70s

Halloween Bloodbath

It seems like I haven’t really had enough horror films featured on Chopping Mall lately. Which is a shame: horror films are really what this blog is all about. Even the name comes from a horror film. Perhaps there’s no better time than Halloween to catch up on some splatters, slashers and spooks. So here is Chopping Mall’s extra special Halloween Bloodbath Horror Film review! Here we go….

Aerobicide

Now this was really quite something. It’s a while since I’ve watched anything that screamed 80s any louder than this. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything more 80s. This is a film set in an aerobics class, with pumping disco music throughout, enormous haircuts, occasional moustaches and lots of lycra. This could almost be a museum piece: look at what people wore in those days!

Once you get over the disco beat, though, this is pretty standard slasher fare. The film is set in and around Rhonda’s Gymnasium. Sadly, Rhonda’s place seems to be plagued by murders. A woman is stabbed in the shower. Things go bump in the night. Etc. We get the usual crew: a slightly creepy police man who could be capable of murder; a slightly creepy strapping-handsome-gym-beefcake who could be capable of murder; some ditsy ladies who clearly aren’t capable of very much apart from aerobic and squealing; Rhonda and a creepy lecherous idiot guy who we’re clearly supposed to suspect as the murderer but patently isn’t.

It’s not really very much fun.  The gore is disappointingly minimal - although the stabbing in the shower isn’t bad - the fight scenes are hilariously awful (complete with video-game-esque THWACK sounds), the acting isn’t much better and the plot is nothing if not predictable. But perhaps I’m being too hard on this one: it’s not without it’s charm.  I’d imagine that after a few beers, or just put on as background noise, this wouldn’t be so bad.

Bikini Girls on Ice

I saw this listed as one of those “so bad you will not believe your eyes” titles and …oh boy… it certainly was. BGoI is clearly one of the many victims of the “good name - crap film” syndrome that plagues modern B-movies (See Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus.  Or, rather, don’t).  But how could this be? How could you go wrong with a title like Bikini Girls on Ice? What kind of idiot would you have to be to screw that up.

Sadly, screw it up they did. BGoI - which is sadly not about ice-skating women - follows a handful of women who, whilst on their (apparently very long) way to a bikini-car-wash fundraiser, break down at an abandoned garage. Blah, blah, the usual business. There is, of course, some murderous psychopath lurking in said abandoned garage who picks off the stranded visitors one by one. At first they assume that the missing people have just wandered off but, once they’ve found some body parts, they realise they’re living through a nightmare. Blah blah blah.

Seriously. This was astonishingly dull. Not only did it have absolutely no sense of tension or surprise (you absolutely knew what was going to happen ages before it did) but they completely forgot to create a convincing explanation for why the killer was killing! It’s not even like I have high standards - the eventual motive in Aerobicide is rubbish - but I do expect at least a gesture at a decent motive.  That’s really what a slasher is all about: without an explanation of the killer’s motive, a slasher becomes just a string of pointless death scenes. To get away with that, you’d have to at least make those death scenes really spectacular. Sadly, these ones aren’t. 

Ultimately, Bikini Girls on Ice makes 80minutes feel like a very long time and gives little by way of entertainment.

Killdozer

Aaaand finally: here’s something to really get excited about. Killdozer, also blessed with a brilliant name, manages to live up to it.  I would call this a by-numbers killer-vehicle-terrorising-everyone flick, but I’m not sure there even is a by-numbers layout for this …er… niche genre.

There’s surprisingly little to say about it: conveniently cut-off from the rest of the world on an island in the middle of god-knows-where, a small team of basically unlikeable construction workers find themselves unexpectedly terrorised by one of their own bulldozers. Most of the film follows the machine picking them off one-by-one until they really begin to get it together and fight back.

It’s absolutely as silly as it sounds. What sets it apart from disappointing modern killer-object movies (like Rubber) is that they play it absolutely dead straight. There isn’t even a hint of smug, self-aware laughter here. They must have been sniggering on set but none of it carries into the film. If only more silly horror would take itself so seriously. Great fun.

Phew. All done. Let’s go and watch Beetle Juice now?

Super Bad, Super Cool and the Rise and Fall of the OST

I’ve just finished listening to a really rather wonderful BBC Radio 2 programme called Super Bad, Supe Cool about the phenomenon of the Blaxploitation film.

The hour long show was narrated by Pam Grier (star of Coffy, Foxy Brown and many a great film, described by Tarantino as being probably the first female action star). It delved into several aspects of the genre - from the controversial and much disputed title ‘blaxploitation’, it’s impact and significance for black actors and cinema-goers of 70s USA and the importance of the soundtrack in these films. Calling on a whole host of film and music luminaries from Isaac (RIP) Hayes (if you’re young, you probably know him best as South Park’s Chef) to Samuel L Jackson to Tarantino, Pam Griers examined the massive impact of cult-classic Shaft and it’s lasting influence on cinema.

I can’t add much to the show in terms of genre studies; you’d be much better seeking it out yourself. Sadly the 7 day listen-again feature on bbc iplayer has expired but it’s floating around the internet for anyone tech-savvy enough to find it.

Perhaps the most interesting element of the show in general cinema terms was the aspect of the soundtrack; Shaft is credited as having changed the way in which music and film were considered as complementary cultural works; many of the blaxploitation films were sold on little more than the fabulous soundtracks that accompanied them. Whilst the film score was an established form - see Mr Morricone for more details… - this was the first real example of the stand-alone pop song being created especially for cinema.

The soundtracks to these films were pop albums in their own right; someone interviewed on the show recalls the 12" records of the soundtrack being given away as promotional tools for the films and then later outstripping film sales.

Nowadays this is something of a lost art; in the digital age songs are made to be recognisable, to be sold as singles, and you are far more likely to find a film soundtrack cd that comprises of a series of hit singles by pop and rock bands, lifted from albums for the film, rather than recorded specifically for the film.

The film score still exists, by all means: just look at John Murphy’s excellent 28 Weeks Later score (and yes, though 28 days is the better film, it’s 28 weeks that has the more thorough soundtrack), but it would seem that the pop/rock one-artist Original Sound Track has been largely forgotten.

So let’s go repay a visit to the Shaft tune and remember better, funkier times:

Scream and Scream Again

Scream and Scream Again? Sigh. With a name so dull can we really expect anything much from this 1970 UK horror flick? I mean, Scream and Scream again? How prosaic.

What could it possibly offer us to whet our appetites? Oh, Vincent Price is in it, you say? [One eyebrow raises…] Now there’s something, Mr Price has a bit of a reputation as horror supremo of the 60s/70s… perhaps you could tell me more?

Peter Cushing? Well I’ll be damned; not one, but two of the best horror actors to hit the screen. [Second eyebrow raises] This almost sounds worth watching: to hell with the plot, it’s got Price and Cushing in it. So… a little more info?

Christopher Lee? [Damn, no more eyebrows to raise] Christopher Lee as well? What a trio! Now I really don’t care what the plot’s about. Who could? It hardly matters at all! But, you know, since we’re here, tell me something about the actual story…

Mad scientists? CraZed killers? Genetically created Frankenstein-a-like super-beings? Shady (Soviet-in-all-but-name) foreign powers? Vats of acid?

The ingredients of this film are so good as to be almost untrue. In fact, if I’m brutally honest, the ingredients are too good; the film simply can’t live up to its summary. Though (a lot of) fun, Scream And Scream Again is sadly less than the sum of its parts. It’s as if we have several films here at once; the foreign spy adventure is treading on the heels of the police-detective thriller which in turn keeps bumping into the mad-scientist sci-fi body horror. There’s just too many films happening at once here.

Perhaps if it were made nowadays it would’ve hit the two hour mark and made the story a bit more clear with an extra 30 mins. Or, then again, perhaps there was no clear story. The disappointing thing is that this film really does feel like it should make sense; we have several characters fleshed out in detail, we have wonderful ideas and we have a really fast paced story but… it’s just too fast for its own good. Whether it was always intended to be this way or was cut down for running-time’s sake I may never know; it certainly seems as if it’s just a little too savagely edited.

All this sounds like I didn’t enjoy it. I did enjoy it. I enjoyed it immensely. From start to finish there wasn’t a single dull moment (which puts it above nearly every other film on this blog…) and I loved it. I just didn’t necessarily understand it all very well..

Price, Lee and Cushing are all as reliably smashing as you could hope for, which it makes it all the more remarkable that Alfred Marks, as Superintendant Bellaver, completely steals the show. Grumpy, rude and oh-so-British, this is a fantastic performance and one that the film would be poorer without.

If you come to watch Scream and Scream Again with expectations as high as its ambitions you will be sorely disappointed; it’s ambitions are just far too high. If you come to watch it expecting middle of the the road 70s Brit horror you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Highly recommended and good fun; just make sure you pay attention or you’ll be far too confused.

Oh, and the whacky science towards the end is just great…