Definitely First Blood

WARNING: We discuss sexual assault in this episode! This week all the bases are loaded and misogyny is up to bat in Tanya Rosenberg’s BLOOD GAMES!!! Starring Laura Albert, Lee Benton, Paula Manga, Sabrina Hills, Gregory Scott Cummins and George “Buck” Flowers, Blood Games is about a touring women’s baseball team who absolutely destroy a team of rednecks in a game. They don’t take kindly to losing and when an Army Ranger’s son is killed after trying to sexually assault two of the players, his father demands revenge and a posse of these drunk redneck idiots hunts them down. Babe and the Ballgirls can definitely hold their own and it becomes an all-out war. We absolutely loved this movie! The baseball team is all very distinct characters, it’s a great nod to I Spit on Your Grave, it looks fantastic and it’s suspenseful. YOU’RE A DEAD MOTHER-!!!

This week we talk about the absolute most bizarre movie either of us has ever seen, Herb Robins’ THE BRAINSUCKER! This is an experience. Is it an art film? Is it the best film ever made? Is it intentional? Am I now insane? One thing is for sure, we are not the same people we were before watching this. The Brainsucker stars Marjorie Morris, Jonathan Mittleman, Herb Robins and Gay Nathan and tells the story of Max, an impoverished and unhoused man who, instead of getting sent to prison after touching a toy airplane in a Woolworth’s, is given to a pair of German mad scientists to use as a human guinea pig. They attempt to make him the most positive person but set the lever to Evil instead and he returns to his home town to suck the brains out of the bourgeoisie and fall in love with an actress whose being followed by a quad of space fairies. MILKY WAY AND SNICKERS!

We’re back on our backwoods bullshit this week and talking about Dean Crow’s BACKWOODS (AKA GEEK)! Starring Christine Noonan, Brad Armacost, Jack O’Hara & Dick Kreusser, Backwoods is about Karen and Jamie, a young couple cycling cross-country from Indianapolis who stop in Kentucky to do some camping in the… Backwoods. After saving his daughter’s life, they meet Eben and get invited back to his property for dinner. The next day they find out that Eben has a secret, his son William loved biting the heads off chickens and also murdering! It’s an offbeat take on the genre and overall we both found it pretty fun to watch. Karen ends up being maybe one of the most developed characters we’ve talked about and has a pretty rad final confrontation. HSSSSSS!

Out of the forest and into the ocean! This week we’re talking about UP FROM THE DEPTHS! This Jaws riff is Directed by the writer of Little Shop of Horrors, Charles B. Griffith! Up From The Depths is about a tourist community in Hawaii that is attacked by some sort of two-finned monster shark. It’s up to the resort’s Head of PR, a pair of haole grifters and an abyssal marine biologist to attempt to save the day. Originally intended as a comedy-horror, it was heavily re-edited into something pretty straight-forward, but you can really tell that they removed a lot. There’s a plethora of side characters, Colonization commentary, sunken treasure and some really tremendous ADR/dubbing. That said, we still really enjoyed this goofy little movie! FISH CAN’T WALK!

We’re still stuck in the woods this week with Don Jones’ THE FOREST! Two couples played by Tomi Barrett, Ann Wilkinson, John Battis and Dean Russell head into the forests of California for some hiking and camping where they’re stalked by a cannibal hermit, harassed by the ghost of his wife and helped by the ghosts of his children. Overall, this is a fine movie that is an enjoyable watch… BUT, there is a huge amount of misogynistic plot conceits that really jump out at you, like a “proud chauvinist” lead character. There’s even a weird connection to a chilli cook-off. Honey, the only backpacking you do is in bed!

This week we’re talking about Rolfe Kanefsky’s self-aware(ish) horror/comedy THERE’S NOTHING OUT THERE! It stars Craig Peck, John Carhart III, Bonnie Bower, Wendy Bednarz & Claudia Flores as a group of “teenage” friends who head out to a house by a pond(NOT a cabin by the lake) where they’re picked off by an otherworldly tentacle-monster. It’s a fun movie and well done, but, certainly shares very little in common with Scream. We also kind of hated the Mike character, today he would definitely be a “well, actually…” Twitter guy. Ooh, a fallen cloud!

When you go into the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise… murderous Viking spirits! This week we’re camping in the woods with Jefferson Richard’s BERSERKER! A group of young pals played by Joseph Alan Johnson, Beth Toussaint, Greg Dawson, Valerie Sheldon, Shannon Engemann and Rodney Montague venture out to a campground in Utah where the spirit of a viking berserker starts ripping them up with his bear claws. There’s lots of night smoke, a pretty rad synth score, rock songs with very specific lyrics and maybe one of the best sex scenes ever. We totally loved this movie! The character relationships were fleshed out and well done, the acting was pretty solid and it looks fantastic! Plus, genre icon George “Buck” Flowers is always a delight!

Three snake movies! One episode! First up, we’re talking about Fred Olen Ray’s 2001 snake outbreak movie starring Treat Wiliams, the very silly VENOMOUS! Then we’re headed off to Filmore, California for Brewfest where a small town is doing battle with a genetically engineered rattlesnake/cobra hybrid in Scott & David Hillenbrand’s KING COBRA! Finally, we’ve got our tickets booked to head off to Wayne Crawford’s SNAKE ISLAND! These movies are all extremely dumb, but largely pretty fun to watch.

This week we’re talking about 1985 slasher(ish) film DEADLY INTRUDER! Directed by John McCauley and written by Tony Crupi (who also stars as The Drifter), Deadly Intruder is about a woman named Jessie(Molly Cheek) who is subjected to a kidnapping/home invasion by a disturbed Drifter, while simultaneously, there is an escaped maniac killing those closest to her. We talk about our own interpretations of the film in terms of how it deals with mental illness, assault, class struggles and more. There’s a lot to unpack with this one and it was kind of a surprise. Did you inject it with garlic?

We’re taking it way back to 1974 today to discuss seminal Canadian gore film CORPSE EATERS! This 57 minute zombie film has a great score but overall doesn’t make very much sense or have much plot at all. Still fun to see something that was made by a teenager, though! I’M NOT INSANE!!!