SLAUGHTERHOUSE (1987)

Old man Lester Bacon used to own a big slaughterhouse, but he refused to "mechanize" and  eventually went out of business. The owners of the new improved slaughterhouse down the road want to buy his land, but old man Bacon ain't sellin' cause he's as crazy a shithouse rat.  So, he and his big, fat intellectually disabled son, Buddy Bacon, are gonna fix those fancy shit talkers but good and anybody else who happens onto their land. Especially those dorky 30 year-old teenagers that keep creepin' around filming a horror movie.

For a low-budget TCM rip-off SLAUGHTERHOUSE ain't that bad. The story is passable and the teenagers are entertaining with their horrible acting and funny 80's clothes. The biggest problem is it's just too lightweight. Yea, there's some blood splattered here and there, but other than that this movie is pretty much gore free. Also, there's zero nudity.

An entertaining watch for 80's horror fans, but forgettable.

PUBLIC ENEMY RETURNS (2008)

[Update 02/03/2021: Going to rewatch and fix this review.]

 

As you don't remember I liked the original PUBLIC ENEMY and absolutely hated the second one. So. What's the verdict on Part 3? It's just so-so.

 

On the positive side, Kang Cheol-jung is back to being a homicide detective as opposed the boring public prosecutor he played the Part 2. Also the villain (Jae-yeong Jeong) in this ones pretty good, but there's not enough action and it's way too long! The thing I enjoyed about the original was Officer Cheol-jung was so goddamn fucked up he literally skirted the line between police officer and gangster. The method he used to catch criminals were highly illegal and he had zero manners (he even took a shit on the sidewalk at one point). This time around he has an reputation of being a loose cannon, but he's really not that bad.

 

I really, really wanted this movie to be as awesome as the original, but it's not. Maybe worth a rental, but probably not.

 

Part 1 - Public Enemy (2002)

Part 2 - Another Public Enemy (2005)

GROPER TRAIN: SEARCH FOR THE BLACK PEARL (1984)

In World War II, a soldier steals a rare giant black pearl ring off of a corpse.  He later becomes a famous baseball player.  On his death bed, in 1984, he's fucking his younger girlfriend and when she asks him the location of the pearl, he says "Pussy print." and then dies.  What does "pussy print" mean?  Could it be a reference to an un-cut version of CITIZEN KANE?  No, the old man had a hobby of painting women's pussies with ink and then pressing a piece of paper against their pussy.  Sounds like a normal enough hobby.  The pussy print in question (hanging on his bedroom wall) belongs to his niece (what the hell?), so the girlfriend and the old man's adult son hire a detective to locate the missing niece.  Now a normal detective would probably start searching through public records and boring stuff like that, since he has a picture of the woman and her name, but no, instead this weirdo dresses up like a bug exterminator and hangs out on public transportation trains and collects pussy prints of random women!  It doesn't make any since at all.

As far as mystery's go this one's shit and as far as erotic movies go...it's pretty shitty as well. The story is passable (I guess), but there's no laughs, the sex scenes are rubbish, and the small amount of nudity there is is terrible.  I didn't even care enough to take screenshots.

I wanted to like this film, but, even at 66 minutes, it was a chore to get through.  One strange thing I discovered while reading about this film, is: there's an entire series of these Groper Train movies!!!  I'm sure that'd be a fascination things to research, but for now, I really don't care.

THE REDEEMER: SON OF SATAN! (1978)

[Update 03/23/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Never in 666 years would I say this was a good film, but at the same time it is an interesting 1970's horror curiosity. It opens with a kid (the Son of Satan?) walking out of a lake, he then walks to a nearby dirt road where a bus picks him up and takes him to church. Once there, the kid visits with the fire and brimstone preacher and tells him that everything is gonna be alright. We then seen six different people in their normal lives getting ready for a class reunion. They each represent a sin: one's a gay dude, another a lesbian, one's greedy, another is prideful, one's a rich snob and the last is a gluttonous ex-jock. Finally they get to the reunion and quickly discover that they're locked in and cell phones won't be invented for at least another decade! Even worse, the preacher (wearing more costumes than Fletch) is lurking around killing everybody.

This is where the film finally picks up and it's not too bad for a cheap, early slasher. Problem is while the middle section is entertaining, the beginning and ending are boring. I understand the filmmakers are trying to make a point about religion or something, but I don't watch slasher movies to get lectured at I just want entertaining kills, scares, wall-to-wall gore and hopefully a few hot naked chicks and dudes. Some awesome music would be an added bonus!

If you're interested in the history of slasher movies then it's worth a watch, everybody else just skip it and watch FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III again instead. Zero nudity, overly moralistic story, a non-threatening killer, too long (even at 84 minutes!), zero scares and boring kills: 3 by gun, one fire, two stabbings and one very mean-spirited drowning (easily the highlight of the movie).

NEAR DARK (1987)

I was surprised at how much I disliked this film. Made the year after ALIENS, it stars three of the main actors from that film and was even written and directed by James Cameron's ex-wife, but fuck this movie is slow! The story's about a cowboy who picks up a sexy girl, she's a vampire and she turns him into a vampire. So now, against their better judgement, her vampire family takes in him, but he doesn't fit in at all. For the rest of the movie they drive and walk and talk and occasionally kill people, but in very boring, soulless way. It almost feels like an art house vampire movie. I can't quite put my finger on it, but this movie bored me to tears.

I'm sure there's people out there that'll say this is the greatest vampire movie of all time, but it was torture for me to get through.  Skip it with a vengeance.  (Maybe I'll try watching it again in a few years.)