Hell House LLC (2015)

When it comes to found footage, I like to scoff at how ineffective these movies are. They often strike me as cheap and unprofessional output from people who think they can make a great horror movie simply because they own a camcorder. There are a few passable ones out there, but dare I eat my own words when I say that this movie gave me chills.

I guess every found footage movie tries to pretend it's a true story with some documentary wrap-around, and this one is no different in that sense. It follows a group of people who set out to make a haunted house in some dilapidated junk heap hotel they find, which turns out to be a real creepy place in its own right, and wouldn't you know... it's actually haunted.

The film documents their conversion of the place into a haunted attraction within a month or so, and things only get creepier as opening day nears. The movie begins with the reveal that the very first outing ended badly, so the chronicles leading up to the big night are what it's all about. Things that shouldn't be happening with the props are happening with the props, and people are gradually losing their shit and blaming each other. Subtlety without obnoxious jump scares, but rather "Why the fuck is that thing there?!"

This movie left me feeling a bit uneasy. I really like the type of scares they crafted with this one. Dare I bother with the extended director's cut and/or the sequel?!

#Review

Chucky Quiz

Here's a new way to break in the quiz system. Take this trivia quiz to see how well you know the Chucky franchise.

You can win up to 30 trash bucks based on your best score of 3 attempts.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5

Finally, a sequel to a Christmas movie that actually has something to do with Christmas! Of course, it still has nothing to do with the story that started it all, but after the last few, it's a breath of fresh air. As the title suggests, this one is about... killer toys!

A boy is gifted an early Christmas present that he's not supposed to open till Christmas, but he's stupid and tries anyway. Before he can rip all the paper off, his irritable dad sends him to bed, checks it for himself, and you can take a guess what happens next. Suffice to say, the boy is traumatized, so mom looks for something to help him cope... another toy. Hence we're introduced to the toy-maker, played by Mickey Rooney. He seems like a reasonable old man at some points, but flies off the handle when prankster son pisses him off. It ends up being pretty amusing either way.

Throughout the movie, someone is sending out evil toys that only have a slight rhyme and reason to do what they do, but instead of being a complete waste of time like the last few sequels, the end of the movie actually turns out to be an entertaining showtime with a giant "toy". This is a Pinocchio story from hell. If the movie bored you up to this point, it'll turn that around with this bizarre climax.


Still under Brian Yuzna's production, the effects are quite good. This entry was written and directed by Martin Kitrosser, who we all know as a co-writer of Friday the 13th 3 and 5, which IMO are highlights of that series.

Fun Facts:

Neith Hunter, Conan Yuzna, and Clint Howard all appeared in the previous entry and return to play characters with the same name, though are clearly different characters. WTF? This means that all five movies have a character named Ricky in them, and if they're not a recast of a previous Ricky, then they're a different Ricky all together. To hell with continuity!

Here's the best part: Mickey Rooney was a strong protester of the original 1984 film, writing letters to condemn it. But here he is, starring in the fifth one!

#Review

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4

If you thought the last movie was bad, wait until you get a load of this movie. It has almost NOTHING to do with Christmas except a few vague scenes that can easily be removed with no consequence to the overall "plot". What gives?

Our story follows a reporter who follows the story of a woman who "spontaneously combusts" and falls off a roof. Okay? Then she's stalked by Clint Howard's ugly ass, then she meets a few older women who happen to be cultists, she has many a run-in with bugs, and fuck if I know what happens after that. As the subtitle of the film suggests, they're trying to initiate her for some lousy reason I can't follow, and eventually... thank God... the movie ends.

This is a Brian Yuzna flick, so it's heavy on the special effects, but completely barren on any other merit. Yeah, Reggie Bannister is in there, but he's wasted in a minimal role. I'm just flabbergasted that they decided to make this irrelevant story part of the SNDN franchise at all. They probably figured the last one was bad enough, might as well take another shit on the series. This movie is crap.

#Review

Shot-On-Shiteo: A New Low



You may think you know. I thought I knew, but I was mistaken. I didn't really know. But I do, now. For the first time in my life, I know what bottom of the barrel cinema truly looks like. And now, you get to know because I'm going to tell you. I have to because I really need to talk about this one. For years, I've been under the impression that maybe a Blood Lake or a Splatter Farm might be it. Those aren't it. Oh, I've found IT, alright! It's on Youtube, and it is simply incredible. I'm not sure why I thought this was a throwback. Actually, I thought what I was watching was the world's most authentic-looking 80's SOV throwback. I mean, I've never seen anything from that era be so intentionally bad. However, after some digging, I have discovered that this is indeed genuine 80's SOV. A lost one with no IMDb page, and not one word about it to be found anywhere. That alone makes this discovery an intriguing one. But then, there's everything else. Oh, you're never going to believe this!

My first viewing of Trashcans of Terror was more confusing than anything. I sat there with my mouth wide open for the entire duration, pondering what I was watching. Actual Movie or just some video some guy whipped up and stuck on Youtube? I mean, anyone can put credits on a home movie, but that doesn't exactly make it a movie. Is this a movie? Is this an attempt at making money, or is this just an attempt at having some fun? I couldn't tell. I've seen so many piss poor movies, there's no telling where this Chuck Handy guy was coming from. Well, I can at least try to make some sense out of the story.

So, for my next couple viewings, I made it a point to pay closer attention just to get this whole thing as straight as possible. Director, Chuck Handy, plays Percy "Spider" Liebowitz. A drifter and Kipp Dynamite lookalike, who is running from the past and himself, as he puts it. Percy, I mean Spider, comes across a woman named Cathy, who he finds standing out in the middle of nowhere, for a reason unknown to her. This scene was obviously a retake, as we could spot a second of the original before it gets taped over. Spider claims to be a fan of the confused young woman, who, as it turns out, is a famous powerlifter. And while I wouldn't say the actress looks to be out of shape, it doesn't appear she's lifted a weight in her life. As Cathy repeatedly tries to fall into Spider's arms, as if she feels light headed, it merely looks like she keeps hugging him. I really don't know what to make of this scene, but I think aliens were involved.

Cathy wants a protein shake, so, her and Spider take it to "the bar", which appears to be someone's kitchen. Spider and Cathy chat about how she used to be 300 pounds, until they're interrupted by some guy who offers Cathy money for sex. Another character is attempted to be edited into the scene, but only serves as more confusion. Spider gets mouthy with Cathy's potential customer and gets decked for it. We then cut to, you guessed it! The worst fight ever! Spider takes on several random people while we hear sound effects that sound like an old west saloon fight. Or maybe that's just me. I'm not exactly sure what I was hearing. After what seems like a good half hour of careful pretend-brawling, a silver-skinned Cathy reappears, pissed off about that guy not having enough money in his bank account. So, she breaks him. I thought she was kidding, but I guess she was really going to fuck that guy.

The now devastated Cathy flees to an old, abandoned house (someone's garage) to hide, but Spider soon catches up, wanting answers. It seems like we miss the first few seconds of this conversation, but Cathy speaks of some unwanted powers she now has, which seems to be connected to whatever was going on before he found her. Aliens, I guess. Spider asks her if she can stop being silver, and she does. So, I'm not sure what the problem is.

Well, that's not entirely true. Clearly, trashcans are the problem. It doesn't actually happen on screen, but Cathy is abducted by a bunch of trashcans. Spider is torn. Skip town and continue his carefree life as a homeless person, or be a jerk and go rescue the sometimes silver-skinned power lifter. Spider decides to give it a shot, but is only confident enough to do so with old Vietnam frienemy, Velasquez, by his side. A guy who just happens to be living near by. Velasquez seems reasonable enough, and agrees to help out.

We then cut to a fight in someone's backyard, where trashcans are being thrown at Spider and Velasquez by unseen friends of Chuck Handy. The two hardasses know this is a fight to the death, and fight as such. So, basically, the next five minutes consists of two grown men punching, kicking, throwing and shooting trashcans. Part of it, we get to see twice. The camera sure man thinks it's funny. We later discover that Cathy was abducted by Queen Masuka, who seems to be in charge of the trashcans, whose days are seemingly numbered. Spider and Velasquez make plans to shoot them all, or at least tip them over, so Spider can be reunited with his lady friend, who he is now in love with. Yeah. Something about aliens...

Once I collected my thoughts, I came to the conclusion that I am totally a fan of this movie, as incoherent and horribly-edited as it might be. Underneath a smothering amount of schlock lies an endearing and cheerful tone, provided by the fearless rough neck, Percy "Spider" Liebowitz and the cute, curly-haired, silver chick, Cathy, played by an "actress" who seemed genuinely happy to be there. The movie itself gives off positive, fun-loving vibes of which could only be due to a true love of filmmaking. And the mind blowing level of ineptitude is the icing.

I can't say this is the worst movie I've seen. I mean, to acquire that honor, it's got to be boring. Regardless of how you may feel about these types of movies, nobody can accuse Mr. Chuck Handy of making a boring movie. The most amateur thing in existence? Good Christ, hopefully! However, it's not always easy to tell what is intentionally bad qualities and what is merely a lack of filmmaking/editing know-how. I think I'd prefer not knowing, because I've recently discovered one of the last great mysteries of Z-grade cinema. A lost gem which slipped through the cracks long ago, but is now available on Youtube for all to witness, courtesy of what could be the last copy in existence, according to Chuck Handy, who I spoke with upon writing this review. Trashcans Of Terror needs to be seen in all of its jaw-dropping glory. SOV fans need to be wised up. Whatever you think is the one, ain't it. It's this one. This is the one you've been looking for! 3/10

Experience Trashcans Of Terror...





#Review

Christmas Mini-Challenge Reminder

Sure, we got a https://trashepics.com/post/88/186/ Found Footage Challenge going right now, but I love the Christmas challenge. It's pretty easy too because there aren't genre requirements. Any Christmas movie or show counts, scored by runtime. I'll probably add a few other gimmicky ways to get points.

This is NOT the progress thread. I'll post that later. This is a memo thread. The challenge will run from Sunday the 12th to Saturday the 25th, making for a 2 week challenge and not overshadowing the current challenge. So save your Christmas viewings for then.

Silent Night, Deadly Night III

Part 2 gets all the hate, but at least it's entertaining. This movie sucks, and it's really boring too. The only copy you can get is full screen, which means it's bordering on the 90s era where nobody cared about the movie enough to preserve it right and give it a proper release.

We start out in a white hospital room where Richard Beymer is using our blind^bland female protagonist's psychic powers to jump start comatose Ricky's brain. Yeah, we're jumping the shark a bit with this one, and Ricky is recast with Bill Moseley, who wears a dome over his head to expose his brain. Eventually, he wakes up, follows the girl over to grandma's house, and tries to... I don't know... kill her, probably?

He's basically a shambling zombie in the movie, and he doesn't even wear a Santa costume. One thing that's particularly stupid is that they once again use several flashbacks to the first film, including flashbacks that baby Ricky shouldn't remember. Just like in part 2.

This movie is pretty dreadful. It has no personality and begs the question of why they kept making these movies if they weren't going to put forth any effort. There's barely any Christmas relevance here. No snow, few decorations, and boring kills. I give this movie two out of five lumps of coal.

#Review

Top 10 favorite Horror Movies 

With October winding down, seems like a good time for an otherwise generic topic.

10. Friday The 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
9. The Body Snatcher (1945)
8. Dead Alive (1992)
7. Psycho II (1983)
6. Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made (2018)
5. The Bad Seed (1956)
4. Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer (1986)
3. Martyrs (2008)
2. Messiah Of Evil (1973)
1. Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Stop being such a twat and tell us yours. Yes, in order.

Psycho Quiz

Yes kids, it's time for another quiz. See how well you know the Psycho franchise with this 30 question trivia quiz. This covers the movies, the failed tv pilot in the 80s, and the recent tv series.

Remember, you are allowed 3 attempts to get your best score, and the higher your score is, the more pointless trash money you'll receive, so don't settle on a shitty attempt.

Notes from the Turkeyground: 12 Turkeys

For the twelfth year, I present my survey of new turkeylands explored during November. Most years, I've found the first movie watched is an omen of things to come. If we're fortunate enough to watch a good one, especially if it's unexpectedly good, it's going to be a fun challenge. If we start with something awful, well, hard to get the sand out of the vaseline. This year, we started with 4/20 Massacre, a movie about a bunch of college girls who go out to the woods to talk about feminism and queer issues. Unfortunately for them, there's a secret crop of weed in that forest and a ninja-suited murdered who will protect it to the death! It's bad. It's shot bad. The dialogue is awful. Worst of all, it's not funny. A movie called '4/20 Massacre' needs to be funny. They also lied and said the OKC bombing happened on 4/20. In fact, that's the day they caught Timothy McVeigh. The bombing happened on 4/19.

But y'know what? Maybe my old Turkey's Almanac prognostication doesn't hold up. We has some fun ones next. The Craft: Legacy is a goofy but fun continuation of The Craft story. Also, the second movie in the row that's obsessed with feminism and queer issues. It's like a bunch of low-budget screenwriters found a Master Class on youtube that instructed them to be more woke. There were no feminist, queer, nor issues of any kind in Zombie Tidal Wave, Ferrante's follow-up to the Sharknado series. The brain goes off for this one. It plays exactly like a Sharknado movie, but with fewer cameos.

Where most years we cherry-pick our movies for points, this year we went through our Turkeys DVR folder and just watched whatever. We were at like 70% harddrive capacity. So a slew of forgettable movies, like another version of Turn of the Screw with Finn Wolfhard, a zombie movie whose big headliner star is Michael Dudikoff (they couldn't even get Eric Roberts?!), and ugh... Aquaslash. Aquaslash, which should've been a cringe-inducing gorefest about razorblades all over a waterpark is actually 70 minutes of insipid drama leading to a single, 5-6 minute gore scene. That's it. We followed with The Gallows: Act II. We thought we'd be playing it safe with a Blumhouse movie. I hated The Gallows. The sequel is a pretty good mix of supernatural cat-and-mouse.

Speaking of playing it safe, what's safer than Larry muthafuckin Cohen? One of my favorite filmmakers. We had never seen Wicked Stepmother. It had Bette Davis. How could it be bad? Well, it isn't. If you enjoy Larry Cohen at all. If you don't, you might not 'get it.' But we all get Larry here, right? Fun story about this movie is Bette Davis did NOT get Larry. She didn't know what he was doing or why he was doing it. So she, uh, just left. She went to get some dental work done and never came back to the set. So Larry has her change into some broad with huge bazooms about halfway through. The Bette Davis scenes are still great, because she's Bette being Bette. But the topless scenes work much better with Busty McGee.

Let's see... I'm not going to cover every movie. So I'll skip over the bigfoot rape movie (Primal Rage), the Hostel knockoff (Anarchy Parlor), yet another awful 'musical prodigy pushed too hard' thriller (Ambition), and skip right to one of the few trifectas we did do this year: the great Barbara Crampton. She disappeared for a while, but now she's back and doing b-movies. Sacrifice (2020) is about a couple that return to the husband's childhood home of some-Norweigian-island, where they have strange customs and argue with you about whether calamari counts as seafood. Barbara shows up as the island's sheriff. And yes, she does a Norweigian accent. "My hoos-bawnd." Most of the movie's 'good' moments are dream-sequences. It's strange, has its moments, tries too hard to be intellectual. Dead Night, our next Babs movie, is even stranger. Veering back and forth from bizarre zombie-like murders in a family's wilderness cabin and an Investigation Discovery show profiling the murders after the fact, you'd think there aren't my surprises. But there are. Crampton plays a candidate for governor whose campaign strategy involves playing dead in the snow and sacrificing people to a rock. Finally, Day of Reckoning, about hordes of creatures that emerge from beneath the Earth's crust thanks to drilling operations. They kill millions of people, then disappear for 15 years. But... they're coming back! Why did we just leave the drill site open for 15 years, you ask? 'cause those bad CG monsters have to come outta somewheres!! Crampton is a survivalist nut's wife here, a pretty bland role for her usual tastes.

We had enough new movies, so we decided, hwo about some old-timey turkeys? Kiss of the Tarantula, about a girl who murders with her league of spiders was first. An odd, incestuous '70s movie. Kind of a snooze-fest. If you manage to stay awake for that, though, ohhh boy, because Death Curse of Tartu was next. A movie that simulates the feeling if being dragged through the everglades. Now I know Death Curse of Tartu is an influential and favorite of '60s regional cinema. Especially if you're from Florida. It's really, really boring. It does have some zen charm, though. Scalps, Fred Olen Ray's tribute to Death Curse, was much more enjoyable for me. And Rattlers, a killer snake movie where no actor ever has contact with a snake. I've never seen people so menaced by stock footage. And just as the movie is hurtling toward the climax, the main guy and girl go to Vegas and have a long date night montage! It's like they saw a Ray Dennis Steckler movie and thought, "Yes, this is how you make a film!"


The best movies of the challenge came toward the end. Killer High, a fun and witty SyFy movie about a boar monster loose in a shitty high school reunion. Lots of good one-liners, kills, and silliness. I Am Lisa, an underrated werewolf movie about an outcast bullied by the local corrupt sheriff and her family. They leave her for dead. Too bad for them, she done gone werewolf. Letters to Satan Claus, another SyFy movie that paraodies Hallmark Christmas movies. A girl returns to her small hometown of Ornaments, where everyone is obsessed with Christmas. And she notices, there's a lot of dick in town worth riding. Damn Satan gets in the way, though, and starts killing all her best lays. Will she learn the meaning of Christmas so she can finally get boned? It's crude, 'subversive', and has a lot of fun doing it. My favorite of the challenge, though, is the latest Black Christmas remake. Everybody hated this movie. Why? It's full of over-the-top woke dialogue, obvious alpha male villains, the absurdist evil cult I've seen in a while, and Imogen Poots looking stoned out of her mind the entire movie. It's amazing. Lastly, Black Friday, Bruce Campbell's new movie about Black Friday shoppers gone mad... with alien goo! Competent b-movie with good humor.

Worst movie of the challenge? That has to go to Verotika. The main actress is a whole lot of eye candy. There are some really cool costumes and ideas. I guess that's why it annoyed me the most. All of the incompetence that ruined what could've been great. For one, he has no idea when to cut. A scene with two cops talking took like 3 minutes. The last minute was watching them just stand there. Is it a tribute to Jean-Luc Godard that I'm missing? I mean, the whole movie is set in France, where everyone speaks not in French but in atrocious French accents. So maybe it is. Except Godard didn't do that shit, Antonioni did! It should've been set in Rome. Anyway, the accents are bad. The audio echoes randomly, because it was recorded in a high school gymnasium apparently. And nobody can act. Not even eyes for nipples could save this movie.

All-in-all, it was a good challenge. We took it light this year, but what we lacked in quantity we made up for in quality. I want to leave you all with a heart-warming turkey story before I go. When I was about 11 years old, living in a small fishing village on the east coast of Quebec, a new video rental store opened in town. Super VideoTeck [sic]. They had all kinds of horror movies the mom-n-pop place didn't. So for a sleepover, my friend and I rented one. We picked Hobgoblins. We thought, hey, this'll just be Ghoulies 2 with fewer toilets. Instead, it was an epic of garden tool fights, old man fu, and cheesy jokes. We were young enough, we enjoyed it for what it was. I finally got to watch it again, 26 years later, and I enjoyed it. I know it gained a reputation as a terrible movie. But hey, it's a z-budget movie where the jokes as written actually land sometimes. That's rare. So I wrote Rick Sloane on facebook to let him know. He replied the next day to tell me he appreciated the message. I never imagined, when I was 11 and watching that incredible fight with the garden tools, that someday the director of that movie would write me. Aren't you glad you stayed for this story?

Until next year!