Thursday, March 20, 2008
Doing some follow up on our Price is Right Double Feature from back in December, Andy and I watched another movie where Vincent Price kills off a group of people one-by-one in very strange ways. This movie looks great, with a lot of flashy colors and weird, ornate sets. And it contains a lot of weird details, like the fact that Price is some sort of zombie-man can only speak through a microphone attached to a hole in his throat. And he has this weird wind-up jazz band that play songs for him. And he kills people in odd, animal-themed ways. There's also a nice sense of goofy dark humor, and Joseph Cotton plays a major role. Not a great horror movie, but an enjoyable strange one.
Showing posts with label The Price is Right. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Price is Right. Show all posts
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Theatre of Blood
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Part 2 of the Price is Right Double Feature (and 4th movie of the day) was a little picture called Theatre of Blood... and goddamn.
I said before that Madhouse was my favorite of the 2 Price movies, and that's true, as I think it was better shot and a more consistantly entertaining. But there's something about this Theatre of Blood. It's just so fucking nuts... I mean, completely coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. Let me explain.
This time, VP plays Edward Lionheart (good name), a Shakesperian theatre actor who is killing off all the critics who wrote bad reviews about him and humiliated him by not giving him an acting award that (he felt) he deserved. And he kills them in ways taken from (or more often loosely inspired by) Shakespeare plays. OK, so far it sounds pretty similar to Madhouse. Only this time, "the Veep" (as I call him) is straight fuckin' looney tunes; there's no mystery about who the killer is, it's him. We just follow him along on his murder spree, aided by his (get this) loyal band of muderous, hippie hobos. Also in tow is his sexy daughter, who disguises herself by wearing a fake beard and 'fro and pretends to be a man. She tends to help lure in the critics with some sort of ruse. I guess I can maybe accept that the critics couldn't tell she was a woman, but didn't, say, that one critic think it was at all odd that some hippie looking dude with a weird voice was hosting a wine tasting with a bunch of smelly homeless people dressed up in ill-fitting suits?
These critics kind of have it coming, is what I mean.
See, then what makes this flick even more bizzare is the fucked up ways they kill everybody. They don't just snuff them out, some of this shit is gross and protracted. They cut a pound of flesh off of one fellow, in a re-writing of The Merchant of Venice. Actually, they take off too much flesh, so Lionheart cuts off a piece and re-weighs it. (No word on if they put the extra flesh back). Another dude, Lionheart bakes his beloved pet poodles into a meat pie and force feeds it to him until he chokes to death.
Even worse is when Lionheart and Co. sneak into one guys house, dressed as surgeons, drug him and his sleeping wife, and then slowly cut the head off his still living body. And since Lionheart is an actor, he stays in character the whole time and pretends to be a surgeon, with an assistant that wipes his forehead and everything. His only audience being his buddies and, I guess, us. Oh and there's some really inappropriate, rather pretty music playing on the soundtrack, which makes the scene both funnier and more disturbing.
Then, each time he kills someone, he recites an appropriate quote from a Shakespeare play.
This movie has problems. The cinematography seemed a little bland, and the editing a little choppy at times. Some of this may be an issue with the DVD (the audio was also a little too quiet at times), but it still isn't always a well crafted movie. It's a little sloppy. Some of the humor (it's more of a dark comedy than anything else) is a little corny at times, too.
Damn, though. It's maybe not a well-made film always, but it's fascinating. It's just so oddball, veering from broad comedy, to really dark comedy, to full-on horror. It gets my thumbs up. You just don't see shit like this every day.
Part 2 of the Price is Right Double Feature (and 4th movie of the day) was a little picture called Theatre of Blood... and goddamn.
I said before that Madhouse was my favorite of the 2 Price movies, and that's true, as I think it was better shot and a more consistantly entertaining. But there's something about this Theatre of Blood. It's just so fucking nuts... I mean, completely coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. Let me explain.
This time, VP plays Edward Lionheart (good name), a Shakesperian theatre actor who is killing off all the critics who wrote bad reviews about him and humiliated him by not giving him an acting award that (he felt) he deserved. And he kills them in ways taken from (or more often loosely inspired by) Shakespeare plays. OK, so far it sounds pretty similar to Madhouse. Only this time, "the Veep" (as I call him) is straight fuckin' looney tunes; there's no mystery about who the killer is, it's him. We just follow him along on his murder spree, aided by his (get this) loyal band of muderous, hippie hobos. Also in tow is his sexy daughter, who disguises herself by wearing a fake beard and 'fro and pretends to be a man. She tends to help lure in the critics with some sort of ruse. I guess I can maybe accept that the critics couldn't tell she was a woman, but didn't, say, that one critic think it was at all odd that some hippie looking dude with a weird voice was hosting a wine tasting with a bunch of smelly homeless people dressed up in ill-fitting suits?
These critics kind of have it coming, is what I mean.
See, then what makes this flick even more bizzare is the fucked up ways they kill everybody. They don't just snuff them out, some of this shit is gross and protracted. They cut a pound of flesh off of one fellow, in a re-writing of The Merchant of Venice. Actually, they take off too much flesh, so Lionheart cuts off a piece and re-weighs it. (No word on if they put the extra flesh back). Another dude, Lionheart bakes his beloved pet poodles into a meat pie and force feeds it to him until he chokes to death.
Even worse is when Lionheart and Co. sneak into one guys house, dressed as surgeons, drug him and his sleeping wife, and then slowly cut the head off his still living body. And since Lionheart is an actor, he stays in character the whole time and pretends to be a surgeon, with an assistant that wipes his forehead and everything. His only audience being his buddies and, I guess, us. Oh and there's some really inappropriate, rather pretty music playing on the soundtrack, which makes the scene both funnier and more disturbing.
Then, each time he kills someone, he recites an appropriate quote from a Shakespeare play.
This movie has problems. The cinematography seemed a little bland, and the editing a little choppy at times. Some of this may be an issue with the DVD (the audio was also a little too quiet at times), but it still isn't always a well crafted movie. It's a little sloppy. Some of the humor (it's more of a dark comedy than anything else) is a little corny at times, too.
Damn, though. It's maybe not a well-made film always, but it's fascinating. It's just so oddball, veering from broad comedy, to really dark comedy, to full-on horror. It gets my thumbs up. You just don't see shit like this every day.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Madhouse
Sunday, December 30, 2007
The next step in our adventure was what we called The Price is Right Double Feature. It was back-to-back Vincent Price movies, both with a similar plot. (Or so we assumed).
Madhouse was my favorite of the two. In it, Price plays... well, sort of himself. He's an aging horror movie actor attempting to make a comeback. Only, in a twist that I assume is not based on his real life, people on the set of his new movie keep getting killed by a mysterious masked madman. And the killer is killing them in the exact same ways that characters were killed by him in his old movies. Could Price be the killer? Or is someone setting him up?
This is a pretty entertaining horror/mystery type flick, good-looking, with a typically enjoyable performance by Price. It's not a particularly graphic film, but it was more violent than I was expecting. (That's a pleasant surprise). Also, as an added bonus, Peter Cushing is along for the ride, too. And they make good use of actual clips from some of Price's older movies.
It also had a really weird ending that I'm not sure I understood. I was scratching my head a bit. But in a good way, if you feel me.
The next step in our adventure was what we called The Price is Right Double Feature. It was back-to-back Vincent Price movies, both with a similar plot. (Or so we assumed).
Madhouse was my favorite of the two. In it, Price plays... well, sort of himself. He's an aging horror movie actor attempting to make a comeback. Only, in a twist that I assume is not based on his real life, people on the set of his new movie keep getting killed by a mysterious masked madman. And the killer is killing them in the exact same ways that characters were killed by him in his old movies. Could Price be the killer? Or is someone setting him up?
This is a pretty entertaining horror/mystery type flick, good-looking, with a typically enjoyable performance by Price. It's not a particularly graphic film, but it was more violent than I was expecting. (That's a pleasant surprise). Also, as an added bonus, Peter Cushing is along for the ride, too. And they make good use of actual clips from some of Price's older movies.
It also had a really weird ending that I'm not sure I understood. I was scratching my head a bit. But in a good way, if you feel me.
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