This week I also attended a double bill as part of the Five Lamps Arts Festival, where it showed Chillerama and Bitch Slap. I've seen the first film at the Horrorthon Film Festival two years ago which was my favourite from the festival that year. I never heard of the second film, and while it was in essence a cheap knock-off of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, with the right frame of mind (in otherwords, with a few drinks on you), it can be enjoyable.
I found the double bill to be a laugh, even if hardly any people attended the screening (due to a lack of advertising). It gave me an idea for this blog, just to mix things up a little. As the majority of my previous posts deal with a particular film and my thoughts about it go into detail, including spoilers, I thought it would make a change where I would mix two mini reviews together as one viewing experience.
So the "Double Bill" concept came to fruition, and what better way to start it than to include a few films I bought recently, which belong to The B-Movie DVD Collection. I was tempted to buy the actual boxset, but it worked out cheaper if I bought the individual films.
HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN
This happens to be one of the first films I watched on Netflix. I don't remember much of it other than it was a bit of fun. And after last week's movie choice, it's nice to see a film starring a wrestler (Rowdy Roddy Piper, who also starred in classic John Carpenter flick They Live) that doesn't suck.
88 minutes later.....
I may have only seen this film last year, but watching it again felt like I hadn't seen it in a decade. Hence it was almost like watching it again for the first time, and I enjoyed it even more second time around. Because of the film's ridiculous setting, it is essential that you turn your brain off once the movie starts. And with a plot that involves a beefcake with the only working reproductive organ in the land, rescuing women held hostage by mutated frog people, you're better off doing so.
It also helps that the film has an amusing leading man in Roddy Piper, who plays Sam Hell (gotta love the name). Much like They Live, Piper is able to pull off the combination of being an action hero, while being able to entice laughter by just being his wisecracking self. The supporting actors are not too bad considering the type of film this is, in that they don't bring the movie down by dodgy acting or character traits, leaving Piper to carry the film on his shoulders
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| And it helps when the supporting cast include scantily clad women. |
The plot is perfect B-Movie fodder, and it does have a decent enough budget, even if the frog-man costumes do look silly. It does have that "cult film" feel to it, which gives the movie its charm. It knows it's a B-Movie, and it doesn't pretend to be anything other than that. Not only does it have the right amount of action and comedy, it's also well paced and balanced that it doesn't stray too far from the story in any direction.
Verdict?
Well worth a watch if you're in the mood for mindless fun. I'm not sure what reception this film got on release, or whether it was released in cinemas, but this could have been an entertaining enough franchise today. Apparently there were two sequels made after this, but none of which stars Roddy Piper. Which is a shame, basing my opinion on this and They Live, Piper is entertaining to watch, coming across as a spoof of the typical action hero that was popular at the time. I'm surprised he hasn't been in anything noteworthy after those two films.
RATS
As I've only heard of half the movies I purchased, I will start off with a film I've seen/know of, and follow that up with something that I have no prior knowledge of before I view it. I will not even look at the back of the DVD case, hence not knowing what to expect. As a lot of these films look like "creature features", my choice for follow up film are based purely on the box art.
92 minutes later.....
I don't know why, but at first glance, considering the fact that this was part of the "B-Movie Collection", I thought this would have been a 70s flick. And it could be to do with the fact that the only other movie I could think of that featured rats was Ben. But instead, this was a film made in 1993, which to my surprise starts Ron Perlman, a year before Hellboy came out. That said, despite the vast difference between the two, I was never really a fan of the Hellboy films, so I found this more entertaining.
Granted the movie is in the same category as those you see on one of those digital movie channels, which has very little budget, pitiful CGI effects, and the only recognisable actor they could afford on said budget. And as its a horror film, if you didn't guess from the cover above, it has the usual elements of blood, cartoonish gore, and a cast consisting of beautiful twenty somethings, especially lead actress Sara Downing.
Like the first film of this double bill, it knows that it's a B-Movie, so it doesn't try to stray from that fact. The plot is pretty standard with no major surprises, so what you get is what you see. However, dodgy CGI effects aside, the film actually looks well presented for what little budget it has. As for the acting, it does have some pretty decent performances, given the subject matter of the film. So both these elements make this bizarre sounding film work.
Verdict?
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by how this film turned out, and while it may not be the greatest film by all means, it wasn't as awful as I expected it to be. Given that the film is about killer rats, you'd half expect bad acting, poor script and cheap production values. It's worth a watch if you're struggling to find something to watch, either during the midnight hours, or even during the day. It's entertaining enough that you can get a laugh out of it, even the terrible CGI.Double Bill Verdict?
Considering all the other films I could have chosen as the first "B-Movie Double Bill", this was a pretty good start. The films themselves were enjoyable, both were different from each other in terms of genre, and the order they were viewed in worked well. I felt tired while watching Rats, but that was more to do with pausing the film 30 minutes into it, to take a phone call that lasted for 90 minutes, making it 2:30 a.m. when I continued watching it. If the movies were the other way round, then I would have found it hard to appreciate the stupid but fun nature of Hell Comes To Frogtown. In that respect, Rats works as a follow up to this bill, and has the bonus of not being utterly terrible to boot.
And on a final note.....
Since I have a tendency to watch bad movies, I found this video quite entertaining, not to mention I am a fan of Steve & Larson. But what does it say about me that I watched 8 out of 10 of these movies? It would have been 9 if I went to see Miami Connection in the cinema last month.
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