The Curator of Schlock #250 by Jeff Shuster

Raw

I’m not moving to France. 

Each year, I try to cover a cannibalism movie the day after Thanksgiving as a means to gross out my readership after they’ve gorged themselves on candied yams and other assorted delicacies. But I may have bit off more than I can chew this time. I watched Raw, a 2017 French film from director Julia Ducournau. This isn’t a fun cannibalism movie like Cannibal Apocalypse. This movie is disturbing. And it smells. And I know movies don’t smell, but trust me, this one does. And it smells bad!

Why do I do it? Today is Black Friday, the greatest of all American holidays, and I’m here talking about French cannibals. Where do I begin? I really don’t want to remember this movie. So there’s this girl named Justine (Garance Marillier) who’s starting her first semester at a veterinary school in France, or is it Belgium? This movie is a French/Belgium production so it could be either country. It’s not like I can tell. I never went backpacking in Europe or anything like that. And I know if Justine is attending veterinary school, she must be a woman and not a girl, but nothing about her looks or demeanor screams adult. She comes off as very innocent. I guess her parents sheltered her most of her life. Justine was also raised to be a strict vegetarian.

Also attending this school are Alexia (Ella Rumpf), Justine’s older sister who’s a bit of a wild child, and Adrien (Rabba Oufella), Justine’s gay dorm roommate. On the first day of school, Justine, Adrien, and the rest of the first year students get doused in animal blood and are force fed rabbit kidneys as part of a hazing ritual. Justine pleads with Alexia to get her out of it, but Alexia tells to not be a flatliner or something to that effect. Justine swallows the rabbit kidney and this is where her troubles begin.

Not long after ingesting the rabbit kidney, Justine develops a horrible rash all over her body. When she visits the campus doctor, she’s advised to fast for a day. Then the doctor proceeds to peel the infected skin off of her body while smoking some Lucky Strikes. That’s just nasty. We don’t need to see that. The rash goes away, but Justine develops a hankering for meat. She sneaks a salisbury steak into her pocket while waiting on the cafeteria lunch line. Justine then insists that Adrien take them out for some shawarma at a nearby gas station. You can get shawarma at gas stations in France? Cool. I’m still not moving there.

Later on, Justine hangs out with Alexia. Her big sister shows her how to pee while standing up. Then Alexia gets her middle finger cut off while giving Justine a Brazilian wax. Alexia passes out. Justine frantically calls the French equivalent of 911. The paramedics won’t arrive for fifteen minutes. They tell her to put Alexia’s severed finger on ice, but there’s no ice in Alexia’s apartment. Justine gazes longingly at Alexia’s severed finger. She licks it, takes a little nibble, savors the tastes, starts to rip off more chunks, devouring her sister’s flesh. Then Alexia wakes up, a look of horror spreading across her face. You can’t reattach a half-eaten finger. It only gets worse from here. I could go on, but I need to retain what’s left of my sanity. I think I’ll go out for some shawarma.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #247 by Jeff Shuster

Day of the Dead: Bloodline

Three times is not the charm.

Okay, Halloweenies. Your Curator of Shock is here with wrap up October with the George Romero classic, Day of the Dead. Get ready for zombies that say hello to their Aunt Alicia and prepare to eat a mouthful of Greek salad. Oh, wait. I forgot. I’m under a self-imposed mandate to only review movies from this decade. Fortunately, they released a Day of the Dead remake earlier this year titled Day of the Dead: Bloodline. Does lightning strike twice? Actually, this is the second remake of Day of the Dead, so maybe I should be asking if lightning strikes three times. Or maybe I should just get on to the review because I’m getting confused.

Day of the Dead: Bloodline is directed by Hèctor Hernández Vicens and is described as an action/horror film. The movie begins with a full on zombie outbreak on a city block. Zombies are tearing open the guts of their victims and chowing down. One has a coil of intestines wrapped around his neck like a necklace (maybe he’s saving them for later.). A young woman named Zoe Parker (Sophie Skelton) hurriedly walks down the street, trying to call her mother while pausing to observe the carnage. I think I’d be running at this point.

We’re then treated to a flashback from six hours earlier. Zoe is a medical student who’s given the task of collecting blood samples from Max, a creepy dude who has the hots for her. The administrators at the hospital say he has the best antibodies they’ve ever seen. But he’s a kind of a stalker. The fact that he carved Zoe’s name into his forearm makes her uncomfortable.

Later on, when Zoe is in the morgue late at night, trying to retrieve some kegs for a kegger party the other med students are hosting, Max shows up and tries to force himself upon her. Then a zombie attacks him. The zombie bites some partygoers, they turn into zombies, they bite other people, and soon there’s a full on zombie outbreak.

Fast-forward a few months later and Zoe is situated in an Army base/refugee camp, helping sick children and soldiers. She even managed to get herself a hunky boyfriend named Baca (Marcus Vanco). Baca’s brother, Lieutenant Miguel Salazar (Jeff Gum), doesn’t care about Zoe’s insistence on finding a cure or her insistence on going outside the compound to find antibiotics for the sick children. He relaxes on the latter, allowing Zoe to bring a small company of soldiers with her to the hospital she used to work at. They travel the urban wilderness in two bright yellow Hummers under cover of night. Zoe retrieves the medicine, but runs into an old friend in the process.

That’s right! It’s zombie Max, and he is still crushing on Zoe. I have to tell you Max, if you didn’t have a chance with her while you were alive, those odds don’t improve when you turn into a zombie. Maybe if you were a sparkly vampire.

He sneaks back with them into the compound by clinging underneath to one of the Hummers. Max eats some people in the compound, gets captured, but Zoe wants to keep him alive for study because he doesn’t try to eat her. Why? Because he’s still in love with her. Zoe thinks he might be the answer to a zombie virus vaccine. But is it worth keeping Max around just for a zombie virus vaccine? At one point, Max, the zombie, growls at Zoe, “You’re mine!” Let me tell you something, Max. Zoe is not you’re property. You have to be the most sexist zombie I’ve ever seen in a movie. You’re one step above a Nazi zombie and as we all know, Nazi zombies are the Talibans of the zombie world.

Think on that, Max.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #246 by Jeff Shuster

Rings

Ring-a-Ding-Ding!

I’ve been putting this off. 2017’s Rings from director F. Javier Gutiérrez is the movie responsible for Paramount cancelling the next installment of the Friday the 13th series of films. Apparently, Rings was supposed to be their new cash cow annual horror film series with new installments each year. Rings was a box office disappointment, so they cancelled the Friday the 13th reboot. Makes sense as they’re completely different types of movies. Kind of like when Disney cancelled TRON 3 over the disappointing box office of Tomorrowland.

Instead, we’re getting another Nutcracker movie titled The Nutcracker: We Made This Instead of TRON 3. Yay.

Rings is a sequel to 2002’s The Ring and 2005’s The Ring Two. I don’t remember much about those movies. I think Brian Cox electrocuted himself to death by dropping a plugged-in VCR into a bathtub full of water while standing in it. Ring Two featured Naomi Watts being terrorized by deer created from some really bad CG. They didn’t leave a huge impression. The basic gist of the series is that there’s this cursed video tape. You watch this video and you see all sorts of strange imagery like a woman brushing her hair in a mirror, a wooden chair, a nail going though a finger, etc. Then a phone rings, you pick up the receiver, and the voice of little girl says, “ Seven days.” In seven days, your television set will turn on and a ghost girl comes out of your TV to psychokinetically kill you. The only way to avoid the curse is to make a copy of the tape, have someone else watch it, and stick them with the curse. The only way they can avoid the ghost girl is to copy the tape and have someone else watch it. And so on.

Rings begins with an airline passenger who watched the video, but was too stupid to pass the curse on to someone else. Samara, the ghost girl, comes out of the panels up in the cockpit trying to kill the guy and the whole plane goes down as a result. Fast-forward a couple years later and said passenger’s belongings end up being sold at some sidewalk sale. A biology professor by the name of Gabriel Brown (Johnny Galecki of The Big Bang Theory fame) purchases the VCR because he’s interested in vintage technology.

I really don’t understand VCR aficionados. They were junk then, and they’re junk now. And yes, this is coming from a guy who knew how to program his VCR. I never missed an episode of Felicity. That’s something I can be proud of.

Professor Brown hooks the VCR up to an HDTV and watches the cursed video. Then Samara calls him up, gives him the “Seven Days” pitch, and Professor Brown witnesses some strange phenomena like rain rising up instead of falling down. One has to wonder, does the curse hold the same power if your watching an old VHS tape through and HDTV or even a 4K TV? That’s going to be a downgraded image. I’m thinking this time around Samara would only have the ability to give you a really bad headache at the end of the seven days.

Professor Brown starts running experiments with the videotape by having his students watch it, copy it, and pass it along. He wants to scientifically prove the existence of life after death. That’s rather intriguing. I applaud Professor Brown and his pedagogic practices. I start to get high hopes for this motion picture, and then we’re introduced to Julia and Holt, a good-looking, but boring young couple who get involved with Professor Brown’s experiments. When Julia watches the video to save Holt from the curse, she gets new images along with the old ones.

And this is where the movie takes a left turn. Julia and Holt travel to some podunk country town to discover the origins of the curse. They run into a blind Vincent D’Onofrio who used to be a priest who murdered his daughter or his granddaughter.

I don’t know. They gave up on the only thing the movie had going for it, the science angle. I don’t care about them solving some stupid American Gothic mystery. Paramount, do us all a favor. Don’t just cancel Friday the 13th. Cancel all of your horror movies. You don’t know what you’re doing.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #245 by Jeff Shuster

Wish Upon

Whatever happened to Ryan Phillippe?

What’s up, home skillet? Just your resident non-boomer here, curating the most shocking movies he can get his hands on. I thought I would review a young adult movie this week. We’re all about the young adult movies here at the Museum of Schlock. Heck, we even installed cellular phone chargers up on the fourth floor, free to use for any young patron gracing our establishment. I’m even thinking purchasing some of those super cool Dance Dance Revolution arcade games for our lobby. Super cool, huh? Oh, this week’s movie features that actress who plays Barb on that Stranger Things show you kids are so obsessed with.

Tonight we have 2017’s Wish Upon directed by John Leonetti. It’s all about a 17 year-old girl named Clare Shannon (Joey King). Clare doesn’t exactly live a charmed life. When she was little, her mom hanged herself in their attic, and Clare was the one who discovered the body. To top that off, her father, Jonathan Shannon (Ryan Phillippe), is a dumpster diver. I’m not kidding. He goes through trash and brings home treasures that he hoards away in their house.

Hey, I understand. I was a compulsive DVD collector, but I learned to control myself. All four seasons of Heroes have been removed from my shelf. Plus, I only have three copies of Nightmare City in my collection now instead of four. I got rid of the fourth one when I bought the Nightmare City Blu-ray. Still waiting for the 4K restoration. I want to make out every follicle on Hugo Stiglitz’s beard!

Where was I? Clare’s dad digs up a mystical Chinese wishing box and gives it to her as an early birthday present. I think it’s a special kind of father that gives his daughter trash for her birthday. I can’t get over the fact that Ryan Phillippe is in this movie. Wasn’t he married Reese Witherspoon? The last thing I remember him starring in was that Studio 54 movie, the one with Michael Myers (the actor not the masked killer). I seem to recall Michael York chatting about how great swinging London was. I wish I could go back in time to the London of the 1960s, hang out with Caroline Munro and Count Dracula. Instead, I’m stuck in the era of instant messaging and selfies.

Oh yeah. The cell phones are out in full force again in this one. Oh, and cyber bullying. The resident mean girl at Clare’s high school posts a video online of her beating up Clare while letting the world know that Clare’s dad is a dumpster diver. Clare goes over to the wishing box and wishes that the bully would rot away. Wouldn’t you know it? The bully gets necrotizing fasciitis. In other words, her skin rots.

Awesome! But then Clare’s dog dies from being eaten by rats. Clare then wishes that hottest guy in school would fall for her. He does, but then her estranged uncle drowns in his bathtub. Each wish has a terrible consequence for someone else. Are you getting a Monkey’s Paw vibe from this movie? Think on that.

I have the sudden urge to go wade through some trash.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.