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Hysterical

Started by Andrew, May 10, 2008, 07:12:56 AM

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Andrew

Julie Newmar resurrects the ghost of her dead lover, Captain Howdy, and sics him on the residents of Hellview, Oregon.  Anyone killed by the towering ghost come back as zombies who constantly repeat the phrase, "What difference does it make?"

Andrew Borntreger
Badmovies.org

DarklAdmiral

Sounds odd...

And woot Final Fantasy Reference! Tonberries are annoying as all get out. I must ask; which of the games did you play?

Terf

About the PG rating: Keep in mind that PG-13 didn't come along UNTIL roughly 1983, so many PG movies from the '70s contained material worthy of a PG-13 and even R ratings. Look at "Airplane," "All the President's Men," etc.

Anyways, when Andrew was talking about the zombies repeating "What difference does it make?", I SWORE it was a joke about how awful this movie was! The it turns out he was serious...or maybe serial. "I'm totally serial!" - Al Gore from South Park.
Things could be worse; you could be twins.

Jay

I loved this movie. Or, atleast I did the last time I saw it....when I was 12.

I did keep trying to figure out if Ralph was suppose to be the same person as he played in Mork and Mindy or just his identical (and equally insane) brother.

And, I could have done without the unneeded male butt-shot during the exorcism scene. Though, it wasn't as bad as the one from Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother.

Not sure whether to try and watch this movie again or leave my young memories alone.

Weltall

This reminds me a bit of Tormented, which I saw via that perennial ticket to bad movie viewing known as MST3K. Lovers quarrel and die, vengeful female spirit haunts a lighthouse and a hack creative type thinks that's just the place to go for inspiration. Ok, so the guy in Tormented was a musician, was responsible for his subsequent supernatural problems and never had to deal with turtlenecked zombies but these are just details.

BTW, while Tonberries may somehow sneak up on you while carrying a lantern, once they find you it takes them ages to actually attack you. I suspect the rules of cinematic Offscreen Teleportation must apply to video games as well.

Andrew

Quote from: DarklAdmiral on May 10, 2008, 07:22:58 PM
Sounds odd...

And woot Final Fantasy Reference! Tonberries are annoying as all get out. I must ask; which of the games did you play?

There's actually an even better Final Fantasy reference in my "Blood of Heroes" review (it will be published around August or so).

Out of the group, I've played the first (and even remember running into Warmech), VII, and X.  This reference was specifically to VII.


Quote from: Terf on May 11, 2008, 10:45:17 AM
Anyways, when Andrew was talking about the zombies repeating "What difference does it make?", I SWORE it was a joke about how awful this movie was!

Oh, no - that was all the movie.  Interestingly, people who are looking for this film as a lost movie often remember the zombies repeating, "What difference does it make?"
Andrew Borntreger
Badmovies.org

BixDugan

I never played any FF games, so I had to look up Tonberry. But I thought you were kidding about the Hudson Brothers until I looked up the IMDB entry.
Richard Kiel AND Julie Newmar? I see John Larroquette is in this too. Wow.
A "Trumpy" reference too? I need to see this.

peter johnson

I saw this on the big screen when it first came out.  I mostly recall it had a few lame dope jokes & kept repeating the same jokes over and over and over again.  I had high hopes when the body of Richard Kiel comes shooting up through the floor of the boat, but everything kind of piffled away --
The town in Oregon where much of it was filmed is the same town from the fishing sequence in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" -- check out the bridge.
The Hudson Brothers had a summer-replacement comedy show on TV that I recalled laughing at, so that's what drew me into the theatre.  The theatre is now a pet shop, but that isn't the first time the building has hosted a dog .  .  .
peter johnson/denny crane
I have no idea what this means.

RH

Um...

Reading all of this...

Andrew, am I right to think that Ralph kept this from getting a skull?  Or was there some other source of amusement which helped it earn that single drop?

Andrew

Quote from: RH on May 17, 2008, 03:02:35 PM
Andrew, am I right to think that Ralph kept this from getting a skull?  Or was there some other source of amusement which helped it earn that single drop?

Ralph is definitely a part of it earning a single slime.  There is also some enjoyment in Richard Kiel as Captain Howdy and Julie Newmar as Venecia.  Plus, amazing as it is, "What difference does it make?" does eventually seem amusing - because they absolutely refuse to stop saying it.
Andrew Borntreger
Badmovies.org

Derdnik

I, also, am one of those sad souls who remeber watching this on HBO everytime it came on as a child. Back when HBO wasnt even running 24 hours a day. I hunted for it by the line "What difference does it make" and found this awsome site(it has become my #1 purchase guide) I was able to get a copy of this on DVD, and the years have not been kind. It actually took three sittings to get through the entire movie. It will always have that nostalgic place in my memory, but I will not watch this turd again. I think as a child, being too young to have seen films like taxi driver and the exorcist, much of that cheesy rip off humor was lost on me. One scene that used to crack me up was the "Try the Library" scene, but it did little or nothing, exept to remind me that I was a bit of a slow kid. All in all this movie was just a total piece of sh*t. I do agree though, Ralph was the only amusing aspect of this "Film".

....If you watch this....YOUR DOOMED!!!

Giant Claw Jr

Probibly one of the most sorry excuses for a movie and riding his silly bicycle up the side of the lighthouse isnt eough to garner one luagh :thumbdown:

FLU-BIRD

Just bad as it can get i mean one must wonder if they werent sniffing on glue before they made this idotic mess

Mary

My brother and I saw this movie at a babysitter's house when I was around 10 years old.  I remember how HYSTERICAL I thought this movie was...when I was 10.  In fact, "What Difference Does it Make?" became synonymous with Zombies from that time forward, and any time our young, happy selves would play zombie this is what we'd say with arms straight out and glazed looks on our faces as we walked woodenly around the house.  That was really the only clear memory I had of this movie.

Rewatching it now would likely destroy the innocent enjoyment of my past, but to this day, "what difference does it make" is like an inside joke between my bro and I.  Recently my youngest sis took a pic of him impersonating a zombie and posted it.  I wanted to relive the "WDDIM?" moment and so I typed in "zombie what difference does it make" into google which brought me here.

The wonders of technology.  Thank you so much for helping me find that perfect special youtube clip to post under the pic, reliving a bygone era.  I'm sorry you hated the movie; if only you were 10 again.