The Curator of Schlock #329: Tenebrae

07 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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Anthony Franciosa, Dario Argento, Giallo, John Saxon, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #329 by Jeff Shuster

Tenebrae

Also known as Tenebre. Someone needs to learn how to spell.

I tried mentioning the coffin filled with ashes to Jervis, but he flew the coop before I could say anything. He left a note behind, something about a sick grandmother. Jervis prepped a rack of lamb in the fridge with instructions on reheating. He even included mint jelly. Mmmmm. Mint jelly. Still, I don’t like being in this mansion all by myself. I hear funny noises at night.

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We’re kicking off another Giallo Month and it’s not like I need an excuse to enjoy these macabre Italian thrillers in the heat of August. Tonight’s movie is 1982’s Tenebrae from director Dario Argento. I have to say if you wanted to get into Giallo movies, Tenebrae would be a great place to start. The man who kicked off the genre returned in 1982 to direct what is one his best films. Also at the helm on the soundtrack side are former members of Goblin: Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli, and Massimo Morante. If that isn’t enough to sell you on Tenebrae, this movie made it on Great Britain’s list of video nasties. You couldn’t even buy a copy of Tenebrae over there until 1999.

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The movie begins with an American writer, Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa), taking a trip to Rome, Italy to promote his latest thriller, Tenebrae. He’s greeted in Rome by his assistant, Anna (Daria Nicolodi), and his literary agent, Bullmer (John Saxon). Bulmer is excited that Tenebrae has remained on the bestseller list for twelve weeks straight and is even more excited about the new fedora he purchased. Seriously, this Bullmer guy is truly obsessed with his hat. This is 1982! Were men wearing fedoras back then? Not that I can remember. Maybe in Europe?

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Anyway, Peter Neal’s arrival in Rome coincides with murder, murder, murder! Yes, there’s a psycho serial killer on the loose. The first murder is a shoplifter named Elsa. The killer tears pages out of Tenebrae and shoves them down Elsa’s throat before slitting said throat with a razor blade. The next murder is that of a young feminist critic of Peter Neal that labeled Tenebrae “a sexist novel.” She also gets her throat slit.

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One segment of this film is real nightmare fuel for those of you out there with dog phobias. A teenage girl named Maria walks home after a date gone wrong and is alarmed by a barking doberman pinscher behind a gate. She tries scaring him off with a stick to no avail and smartly steps away only to be alarmed when the canine jumps the gate and dashes down the street after her. After running through a park and fending off the beast, she sneaks into the garage of the closest house only to discover it to be the home of the serial killer. Yeah, things aren’t going to work out well for Maria.

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Naturally, Peter Neal gets involved in trying to solve who the murderer is since the Italian police department is dumbfounded as it usually is in these movies. I won’t spoil the rest of the movie, but things are not as they seem. Tenebrae is one of Argento’s better movies. I’d put it in his top five.

JOHN SAXON

1936-2020

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John Saxon is a favorite of this blog for movies such as Battle Beyond the Stars, Cannibal Apocalypse, and Black Christmas. He may be gone from this world, but he will never be gone from The Museum of Schlock. I expect to encounter him in several more unearthed cinematic gems. Rest in peace, John Saxon.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff 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 #326: Underwater

10 Friday Jul 2020

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Jeff Shuster, Kristen Stewart, The Curator of Schlock, TJ Miller, Underwater, William Eubank

The Curator of Schlock #326 by Jeff Shuster

Underwater

It’s like The Little Mermaid only totally different.

I like to think I’m not a difficult house guest, but Grantchester is back on Masterpiece Mystery and I will not miss a single episode for anything! Unfortunately, we had quite a storm this past Sunday and I had to send my manservant Jervis out into the thick of it. I asked him to keep the satellite dish steady so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting those nasty digitized bits while I find out if the dashing Will Davenport can repair his strained relationship with his mother. Jervis got a bit drenched and seemed to be working through a fever while cooking my eggs the next morning. He made them over easy instead of sunny side up, but I didn’t say anything because I’m a good guest.

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Tonight’s movie is 2020’s Underwater from director William Eubank. We get flashes of news headlines in the beginning stating something about a drilling station deep at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Kristen Stewart plays Norah Price, a plucky and nihilistic engineer/computer wiz. You remember Kristen Stewart. She played Bella Swan in those Twilight movies. I’m a bit of a Twihard myself. Team Jacob for the win! Am I right? So Norah is busy brushing her teeth when the underwater bunker begins to shake and the computer is rambling about structural integrity or something to that effect. She runs into another employee of the drilling company, a young man named Rodrigo (Mamoudou Athie) before the two of them decide to seal their part of the station off before their section gets flooded..They watch in horror as other crew members run for their lives only to get obliterated because they couldn’t reach safety in time.

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The two of them run into other survivors as they climb through the rubble of the station. These include Paul (T.J, Miller), a funny crew member that won’t be the first to die, Lucien (Vincent Cassel), the French captain of the station, Liam (John Gallagher Jr.), a manly engineer, and Emily (Jessica Henwick), the station’s biologist that loves corgis.

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They need to get out of the collapsing part of the station and don’t ask me to repeat all of the scientific doublespeak spewing from their mouths. The gist is they have to put on these heavy and dangerous high-tech scuba suits that allow them to walk on the surface of the ocean.

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A crack forms in Rodrigo’s helmet once underwater and he can’t handle the pressure. I’m not talking about psychological pressure, but the physical pressure of having no protection from the water at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The rest of the crew move on and gradually learn the cause of the station collapsing. There be monsters swimming around under the sea, squid-like creatures that most likely came through the surface when the drilling crew drilled vin the wrong spot. It’s basically Alien underwater, but it’s better than Deep Star Six. There are worse ways to spend 95 minutes.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff 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 #310: The Black Hole

21 Friday Feb 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, Science Fiction, The Curator of Schlock

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Gary Nelson, John Barry, The Black Hole, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #310 by Jeff Shuster

The Black Hole

It’s not the worst thing ever made.

Have I ever covered a Disney movie on this blog? I don’t remember. I know I’ve screamed about TRON enough times, but didn’t review that one. I’ve toyed with the idea of writing about the loathsome animated Robin Hood, but I can’t bring myself to watch it again. I know there are some of you out who do love that movie. Try watching it when you’re not hopped up on goofballs. Anyway, I needed another science fiction spectacular from the age that followed the release of the original Star Wars so get ready for Disney’s The Black Hole.

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1979’s The Black Hole from director Gary Nelson is not a Star Wars rip off. In fact, I suspect this movie would have reached the silver screen regardless of Star Wars. What we get with this production is a kind of Irwin Allen disaster movie meets 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The movie begins with a sumptuous score from the great John Barry, so at least our ears are in for a treat. And then we lay eyes on the majestic, yet foreboding black hole, a decent special effect considering the production team couldn’t get Industrial Light & Magic to lend a hand.

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And the movie features a great cast of 70s motion picture regulars. We have the crew of the USS Palomino, a spacefaring vessel made up of Captain Dan Holland (Robert Forster), Lieutenant Charlie Pizer (Joseph Bottoms), Dr. Alex Durant (Anthony Perkins), journalist Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine), Dr. Kate McCrae (Yvette Mimieux), and a robot named Vincent (voiced by Roddy McDowell). They go investigate the USS Cygnus, which had gone missing twenty years earlier. Somehow they ship emits a gravity field that prevents it from getting sucked into the black hole. Don’t ask me how this done. I read that Neil deGrasse Tyson was not too impressed with the science on display in this motion picture.

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The crew of the Palomino boards the Cygnus and is greeted by a scary looking robot named Maximillian, this hulking red giant with a glowing red eye and propellers for hands. Unpleasant robots run the whole ship from robed, silver faced drones to bug-faced soldiers. This is not a good place to be, but the crew needs to repair their ship before they can take off again. The solitary human being on the Cygnus crew is the ship’s captain, Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximillian Schell). I get a real Captain Nemo vibe off of this guy. He’s a mad genius who wants to fly the Cygnus through the black hole and see what’s on the other side.

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Captain Holland asks Dr. Schell what happened to the crew, and he says they left the ship a long time ago. Dr. Schell prefers his robots to people anyway. Dr. Durant admires the genius of Dr. Schell, but the rest of the Palomino crew doesn’t trust him. There are some shocking surprises in store, but I’ll let you experience them on your own. The Black Hole is not a perfect movie, but I was awfully impressed by the set design. The Cygnus is a cathedral of death in the middle of space and might be the creepiest spaceship I’ve ever seen. In fact, The Black Hole might be the closest thing to horror movie Disney has ever produced.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff 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 #290: Lola

13 Friday Sep 2019

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Charles Bronson, Lola, Richard Donner, Susan George, The Curator of Schlock, Twinky

The Curator of Schlock #290 by Jeff Shuster

Lola

I think you’re growing up too soon, girl.

I don’t like it when box art lies. This goes back to the days of Mom & Pop video rental palaces, when you’d see some movie you’ve never heard of with an intriguing cover only to be disappointed when you popped it in the VCR when you got home. This brings us to tonight’s movie, 1969’s Lola from director Richard Donner (of Superman fame).

Look at this DVD cover.

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We have Charles Bronson in a coat brandishing a pistol. This brings to mind Paul Kersey, the vigilante from the Death Wish movies, but there’s one big problem. Charles Bronson doesn’t have a mustache, nor does he brandish a gun in this movie. The back of the case claims that the movie was directed by John Sturges, but it was, in fact, directed by Richard Donner. The backs reads, “Charles Bronson, Susan George, and Trevor Howard star in this gritty portrayal of a man struggling to keep his demons at bay.” Nope. Again, I’m not seeing it.

This is a goofy 60s comedy about a thirty-eight year-old man dating a sixteen-year-old girl.

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Susan George plays Lola (also known as Twinky in some versions), a sixteen-year-old English girl who just happens to be having intimate relations with Scott Wardman (Charles Bronson), a close to middle-aged writer of pornographic fiction who’s living in a London flat. Lola tells Scott that she spilled the beans to her parents, and her father is furious. Scott asks her what the age of consent is in England. She says it’s sixteen, but England can still deport Scott or send him to jail for other reasons. Lola consulted the family lawyer on this. Scott chases Lola out the apartment, but then chases after her. They decide to get married in Scotland, where a man can marry a sixteen-year-old girl. Problem solved!

Lola

What am I watching here? The movie presents this situation as cute and zany. I wasn’t alive in ’69. I’m not that clear on what the social norms were, but I’m surprised that at no point in this movie do we find an angry mob surrounding Scott and beating him to death. Maybe if John Sturges had directed this movie.

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Lola’s father says their marriage won’t work out. Lola’s mother seems more sympathetic and wishes them the best. I can’t help, but notice how attractive Lola’s mother is. Then I realize she is none other than Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore from Goldfinger). There’s a theme song for Lola that’s sung by Jim Dale, the narrator of the Harry Potter books, that I mistook for a lost Dave Clark Five track.

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Scott and Lola move to New York City where Scott begins a career as a failed novelist. Scott is required to enroll Lola in high school, as it is the law.

I keep imagining there’s an alternative version of this movie where Lola falls in love with the captain of the football team and asks Scott to drive them to prom.

Anyway, Lola leaves Scott a Dear John letter after they get into a fight over her cat.

The end.

What does it all mean? This movie is messing with my head.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff 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 #234: A Death Wish Addendum

20 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Blog Post, Film, The Curator of Schlock

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Death Wish, Original, Paul Kersey, Remake, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #234

Kersey vs. Kersey (A Death Wish Addendum)

Here we are again. I had a request from my editor last week to compare Charles Bronson’s performance in the original Death Wish to Bruce Willis’s in the remake. My initial reaction was “Charles Bronson gave a performance in the original Death Wish?” Maybe I was being too harsh. He must have been doing something right to get us to follow that character through four sequels. For this week, we will judge both Death Wishes and determine which one is the winner. Then, I will finally put Death Wish behind me, never to mention it again (at least until Death Kiss comes out).

1. Bronson vs. Willis
Charles Bronson and Bruce Willis are playing two different characters that just happen to be named Paul Kersey. One is a rich architect living in New York City.

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The other is a rich doctor living in Chicago. One has a full head of hair and a boss mustache. The other is clean-shaven and bald. Both suffer the loss of their wives due to a home invasion.

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So in a way, they are the same character. But there is one key difference. After his family is attacked the original Death Wish, Paul Kersey is shown to be afraid of the city he calls home. He works up to becoming a vigilante, first by defending himself from a mugger with sock full of quarters. In the remake, it doesn’t take long for Paul Kersey to embrace vigilante mode. Even before this Kersey gets a gun, he challenges two punks that are harassing some girl on the street. Kersey gets the crap kicked out of him, but he didn’t look the other way when he saw she was in trouble. This is where Bronson has the edge. You do see the fear in his character in the beginning whereas Willis’s character acts like he as nothing left to lose. You don’t get the journey with Willis.

Winner: Death Wish (1974)

2. Score/Soundtrack

This is a tough one because we do get a decent score by Ludwig Göransson who also composed the soundtracks for Creed and Black Panther. I won’t pick on the remake’s score because it’s better than most Hollywood scores these days, but come on. Nothing will beat the original jazz score by Herbie Hancock. Bonus points for the inclusion of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” for the remake, but it’s still not enough to push it over the edge.

Winner: Death Wish (1974)

3. Kersey’s Daughter

We don’t really get to know Paul Kersey’s daughter too well in the original film. After getting attacked, Carol (Kathleen Tolan) falls into a vegetative state before being checked into an asylum run by nuns. One could argue she’s one of the most depressing characters ever. In the remake, she’s an athlete and is studying Krav Maga. Jordan (Camilia Morrone) even manages to knife one of the home invaders before getting shot. Yeah, Jordan Kersey in the remake wins this one.

Winner: Death Wish (2018)

4. Cinematography

The original Death Wish was shot in that grainy 1974 film stock that adds to the grime of the original. The remake was shot digitally in HD. It’s a personal preference, but I prefer the former. Still, high definition does lend itself well to action movies such as this. But I’m stuck in the past.

Winner: Death Wish (1974)

5. A Tale of Two Cities

There is nothing more terrifying than 1970s New York City. I know it’s popular to call Chicago the murder capital of the world, but I was in Chicago about two years ago to see a Lush concert at The Vic and the only people I encountered were hipsters. I will say the hotel I stayed at served hardboiled eggs at the free continental breakfast, but that was the only criminal activity I encountered while in Chicago.

Winner: Death Wish (1974)

Four out of five for the original Death Wish, but do check out the remake. It’s still better than Death Wish 5.

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 #195: Life

08 Friday Sep 2017

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Ariyon Bakare, Daniel Espinosa, Hiroyuki Sanada, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeff Shuster, Life, Mars, NASA, Olga Dihovichnaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #195 by Jeff Shuster

Life

More like death, lots and lots of death.

Welcome to week two of the Museum of Schlock’s Relativity Series, a range of exhibits that dare to ask what’s really out there. Each year Hollywood gives us some inspirational movie about NASA. Whether it’s Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian or The Arrival, these movies teach us about the triumph of the human spirit in the perils of space. 2017 has given us Life from director Daniel Espinosa, a film about a group of scientists discovering the first definitive proof of life outside of planet Earth.

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The title of this movie gives me hope. What’s more hopeful than life itself?

So these scientists are stationed on the International Space Station. You have two Brits, two Americans, one Japanese, and one Russian. I guess that’s international enough. Ugh. I hate movies with too many characters!

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We’ve got six scientists here. Let’s see. Rebecca Ferguson plays Dr. Miranda North, an officer with the CDC.

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Ryan Reynolds plays Rory Adams, an engineer of some kind. Hiroyuki Sanada plays Sho Murakami, another engineer. Olga Dihovichnaya plays Ekaterina Golovkina, the Mission Commander. There. I think that’s it. Crap. I’ve got two more characters. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dr. David Johnson, a medical doctor who used to serve in the American military. Finally, you have Ariyon Bakare playing Dr. Hugh Derry, a genius exobiologist who is paralyzed from the waist down, but enjoys free movement in zero gravity.

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The space station recovers a probe NASA sent out to Mars. It contains dirt. Martian dirt! Dr. Derry is especially excited when he discovers a dormant cell in one of the samples. Dr. Derry manages to wake up the cell after some poking and prodding. A media circus ensues. A little schoolgirl wins a contest where she gets to name the organism. She names it Calvin after her elementary school, no doubt named for Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President. Calvin keeps growing in size and forms tentacles. For some reason, this doesn’t alarm anyone. A lab fire causes Calvin to go dormant again much the dismay of Dr. Derry.

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He starts poking at it with a dental scraper. Suddenly, Calvin springs to life wrapping its tentacles around Dr. Derry’s rubber gloved hand. It starts crushing Dr. Derry’s hand until every bone is broken. Only then can Dr. Derry slide it through. He passes out shortly after. Calvin then uses the scraper to puncture the glove, slipping out into the lab to devour a captive gerbil. Okay. Screw Mars!

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Things go from bad to worse. Rory rushes in to rescue Dr. Derry. He pushes Dr. Derry out, but Calvin latches onto his leg. Rory uses some kind of blowtorch on the creature, but it evades and evades until he runs out of fuel. Sealed inside with nowhere to flee, Rory is defenseless as Calvin slips down his throat and begins to devour his insides. Rory slowly coughs up globules of blood before expiring. Calvin escapes through the sprinkler system. This crew is screwed. Yes, I know I used screw twice in this review. It’s that kind of movie.

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NASA, just leave Mars alone. Please!

Photo by Leslie Salas.

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

The Curator of Schlock #118: Rasputin, The Mad Monk

08 Friday Jan 2016

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Christopher Lee, Hammer, Rasputin, The Curator of Schlock, The Mad Monk

The Curator of Schlock #118 by Jeff Shuster

Rasputin, the Mad Monk

Women want him and men want to kill him.

I’m a bit of a DVD collector. Others might say hoarder, but so what if I end end up being crushed under mounds of plastic discs one day. I can think of worse ways to die. I’m no Coolduder, but I do have a large library. Unfortunately, as with any collection, you end up having gaps. For me it’s Hammer movies, those wonderful British gems of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. They’re probably most well known for their horror collection, those glorious Technicolor recreations of classic monsters such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Mummy.

The trouble with Hammer Horror movies is that they were distributed over here in the States by various movie studios such as Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, and Warner Bros. This means if you want to get all of the Dracula movies or all of the Frankensteins, you have to rely on editions of varying quality from different studios. You just can’t get a box set like you can with James Bond movies. With the advent of Blu-Ray, I had hoped Hammer movies would be given a second chance on home video and we did get some excellent releases like Twins of Evil and Dracula: Prince of Darkness, but even Blu-Ray releases have been haphazard here in North America while Great Britain gets the full catalogue of Hammer titles.

Little did I know that Anchor Bay had released a full bevy of fancy Hammer Horror DVDs back in the late 90s and early 2000s. How did I miss these? Was I not paying attention? Titles such as Plague of the Zombies, The Mummy’s Shroud, and The Devil Rides Out were all given the special edition treatment. I was asleep at the wheel, which is surprising since I bought so many Anchor Bay DVDs back in the day like Nightmare City and Phenomena. A fellow curator loaned me his Anchor Bay edition of Hammer’s Rasputin: The Mad Monk, which brings us to tonight’s review.

Rasputin: The Mad Monk was directed by Don Sharp and starred Christopher Lee in the title role. The movie starts out with some Russian tavern owner who is worried his wife is going to die because she has a fever or something.

Rasputin shows up at the tavern wanting to guzzle down some wine so he drains the fever out of the guy’s wife, taking it into is hands so he can convince the tavern owner to throw a wild party. Yeah, Rasputin has magic powers or mutant powers or demonic powers-whatever! He gets drunk, tries to have his way with the tavern owner’s daughter, and slices off a man’s hand with a garden hoe.

I started out thinking Rasputin would be an anti-hero like Paul Kersey or John Kramer. You know, he saves lives, but is a womanizer and a glutton. The Catholic Church doesn’t approve of Rasputin, what with all the debauchery and chopping off of hands so he high tails it off to St. Petersberg. He figures he’ll use his mind controlling powers to influence the royal family.

He seduces one of the Tsarina’s ladies-in-waiting, but commands her to commit suicide once he tires of her. When her boyfriend seeks revenge, Rasputin knocks acid in his face. You know, Rasputin is kind of a mean guy. No wonder everyone wants to kill him.

I’d tell you to check out the movie, but it’s no longer available on DVD. Sucks to be you!

Five Suggestions for the Budding Hammer Collector

Hammer Film Collection – 5 Movie Pack: The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, Scream of Fear, The Gorgon, Stop Me Before I Kill, The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb You can get this one for cheap. They’re all good, but The Gorgon is the highlight. This is a Sony release of the Columbia released Hammer films. The transfers are excellent.
The Hammer Horror Series (Brides of Dracula / Curse of the Werewolf / Phantom of the Opera / Paranoiac / Kiss of the Vampire / Nightmare / Night Creatures / Evil of Frankenstein) This is a collection of the Universal Studios released Hammer films. Be sure to buy the edition that was released in 2014 as those discs are single-sided. Double-sided DVDs are the pits.
Horror Classics, Volume One Collection Four Iconic Horror Classics from Hammer Films (THE MUMMY / FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED / DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE / TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA) This recently released Blu-Ray set comes from Warner Bros. Here’s hoping for a volume 2.
Any Hammer release from Synapse. These come in Blu-Ray/DVD combo packs. These come from Hammers 70s period and feature movies such as The Vampire Circus and Hands of the Ripper.
The Vampire Lovers from Scream Factory. Sadly, the only Hammer release from Scream Factory, but you can pick this Blu-Ray up for cheap. Feature length audio commentary with Ingrid Pitt. What more can you ask for?

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Photo by Leslie Salas

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

The Curator of Schlock #105: The Substitute 3

25 Friday Sep 2015

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The Curator of Schlock #105 by Jeff Shuster

The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All

There’s no substitute for Treat Williams. Yeah, we’re stuck with him again!

Look, I like Treat Williams. I just don’t know that he was the best pick to play a hardcore mercenary turned high school teacher. How many hardcore mercenary turned high school teachers have you met in your life, Mr. Curator? Well, I’ve met three and they all resembled Tom Berenger, so I don’t want to hear it! Anyway, we continue Back to School Month with The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All from director Robert Radler, if that is his real name.

I have to give credit where credit is due. The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All is a mean movie where mean people do mean things to each other. Treat Williams returns to the role of Karl Tomasson…that’s an odd last name. Is it Nordic? Son of Tomas? Anyway, the movie starts out with Tomasson being held prisoner by some of Slobodan Milošević’s goons. His mercenary partner is beaten into paralysis below the neck so Tomasson suffocates him to death as any good friend would, kills the guards, and skips back to the United States to deliver the guy’s necklace or Medal of Honor or something to that effect to the man’s daughter.

It turns out his friend’s daughter teaches English Literature to a college football team named the Rams. They’re kind of rude in her classroom. They toss the football around when they should be paying attention to the lesson about Thomas Wolfe. She says they’re going to fail the course, which results her getting assaulted after hours by the team and sent to the hospital.

Here’s what I don’t get? Why is this delinquent football team even showing up to class? They don’t want to be there, so why not just intimidate the teacher into keeping their attendance in addition to passing them? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say their attendance is just an excuse to let Tomasson play the role of English Professor. Apparently, he has a Doctorate in Contemporary American Literature.

Ha! He tussles with one of the football players in class when a discussion of Graham Green’s The Quiet American falls on deaf ears. Tomasson comes to the conclusion that the football team is on steroids

Tomasson has his own team this time around. There’s a guy with a ninja sword and another guy that gorges himself on M&M cookies. I don’t know which is more disgusting, the one mercenary who chops arms off with a ninja sword or the other mercenary who slobbers his cookies with split before downing them. That’s what milk’s for!

Claudia Christian plays a mercenary named Andy who Tomasson sends undercover to a wannabe Hooters restaurant so they can find the connection between the evil football team and their connection to the mob.

Tomasson and the cookie monster have her under video surveillance during a wet t-shirt conference. Seeing Treat Williams and some sweaty guy shoving spit-laden M&M cookies in his mouth while they comment on silicone breast being splashed with water in a van that looks like it belongs to a serial killer is not my idea of a good time. The sacrifices I make for this blog!

5 Things I Learned from The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All

Steroids shrink your testicles.
Steroids give you an inflated ego.
Weights can kill!
Eyeglass lenses can kill!
Cars can kill you especially when Treat Williams is behind the wheel and pinning you to a warehouse wall while he steps on the gas.

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

The Curator of Schlock #71: Scanners

02 Friday Jan 2015

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David Cronenberg, Jeffrey Shuster, Michael Ironside, Naked Lunch, Patrick McGoohan, Scanners, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #71 by Jeff Shuster

Scanners

Now with More Asterisks!

It’s New Year’s Day and I’m trying to think of something significant to say about the movie Scanners. Actually, it’s technically the day after New Year’s day, if you want to get technical. I think it’s almost 2 A.M. and I have my official Criterion edition DVD of this classic film playing on my Plasma TV. I like the cover of the case. It kind of alludes to a guy’s head exploding, but it does so in an arty way by having the picture break off into these little blocks.

***

Friend of the Museum of Schlock, Dusty Mondy, had shown Scanners to a group of my Orlando writer friends and myself a few months back. One friend became transfixed with the idea that a man could hear the inner voices of everyone all at once. Another friend balked at the scene where that one guy’s head explodes. She exclaimed, “I don’t like heads exploding.”

***

I’ve covered exploding heads on this blog before and I’m sure I will again so in the meantime, I’m going to talk about the exploding head in Scanners. It’s wet. It’s messy. Brain and skull chunks fly all over the place. It’s the reason people went to see this movie. It’s the reason the trailer is all about the exploding head.

***

Michael Ironside makes the guy’s head explode. Michael Ironside is a scary man.

I’ve had many friends refer to him as Michael Ironsides, no doubt alluding to the idea that they’re several sides to his personality. I’m sure there are: cruel, angry, and super-angry.

Michael Ironside played the bad guy in Highlander II: The Quickening and voiced Darkseid on Superman: The Animated Series. He’s the actor you hire to play evil characters and/or Sam Fisher.

***

I got excited when I learned that Patrick Macnee starred in Scanners. He played John Steed on TV’s The Avengers (not to be confused with Marvel’s The Avengers, which I also like due to fact it includes Hulk, Thor, and the gang). I was a little distressed to discover that Patrick Macnee was nowhere to be found in Scanners only to later realize that he was never in the movie to begin with. I had confused Patrick Macnee with Patrick McGoohan. Silly me! I didn’t recognize him with the beard!

***

David Cronenberg directed Scanners. He’s a bit of an odd duck if you don’t mind my saying. He directed Videodrome. That’s the one where James Woods rips a flesh gun out of his stomach. He also directed Naked Lunch.

I seem to remember quite a few prosthetic penises in that movie, and there goes the general audience rating for this blog! Nothing so weird in Scanners, but we do get a scene where the hero merges with a computer and blows up a gas station with his mind.

***

Scanners is about people with telepathic abilities or telekinetic abilities or something to that effect. They scan peoples nervous systems or some such nonsense. I never get why audiences identify with characters that are better than they are like mutants or vampires. It’s usually the mutants and vampires that are ready to enslave or kill off the regular folk of the world. Maybe audiences believe that deep down they’d rather be a mutant, vampire, or scanner. No 9 to 5 job and you get to explode as many heads as you want. What more could you ask for?

Five Things I Learned from Scanners

If you eat leftover food other people leave behind at a mall food court, some people will think you’re disgusting.
Art is the cure for scanning fatigue.
Computers are weak.
So are gas stations.
It took longer for Canada to leave the 1970s behind.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

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

The Curator of Schlock #68: A Bionic Christmas Carol

12 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in The Curator of Schlock

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A Bionic Christmas Carol, Jeff Shuster, Lee Majors, Mustaches, Ray Walston, The Bionic Man, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #68 by Jeffrey Shuster

A Bionic Christmas Carol

Steve Austin vs Ray Walston

I’ve got a problem with mustaches. I admit it. I don’t like it when they curl up into the nostril, fusing with the nose hair like Jauquin Phoenix’s in Her, but I also don’t like the kind that Lee Majors had on The Six Million Dollar Man.

It’s too thin and it hangs too low on his upper lip. These men need to take their cues from Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds.

Mustaches aside, it is this Curator of Schlock’s expert opinion that the tenth episode of the fourth season of The Six Million Dollar Man entitled A Bionic Christmas Carol stands as one of the greatest adaptations of the classic Dickens’ tale.

Now I know some of you movie snobs out there are decrying the very idea of including an episode of a TV series on this blog, but every episode of The Six Million Dollar Man was like watching a major motion picture! The guy fought Sasquatch! Sadly, you’ll get no such fights in A Bionic Christmas Carol. Our episode begins with Colonel Steve Austin (Lee Majors) meeting up with Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson) for their annual day before Christmas lunch. Wow! I mean day before Christmas lunch sounds delightful! I wonder why Steve Austin didn’t just call it Christmas Eve lunch, but who am I to question the Six Million Dollar Man?

Anyway, their lunch is cancelled because some curmudgeonly old miser named Horton Budge (Ray Walston), president of the Budge Corporation, is keeping the plant open on Christmas Eve. Boooooooh! Now, some of you may know Ray Walston from TVs My Favorite Martian or Picket Fences, but I’ll always remember him as Mr. Hand from the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I can’t believe he ate Spicoli’s pizza in front of the entire class. What a jerk! All the kids are on dope? Go to bed, old man!

Anyway, Mr. Budge hates Christmas, and hates his nephew, Bob Crandall. It seems that Bob embezzled some money from Budge, but it was to save his Mrs. Crandall’s life and pay for her expensive medical treatments. Instead of reporting his nephew to the police, Mr. Budge made Bob into his personal chauffeur, having Bob run errands whenever he wished. This means no Christmas dinner with the family for Bob and no Christmas bonus to spend on gifts for his kids. Sadly, there is no scene of Steve Austin reaching into Mr. Budge’s stomach and pulling out his spine with his bionic arm. You could only get away with so much on network TV in the 1970s.

Steve Austin was sent to Mr. Budge to inspect the equipment Mr. budge was developing for a future NASA Mars mission. (Hahahahahahahaha!) The test astronaut almost catches fire due to the fact that Mr. Budge only pays for the bare minimum of safety requirements. You’d think that the bare minimum would be enough. What else happens in the episode? Steve Austin bionically leaps up and tears off the top off of a Sequoia so the Crandall kids can have a Christmas tree. He also dresses up as Santa Claus in order to spook Mr. Budge into accepting the spirit of Christmas. What more do you want from 70s TV?