B-Movies Revisited!!!

[Kurosawa Fan]

In honor of one of the best B-movies any of us had seen, I'm resurrecting this thread. For those who don't know, I had a thread at the old site where people gave me suggestions of terrible (but hilarious) B-movies to watch. My friends and I get together for a night of drinking and bad movies, and we hadn't been able to get together in a while but that all changed last night.

We were inspired by the clips of Samurai Cop that were posted here last week, and that was the first of two films we watched. Sweet Jesus was that glorious. It's definitely among the best we've seen. It was so good it inspired us to make time to get together more often. That sword fight at the end was a thing of beauty, as was Frank, Samurai's partner. I'm convinced he was the inspiration for Dean Lerner from Garth Merenghi.

There were too many memorable scenes to count, but there were two things that had us rolling from start to finish. The first were the sets. That hospital where the burn victim was kept was too funny for words. The reception desk was basically a school teachers desk with a cork bulletin board behind it. And there was a dental office next to the room where the burn victim was being held. The police station was just as funny.

The second was the wig. Our hero, Samurai, had a long surfer hairdo. Apparently 25% of the film was done later in reshoots, after our "hero" had cut his hair. They solved this problem by buying what is obviously a womans wig for him to wear. They did nothing to solve this. It was complete with curls and bangs. The transitions, often happening within the same scene, were comedy gold. At one point during a particularly exciting fight, it falls off for a few seconds. We kept rewinding it and playing it in slow motion. My stomach hurt when this film was over.


The second film was unfortunately a pretty big disappointment, and I'm sure Davis will be let down by this one. We watched Feeders after Samurai Cop, and while it had it's moments, it was far too dull. There were too many stretches where nothing was happening. When the two friends hole up in an abandoned house after the alien invasion, they literally search the house for 15 minutes, and during that 15 minutes they do nothing more than look around. I almost started nodding off. It still had some highlights. We had fun watching the twins switch places. You could tell by the tube socks. One second they'd be white, the next they'd have large blue stripes at the top. And Donna, Ranger Rick's foxy daughter... what a performance. How she hasn't landed more roles is beyond me. I'm still puzzled as to what happened to her friend after killing two aliens. We kept waiting for her to factor into the film at some point, but she never shows up again.

Oh, and the hole in the roof, which seems to have been done with MS Paint, was one of the most memorable special (and by special, I mean short bus) effects I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

Still, in the end it was a disappointment. We decided to send it back without watching Feeders 2, which was on the same disc. Still, it was a fantastic night.


So, I still have a large list of recommendations, but I'm looking for something akin to Samurai Cop. The two best films we've seen have been cheesy action films. That seems to gel the best with us. The horror films (Troll 2 and Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 aside) seem to usually disappoint. Does anyone have any more suggestions?

[Russ]

So glad you liked Samurai Cop! That wig is hilarious.

Be sure and try The Thing With Two Heads

As a matter of fact, why not double your fun?





There are some other really bad action howlers that I'm trying to recall...will post them when I think of the titles.

[MadMan]

I love B-movies and cult films. They're simply a special brand of cinema that must be seen by all. If anything to give you an appreciation for better, more well made cinema :lol:

[Teecee]

I'm not an expert, but I have to put a good word in for "3 Mighty Men", AKA "Turkish Spider-Man". It's almsot beyond words.

[D_Davis]

Feeders, a disappointment?

Outrageous!

:lol:

Just wait until the day Saurians is released on DVD.

You just don't have any idea how bad a movie can get...none.

[Derek]

I agree with KF that there are simply too many hilarious scenes and goofs to keep track off in Samurai Cop. Anyone looking for hilariously bad movie, look no farther because this one manages to fail epically in every facet of filmmaking and succeed on every level one could hope for in a bad movie. I'd even give it a small edge over Troll 2 for more consistently delivering the goods...though unfortunately those goods do include an uncomfortably revolting sex scene with Robert Z'Dar. But really, this film has it all:

Bad hair: Check
Bad tan: Check
Bad 8-bit score: Check
Wooden delivery: Check
Hilariously bad choreography: Check
Robert Z'Dar's weird giant chin and enormous head confounding me every time it appears on-screen: Check
Every woman in the film getting naked even though one is the wife of a cop who's being assassinated at home so we'll have the goons rip her shirt off for no reason before killing her because why have a woman in the film if she's not showing her breasts: Check
Offensive, inappropriate and unnecessary remarks about the black cop not needing to worry about getting his ass fried by the Lieutenant because it's already black and the comment being so awesome that it merits a high-five because it comes from Joe Marshall, Samurai Cop: Check
Offensive, inappropriate and unnecessary remarks and obsession with the size of the black cop's genitalia: Check
A truly classic bad movie that must be seen to be believed: Check

[rocus]

I actually met Rosey Grier. I didn't have a lot of time to talk to him, and we mostly discussed football. I regret not bringing up this movie.

[D_Davis]

RIP John Polonia

One of the indie greats has passed.

Today we will be watching Splatter Farm and Splatter Beach in remembrance.

http://d2dvd.blogspot.com/2008/02/john-polonia.html

I have just been informed via email from John Oak Dalton that John Polonia, one half of the indie filmmaking duo The Polonia Bros. has died due to an aneurysm. He was 39.

John and his twin brother Mark are guys that have helped define the indie filmmaking movement for the past 20 or so years. They were genre movie fans who didn't let the fact that they lived no where near Hollywood deter them from making movies and getting them distributed around the world. John isn't a household name, but I bet one or two of his movies have crossed your eye at the local video store.

Here's John Oak Dalton's tribute to the man he collaborated with:

For those of you who didn't hear the sad news, John Polonia died suddenly in his home this morning of a heart aneurysm. He was 39 and leaves a wife and young son.

John was an incredibly funny person who enjoyed home and family life and could talk movies with a great fervor. He turned this love of movies into a memorable filmmaking career.

John was a good friend to me and a lot of other filmmakers. He was a great lover of cinema and had a vast collection of movies stored on the shelves of his home and in his brain. He had a dream to make movies and lived that dream every single day since his teenage years. I spoke with him a few weeks ago about a new project I would rewrite over one of his scripts and he was as excited about these upcoming prospects as he was about every project.

I think we are too close to the Polonia Brothers' legacy for it to be properly measured. They first got distribution as teenagers and are noted for having one of the first shot on SVHS features to be accepted at Blockbuster. They produced and directed more than 30 features in 20-some years that were distributed direct to video. They were incredibly prolific and successful together and embraced a large fan base while being courteous to foes. Their role in the rise of VHS rentals, the mom and pop stores, the SOV era, and then the direct-to-video DVD boom, will have to be noted much farther down the timeline to see what they have really meant as people and professionals.

I can say in total honesty I have never met anyone like John. When I first saw "Blood Red Planet" I knew the Brothers were special as very unique filmmakers and I later came to learn they were incredible individuals as well. I hope you will join me in keeping his family in your thoughts during this time, and keeping his memorable legacy at the forefront in the future.

John Oak Dalton

[Kurosawa Fan]

Wow. Much too young. R.I.P.

[D_Davis]

Here is an awesome tribute to Mr. Polonia, written by an internet-friend of mine who happened to be real-life-friends with John Polonia.

http://cinemaslave.wordpress.com/

[Boner M]

Holy moley, you guys weren't kidding about Samurai Cop. Probably even more consistently enjoyable than Troll 2, which is great/awful but can be enjoyed equally in youtube montage form. The set pieces I'd already seen were perfectly hilarious/terrible (bacon grease torture, horny nurse, the car chases, etc) but there's so so many subtle ineptitudes that just push it over the edge. Like the abundance of softcore nudity and sex scenes AND the presence of a post-coital L-shaped sheets scene. Or Frank laughing maniacally after meeting his opponents at a restaurant. Or Frank's joke about climbing under a gate while his partner climbs over - because he's an undercover cop - despite them both being undercover.

Seriously, this is like the so-bad-it's-good inverse of what distinguishes much European art cinema. Like Tati, every frame is loaded with information and layers, only here it's because there's a filmmaking ineptitude everywhere you move your eye. Like Bergman, the faces of the actors become amphitheaters, only with hilariously stilted gestures and woodenness. Like Godard, the line between actors and characters becomes increasingly blurred, but only because the script just can't contain living, breathing human beings - Frank's aforementioned bout of inexplicable maniacal laughter can only be read as a gesture of defiance from actor Mark Frazer against his stifling token black guy role.

This film is a thing of beauty.

[MadMan]

All of these were seen last Friday night thanks to TCM, as they actually show cult and b-movies on Friday nights as part of their "Underground" series. I was actually amused at how Robert Osbourne has described b-movies in the past with the same amount of enthusiasm for far better cinema. Either they pay him pretty well or he actually enjoys some of these movies. I hope its the latter.

Spider Baby clearly influenced films such as the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Rob Zombie's first two films. The flick is decently creepy in many ways, although it does drag a bit and the budget limits are pretty evident. Still I was fairly entertained, and I really am looking forward to viewing even more of Jack Hill's films. I give this a fairly solid 75, and I have to say that the daughters in this film were fairly freaky and deranged in a The Shining twin girls sort of way.

On the other hand though It Came From Beneath the Sea was disappointing by monster movie standards. The octopus didn't even really look all that great or cool in a cheesy way, and the love triangle between the three leads was painfully weak. I have to say this was pretty damn lame for the most part, although the creature's attack on San Francisco was the main highlight. 41

Due to the lateness of both showings I only caught the first satan flick, The Blood On Satan's Claw(1970). I was surprised to discover that the description for it doesn't even do the film justice. Although this is not a great film by an means there was some really interesting themes raise and even slightly discussed, although the film could have done a better job of exploring them. The atmosphere is extremely thick and very creepy, and the film really dives into the concept of cults while also noting how authoritarian in nature 17th century America truly was. In the end the satanic child devil worshipers aren't really defeated by God so much as a judge going to the extremes and using logic and reason to combat a rather strange and twisted enemy. In the hands of a better director this film could have become a classic, but instead its a notable cult film that does some things really well while retaining too much camp and cheese. 73

I got roughly 35 minutes into The Brotherhood of Satan and then I fell asleep. But what I saw was pretty cheesy and not really all that interesting.

[Russ]

The Killing Zone




:lol:

[SirNewt]

an absolute must

All of these were seen last Friday night thanks to TCM, as they actually show cult and b-movies on Friday nights as part of their "Underground" series. I was actually amused at how Robert Osbourne has described b-movies in the past with the same amount of enthusiasm for far better cinema. Either they pay him pretty well or he actually enjoys some of these movies. I hope its the latter.

I can see this. When you've seen so many movies, I think you begin to really just love cinema in any form. Also, you can see things amateurs are doing that are actually better or more interesting than what the pros are doing. Even in a horrid film you can sometimes find interesting camera moves or techniques. Besides, I'd rather watch someone who sucks but has a lot of passion throwing all they have into a stupid little movie than someone's pretentious attempt to make the next film base on, "a compelling true story."

[Qrazy]

I feel like the term B-movie ought to actually be F-movie.

[MadMan]

I can see this. When you've seen so many movies, I think you begin to really just love cinema in any form. Also, you can see things amateurs are doing that are actually better or more interesting than what the pros are doing. Even in a horrid film you can sometimes find interesting camera moves or techniques. Besides, I'd rather watch someone who sucks but has a lot of passion throwing all they have into a stupid little movie than someone's pretentious attempt to make the next film base on, "a compelling true story."

I fully agree with this, and I must note that many directors who made B-films went on to bigger and better things. Ed Wood Jr. may have not had the talent or the funding to make great films but I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy Plan 9 From Outer Space.

I feel like the term B-movie ought to actually be F-movie.

Clearly your in the wrong thread :P

[Qrazy]

Clearly your in the wrong thread :P

Nah, I laughed my fair share at the Samurai Cop and Troll 2 bits, but when critics rate things these films certainly aren't in the B-range. I know the term has history and it's own connotations at this point but still, F movie.

[MadMan]

Nah, I laughed my fair share at the Samurai Cop and Troll 2 bits, but when critics rate things these films certainly aren't in the B-range. I know the term has history and it's own connotations at this point but still, F movie.

Oh. Touche then and point taken. Although of course B-movie means much different things nowadays then it did back then, although in the old days B-movie still meant less quality as well.

[SirNewt]

Oh. Touche then and point taken. Although of course B-movie means much different things nowadays then it did back then, although in the old days B-movie still meant less quality as well.

If you guys like Film Noir (and who doesn't) you should check out a B flick called, 'The Narrow Margin', with Charles McGraw.

[KK2.0]

I remember enjoying HIGHWAY TO HELL, dunno how good or bad it holds now.

[KK2.0]

I feel like the term B-movie ought to actually be F-movie.

Agreed but the line between b-flicks and trash were always blurry, maybe the "indie-movie" term became popular to help distinguish them.

[dreamdead]

Well, Samurai Cop was delightfully painful. Sets and continuity are often at odds, and it appears that the film lacks even the most basic understanding of proper editing. Like the others before me, I am utterly bewildered at the film's almost insistent abuse of softcore sex scenes when they serve no function at all. And the lack of commitment Joe has in his relationship with the female cop is completely bizarre. Is it degenerative to suggest that this film is almost an equal opportunity assaulter in that every race and sex comes off insulted? Is that a compliment? Further, one wishes this level of ineptitude was self-aware on some level, since it's nearly hyperaware in its inanity. But alas, it stops precariously short, which means that the whole thing merely ends up being ass. Entertaining ass, but ass all the same.

[Russ]

Someone please check this one out and get back to us asap.

[Sycophant]

Someone please check this one out and get back to us asap.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!

More Minoru Kawasaki! Both this and Executive Koala (which I have been dying to see for YEARS) ar ecoming out tomorrow. OMFG!

Will order as soon as I get home.

[The Mike]

This thread needs Lady Terminator....