MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH (1976)

First off, MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH is not a horror movie. Yeah, back in the day it might have double-featured with THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and had blood all over the VHS cover, but it’s still not a horror movie. Not even close. Instead, it’s more like a pre-HEATHERS “Animal Farm” played out in a high school that doesn’t have any teachers. Also, all of the students are in their 20’s and fucking look like it!

David is the new kid in this freak show high school that is somehow ruled by four totally non-threatening white male students. Yeah, they’re psychotic, but other than that, a normal human who does at least 3 push-ups a fortnight could stomp the shit out of them. David is leery about them get go, but after seeing some of their weak ass bullying in person, he decides the best course of action is to assassinate them in overly complicated ways.

As far as entertainment goes MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH has a slow first act, an entertaining middle section and then a slow fizzle for the last 20 minutes. Nice photography, very stilted dialogue that is distractingly delivered, vintage cars, so cool old clothes, a few oddly placed nude scenes (not that I’m complaining!), an extra in a parking lot that looks like Agent 47's clown outfit, subdued acting, no adults or police investigating the multiple murders, okay special effects, a younger Robert Carradine. Worth watching for historical curiosity and the cool mid-1970’s Los Angeles locations. Anybody looking for a pre-HALLOWEEN slasher is going to be very disappointed. I'd still love to see a remake though!

TOO MANY HUSBANDS (1940)

[Update 07/25/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Released two months before MY FAVORITE WIFE this movie is pretty much the same story, but it's the husband instead of the wife getting shipwrecked. Also, the timeline is different and, ahh, who cares? Anyway, Fred MacMurray is the unfortunate shipwreck victim who comes home a year later to find that his wife has married his best friend, Melvyn Douglas. Instead of just saying "Deuces!" and finding the closest divorce lawyer, both husbands whimper and fuss like little children and beg Jean Arthur to pick him as her rightful husband.

As pathetic as that is it's kinda amusing and I was shocked at how much sexual innuendo made it past the censors. I swear to Satan at one point Jean Arthur was saying she wanted some double penetration!!! I'm serious!  MacMurray and Douglas bicker constantly and do stuff like jump over chairs to impress Arthur. It's all just crazy yelling, with no real substance.

Comparing it to other screwball comedies of the day, it's just OK and I really can't recommend it. Unless you're a Arthur and/or MacMurray fan, who I think both did very well considering the script was a mess.

PROJECT: METALBEAST (1995)

For a movie about an 7 foot tall metal-skinned werewolf bringin’ a ruckus…there sure is a lot of talking going on.  The film starts out well enough with some CIA dudes on a mission in Hungary to collect werewolf blood.  The first guy distracts the monster by placing his neck in the werewolf’s gaping mouth full of nasty, big, pointy teeth while the other CIA dude shoots the creature with silver bullets.  There’s no indication if he hits the wolfman in the nards or not, but I like to believe so.  Once back stateside, some scientists at a Top-Secret facility try to use the werewolf blood to make a super soldier.  Good news is they succeed!  Bad news is this mother woke up grumpy as fuck (Grrrrr.) and immediately starts killing the wookalar piss out of everybody.   It’s mildly entertaining in a low-budget, early 1990’s horror movie kind of way.

I could probably toss in some Barry Bostwick ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW jokes or make some lame quips about a "metal" werewolf who is really into metal music, but I'm not feeling it.  The movie is mildly interesting in an nostalgic way for older viewers and that's about it.  The "metalbeast" looks cool, but isn't on screen enough.  The rest of the characters are forgettable and boring.  The dialogue is nothing.  It just sounds like "burrr, buuurrrr, burrrrr..." after awhile.  Zero nudity, very little blood, zero gore, dumb ending, boring direction.  Watch it if you want, but don't blame me if you fall asleep.

IF YOU COULD ONLY COOK (1935)

[Update 05/16/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

This movie is a disaster! With a title like IF YOU COULD ONLY COOK I was expecting all kinds of funny skits about a woman who's hired to be a cook but can't cook! Now that could have been comedy gold, but "Noooo!" this turkey has nothing to do with cooking! Instead it's just a forced love story about two people who, as far as I can tell, have nothing in common. Wealthy automobile executive Herbert Marshall gets in a big argument with his board of directors so he goes for a walk to cool down. While sitting on a park bench he meets unemployed Jean Arthur. She's looking through the Help Wanted classifieds and the only thing she can find is a position for a cook and butler/husband and wife. She talks Herbert into trying out for the job and they get hired on the spot! In my opinion that is a wonderful set up for some screwball excitement and in the hands of somebody like Howard Hawks, Frank Capra or Preston Sturges this movie would have been a sidesplitter, but we're not so lucky. Instead of going the over the top screwball route IYCOC is just a clusterfucked mess.

The biggest problem is the script. It sucks. There's nothing remotely funny at all. If I didn't already know this was a comedy I would have just mistaken it for a badly written drama. My second biggest complaint is Herbert Marshall. I liked him in stuff like THE FLY and FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, but in this one he has the screen presence of an antique lamp. Terrible.

I have a few other complaints but they're not worth listing. Just take my word for it: this movie is a bore.