"Read If You Dare!": Weirdest Movie Taglines

The Tagline. Every movie has one. 

It's a big part of advertising a film and a good tagline can make you interested in seeing a film. 

There have been great taglines in film. Such as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly...

"For Three Men the Civil War Wasn't Hell. It was Practice"

Or Alien...

"In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream"

Here I've gathered up some odd movie taglines. Some are funny and some just flat out don't make sense. A lot of these seem unintentionally funny. Maybe the advertisers and film makers were going for that with some of these or maybe they just stopped caring. Who knows?

But either way, here they are...

  THE UNASHAMED (1938)

   "Actually Filmed in a Nudist Camp"

         ...................................................................................................

SUSPIRIA (1977)

     "The Only Thing More Terrifying Than The Last 12 Minutes Of This Film Are The First 92"

          ........................................................................................................

 SHATTER DEAD (1994)

                                                                    

  "GOD HATES YOU"

    ........................................................................................................

  MASSACRE AT CENTAL HIGH (1976)

    

"You Better Get Those Kids The Hell Out Of There!"

     .......................................................................................................

  A*P*E (1976)

  

   "Not To Be Confused With KING KONG"

        .....................................................................................................

HOUSE OF WAX (2005)

       

  "See Paris (Hilton) Die"

      ....................................................................................................

  THE BLACK SCORPION (1957)

  

  "Don't Be Ashamed to Scream...It Helps To Relieve The Tension"

          ...................................................................................................................................

     OUANGA a.k.a THE LOVE WANGA (1936)

 

 "Strange Loves Of Queer People"

     ...............................................................................................

THE FLESH EATERS (1964)

"The Only People Who Will Not Be STERILIZED With FEAR Are Those Amongst You Who Are Already DEAD!"

                     .............................................................................................................................................

   I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF (1957)

         

  "The Most Amazing Motion Picture Of Our Time"   .................................................................................................................

   THE BEAST THAT KILLED WOMEN (1965)

                                                     

  "Terror Stalks The Nudists!"

......................................................................................

BLOOD FREAK (1972)

                                                         

  "A Dracula On Drugs"

   ...........................................................................

 CORRUPTION (1968)

"CORRUPTION Is Not A Woman's Picture! Therefor: No Woman Will Be Admitted Alone To See This Super-Shock Film!!"

                       .......................................................................................................................................

  DRACULA'S DAUGHTER (1936)

  "She Gives You That Weird Feeling"

      ..............................................................................................

These are just a few of many. If you feel I missed any really good goofy taglines, let me know. I get a kick out of these and would love to see more!

Review: The WIld Angels

"Their Credo is Violence! Their God is Hate!"

With all due respect, this movie sounds a lot tougher than it really is. 

The Wild Angels is a 1966 biker film produced and directed by the notorious Roger Corman. Starring Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra, this film is about a motorcycle riding killer named Heavenly Blue (Fonda) who gathers up a crew of rough Nazi bikers (Some of which were real members of the Hell's Angels) to help him get a stolen chopper. After a conflict with the police, one of their crew is shot and killed. Then at his funeral, the motley gang gets wasted and turns the place into an all out biker party. 

I am a huge fan of and have nothing but respect or Roger Corman. He is the king of low budget cinema. He once said he could make a film about the fall of the Roman Empire with two extras and a sage bush. He has done great things for and inspired many film makers for decades now.

I did however, find The Wild Angels to be very slow and somewhat anti-climactic. It has great style and feel. And the cinematography on some parts is actually brilliant. It's very entertaining on a cinematic level. Roger Corman knows how to make a movie with almost no budget and still pull it off. On the other hand, the overall story lacks kick and plot. 

This film presents itself as an action packed violent ride. For it's time in 1966 it may have been, but all the action is at the end and even that is not the kind of action you may expect from the films tag line and mystique. Although it was banned in Denmark when it was first released. 

But that's what these films did back then. They would sometimes exaggerate through advertising to get you to see their movie. I don't blame them, sometimes they had to, and it worked!

I also am a fan of and have nothing but respect for Peter Fonda, but you don't really buy his character in this film. In The Wild Angels, he is suppose to be the hardest guy around, he is the biker that none of the other bikers want to mess with. I just don't buy it with him. It's not a case of bad acting, Fonda is awesome in Easy Rider. In Easy Rider, Peter Fonda plays an easy going, cool guy that rides a motorcycle. You could say he is like a hippie biker or something along those lines. I get him in that. It's a good fit and is totally plausible. He is the opposite in The Wild Angels and it just doesn't fit as well for him. 

Now don't get me wrong. I didn't hate this movie. I just didn't love it either. It's a stylish Nazi- Biker movie with some really cool scenes. I thought the soundtrack was great as well. It just presents itself as an action film when it is really more of a hang out film. And I love films that are plotless and we are just hanging out with characters, but only when I expect it. 

If you like 60's and 70's biker films then this is worth checking out for the sake of seeing it. I don't think it's the best biker film ever made and I don't think it is Roger Corman's best by far. 

Though I can tell you, this has one of the most interesting funerals you may see in film. 

And Nazi Bikers.....

As I said.....Interesting.

Review: Sleepaway Camp

"You Won't Be Coming Home"

It's movies like these that remind me why I love low-budget horror films. 

They have the balls to do whatever they want and they are just plain fun. 

Sleepaway Camp is campy, funny, and very perverted. It's not the goriest movie you will ever see, but it does have it's moments and makes up for the lack of bloodshed with weirdness and suspense. 

Even though it is as low budget as they come, it still kept me interested and wondering what was going to happen next. Because in these kind of films, you never know. There is no safe zone like there is in so many big Hollywood movies. All the rules go right out the window, and thats why we love them.

The story is about this girl who witnesses her family get killed in a boating accident when she was a child. We jump ahead to eight years later and she and her cousin are living with their aunt. But this year their aunt is sending them away to camp for the summer. 

They arrive at the camp, but the girl is anti-social and refuses to speak. She is still not over the trauma of losing her family. Meanwhile, a mysterious killer is knocking off campers one by one. 

This film has one of the weirdest endings I have ever seen. I wont say anything because I don"t want to spoil it. It's one of those things that's half funny and half disturbing. 

If you can get past the low budget, some bad acting, cheesy humor, 80's iconology and guys wearing really short shorts.... then you should enjoy Sleepaway Camp. 

If not, I understand...

More than just a slasher movie, Sleepaway Camp is more involved in character structure and humor. Sometimes intentional, sometimes not. I found this movie very funny!

As I said, this is a sleazy film. 

It's as if you took American Pie:Band Camp and threw it in the gutter. Then shoveled it back up and spliced it with Friday the 13th and then let John Waters direct it.

Then you might have something like Sleepaway Camp. 

If you enjoy sleazy campy fun, then I recommend this cult classic. 

Rarities: My Best Friend's Birthday

There's something you should know about me... 

I am a HUGE Quentin Tarantino fan!

He is my favorite director of all time and I think he is one of the best writers to ever breath air.

 I plan to fully review all of his movies on here and review one movie everyday of the week that Inglorious Basterds comes out. And then review that after I see it. 

I know, I'm a geek...

But anyway, My Best Friends Birthday is basically Quentin Tarantino's unofficial first film. It's a black and white and ultra low budget movie written by Craig Hamann and Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tarantino. 

They began shooting in 1984 with a budget of $5,000 and used friends from their acting classes and co-workers at a video store to star in the film, along with Hamann and Tarantino. After a four year period, they finally completed My Best Friend's Birthday. Unfortunetly, the film was in a house fire and now only 36 minutes of the movie remain. 

It's about a guy who is down about his ex-girlfriend on his birthday. So his friend tries to do things for him to cheer him up, but everything he tries goes wrong and makes him feel worse. 

This is Tarantino at his most comical. This movie is very funny and of course filled with long scenes of plot irrelevant dialogue that is always entertaining and one of the reasons we love him. 

While this film is very low budget and amatuer, Tarantino's writing and style are clear as day. You can tell he wrote it. Some lines are the exact same dialoge used some years later in True Romance, an early Tarantino script that was sold to Tony Scott. You can also catch references that would belong to many of his later films if you listen carefully. 

This movie could easily remind you of clerks in style and writing alone. The writing and story are very good, However the directing and the acting could be better, but I don't think it ruins the fun of it. besides, we can't be too harsh, it was their first film and was shot for only $5,000 in a time before computers and digital cameras. Back then you only had a film camera, and shooting in film is not cheap.

If you are interested in seeing My Best friend's Birthday, you can watch the 36 minutes that remain of the film  on Youtube at...     

                                                   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xCGSWJDfLM&feature=PlayList&p=70F1BC68471FB078&index=0

And I believe it is on DVD as well. Amazon.com would probably be your best bet there. 

If you are a fan of Quentin Tarantino then you should really check this out. I really enjoyed this movie and wish the rest of it remained. It's an interesting look at the early work of a man who would go on to make some of the best films of our generation. Tarantino admits that this film is poorly directed but he says that this was his film school. He says the experience he had with My Best Friends Birthday taught him a lot and made his future films possible. 

For a movie made by two film fanatics who funded the entire project with their jobs at a video store... 

Not bad. Not bad at all! 

Under the Radar: WestWorld

"Boy, have we got s vacation for you..."

With the way technology is growing and flourishing more and more these days, a real life WestWorld could possibly be in our future. Science fiction has always shown us the possibilities of a future world. It shows us what we as humans someday could be capable of. But it also shows us what can go wrong if our mechanical creations turn against us. 

Welcome to WestWorld, a theme park where you can live in the days of the wild west. For $1,000 a day you can get in a wild bar fight, visit a brothel, bust out of jail, or have a gunfight with an unwelcomed stranger. At WestWorld you can step inside the world of a real cowboy.

And best of all, it's 100% safe. The parks lifelike androids are programmed never to harm customers and the guns will only fire at the androids. So you can experience the wild west and leave without a scratch. Perfect Huh? 

Well almost... 

The androids are created by some of the best and brightest scientist and engineers. They are extremely lifelike and programmed to always let you come out the victor. Except lately, the androids are starting to fight back!

In Michael Crichton's story and directorial debut, Richard Benjamin and James Brolin play two friends who decide to visit the new theme park. They have a good ol' time until they mess with the wrong android cowboy. Yul Brynner is a spur jangling and gun slinging android that keeps coming back for more until the friends are no longer fighting for fun, but are fighting for their lives. 

This theme park is not big enough for the both of them

Like so many Sci-Fi films, this is the classic story of man vs. machine. Michael Crichton's style and touch is all over this movie, which is a very good thing. Crichton is one of the masters of showing us a great and genius idea like WestWorld or Jurassic Park, and then showing us why it might not be such a good idea after all. Crichton does a great job of directing this cult classic sci-fi thriller. 

Yul Brynner is everything he is suppose to be in this movie and more. First off, he plays a very convincing robot. He plays his character to the bone as a cold and mechanical android. He is so good at it you would think that it is just an android made to look like Yul Brynner, instead of the actual actor. At the same time he is intimidating and scary. Yul Brynner is the shining star of this film. 

Also, a fun fact, this movie made history in 1973 for being the first to use digitized imaging.

I really enjoyed WestWorld. It's just an overall good and fun movie. I think it stands the test of time and it was groundbreaking in it's time. Sadly Michael Crichton is no longer with us, but he has left behind some of the greatest science fiction stories ever told and WestWorld is no exception. 

As I was saying about sci-fi earlier. It has always shown us the future. Many of the scientist and developers who have created many of the technological advancements that we enjoy today (I'm writing on one right now) were influenced as children by science fiction and pulled their ideas from shows like Star Trek and films like Star Wars. While I wouldn't call him a pessimist, Michael Crichton wrote tales about the damage that can be done if we are not careful in our endeavours and the problems that can arise from creating something bigger and stronger than ourselves. Maybe he wrote keeping in mind that someday this could all be possible and he was trying to tell us something. 

Because someday, it could be science non-fiction. 

Must See Movie: Tokyo Gore Police

I think this is the most insane and F$#ked up movie I have ever seen! 

And I loved every minute of it! 

Tokyo Gore Police has no boundaries and no shame. This movie is not for the weak stomached or the faint hearted. I know you've heard this said about many movies, but trust me on this one! 

For many years now I've considered Peter Jackson's Dead Alive the goriest movie ever. Not the scariest or the most brutally violent, but the goriest movie I have ever seen. I think Tokyo Gore Police just one upped it, and that is no easy task. This movie is farther than over the top and it is damn proud of it.

With that said, the violence and gore in Tokyo Gore Police is not entirely mean spirited compared to such horror films like The Devil's Rejects and Cannibal Holocaust. Those two films are more of a brutal and abrasive violence because it is so realistic. Tokyo Gore Police is more of a gorefest than both those films put together, but it has more fun. The deaths and dismemberments are very exploitative and extremely operatic. Kind of like Ichi the Killer, except this movie makes Ichi the Killer look like Juno. This has to be one of the biggest blood baths in film history. What makes this movie so good though, is not just blood and guts for blood and gut's sake. It does it so creatively that it makes for many disturbingly beautiful shots. This film is so bloody that it will use blood as cinematic art. This movie is visually stunning because of it's gore and violence. 

Another thing is that this film is extremely perverted. Like, beyond BDSM perverted. Some images in this movie will stay with you for life. I promise. Some things you just can't unsee. Part of me appreciates the creativity of coming up with some of this stuff, and part of me thinks some therapy sessions may have been in order. But either way it makes for great interesting cinema. When it comes to this genre, some say the crazier the better. 

Think Pan's Labyrinth meets Dead Alive meets Ichi the Killer and they all go to a fetish club in Hell!

While it's gore-factor competes if not surpasses any horror movie, this is actually a science fiction movie with a pretty decent plot. It takes place in the future (as most sci-fi films do) and the Tokyo police are at war with these genetically modified super human criminals called "engineers". These engineers can turn their wounds into weapons. So if you cut off their arm, they can bio-fuse it into a much deadlier weapon. Ruka is the top engineer hunter and it's her job to wipe out these pests completely. Even though she struggles with her fathers death and is still vengeful towards her father's killer, she lets nothing stand in the way of her doing her job of slicing and dicing her way to the cause of the engineers.

 

Ruka is played by a young actress named Eihi Shina, whom you may remember from another great movie called Audition. Shina is absolutely amazing in this film. She's not the superstar here in the states that she is in Asia, but it's only a matter of time before we come around to her great talent as an actress. 

While being a gorehounds paradise, this film is also very well directed with style and visual substance, and the cinematography is horrifyingly beautiful. I'm starting to notice that Asian film makers seem to have more of a freedom and ballsy attitude towards cinema than we let ourselves have over here sometimes. They seem to be having fun with their work,  while we are just working. Along with all the carnage and bloodshed, this film even finds time to be very funny and satirical. It's not just one thing or the other, it's many things at once.

I could go on and on about how much I love this movie, but I'll just say this...

If you are a fan of horror and/or sci-fi, you MUST see this movie! As I said it is not for the faint hearted, but if you are like me and your philosophy on violence in movies is "The gorier the better", then boy do I have a movie for you! 

I enjoyed every aspect of this movie. Something like this doesn't come along everyday. This is an instant cult-classic. It is over the top in the best of ways. Check this one out and tell me what you think! 

I'll say it one last time. This movie is extreme, bloody, ruthless, over the top, perverted, freaky, and completely insane.

Just don't say I didn't warn you!

Great Movie: Sling Blade

I remember where I was when I first realized that Billy Bob Thornton is a genius. 

I was at a friends house when he suggested that we watch a movie called Sling Blade. For one reason or another I really didn't feel like watching it. All I knew about Sling Blade was that voice that everybody would impersonate and that Billy Bob Thornton was in it. I also knew that it was about a mentally challenged fellow and thought it would be something along the lines of Rain Man or God forbid, I am Sam. 

This was only a few years ago so all I knew from Thornton was the mediocre comedies he has done (Bad News Bears, Mr. Woodcock) and Bad Santa, which I though he was very good in. 

But as a film fanatic, I'll watch anything at least once. I'll give anything a chance.

So I started watching this story about a man named Karl (Thornton) who is returning home after spending 25 years in a mental hospital after killing his mother and her lover when he was a kid. When he returns to his home town, he finds himself with nowhere to go and is not sure what he is suppose to do. He eventually befriends a boy named Frank and his mother and is invited to stay with them. 

Karl starts to get into the swing of things. He gets a job and his relationship with Frank and his mother continue to grow. Along with forming somewhat of a friendship with the mother's boss/friend (John Ritter). He even meets a woman. For the first time in his life, Karl may be finding some sense of peace.

But there is one problem.

This situation does not settle well with Frank's mother's mean and hard drinking live-in boyfriend, Doyle (Dwight Yoakem). 

Doyle is a loud and proud redneck. He seems to have it out for Frank because he is not his child. He verbally abuses Frank every chance he gets and is no nicer to Karl. The mother seems to be more scared to leave Doyle than she does in love with him. She knows that unfortunately, Doyle runs the show.

After witnessing Doyle's unstable anger and abusive behavior. Karl sees the stress and sadness this is putting on young Frank. As their friendship grows, Frank and Karl's conversations grows deeper. Frank tells Karl about how his father took his own life because he could not provide for him and his mother, and about how he has been miserable since living with the monster that is Doyle. Karl tells Frank about what he has done in the past and about his childhood. It seems they both have their demons, and they confide in each other. 

But they both know that as long as Doyle is around, things will only get worse.

Karl is, for lack of a better term, slow. But he is in no way stupid. He is a good man who did something very wrong once. He is simple and quiet, but seems to always be thinking. Though his past is dark and people are curious and scared as to why he was in the mental hospital, Karl is not mean spirited. It's quite the opposite. He is just misunderstood and underestimated. He carries the weight of his trials and tribulations and is just trying to make sense of an outside world that has never been easy on him.

Karl like every character in this movie is very well written and crafted. It's hard to believe sometimes that they are fictional characters, they could live right next door. Every character in this movie shines. Billy Bob Thornton should have won an Oscar for best actor and John Ritter is absolutely phenomenal. Dwight Yoakem is brilliant as well. If you're playing the bad guy and you make people hate your character, that means you did it well. 

I watched Sling Blade until the end and then I saw the credits role. After being blown away, I noticed that this film was written and directed by it's star, Billy Bob Thornton.

That's when it hit me...

Billy Bob Thornton is a genius!

Sling Blade is such a realistic and honest movie. This film is conflicted and contradictory only in the way it is in real life. Life is not like the movies. In the movies things are clear most of the time. Plot and narrative is mostly black and white. The moral compass is easy to follow. Where in life, things are often a shade of grey. Things are more complicated here. Not that I judge a movies greatness by it's level if realism, sometimes it's good to escape. Though when done right, realism can make you do something you normally don't with fictional characters. It makes you really care for them. Then you don't just have the audience's attention, you also have their heart. 

Then I started thinking more about Billy Bob Thornton. He wrote this beautiful yet tragic movie from his heart. You don't write a story like this by accident, it takes love and passion. So the question I have to ask is, what happened? 

Billy Bob Thornton is a great actor. He has a style and deliverance that is his own. He can be hilariously funny and painfully serious. I think he deserves more credit. What I don't understand is why he hasn't done anything as great, intelligent, moving, extraordinary as Sling Blade since Sling Blade? It seems in recent years that he's lowered himself by just doing the safe comedy or the commercially safe picture. I understand we all need to work and make money, but what about the artist inside? What about the heart and love that draws us all to cinema in the first place. Where are your balls? 

If I seem harsh on Billy Bob Thornton, it's not out of disrespect or dislike. It's because I know for a fact that he has it in him! Sling Blade is living proof that he is far more capable of greater things than he has been doing. I know he is a brilliant writer. I know he is a great director. I know he is an amazing actor. I know that he knows it too. I know he has it in him make some of the best pictures of our time. He already did it once. 

And I still think he's a genius.

Sling Blade is one of my favorite films of all time and I recommend it to anyone. This film tugged on my heartstrings when I first seen it and after several years and many viewings later, it hasn't let go.