Thursday, April 10, 2014

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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This week's Way Not To Die requires a little bit of set-up since I have the feeling that the majority of you have never seen the what-the-fuckery that is 1981's Fear No Evil. Think of it as a mash-up of The Omen and Carrie, if everyone making those movies had been totally unhinged. Really I just need to situate the players. We have three characters that matter right here:


The Coach and The Jock have - shockingly!!! - been jerks to The Nerd (With Devil Powers). Alright writing that out I realize maybe this doesn't need a lot of set-up, that's kind of How These Movies Roll. Anyway for some reason or another The Nerd (With Devil Powers) has been forced to do push-ups because nyah nyah you're a nerd, nerd. And scene.





Uh oh! Somebody's about to let their Satan Flag fly! Hit the jump for the rest plus much much more including history lessons, pictures of me as a child, and forced gay kissing! Everything, in other words...
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Fear No Evil (1981)

I really feel like I need to rattle off a bunch of Austin-Powers-ish pun-drenched zingers after watching this scene.

That certainly took some... balls.
He just couldn't get out of... Dodge... quick enough.
Tag, you're it! It being dead!

And so on. Fill in your own, the fun never ends. Speaking of fun oh my god you guys this movie is ridiculous. I watched it because it was filmed in upstate New York, my ol' stomping ground - a bunch of it was filmed at Boldt Castle in the Thousand Islands (no that's not just a salad dressing), which is an interesting place...

... the GM of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel here in Manhattan began building the castle as a country retreat for his wife at the turn of the last century, but he abandoned it when she died before it was finished. Romance! So it sat in ruins for over 70 years until the local government bought it, and began fixing it up. And a couple of years later I visited it with my parents, bringing everything full circle!

Alright that doesn't really bring anything full circle, but I remember the place pretty vividly. And if I'd known that a zombie demon gay-kissing killer-dodgeball movie had been filmed there I probably would remember it even better. I don't know why my parents kept that information from me.

So Fear No Evil was directed by Frank LaLoggia, the same guy who made the far-better-known and respected 1988 ghost movie Lady in White with Lukas Haas and Katherine Helmond, which was also filmed in upstate New York. 

Yes if you're guessing he was from the area; nobody really chooses to film in Upstate New York unless they have ties to it, I suppose. Anyway Lady in White was filmed while I was in Junior High School and it was a big deal around town; it was filmed around town simultaneously with the much beloved killer-slugs movie Slugs, which I've actually devoted a Ways Not to Die post to before!

I don't know why they were both filmed there at the same time, the two movies don't share a director or anything; perhaps they have producers in common. I don't know.Whatever the case, my home is a hot-bed of awesomeness, this I know now. Speaking of, back to the topic at hand.

It's been awhile since I've watched a good ol' pile of nonsense like this one - Fear No Evil tosses in everything from Jesus Zombie Hordes to the grandmother from Dante's Peak getting bonked on the head by possessed tree-branches to, uh, a psychotically inexplicable scene where The Local Bully and our Nerd (With Devil Powers) make out in the school showers in front of everybody...





... and make out with each other...


... and make out with each other...



... for a really long time that's super awkward
 for everybody involved, we the viewer especially included.

This scene is pretty genius though - it spins bullying and homophobia right around on its ass in seriously uncomfortable ways, and it really ought to be more well-known. The effeminate focus of the hyper het crowd's scorn turns their abuse back on them and the camera doesn't shy away for a second; this is pretty crazy stuff for 1981, y'all.

The movie doesn't really know what the hell to do with any of this - it goes speeding off in a thousand directions, but it's pretty clearly got sex stuff on its brain. As The Nerd allows his devil powers to take him over more and more he gets flouncier and flouncier, until he's wearing nothing but caftans and lip-liner...

... and the bully that he made out with in the shower has, um... grown breasts and then killed himself.


So there's that. There's no coherence to its purpose - I read somewhere the director says the movie was taken away from him and re-edited by the money folks; I don't know what would have been made out of this otherwise, if anything sane could have been found, but as it is it's all so bizarre and endlessly inexplicable you usually don't care, you're too bust picking your jaw up off the floor.

I could go on and and on about this movie - I didn't even get to the soundtrack, which has everything from Blondie to the Sex Pistols rocking away; I have no idea how they afforded any of it, or got any of it, but there it is playing alongside stuff like this...







Aaaaaamazing.

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Previous Ways Not To Die: The Dead Knock At Dawn -- A Gentlemenly Sacrifice -- Spade & Neutered -- Flambe By Vincent -- L.O.O.K.E.R Over -- Something in the Fog -- Polly Wants A Scalpel -- Major Swirly -- White Meat Dark Meat -- Oh Dae-su You Devil -- Unto Darkness Delivered -- A Hammock Built For Slew -- Venom Down -- Worm Turned -- This Anaconda Do Want Some -- Cereal Murdered -- Deady Dearest -- Spotted Dick -- Chinatown Syndrome -- Feeling the Fury -- Blank With the Blank in the Blank -- Kill the Cook -- You be The Steeple -- Boiled Bashed Stabbed & Gassed -- Iced Princess -- Straight Razor Symphony -- Prey For Mantis -- Talos Unplugged -- A Mysterious Raptoring -- Mad Monkey Robo Rampage -- Give Me Liberty, Or... -- Horns of Plenty... Dead! -- Mistress-And-Run -- Wolverine Interrupted -- Who Let The Guts Out -- Zzzapped Innards-Side-Out -- Bad Romance -- Twas Beauty (And Also Aeroplanes) -- Bad Head -- Valentine's Day Massacred -- Belly Buster -- For Being Not The Babysitter -- Splat In Slo-Mo -- To Be Dis-Continued -- For Being Mouthy -- Do You Smell What Billy's Mom Is Cooking -- The Milk Done Gone Bad -- An Inability To Stop Drop and Roll -- Bug Sprayed -- Extreme Makeover: Leatherface Edition -- Window Seat Suck -- Razor Bunting -- Stabbed Thru The Heart And Witches Are To Blame -- Shark Kibble -- Is That a Straight Razor In Your Trunks Or Are You Just Happy To See Me -- Bad Dates -- Fry Guy'd -- Super Battle Bystander Shrapnel Shred -- Staring Contest of the Dead -- Satanic Self Sacrifice -- Fist and Fortune -- Psychedelic Penis Slice To Window Toss -- For Crimes Against Accent -- Sacked -- Speed Bumped For Traffic Spikes -- Shark Versus Jet-Ski -- Hot Oil Treatment -- Tucked In By Jason -- Just A Pair of Snowbodies -- Poison Pellet Kibble Swap -- Dolly Disassembled -- Fire Escape Fall Out -- Unbuggered -- Tell 'Em Large Marge Sent'cha -- Blue Man Gooped -- Tongue Stung -- Now Wouldn't Cha, Barracuda? -- Leaving on a Rat Plane -- Panthers! -- Fashion Faux-Pwned -- "It's Just A Box." -- Blasted Pigeons -- Taunting Ahnuld -- The Too Hot Tub -- Beyond the Veil -- Sunken Prayers-- Super Crack -- Brains Blown -- Fur For The Boogens -- White Hot Bunny Rabbit Rage --Dragged To Hell -- The TV Van That Dripped Blood -- Don't Mess With Mama -- Heads Ahoy --Martyred For Sheep -- Heads Nor Tails -- He Loves Me Knot -- The Great Bouncing Brad --Miss Kitty's 8 Mishaps -- Boat Smoosh -- Meeting the French-Tipped Menace -- A Magic Trick -- Slick Suck -- We Who Walk Here Walk Alone -- Raptor Bait -- Kneegasm'd -- Dare to Dream in Fincher -- Reach Out and Throttle Someone -- De-Faced -- Voluntary Drowning -- Cross Borne -- Pulled Up Hell's Sphincter -- An Arrow Up The Ass - The Numerous Violent Unbecomings of Olive Oyl -- Ack! Ack! Zap! -- Baby's First Acid Splash -- Chop, Drop and Sashimi Roll -- Forever Rafter -- Can't You Hear Me Now? -- Daisies Ways #5 - Harpoony Side Up -- Acid Dip -- On a Wing and a Prey -- For Standing in the Way of Sappho -- Busting Rule Number Three (For The Purpose of Number Two) -- Daisies #4 - Window Dressed To Killed --Hands Off the Haas Orb -- Bullet Ballet -- A Single Vacancy at the Roach Motel -- A School Bus Slipped Thru The Ice -- Trache-AAHHHH!!!-tomy'd - For Mel Gibson's Sins -- A Wide Stanced Slashing --- Daisies Ways #3 - Scratch n' Snuffed -- The Victim of a Viscous Hit & Run-- Curled -- Kabobbed -- Daisies Ways #2 - Aggravated Cementia -- Boo! Nun! -- 2009's Ways Not To Die -- Bug Scratch Fever -- Daisies Ways #1 - Deep Fat Fried in My Own Unique Blend of 500 Herbs & Spices -- By the Yard End of the Stick -- Screwed From A Very Great Distance-- A Righteous Bear-Jew Beatdown -- Fisted By Hugo Sitglitz -- Xeno Morphed -- Fuck-Stuck -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 4 -- Lava Bombed -- The Cradle Will Rock... Your Face Off!!! -- The Food of the Nilbog Goblins -- The Slugs Is Gonna Gitcha -- Phone Shark -- Hide The Carrot -- Sarlacc Snacked -- Avada Kedavra!!! -- Hooked, Lined and Sinkered -- "The Libyans!" -- Axe Me No Questions -- Pin the Chainsaw on the Prostitute -- The Wrath of the Crystal Unicorn -- The Ultimate Extreme Make-Over -- Drown In A Sink Before The Opening Credits Even Roll -- The Dog Who Knew Too Much -- Don't Die Over Spilled Milk -- Inviting the Wrath of Aguirre -- An Inconceivable Outwitting -- The Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique -- Nipple Injected Blue Junk -- Your Pick Of The Deadly Six -- Thing Hungry --Don't Fuck With The Serial Killer's Daughter -- DO Forget To Add The Fabric Softener -- Any Of The Ways Depicted In This Masterpiece Of Lost Cinema -- Rode Down In The Friscalating Dusklight -- Good Morning, Sunshine! -- Mornin' Cuppa Drano -- The Cylon-Engineered Apocalypse -- Tender-Eye-zed -- Martian Atmospheric Asphyxiation -- Maimed By A Mystical Person-Cat -- The Sheets Are Not To Be Trusted -- Handicapable Face-Hacked -- I Did It For You, Faramir -- Summertime In The Park... Of A Pedophile's Mind -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 3 -- Strung Up With Festive Holiday Bulbs By Santa Claus Himself -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 2 -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 1 -- Decapitated Plucked Broiled & Sliced -- Head On A Stick! -- A Trip To The Ol' Wood-Chipper -- Pointed By The T-1000 --Sucking Face With Freddy Krueger -- A Pen-Full Of Home-Brewed Speed to The Eye --Motivational Speech, Interrupted -- A Freak Ephemera Storm -- When Ya Gotta Go... Ya Gotta Go -- Hoisted By Your Own Hand Grenade -- Having The Years Suction-Cupped Away --Criss-Cross -- Turned Into A Person-Cocoon By The Touch Of A Little Girl's Mirror Doppleganger -- Satisfying Society's "Pop Princess" Blood-Lust -- Done In By The Doggie Door-- Tuned Out -- Taking the 107th Step -- Rescuing Gretchen -- Incinerated By Lousy Dialogue-- Starred & Striped Forever -- Vivisection Via Vaginally-Minded Barbed-Wire -- Chompers (Down There) -- Run Down By M. Night Shyamalan -- Everything Up To And Including The Kitchen Toaster -- Sacrificed To Kali -- Via The Gargantuan Venom Of The Black Mamba Snake -- Turned Into An Evil Robot -- The Out-Of-Nowhere Careening Vehicle Splat -- "Oh My God... It's Dip!!!" -- Critter Balled -- Stuff'd -- A Hot-Air Balloon Ride... Straight To Hell!!!-- Puppy Betrayal -- High-Heeled By A Girlfriend Impersonator -- Flip-Top Beheaded --Because I'm Too Goddamned Beautiful To Live -- By Choosing... Poorly... -- Fried Alive Due To Baby Ingenuity -- A Good Old-Fashioned Tentacle Smothering -- Eepa! Eepa! -- Gremlins Ate My Stairlift -- An Icicle Thru The Eye -- Face Carved Off By Ghost Doctor After Lesbian Tryst With Zombie Women -- Electrocuted By Fallen Power-Lines -- A Mouthful Of Flare --Taken By The TV Lady -- Bitten By A Zombie -- Eaten By Your Mattress -- Stuffed To Splitting -- Face Stuck In Liquid Nitrogen -- Crushed By Crumbling Church Debris -- Bitten By The Jaws Of Life -- A Machete To The Crotch -- Showering With A Chain-Saw -- In A Room Filled With Razor Wire -- Pod People'd With Your Dog -- Force-Fed Art -- Skinned By A Witch -- Beaten With An Oar -- Curbed -- Cape Malfunction -- In The Corner -- Cooked In A Tanning Bed -- Diced -- Punched Through The Head -- Bugs Sucking On Your Head

1 comment:

Sandisan said...

Holy crap, I need to see this movie IMMEDIATELY.