Tag: cult film

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Visual White Noise Theater: Show me the way to “After Blue Dirty Paradise” (2021)

A friend sent me a trailer to a movie. I am very skeptical about “newer” movies, so friends and family knowing my weird tastes will send me stuff, I mostly stick with the older stuff and the more unusual and interesting, better, but it just can’t be weird for weird’s sake. Sometimes I’ll watch a trailer and say “Fuck yeah! This proves good newer movies are out there.” Then I watch the film and I am let down, either its too artsy fartsy, its way up its own ass, its boring and/or stupid. I am very picky when it comes to what movies I like and sadly more modern movies have more hoops to jump through for me, and the biggest hoop is “too much CGI”. I do review more modern movies on this site just because I want to shine a light on films that show that the craft of film making isn’t dead. And one of those movies is “After Blue, Dirty Paradise”.

A French film directed by Bertrand Mandico who directed “Wild Boys” which I haven’t seen. This was another movie whose trailer hit me right on the chin, it screamed “1980’s neon Jodorowsky” and of course I didn’t find out until later that “After Blue Dirty Paradise” wasn’t gonna come out to the public until 2022 and that it was playing festivals only. I was pretty pissed off and “Nightstream” came to the rescue just like they had with “Mad God”. Boy oh boy talk about a mind fuck, without giving too much away I wasn’t too far of with my description, this has got “old school” written all over it with barely to no CGI at all, strange lighting, and “Legend” like Tangerine Dream music. Bertrand created his own self contained and world.

“After Blue Dirty Paradise” is a acid freaked, sci fi Western. At first this reminded me a lot of The Muse’s music video “Knights of Cydonia”. The movie takes place on the planet, After Blue, humans are escaping a destroyed earth and they find a planet that can sustain life. The atmosphere acts funny on humans, it makes them grow hair in places they normally don’t (no not there you perv), on women its mainly the neck but in men it makes the hair grow inside and ends up killing all the males, so all births are achieved with insemination. After Blue is a planet populated by women only, there is a very limited use of technology since the populace of After Blue blame technology for the destruction of earth, mainly they still have guns and rifles to hunt and kill each other with.

A teenage girl, played by the pixie, waifish Paula Luna whose nickname is “Toxic” and whose real name is Roxy, is on a beach playing with her friends when she encounters a woman buried up to her chin in sand. The other girls berate and make fun of her, even piss on her. The woman begs Toxic to let her go, Toxic digs her out and she comes out nude with one hairy hand and a rifle, she guns down the other girls. Toxic is hypnotized by the woman and aroused, then the woman runs away. What Toxic didn’t know was that this woman was Kate Bush, a notorious criminal and murderer, the rest of the women in their village make Toxic and her hair dresser mother, Zora, played by Elina Lowensohn who is in the awesome “Let the Corpses Tan” go out to find and kill Kate Bush for the crime of Toxic digging her up. After this a series of strange and surreal events happen, the wandering women looking to kill a fugitive, is a very old Western movie theme. This movie visually and story wise keeps it interesting, this was another movie I wasn’t disappointed in after seeing the trailer. Vinegar Syndrome in partnership with Altered Innocence has released “After Blue” on Blu Ray, link below (I did). At first I thought this movie was going to be preachy and I was hoping I wouldn’t roll my eyes and I didn’t. The message was put across with grace and smarts and if you want me to listen to you even though I might disagree with you, making your point in a interesting and creative way will open my ears. “After Blue Dirty Paradise” has different influences stamped all over it and but their put together so well it becomes its own thing.  One other thing, ZZ Top’s song “Planet of Woman” kept running through my head when I was watching this movie, they must’ve been looking into the future.

 

Here is the trailer for “After Blue Dirty Paradise”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0-HiNH6YXc

An interview with Bertrand Mandico, the director: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY3xK2CgrhI

You can get “After Blue” on Blu Ray right here: https://vinegarsyndrome.com/products/after-blue-altered-innocence?_pos=2&_psq=After&_ss=e&_v=1.0

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Visual White Noise Theater: Welcome to “The Beast Pageant” 2010

Watching ” The Beast Pageant” I was confused, not because of the crazy imagery or semi non-linear story line, I was confused because this is that type of “tightrope walk” movie, on one side of the thin rope is pretentious, up its ass horse shit and on the other side is spell binding brilliance, this movie didn’t fall onto either side and made it across alright. “The Beast Pageant” was directed by Albert Birney and John Moses and its a fucking trip to be sure.

There is two parts to this film, and I know what “The Beast Pageant” is going for in the first part, Abraham, played by co director/writer John Moses, lives in a German Expressionist style apartment with various machines hooked throughout his apartment, one calls him and sings to him when he picks up the phone and one is a TV apparatus that has a bearded man in it that shows Abraham weird commercials and asks him to talk through the speaker horn if he wants the item advertised in the commercial, Abraham goes to a dead end job in a factory where he pushes slots that spit out synthetic fish. The whole first part smacks heavily of “Eraserhead”, the whole movie is filmed in black and white and has a dream like logic to it. The visuals in this movie are stunning, weird and unusual. The whole “Eraserhead” thing also comes from the dirty, industrial background. Abraham starts to grow a tentacle out of his rib and goes to a doctor to have it removed, the removal isn’t successful. The first part of the film is so blatant in its message, normally when somebody tries to hit me directly on the head with something it pisses me off and turns me off but the hammering is done in an intelligent way, the first part seems to be lampooning consumerism and a 9 to 5 existence. Not to mention how machines will try to give comfort and love but its artificial and plastic.

The second half, Abraham tears out of his house into the countryside, a stark contrast, the tentacle becomes a miniature singing cowboy copy of him complete with acoustic guitar. Among the things he encounters are a small house with a nude couple in it, bush people, water people, dirt people, animal people, a motel in the middle of the forest with a couple that needs a baby sitter and the list goes on and on. The second half seems to say that nature is better than an urban setting and the second half has musical numbers of the indie folk pop type. More weird stuff happens and again I don’t want to spoil too much you’ll have to go watch it yourself.

The movie got its money in part from a Kickstarter campaign and took three years to make. Sure some of this movie made me roll my eyes, some of it is art house pretentious but overall I liked its crazy energy and wasn’t bored. So I say join the “The Beast Pageant”. Albert Birney’s new movie, “Strawberry Mansion”, screened at Fantasia Film Festival, its about a “dream auditor” who gets caught in an old lady’s dream world, hope its as interesting as “The Beast Pageant”.

Become a “Beast” here: https://vimeo.com/groups/awardeo/videos/108922277

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Visual White Noise Theater: LOL! Fucking “Skins” (2017)

At first I wasn’t gonna even review this movie, sure it is weird and different but “Skins” falls into the “pretentious horseshit” category for me, the artist so full up his/her ass that they can’t see the sunlight. However, sometimes pretentious horseshit can be entertaining and unintentionally hilarious, to me that was “Skins”.

In some ways I wonder if the director, was trying to play this straight or if this was actually a troll, cinema style. If it was a troll it was the best troll pulled on the Netflix/art house crowd who think their “tolerant” and “sophisticated”. Again this is a Spanish movie and maybe the sub titles were mistranslated but even the action on the screen is utterly ridiculous. When I was meant to feel empathy for a twisted, fuck pedophile who wants to sleep with an eleven year old girl who has no eyes, not blind, no eyes, and gives her pink diamonds for eyes while his wife is giving birth I was fucking disgusted, typical of Netflix who would put out a movie like “Cuties”. The scene and the way it was executed made me snicker, then laugh, a fat old madam who runs a cat house of deformed people telling the peder creep that he can’t help who is and its OK to screw kids and then the scene between the eyeless girl and the old man (they don’t show anything) made me bust a gut.

Then there is the guy who has a fetish for deformed women, his deformed girlfriend is fucking a burn victim behind his back, a girl who has a butt hole where her mouth is supposed to be and a mouth where her butt hole is supposed to be is raped by two gay looking guys rape in both, then there is a pregnant dwarf who plays a pink animorphic teddy bear on a kids show she wants to quit and her creepy manager is trying to talk her into having an abortion, then there is a kid who is the son of the pederast who thinks his legs aren’t part of him because he believes that he is a mermaid and his legs should be fins, its one pretentious cluster fuck of deformed, sad sap people who are all looking for sick, twisted love, normally I would dig something like this but all I could do was laugh. If it was trying to say “Love knows no boundaries”, that flew over my head. The kid with legs lays out in traffic and lets the girl with butt hole for a mouth run over his legs while she is speeding away in her car from the two gay looking dudes who are trying to rape her, the guys chasing her look like they would only want to rape other dudes. Now this might sound interesting, it is kind of, but its more funny than anything. Especially at the end, (I don’t care if I spoil it either I wasted my time watching this) where the guy who has a fetish for deformities keeps butt hole mouth girl from jumping off a bridge after getting raped by the two closet gay guys, the fetish guy kisses her and the dude tongues her hairy butt hole/mouth, I roared with laughter and the kid who wants to be a mermaind in the afterlife becomes a glittery, prancing mermaid with fish falling out of the sky. Now if this wasn’t fun and I didn’t get some enjoyment out of it I wouldn’t have even wasted space on it, in some ways I am wasting space and time on this movie. This is pretentious horseshit but it was funny and made me laugh but I won’t watch “Skins” again. If what I wrote above appeals to you have at it, go on Netflix or if your like me and your one of those “FUCK NETFLIX” guys go to a friend’s and watch it if you don’t want to give these cheerleader pederasts any of your money. Over all, fuck this film and if this isn’t a troll fuck the douchey, art hipster who made this bullshit, you made me laugh at least.

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Visual White Noise Theater: How about “Fried Barry” (2020) for dessert?!

That would be one weird tasting dessert, one you wouldn’t forget, I wouldn’t call it “sweet” or “bland” or “bitter” or “gross” its just all of that mixed together. Coming out of the post apocalyptic husk that is South Africa and directed by Ryan Kruger, the movie features Barry (played by future character actor Gary Green) a heroin addict who has a son and pissed off wife, he has no job to support his family and just wanders around looking for drugs until a UFO abducts him and takes over his body.

An alien takes over his body and he is put smack dab in the middle of Johannesburg, that is when things go completely bat shit insane and doesn’t let up. The alien in Barry does drugs, his neck stretches, he knocks up a prostitute who gives birth seconds later, he gets sucked off by some creep in a public bathroom and sprays him with black jizz, he gets kidnapped by a pedophile and gets in a chainsaw fight with the guy, he gets put in an insane asylum, escapes into a beckoning businessman’s car who shoots him up and feeds him pills and they drive through an atom explosion, a grown man sucks milk out of a woman’s nipple etc. I could go on and on.

“Fried Barry” is like if the 1979 Peter Seller’s movie “Being There” had done tons of hard drugs. The alien in Barry just seems to be stumbling around and gathering whatever earth like experiences it can but on the way Barry inadvertently helps people kind of like Dougie Cooper in “Twin Peaks the Return”, the movie does stumble near the end and it picks up again. Depending on your movie tastes you won’t like a nonsensical movie where the character travels from one vignette to another, this isn’t a hapless film by no means, there is a story tying all of this together but I don’t want to give away the whole story.

The director took his short film and stretched “Fried Barry” into a feature length film. From what I’ve heard the actor playing Barry, whose name is Gary Green, was a stuntman, he is very unusual looking which fits the part perfectly of a man who is taken over by an alien force. Not much is told about the aliens, when he is in the ship he sees a lot of weird ass shit, and your left wondering if the alien itself is a drug addict getting high off of the experiences through Barry, an intergalactic tweaker stuck in the body of an earthbound heroin addict.

To get “Fried” with “Barry” go here: https://www.amazon.com/Fried-Barry-Gary-Green/dp/B0948Q98JK

Or you can be a cheap bastard and not support cool art by finding the pirates by the bay. If you choose this option don’t be surprised if those same pirates make you walk the plank.

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Visual White Noise Theater: “Monster Heaven, Ghost Hero” says it all!!!

Don’t build a skyscraper that manufactures hologram equipment on a Samurai graveyard, take it from “Monster Heaven, Ghost Hero”.

Wow, surprise, another weird Japanese movie, nothing new there but of course the weirdness varies, sometimes its cultural misunderstandings or the dialogue isn’t translated properly for English speaking audiences. A Samurai graveyard is bulldozed and in its place is put a shiny skyscraper where they are trying to prefect making holograms you can feel. This pisses off the spirits of the dead. The company puts one of the weird grave markers from the bulldozed graveyard in their lobby under a glass case, because in a horror movie that isn’t asking for trouble.

An old man in a electric wheelchair shows up in the lobby looks at the grave stone and starts yelling about a curse, the receptionists scream and….We’re off and running. The crazy old man warning the youngin’s that if they go somewhere or do a certain something they’ll die, now the Japanese are using an American horror movie trope. Cut to a scene where a Japanese pop rock band is yelling into the camera as Satoshi, son of the guy who owns the big building has fallen asleep at his table and has a nightmare about having his throat cut. Satoshi doesn’t want the responsibility of running the company, so his father’s friend and co chair is running the company, Satoshi is overseeing the hologram program. His father’s friend is trying to talk him into taking over the company.

Then some douche in a white suit shows up and he is always using an electric shaver even though his face is smooth and clean shaven, he has two butch white women in suits that are his bodyguards, apparently he had worked for the company before and stole secrets, now he is back wanting his top level job back because he ripped off his other employer, at first Satoshi’s father’s friend will have nothing to do with the douche in the white suit but white suit is very pushy and consistent and seeks to take over the company from Satoshi. The pop rock band shows up and warns Satoshi and his lab aides that there is a curse over the building because it was built over a graveyard they say if the blood of a virgin touches the gravestone in the lobby underneath the glass case all hell will break loose.

And break loose it does, all over the place, the band morphs into Yokai spirits, the white suit guy tries to rape the secretary and throws her over the balcony, the white suit guy grabs the cursed katana and turns into a demonic Samurai that starts demolishing everything in its path, lightning flashes, virgin holograms clash (yep I didn’t mistype), hallways turn into forests etc. This thing breaks open, and maybe again this is a cultural difference but this movie “Monster Heaven, Ghost Hero” can’t make up its mind if its a kid’s movie or a weird movie for adults. Its trying to be everything to everybody, and for me it succeeds. This movie is “My Ghost Hero”.

So go here to get to “Monster Heaven” with sub titles: https://www.bitchute.com/video/CUozZoHL5ASo/

One more for the road, gif thieves!

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Visual White Noise Theater: “Highway to Hell” (1991) isn’t just the title of an AC/DC song.

Its a movie and a kick ass one at that I finally got around to watching this one.

“Highway to Hell” is a movie I always used to see in video rental stores and I’d say “One of these days, I am gonna rent that, its got Kristy Swanson who is so damn hot.” Yet I never did, now that most mom and pop video stores and Blockbuster have gone kaput I went looking for this one and I am pissed at myself I didn’t watch it sooner.

 

Directed by Ate De Jong, who directed one of the craziest, bat shit episodes of the awesome show “Miami Vice” an episode that involved aliens, UFO’s, James Brown and peanut butter, the episode was widely unpopular and panned out of existence. De Jong’s weird, Danish sensibilities didn’t translate too good to the television screen and people in Hollywood were hesitant to throw money at him. Finally somebody had the good sense to throw De Jong another chance along with a script by Brian Helgeland who claimed he got the idea from being pulled over on some side stretch road outside of Las Vegas with his wife, Brian said the cop was really patronizing and walked around their car threateningly, all over Brian driving a little over the speed limit. Brian wondered “Is this the cop from hell?” And a light went off in his head.

Charlie Sykes, played by Rob’s younger brother Chad and Rachel played by Kirsty Swanson go to elope in Las Vegas. Chad is afraid that his parents and Rachel’s parents might’ve called the police to stop them from getting married and in fear he takes a side road, he comes upon a lonely gas station run by a lonely old man named Sam played by character actor who plays old coots all the time, Richard Farnsworth. He tries to tell them not to go any further past the Joshua trees and especially not go to sleep past that point because they’ll get into trouble, he advises them to get back on the main road,  in other words, Farnsworth plays the typical stock character “crazy old man” that appears in a lot of these horror movies who warns people about doing something or going somewhere and when they do what they were told not to or go where they told not to,  they get killed. Chad in fear takes the side road, falls asleep and the cop from hell shows up, busts up their car and takes Rachel.

In anger and fear Charlie goes back and grills Sam who tells him that his girlfriend got taken by the Hell Cop, the Hell Cop kidnaps virgins to take back to the Devil’s bordello and if the cop gets to Hell City then it will be too late. Sam tells Charlie to take his old Pontiac and says the Pontiac has something special in it and he gives him special ammo to take down the Hell Cop, he tells Charlie that he needs to go back to the Joshua trees, drive really fast, close his eyes and believe, then he can get into hell, when drives really fast a real cop does chase him. Charlie does this and ends up in hell which is a desert and from there I don’t want to give up much more.

This movie is satire but it will keep you on the edge of your seat, you’ll get the Stiller family, Ben (if you don’t know who Ben Stiller is I don’t know what to tell you) who plays a retarded fry cook, Jerry (Jerry Stiller played George Constanza’s dad in the best sitcom of all time “Seinfeld”) who is a corrupt cop caught in eternity in this diner from hell where you never get a coffee refill or what you ordered, Anne (Ben’s mom and Jerry’s wife, a funny comedian in her own right) who plays the waitress that bores the mummified, corrupt cops with her stories, you get Lita Ford as a hooker who traps men into getting killed by a ice cream truck serial killer who wants to scoop brains out of their heads and Gilbert Gottfried as Hitler and Patrick Bergen as Satan. There is various character actors in this movie, the monster effects are pretty awesome, especially the stop motion three headed Cerebus guard hound. Over all this is a wild ride, this is a movie where you can shut off your brain and let the movie do the driving, don’t let it crash your car though. CJ Graham under heavy make up plays the Hell Cop, CJ played the Jason incarnation in “Friday the Thirteenth 6, Jason Lives!” There is more in this movie that I don’t want to give away. This movie is almost as good as the song “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC, I was kind of hoping that it would make an appearance in the movie and it didn’t because this movie was a medium budget movie, however, you get a slower rock ballad from the aforementioned Lita Ford. This movie was made in 1989 but was shelved due to the company Hemdale going bankrupt, it didn’t see release until 1991.

So visual white noise addicts to get on the Highway all you have to do is go here: https://www.amazon.com/Highway-Hell-Chad-Lowe/dp/B081D8Z3MK

For any of you that want an actual road to ride on go to: https://www.amazon.com/Highway-Hell-Blu-ray-Patrick-Bergin/dp/B018STFHKC/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=Highway+to+Hell&qid=1627583632&s=movies-tv&sr=1-5

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Visual White Noise Theater: Will “Jesus Show You the Way to the Highway”(2019)?

I never thought I’d see a movie shot in Ethiopia by a Spanish director, set somewhere in mid 21st century in a virtual world, the only thing is this movie was meant to look like it was shot in the mid 1980’s and is a prediction of what 2035 is gonna look like, so there is retro virtual reality machines and goggles, dial rotary phones, 1970’s furniture etc. In a word this movie is a mind fuck, you’ll want a cigarette after you watch this movie.

Where to start with a movie this insane? Well two CIA agents DT Gagano, played by a dwarf Ethiopian actor Daniel Tadesse and Palmer Eldritch played by Spanish actor Augustin Mateo, both contrast to each other in looks and personality, they are working in “Beta Ethiopia” which is the Ethiopia of the 2030’s as imagined by a sci fi film maker in the 1980’s. The Cold War is still on and the Soviet Union is trying to put a virus in the computer system called, what else? “Soviet Russia”. In this bizarre virtual reality everything is in stop motion and everybody wears the masks of famous actors, comedians and politicians. DT’s wife is a hot BBW blonde named Malin played by Gerda-Annette Allikas and she looks forward to him retiring as a secret agent so she can open a Kick Boxing studio. Your reading this saying WTF?! I did when I start watching this.

DT wants to start a pizza restaurant by the ocean but these dreams get derailed when he gets stuck in the virtual world and he needs to find a way to get out. In this stew you get a satire of 1960’s spy movies, including the incidental music, 1970’s and 1980’s action and kung fu films and B level sci fi. This movie is like a cross between  1980’s James Bond flicks and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s art movies not to mention the audio is badly synced to the lips on purpose. Seriously, this god damn movie is so insane it can’t be classified.

“Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway” is also philosophical, it doesn’t look like it on the surface but there is so many layers in this movie you’ll question whats reality, whats a dream, whats a fabricated reality etc. This movie is hilarious, some of the over the top absurd stuff will have you laughing until you are out of breath especially when one of the characters is watching TV and on it there is a man dressed like 1960’s Adam West Batman licking the feet of a man in a swimsuit, somebody yells at him “Stop watching that communist propaganda and get your ass over here!” Not only that, the president of Beta Ethiopia is dressed as 1960’s Batman and he wants to kick all drug dealers out of Beta Ethiopia. And believe it or not it gets crazier.

Most of the old computer technology that is seen in the movie was borrowed from the Estonian Computer Museum. “Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway” is a movie that hit me in the sweet spot, I literally stumbled across this movie by accident while searching for the movie “Highway to Hell” which I am gonna review next, I saw the poster and it looked like a grind house movie I’d never seen, and at first seeing the date it was made I was very skeptical, I dove headfirst into this roiling and boiling sea and I got the shit thrashed out of me. This is one newer movie I will repeat view and I am sure there is stuff I missed. There is so many Easter Eggs and little tid bits, the name alone should draw you in. I am sure a lot of religious folks searching for some religious movie about Jesus were confused when they watched this movie for the first time like I was, except in a different way, they’ll wonder what a fully clothed black midget is doing in a shower with a naked, statuesque, BBW blonde goddess and what any of this has to do with Jesus. The movie was partly funded by people on Kickstarter which is cool, Llanso’s first movie was the awesome post apocalyptic film “Crumbs” also starring the diminutive Daniel Tadesse, another one I will review later and you should watch and that one was made on a show string budget in Ethiopia and its just as weird.  “Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway” is one highway you don’t want to drive by.

To get the silver pizza pie Arrow has done a bang up job: https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/jesus-shows-you-the-way-to-the-highway-blu-ray/FCD2009

To get on the highway digitally go here: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Shows-You-Way-Highway/dp/B0893NT9V9

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Visual White Noise Theater: Your “Nothing But Trouble” (1991)

So taking the usual horror plot of city slickers getting lost in the sticks and being captured and tormented by inbred, mutant, red necks a la “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Hills Have Eyes”, “Deliverance etc. Writer/director Dan Aykroyd turns the usual horror plot on its head throwing in a huge dash of cartoonish absurdity, dark humor and incomprehensible insanity. This movie stink bombed theaters back in the day but you know me, I don’t give a shit what audiences thought or think about a piece of white noise, I leave that up to myself. Digging this piece of coal out of the ground I found a diamond and I am most definitely gonna look at this diamond more than once. “Nothing But Trouble”, that title made it easy for “sticks up their asses” critics to make fun of the movie. To me watching this was no trouble at all.

Chevy Chase plays Chris Thorne who decides to drive his neighbor, a lawyer Diane Lightson, played by a hotter than hell Demi Moore to visit one of her clients who is stealing money from her in Atlantic City. Chris’ clients, a Brazilian heir and heiress brother and sister, Fausto and Renalda Squiriniszu played by character actors Taylor Negro and Bertila Damas respectively tag along. On the way to Atlantic City, Fausto and Renalda want to stop off somewhere to have picnic which Chris doesn’t want to do, they hound him into pulling off somewhere with trees, they end up in the rural New Jersey turnpike town of Valkenvania and Chris drives past the speed limit unknowingly and he tries to out run the cop car that has jets on its back but has to give up when another cop, Miss Purdah, played by another character actor, Valri Bromfield, is on the road blocking it with her car and a sharp shooter rifle. They are ultimately taken in by Officer Dennis Valkenheiser played by the awesome John Candy and they are brought before a 106 year old judge, Alvin J.P. Valkenheiser, played by Dan Aykroyd, in disgusting make up, when he finds out Chris has something to do with finances Alvin hates bankers and investors he drops Chris and his crew through a holding cell to be tried the next day. They overhear another group of people who got speeding and they were also caught with drugs, the druggies are sentenced to go through the “Bonestripper” roller coaster where their stripped of their flesh. The group knows they need to get the hell out of there.

“Nothing But Trouble”s art design and sets are jaw dropping, a bizarre collection of junk, scrap metal, manikins, retro toys, retro magazines and other knick knacks give the feel of a junkyard carnival. In fact, I’d say the whole aesthetic of the movie is what gives it its extra punch. It is in no way scary, but it will have you on the edge of your seat and you will get laughs. This won’t have you peeing your pants in fear or make your teeth chatter, this is the type of harmless dark comedy that 1944’s “Arsenic and Old Lace” perfected so well. Its goofy and screwball brought to the early 1990’s with a dash of classic Warner Brother’s Cartoon humor.

Both John Candy and Dan Aykroyd do double duty playing different characters. Not only does John play Dennis, he also plays Dennis’ sister Eldona who wants to marry Chris and the Judge, in exchange for Chris’ life, insists on this. John Candy in drag equals hilarity. Dan not only plays the judge, he also plays his mutant inbred grandson, Bobo whose twin brother is Lil’ Debbull played by John Davieikis, Diane falls into their inept and childish clutches, these two characters wouldn’t be out of place in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, even the voices. The classic Hip Hop (not a fan but cool nonetheless) group Digital Underground make an appearance, complete with a young Tu Pac. Digital Underground gets pulled over for speeding but let go by the judge because he digs their music but he makes them stay to play the wedding music for Chris and Eldona’s forced wedding. This movie is early 1990’s to the fucking core.

This script came from an idea from Dan’s brother Peter who was pulled over for speeding in a podunk town in New Jersey, Peter felt like he was in a kangaroo court, got fined fifty bucks but was invited for tea by the Justice of the Peace after his trial, he was at the dude’s house for four hours! Not to mention Dan and Pete took their producer buddy Robert Weiss to a screening of “Hellraiser” to take his mind off of a rib injury he just had, they heard the audience laughing at the movie and got the idea that audiences wanted to be scared and laugh at the same time. Boom! “Nothing But Trouble” sprang into existence. The movie was originally titled “Valkenvania” but the studio changed it to a line in the movie “Nothing But Trouble”.  The movie went over five million plus bucks budget wise, but that didn’t help it any, it only grossed 8.4 million at the box office while the budget was 40 million over all, back in the day it croaked really hard.

The usual stick in the muds in the lamestream media savaged the shit out of it and it got Razzies. It didn’t help that Chevy Chase was a raging dick head on set berating the staff and fellow actors but what else is new? Apparently legendary fantasy/sci fi artist was commissioned to do the poster art but I’ve never seen it and I don’t think it was ever used. So should you give this movie a chance? I say HELL YES!!! On this blog I will only review noise both audio and visual I find interesting, makes me think, entertaining etc. I will never waste my time or yours on stuff that completely sucks. This movie is in that weird vein of comedy mined by “Beetlejuice”, “Cabin Boy”, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”, “Freaked” etc. back in the day. Go mine the hell out of it yourself.  

To mine it go here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/jmsBzByJHSSo/

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Visual White Noise Theater: Want to be “Censor”(2021)-ed?

Awwww, the Satanic Panic of the 1980’s, a time where behind every nook, cranny and corner of the world there was black robed Devil worshipers who would rape, impregnate you and than kill your baby for Old Scratch in front of you. On both sides of the pond this was a new witch hunt hysteria, but the US at least had a bit of a shield in the first amendment. While certain stores and rental places here in the US got raided, they were normally raided in rural areas and Bible Belt type cities, there was no national censors (though Tipper and her gals tried) to edit out sex and violence in movies on a nation wide level. In jolly ole’ Britain it was another story, in England, first amendment rights were and are very flimsy, this led in the early 1980’s to the “Video Nasty” crack down where films like “Cannibal Holocaust” and “Evil Dead” were censored or outright banned. People who had uncut videos or banned videos had their businesses and lives destroyed, over a fucking video. This the period that “Censor” takes place in and follows a school librarian marm type, Enid (played by Niahm Algar) as she puts the hammer down on gore, violence and sex in the movies to keep Britain safe from moral rot, however she has a dark past herself.

Directed by Prano Bailey-Bond off her short film, “Censor” blurs the line between reality and dark fantasy, a lot like “Bavarian Sound Machine” and  “Saint Maude”. Enid is playing with her sister, Nina and the sister disappears, she doesn’t remember what happened and her parents seem to blame her for her sister’s disappearance, while watching a movie “Don’t Go in the Church” by director Fredrick North she sees a woman who looks like a grown version of her sister, she goes to find out more about the director and the actress. Things get worse when Enid feels guilty for letting slip a movie where a man eats the face of his victim and in real life a man murders his family and eats the face of his wife, the media and public blame Enid which sends her further into a mental downward spiral. The movie is a bit slow as it builds but soon you realize that Enid’s reality is falling apart, this movie will confuse a lot of people and there is a lot of people out there who hated the ambiguous plot and ending, but those people don’t get it and I am not gonna spoil it for you.

Suffice it to say, while “Censor” on the surface deals with censorship and the free speech issues and all that it entails, it also goes deeper in how we censor our own memories and feelings to survive in reality. The human mind is very suspect when we remember things and memory is very faulty, we “edit” or “cut out” stuff distressing, traumatic or bad in our pasts. This movie deals with that and how when it is taken to an extreme degree it can be dangerous to the individual and the people who surround them.

There is parts where the violence and other situations are over the top and where you start to wonder where fantasy is bleeding over into reality, this is pretty much a character study of Enid. A woman who “censors” and puts in “new scenes” in her own memories. Sometimes it seems this movie agrees with the censorship, some of the scenes where the violence happens seem to be taken from the very “Video Nasties” Enid is censoring and they seem to be influencing her perception of reality, something the moral guardians here in America and Britain of the right and left were claiming about sexually explicit and violent content. Of course it was probably dark satire and parody of that point of view.

It also goes into “Videodrome” territory, something the director admits influenced her. If your one of these people who hates movies that make you think and don’t like clear cut endings than avoid this movie. You won’t have good time watching it, if you don’t mind putting on your thinking cap and experiencing something this movie is for you. I enjoyed it and I will never ever get sick of the 1980’s flash back movies, I read laments, bitches and criticisms of this trend, while some fuck it up badly some do good with it spectacularly, “Censor” is one of those movies.

Some of the color schemes in the movie, especially near the end are Bavaesque and show the wavering of reality in Enid’s damaged mind. I am not giving anything away but it will leave you wondering, did Enid kill her sister and mercifully forget? Did she see her sister die and mercifully forget? Did she tell her sister to “Don’t Go in the Church” and her sister did and something bad happened that she mercifully blanked out? Are her parents protecting her? Covering for her? Well watch it and make up your own mind, the clues are there and giving you my opinion would spoil it. So go watch it on Vudu, youtube, amazon prime etc. at a price, or you could find some pirates in the bay, just don’t tell them I sent you. 

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Visual White Noise Theater: Get a “Light Blast” in your face!!!

If you want to watch a movie that will melt your face and has face melting in it look no further than “Light Blast”. Erik Estrada, fresh off the set of “CHiPs” plays Ron Warren, a San Francisco police detective (wait, he doesn’t look like a “Ron Warren” sorry, I am pointing out the obvious don’t care if you are offended either) who goes after a mad scientist/professor Dr. Yuri Svoboda (played by Italian actor Enio Girolami) who has a laser weapon that can melt huge groups of people, the first people he uses it on are a teenage couple getting hot and heavy in a train yard, tight teen titties pop up and the professor melts them.

Directed by Enzo G. Castellari, who directed the original “Inglorious Bastards”, (Quentin Tarantino ripped off the title for his movie), and the post apocalyptic cinematic turd “1990: The Bronx Warriors” a rip off of “Escape from New York”. This movie was an Italian/American production, you’ll see a lot more Italian names in the credits than American ones. Unlike a lot of Italian productions, it looked like they actually had some money, instead of shooting their whole movie in a warehouse, office building or forest preserve, it looked like they actually got to shoot in Network news buildings, police stations and even on a freeway, they didn’t look like they shot in one limited location like most low budget flicks. However, at the Derby race when Erik goes to stop the mad scientist from melting the crowd the film makers use stock footage from “Herbie The Love Bug” and “Fireball 500” for the derby race which shows some cheapness in the production.

You can’t beat dialogue like this from Erik “Its maggots like you that make me like my job”. OHHHHHHH! OWNED! The mad professor black mails the mayor of San Francisco by telling him if he doesn’t get millions of dollars he is gonna start melting larger groups of people. What ensues is insanity, an action movie that goes off the rails and never gets back on them, you get car chases, car explosions, people melting, people shot in the face, multiple people on fire, corny porn like music more at home in the 1970’s than the 1980’s, titties and weird looking people. What more do you want in an action movie?!

Of course this being an Italian action movie about a mad scientist with a laser weapon you’ll have to suspend your disbelief or you won’t enjoy this movie. Your gonna have to shut off the rational part of your brain and bathe in the stupidity that is “Light Blast”. In one scene Erick chases one of the main villain’s henchmen who has a John Holmes like pornstache to a funeral home, in the funeral home is the mad scientist’s hot young wife working on putting make up on a corpse, she gets in a kung fu (more like “dumb fu”) fight with Erick, she kicks the ever living shit out of him, punching him in the face, kicking him in the nuts and face, Erick gets his gun and shoots her. After the fight he is at the police station, with no black eyes or bruises anywhere! Guy heals fast, not to mention after getting kicked in the balls repeatedly he still fights like nothing happened, now if your a man you know that is impossible, if somebody steals your family jewels you’ll be crying in pain if you get my drift and you won’t be able to fight.

“Ridiculous” is “Light Blast”s middle name. Its a movie I watch at least once every year, this is my kind of action movie, a movie written by a fourteen year old in his creative writing class in junior high. There is even a “junior high creative writing class moment” with the abrupt ending which I won’t give away. At the end I laugh and I clap. Some of Mr. Estrada’s best work and that isn’t saying a lot.

So do want to get “Light Blast”ed in the face? Go here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/3v75N0p9i0Cn/

This has never been released officially so guess what? Use a search engine to find sellers who make bootleg copies if you want a physical one that bad.