The Toxic Avenger - The Mop Slinging Superhero

Purchased at a local thrift store in May 2012

When I originally found this, I was thrilled BUT when I opened the case inside was a copy of "RUDY". My heart was hurting and I left empty handed. I returned days later though and perused through the wall of VHS and low and behold, it had been unveiled! This classic cult movie crass yet ridiculous covered in a thick layer of 80’s sleaze.

Labeled under the "horror" genre though it is really anything but, "The Toxic Avenger" tells the story of a nerd, Melvin, the mop boy at the health club of Tromaville, who after being tormented by his peers, has an accident that lands him into a vat of nuclear waste. This event then transforms Melvin into an over-sized pile of mutated muscle who uses his newly obtained strength to fight the bad and save the innocent. Though the story line of this movie has been used time and time again, how it s carried out is truly yet oddly unique. There is child head crushing, dog shooting and blind girl raping scenes, that all sound pretty terrifying and awful. Truth be told though, they will have you laughing with how unrealistic they look and how the actors carry them out. The budget is estimated at under half a million, so if you’re looking for high quality special effects, you won’t find it here. Even Melvin/The Toxic Avenger, has little dialogue but again, this isn’t supposed to be an award winning drama. One of the taglines for the film is “Not all monsters are scary to people. Not if it's one fighting crime in the Garden State.”, so you’re not expected to take it too seriously. If you’re looking a top notch, low budget, bad yet good movie, than with this you have struck gold wrapped in grime.

Left at South Station at 4:30 p.m. on 5/25/2012

Prince of Darkness: Liquid Anti-Christ

Purchased at a thrift store in May 2012

While running around on my day off, I decided to pick up a new yet old VHS to watch, ponder and review. There were slim pickings between multiple copies of "Days of Thunder" and "Father of the Bride" but with my cassette scanning skills, I saw the name John Carpenter among the shelves. Carpenter best known for "Halloween", "Big Trouble in Little China" and one of my personal favorites, "Escape from New York", follows through in his own way with this 1987 flick.

The story starts off with a priest who passes away before he can explain to a cardinal what his role was within a local church, which involves a key, diary, "an ancient canister containing an evil looking liquid" and a book written in a collection of languages. Donald Pleasence (who was in Carpenter's "Halloween" and "Escape from New York") plays a the priest who hires a physics professor portrayed by Victor Wong (who also worked with Carpenter in "Big Trouble in Little China") and a team of various "experts" to decode the mystery. The story continues with the group finding out that the liquid is basically the devil in goo form with a life of its own! After the substance gains control of the minds and bodies of the various characters from the movie, they morph into a zombie-like state in which they work under the satanic Jell-O, which ultimately wants to infect the world with evil.

Though I am typically for any horror movie, that incorporates religious aspects in an intelligent and tastefully visual sense, it falls a little flat. The elements are there but Carpenter fails to connect them to the script and certain aspects of the story. I must commend John Carpenter though, because after some research, I discovered that not only was he the director but he also wrote it and worked on the soundtrack with a budget estimated at about $3 million. Though I could see what he was trying to accomplish with the concept of science versus faith, I feel like it would have been better under the direction of someone else or at least with more of a budget. It is pretty 80's -tastic though, with some interesting images and corny one-liners, very watchable for anyone who appreciates the genre and his work.

Left at Park Street Station in Boston around 6 p.m. on 5/19/12

The China Lake Murders: Made for TV on VHS

The China Lake Murders

Purchased from a local thrift store in

 April of 2012

The price for VHS cassettes where I usually shop is three for $1.00, but here’s the catch; if you only buy one or two they are .50 cents each!  It must have been a day of slim pickins’ when I picked up “The China Lake Murders” .  In my own defense, in a review on the back of the case, some guy named Richard Zoglin is quoted as saying “Unsettling in the best tradition of film noir”.  I love film noir and am clearly a sucker.  Tom Skerritt stars as a small town sheriff, and hey he was pretty awesome in “Alien” right?  Film noir + Tom Skerritt = $0.33 in my brainulator.

            More research on the title led me to find that this was in fact a made for TV movie.  Further research revealed that this was based on the short “China Lake” (which is apparently pretty good) directed by Robert Harmon, a film which catapulted him into directing “The Hitcher”.  It’s a bit curious how a short film that was essentially made as a resume piece was made into a TV movie, but it was.

          
           I fault the film for its lack of suspense, and general ability to interest.  “China Lake Murders” isn’t  bad, in fact it’s pretty ok, but that’s just it.  It achieves a level of mediocrity that one would expect from say… a made for TV movie… oh wait.  This flick makes no attempt to hide what’s going on, something which one would typically expect from a suspense film.   The acting is actually pretty darn good for what it is; Michael Parks is great as a sociopathic cop who likes to kill people while on vacation. Tom Skerrit is very much the same authoritarian character he plays in everything that he's in, and he's gotten pretty decent at it.  The whole thing is very watchable, but other than Tom Skerritt’s mustache nothing jumps out as incredible. 

Keep on mustachin' in the free world -Wiley

Drop off time and location: Boston MA May 9 Orange Line outbound to Oak Grove.