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MAY 3 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : TERRORVISION
From horrorchronicles.com
The Putterman family have gotten themselves a new satellite dish, the Do It Yourself 100, that picks up signals from everywhere. They ain't kidding when they say everywhere. It just so happens to pick up a garbage disposal mutant monster that's been ejected electromagnetically from the Planet Pluton. Hijinks unfolds as said monster goes on a food eating rampage through the household, driving poor Sherman Putterman to enlist the help of anybody he can to rid his home of the new alien menace. Including his Grandpa.
TerrorVision is a b-movie among b-movies. I can't really think of a movie quite like it. It's a 1980's tongue in cheek horror with a strong streak of 1950's schlock thrown in for good measure. It's also damned funny.
Sadly this is another 80's gem that hasn't had a decent release yet on DVD or bluray. It has aired on TV and there's old VHS releases still flying around but that's as good as we're getting it would seem, which is tragic.
The movie's charm and enjoyment comes not from the gruesomeness of some of it's imagery and TerrorVision can be gruesome, it stems from it's characters that're cut out cardboard stereotypes. You have the military 'nuke em first' types, the playboys, the fitness fanatics and metal heads the list goes on but each of the characters brings there own thing to the movie to make it more than the sum of it's parts, it's a very refreshing and original watch still is to this day 25 years later.
The production standard is b-movie and there's a real 80's quality to the SFX, which is something you'll either dig or you wont but it was no problem here.
The movie never feels slow or plodding and right from the opening screen we know we're going to be watching something... Different. The ending is a divisive one; again this is something you'll either love or hate, i fall into the former.
I simply can't recommend TerrorVision enough to those who want to see a quality horror comedy that can not only make you go 'ewww' but can make you laugh hard. I couldn't decide what i loved more the monster or Medusa's hooters.
Here's hoping MGM or whoever has the rights to the movie now can get a decent release out soon!
MAY 3 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : THE BLACK CAT (1965)
Well-executed update of Poe's tale, set circa. 1965 Texas. Animal lover Lou (Robert Frost) is given a black cat by his wife Diana (Robyn Baker) for a first anniversary present. He names the cat Pluto and begins showering it with attention, much to Diana's chagrin. Lou spends too much time with Pluto, ignoring his wife's sexual needs and drinking way too much. For their second anniversary, Lou comes home drunk, tries to strangle Diana and cuts Pluto's right eye out with a pocketknife after the cat scratches his hand. Lou begins to go bonkers, pouring hot coffee on his pet monkey and imagining that everyone in a bar is wearing a black patch over their right eye (a very good scene featuring singer Scotty McKay and his band). He comes home and electrocutes Pluto with a stripped electrical cord, accidentally burning down the house. Finding out that he has no insurance and is dead broke, he goes insane, tries to strangle his lawyer and is committed to an insane asylum. After spending several months in the asylum (where he begins to write a story called "The Black Cat"), Lou is released into the loving arms of Diana, "cured" of his alcoholism and insanity. Sure he is! Almost immediately Lou begins hitting the bottle, calls a hooker in a bar a "witch" ("Just make sure you spell that with a W." is her reply) and sees a black cat following him. He brings the cat home and gives it to Diana, who notices it has a bad right eye, "just like Pluto." The cat begins to torment Lou as his descent into madness begins to get the better of him. He buries an axe into Diana's head (a very gory image that any true horror Baby Boomer has seen, thanks to exposure in Famous Monsters and other horror mags of the 60's) and walls her body up in the basement. The housekeeper (Sadie French) calls the police and they search the house looking for Diana. Lou is pretty sure he has the police fooled until they hear a cat meowing behind the basement wall and break it down, discovering Diana's decomposing body with the black cat resting on her head. Lou escapes and leads the police on a high-speed chase, where he loses his life after flipping his sports car trying to avoid a black cat in the middle of the road. The last shot we see is Lou lying lifeless amidst the wreck of his car, his right eye missing. Shot on a shoestring by writer/director Harold Hoffman (who directed SEX AND THE ANIMALS using the pseudonym "Hal Dwain" in 1969 and wrote the screenplay for Larry Buchanan's IN THE YEAR 2889 in 1967), THE BLACK CAT has been available for a long time on VHS in various dupey versions. The folks at Something Weird Video have released a beautiful letterboxed version on DVD as part of a double feature also including THE FAT BLACK PUSSY-CAT (1963). Sprinkled throughout with startling bits of gore, including eye gouging, the aforementioned axe in the head and other pieces of depravity, this film must have been considered shocking when released to unsuspecting audiences in 1965. This black & white feature would most definitely have been slapped with an R rating if released today. It is also pretty faithful to Poe's story and is a great way to spend 73 minutes of your life, just to see how they made 'em in the infancy of gore filmdom. This gets one of my highest recommendations! Well acted, well-made and well done. Also starring Anne MacAdams with a cameo by Bill Thurman (GATOR BAIT - 1974; THE EVICTORS - 1979) as a bartender. Both Thurman and Scotty McKay would next appear in Larry Buchanan's ZONTAR, THE THING FROM VENUS (1966). A Something Weird Video DVD Release. Not Rated. { text from critcononline.com }
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