Tag: Tubi

more bad movies

Someone should really pay me to go through the trash can that is Tubi’s film archive, but alas, I’m in it for the love of the game.

Now it’s hard to maintain quality throughout a film. Most movies start off great, then peter out. Others you have stick with until the very end.

This is especially true for B movies. In fact, I’m starting to think that it’s harder to make a good B movie than it is to make a decent GREAT film.

Here’s a couple of examples:

Out of the Dark (1988)

Some heavy hitters were involved in this. Karen Black acts her ass off, and there’s even an appearance from the legendary Divine.

Now you’d think that it would be impossible to screw up a movie about a psycho clown and phone sex workers. In fact, it has a strong opening: some dude playing with his nipples…with a knife…while having phone sex.

Production quality is not that bad here. Despite a few good laughs, not much gets done with this banger of a concept.

The Prowler (1981)

This had the exact opposite problem as Out of the Dark. The concept is kinda meh, but boy does it end on a high note (courtesy of makeup artist Tom Savini)!

What I love about these kinds of movies is determining what was intentional from the filmmakers. There was one scene that was more intentionally funny than it had any business being. And the ending, despite being bizarre, was quite effective.

I don’t know. Maybe I need to stop assuming that these filmmakers are completely inept.

Blades (1989)

People ask me all the time: “why do you watch this shit?”

Because I’m looking for a diamond in the rough. This time the diamond is Blades, a parody of Jaws.

It’s about a lawnmower that hunts and kills people on a golf course. Only the golf pros and a former groundskeeper stand in its way.

I’m sure people thought that this film was completely fucking stupid in 1989. But some things get better with age.

Now I’m not saying that this one is up there with such classics as Blood Diner or Toxic Avenger. But if you’re high enough, it COULD be.

It’s funnier than Caddyshack. That’s a hill I will die on.

body horror

For a director I don’t particularly like, I’ve seen most of David Cronenberg’s films. Despite their subject matter and shock value, these movies rarely promote much of a response from me. I either low key REALLY like them, or low key hate them.

So I don’t know why I started watching Shivers on Tubi. Probably because it’s one of Cronenberg’s first films. What sucks is that Tubi crapped out on me an hour into the film so I missed most of the good shit (Tubi, btw, has every movie known to God but the app itself sucks penis).

But Shivers is interesting. Perhaps it made me realize something about Cronenberg’s filmography: everyone looks like shit. Mind you, Shivers was made in the 70s and likely had a small budget. Still though, I think the decision to make everyone look terrible was a deliberate one. Even the “attractive” people made me want to barf. Cronenberg’s forte is body horror, after all.

This made me question my prior appraisal of the director. David Cronenberg approaches the human subject as if the viewer is an alien. When we watch the behavior of animals, we are simultaneously fascinated and disgusted. An extraterrestrial would probably feel the same way if they ever observed people.

Human beings are disgusting creatures. And most of the time, we fail to appreciate that…

…except when we watch David Cronenberg films.