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Badmovies.org Forum  |  Information Exchange  |  Movie Reviews  |  First full review: Fright Show AKA Cinemagic! « previous next »
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Author Topic: First full review: Fright Show AKA Cinemagic!  (Read 3451 times)
Doc Daneeka
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« on: May 10, 2008, 05:32:24 PM »

Recently I've been fascinated by some of Gunny's older reviews, rereading them to find some new viewing suggestions, specifically those old, obscure little DTV or limited release films Gunny has reviewed so that we don't have to. After weeding out a bunch of films that turned out to be completely or just about unavailable, I compiled a mental list of movies that I would probably like, but haven't already read through and memorized the entire plots for before watching over the months. Thought about Endless Descent, and Uninvited was interesting to me due to the fact it got 5 slimes yet doesn't seem to be mentioned a lot around here. However, what got me the most was the "anthology of horror and sci-fi hosted by two complete idiots", Fright Show! Even more appealing was the fact that it was not only fairly available (I guess not many people are looking for it), but for it's obscurity, it was downright cheap! I quickly prodded my mommy to order it and it arrived today. An odd fact I discovered as I researched the film adds to the strange trend I have picked up when ordering films Gunny has reviewed: ALL OF THEM ARE UNFINISHED IN SOME WAY. Spookies was screwed up with lots of effects shots taken out and subplots added, Zarkorr was a bunch of monster footage with a plot added afterwards, and Fright Show was compiled of the winners of a film making contest organized by Starlog into an anthology film. In addition to this, I noticed that a few of the stories themselves seemed to have footage removed, as I will detail later.

One of the predominant thoughts in my mind is the fact that only the first one of these films can be taken seriously (And even that is questionable due to the complete hamminess of Dobermind's acting), the second is an out-of-place parody of ALIEN, the third is the cliche "Monster in the/under the 'whatever'" tale, and the last involves a sardonic-looking extraterrestrial menacing a group of nerdy redneck types (Odd juxtaposition of stereotypes, but it's what I saw...) and one borderline (for lack of a better term) prick, but it was pretty darn entertaining despite the subject matter. The host segments really could have done better with more straight-up idiocy and less complete lame-ness, but I found myself awkwardly laughing at some of Chris and Eddie's antics, a "stupid humor" pity laugh, but a chuckle nonetheless. The first two stories are the ones that seemed edited-down, I was ticked at the fact "Dr. Dobermind" ended at a random scare, but I really would have been more ticked if "Illegal Alien" completely overtook the under-one-hour flick. Yes, the film runs under an hour. It would have been cool had this been turned in to a series where we could have seen more of the short-film competitors instead of having to settle for 2 out of 4 creative tales. Someone else could have wrote for Eddie and Chris, and they could have added a "Beyond Belief" angle, where at the end the hosts reveal whether or not the stories ripped off anything.

The first story does not rip off anything to my knowledge, except a bit of Carnival of Souls maybe. A wide-eyed young girl named Jenny strays away from a class of 4 others during a field trip to a natural history museum and gets seriously freaked out by what she sees. Jenny becomes even more freaked out once she observes the animal-hating founder of the museum in the middle of his taxidermy work. Dr. Dobermind proceeds to go on a disturbing tirade about how he hates animals (Dog barking in the background), preferring instead "higher primates", creepily eyeing the even-wider-eyed Jenny. Outside, Jenny begins to act more awkward than usual as she begins to see visions of several Dobermans, er- Dobermen all over the place, including in an ice cream parlor, where he suggests a cone of vanilla ice cream (WE HAVE VANILLA. WE HAVE NO OTHER FLAVORS. WE HAVE CONES. NO CUPS....), but unfortunately crushes it before Jenny can eat it. Jenny continues to see disturbing visions of taxidermic things and the good doctor, finally climaxing when she tears off her own face in the mirror, Poltergeist style. Jenny at last decides to get help, running downstairs, only to discover that her father has become, surprise, surprise, Dr. Dobermind... And it ends. I predict that if the story were allowed to continue we would end up with something along the lines of Jenny revealed to be a taxidermy exhibit herself. In a way it's good that it didn't continue. Even though I suspect that the story did not end at the end, it's pretty good that it kept it's own nightmarish identity instead of falling into a Twilight Zone ending. Dobermind was still my favorite of the stories, as well as having the best storyline overall, at least in my opinion.

Now, into the "one of these things is not like the others..." department. From the title card (Which reads "ALIEN", until "Illegal" pops up on top of it), to the decription of the ship (The "Nostrilomo", in the shape of a human nose), to the opening pan of the ship's corridors, to the crew waking up in a circle of ice-filled refrigerators, to the crew themselves (A tough woman, a strung out girl, a British guy, a black man, a country man, and an obvious robot), it is obvious what this film is referencing. For some reason the crew crash lands on a desolate planet and the British member is hit by a pie in the face sprouting from a big egg. While Lane is in a coma, the other members pry the pie off to discover that a lobster creature (?!?) has attatched itself to their fellow's face. However, before they can boil the lobster, they find Lane has waken up and beat them to the punch. The next thing we know, the gang is at dinner and Lane begins to have convulsions. A clown creature bursts from the crewman's chest, quickly grows up, and slaughters the crew one at a time. The robot member randomly goes sex crazy for the ship's computer and is killed by Porker, the black crewman and the tough girl, who apparently did not realize the member was a robot. Quickly, the tough girl formulates a plan to "pack up the beer and blow the ship!". With the clown chasing her, the tough woman abandons Porker, Lindberger, and the beer, and blows the ship up, managing to escape with a previously unseen cat. Unfortunately, the clown has somehow stowed away on the escape pod with the tough girl, and now wants to force himself on her. Not wanting a clown creature to burst from her chest, the tough woman self destructs the escape ship, killing herself, the clown, and Smitty the cat. Though it was a pretty good Alien parody, you'll start wondering what the point of including it instead of other short films that were entered into the contest was. As Eddie and Chris say during one of their interludes, the fact that the four films selected were the best ones they could find says a lot for the overall quality of the films they got as a whole. I think it would have been a lot more entertaining if it truly were a shadow puppet show as was the transition from the host segment to the film itself Smile. As it stands the most entertaining part of the film is something I had to read another review to remember, which not only explains the crew's behavior, but also makes the "Nostrilomo" joke a whole lot better; If you remember the description card of the Nostrilomo early on, you will remember that the crew was transporting cocaine to Las Angeles XD. I was somewhat glad that so many plotholes were cut into this one, made it seem like a series of SNL skits, or some similar schtick.

The third story is something we've all seen before; a horror-loving-and-yet-fearing kid is hounded by his family for believing there is something under his bed. Surprise, surprise, there is. After getting threatened by his father for dragging him out of bed, he is scared again by the monster and instead (after screaming, running around, and somehow still not attracting the attention of his parents) goes to his tough-boy brother, who agrees to help him with a slingshot and gumballs. However, UNlike some other films, the monster actually kills the big brother in a scene that is actually pretty disturbing (He flops to the floor, his head under the bed as we hear munching sounds). From that point, it is more formula as the kid goes to his possibly abusive dad again. Though his dog emerges from under the bad with a jumbo-size bone somehow, the dad misses this, ignores Barry's disappearence, and strays dangerously close to the closet, where he is dragged in and slaughtered. Then the not-so-abusive mom comes in and is also surprised by the monster, deciding now to break his way conspicuously out of the closet using it's claws. In response, Zachary and his mother hide under the covers and hope the thing doesn't kill them. Does it? No. It was all a dream... OR WAS IT? In a bone-chilling and visceral scene after Zachary decisively gets rid of all his monster junk to the tune of march music, we see the monster's hand close the lid on the trash can!!! "Nightfright" as this story is called has some effective scares, but is obviously cliche in it's story and ending, plus the shots of Barry in his undies are kind of disturbing... Nightfright does get some points for being one-half of the serious stories in Fright Show, though I must say I enjoyed the comical final story more.

The final story is another obvious spoof from the beginning, though not directly connected to another work as "Illegal Alien" was (despite the "The Thing" title card before "In the Basement" appears and the fact that the characters bear some passing resemblence to the grizzled cast of John Carpenter's THE THING). Off the bat I found myself bemused by the poker-playing redneck characters, though bored by other stuff, such as the initial meteor strike and the power going out. Once Fred plots revenge against the meteor for breaking into his house, however, things start to get entertaining. Whilst two of the nerd rednecks want to call the national guard, Fred goes after the strange-looking meteor with a knife and Mike follows with a revolver. Upon seeing that the meteor has sprouted a growling, tall, heavily wrinkled alien, Fred is still fearless to attack, tossing his knife into the thing's chest. In response, the thing pulls it out, unwisely toys with the thing, poking himself, and retaliates by firing an energy ball through Fred's chest! Fred comments on the fact his last hand was aces and eights before getting energy-blasted through the head and flopping down into the basement. Before trying his luck, Mike slams the door and runs away, the alien unenthusiastically shooting energy orbs after him. The poker buddies promptly take more weapons from the wall just in time for the front door to knock! Fearing that the alien may have gotten out of the basement and outside their door, they approach the door, guns drawn, only to find that the it is not the thing in the basement but a less redneck, in fact bordering on downright effeminate neighbor, who heard the commotion and wanted to investigate. Once inside however, the smug dork obviously does not believe his redneck friends story, and walks into the basement himself, only to be caught off guard and disintegrated by laser eyes. p**sed now that the thing has killed two people, the skinny redneck fires his shotgun into the thing's chest and does little actual harm. Pointing out the obvious that it's still alive, the other unnamed redneck uses a machine gun on the thing. Our friends give us the obligatory shoot-'em-up scene, firing their weapons into the thing as well as the innocent cardboard box behind it. Finally, the fat unnamed redneck pulls a hand grenade and throws it at the alien, blowing it backwards and crushing it under more cardboard boxes. The Alien, of course, is still unharmed, much to the fear of our protagonists. They try and shoot at the thing again, only to find it has finally deduced that they are using projectiles, and has put up what one of the rednecks calls a "mazon field". Before anyone can point out the science babble, the alien fires two more laser blasts into the staircase, blowing everyone up... A few days later we see that our heroes (save for the nearly unscathed Mike) are recovering poorly, but are responding to their new poker pal with mixed feelings, and guess who the new poker-pal is... There's a story here that the audience is left to fill in for themselves. "The Thing in the Basement" brings in a close second for my favorite story, though I was initially turned off by the comedy, it grew on me in a way "Nightfright" could not being straightfaced. Despite the somewhat dark situation, I was kept laughing by all the characters, including the comically superior antagonist. I kept expecting the heavy drinker Mike to bite it, but the guy without facial hair did instead. I suppose if any more of the poker friends died the gag at the end wouldn't have worked as well.

Overall the combination of the somewhat unsatifying Dr. Dobermind and the fairly giggle-inducing Thing in the Basement, plus some elements of Nightfright and even the fact that the Alien parody was pretty entertaining, despite the fact it did not belong in the show, made this a pretty enjoyable venture. I recommend it for the types who enjoy short-lived anthology shows. Really Nightfright would seem more appropriate in such an anthology show, whereas Dr. Dobermind would do good as it's own film, Illegal Alien would be it's own full-length short or appear in segments on a sketch comedy show, and The Thing in the Basement I could see lasting maybe one short season on the SciFi channel or USA Network. I give it four out of ten stars (For lack of an individualized rating system as of yet), putting the very different and possibly edited-down films together was unnecessary, but it's better to have these films compiled into one feature then to have them lost forever to obscurity as the others in the contest were.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2008, 01:07:01 PM by Mr. Briggs Inc. » Logged


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« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2008, 01:02:11 PM »

I liked your review, thanks. I liked "The Thing in the Basement" the most though.
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