value.
Perhaps if I had seen it back in 1984 at a packed midnight screening with a head full of beer and Mary Jane it might have been hilarious.
But watching, sorry, trying to watch it sober in 2023, well it just doesn’t fly.
Barely made it to the 42-minute mark (and even that took me a couple of weeks to get through) before cutting my losses.

I actually didn't make it all the way through Toxic Avenger, either. Not so much because it's bad (which it is), but because it was bad in such a way that struck me as a retread of other bad Troma-produced flicks I'd already seen (even if Toxic Avenger was made previously, meaning that the ones I'd seen already were the bad-movie retreads).

Yeah, Troma movies are kind of one-joke flicks; it's a whole one-joke studio. But the one that I have some fondness for (trash cinema though it is) is Class of Nuke 'Em High. And Tromeo and Juliet (screenplay by James Gunn) had its moments.

[bobz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46E7Q8Ns4GY

My review, which once appeared on a different forum:

I got the urge for a slice of non-mainstream badness, BLOOD FREAK, which was actually pretty good ironic fun. BLOOD FREAK is your basic mutant farm animal horror with pro-Christian anti-drug themes, REEFER MADNESS meets GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS (and for only $3, I can stream it on Amazon anytime I want for the rest of my life).

It's slow getting going, though. First, there's an eternity of narration, where this chain smoking guy in a velvet disco shirt explains how some stories have a catalyst, and that a catalyst can cause change. Then we see a big Elvis dude riding a chopper down the freeway, with the not-at-all-steadycam bouncing him randomly around the frame. He meets a girl who turns out to share his conservative views, but alas, they're hopelessly immersed in an early-70s hippie culture, and Elvis finally gives in to trying the evil weed that he keeps getting offered.

He wants more, and becomes not just non-grouchy for the first time, but visibly happy, and almost immediately he has sex with his religious girlfriend's hot sister, Ann. So it seems to me that worked out fine. But he ends up angry about it, and gives the drug dealer (Ann's boyfriend) a talking to, "you got me hooked... and if you don't keep me supplied I'm going to break every bone in your miserable body." Ha ha, not Look buster now I'm going to make you pay for my rehab, but Look buster now you have to give me an unlimited supply of the dope that I don't appreciate being addicted to.

Anyway, then he gets a job at a turkey farm, and agrees to try some of the free food that farm scientists have modified somehow. Bad idea, particularly because Elvis is a big guy, who's able to consume the entire baked Butterball that's on his plate. He convulses on the ground, artfully intercut with shots of live turkeys clucking at each other in a nearby pen. This is where the film starts going off the rails, or perhaps on the rails for those of us looking for the kind of hilariously disgusting mutant action promised by the title and cover picture.

Wait, first velvet-shirted smoker needs to sermonize, "interesting how when we come to moments of despair... we turn to God." Okay, back to the story which has nothing to do with that: Elvis has turned into a mutant turkey (use your imagination here; it's just a bird mask), and Ann freaks out because she thinks it's because she got him high. Of course, getting him high didn't turn him into a turkey, but it did make him a bloodthirsty turkey, because he's still hooked on dope, and he can only get his fix by consuming the blood of drug users. Gobble gobble!

The bloody violence that follows earned BLOOD FREAK an 'X' rating, a solid achievement for a Christian values movie, but given that it's crudely done and ridiculous, it's really not that bad (it might help to know in advance that they hired an amputee to play one of the victims).

SPOILERS AHEAD! SPOILERS AHEAD! The whole turkey monster thing was Elvis's drug hallucination. He gets back together with original girlfriend and they pray. Smoker guy tells us that drugs are bad and watch out for adulterated food, then he goes into a coughing fit.

[bobz]

Here's an obscure one that's a lot of fun: The Velocipastor



I could summarize it for you, but the title does an adequate job of that. This isn't a bad, or "bad" movie; just very consciously low-budget...

- There's a scene where a car supposedly blows up; it shows a car parked on the street, with large text superimposed on it, "VFX Car on Fire".

- Woman collapses in forest with large object impaling her chest; "Are you hurt?"

- Brilliantly dopey training-to-be-an-ass-kicking-priest montage sequence.

And more. Good silly fun, Joe Bobz sez check it out. I think it's still on Prime-FreeVee (in a similar vein, if perhaps even more awesome, so is Uncle Peckerhead, but I've mentioned that here already).

[dookeyXXX]

Been fighting a cold for 3 weeks now (sneezing, stuffy nose, plugged ears) and haven’t been in the headspace for thoughtful cinema, so I’ve been watching a lot of series.
But last night I fired up TANGO & CASH via Tubi.
I know I saw it in the theater when it first came out, but don’t recall what my drunken-assed, stoner 22 y/o collegiate self thought of it 35 years ago, but man is it bad.
There is zero chemistry between the leads, Stallone and Russell, but at least Russell gives the film some life (that said, I am a Kurt Russell fanboy going all the way back to his Disney days).
The action sequences should be cool, but they fall flat.
The comedy also falls flat.
The cameos from Jack Palance, Michael J. Pollard, and Clint Howard fall flat.
Brion James, usually a corker, spouts a wack Cockney accent and Teri Hatcher flails as an exotic dancer.
The only redeeming element of the film is the turbocharged assault pick-up used in the finale, although said finale is lackluster.
Many a pundit has mused about how the film lacks irony and how it checks off every 1980s action film buddy cop box, yet still misses the mark.
It definitely qualifies as a cult film, by today’s standards, but not sure if it’s a classic.
Interesting enough, it only cost $54M and grossed $120M; it was a critical failure, but a box office success, so in that regard it’s hard to call it a cult film.
But it is bad, as in kinda terrible.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Kurt Russel is really underratein comedic roles, Used Cars, Big Trouble in Little China, Overboard etc.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[mcski]

The computer wore tennis shoes

[dookeyXXX]

Dexter Riley FTW!

[stealurface831]

donnie darko.

[dookeyXXX]

Went down a/slight rabbit hole in regards to Alex Cox this morning.

Seems he was the host of a beloved British show about cult films called Moviedrome.

Lotta interesting films were covered during the show’s run (full episode list in the Wiki):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moviedrome

[ex-powderbroker]

Anyone a fan of The Grifters? I don’t know if there’s a cult, but it’s super unappreciated and I’d argue a classic.

[buckethead]

yes excellent film...saw it when it was first released. need to see it again.

After Dark, My Sweet is another worthwhile film from the same year, with a similarly dark feel.

[dookeyXXX]

Both films based on novels by Jim Thompson, who could be classified as a cult author…

Interestingly enough, The Grifters was nominated for 4 Academy Awards…I never think of films that get Oscar nods as being cult.
Then again I yammered about Tango & Cash above and it was a box office smash

[Meadow Skipper]

Anyone a fan of The Grifters? I don’t know if there’s a cult, but it’s super unappreciated and I’d argue a classic.

Cult qual’d or not, it is a great flick.

[buttahflake]

Recently caught, Repo Man, for the first time in many years. It’s such a good fucking movie. Harry Dean Stanton rules.

[ex-powderbroker]

I think of cult as something that doesn’t do well at the box office but gets critical acclaim and/or a following after.

Repo Man has that.

how about American Movie?

[mcski]

I thought repo man before I got to the end of your first sentence…intense

[dookeyXXX]

GOODBYE PORK PIE (1981)
Super zany and bugged out early NZ action comedy.
Worth tracking down for sure.

https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/37532...-pork-pie-1981


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rraZPz11O6A



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoNmzW_LS-I

[dookeyXXX]

VISITORS FROM THE ARKANA GALAXY
(Streaming on Kanopy and Tubi for free)

Dunno if it’s a classic, but this Yugo/Czech flick from 1981 is definitely cult.
The third act goes hella hard in the gonzo paint with decapitations, spewing pea soup explosive vomit, and phallic and yonic imagery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TFKvWqukEs

[bobz]

Here's an obscure treat for you, THE WORLD'S GREATEST SINNER (1962; $1 rental on Amazon): Imagine a low-budget film with Nic Cage playing Donald Trump in another dimension, and that's pretty much what we have here. An insurance company manager decides one day that selling insurance is bullshit, and that his true potential is to become a cult leader. He changes his first name to God, and he declares that he and all of his followers are gods, who have eternal life and can do anything they want. It's a hacky movie about a hacky character, an unexpected oddball flick for its era. It has a clunker ending, but it's fun overall.

Oh, and the soundtrack features an up and coming young musician by the name of Frank Zappa, in his first paying gig as a recording artist. There's jazzy background theme music, and rock and roll performance music where Zappa claimed to be parodying Elvis Presley.

[singlecross]

Wizard of Pink Floyd… or Dark Side of the Rainbow

[dookeyXXX]

CLASS OF 1984

Streaming on Amazon Prime

Mark L. Lester’s film is a quasi grindhouse, neo exploitation classic which, while kind of a modern reworking of The Blackboard Jungle and owing no small debts to Death Wish, The Warriors, and Mad Max (the first film), is still very much its own beast.
Timothy Van Patten is off-the-nuts as the psychopathic Stegman and makes one wonder why he never became a bonafide Hollywood star.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tlM1gvzOsk

[mcski]

Salami!

The Van Patten clan owned hollywood for a while

Tim is directed soon to be released Franklin

[dookeyXXX]

HIGHWAY TO HELL (1991)

Streaming on Amazon Prime

The trailer sums it up rather nicely, showcasing the goofy, campy, schlocky goodness that lurks within every frame of this “forgotten” gem from the 1990’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6AeScDSe68

[dookeyXXX]

Okay, I’ve seen a lot of CYNTHIA ROTHROCK joints in my day, mostly because back in the late 1980s and into the 1990s martial arts cinema was hard to come by in the burbs and small towns. One had to make do with JCVD, Seagal, and DTV fare starring Rothrock, Blanks, Wincott, Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Speakman, and Richard Norton.

How I never managed to see UNDEFEATABLE is beyond me.

This final fight is bonkers.

I also, to the best of my knowledge, have never seen a Godfrey Ho film, either. According to the Wikipedia entry on him, he was like the Ed Wood of martial arts films.

I am on the fence about tracking this joint down because if ithe entire film isn’t as great as this climactic fight, it might be a disappointment…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqvuGqr-u2Y




PS

I still have never seen Gymkata, either!