Like me, you’ve probably lived on this planet for your entire life. In that time, you’ve seen it all. Mayors. Food fights. Snowmen. The works.
Let’s face facts. There’s nothing new to stimulate us into a frenzy of inspiration and excitement. This world is an outhouse filled with wailing infants, drug cartels and juggalos.
Fortunately, it will all be over once Y2K begins. Until then, we spin on our heels, plant our feet and proudly face backwards, staring into the diminishing gleam of history for guidance, education and — most importantly — home video entertainment.
Today’s film industry is an accidental Rumpelstiltskin, spinning yesteryear’s horseshit into pure gold by comparison. Meaning: every computer-assisted diaper-ride they churn out shines a brighter light on what was once considered unwatchable. And people like us follow that burning beam into the darkest unknown territory because the alternative is unacceptable.
The following five movies were the most encouraging assaults on reality that I found all year.
Learn about them. Seek them out. Ingest them. NEVER DIE.
05. The Black Crystal (Mike Conway, 1990)
RaeDon Home Video VHS / Full Review
“Shot in Arizona on 16mm over 15 days in 1989. Trans Ams were smeared with ketchup. Balding gym coaches were paid $50 a day to feign arcane darkness. Tucson was transformed forever. No one noticed.”
04. Scary Tales (Doug Ulrich, 1993)
NoBudget Productions VHS / Full Review
“In the second Scary Tale, a cuckolded husband goes on a berserk annihilation spree. Heads split like melons and eject from shoulders. One grisly homicide ends with a slow zoom into an obese man’s bellybutton. After several people are murdered, several people are murdered. End.”
03. Furious (Tim Everitt & Tom Sartori, 1984)
VCII Entertainment VHS / Full Review
“An unexplored dimension populated by cackling sorcerers, whispering statues, fat adolescent warriors and lots and lots of live chickens. It’s a kaleidoscopic siege on the concept of storytelling. And Furious is ‘RED HOT KARATE ACTION! Filmed entirely on location in Southern California!'”
02. Cards Of Death (W.G. MacMillan, 1986)
Exciting Video VHS / Full Review
“Welcome to hatred, pain, suicide, misanthropy and inescapable hopelessness. Welcome to swastika cummerbunds, barbed wire strangulations and gambling-addicted priests impaled on wrought iron fences. The apocalypse has a name, and it’s Cards Of Death.”
01. Blonde Death (James Dillinger a.k.a. James Robert Baker, 1983)
EZTV Video VHS / Full Review
“The endless rumpus falters in the looming shadows of one-eyed homicidal lesbians and former prison boyfriends, and everything soon spirals into apocalyptic, suicidal oblivion. Their lawless descent finally explodes in a sadistic poisoning scheme that wipes out every park-goer at Disneyland.”
