Hell Fest, and the Carnie Horror-Show subgenre

So Hell Fest is out on dvd already. It had a limited theatrical run, which is surprising for a genre title like this one, but when big names are involved... anything is possible. When I say "big names", I refer to their selling point that was important enough to put on the poster: From an executive producer of The Walking Dead

😄😄😄

First off, I just want to laugh at that for a moment. I'm sure there are some TWD fans around here, but that show is old and tired, and everyone knows that executive producers don't do shit. They collect a paycheck, and I guess that's important enough.


So the movie starts without much intricacy. A group of young adults decide to go to "Hell Fest", a horror-themed carnival/haunted-house type deal, and somewhere down the line, an actual serial killer sneaks into the mix, and no one knows any better, because it's all part of the show, right?

For what it is, the movie isn't bad. It's very colorful, competently made, and it even has Tony fucking Todd as the main horror host. He kinda reminds me of his Hatchet character in that sense. He's not in it much though, as the film mostly focuses on the group of victims, and the killer set out after them.

The movie is pretty predictable. You can tell pretty much exactly what's coming, but that's not exactly a problem. It's a pretty fun romp either way. This horror-show setting lends itself perfectly to the genre, giving us plenty of outs for stupid decisions and whatnot, playing on the disbelief of the participants due to the nature of the "show".

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What other movies can you think of that revolve around horror shows, carnivals, or circus type themes?

Freaks (1932) - Old-timey classic featuring actual "freaks". Short, to the point, creepily engaging, and with an ending that probably fucked with people's heads back in the day.

The Wizard of Gore (1970/2007) - Typical HG Lewis fare, which means that it's awesome. Ego-maniac's horror show takes things farther and farther, but are his evil-doings real, or are we all just going insane?!

The remake was a completely different tone, acting as more of a psychological crime thriller than horror. Not the worst, but not quite what we were looking for...

Bloodsucking Freaks (1976) - Quite literally a horror show where the guy is killing people on stage, and NOBODY believes it! Being an ego-maniac, Sardu decides to step up his game, so people can't possibly not believe it. I love it.

The Funhouse (1981) - The most obvious example of funhouse horror revolves around a small group who get trapped in a carnival after hours, and you know what happens next. Fun.

House of 1000 Corpses (2003) - Captain Spaulding's horror show tells you about various serial killers, and you're likely to get killed if you hang around too long. Kinda satanic, somewhat supernatural, and extremely different from its follow-up The Devil's Rejects. This movie was pretty flashy, heavily inspired by a music-video style of directing, since Rob Zombie was doing a lot of that as his solo career started taking off.


Those are a few examples off the top of my head. Thoughts on these? Hell Fest? Carnie and/or Horror-Show horrors?

Shot-On-Shiteo: Cannibal Xerox



It's almost as if Bruno Mattei had plans of jumping on the Cannibal bandwagon all along, but fell asleep for 20 years, only to wake up and carry on, business as usual. Yeah. In 2004, Bruno Mattei made a genuine Cannibal movie. True story. He did lots of stuff in the 2000's, including several more Cannibal entries, along with a Zombie flick or two. The old guy obviously wasn't much for timing, but better late than never, some might say. Mattei also wasn't one much for originality either. Hell Of The Living Dead comes to mind even though I love it. Bruno Mattei may have been the most shameless director of the Italian heyday, and one could make the argument that he is a poor man's all those guys, but who else would do this? who else gave enough of a fuck to give us a 2004 Cannibal film? Bruno Mattei and only Bruno Mattei. Talent/creativity/film be damned! Bruno says it's time for another one!

This shot-on-video, would-be epic goes under several different titles: Cannibal World, Mondo Cannibale, but I'm going to refer to it by its most unfitting (or intriguing?) title of Cannibal Holocaust: The Beginning. I like to think the decision to call it that in whatever country was solely Mattei's idea. And I don't want to poke fun at the dead, but this movie's existence is too funny. Although it can be pretty irritating if you're a huge fan of the legendary Cannibal Holocaust. I say that because this painfully inferior product does nothing but leech off its predecessor. And to be blunt, the one I'm about to shed some light on more or less amounts to that of a bottle of piss. Don't worry. It'll all make sense soon.

Once again, under the pseudonym of Vincent Dawn, Bruno Mattei gives us the Cannibal Holocaust ripoff we never knew we wanted. Such a ripoff that it's about a hair away from being a remake. Hell, Mattei actually might have intended it to be one. Everything that sets up the story is different, but the results remain the same. Along with the same old "who are the real cannibals?" nonsense. I think I even remember some of the same dialogue, so, yeah. That's the level of shamelessness we're working with. Once a thriving news channel, TVN isn't doing so well, ratings-wise. Hot shit anchor woman, Grace Forsyte, aims to fix things and help this dying channel regain the popularity it once enjoyed. Only one thing can reverse the state of things, says Grace. We gotta take it to the Amazon! We gotta go fuck with some cannibals. People love cannibals! No, the naked, brown ones who've never heard of anything. Not the regular ones!

Grace didn't really say that, but I wouldn't be surprised if she thought it. So, Grace is dragging her team all the way out to the Amazon jungle to see if some cannibals could possibly eat somebody if they happen to be feeling generous. Supposedly, there is a tribe around here some refer to as "the invisible people". Surely they'll give up some sweet cannibal action for a news channel on its last legs. Things go surprisingly well as these news whores actually get their footage. And just like that, TVN lives! In fact, TVN's ratings have skyrocketed even more than Grace predicted.

So, mission accomplished, time to go home! Well, not quite yet. Apparently not someone to quit while she's ahead, Grace encourages the others to help her set all the cannibals and their village on fire which will obviously increase the ratings even more. We can always blame it on another tribe, says Grace. A little fake news never hurt anybody, says Grace. If you're familiar with these types of movies, you know what's coming: Bloody, rapey, tasty revenge. Castrations, impalings and regret. Oh, and some authentic animal killings somewhere amongst it all. You didn't think Uncle Bruno would leave that out, did you? He knew what he was doing.

I'd say the magic is lost. Long gone for around two decades by this point. No one can say this isn't a "real" one since it was directed by one of the boys, even though Mattei had literally no experience making these movies. Cannibal Holocaust: The Beginning is unique because it is not a throwback, despite coming off like one. And while it may also feel like a resurrection of sorts, I wouldn't even go that far. To me, Cannibal Holocaust: The Beginning is one man's attempt at picking the bones of a corpse that he damn well knows is no longer edible. So, that only leaves one question: If Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox are the Coke and Pepsi of the genre, then, where does this one fit in? Yeah, I'm going with piss. Cannibal Holocaust: The Beginning is a warm bottle of piss. 3/10



#Review

Streaming Services don't know SHIT

Netflix recently added "Jason Goes to Hell". What image do they include for it? An image from "Jason X", of course. Same movie, right? Might as well be to the dimwits who pick and choose that stuff, and don't care for the genre enough to even make sure they even have the right movie.

Jason has suffered from this a few times. The back of my Friday the 13th Part 6 dvd has a picture of (not) Jason from Part 5. The dvd insert for my Part 4 dvd has a picture of Jason from Part 6. Not sure how anyone could be confused by it, considering he looks noticably different in every film. The video game has distinctly different models for every incarnation of him, too.

Netflix also leaves letters off of prominent displays sometimes. "The Haunting of Hill House" clearly said "The Hauntin of Hill House", in a few different locations. I'm not sure how Netflix can overlook something that big for it's original releases, but fuck 'em. I've seen that shit with at least two titles on there.

So anyway, that was just a quick rant on the stupidity of people not knowing their shit. So now, I go to watch Jeepers Creepers on HULU, since they have it now. When I clicked on the movie, it shows a picture of Mick Taylor, from Wolf Creek 2.

😞

We don't want to start a panic, Mr. Bennell.

I was just thinking about the name Bennell, in IotBS. It's a pretty uncommon surname. I have never met anyone with that name in my life, as far as I can recall. It makes me wonder if they were trying to make some kind of statement, by naming the character that.

It might be a reference to Luis Bunuel, the surrealist filmmaker...? That would make a certain amount of sense. Especially when you consider Mathew Bennell's broken car windshield in the 1978 film. He had to drive around for practically the whole movie with that fractured perspective that surrealists, and I guess cubists, strive for.

It could also have been a little homage to Stephen Vincent Benet, maybe? I was thinking, his short story By the Waters of Babylon is about the end of the world. Well, obliquely... I won't wreck it for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

Or, maybe it was supposed to be a combination of Bunuel and Benet. Could beeeeeeeeeeee...... well, whatever. Had to share.

Upcoming ALIEN tv show and/or game?

Anybody care about the 'Alien' franchise? It had a movie in the 70s, 80s, 90s[x2], two shitty spin-offs in the 2000s, and two more prequels in the 2010s. The Prometheus movies didn't do much for some people. Kind of hit or miss. I thought Prometheus was an interesting, albeit barely relevant backstory to the first Alien movie, but in a sense, that's what I liked about it. It featured the mechanics of an Alien movie, without the xenomorphs themselves. Alien Covenant had a few 'memberberry moments, but it had some ultra-predictable twists that wont impress you at all.

To most people, the xenomorphs ARE the Alien series. I suppose that's mostly true, but I think the technology and dystopian setting can provide for a lot of interesting ideas, and it's only taken the producers 40 goddamn years to figure this out. Androids? Space ships? Intergalactic travel? Terraforming?

Now, there's talk about a tv show and some form of interactive companion piece to that. My mind jumps to some Bandersnatch scenario, if not just another video game.

I think Alien can work as a series, even if it isn't all about the xenomorphs. Sure, they can appear in a few episodes, but even without them, there's some good sci-fi shit they can exploit, and us old school sci-fi/horror fantasy nerds will eat that shit up.

Thoughts on the ALIEN franchise? Would you watch a tv show? Or is this a cash-grab, doomed to fail?

Zed

Hey mate, you're still in hospital I take it. I've just arrived in Barcelona so are pretty bored at present no pc etc to fulfill my time gf's at work etc. so why don't I ring you up and chat sometime. I'm in uk/Spain Timezone and you're in Canada, Winnipeg? So we will have coordinate a time that works out best. We can ring on WhatsApp, zed - the currently sober person did not even have a beer on New Years

The Big Lebowski: Inspiration for Trailer Park Boys?!

I threw it on for a quick laugh, and I was struck with a few parallels to Trailer Park Boys. Besides the protagonist being a low-life who drinks and smokes all the time, this 1998 comedy came out right before the black and white Trailer Park Boys debut in 1999.

First off is the shit-mobile. We'll gradually see the Dude's car turn into a pile of garbage, just like Ricky's.

Then, we have the Roadhouse connection. We have Jackie Treehorn (who treats objects like women, man) and Sam Elliott in this movie, both from Roadhouse. Roadhouse obviously features Patrick Swayze, aka Julian. Sexy Julian...

Also, the Dude answers a question with, "Did the pope shit in the woods?", and Ricky is known for his "Rickyisms" (him fucking up common phrases), saying, "Does a bear shit on the pope?"

Then, the Dude is being hassled, trying not to spill his White Russian, "Careful man! There's a beverage here!". Julian (not Patrick Swayze) is a man known to never spill his drink... or be seen without it.



Just drawing parallels and shooting the shit. Anybody a fan of either of these?

Guess which movie this shirt is from

@der got me a Christmas present that I'd been wanting for years. Guess which movie this is from:





This is the best thing I've ever seen.

Private message to someone

https://trashepics.com/post/33/add/
Is this the link, if not how does one do it on an tablet/phone?

I assume /33 is to user 33?

Ok I see this has gone into the main forum, so I guess my question is open to all 😛

I think I might of Sussed it now
https://trashepics.com/post/33/add/?pm=xx
Xx=user you wish to pm

Fuck IOS sucks compared to android, I've been using it for many years and every time I want to do something basic like transfer movies from pc to iPad I have to google how to do it, contrast that with android plug in and transfer, god I remember a few years ago trying to get my Linux pc to talk to my iPad ffs

New Years Horror

Christmas usually dominates the month of December, but we still have a good week in there where we're recovering from Christmas, and moving into the new year. There aren't a lot of movies about this thin period where you can't really decorate or distinguish yourself from that generic Christmas and/or Holiday spirit.

I've only seen a few New Years horrors, and I barely remember anything about most of them. We have have Terror Train (1980), in which Jamie Lee Curtis resumes her role as the early slasher scream queen. It had a stupid mask, and the David Copperfield was pulling some of his crazy magic, but I don't remember much else besides some gnarly necrophilia prank in the beginning.

New Years Evil (1980) also seems to be cashing in on this craze. I guess holiday-themed titles were getting snatched up in this era, because everyone wanted to have the definitive holiday horror movie. This one... yeah, I don't remember much about it, except that I was interested in how we were mostly following the killer for the whole movie. Well, at least for a good amount. He's not trying to be creepy per se, but he's definitely insane. Probably? Not the worst.

One that I'm more familiar with is Schwarzenegger's End of Days (1999), which is more of an action movie, but it's the closest thing to a horror movie Arnold will probably ever do. Maggie was okay, but in more of a drama kind of way. We basically have Gabriel Byrne as the devil, trying to fuck Robin Tunney (that girl from The Craft) and only Arnold can stop him, because everyone has to fight the devil sometimes. Toxie did it, Keanu Reeves did it... Cher can even do it.

What other New Years horror have you got? Does this holiday even have any potential for horror?