Wasted Weekend - 10.1.21

 Welcome to Wasted Weekend! Welcome to October! This is undoubtedly my favorite month for candy shopping, pet accoutrement acquisition, home décor choices, and movie watching. I never have a shortage of stuff to watch the rest of the year but it's extra fun when more people are getting in the spirit of things and various streaming services give up the spooky goods. I will probably keep the focus keenly on horror films this October but there will be some other movies to yap about so these will be particularly overstuffed watchlists.

I do a horror movie challenge every October where I watch at least 31 horror movies - however this year I'm finally participating in Cinemonster's HoopTober Challenge over on Letterboxd. I had a lot of fun putting my list together so please check it out if you want some inspiration for your own watching or merely wish to judge me silently. Another new wrinkle for me this year is that I'm participating in the Unsung Horrors podcast #HorrorGivesBack fundraiser where I will pledge to donate at least one dollar for every movie I watch this month to the Trevor Project - a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth. If you've got the ability I'd highly recommend joining this effort or make donations based on your movie watching to the charity of your choice. The Unsung Horror folks did a great list of prompts for ideas this month if you need yet further inspiration.

The horror films are starting to flow like pumpkin spice from just about every streaming service around and it's the beginning of the month so there is much to discuss!

The first big news in streaming is that Kino Lorber has started a new, free, ad-supported site called Kino Cult. As you can imagine, there is some overlap with existing libraries but after rooting around on their site for a bit I think I found some items that aren't particularly represented other places. Kino's been in the eurocult game either via their own discs or doing distribution for other companies and that's well reflected in their initial offerings.

Hatchet for the Honeymoon - There are a bunch of excellent Mario Bava offerings on Kino Cult but for whatever reason Hatchet  has been one of the harder ones to come by. It may not be one of Bava's more celebrated films but I'll watch the maestro's compositions any time.

The Nude Vampire - Again, there are several Jean Rollin films on Kino but this is the one that seems hardest to track down at the moment. It's only his second feature and I noticed it gets a cheeky reference in the excellent Lips of Blood so I'm looking forward to it. 

The most extensive collection of eurocult films that don't seem to be elsewhere are those from Jess Franco. A Virgin Among the Living Dead, Female Vampire, and The Diabolical Dr. Z are all films that I had been struggling to find outside of physical copy (which I love but I can't always buy everything) or dicey transfers on YouTube. All in all this seems like a really promising start and I would love to see some of the harder to find non-horror titles from Kino find their way to streaming - Road to Salina  for instance.

I confess that I'm a bit of an Arrow fanboy, I think their streaming service is excellent, and they are still offering a 30 day free trial for the curious. Arrow is doing 31 days of horror film choices if you want to hand over the controls to someone else - it looks like they will have some good stuff to offer. Personally I'm more interested in their curated Shocktober Essentials lists which break down some of their catalogue into categories like "gore" or "giallo." A couple notable things they're offering new this week is slow burn Ozploitation chiller Patrick and 80s slasher The Initiation which if nothing else offers some Clu Gulager action and who doesn't love that?

Tubi usually has great horror offerings year round but the recently added Alison's Birthday is another Australian film I've been meaning to catch up to. This one is actually getting a physical release as part of Severin's massively wonderful folk horror box set but if you need a preview or couldn't commit to the set, Tubi's got you.

I started watching the occasional shot on video movie mostly because of October movie challenges and now not only do I include them in my annual binging but I watch them throughout the year. I would highly recommend you open your heart (and risk your mind) to some SOV action this October and while I'm not entirely certain that Things is where you should start it will certainly give you a hearty dose of the outsider, murderdrone vibes that resonate so strongly with some of us. Things was recently added to shudder but is on Tubi as well.

It wasn't my intention to get into non-horror movies this month but I had to make a note of some great movies cropping up. So this is for the non-horror people or for you to file in your notes when you have the time. 10 to Midnight is back up on Prime - it's definitely not horror but you could make the argument that it's at least slasher adjacent. A naked karate killer is dispensing with young women and Charlie Bronson is definitely too old for this shit. Midnight is crammed with cop movie clichés but it's Bronson and J. Lee Thompson so it totally works.  PlutoTV just added one of the great vet-sploitation movies - Rolling Thunder - featuring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones as a pair of army buddies getting brutal vengeance on the pack of thugs who killed Devane's family (and shoved his hand down a garbage disposal). HBO Max has added a lot of good stuff this month but I wanted to mention a trio of outstanding neo-noir films The Yakuza, The Long Good Friday, and Night Moves - the latter of which you can hear me ramble about on The Trylove Podcast. They also added bittersweet heist comedy Going in Style which like many 70s films featuring Art Carney I can't beseech you enough to seek out.

Wasted Weekend - 9.24.21

 Hello friends. Between work and travel I haven't had a lot of time to blog but I'm back and there were a few things bouncing around streaming that I thought I might draw your eyeballs to. I've already kicked off my HoopTober challenge but am still finding time to watch non-spooky movies as well. I've got a mix of things to talk about so whether you're looking for things for your own October viewing or fitting in some non-horror viewing before the big binge, I hope to have you covered.

Do you like screaming? Do you like machine gun fire? How about the combination of screaming and machine gun fire? If the answer is "yes" then please let me direct you to Bruno Mattei's Rambo-sploitation duo Strike Commando and Strike Commando 2 . Severin released discs for these a little while ago and I do love Italians running around the Philippines blowing stuff up. Sure the actor playing the lead changes between films but that's probably the least crazy thing on offer from the fertile minds of Mattei and co-writer/nonsense master Claudio Fargasso. These films don't have the sci-fi angle of the Mattei helmed Robowar but promise similar dumb-but-fun good times. Both of these are currently streaming on Tubi and Prime

I had the good fortune to catch a screening of Frederic Hobbs' Godmonster of Indian Flats recently and it was exactly the kind of hyper-regional, scrappy, low-budget American exploitation movie I've grown to love over the years. Unfortunately I missed out on Hobbs' somewhat more obscure film from the same year (1973) Alabama's Ghost. The tale of a nightclub janitor who stumbles on the personal effects of a powerful magician and uses them to become a popular nightclub celebrity. Of course dabbling with the dark arts comes with a price and Alabama finds himself entangled with voodoo, a vampire cult, and an elephant for some reason. I don't believe this has gotten a release since VHS but a rip of that tape is currently streaming on Prime if you're down for some regional zaniness.

Speaking of regional zaniness, on the opposite coast from Hobbs low budget filmmaker and playwright Andy Milligan was churning out frequently sadistic sex and gore packed weirdness including 1970s Torture Dungeon. My own experience with Milligan is limited to Fleshpot on 42nd Street which I really liked so I would definitely be curious to see his take on a period piece. Torture Dungeon interestingly enough seems to draw a lot of comparisons to Game of Thrones due to it's royal intrigue and...well...torture and stuff. Check it out on Tubi

I realize I'm not keeping things too classy in this week's installment but for those of you who want "professionally" made movies for some reason I noticed that Guillermo del Toro's masterful ghost story The Devil's Backbone is currently on Prime. Seriously, if you haven't seen The Devil's Backbone or like me haven't seen it in some time - check it out - it will make for great October viewing and won't cause your friends and relatives to ask you if it's a "real" movie like some of these other suggestions.

That's what I've got this week, go watch a movie already!

Wasted Weekend - 9.3.21

 Just as last week there was a bit of a lull in the streaming catalogues - the beginning of the month brings with it heaps of new titles to sift through. I've seen a lot of great titles pop up across the web including all time favorites like The Long Goodbye, The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three, Thief, What's Up Doc?, and A Fish Called Wanda. If you need me to encourage you to see any of those - consider this your encouragement. However, we're here to get a little off the beaten track and this is what caught my eye this week.

I generally like to champion movies a little on the older side, but Jumbo (2020) is one I've been really looking forward to since hearing about it last year. The feature directorial debut of Zoé Wittock is the age old tale of a girl who meets and develops a romantic relationship with an amusement park ride. It just sounds so deliriously weird and what I've seen of it looks absolutely gorgeous. Jumbo is currently streaming via the Arrow Player and while I don't normally bring up rentals, it's available for a buck from Vudu

If my list of favorites above wasn't already enough of a clue - I am a big fan of crime films. I especially love off-beat, shaggy crime films of the 1970s and early 80s and Cutter's Way is about as shaggy as it gets. It's an excellently written, beautifully performed - with Jeff Bridges, John Heard, and Lisa Eichorn - portrait of disaffected, post-Vietnam, hangout noir. It's bleak, it's funny, it's weird, and it's one of those films you have to imagine the Coen Brothers saw and internalized. It's been up on Criterion for a bit but recently appeared on Pluto TV.

If you're looking for something a little more upbeat - it's hard to go wrong with one of my absolute favorite 60s caper films Topkapi. Jules Dassin applies every bit of heist technicality he displayed in the peerless Rififi and combines it with an anarchic travelogue showcasing the comedic talents of Peter Ustinov - who won an Oscar for his performance. Topkapi was also Dassin's first color movie and it is - sometimes literally - a kaleidoscopic explosion of color. I find it endlessly charming and Brian De Palma liked it enough to give its acrobatic jewel heist a nod in Mission Impossible. You can catch this one also on Pluto TV.

My final crime pick for this week comes as part of the Criterion Channel's New York City series they recently uploaded. There's plenty of great films in there, but I have to mention the Alan Arkin directed Little Murders. Featuring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd and based on a play of the same name, Little Murders is one of those films that has just become difficult to see these days. It's the kind of thing it might be worth signing up with Criterion for free trial or just a month if you aren't a regular subscriber.

October was once the month of ultimate horror film indulgence but for many of us September is when we start to ease into our own personal spooky season. Maybe you would prefer to save your horror picks for the month of Halloween but if you're looking to kick things off why not check out John Carl Buechler's Cellar Dweller? This is solidly B movie territory but with the special effects mind behind Ghoulies, Trancers, and even Mausoleum - Cellar Dweller delivers on rubbery goods and spooky spirit. It's currently up on Hulu. 

Wasted Weekend - 8/27/21

 We've nearly made it to the weekend once again and I'm going to do my level best to give you some good or at least serviceable suggestions of things to watch online instead of doing anything responsible. I feel like there's a little bit of a slowdown of new things popping up on streaming services around this time of the month before the wave of new titles hit over the next week. Still, it's the internet and there's always something to wrap your eyeballs around.

Grizzly is hardly obscure but it is a solidly entertaining Jaws-on-land with a bear animal attack jam. It's is just the kind of thing I like to put on during a bleary eyed Sunday morning while I muster the strength to go pick up breakfast tacos. It's a little slow in parts but it's filled with actors I like - Christopher George, Richard Jaeckel - the kill scenes are all pretty great and the ending is totally bananas. Grizzly regularly hops on and off different services but I noticed it on Tubi earlier this week.

Speaking of actors I like - I have never seen the 1972 made for tv prison drama The Glass House but it stars Alan Alda, Vic Morrow, Clu Gulager, and Billy Dee Williams! Based on a Truman Capote story and directed by Tom Gries - Helter Skelter - Glass House has a reputation for being a truly bleak slice of prison life and it's definitely the kind of obscure, downer 70s film that I look for. I'm willing to give it a shot and it's currently streaming on Prime.

Nothing I tell you can prepare you for the cast featured in 1990s Catchfire/Backtrack. Directed by and starring Dennis Hopper opposite Jodie Foster and an onslaught of familiar faces - Dean Stockwell, Joe Pesci, Catherine Keener, Charlie Sheen, and Vincent Price (?) just to name a few. The question of whether Catchfire is any good is one only you can answer but it is an absolutely brain melting bit of late 80s-early 90s WTF material. See Dennis Hopper playing saxophone in front of an Hieronymus Bosch triptych, witness him defend a burrito in a gunfight, marvel while he saves a baby lamb from falling into a crevasse. You can watch all of this insanity on Prime and Vudu.

I often struggle with modern attempts at psychotronic/exploitation/drive-in fare as they are frequently too self aware for my tastes. I prefer that even the lowest of budget genre flicks take themselves somewhat seriously. I can't say from the looks of things that Lake Michigan Monster takes itself seriously at all but it does look like a genuinely earnest attempt at low budget regional filmmaking - also people say it's really fun! This has been available on Arrow for some time but appears to be streaming on Prime and Tubi as well. 

Wasted Weekend - 8/20/21

 It's nearly official - as of this writing my weekend has nearly begun - and I'm ready to discuss wild and wonderful films to indulge in. Depending on your tastes, it's actually a pretty solid streaming weekend for new films - Annette has dropped on Prime, Jakob's Wife starring Barbara Crampton is now on Shudder, and a movie I don't know much about but looks interesting - Cult Following - a mockumentary about an occult investigator has appeared on Vudu. However, I'm here to talk to you about older, often weirder gems for you to mine over the weekend so lets get to it.

You could be excused for thinking that 1990's Blood Games is just another sleazy T&A trashfest and its alternate title Baseball Bimbos in Hillbilly Hell does very little to disabuse you of that notion. However, Blood Games is in fact a fairly relentless and brutal revenge exploitation flick combining aspects of I Spit on Your Grave and Deliverance so if you need to heed content warnings - consider yourself warned. This is the only feature from director Tanya Rosenberg and it stars accomplished stuntwoman Laura Albert. Blood Games saw a Blu Ray release from Vinegar Syndrome but is currently streaming on Hulu.

Another VS release seen streaming in the wild is Psychic Killer - Ray Danton's supernatural quasi-slasher about a former mental patient who learns astral projection and uses his newfound powers to wreak revenge on the people who had him locked up. It stars Jim Hutton as the titular killer and Neville Brand makes an appearance. Actor/Writer/Director - Black Shampoo, Satan's Cheerleaders, Joysticks - Greydon Clark is in the film and has a co-writing credit as well. This one is currently free with ads on Vudu.

I have to give a tip of the hat to my friend Tim who let me know that a bunch of Arrow Video titles had dropped onto Tubi including several films from Floridian William Grefe. Of the bunch I have to highly recommend Sting of Death - it is a zany 60s monster mash where a group of swinging biology students are hunted and killed by a mutated jellyfish monster. It's goofy, it's fun, there are dance numbers, and the body count is shockingly high. It's not as gruesome as what I usually go for but it oozes with low budget regional charm and Grefe has a real knack for lovely natural landscape photography - who knew? Sting of Death is available on the Arrow Player but also streaming Tubi with ads.

In addition to the Grefe films, Tubi also has a bunch of films from one of the kings of 60s low-budget horror - Herschell Gordon Lewis. I haven't seen many of Lewis' films since VHS and I keep meaning to revisit them. I'm thinking I'll get reacquainted with Blood Feast. At an economical 67 minutes - Blood Feast gives you the best of Lewis' aesthetic - bright red gore, earnest performances, low budget ingenuity - without wearing out its welcome. Reserve a seat at the Egyptian Feast via Arrow, Kanopy, or on Tubi

Last but certainly not least - the film world lost a legend in Sonny Chiba this week at the age of 82. Chiba's influence on martial arts and action cinema would be difficult to overstate and he will be missed terribly. I can't really do his career justice but I did like this tribute to him by Simon Abrams. We are left with a treasury of Sonny Chiba's contributions and films and there are a ton of them also on Tubi if you're looking for something this weekend. Essentials like The Street Fighter and Hiroshima Death Match to his earlier films like Terror Beneath the Sea. 

Wasted Weekend - 8/13/21

 

Something new I thought I'd try out here is a brief weekend watchlist of mostly older films that I think are interesting and I've noticed pop up on streaming services relatively recently. You don't really need anyone to bug you about watching the latest Disney or HBO series - they manage that fine on their own - so why not get weird this weekend instead?

The Eyes of Laura Mars - Irivin Kirshner's disco, fashion, NYC giallo-esque thriller may not be the strongest narrative out there but the cast, clothes, and locations alone are probably worth the price of admission. Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones star but Brad Dourif is especially memorable here. Co-written by John Carpenter - what a time in American movies! This has been streaming on the Criterion Channel for a bit but also recently appeared on Amazon Prime

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times - If you need more giallo action featuring a fashion photographer - you might want to check out 1972's Red Queen. Curses, keys, a suitably spooky villain, excellent Bruno Nicolai tunes, heavy gothic atmosphere, and Barbara Bouchet looking amazing all help contribute to an enjoyable watch that doubles with Laura Mars pretty well. Red Queen seems to regularly cycle on and off streaming services and is currently available on Shudder, Arrow or Tubi .

The Blood on Satan's Claw - Witch-y folk horror from the good people of Tigon British Film Productions or that company that isn't Hammer or Amicus but feels like it could be. Strong period production design and some solid performances from Patrick Wymark and Linda Hayden as the skeptical judge and burgeoning cult leader respectively. I imagine this film - while already appreciated by many - is going to get some extra love this year as it is highlighted in Kier-La Janisse's comprehensive folk horror documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewtiched. This is another one that fades in and out of streaming catalogues but is currently up on Hulu, Paramount+, and Tubi.

The Blood Spattered Bride - This Spanish riff on Carmilla has actually been on my watchlist for ages but I failed to prioritize it because it always seemed to be available. Unfortunately one day it vanished from a lot of streaming catalogues and I cursed my hubris to the uncaring void. Fortunately it seems to have returned and I'm hoping to fit it in this weekend. I've heard it doesn't necessarily reach the same heights as other adaptations such as Daughters of Darkness but I'm not sure it's possible to best lesbian vampire Delphine Seyrig anyway. Currently up on Tubi so don't be like me and let this one slip by you.

The Marseille Contract - I haven't seen this 1974 Euro-thriller but I'm willing to give it a shot on location footage and cast alone. Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, and James Mason running around Marseille with a Roy Budd (Get Carter) score coming in at under 90 minutes sounds like solid Sunday matinee material to me. Currently streaming on Amazon Prime under the title The Destructors.

So there you have it - five movies for your weekend pleasure and even a possible double feature. What are you watching this weekend? What did I miss? Lemme know below!