THE DEADLY SPAWN (1983)

Ain't no build up in this motherfucker! The instant the movie starts a meteorite crashes down in a field near some campers. They're quickly killed offscreen, then the viewer is brought into a nearby house where the creature has set up shop in the basement and spends it's time eating whoever ventures into the basement, spawning deadly little wormy looking offspring.

The family that lives in the house doesn't realize there's a monster living in the basement. One-by-one they're picked off as they go about their daily routines and the tension builds at a steady pace until the inevitable monster rampage extravaganza at the end. For a super-low budget ($25,000), homemade horror movie the action scenes in this film are pretty awesome!!! Especially the face-ripping scene and the decapitation/body launch scene. Holy fuck, when that headless corpse shot out the window I nearly fell off the sofa laughing.

For horror fans, how much you like this film will depend on how forgiving you are or maybe how drunk you are. There's a few slow parts in the middle that could have been spiced up a bit, but overall the filmmakers had their hearts in the right place and a made fun, entertaining monster movie that's better than a lot of the big studio bullshit I sit through.

Face-ripping, head removing, funny 80's fashions, nice camerawork, good acting, gloomy atmosphere, zero nudity and an awesome fucking monster! At least worth a rent. Would make an great double-feature with THE ABOMINATION.

DEVIL'S ISLAND (1996)

In an Icelandic slum where all of the families live in old abandoned U.S. Army barracks, the mother of two teenage boys marries a soldier and movies to America. One boy goes to live with her while the other stays with his grandparents and some other family members that are all living in the same barrack. Years (?) later the one boy, now a man, returns completely Americanized. At this point I thought the story was going to be a coming-of-age comedy, kinda like MISCHIEF, but instead the returning brother is an giant asshole and he terrorizes the entire neighborhood with his wild friends partying nonstop. He even goes so far as to...well, I'm not going to ruin it for you, but this dude is a total prick and needs his ass whipped.

Despite it not being like the trailer (below) lead me to believe I still liked this film. It was well made and showed a world that's not often touched on in cinema. That alone makes it worth watching, but I do wish the script had been a little more touching. I never felt a connection to any of the characters and was indifferent whenever emotional stuff happened.

Another minor gripe is the passage of time. The one brother went to American and then immediately he's back, physically looking the same, but from the way they talked it seemed like he was there for years. This kind of thing happened a few times. Who knows, maybe I'm just too dumb to figure it out.

Worth watching if you come across a copy, but nothing to go out of your way for.

DETOUR (1945)

DETOUR is a slang-filled, pitch-black noir that's so dark and overflowing with venom it's almost best to look at it as a comedy.

Al Roberts is a weak, pathetic loser. In the voiceover, he complains endlessly about his shit life. He doesn’t want much, but, according to him, Fate is out to trip him up, put a finger on him for no good reason at all! He’s a piano player in a NYC nightclub and he’s in love with the singer, Sue. Al’s happy with their relationship, but then she puts things on hold and moves to Hollywood to try her luck in Tinseltown. At first, Al is heartbroken, but then he decides to join her. He doesn’t have any money, but he’s gonna make it anyway he can - train, plane, bus, magic carpet, crawl, even if he has to travel by pogo stick!

Slowly hitchhiking it across country, Al's spirits are even lower than normal, but then his luck seems to change and he's picked up by Charles Haskell, Jr. who's heading all the way to L.A! Haskell's a real big talker, but Al doesn't mind. Haskell even says some interesting things about how much money he has. So is it bad luck, Fate or just plain murder when later that night Haskell happens to bump his head on a rock and end up dead? Naturally, the coppers wouldn't believe a bum like Roberts so the best thing to do is dump the body, dress in Haskell's clothes, steal all his money and identification then drive his car to LA where he'll dump it. Sounds like a logical plan to me!

But Fate's not finished with Al yet. Not by a long shot! The next day he picks up a hitchhiker, but not just any hitchhiker. Vera (played to Satanic perfection by Ann Savage) actually rode with Haskell earlier and hated Haskell's fucking guts...even more than she hates Al! Holy shit. Every word out of his snarling wordhole is a poison-tipped dart aimed straight at Al's throat.

DETOUR was made outside of the big Hollywood system by Producers Releasing Corporation for $117,226 in 18 days (14 on soundstages and 4 on location). Because of this it's pretty rough around the edges, but that only adds to the brutal cynicism of the film.  Highly recommended.

One small note to aspiring filmmakers: notice how when we very first see Vera the music is softened just a little to almost trick the viewer into letting down their guard and feeling pity for her...then without warning she snaps like a demon-possessed piranha.  I thought that was a neat trick.

If you're looking more more film noir road movies be sure to check out THIEVES' HIGHWAY or even better yet read A. I. Bezzerides' novel "Thieves' Market".

LEATHERHEADS (2008)

[Update 07/21/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Where's the football? The tagline for the film is "In the beginning, the rules where simple. There weren't any." Now, maybe I'm just being overly imaginative, but in my mind that tagline plus the DVD cover above creates all kinds of exciting images of rugged, barbarian-type football players charging all over the football field grinding cleats into hands, ripping opponents faces off and crushing testicles. Or maybe a wacky, slapstick comedy with all kinds of silly, Buster Keaton/Harold Lloyd-style tomfoolery going on. But no, instead LEATHERHEADS is a romantic comedy about football...with only maybe 20 minutes of actual football onscreen. And boring football action at that. Hmm.

OK then, well that's disappointing, but let's go ahead and see if it's at least an enjoyable romantic comedy that's romantic and funny. No, it's not. LEATHERHEADS seems like it wants to go multiple directs all at the same time, but actually goes nowhere. It starts off with some football shenanigans about George Clooney playing in a financially collapsing football club, then it switches gears to prune-faced newspaper reporter Renee Zellweger trying to uncover the truth behind the war hero story of football star John Krasinski. These two stories come together when Clooney convinces Krasinski to join his near failure team and Zellweger follows the team on the road under the guise of doing a piece on Krasinski. On top of this is the inevitable love triangle when Clooney and Krasinski both fall for Renee's adorable, snarling puss. But if that's not enough things come to a screeching halt for probably 20 minutes or more when Renee publishes her damning article about Krasinski's war records. Who gives a fuck?!!! Where's the football?

My advise to time-travelers going back in time to rewrite this script: drop the entire war record angle and instead make it about a rugged, hard-living player who has dedicated his life to bringing up the game and right as it's happening, the powers that be starts to push him out to make room for younger, more brash players. You can leave the female reporter (played by Charlize Theron instead) and have her following the younger player, but while doing so she falls in love with the older player.