So apparently, the collapse of the U.S. economy did not bring Civilization As We Know It to an end. You may know return to spending your money on sleazy, mindless DVDs.

Note From Sleaze: I dunno, I was gonna add some cool new features to the WIS last week, but my PC (I’m a PC, like that jerk with the glasses) got infected with some virus and I’m still trying to recover from it.  Which is, by the way, how I lost the last couple weeks of this column. Please consult your Wayback Machines, if necessary. So next week for new features, I guess, although next week I’ll be  in Arizona, so really, the week after. In the meantime, a brief roll-out of my picks to click, were I still so 20^th century that I would buy DVDs in a crumbling economy when I’ve got a Netflix subscription and a Rapidshare account. Hey, maybe you dig the covers.  

Oh and PS, since this may be the last time we talk until the election: please vote for the cool black guy. Thank you.

Ghosthouse Underground (Lionsgate) is a collection of 8 straight-to-DVD horror titles clearly patterned after the After Dark Eight Films to Die For series (also Lionsgate) only without the brief and embarrassing theatrical run first. Although I have not seen any of the surely terrifying morsels offered here yet, my guess is Dark Floors – starring Finnish Gwar-nnabies Lordi as ghosts in a haunted hospital, and teen zombie flick Dance of the Dead – which many liken to a John Hughes flick, only with guts and gore – are both worth a peep. Anyway, I’ve seen ‘em all around for about $10 a pop, so what the hell, buy them all, have a Halloween horror-fest right there in your living room, basement, cardboard box, whatever you’re dealing with these days. 

Good lord, it's Lordi! The Dark Floors trailer: 

War, Inc. (First Look) stars John Cusack as a hit man who poses as a politico spin-doctor in war-torn “Turaqistan” in order to kill…who cares, really. The only reason to see War Inc is Hillary Duff’s awesome performances as sexed-up eastern European pop queen Yonica Babyyeah. “I Want to Blow You…Up” and “Boom Boom Bang Bang”, are two of greatest terrorist-porn themed pop-hits that never were, and it’s a shame that Duff didn’t seize the moment and record a whole album’s worth of the stuff. 

Here’s a clip, see what I mean.  

Both Stuck (Image) and The Sarah Silverman Program, Season Two, Volume 1 (Comedy Central) feature one of my all-time favorite things: mean girls. In Stuck’s case, it’s a corn-rowed Mena Suvari who essays the based-on-real-life role of a druggy young nurse who slams into a homeless man one night on the way home from a woozy night out. He gets – you guessed it – stuck in her windshield, and she just fucking leaves him there to die in her garage. Unlike the jaw-dropping news story that inspired it, Stuck adds a fair amount of dark whimsy and a surprisingly believable amount of superhuman pluck from the Stuck-ee (hangdog-faced Stephen Rea. Directed by Reanimator-man Stuart Gordon, the film manages to pack in enough grue and fuck-no moments to please Gordo-s splatter-fans, but for my money, the movie’s piece de resistance occurs when Mena finds her faux-thug boyfriend in bed with some other chick. She responds by beating the girl senseless and dragging her naked ass out the door. Could be the best chick fight ever.

  Dont' fuck with Suvari: Stuck redband trailer...

Sarah Silverman does not kill any homeless dudes on her show, but I’m sure she would if the script called for it. How could such a pretty girl say and do such careless, vicious things? Indeed. Best episode? Probably when Sarah takes God to her high school reunion. And then dumps him. Awesome. 

Right, so that’s it for me this week. Here’s the real stuff. Take it away, tall Paul.

Okay, so there’s no Frankenstein or Dracula in Icons of Horror: Hammer Films (Sony), but this double-disc set still has plenty of classy chills and thrills from England’s legendary Hammer Studios. The gotta-see pic of the four included in the set is The Gorgon, an enjoyable creature feature from 1964 with Hammer’s Big Two – Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing – in hot pursuit of the title creature, a snaky-haired broad from Greek mythology with the power to turn guys into stone. Mr. Lee is on hand in two other movies in the set – in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1961), he’s the caddish pal of high-and-mighty scientist Jekyll, whose personality experiments turn him into the sexed-up Wildman Mr. Hyde. And in Scream of Fear (1960), he’s a suspicious doctor-type who might be one of several people trying to drive poor, wheelchair-bound Susan Strasberg insane. Hot stuff, especially Jekyll, which is an uncut print and features lotsa sexy British girls doing cabaret routine (as well as a yowza snakehandling bit). Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb rounds out the set, and no surprise, it’s a bit of a snooze, and doesn’t touch Hammer’s best mummy movie, 1959’s The Mummy (with Chris Lee in the bandages). No extras save for original trailers for each feature.

Hot Moves (Code Red) is an amazingly crass and therefore entirely watchable entry in the ‘80s teen sexploitation comedy subgenre. The plot is standard issue sleazy-tease – a quartet of hormonal high school boys plan to get laid before the end of the summer – but the presence of Michael Zorek, ace Fat Guy and comedy relief in Private School (1983), as the gooniest of the quartet, and such top-notch hardbodies as Jill Schoelen, Deborah Richter and Monique Gabrielle, set this one apart from the rest of the Reagan-era raunch. Keep an eye out for David Christopher, a.k.a. Pussyman, as a female impersonator (!) and Virgil Frye – father of Soleil Moon Frye – as “The Porno Man” (which is how his credit read on the original one-sheet). The DVD includes interviews with and commentary by Zorek, his co-star Adam Silber, and the screenwriter and director.

 Can you guess how this scene from Hot Moves will end? I bet you can:

As I recall, Sleazegrinder really disliked The Strangers* (Universal), the home invasion horror that played in theaters this past summer for about a hot second. Me, I didn’t mind it at all – yes, it’s a completely contrived piece of scare machinery about a couple (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) on the rocks that have to defend their remote vacation home from a trio of masked killers. And the ending is unnecessarily nihilistic – first time director Bryan Bertino isn’t simply satisfying by unnerving the viewer with endless shock jumps and loud noises, but has to go for the Saw-style gore for his finale. Not needed. But you know, you pop this one in your machine on a quiet evening, you turn out the lights, and you tell me if your jaded hipster nerves don’t get a jangle. I bet they will. The DVD is the unrated edition, which probably means even more splatter in the final third than before, as well as a making-of featurette

* I thought it was pointless. Also, the crowd was full of teenage girls who alternately squealed in terror or laughed hysterically at all the wrong moments. You probably won’t experience that on the DVD though. - Sleaze

I keep hearing good things about Trailer Park of Terror (Summit), which is based on a horror comic and was apparently one of the high points of the recent Slamdance Film Festival. I certainly like the idea of the film, which pits the zombified residents of a backwoods trailer park against a busful of stereotypical miscreants from a church group, though I’m wary of the barrage of Rube Goldberg/Two Thousand Maniacs!-style tortures inflicted upon the unwary visitors. Seen that a thousand times already – haven’t you?

The uh, trailer for Trailer Park of Terror looks like this:

Lotsa fun old-school titles on deck this week. Let’s start with BCI/Eclipse’s (BCI) latest entry in its Exploitation Cinema series, which partners up Mausoleum with Blood Song. The former, which got endless reams of press from ole Forry Ackerman in Famous Monsters back in 1983, is a completely lunatic demonic possession flick with big, bouncy Bobbie Bresee as an heiress who falls victim to the same evil spirit that took control of her mother. Said possession causes Bobbie to either turn hormonally super-charged or transform into a fist-faced monster who likes to rip out hearts, including that of her husband (Marjoe Gortner!). LaWanda Page (Aunt Esther!) is also on hand as the maid, and gets the film’s best line: upon seeing Bobbie turn into a monster, she squawks, “No more grievin’, I’m leavin’!” and splits! Awesome. I caught this one at a screening in LA with Bobbie in attendance, and lemme tell you, it brought down the house. The B-picture on the bill, Blood Song is a mediocre psycho-thriller with one redeeming quality – Frankie Avalon is the killer! Honest.

Why does this clip from Mausoleum make me want barbecue? Hmm…

Also from BCI is Volume 3 of their Drive-In Classics series, which features several previously released teensploitation titles from their Starlite Drive-In series (Malibu High, Van Nuys Blvd., The Pom Pom Girls) as well as some genuine terrific lost treasures. Chief among these is Blood Mania, an amazing 1970 psycho-thriller/ego trip from never-was actor Peter Carpenter, whose subsequent effort was the equally amazing Point of Terror with Dyanne Thorne. This one is the tamer of the two, but it’s still full of overwrought acting and cheapo scares, as this trailer (narrated by Casey Kasem!) illustrates:

Also in Volume 3 – Single Room Furnished, a turgid Tennessee Williams knockoff from Candy Tangerine Man/Butterfly director Matt Cimber that marked the final acting performance by his then-wife, Jayne Mansfield, and The Pink Angels, which is, no lie, a comedy about gay bikers. And if that’s not enough, BCI also has The Paul Naschy Collection (Deimos), a five-DVD set that compiles their recent releases of the Spanish horror star’s werewolf-free titles. The rundown goes like this: Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll – incredible, sleazy giallo imitation; Exorcism: hilarious Satanic booga-booga nonsense; Horror Rises from the Tomb: atmospheric, over-the-top splatterfest; Vengeance of the Zombies: equally riotous voodoo goofery with Naschy as the Devil!; and Human Beasts: violent but half-hearted Japanese-made ghost story with gore. You can find my full reviews for some of these in the Film and DVD Archives on this site.

BCI also has Ultraman: The Complete Series, which compiles their entire DVD collection of the seminal Japanese robot vs. monster TV series, and The Frightfully Funny Collection, Volume 2, which bundles together episodes from three animated series from Filmation: the Archies-inspired Groovie Ghoulies, Ghost Busters, which is based on the ‘70s live-action series with Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch, and Fraidy Cat. Here’s a taste of the Groovie Ghoulies’ monster power pop:

And lastly, Legend has colorized editions of five vintage horror and science fiction titles – the Bela Lugosi poverty row chiller The Devil Bat; Lugosi’s career-ending collaboration with Ed Wood, Bride of the Monster; the obscure Phantom Planet (yeah, this is where they got their name); Last Man on Earth, with Vincent Price vs. Italian vampires in the first film version of the book that was later remade as I Am Legend; the Roger Corman comedy Creature from the Haunted Sea; and the alien-invasion thriller Phantom from Space, from Billy Wilder’s brother Lee. I know how you feel about colorization, but Legend’s process actually looks pretty damn good. Plus you also get the original black-and-white version, so unless you’re morally opposed to owning anything colorized, these discs are an easy and cheap way to fill in the gaps in your collection.

 Red Warning! Here’s the just-the-facts trailer for Phantom from Space from our pals at Something Weird:

Both The Strangers and the obscenely bloated two-disc edition of Rob Zombie’s Halloween (Weinstein) are now available to swallow up Blu-ray consumers’ hard-earned dough, as is Poltergeist (MGM) and George Romero’s Diary of the Dead (Dimension Extreme). None of these pictures will play any better in million point high-def progressive scan, or whatever the hell Blu-ray is supposed to do, but if you gotta have ‘em, they’re on shelves now. Also, currently holding down this week’s Why the Hell Was This Released on Blu-ray: Shrooms. I will give you $10 postage paid if you can tell me why you would need a Blu-ray edition of this film. Please send your responses to paul.gaita@gmail.com.

Hey, pervert? Wanna know How to Make a Dirty Movie?  After hours cinema has your complete instruction course in Grindhouse Trash 3, a double-disc set of four softcore skin flicks from the early ‘70s. It’s the usual barrage of dudes in black socks and hippie chicks with untamed bush, but with two stand-outs. Star is about “the finest cocksucker in Hollywood,” now a faded movie queen who runs a scam drama that’s really just a rotating stable of thick-skulled studs. Keith Erickson, one of the more talented porn actors on the West Coast scene in the early ‘70s, steals the show as her former director turned gardener. And Go Down for Double (the set’s bonus feature) is an early non-hardcore effort by John Holmes.

I hold out no hope for National Lampoon Presents Robodoc based on the fact that its chief selling points are stars Alan Thicke and David Faustino. If you wanna commit to this one, I wish you luck.

Cash for Kenya: Live in Johnstown, PA (Universal) is a 1991 concert with the Man in Black that benefited the construction of a hospital in Kenya. Track listing is strictly old favorites – “Ring of Fire,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Jackson” – with June Carter and sister Anita on harmonies and son John on guitar. It’s not American Recordings-era Johnny or Sun Records Johnny, but like pizza and sex, even lesser Cash is still better than most things.

Those clamoring for a Paul Stanley solo DVD get their wish with One Live Kiss (Next Door/Universal), which features the aging frontman at the House of Blues in Chicago with the house band from that horrid reality series “Rock Star” behind him. Set list largely favors KISS hits, though there’s a smattering of solo efforts too. Interviews with Paul (and Doc McGhee, natch) are also included. Enjoy.

  And lastly, There’ll Always Be An England (Rhino ) is Julien Temple’s concert film of the Sex Pistols’ five-night stand at the Brixton Academy in England to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of Never Mind the Bollocks. The DVD also includes Temple’s documentary The Knowledge, which features the Pistols as they revisit some of their old haunts in London. 

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Hey, happy Tuesday! Stock markets around the globe are on the verge of collapse! There’s a better-than-average chance that a woman who believes that dinosaurs and men existed on Earth at the same time could be the President of the United States! The state I live in (California – the 8^th largest economy in the WORLD) is completely out of money! Clearly, it’s time to start hoarding gas and food and maybe trick out your car with flamethrowers. Or you can turn a blind eye to the imminent end of the world and BUY MORE DVDs! Your call, but if it’s the latter you’re choosing, here’s our weekly suggestion list.

True knuckleheads will undoubtedly view the Three Stooges Collection Volume 4: 1943-1945 (Sony) with a mixture of elation and sadness; that’s because the double-disc set marks the final barrage of Stooge shorts to feature Curly Howard. A lifelong appetite for excessive alcohol, food and general hard living had begun to take its toll on him by the mid-‘40s, and a subsequent series of strokes would culminate in his departure from the act in 1947 (brother Shemp would replace him) and eventual death in 1952. But that’s the downside of Volume 4 – the real joy comes from seeing this well-loved lineup in action (make that traction) one last time in shorts like “Spook Louder” (the fellas take on spies in an alleged haunted house), “Dizzy Detectives” (Stooges as cops vs. crooks with a gorilla!), “Gents Without Cents” (which features the “Niagara Falls” routine – “Slowly I turned, inch by inch…”) and “If A Body Meets a Body” (more haunted house action). Eight of the shorts are making their DVD debut with this set, so if you’re a Stooge-phile, you can’t afford to be without it.

Classic Media’s DVD two-fer of Rodan and War of the Gargantuas contain two scenes that left deep, indelible marks on my adolescent brainpan when I saw these two Japanese monster rallies on Saturday afternoon TV. In Rodan, it’s early in the picture, when an expedition sets out into a dark, water-logged cave to find out why miners haven’t been returning from it, and the answer is a huge, bloated bug that’s been scared out of its prehistoric hiding place by the revival of the flying monster Rodan. As for Gargantuas, the completely out-to-lunch sorta sequel to Frankenstein Conquers the World, it’s the left-field moment in which the Green Gargantua (there’s two of ‘em, one green, one brown, and they love to whale the shit out of each other) pauses during his rampage at the Tokyo Airport to peer at a cleaning lady in a hotel – and then reaches into the building and eats her (and spits her bloody clothes onto the pavement). That shit NEVER happened in Godzilla movies. As with all previous Toho releases from Classic Media, the original Japanese version of the films is included along with the truncated American editions; no commentaries this time around, but there is a fun hour-plus documentary on the making of the Godzilla films that features interviews with many of the surviving cast and crew.

Somewhat more benevolent monster rallies can be found in the Ray Harryhausen Collection and the 50^th Anniversary Edition of The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad. The Collection offers three double-disc sets of the special effects legend’s early efforts in science fiction – Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (self-explanatory), 20 Million Miles to Earth (space probe brings lizard monster from Venus to Earth) and It Came from Beneath the Sea (atomic testing unleashes giant octopus on San Francisco). Each of the DVD sets includes a new colorized version of the film (per Harryhausen’s specifications – he intended them to be made in color) as well as the original B&W editions, as well as commentary by Harryhausen and a host of extras, including an interview by Tim Burton, who just can’t help but look glum, despite the presence of his movie hero. If you’ve got extra dollars to spend, you can get a Special Edition which comes with a pretty boss figurine of 20 Million Miles’ monster, the Ymir! As for 7^th Voyage, the half-decade since its release hasn’t really eased the corniness of the performances (Kerwin Mathews is way too white to play Sinbad), but Harryhausen’s barrage of special effects – a fire-breathing dragon, a goat-footed Cyclops, and the two-headed giant bird called the Roc, among many others – have lost none of their power to impress, even in this CGI-heavy age. Harryhausen contributes commentary to this disc as well.

Sleazegrinder: I'm not here to ruin your week, or nothin', so…spoiler alert…but The Happening is

A. not very happening, and

B. it's the fucking wind. They are fighting the wind. So stupid I would have kicked a hole in the screen, were I not hypnotized into silence by Zooey Deschanel's giant eyeballs. Fuck this movie.

PG: Couldn’t agree more, and I didn’t even see that movie. Frankly, I’m still angry over The Village. Your time and money is much better spent this week on Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (Anchor Bay), a fun tribute to both ‘80s splatfests and ‘60s-‘70s guy-in-monster-suit rallies. Co-producer/writer Trevor Mathews is the title character, an aimless plumber with a serious anger management issue and a laundry list of aggravations (nagging girlfriend, guilt over seeing his family eaten by monsters). A solution to Jack’s problems arrives in the unlucky form of his night-school professor (Robert Englund), who is transformed into a ravenous blob-monster by an ancient evil in his backyard. Fueled by the possibility of a healthy outlet for his rage, Jack straps on his toolbelt and whips some latex monster ass. Take your time with this one – the filmmakers devote a bit too much time to building up Jack’s “origin” story, but once Englund starts transforming from nebbish science prof to goo-covered eating machine, the picture kicks into overdrive. Horror-comedies are usually dire affairs, but this one actually manages to satisfy the requirements of both genres.

SG: I did not find Rob Zombie's "re-imagining" of John Carpenter's seminal slasher Halloween (Weinstein Co.) to be as godawful as some did, but then, I never thought the original Halloween was that fucking great, either. As with all things Zombie, it's got some flashy bits and then a lot of boring poser garbage. Now, I don't remember anybody – even dumb kids – going nuts over this one, so I'm skeptical that there's even an audience for a three-disc version, but here it is, so deal with it. Disc two has the usual bonus junk, while disc three has a four and a half hour (!) making-of documentary. You've gotta have something better to do, don't you?

Oh, PS, re: Danielle Harris's tits. They're real, and they're spectacular.

PG: Could not agree more with that assessment, though I did find the movie to be a particularly aggravating waste of time. Being a fan of horror movies doesn’t mean that you can make them (or make good ones) – if that was the case, I’d be writing this column from my office at Paramount and not my shitty Hollywood apartment.

SG: I've never seen Keeping Up with the Kardashians (Lionsgate), and I don't think Paul has either, but we've seen Kim’s inter-racial porn tape, and that was pretty good. If there's more of that stuff in here, than it's probably worth it.

PG: Sadly, there isn’t more porn in Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which I HAVE seen (the wife likes the bad reality shows). Calling it an appalling turd is pretty much like lining up piles of roadkill and then singling out one of them as the ugliest, but Keeping Up stands out in the whole sorry reality TV lot for two reasons: the producers’ incomprehensible waste of Kim Kardashian’s key selling point – her colossal ass – in favor of portraying her as a sweetly demure girl with business ambitions, and for devoting considerable screen time to her monstrous mother and her adolescent half-sisters, who are glimpsed on a stripper pole at one point. Bruce Jenner’s Botoxed forehead is also terrifying. This DVD shoulda run in Horror Business, come to think of it.

SG: Meanwhile, the 80's VHS gut-bucket mondo-classick Faces of Death (Dark Sky) gets polished and chromed for the Youtube generation, who have seen enough real life mayhem at this point to laugh summarily at this low-rent shock fest. I'm guessing that's the point. Bonus features include a bit on the not-so-special effects. Effects, you say? Yes, Joe Six Pack, it was all fake, just like wrestling and religion. Please pick your middle-aged jaw off the floor now.

PG: Dark Sky’s DVD is the 30^th Anniversary Edition? Holy shit, has it really been 30 years? Wow, that made me feel old. But yeah, the whole thing is fake – the electric chair bit, the Satanic orgy, the monkey brains bit, the botched robbery – all effects created by Allan Apone and Douglas White, who are interviewed on the disc. Even the narrator, “renowned pathologist” Frances B. Gross is a fucking fake. That was pretty obvious back in the ‘80s, when teenage creeps like Sleazegrinder and I saw first saw it in an attempt to prove our manliness to our degenerate friends, but it didn’t stop us from watching it. The disc also includes commentary by director Conan LeClaire, as well as some outtakes (actresses goofing around on set) and deleted scenes (photos of death row prisoners en route to the gas chamber).

I dunno who the goof at the beginning of this trailer is, but this is essentially the preview for Faces of Death, and features that brain-boiling end title song by Frances B. Gross!

There’s a little picture called Psycho (Universal) by this director named Alfred Hitchcock – B&W feature, no big stars, supposedly based on a true story. Looks decent – I think he shows potential.

Warner has three enjoyable low-rent science fiction double bills on deck this week – all three discs were previously available only at Best Buy, but clearly the opportunity to make more dough precipitated this wider release. The most interesting of the bunch is Moon Zero Two/When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, a two-fer of late ‘60s-early ‘70s features from England’s Hammer Films. Moon Zero Two is a sort of Western in space, with American James Olsen roped into a scheme to capture an asteroid made of valuable materials for a shady millionaire. The low budget doesn’t allow for the picture to really blossom, but there are some fun futuristic sets and Catherine Schell is on hand for eye candy. Speaking of which, Playmate Victoria Vetri fills out a fur bikini quite will in Dinosaurs, a second-string One Million Years BC with agreeable stop-motion dinosaurs by Jim Danforth. The other two Warner sci-fi discs are World Without End (hilarious space adventure from Three Stooges director Edward Bernds!) and Satellite in the Sky, and Battle Beneath the Earth (Kerwin Mathews – still boring – stops the Red Chinese from taking over the U.S. by burrowing through the Earth!) and The Ultimate Warrior, a fun post-apocalypse thriller with Yul Brynner in total badass mode as a stranger who takes on William Smith’s band of thugs for control of what’s left of New York.

Also on deck: The Edgar Wallace Collection (Retromedia), a double feature of sexy, sinister ‘60s mysteries from Germany. Included here are Curse of the Yellow Snake (Chinese cultists with world domination plans seek a lost talisman) and The Phantom of Soho, an agreeable proto-giallo about a skull-faced killer (great costume) who stalks strip clubs! Sticklers and joyless types will note that Soho is actually based on a novel by Wallace’s son Bryan, but honestly, if that makes a difference to you, we don’t want to hear about it.

Mein Gott! Das Phantom von Soho ist! Sexy-krimi mit strippers und killers!

I have never met anyone who has seen Oversexed Rug Suckers from Mars, and for a while, I believed that this movie existed as only a title dreamed up to generate interest in an unfinished project. However, it appears that the film is not only a reality, but is now available on DVD courtesy Xenon Pictures, a label largely associated with “urban” releases. Rug Suckers, which was shot way back in 1989 (a period when you could not only afford to make cheapo horror parodies but actually see them released on VHS), concerns tiny aliens (made from modeling clay) who plan to take over our planet by getting humans to make with vacuum cleaners. Yes, you read that right. Problems arise when one of the appliances goes amuck and starts draining its unwilling partners of blood. Lotsa slapstick humor is mined from the idea of seeing actors pretend to fuck Hoovers – but is it funny? Well, you gotta answer that for yourself.