One woman's quest to share the beauty and learn valuable lessons in horror films, from the truly terrifying to the totally terrible (and of course, everything in between involving killer dolls)
I've got things to say folks, things that cannot always be contained through silent type. Hence, be prepared for an assault of my ACTUAL voice today when I guest star on Kevin Carr's fantastic film podcast/radio show, Fat Guys At the Movies. Each week, Kevin rounds up reviews and predictions on all the new releases hitting the theater and on Episode 226, I join in!
Be prepared for some prolonged discussion on Conan the Barbarian, One Day, Fright Night, Chris Sarandon's sexy toes, Heather Morris' glorious breasts, John Waters' innate magic, cinema's best vampire hunters, the best casino in Las Vegas, Step Up 3D, my childhood filmmaking career, The Muppets Take Manhattan, and goodness knows what else. Download it here or head to iTunes to subscribe for free.
Enjoy your weekend kiddos and kiddettes. I promise to return next week with even more audio treasure.
Going into Stake Land, there was a pile of reasons why my expectations were higher than Miley Cyrus at a backyard barbeque held at Cheech Marin’s casa. Amongst them:
-Director Jim Mickle and actor/cowriter Nick Damici’s previous outing, Mulberry Street, was an impressively refreshing low budget horror that used a standard premise--vampirish zombies chewing through New York City--and made it into something truly new, with a multi-aged cast and hauntingly effective portrait of post-9/11 Manhattan.
-The fact that it’s a post-apocalyptic survival tale, something that never fails to rock my world (even when directed by the humorless Michael Haneke)
-Proven history: The last time I watched a movie starring a Gossip Girl star for this site, the result was the beyond magnificent Drive-Thru
Quick Plot: As a plague of vampirism spreads through the world, human survivors get by with whatever tools they choose to trade, be it guns, shantytown politics, or crazy religious cult gang membership pent on worshipping monsters and raping nuns. Eking out existence in the south is Martin (Connor Paolo), an orphaned teenager who watched his parents and baby sibling get eaten and has since been learning under the tutelage of Mister (Damici), a badass vampire hunter who smokes and sleeps his way through the makeshift communities. Eventually, they collect a few more traveling teammates, including the aforementioned nun Sister (Kelly McGillis), the ex-soldier Willie (Sean Nelson) and the sunnily pregnant Belle (genre queen Danielle Harris).
So yes, this is a film that opens with a savage vampire zombie chewing on an infant. It’s actually a strong way to begin, since Stake Land is indeed a brutal and dark ride that digs into the worst of both monsters and mankind. Besides baby-eating (sorry; I know it’s not funny, but it also kind of is) there are not-so-subtle hints towards sexual slavery, domestic terrorism, and slain children, all of which is handled with the kind of weight they need.
Stake Land is essentially a road movie set after the apocalypse, a sort of genre take on Cormac McCarthy’s The Road with more, well, vampires. As is common for many a serious-minded horror film, it quickly reveals that it’s man rather than monster that plays the real villain in life. Like Mulberry Street, there’s some not-so-deeply buried social commentary that never overtakes the action. The government has given up, leaving some citizens to sympathetically form communities and others to turn world-wide disaster into their own hedonistic utopia.
Most notable is Stake Land’s portrayal of religion, something that’s done with far more evenhandedness than you might expect. Yes, the major bad guys are racist and misogynist zealots (led by Broadway powerhouse Michael Cerveris) who force their hateful beliefs on the country through violence, but the film seems to strive for a balance with other nods that point to faith as a comfort. McGillis' Sister is a solid force, a woman who offers the flip side of faith as something that breeds kindness and sympathy. Too often films like these end up painting religion as the true evil of the world through broad and stereotypical strokes or on the flip side, end up as weird exercises in Christian entrapment (see I Am Legend). Stake Land wisely avoids either fatal misstep.
And really that's just one of many things I absolutely loved about this film. The performances are all quite good, with each actor lending the right balance of battle-torn weariness with a subtle ray of hope. Harris brightens up every scene she's in, while Damici offers outstanding presence with very little dialogue. As the everyman lead, Connor Paolo is surprisingly effective, never overplaying the role but maintaining the center as a boy coming of age with the right balance of innocence and maturity. While I would normally see character narration as unnecessary and distracting, it works well in Stake Land, never overstepping the action or telling us anything we already know. Would the film work without it? Most likely, but the lines lend a certain gravity that always reminds us what world we're now living (and dying) in.
High Points
It’s a testament to Stake Land that the actual vampires are far less important than the rest of the narrative, but they’re still something to be acknowledged. Considering Mulberry Street’s main weakness was its iffy execution of its rat-like zombies, allow me to give a nod to the vampiric creations here, especially with their different styles based on time of infection
Low Points
While I didn’t need any backstory regarding what began the plague, it was a tad frustrating to realize that I had no idea how the virus even worked in terms of contagion
Lessons Learned
No man should begin his vampire hunting career without proper armor and headgear
When choosing one's vehicle for vampire hunting in the post-apocalypse, always consider the mechanics of the trunk
In the post-apocalypse, a round of square dancing is considered more appealing than a vanilla ice cream cone
Soap Box Special
You may, as I did, experience a mild shock when you realize that the 50something nun is played by Witness and Top Gun hottie Kelly McGillis. Yes, seeing an actress primarily known for her work three decades ago now looking all of her 54 years is initially surprising, but I've been even more astounded by how many Interwebbers are citing her look in this film as 'old and ugly.' First of all, she's playing a nun barely surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, meaning her Botox sessions and salon appointments have probably been canceled indefinitely. Secondly, her face is still quite stunning, offering plenty of warmth and depth considering she most often has to act without words. Most importantly, she looks absolutely fine for a woman in her 50s, though by 'fine' I mean 'what an actual woman in her 50s should look like.' And people wonder why actresses keep drinking virgins' blood at plastic surgeons' offices.
Unlike some people...
Rent/Buy/Buy
I’d been hearing about Stake Land for the past year or so, as it’s made quite a dent in the horror community. To me, the film most certainly deserves its indie gem reputation. It works as a monster movie, with plenty of effective action-heavy vampire attacks, and it absolutely soars as an apocalyptic road trip hybrid. The DVD includes two commentaries, while the Blu Ray and 2-disc Special Edition are loaded with a making-of, Q&A, and seven character prequels (also viewable on youtube). Though some of my fellow bloggers have been unimpressed, I found Stake Land to be well worth a viewing and even, if you’re feeling financially frisky or just plain wild, a blind buy.
You must understand something before reading my thoughts on 1990’s girl-powered revenge film centered on a female baseball team: I love A League of Their Own. It’s watched every year without fail and quoted just about any time the subject of crying, swing dancing, Jon Lovitz, charm school, or penis in hats comes up. Had Labyrinth not started with the letter L, it easily would have made my cinematic alphabet. Part of this comes from the fact that it's an absolutely wonderful movie, a rare successful studio comedy containing an entire team's worth of worthy performances and sharp writing. The other part is that I love baseball.
Hence, when Netflix told me that queuing up the forgettable Steve Austin actionfest Hunt to Kill implied I Might Also Like 1990's Blood Games, I took the following description:
A team of sexy female baseball players whips the local rednecks -- and things turn violent when the men refuse to pay up for losing in this campy thriller. While team manager Midnight (Ross Hagen) tries to collect the cash, the locals attack some of the babes. Soon it's an all-out war, with the hometown hicks hunting down the women, who start fighting back after a few of their teammates wind up dead.
and imagined--quite correctly--that I had finally found the movie to complete my grand slam of baseball cinema (for the record, the other two runners are Field of Dreams and Major League).
Quick Plot: Meet the Ball Girls, a sassy team of female baseball players who cruise through small towns to challenge the locals to friendly games while Coach Midnight earns some dough betting on their victory. The money, sadly, does not go towards uniform expenses as the girls play in roomy cotton hotpants, presumably to distract their male opponents or because they're all masochists who love nothing more than a good sliding bruise.
After a whopping 17-2 win over a team of crass and grope-happy hillbillies, Midnight is stiffed by the Sam Elliot-like opposing coach but the badass Ball Girl boss takes matters into his own hands in the men’s room of a Double Deuce-like roadhouse. Too bad a few infielders get nearly raped in the process, leading to a chaotic brawl that somehow ends up with Not Sam Elliot’s son car-crushed and Midnight stabbed in the belly.
What’s a frazzled coach-less team to do? Certainly not drive their bus to a hospital or call the police. It’s far better to flee the scene of the crime with a dying man until a few intense car chases lead to a breakdown and backwoods Rambo-esque escape. See, that passing line about how Not Sam Elliot is a cheap mercenary actually has some merit: although he wouldn’t pony up a grand to pay Coach Midnight, he’s more than willing to drop $1000 for each pretty hair tie-less head his other goons can bring him after the death of his son.
The battle rages.
At a certain point, half the girls vow to take vengeance while the pitcher and team captain Babe preaches that they must stay together. That actually means that the brunettes will continue on towards safety while the blonds are left on their own to serve up some seductive payback.
Oh, and get gang raped. Just because this is directed by a woman (maybe) doesn’t mean we’re going to skimp on the misogyny! It’s not just that there’s violence committed against women; it’s HOW it’s filmed. Take, for example, the early attempted rapes which find reason to cut to closeups of the almost-victim’s bare breasts. Sure, we’d just spent a good ten minutes ogling the same women as they lounged around the locker room, but the shots are deliberately sleazy in a meaner manner than is necessary for an exploitation film.
That doesn’t mean that Blood Games isn’t the greatest thing of all time. This is primarily evident in the final scene, where
SPOILER ALERT
The last redneck standing has Babe’s little sister (and team catcher) in a sleeper hold. Using her pitch calling skills, Kit--I mean Dottie--I mean, Little Sister In Blood Games gives Babe a sign for a fast ball up and inside...of the redneck’s FACE.
Eff. Yeah.
High Points
An early bathroom brawl scene has Not Sam Elliot fist-fighting with his pants around his ankles. For whatever reason, this made me happy
Low Points
There’s a reason All the Way May and Doris didn’t want to wear those skorts when playing ball: because no self-respecting ballplayer would EVER slide with that much exposed skin. I know, I know: the audience of Blood Games has higher priorities than sporting accuracy, but still. Have a little respect and if nothing else, LET THEM TIE THEIR ENORMOUS HAIR BACK
Lessons Learned
Maybe your team wouldn’t be losing 17-2 against an all-female squad if every player didn’t swig a beer before stepping up to the plate
If a team is named “Ball Girls,” you should have no reason whatsoever to think that they might have some skills at throwing balls at your own
After being stabbed in the gut, the best course of action is to drink water and dab the wound with a fluffy towel
The Winning Insults:
Redneck 1: You drink beer the way you piss.
Redneck 2: You piss the way you drink beer.
I’m not sure who got the better zap!, but I’m totally cool with using both.
Missed Marketing Opportunity
The final scene of Blood Games features a slow motioned montage highlighting all the women that died in the last 90 minutes. TELL ME someone didn’t take these screenshots and turn them into tradeable baseball cards?
Rent/Bury/Buy
Now streaming on Instant Watch, Blood Games is fairly wonderful dose of late ‘80s sleaze that offers something for everyone: bare breasts of tough chicks for the gents and girl powered vengeance for the ladies. Yes, it’s a dreadfully sexist movie that might prove offensive to some viewers, but those who love the stench of Cheese Wiz will find it to be a homerun.
Amongst the many household chores that I find painful is the dreaded art of laundry. Hoarding quarters for months on end in order to pay. Lugging a basket of odorous garments into my apartment building’s basement, only to have to touch someone else’s mysteriously stained clothes loitering in the only finished machine and 40 minutes later, opening the washer to discover a sopping wet pile of fabric that will now take a baker’s dozen’s amount of drying cycles at 50 cents a pop just to emerge only slightly damp. We won’t even talk about this silly word called ‘folding,’ an act that should be reserved for poker and pitas.
Two months ago, I discovered something wonderful, a secret the lazy contingent like to call ‘drop-off service.’ For about a dollar a pound, I can forego quarter obsessing, hand-wringing, and that silly, impossible as climbing-a-rope-in-gym-class action called folding by just HANDING a pile of my OWN mysteriously stained clothing to someone else, who then calls upon the help of woodland elves to purge said garments of dirt and sweat and turn each piece into a sandwich-sized transformer that somehow fits anywhere I want it to.
Now, the only drawback to this bite of heaven, aside from the whole ‘goodness, my wallet can’t actually afford this luxury for long but I don’t ever see myself stopping’ thing is the fact that at some point in time, you will still run out of clothing.
What I’m getting at in a roundabout way some folks might call blathering is that there are ways to prolong the inevitable day, a way that is stylish, sexy, vintage, bopping, and most importantly, for one fine cause. Take a look:
Nice right? Who amongst us doesn’t love some scary baseball mimes, Coney Island showdowns and Dexter Morgan's dad trying to rape women in Central Park while emerging as nothing more than a scamp? What better way to share that Warriors passion than with a spanking new t-shirt loaded with hepcat style and priced at just TWELVE FRICKIN’ DOLLARS!
I dare you to price check that against any faux vintage cottonwear from Urban Outfitters.
$24. Really?
But it gets better folks, it gets incredibly good: this $12 you will be spending goes somewhere very special, somewhere so special that I keep a special button on my righthand side here at the Doll’s House to always remind you of its wonders.
Paracinema isn’t just your average movie magazine. This made-in-Queens publication produces issues loaded with passionate, smart, and innovative writing about the kind of special films you won’t find getting glossy pull-out posters in Fangoria or cover shots on Entertainment Weekly. Comb through some back issues and you’ll find everything from essays on ‘70s pornography, Brian De Palma retrospectives, interviews with rarely highlighted but genre great talent like Brian Trenchard-Smith and Dean Eyebrows Cameron. You can even get some of my typing skills ruminating on such complicated favorites as Battle Royale II, Who Can Kill a Child, and Clownhouse.
At just $7 an issue, you’re already paying far less for Paracinema than you would for most of its peer magazines. If you don’t yet subscribe, I urge all to start. If you already do or don’t but love The Warriors, shell out your $12 for a kickass t-shirt that’s guaranteed to impress the opposite or same sex.
Human or non
And hey, $12? Think of what else you could spend that on and convince me it’s a superior expense. This is all I’ve got:
-12 pounds of laundry at drop-off service
-Almost an entire ticket to a 3-D film, but not quite
-A five minute cab ride at rush hour
-One imported beer at Yankee Stadium (though just by being INSIDE Yankee Stadium makes you rather unworthy of good style, in my and therefore the world’s opinion)
So head on over to Paracinema.Net and donate something to your closet while helping one of the best genre film magazines grow to bigger, badder (in a cool, not negative way) and even more spectacular heights.
10. You’re intrigued by the eerie love story in South Korean auteur Kim Ki-Duk’s celebrated (if frustrating to me) drama, 3-Iron. So intrigued in fact that you'll hear three opinionated women argue some of its merits and missteps.
9. You’re itching for a tangent where film-loving folks discuss their hatred of misused soundtracks in modern horror.
8. We somehow find a way to imagine a world where both Adventures In Babysitting and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead contained special edition DVD releases that include the only recently discovered deleted rape scenes.
7. We giggle like junkies at the dentist’s office over the wondrous design of the shirtless martial arts practicing, stripper face-cutting villain in Abel Ferrara’s 1984 classic sleazefest, Fear City, a film that includes Melanie Griffith’s breasts and Lando Calrissian uttering the words “Keep the pussy off the counter.”
6. Amber Heard (baggy Daisy Dukes included) in Drive Angry: hot or not? We give the verdict.
5. You can hear my impassioned explanation of how Attack the Block kicks the overlong bell bottom wearing ass of Super 8.
4. I do a grand impression of Tom Berenger’s slow motion battle cry in a boxing ring.
3. No bra talk this week (yes, it probably has something to do with the rapture) but there's plenty of discussion about boobs (including Melanie Griffith's).
2. It’s free.
1. Joplin (my cat) speaks! I mean that in two ways: her cat voice (a high-pitched squeak of a meow) and her ACTUAL voice that I imagine she would have were she human, i.e., that of a chatty Long Island diner waitress.
(And yes, I'm aware that she's recently been turned into a Sentinel)
Why are you looking at me so funny? Don’t your cats have regional accents?
ANYWAY, head to http://girlsonfilm.podomatic.com or iTunes for Episode 27. It's epic. It's estrogen. It's fine film conversation with international appeal.
Just please, for the love and betterment of Cloud City, keep that pussy off the counter.
Amongst the many, many many, many reasons I love my parents is this:
Maximum Overdrive came out in 1986, when the Mets were Mookie Wilsoning their way to the World Series Championship and I was a happy 4 year old...who saw Maximum Overdrive in the theater.
Stephen King was famously on more coke than a Christmas loving polar bear when he wrote, directed, and provided his best cameo yet in what can pretty safely be described as a truckwreck of a film. With a ridiculous premise made even more ridiculous by the deux ex machina explanation of planetary orbit, Maximum Overdrive boasts some of the gooeyist melted American cheese to emerge from the ‘80s. It’s a gooey cheeseburger of a movie served with the greasiest fries you’ve ever eaten, and by golly sugar buns, I love every minute of it.
Quick Plot: You know the story. On a bright summer day in North Carolina, all the world’s machinary pulls a small-scale SKYNET and becomes hostile. Hairdryers strangle. Electric knives stab. Arcade games electrocute and even the sweet little ice cream truck drives with menace. A varied band of plucky survivors (led by the rebellious Emilio Estevez in his Brat Pack prime) hides out in the Dixie Boy Truck Stop as they formulate a plan to make it alive in a world free of batteries and gasoline.
Obviously, it’s a silly plot, and one that was probably irresistible to the man responsible for killer washing machines, sociopathic classic cars, and evil religion-spreading corn. Stephen King is a vital piece in the history of modern horror, but when undisciplined, his work can be embarrassing. Maximum Overdrive was his first (and sadly, thus far only) directoral effort, and just about any word out of his mouth in the last 20+ years has been sprinkled with his own admission that it’s terrible.
It’s a charming humility, but let’s face it: Maximum Overdrive is also an absolute blast. A few reasons why:
9:48...79 degrees...Fuck...You
Can you think of a better way to open a film than with a neon sign cursing you out? I suppose following said intro with Stephen King being dubbed an asshole by an ATM machine comes pretty close.
CHONK CHONK CHONK CHONK!
Every villain needs his theme song, and Maximum Overdrive cranks it up right with a ridiculously over the top and aggressive sound cue that can only be described as Jaws eating popcorn on speed and helium. The fact that King randomly assigns this music to particular attacks (the aforementioned electric knife, the no-name dude’s payback for stealing a ring from the dead) somehow makes it all the more entertaining as it only occasionally reminds us just how goofy a thing we’re watching.
Who Made Who? WE MADE YOU!
Speaking of soundtrack, let’s give a fingerless gloved round of applause to AC/DC, the one and only band responsible for Maximum Overdrive’s peppy pseudo badass beats. Their songs firmly ground the film in the fertile ground of the ‘80s, especially when its official anthem--Who Made Who?--is spoken, a la Britney Spears in Crossroads, by one of the film’s most beloved characters, Wanda the truck stop waitress who’s so dedicated to her profession that she keeps her blue eyeshadow fresh and pink hairbow high a full day after the world’s machines have tried to kill her (they eventually do).
Death. By. Soda. Can. DEATHBYSODACAN!
Easily one of my favorites in the extremely long list of best death scenes ever, the soda can machine killing is a glory to behold. Watch ! as the happy go lucky baseball coach saunters over to treat his winning team to a few Pepsis, only to be goofily puckered in the groin by a powerful surge of cans. Hear ! his teenagers giggle, because who doesn’t giggle when the only adult in eyeshot just got his groin hit by a soda can? See ! the machine wage a full-blown war on every player in sight, shooting its ammo as they flee like soldiers on the Western Front, most pegged down with one hit to their backside. At that point, the sight of a steamroller rolling its way over a 14 year old boy is just whipped cream on an already very delicious root beer float.
Often a sign of a director-in-training, an overabundance of slow motion generally comes off as ineffective but hilarious. Maximum Overdrive is no different. The opening drawbridge-gone-psycho scene uses it wonderfully, as an ill-fated biker slides off into the water, complete with his own Tarzan-like cry of peril. You’d think that would be enough, but King seems to find the tool quite versatile, later employing it to build totally unneeded excitement at the conclusion of the even more ill-fated baseball team’s winning slide into home.
Death By Watermelon
It happens, and it happens within the film’s first five minutes. Sheesh Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, it took one scene for you to officially be dethroned.
Happy Toyz, Where Art Thou?
Certainly not in business, because what kid in his right mind would be charmed by any company whose mascot was a grinning gargoyle-like clown? The star truck of Maximum Overdrive is indeed a gleeful villain, so long as we look past the whole idea of, you know, a terrifyingly kid-unfriendly kid company even existing. Then again. Ronald McDonald has been pied pipering his way through the entire planet’s children for almost 50 years, so maybe I underestimate youth.
Random Product Placement
A sparking Miller Lite sign. Evil BIC pens truck. Adorable AC/DC themed Volkswagon bus. Heck, I almost want this film remade just to see how Apple Computers worms its worm-in-an-apple way into getting a positive spin in a film about evil technology.
When In Doubt, Shoot A Bunch of Dudes
Maximum Overdrive CERTAINLY has its flaws, among them, the fact that it’s pretty gosh darn hard to keep track of its characters. Sure, our eyes are always on the heroic(ally hunky) Billy, his quick-to-bed hitchhiker lady pal Brett, the villainous Pat Hingle, Lisa Simpson & her new husband, the kid, and black guy, but there are anywhere between two and seven other background survivors who seem to be hanging out in the truck stop that never come close to registering as being important. They’re all male, country-looking, and bland, so it’s only fitting that at about 2/3rds through the film, the cute little machine-gun driven vehicle kills them all with one swoop of its bullet fire.
(don't even bother learning the names of the white dudes in the rear)
Someone Got a Different Memo
Holter Graham’s Deke has a little more to care about than the rest of the Dixie Boy’s patrons. Within 24 hours, the kid has seen his baseball coach brutally die and learned that his father’s guts are still fresh on the pavement. I suppose that explains how much more seriously he seems to take his role in Maximum Overdrive, with an intense grimace on his young face all the way to his slaughter of a frisky Drive-Thru burger sign. When he passes his rifle to Brett, Graham’s delivery of “I don’t want this anymore” has more weight than an elephant telling a whale that it had an abortion. Or something.
It's just realllllllllllllly serious. And therefore hilarious.
Eat My Shorts
....gets said in this movie, cementing its status as Great Cinema of our time.
Why Mourn When You Can Eat Bacon?
We’re not really expected to take any of the deaths too seriously in Maximum Overdrive, so perhaps it’s only fitting that the characters don’t either. After Deke’s caring father gets run over, Billy and Brett are quick to flirt their way under the covers, while Wanda’s widowed husband doesn’t seem to have too much trouble moving on and joking his way through pumping gas. When your film is just over 100 minutes, you really shouldn’t waste any time with the mushy stuff, right?
The Comet. Oh Yeah, the Comet
When most of us think back to Maximum Overdrive, the things that gleefully ride into our minds are listed above. But remember, dear readers, just WHY the toy cars and lawnmowers and gas pumps and pinball machines are trying to bring about the end of the human race:
“On June 19th, 1987, at 9:47 A.M. EST, the Earth passed into the extraordinarily diffuse tail of Rhea-M, a rogue comet. According to astronomical calculations, the planet would remain in the tail of the comet for the next eight days, five hours, twenty-nine minutes, and twenty-three seconds.”
So, as the selectively loose Brett mentions later in the film, an evil comet is telling technology to turn on its makers. Makes perfect sense, no?
Let’s examine the closing coda text, of which I’ll declare, is easily the greatest closing coda since the adorably unspellchecked two-typo boasting conclusion of Burial Ground: Nights of Terror.
“Two days after, a large UFO was destroyed in space by a Russian 'weather satellite,' which happened to be equipped with a laser cannon and class IV nuclear missiles.
Approximately six days later, the earth passed beyond the tail of Rhea-M, exactly as predicted.”
Okay. So, the comet was just a red herring in a film that CLEARLY was dying for some external plot twists that have no effect whatsoever on the action we’re watching. And in the end, the Russians save the day with laser canons. And Stephen King is EMBARRASSED by this?
The Winning Line
“Curtis!........... Are you dead?”
I cannot tell you how many times these words were quoted in the Intravia household when I was growing up. The fact that Yeardley Smith would later go on to cement her voice in cultural history as the one and only Lisa Simpson makes this all the more grand.
Lessons Learned
Even Stephen King can’t resist a fat man farting joke
Mack Trucks are especially annoyed by screechy waitresses accusing them of insolence
Morse Code: Learn It. Love it. Live It.
Rent/Marry/Buy/Worship
I will not say that Maximum Overdrive is a good film, but trust me sugar buns, it’s a joy. The film is sadly unavailable from Netflix and currently has nothing more than a bare bones DVD release, but if you can find it at a decent price, it still makes for a glorious daily backdrop to your life. I’m praying to the fairy godparents of Blu Ray that one day, we can all live in a world where Stephen King sits down with a six pack of O’Douls and gives us a long-awaited commentary track, where Emilio Estevez returns for a making-of documentary, and those mythical 12 seconds of gruesome cutting room floor footage resurface, all packaged in a tacky tin case with a glow-in-the-dark Happy Toyz Goblin poking out of your movie library.
Calling all karate dogs, ghost cats, and baseball playing chimpanzees! A full month of joyously terrible animal-themed movies, complete with endless fart jokes and puns!
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