Cemetery of Terror (1985)

Cemetery of Terror (1985)
Watched October 24, 2009

SYNOPSIS
Half-slasher, half-zombie-movie, this Mexican flick follows a group of teens who happen to revive a psycho killer with some sort of ability to raise the dead and throw people around with his mind.

SHORT REVIEW
"Cemetery of Terror" isn't bad, but it's pretty forgettable and it suffers from bad pacing.

REVIEW
This is my first review for I Watch Horror Movies since June. I don't really even know why I'm trying to revive the site, because I don't have enough time to do so, but I have had over 2,000 visitors in the last few months, and I figure that's pretty good. So what better movie to revive my awful site with than a forgotten Mexican slasher flick that 99.9% of people don't give a shit about? Yay!

"Cemetery of Terror", released in Mexico under the name "Cementerio del terror" in 1985, is partly a rip-off of "Halloween" and partly a rip-off of "The Evil Dead". The first half of the movie is a bunch of dumbass teens who find a black book in the attic of an abandoned house, and decide to revive a dead man with the chants hidden inside it. Of course, the dead man they steal from the morgue turns out to be a psycho killer who may just be a demon from Hell. And so the teens are hunted one-by-one.

The second half of the movie follows a bunch of kids who somehow got the bright idea to go trick-or-treating in a graveyard (?) and end up trapped in said graveyard, with revived corpses chasing them around.

And then there's a doctor who is running around, yelling about he needs the black book to somehow kill the psycho.

"Cemetery of Terror" isn't technically a bad film, it's just that it's completely underwhelming, and you've seen it all before in the films it ripped off. That being said, it's pretty solid if you forget about the fact that it presents no original ideas. It's got some pretty good gore and kills here and there, and even manages to be suspenseful for brief periods of time. The 2nd half, the half with the zombies, isn't as good as the 1st half, but that's only because the zombies seem practically incapable of doing anything of use. For God's sake, they can't manage to kill one little stupid kid, not even the 10-year-old wearing the comically large Michael Jackson jacket.

I think the main problem with the movie is the pacing. For 40 minutes, nothing really happens. There are six ridiculously underdeveloped teenagers (Horny Guy 1, Horny Guy 2, Horny Guy 3, Scared Girl 1, Scared Girl 2, Scared Girl 3) that you have to follow along for a while. The whole point of this forty minutes is to basically show you that these guys are so horny, they are willing to steal a body from the morgue and hold a black magic ceremony just so the girls will get scared and maybe possibly have sex with them. This is a lot of work just to get laid.

But after that 40 minutes of nothing, suddenly there are six kill scenes in 15 minutes. That's like a kill every two and a half minutes. What really pisses me off is that there wasn't really even any point to the six teenagers, as they just walk around for forty minutes and then get killed immediately after they revive the killer. They could have stretched this part out a little more...

The kills are pretty gory, but they're never really that interesting. Almost every kill (if not every one) in the movie is the killer dude scratching people up to death with his nails. I don't know how the hell he makes his fingernails so deadly, but they're almost as effective as Freddy's razor gloves. If you want really inventive kills, "Cemetery of Terror" isn't the place to go, but there's enough gore to make them interesting.

Then, after the teenagers are dispatched, you meet some even more ridiculously underdeveloped characters, this time in the form of kids. Since they're kids, they don't even get the adjective of "horny" to describe them, they're all just scared. Doesn't make you particularly interested in the characters if all their characterizations are exactly the same. Then, the useless zombies are revived. Even though the zombies look pretty cool, like I said, they're completely useless and never accomplish anything in their part of the movie.

I feel like I'm dragging on a bit. Basically, this is just a "Halloween" rip-off (doctor tracks down his ex-psychiatric patient who happens to be a psycho killer) with some zombies thrown in to keep things interesting. Completely underwhelming and forgettable, but I've seen a lot worse, and if you're interested to see what a Mexican slasher would be like, this is one of your best bets. I'm giving "Cemetery of Terror":

3 out of 5 chainsaws (AVERAGE)

Chopping Mall (1986)

Chopping Mall (1986)
Watched May 31, 2009

SYNOPSIS
Promiscuous teens are hunted down by mall security robots malfunctioning after their computer is struck by lightning.

SHORT REVIEW
"Chopping Mall" is a hell of a lot of fun; nothing more, nothing less.

REVIEW
I've wanted to see "Chopping Mall" for a while now, solely because that title is fucking amazing. I'm putting it bluntly, but it is. Just like "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes", if you're not intrigued by the title "Chopping Mall", you obviously are an emotionless robot. You can still read this blog, though, I don't really care if my readers are robots, it's better than no readers at all.

Enough about robots! Now we'll set our sights on "Chopping Mall", which is conveniently also about robots. Killer robots at that. The film starts out with a company showing off their new security robots to mall employees. The maker of these robots claims "the system is foolproof" and "nothing, absolutely nothing, can go wrong" and goes on to repeat these claims multiple times. Needless to say, something goes wrong.

In this case, electricity hits the roof of the mall three times in a row, conveniently in the place that the robots' computer system is located. Why the hell would the computer system be located on the roof? Just one of many questions that are never answered in "Chopping Mall", but I couldn't care less.

Meanwhile, while the robots kill the people looking after them, who were too busy looking at porn to notice that the robots were alive when they shouldn't have been, eight teens are doing it in a mattress shop after-hours! They picked the right night to party! The teens are all complete cut-outs. We have the newly formed couple that are the two good people, who would rather watch "Attack of the Crab Monsters" than do it. Within seconds of meeting these two, you know they're going to be the only ones to survive the night. The other six have no distinguishable personality traits, and are only there to provide nudity and a higher body count. Sounds like it's gonna be a good time!

I mentioned in my "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" review that there were exploding heads in this movie. And I wasn't lying. One of the horny teens gets their head blown apart by the security robot's lasers! Why the hell would a security robot need lasers strong enough to explode someone's head? Man, that's really weird, the lyrics to the song I'm listening to were just "I don't care! I don't care!", which basically sums up my feelings to that question. If "Deadly Friend" can get away with basketballs exploding heads, "Chopping Mall" can get away with deadly lasers. By the way, the head explosion was good enough to warrant me rewinding the movie to watch it again.

Other than that head explosion, which was also pretty bloodless, there's no blood in "Chopping Mall", which you wouldn't expect from a film with that kind of title. But that's fine. The death scenes here are primarily laser-based, as that's the robots' main line of defense. I don't think the company's presentation on the robots mentioned lasers. I love how I'm pointing out how illogical a film called "Chopping Mall" is. Anyways, back to bloodletting, yeah, very little blood. But, the film is just so darned entertaining, I didn't need any.

Did I mention the film is 77 minutes long? Quick and to the point, just how I liked it. A perfect contrast with "Baby Jane". The film wastes no time getting to the action, as the first kill is like ten minutes in, then we get some quick boob shots and then we have just under an hour of teens getting thrown off of balconies and getting blown up by lasers. Exactly what everyone wants in their 80s horror. Man, I love the 80s.

The film never drags, and is entertaining from start to finish. It realizes it's nothing more than a crappy slasher with robots, and finishes off all the death scenes with the robots happily wishing the victims a nice day. How nice. I don't think I can bring myself to give this movie five chainsaws, as it's pretty much awful in every sense of the word, but I can give "Chopping Mall" a highly acceptable 4 chainsaws, and I'll throw in a slab of cheese for good measure. Go see it right now. Unless you're a robot, then you may find the film insulting to your race. But probably not.


4 out of 5 chainsaws and then a nice piece of cheese for no reason other than I've never given a film a rating made out of cheese (VERY GOOD, SEE IT)

Psychos in Love (1987)

Psychos in Love (1987)
Watched May 30, 2009

SYNOPSIS
Two psychos fall in love because of their shared hobby for serial killing and shared intense hate for grapes. There's also a cannibal plumber on the loose.

SHORT REVIEW
"Psychos in Love" is pretty damn funny all the way through, and I'm glad it's finally got a proper DVD release so the underrated film can find a new fanbase.

REVIEW
I'd never heard of "Psychos in Love" before I looked at a list of the new horror DVD releases and saw it on there. It sounded interesting, but I still wasn't completely sold. Then, I read some reviews for it, and they said that the two psychos bond over their loathing for grapes. Any film that uses hating grapes as a plot point is something I need to see, ASAP. So, I promptly put the film near the top of my Netflix queue and waited.

Well, the film came yesterday, and what an interesting little film. First off, the film is not supposed to be taken seriously at all. And that's a good thing. The film has a pretty black sense of humor throughout, so if you're into that kind of thing, it might be a good idea to pick this one up. I found it pretty hilarious.

I hate reviewing films that I liked, but I can't really find much to say about it. "Psychos in Love" is one of those films, so this review probably will not be that long.

But, I do know why I liked the film. It's entertaining from start to finish. There are a few great scenes, like the first couple times that the psychos rattle off a monologue about how they hate every type of grape (they continue to repeat this monologue, and while it gets a little less funny each time they repeat it, it's still pretty humorous) or the scene where they happily tell each other for the first time that they're mentally unstable. It's quite funny how nonchalantly they treat all the murders throughout the film.

However, I do have a couple complaints. First off, there's a lot of jokes that don't work. I realize that they can't all be zingers, but there's some real "wow-that-really-wasn't-funny-at-all" moments in the film. Fortunately, the funny bits outnumber the unfunny bits, so it's easy to overlook the stinkers.

Another mild complaint is the synopses of this film made it sound like the cannibal plumber was a big plot element, but in reality, the guy gets about five minutes of screen time, and only about two of those are with the psychos in love. It's a mild complaint, but I felt they just added in the plumber subplot at the very last second to add a little substance to the film. I don't know why, it just felt that way with how quickly they wrapped up the whole subplot.

But those are just minor complaints that definitely don't ruin this funny and original piece of work that really should be much more well-known than it is at the moment. Hopefully the DVD release helps the film find an audience and it's remembered as a cult classic as it should be. "Psychos in Love" gets:

4 out of 5 chainsaws (VERY GOOD, SEE IT)

Spookies (1986)

Spookies (1986)
Watched March 28, 2009


SYNOPSIS
A bunch of twenty-somethings stumble upon a haunted mansion and are hunted by some dude who is obsessed with chess, who needs said twenty-somethings to revive his dead love that actually hates him, and all the while, Billy's parents forgot his birthday so he stumbles upon same haunted mansion. Don't worry, watching the movie won't make the plot line make any more sense.

SHORT REVIEW
While "Spookies" doesn't make a lick of sense, it's pretty entertaining due to its copious monster effects and 80s-ness (is that a word?).

REVIEW
The story behind "Spookies" is actually quite interesting, and also quite sad, because what could have been a pretty damn good film was screwed up pretty bad. So, "Spookies" was once known as "Tortured Souls", which was about a group of teenagers who find an old mansion and decide to party hard. Unfortunately, the old mansion is filled with Chinese ladies who turn into spiders, zombies from Evil Dead and flatulent mud men. Yes, flatulent mad men. More on that later. But, anyways, "Tortured Souls" was finished, but there were apparently issues with the financial backer during post-production and the two directors of "Tortured Souls" were fired. Then, said financial backer hired some chick who made porn films to finish the film. The porn chick cut the "Tortured Souls" footage down to about 40 minutes, and then padded out the rest of the running time with newly shot footage of some necromancer dude trying to revive his dead love, all the while hiding in birthday presents to scare little kids. The two completely different films were edited together, and bam-o, we have "Spookies".

It really is a shame, because this makes the film virtually impossible to follow, and almost ruins the film. That damn financial backer. The "Tortured Souls" footage is actually pretty good, and even though it's not great, the final product of that film definitely would have been better than the "movie" we got to see.

The main thing that makes the film entertaining is all the very well done creature effects. We've got hordes of zombies, Asian spiders and beams of light that have the power to age, all of which are very well done. I'm sure if there were giant half-Asian, half-spider women in the world today, they would look somewhat similar to the ones portrayed in the film. But, alas, there are no spider women, so I can't say that for sure. I'd say my favorite monster was the giant Grim Reaper statue that comes to life. It's pretty freaking awesome, but, alas, when giant Grim Reaper statues are thrown off a two-story building, for some reason, they explode, so it didn't last for long. My other favorite are the muck men. I have no freaking idea what the filmmakers were thinking when they created said muck men, but god damn is it hilarious. First off, I watched the film on YouTube (Spookies isn't available on U.S. DVD, unfortunately, so I had to watch it online). So, the horny rebel and girlfriend are in the basement, when suddenly, these cool-looking mud men come out of the ground and attack. Suddenly, there are copious farting noises. I was convinced the user who put the film on YouTube added the farting noises to add humor to the movie. That's how oddly placed these noises are. To make matters worse, these flatulent mud men can be killed with just about any liquid at your disposal, making them quite possibly the least intimidating movie creature... ever.

The characters are all cardboard cutouts; we've got the rebel who just wants to party, we've got the responsible couple who looks about 20 years older than everyone else in the cast and we've got the obligatory horny teenagers. Overall, nothing special in the character area. Does that matter? No.

It's the footage shot after the "Tortured Souls" footage that almost ruins the film. We're treated to the story of Kreon, a necromancer magician dude who loves this one chick, who hates him so much, she poisoned herself just to get away from him. But alas, Kreon still feels like stalking her, so he brings her back to life somehow. I'm still not really sure how, but it has something to do with the people inside the house. Again, try to make sense of this plot.

And for reasons unknown, porn chick decided to throw in some kid who may or may not be mentally retarded. This kid's parents forgot his birthday, so he goes to the mansion, where there's a birthday party set up for him. He somehow ignores all the gaps in logic and decides his parents threw him this birthday party. He ends up being buried alive. Yes, this part has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

You know, I like ranting about this film. I could just keep talking about it, but I'm just gonna stop. Even if the film isn't perfect (far from it), I really wish "Spookies" got a DVD release so more horror fans could witness this. It's, at the very least, a very entertaining movie that really should be more well-known that it is right now. Even though the film would have been better if it stayed "Tortured Souls", I still liked "Spookies" and give it:


3 out of 5 chainsaws (IT'S ALRIGHT)

Blades (1989)

Blades (1989)
March 24, 2009




SYNOPSIS
There is a rogue lawnmower killing people at the Tall Grass golf course.

SHORT REVIEW
If you've always wished that "Jaws" starred a killer lawnmower instead of a killer shark, then, boy do I have a movie for you. For anyone else, you can do a lot better than this.

REVIEW
So, the first ever movie on "I Watch Horror Movies." I probably should have watched something that somebody's actually heard of, but that didn't work out as planned. I wanted to watch "Deep Red" last night, but I was too busy listening to the new Mastodon album. Since "Deep Red" is 120 minutes long, I needed a shorter movie to watch. Somehow, that ended up being "Blades", an obscure late 80s Troma flick.

"Blades" is apparently a comedy-horror movie, but in reality, it's basically just "Jaws" with a lawnmower instead of a shark. The plot of "Jaws" is basically ripped-off completely, right down to the "shark hunter" being replaced with a "lawnmower hunter" and the shark gutting scene being replaced by a lawnmower gutting scene. Yes. A lawnmower gutting scene.

You'd think all of this would be funny, but it's not. Despite "Blades" being a "spoof", I really think there were less than ten "jokes" in the entire movie. The only mildly funny scenes are the lawnmower attacks, and those are just about nonexistent.

Speaking of nonextistent lawnmower attacks, "Blades" is really slow-paced and pretty boring. Other than a few bloodless cut-away death scenes, virtually nothing happens in the first hour of the movie. So, by the time something actually DOES happen (there are a couple pretty cool "lawnmower-eating-legs" shots), you could really care less. And that's really unfortunate, because the last thing a movie about a killer lawnmower should be is boring.

Overall, the movie is just too dull to be memorable, and the lawnmower attacks are too few and far between to be cool. There's no scares or suspense, because you know everything that's going to happen if you've ever seen "Jaws". So, it's not a good comedy and it's not a good horror. "Blades" gets:



2 out of 5 chainsaws (PRETTY BAD, SKIP IT)