CORONA ZOMBIES 2020

Sure, the whole idea seems tasteless, but what the Hell. I was actually a little excited to see it.
Then I watched it.
Let's run down the good and the bad shall we?
It's only 54 minutes long. That's a definite win. Of course the new footage in the film is only like five minutes of footage. The rest of it is overdubbed scenes from Hell of the Living Dead and Zombies Vs Strippers. They really only use the ZVS footage to guarantee boobs.
The overdubbed scenes from Hell of the Living Dead are very funny and nothing is taboo. Nothing. Watch it and you'll see.
For the new footage we have Barbie (Cody Renee Cameron) who comes home to find out that the Corona virus is making zombies and she forgot to get toilet paper. She gets a call from her friend Kendra (Robin Sydney, pretty much the only reason to watch a lot of Full Moon's films so, of course, she's just on the phone here. What the literal Hell, Charlie?) Also, if you're going to have the blonde bimbo get in the fucking shower, maybe shoot higher up so we can't tell that she has left her shirt and bra on. I mean, what the fuck? We round things out with Russell Coker as the Corona Zombie. He's the only one wearing a face shield in the movie.
Corona Zombies is a clever blend of old movie footage, a sprinkle of new, utterly worthless footage and some news footage to give it a sense of reality and emergency.
Finally, if you're gonna hype this thing so much that the site crashes, maybe plan better in the future. I think I might just not renew my subscription and subscribe to Troma NOW! instead.
Fucking Full Moon...

COTTON PICKIN' CHICKEN PICKERS

 So, Darby (Dell Reeves and Jerry (Hugh X. Lewis) are sneaking aboard a train to California. You know this isn't going to be a normal movie when a guy sits up in the train car and plays the duo a tune on his guitar. Yup, it's a musical. They pass a chicken farm and get caught trying to grab a chicken to eat. Pretty soon they are off to jail and the judge sentences them to sixty days hard labor. They escape and head into the Swamp Of No Return so the cops call out the helicopter pilot, none other than Mel Tillis who sings a song for us while he flies and does not stutter once in this movie.
It's a combination of moonshine movie, country western musical and hillbilly comedy all rolled in to one. In other words; a pretty good time.
One thing stuck out for me though. Cousin Elwood (Robert V. Barron) looked a lot like Mike Vraney of Something Weird Video to me. Let me show you.

Maybe it's just me, but they looked enough alike to me. Of course I've never seen Vraney with a beard. Barron is most famous with a beard and his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

It's a fun flick if you like this kind of thing. I had a great time and Mel Tillis had the best line when he said that an alligator ate one of his brothers. Someone asked, which one? And he said; Beats me I can't tell one alligator from another. Just hilarious.

NUDES ON TIGER REEF (1965)

I would have to blame Doris Wishman's film Bad Girl's Go To Hell for my mild Gigi Darlene obsession. Since then I have been lucky to find many of them at Something Weird Video. I am a huge fan of the standard nudist camp film. It's fun to see how they avoid the things you can't show more than what you can't Girls can be seen except for their pubic region, front and back. Same goes for the men. Lots of people with strategically placed towels, beach balls, trays of drinks. you get the idea. And, if you can get the thinnest of plots to go along with it all the better.

In this one we have Sande (Sande N. Johnsen) telling his Broadway star, Nadja (Nadja Swensen) that he will be too busy on the off season to make a film. What he really is doing is going to visit the nudist camp he frequents every summer. The owner of the nudist camp asks him if he wants to shoot a documentary for him about the camp. Sande isn't sure about it, but the owner explains that there is a star there that would be happy to lend her talents to the movie.

Yup, it's Nadja. After a hot minute of embarrassment they decide to go for it and shoot a documentary about life at a nudist camp. There is lots of posing and activities, even scuba diving that becomes the star of the film. I was glad to see Gigi Darlene, the only reason I bought this movie in a lot of the film. And in color to boot!    

It's a nudist camp movie so some scenes seem to go on forever. There is zero live dialogue, just a narrator for the events that unfold in front of the camera. The solution to the male frontal nudity was speedos. Sande looked like he got the wrong size as he get his hairy ass crack anytime we see him. Luckily it's not often.
In this new age of restoring films to their former glory, I would love to see this get that treatment. The colors are washed out in the print, reasonably so for an older piece of cinema, but can you imagine the blues of the ocean and the deep, rich greens of the foliage? I can and it would be magnificent. Wishful thinking I'm afraid, but you never know.

I recently got a deal over at Something Weird Video and bought like 30 DVDs. I think it's time to bring back reviews to Divine Exploitation on a regular basis. 

Be back soon with another oddity from the vaults.

  

SUPER NATURAL; The Final Season

Being a huge Supernatural fan I was sad when they announced that this would be the final season. I was also excited to see what kind of deep cuts we would get as the final twenty episodes revealed themselves.
After watching Episode 9, I think that not only have I ceased to care a lot about this show, but I just want it over. I know for a fact that I will be unhappy with the ending so, let's just get this done. It should be a power house of a season. The Boys VS Chuck in a no holds barred battle for the fate of the planet.
Instead, it just feels like a weaker season of the show overall. They only bring back old characters to knock them off or treat them as ineffectual.
Just end it already folks.
And, a happy ending would be nice.

HOT SPLICES by Mike Watt

Mike Watt is someone I have known for many, many years. I see him a minimum of twice a year at Cinema Wasteland. I have watched all of his movies and read almost all of his books. I know what you're thinking; well, this is just one of Mike's buddies so he'll write this glowing praise for this book.
Well, I have lots of friends who produce art and if I don't like it, I will let them know about it.This has never happened with anything that has been created by Mike Watt, in my opinion. The Resurrection Game is one of my favorite zombie movies that is not really a zombie movie. Abattoir (a.k.a. A Feast of Flesh) is one of the best vampire movies made in a long time.
Now we get Hot Splices. A film that maniacally embraces film as a religion, as a way of life, and, in this novel, a drug that actually immerses you in film in a way never considered before. See, movie junkies, like myself, we are fascinated by the images flickering across the screen. As a child you absorb it as a form of altered reality and it either sucks you in or it's just a movie to you. Depends on how the neurons fire I suppose. I remember as a child thinking that dream sequences were the easiest thing to film. They just found a way in Hollywood to record your dreams. Pretty cool, right? Then as film junkies get older they look for that thing that fires your neurons in a new and different way. The films of David Cronenberg or David Lynch immediately come to  mind. Alex Cox's Repo Man. Slava Tsukerman's Liquid Sky. Pretty much anything by Andy Milligan or Jess Franco.
But that's really my personal path.  
Mike Watt takes it to the next level with a movie drug; 
It's called Flixing.
Flixing is the main thrust of this book. It deals with people being able to experience a film by putting actual frames of film in their mouth and letting the emulsion dissolve. It is a fictional form of recreational drug use. I call it a drug because it does involve the ingestion of a substance that causes unnatural things to happen to your sense of perception. To those of us whose psyches as I mentioned before are directly molded by film, this takes it to another level. One that like all drugs have a dangerous side effect. Overdosing can cause physical cuts on your skin as if it was sliced open by a thing slice of celluoid.
Hot Splices also deals with  a legendary series of insane films that when combined in the proper order cause horrible, violent things to occur. But, as any movie junkie can tell you, if it was meant to be watched you should absolutely watch it. Right? Isn't it the vision of the director, baring his soul for all to see? 
But, what if the director is a madman who is attempting to do nothing more than rain chaos and death upon humanity? Is it still important enough, as a movie junkie, to watch it? Hot Splices addresses, in broad strokes, the very answer to that question. 
There are people who watch movies. There are people that experience movies. Some become obsessed with them. There are some that are considered classics regardless of genre. In Hot Splices you see what an obsession with film can cause if taken to the nth degree.
If I were to compare this to anything it would most likely be the work of Phillip K. Dick run through a David Cronenberg filter. Both men created art that is so dense. Every page or frame filled with so many thought provoking things. Author Watt brings the same density to this book and it captures you from the onset and forces you, much like a film watched in one sitting, to get to the end credits. Watt creates a living breathing alternate universe with its own pantheon of Gods of Celluoid ruled over by the majestic being Cinemagog. The passages of normality in the book creep into the edges of your brain and suck you in to accept the bizarre aspects of the novel until you realize that have been led into a place where film is all.
I read this in one setting needing to reach the end credits to experience it as it was intended. Hot Splices could, quite possibly, be the most cinematic book I have ever read.
The back of the book has three short stories that intertwine into the narrative, by referencing things that happened in the main novel. The one about actress Angel St. Satan was the saddest and my favorite.
Do you love movies? Do you love to discuss film with others? Do you think you know a lot about film? Then Hot Splices will show you wonders you could never have imagined in the world of celluloid.
Plus, it is creepy and scary.
Always a great combination

Get yours here;

HOT SPLICES by Mike Watt

BOLT ACTION!

 

I remember the days of old black and white comics. Vampirella being a huge favorite. I mean come on! How could you not like that costume, especially when I was a teen age boy? No contest. Well, now we get all the horror, all the action, all the kinky sex from the newest comic book to assault our senses. I am referring to Bolt Action.
After a successful Kickstarter the people behind the mayhem of this blast from the past have decided to let you, the discerning public take hold of this mighty tome with both hands. You'll need both hands trust me on this one.
With words and pictures by David Zuzelo, Tim Tyler, Neil Vokes, Skylar Owens, Brian LeBlanc and William Skaar, Bolt Action is a massive tome of old school exploitation.
And it's like the catered it to exploitation junkies in the worst way. There is a cohesive story line throughout that lets us embrace the theater going experience that it is emulating. Lots of little nods to the gods of exploitation are smartly sprinkled throughout. It reminded me of old issues of Creepy and Eerie magazine with the sexiness of Vampirella all combined into a wonderful stew.
Are you one of those people who just wait fro places like Vinegar Syndrome, Severin Films or Synapse Films to release some old school films to the public at large. Do you know who Jess Franco is? Do the names Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski make you smile?
Then Bolt Action was tailor made for you.
I leave you some teasers and will update when there is a link to purchase...
BOLT ACTION!!!

OBAMALAND (2017)

In 2016 Donald Trump was elected president. While having lunch with Mike Pence and Paul Ryan they all 'accidentally' fell to their deaths. Quick to find a replacement, the government pushed through an additional term for Barack Hussein Obama which eventually turned him into President for life.
Flash forward to the year 2040 and Obamaland has become a reality and the planet will never be the same. Obama has become obsessed with his redistribution ray that will use a laser to redistribute the wealth of Obamaland to everyone.
One problem...lasers do not redistribute anything and it has become quite clear that Barack Obama has gone around the bend.
Enter Tinder Tucker who after an aborted gang rape at a Mexican bar has become on of the freedom fighting Trumpublikans who will use the power of the chain restaurant Applecheez to bring down the president and return America to her former greatness.
Sounds ludicrous, doesn't it?
The thing that works for this is that all of the actors sell it by playing it straight. No matter how bizarre the film gets, they give you one hundred percent and that helps propel even the most inane concepts that are introduced in the film.
Think of the old Airplane films with a Troma filter and you have what Obamaland is. People with a thin skin will probably be offended on both sides of the political agenda, but I think that's it's purpose. Behind the broad swipes of political humor we get a deeper message about the corruption of power regardless of even the best of intentions. Everything must have a balance or things will just spiral out of control.
Finally, the sent me a hat just like the one that Obama is wearing on the movie poster.
I'm a sucker for free stuff and this one is going on the shelf...or I'm wearing it to a Trump rally and seeing how long it takes anyone to notice.