Märstageddon 2012: Battle of the Bloggers!

Look out, a bat!

A couple of times every year I meet up with Jason from Cinezilla and Jocke from Rubbermonsterfetishism to drink and eat a lot of sugar and fat and watch whatever movies we feel for at the moment. The last one of this meetings happen today, a very icy and slippery day - which mean I had to let them go to the store for some additional candy alone - because it was so icy and I have a tendency to slip and hurt myself, just like two years in a row during Weekend of Horrors in Germany. That's me. Totally incompetent at walking and the delicate art of keeping the balance. We had some very vague plan to watch something dark and nasty, but as usual our plans hardly works out in the end and we ended with up four pieces of mega-cheese instead of the grittiness we aimed for.

First out was Retribution, the 1987 (and it look VERY eighties) horror film starring Dennis Lipscomb. The DVD from Code Red is very nice, even if it's the R-rated version. But it's stilly pretty gory and violent (and the unrated versions of the kills is included as an extra anyway). It's a bit on the slow side, but when it delivers it Delivers with a big D. It's colourful and bloody and has some fun retro-style visual effects. The acting is another thing with this movie - most of the time it's very, very bad - or lets say, a bit over the top. Lipscomb makes the best of it and is good in 99 percent of the scenes, except those where he has to cry. Not his cup of tea, we could see. Anyway, a fun eighties time capsule and a fine DVD.

Next on the list was Bloodbath at the House of Death, the 1984 horror comedy starring Kenny Everett. This is the essence of a lame comedy, but it's so funny because the jokes is so damn cheap, and the atmosphere is sillier than Sillierzilla! And watching it with two friends - including Joachim who might no be the biggest fan of this kind of very stupid comedies - made an even better film. Some of the jokes, especially "Look out, a bat!" is still one of the funniest gags I've seen in a movie - and yes I know, it's hardly original and was probably written by a eight year old schoolboy. But it works. The timing is perfect and the acting from Everett and Pamela Stephenson is hilarious. It's also a bit bloodier and more graphic than I remember it to be.

The last feature we saw was John Frankenheimer's greatest mutant bear-movie, The Prophecy. Still a very amusing nature-runs-amok film from the happy days when a movie with a PG rating both could be bloody and quite disturbing. Made during the height of Frankenheimer's alcoholism, this is one cheesy rubber-monster-packed movie with some clumsy but well-meaning scenes of message and Robert Foxworth singlehandedly defining the typical seventies semi-sensitive alpha-male with his beard, social consciousness and curly hair. Like an awake Hugo Stiglitz. The monsters is awesome and it truly looks like an expensive movie - except when they're sending out some poor guy in a rubber-suit to run after victims. Then it's more like something from Ultraman!

And what a transition, because at the end we watched three episodes of Ultra Seven - yes, from the recently released Shout! Factory box. It might have less city-stomping scenes and more focus on... yeah, "story", but it doesn't take away the fun of this cheap and exciting show. It's more gloomy and serious than Ultraman, with more location-shoots and even some deaths and blood. But it's still a harmless family-friendly show.

That's all folks!