Box Art Review #13 - Repo Man

Box Art Review #13

Repo Man (1984)

Directed by Alex Cox

Starring Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez

Repo Man is an 80s movie about the LA punk scene and aliens starring a very young and very pissed off version of coach Bombay from The Mighty Ducks. This movie rules.

The Movie

Repo Man opens with the promise of scifi hijinks as we watch a motorcycle cop pull a crazy guy over on a desert road only to be lazered to death by whatever’s in the trunk of the car. Then the movie jumps genres as we watch the jock from the Breakfast Club play the rebel punk kid from the Breakfast Club. Otto (Emilio Estevez) works a shitty supermarket job for about 2 minutes of the movie before quitting like a badass. He heads to what I assume is a house show, but there’s band in sight so it could just be a bunch of punk kids hanging out in somebody’s house. Otto and his gf are hanging out upstairs at this house when she asks him for a beer. When he returns from the fridge with a blue and silver can with the comical label of “BEER” some other dude is mackin on his girl and she tells him to get lost. Otto wanders the streets of LA in an angry drunken state screaming the lyrics of Black Flag’s TV Party until a guy tricks him into repossessing a car. Otto heads home where his parents are watching a televangelist in a zombie-like state and smoking weed. Otto asks for some money but it turns out his stupid 1980s parents already gave it all to the TV preacher. This is seriously one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in a movie, and it’s all happening while Otto eats food out of a tin can labeled “FOOD.” Hilarious.

And thus Otto’s career as a Repo Man begins.

The movie sort of has a plot; Otto picks up a girl who tells him about the dead bodies of four aliens locked in the trunk of a Chevy Malibu and of course it turns out he has to repo that very car soon after. Really though, the reason to watch Repo Man is to see the depiction of Los Angeles in the 80s, the acting from Estevez, about a million and one subtle jokes and social commentary, a great soundtrack (if you like entry level 80s punk music you can’t go wrong, the movie features songs by Black Flag, Fear, and Circle Jerkz who were all featured in the LA punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization 3 years earlier, plus Iggy Pop and Suicidal Tendencies) and the kind of enraged punk rock cynicism that could only come from blue collar Los Angeles in ’84.

It’s kinda like Return of the Living Dead without the zombies plus Night of the Creeps without the zombies.

The Cover

There’s really not much to see here. The VHS box art really gives you no clue of what’s going on in the movie. None of the important characters are really placed front and center, which is pretty dumb, and the guy out in front not only doesn’t look like Estevez, he’s wearing some dumb jock outfit like it’s the Estevez from Breakfast Club. There’s some vague green space glow coming from the trunk too, but honestly if you saw this on a shelf at Block Buster you would never guess that this mundane cover is hiding a real gem of absurdity. I’ll give them credit for the logo though, that font is both awesome and appropriate for the feel of the film. The tagline’s not bad, but it’s not good either.

 

I should point out though, that the Criterion Collection Blu Ray release of Repo Man comes out this week and the box design looks fantastic. The cover manages to capture that 1980s punk aesthetic while incorporating the importance of Los Angeles as a setting in the film. Inside, the disc is simply labeled “DISC” which is a cool nod to the film’s subtle brand of humor. Criterion releases are always god tier, so if you like this movie you should pick up the new Blu Ray.

The Movie: 5/5

The Cover: 1/5

The Blu Ray Cover: 5/5

Box Art Review #12 - Death Valley

Box Art Review #12

Death Valley (1982)

Directed by

Starring

The Movie

Death Valley is a lot like the movie Prison in that they both have impressive casts and most people have never seen them. Also, they’re both on Blu Ray through Scream Factory, so there’s that too.

Death Valley opens with a kid and his dad palling it up in New York for like 5 minutes and the music makes it seem like you’re about to watch a family film. Then you realize that the kid is Ralphie from A Christmas Story and you really start to wonder if this is a family film. Sidenote: The guy that directed Christmas Story (Bob Clark) also directed Black Christmas which is considered by many to be the first slasher film (or at least the one that kicked off the 80s trend (there’s a good argument that Psycho is the first slasher film and a lot of people claim a lot of other movies were the first slasher movie too, so…) and supposedly is where John Carpenter got the idea for Halloween. Also, if you wanna get real fuckin tangential, the kid that played the bully, Farkus, in A Christmas Story was in Freddy Vs. Jason. A Christmas Story has a long reach in the horror genre apparently.

As soon as Ralphie starts talking, you realize how much of an asshole this kid is. He can’t take a hint when his dad tries to tell him that there’s no way he’s getting back together with his mom and makes him deliver possibly the coldest analogy for divorce that I’ve ever heard. Then he hits the road with his mom and her new bf, who seems to be a nice enough guy, and just puts the guy on blast the whole drive.

Another reason I’m surprised Death Valley isn’t more fondly remembered: this is one fo those movies where they went way over board designing a special car for the villain, and it looks totally badass.

Some random trailer trash get their throats slashed open and you start to realize it’s not a family film when you see a woman’s boobs. Ralphie happens upon the trailer where the bare boobed lady got killed and stupidly steals the bad guy’s weird hippie frog necklace. Then the whole family meets up for lunch where the mom and her new man both order chili and Ralphie gets a burger. But, and here’s where things get crazy, the mom orders and orange juice with her chili, the new man orders a milk with his chili, and Ralphie orders his burger rare. What planet do these people live on? Oh yeah, and the waiter has the same necklace as the one Ralphie stole earlier.

Ralphie and his mom and his not-dad hit the road again and see the wreckage of the RV from earlier where that chick got her throat cut for not wearing a shirt. Wilford Brimely stops by on his way to the set of John Carpenter’s The Thing (Death Valley was released a month before The Thing in ’82) to play the sheriff who knows a dark secret. The rest of the movie is set in Knott’s Berry Farm style ghost town where cowboy serial killer twins (not as dumb as it sounds) stalk Ralphie and his new family unit. Somehow, the movie manages to make a reference to the daydream scene with “Black Bart” from A Christmas Story a year before it actually came out (I doubt it was vice versa, but maybe).

Death Valley isn’t the kind of movie that looks good on paper. Reading the description, I couldn’t help but remember the terrible 90s slasher Leprechaun. They both have low budgets, stupid concepts, and cast members that went on to do bigger and better things. But somehow, possibly because it stars a little kid, Death Valley strays pretty far from the usual slasher territory and is more like a neo-noir thriller, especially given the setting and a lot of the background music. Unfortunately it never really does anything too memorable, all the kills are literally the same and the cool car barely sees any action. It may sound kinda stupid, but I recommend Death Valley for anyone who wants to see the kid from A Christmas Story in danger of getting murdered, or also if you’re a horror fan who hasn’t seen this one yet, but really, it’s fucking Ralphie from A Fucking Christmas Story in a fucking slasher movie.

The Cover

I’m sorry, but Ralphie looks like a creepy sex doll. Like, for real man. The cover is very reminiscent of Home Alone already, and that weird wide open circular gaping mouth brings these uncomfortable thoughts about Michael Jackson to my mind. Maybe that’s just me; maybe I’m fucked in the head or something. Regardless it’s a really lazy cover design. The cover doesn’t do anything to really clue you in on what the plot of the movie is, and what’s worse, is that the only sign of any danger at all is this tiny knife reflected in the sunglasses. This is a movie about cowboy killers in the desert, you’re telling me they really couldn’t find some kind of western imagery to throw in there and play up the cowboy angle? On top of that, the villains drive this really badass car, why not put that on the cover? It would be one of those cases where the movie doesn’t really deliver what’s on the cover, but it would at least be interesting, which this cover is not.

The Movie: 3/5

The Cover: 1/5

Box Art Review #11 - Nightmares

 

 

Box Art Review #11

Nightmares (1983)

Directed by Joseph Sargent

Starring Emilio Estevez, Lance Henriksen, Veronica Cartwright

I seriously love horror anthologies. From TV series like Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Tales from the Crypt, Masters of Horror, Tales from the Darkside, Monsters, Night Visions, Fact or Fiction: Beyond Belief, Dark Room, (and even kids’ shows like Are you Afraid of the Dark, Goosebumps, Eerie Indiana, The Haunting Hour, etc) to movies like Creepshow, Cat’s Eye, Tales from the Darkside (the movie), Body Bags, and Quicksilver Highway to name a lot. So I’m always surprised and excited when I find one I haven’t seen yet, especially if it’s from the 80s, like Nightmares. What really sold me, aside from Emilio Estevez of course, was the eerie trailer and poster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOncLexWDE

Unfortunately, as with most anthology films, it’s only about half good, so I’m just gonna talk about the parts that are worth seeing.

Emilio Estevez plays a teenager who’s obsessed with arcade games and has to battle a game villain in real life. It’s kind of like that episode of Are you Afraid of the Dark where the kid gets sucked into the pinball game. As far as scares go, it’s pretty lame, but if you’re a fan of unintentional humor and ironic cool factors, this shit is pure 80s cheese and it’s rad as hell. First of all, the segment has a soundtrack with a pretty respectable punk lineup that includes FEAR and Black Flag. Plus 80s Latino gangbangers, terrible 80s fashion choices, and laughable 80s vector graphics on the haunted(?) arcade game. Maybe it’s just me, but Emilio Estevez is just fun to watch in everything he does.

The very next segment is the best in the film. Lance Henriksen plays a priest who quits his priesting duties after a crisis of faith only to be attacked by a mysterious black truck on a desert blacktop. This segment is totally Stephen King territory; the man writes about killer cars fairly often with Christine being the prime example, and a disillusioned priest is a major character in his shared universe dealie. It borrows strengthening elements from other road horror movies like Duel and The Hitcher too. The best part of the whole movie (spoiler alert) is when the truck just fucking explodes out of the ground after pulling a Tremors move tunneling under the ground Bugs Bunny style. It surprised the fuck out of me. I love this whole segment, it’s just perfect, and the best part is that Henriksen plays it so straight and dedicated as if this were a serious Oscar-bait drama.

Even though the other two segements aren’t anything special, all four stories boast excellent acting and tense atmosphere. Definitely check this out if you’re into anthologies.

The Cover

The Nightmares box art is sort of a rarity in that what’s on the cover is actually in the movie.

Check this trailer out where they reproduce the effect on the cover (or maybe it’s vice versa).

Just wanna say, that dude’s voiceover rules; he’s already got the deep, guttural creeper voice, but then they add on some kind of voice effect that makes it sound like he’s talking to you from another dimension that exists entirely under murky black water. Yeah. It rules.

So anyway, the cover, you got your vast desert wasteland lit by a neon purple light somehow which is cool, and those eyes are spooky, sure, but those hands are what really sell it. The speedlines around the fingers and the distance between the hands and the eyes allude that this nightmare creature is reaching across the vast wasteland to fuck your shit up. It’s really cool, it’s really simple, and it’s a really clever way of marketing the idea of a nightmare. Also, you gotta love the parallel between the cracks on the ground and the lightening in the sky.

Really though, the best part about the whole package is the tagline. I love how the title is centered (well, mostly) and then beneath it the ellipses implies that you were just reading the beginning of a sentence up there. …Is this year’s sleeper. is kinda presumptuous, especially given the film’s relative obscurity even in horror circles, but it’s also a great pun .

The Movie:4/5 (Mostly for Emilio)

The Cover:4/5

 

 

Box Art Review #10 - One Dark Night

Box Art Review #10

One Dark Night (1983)

Directed by Tom McLoughlin

Starring Meg Tilly, E.G. Daily, Adam West

You know what rules about this movie? Fucking Adam West is in it.

I first heard about One Dark Night from the documentary Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film (check it out on Netflix) and I was immediately sold by the footage of skeletal corpses rising from the grave while dumb teens were locked in a mausoleum.

Right away, One Dark Night seems to be a culmination of several other, more successful, horror films. The setting seems to borrow from Phantasm, the telekinesis element is reminiscent of Carrie and Scanners, and maybe it’s just me but the incredibly eerie film score sounds like it was lifted wholesale from Creepshow. I fucking love the score; it’s the same style of dreary synth music used in Creepshow (as previously mentioned) and Tales from the Darkside. Another element in One Dark Night that seems to pop up in a lot of pre-90s horror films is the Charles Manson style cult leader. I wasn’t around for all that, but at times it seems like the Manson family was that generation’s Columbine, like people were genuinely afraid that shit was gonna happen again and again, so much so that it became sort of stock plotline.

So the main chick in this wants nothing more than to belong to a group of girls who call themselves The Sisters and wear pink jackets with that shit embroidered on the back. This is just unspeakably retarded. Maybe if there were a whole bunch of girls who were running around with these jackets I’d buy this premise, but it’s just these three (only three!) really bitchy broads, and who cares what three people think? Even her boyfriend thinks they’re jerks and can’t understand why she needs to be a part of their group so bad. These “Sisters” bitches drop her off at a mausoleum and give her drugs (y’know, just in case she can’t sleep) and she actually fucking takes them, even after everybody in the movie keeps reminding her of how terrible these girls are.

Unfortunately, One Dark Night never quite lives up to its premise. The problem with this movie is that nothing scary happens ‘til the last half hour, and then all hell breaks loose and it’s pretty awesome. Caskets slide out of their wall drawer things and pop open to reveal bodies with oozing faces and skin that won’t stay on, it’s really great. It never reaches the gore levels of Scanners or the sheer insanity of Phantasm though, and without the final scenes it’s really just the same old stupid crap you always see in bad teen horror movies.  They wasted a lot of potential here, they could’ve had a memorable villain on their hands, but he’s got no lines and almost no backstory, like we’re just supposed to believe he’s pretty scary.

The Cover

No, no, no, this is all wrong man. First of all, look at that bullshit font choice. You gotta have some real balls to try and pull that off. The tagline couldn’t be more generic, “A shocking tale of horror that takes you beyond fear” tells you nothing at all about the actual plot of the movie and was clearly written by some bored ad copy guy. Worst of all, there’s no pun. Here are some way better taglines I just farted out: “They’re dying to get out!” “The only way out of the mausoleum is…DEATH!” “Will they live to see morning?!” “The dead are awake…and dead!” “Julie wanted to belong…instead she got ZOMBIES!!!”

The most tragic part of this mess is that you really got squint it up to even see them corpses. This picture might have actually been pretty effective if it was more vivid.

Let’s look instead at the British box art which showcases a decent illustration of mummified hands reaching up suggestively up a white girl’s dress while the mausoleum chills in the background next to some spindly leafless trees. Still, even here, that font is utter garbage (worse than the US font) and that tagline is equally lame. 

The Movie: 2/5

The Cover: 1/5

Box Art Review #9 - Popcorn

Box Art Review #9

Popcorn (1991)

Directed by Mark Herrier

Starring  Jill Schoelen, Dee Wallace

The Movie

Popcorn is a weird movie. Let me explain: a lot of horror movies are weird, I mean Freddy Krueger is weird as hell when you analyze the elements of his backstory/costume piece by piece, and most of John Carpenter’s output was ridiculously weird (except The Ward, which is just benign bullshit that should’ve been credited to Alan Smithee).

Reasons Popcorn is weird

1. The movie seems to have been made by people who have never seen a movie before. It has the same quality as a first novel written by a bored housewife who’s never written more than a grocery list before but suddenly decides she wants to be a writer. I mean, the dialog is corny in most cases, and when it’s not corny it sounds nothing like the way real people talk. Weirdly enough, there’s a short discussion early on where some film students discuss the sorry state of the late 80s/early 90s film industry and the works of Ingmar Bergman.

2. A bunch of shit just happens. You could say this about any movie, but Popcorn is different. It opens up with some bizarre experimental film footage, like something a college kid would make and then deem brilliant and then goes on to show even more weird footage of a cult leader/film director babbling about nothing. Then, it’s like, “hey let’s throw in a subplot about a guy who led a cult and movies and then killed his family live on stage, that’ll really spice up the charity movie festival.” What? Seriously, what?

3. The main chick’s mom is getting these phone calls from the guy in the weird videos and ends up at the movie theater with a gun where she sees his weird movie again and seems to know what’s up with the whole cult business. At this point, the film’s villain seems to be supernatural in origin, what with the crazy bullshit he pulls off. But no, not really.

4. Then there’s these film students who decide to put on a film festival with bad 50s B movies that use 4D gimmicks and we’re treated to a laughable montage with the worst reggae song about going to the movies that I’ve ever heard. Then, when the marathon happens there’s a bunch of people with crazy costumes and these two dudes are randomly rapping about monster movies or something. Then there’s a lame reggae band that shows up halfway through the marathon to inexplicably play music while the kids try to get the power back on. “But wait,” I asked aloud, “how are they playing music without electricity? They’re singing into a microphone for crying out loud!”

So those reasons are anything but concise, but the point is, this movie seems to exist outside of your typical Hollywood slasher fare (and yet it never quite goes into Lynchian territory). These might sound like complaints, but holy shit, this movie rules. Somehow all this weird crap just make the movie even better. It’s like this, these guys could’ve made a movie just about a slasher at a B movie marathon, but they went the extra mile and threw in all this weird shit about a cult leader and his experimental films and it’s ten times better for it.

Some of the best things about this movie: The villain is batshit crazy and looks awesome, the soundtrack is so stupid it’s awesome, the experimental films are awesome, the fake B movie footage is awesome, all the dumb comments from the audience during the B movies are awesome. The main character is played by Jill Schoelen who was in Babes in Toyland (along with Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves, and Pat Morita) which is a movie I remember we had on VHS, but I don’t remember ever watching it. The only black person is this movie is played by the chick with the incredibly annoying voice from A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5: The Dream Child (apparently she was in Lost Boys and People Under the Stairs too, but I don’t remember her in them). Lastly, I’m pretty sure the Disney channel original movie Phantom of the Megaplex is an intentional ripoff of this movie and I remember liking that movie a lot too.

This movie is special. This is the kind of un-ironic fun slasher/horror that would never get made today because no one would take it seriously; where else are you gonna see a guy get pissed on by his own doppelganger and then die in a toilet bowl explosion?

The Cover

This is one of those rare occasions where the movie and the VHS cover are equally awesome. This cover/poster has everything I love, a skeleton, a ridiculous tagline, a killer, pointy font, and a glowing green haze surrounding everything. This cover is actually pretty similar to the cover for Society, except here they did it right. This is the kind of VHS cover I love, because this is the kind of movie I would’ve grabbed off the shelf in a heartbeat back in the heady days of video rental stores.

Movie: 5/5

Cover: 5/5