CRITTERS (1986)

A band of outlaws break out of prison. While on the run from the authorities, they attack a secluded homestead out in the country.  Now, it's up to the family (and two bounty hunters) to repel the invader's attack. That sounds like the description of a hundred different Western movies, but it's actually the story to CRITTERS, a low-budget sci-fi horror/comedy from the 1980's about some furry little meanies that love to gobble up anything they can...including humans!

There's many things to like about CRITTERS (fast pace, funny moments, good acting, etc.), but one of the things that I enjoyed the most is the strong character build-up of the family during the first act. They all seem like genuinely nice people, so then, when the attack happens you actually care about what happens to them.  What an amazing concept!  I wish more horror films would do something like this.

Anyway, if you haven't seen CRITTERS, then I think you're missing out on a good movie. There's no nudity or gore, but it's a fun film that I love to revisit.  Check it out!

Double-feature with GREMLINS.

Fun fact: Two of the characters in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS watch some of CRITTERS on TV. Here's a link to some screenshots.

Part 2 - Critters 2 (1988)
Part 3 - Critters 3 (1991)
Part 4 - Critters 4 (1992)

FUNKY FOREST: THE FIRST CONTACT (2005)

FUNKY FOREST is a hit or miss collection of very bizarre short stories that suffer overall from a complete lack of any narrative or story structure. Some of the skits are absolute genius (like the Babbling Health Springs Vixens stories or the school sport scene where a girl with a racket bats at the milk shooting out of a older man's deformed nipples), but other skits could have easily been left on the cutting room floor: the looooong dance scene on the beach; the forest house music scene; the "Transfer Student" cartoon and the backyard dance number at the end should have all been chopped. That might sound like a lot, but with a ridiculous running time of 150 minutes (!!!) trimming this monstrosity down to a quick 85 - 90 minutes would have done the film and it's audience a huge favor.

To me the highlight of the movie was the above mentioned gymnasium scene with the girl batting that the old man nipple milk. It's was fucking genius and a perfect example of the kind of shit that runs through my head nonstop all the time. I loved it. It also starred Tadanobu Asano, who I think is one of the most talented actors I've ever seen. My second favorite was the Babbling Health Springs Vixens which is just a series of short stories about three attractive young women who go to a hot springs resort and talk nonstop. I thought it was riveting for whatever reason, it did help that it featured Kazue Fukiishi from NORIKO'S DINNER TABLE who I think is brilliant. Whenever she spoke I couldn't tear my eyes from the screen. The other stuff that I liked was the Homeroom skits about students talking in front of some very animated classmates. In the next room over there was a music class with some very weird musical instruments. In the hallway there was a strange sequence of events going on featuring a guy in a fuzzy, yellow outfit, an attractive schoolgirl, a guy with really short shorts on and a machine that looked like an older TV except where the screen should have been there was an oozing butthole with a miniature person inside it.

Everything else was mostly junk. The dance scene on the beach was torture to get through (even though the girl was beautiful); the scene with her playing a distorted violin in the forest made me want to jump into the gear of a combine penis first; the Guitar Brother moments looked promising, but went absolutely nowhere; the "Transfer Student" cartoon was crap; the backyard dance was pointless and to make matter even worse there was a three minute intermission!

Plenty of weird shit, but I can't recommend it. If you can find a copy to rent and have plenty of spare time I say go for it, but with the best scenes already on YouTube I can't seen any reason to buy it.

ECSTASY OF THE ANGELS (1972)

A group of anarchists, who all wear fashionable clothes and live in stylishly furnished apartments, break into a military weapons depot and steal some crates of explosives. There's a shootout with the army and the leader of the anarchist group is blinded. He escapes, but now the group starts to splinter and even attack each other. Everybody is pissed at everybody, but yet still somehow find the time for almost nonstop (boring) lovemaking. There's a ton of nudity and sexual activities, but it's all performed with the energy of somebody putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

Another distracting thing is the anarchist group all name themselves after the seasons of the year, the months and the days. So all the conversations are almost nonsensical with stuff like "Monday, Winter is mobilizing, but October has hidden the explosives." That's not an actual sentence in the movie, but they all sound just like that. After a while it started making sense, but for the first 20 minutes or so it's quite confusing.

Overall, it's an interesting film, but too talky with not enough action. I did really enjoy the street scenes at the end of the movie though. It's like going in a time machine back to early-70's Japan.

GRASS LABYRINTH (1983)

In rural Japan there's a teenage boy lives with his jealous mother. There's a woman with nice nipples held prisoner(?) in a shed out back. One day the girl seduces and rapes(?) the boy. The mother gets angry, ties the boy to a tree and paints Japanese characters all over him. There's something else going on about a teenager girl who drowns herself in the ocean and a round stone that if a sterile woman touches it she immediately gets pregnant. There's also some dudes painted white and a surprising amount of tastefully shot female nudity. None of it made a fucking lick of sense to me, but I still kinda liked it in an experimental kind of way. Thankfully it was only 40 minutes though, much longer and I would have fallen asleep.

If you like avant-garde and experimental as fuck movies then you'll like this. Most other people would probably be better off best steering as clear as possible.

I thought the DVD said GRASS LABYRINTH?