Hard Rock Zombies (1985)

Hard Rock Zombies is jump-kicking off a series of rock 'n' roll horror movie reviews here at Garbage Day! I consider this particular subgenre is a petri dish smeared with a culture that is more than conducive to producing mass amounts of, well, garbage. After all, what could possibly be worse than movies? Music! Put the two together and you're booked front row center for a two-night engagement at the Suckdome, located in the heart of smoggy Unpleasant Viewingville, USA. After revisiting the nightmare that is Hellgate, I was perhaps hoping to settle down to a nice, crappy movie, something more along the lines of The Paperboy. No masterpiece there, in fact an utter piece of crap, but a piece of crap that does the viewer the service of following one basic premise to an organic, Canadian conclusion.

A Hard-On's Day's Night

One of the things that makes these movies so entertaining is the bands they feature--and in that department Hard Rock Zombies does not fail to deliver. A cliched group of 80's cheese-rockers takes the stage and tears it up in grand we-look-like-early-Dokken-but-

sound-like-Bob-Seger style. "Shake, shake, shake," purrs the smoky-voiced and velvety-mustachioed frontman Jessie (E.J. Curse). "Shake it, baby," he adds. We are not spared one second of the song--it's like one of those music videos before they became cinematic, back when it was good enough to have a band on a stage lip-synching to their record in a venue packed with extras. Are they really gonna play the entire mediocre song? you ask yourself. You bet your leather pants they are! This movie has more padding than a Victoria's Secret Angel bra.

"Sign me arse, guv'na?"

After the show, the band is mobbed by some of the most unenthusiastic fans ever put to film (fortunately, they are willing to let the members sign various naughty parts of their anatomy). One of these methadone cases takes the lead singer aside and delivers a dire warning: Don't play your next gig in Grand Guignol (the oh-so-cleverly-named next town on their tour). Bad shit will go down. But the band is determined to press on in the name of rock 'n' roll, and for that you cannot help but give them mad respect--especially when they roll into Grand Guignol and we see that the town is such a blink-and-you-miss-it Podunk shithole that any band with an ounce of self-respect would avoid it like a groupie with a case of crotch crickets (and perhaps it is this self-loathing, buried so deeply beneath the band's sleek, sexthletic exterior, that I find so endearing--think of a Woody Allen soul trapped in a a Sammy Hagar body). The town, filled with the requisite rubes and yokels, does not take kindly to the band's appearance. But our heroes are unfazed and, determined to let their freak flags fly, stage an impromptu rock parade straight through the center of town. It is here that the talents of one of the band members (who I shall refer to for the purposes of this review as Mr. White Pants) really shine. Mr. White Pants is a skilled juggler, skateboarder, and pantomime. (Again, the viewer is forced to wonder, are they really going to play the entire fucking song? You bet your microphone stand with bandanas tied all over it they are! In the first fifteen minutes of the movie alone no fewer than six have been dedicated to musical numbers that do nothing to advance the plot).

"I like music, skateboarding, and pantomime . . . but my real passion is being a complete cheese-dick."

When the show does eventually go down, it does so in a rather improbable venue--they are booked to play outside of a large, dilapidated house (with only a handful of the local weirdos in attendance). It's clear that the band needs to do two things right away: 1) Fire their manager. 2) Stop sucking. Preferably in reverse order.

Someone throw a bucket of water on these guys!

Fortunately the performance is sabotaged and the band is electrocuted during their performance. Unfortunately, they survive. Fortunately, the young groupie's prophecy comes true and the band members do end up being murdered one by one. Thank god we won't have to put up with any more of their antics. Oh, wait--if this movie is going follow through on the premise put forth by its title (there has been little to indicate thus far that it will) we haven't seen the last of these butt-rockers.

Mr. White Pants, we hardly knew ye.

The problem that a movie like Hard Rock Zombies poses in its scattershot plotting is that it makes writing a structured review a nearly impossible task. It suffers from the same plot problem as Hellgate--it goes off in a million directions, unsure of what type of movie it really wants to be. There's so much that I want to point out, like the ridiculous reveal that takes place forty-two minutes in--that the old man who heads the creepy household is none other than a reanimated Adolf Hitler. Yes, folks, Hard Rock Zombies is also a Nazi zombie flick, and a terrible one at that.

"Once I make sure my head is on straight, I'm going to make this movie suck even harder."

There's also the great ZZ-Top-video-style camera work of the hitchhiking woman that appears at several points throughout the movie (and plays a role similar to the ghostly hitchhiker who seduced Ron Palillo in Hellgate).

"She's got le-yegs!"

And once the band crawls out of their shallow graves (there's seriously only like two inches of dirt thrown on top of these clowns,) they emerge and walk in a sort of rhythmic, jerky shamble, as if marching to some kick-ass Bonham drum beat from the beyond that only zombies of the hard rock variety are permitted to hear.

And what self-respecting cock-rock band's repertoire would be complete without a cheese-dripping ballad? The viewer is treated to the band's latest panty-moistener, "Cassie," named after the frizzy-headed bearer of bad tidings and subsequent love interest of the lead singer. Are they really, truly going to make us listen to the entire fucking song? you, in spite of your dawning realization that they haven't felt the need to rein in their musical numbers in the past so why should they start now, ask yourself. You bet your bottomless can of Aqua Net they are!

Nuts in White Satin.

Odds 'n' ends: Early in the film there's some sort of Were-Woodchuck in a rocking chair that the director is awfully fond of smash-cutting to for no good reason. The gratuitous use of a midget. Creepy old people sex scene where the grandchildren ask to watch, and are allowed. The town hall meeting that abruptly shifts the tone of the film to satire (of the type that falls flat on its face). The band also seems to have two bass players, the lead singer and some dude who just plays bass. There's often no sign of a guitarist.

A Were-Woodchuck armed with a switchblade: The only foe worthy of a flaming hatchet.

To say that Hard Rock Zombies makes The Paperboy look like, say, The Shining would be giving Hard Rock Zombies far too much credit. Hard Rock Zombies makes The Paperboy look like some yet-to-be-made horror movie, tentatively titled The Best Horror Movie of All Time, that will feature well-developed, believable characters, will be beautifully photographed, well-scripted, immaculately paced, and, most importantly, will scare the bejeezus out of any and all who dare to watch, from the nubilest of newbies to the most jaded veteran of the genre. I hate Hard Rock Zombies. There is only one rational way for me to deal with Hard Rock Zombies. I will wait until Tuesday of next week. On that day I will get up early in the morning, put on my best blue sweater, and walk down the suburban street on which Hard Rock Zombies resides. Then, as Hard Rock Zombies is moving its trash cans to the curb, I will get its attention by making the following observation: "Garbage day!" Then, once Hard Rock Zombies looks up and sees me standing in the middle of the street, I will raise the revolver I hold in my hand. Hard Rock Zombies will say "no!" but I will not heed its plea. I will shoot Hard Rock Zombies down. Then I will take a minute to admire the gun in my hand and laugh. There is something funny about this metal object, something funny about what I am doing, something that has to do with something horrible that happened in my past. I will look at the gun and laugh. I will laugh.

We should be so lucky . . .

Dead Silence

Much like some people are such complete assholes that it’s difficult to picture them as babies or toddlers, coddled by adoring parents, it’s hard to imagine Dead Silence in any form that would make anyone want to get behind it, financially or otherwise. Try as I might, I can’t envision some supportive roommate, agent, whoever, looking at a draft of the screenplay, then calling the writer up to say, “This movie about the ghostly ventriloquist? I really think you’ve got something here.”

Dead Silence opens with a young married couple, Jamie and Lisa Ashen, spending a quiet evening at home. We know immediately that they are doomed because it is apparent from the first frame that they are sublimely happy. Lisa giggles, talks in cute little voices, and wears a manic grin right up to the minute the camera zooms into her screaming throat. Everything is super great until a knock at the door alerts them to the delivery of a surprise package. It’s a ventriloquist’s dummy, perfectly preserved in a velvet-lined box. “Oh my God, that reminds me of that poem from when we were kids,” Lisa says. “Beware the stare of Mary Shaw . . .” but she can’t remember the rest. As we find out later, the poem in question is:

Beware the stare of Mary Shaw
She has no children, only dolls
And if you see her in your dreams
Be sure you never, ever scream

Ok, so it sounds silly now, but if I had heard that as a child and was told that Mary Shaw lived in my town and would come to me in my dreams and cut out my tongue, I sure as hell would remember the entire poem well into my adulthood. But Lisa can’t remember the rest of it and isn’t bothered by the dummy’s sudden appearance, so she sends Jamie out for some takeout and stays at home alone.

Beware the stare of . . . Oh, shit . . . Something about killer dolls . . . Ah, fuck it. Let's get some takeout.

Jamie returns, carrying a red rose he plans to give his perfect wife to celebrate their eternal happiness, only to do a Risky-Business-style slide across the hardwood floor on a pool of fresh blood. Lisa, propped up on their bed with her tongue ripped out, was brutally murdered, and Jamie knows that Billy, the dummy, had something to do with it.

After being taken into police custody, Jamie is interrogated by a wise-cracking cop, the film’s attempt at comic relief, played by Donnie Wahlberg, formerly of New Kids on the Block. Naturally, Donnie blames Jamie for Lisa’s death. In undoubtedly my favorite line of the film, Jamie earnestly explains to the cop, “Where I come from, a ventriloquist’s dummy is a bad omen.” As if a dummy, like a black cat or a cracked mirror, is one of those irritating things you might come across at any moment, and whose mysterious appearance outside your door would cause you to mutter, “Oh, for Christ’s sake. What next?”, not to shriek “What the fuck?!” and start kicking the thing down the hallway and away from you as hard as you can.

A killer dummy at the door? Oh, Christ. Today of all days!

Upon his release from custody, Jamie returns to his apartment to get Billy and the two embark on a road trip in a glossy red Mustang convertible. It is beyond me why Jamie would drive a convertible. He exists in a world of gloom, perpetually bathed in the gray-green light that has been so popular since “The Ring” came out. Jamie and Billy drive out to Ravens Fair (creepy enough for you?), where Jamie was born and raised, and get a motel room. It isn’t clear why Jamie has brought Billy along for the ride, considering that he believes the doll is responsible for his wife’s death, but I don’t think he has anything to worry about. From the way Billy keeps shyly stealing glances at Jamie from the passenger seat and awkwardly sidling up to his bed at the motel room, it appears that Billy has a plan for Jamie, one that might very well involve tongues but definitely does not include murder.

Dead silence turns to awkward silence during the drive to the motel.

From there, they visit Jamie’s father and new stepmother. His father, always a neglectful asshole, has suffered a stroke and is now confined to a wheelchair but has become a genuine, loving person. Ah, the healing powers of a debilitating stroke. Jamie also visits with the local mortician, with whom he seems to be on a first-name basis, to hash out the details of Lisa’s funeral.

Jamie is shocked to learn that an open-necked shirt is not appropriate funeral attire.

Through hushed conversation with his father and the mortician, Jamie discovers that according to Ravens Fair lore, in the 1940s a ventriloquist named Mary Shaw ran the local theatre. She was a beloved figure until a small boy mouthed off to her during a performance. The boy disappeared, Mary was blamed, and the townies dragged her into the woods, forced her to scream, and ripped out her tongue. Now she gets her revenge by cutting people’s tongues out and stealing their voices. Oh, and she had 101 hand-made dolls that were all buried alongside her in miniature coffins. She also wanted to be turned into a doll when she died. Though the locals were sufficiently enraged to murder and mutilate Mary Shaw, they apparently cooled down long enough to follow each bizarre edict of her will.

There's something about Mary. Maybe it's her wicked awesome tongue.

Once Jamie determines that Mary Shaw is behind Lisa’s murder, he heads out to her former home, an old Victorian theater situated on Lost Lake (with a prime location like that, who would have thought things would go so very wrong?). Lucky for him, there is a Convenient Rowboat waiting to take him across the lake to the rotting old theater, and a Convenient Oil Lamp to light his way. Mary’s possessions, though covered with dust and cobwebs, are still perfectly preserved. A quick flip through her scrapbook reveals that the young boy Mary Shaw murdered was none other than Michael Ashen, Jamie’s great-uncle.

Yes, it’s true. Jamie’s father explains that the people who killed Mary were Jamie’s ancestors, and that after the murder, they were all found with their tongues cut out. This is a family curse, one that would affect not only the killers, but “their children, and their children’s children.” He fails to explain if the curse affected their children’s children’s children, or how Jamie and his father came to be if all of the Ashens were killed by Mary Shaw. I think I know the answer to that first question, but even after two viewings I’m not really clear on the second one.

Ryan Kwanten, who plays Jamie, is cute and adorable but, it must be said, wears basically the same facial expression all the time. Killer dummy, family curse – it’s all the same to him. In any other movie, I would chalk that up to poor acting, but I have to tip my hat to anyone who can keep a straight face through this kind of material. He does it through more or less the entire film, and should receive some sort of award – maybe not for acting talent, but for perseverance and triumph over adversity.

Jamie is devastated to learn that his entire family is doomed.

Once the family curse is revealed, things move along pretty quickly. Jamie buries the doll, someone digs it back up, there’s a fire, a bunch of empty coffins, a clown in a wheelchair who sticks his tongue in Jamie’s ear, and a bunch of other scary shit too. Most importantly, though, there’s a shocking finale, and it’s worth sticking around for. Forget suspension of disbelief – this one requires suspension of all rational thought. It did make me feel a little bad for Jamie. The guy can’t catch a break. But something tells me he’ll take it all in stride.

Hey Donnie Wahlberg, not hanging quite so tough anymore, are you? Douche bag.

Most horror films by nature are illogical. Whether through the storyline, relatable characters, even the setting, the successful ones satisfy a viewer’s need for plausibility with at least minimal grounding in reality. At the very least, a decent scary movie is so unsettling that you aren’t motivated to weigh the logistics of every scene. Dead Silence meets none of these criteria. It’s not scary, and it makes no fucking sense. For one thing, this is supposed to be a family curse, directed very specifically at the Ashen family. But Mary Shaw takes out whoever she feels like, including the mortician, who poses no threat to anyone. She has a right to be pissed off, I suppose, but can't she take revenge within the parameters of her own unreality?

Dead Silence is a nasty-ass casserole of scary movie leftovers, but it still gets my highest recommendation. Ok, it’s not scary, but you’ll be up all night anyway. You’ll be lying in bed thinking, Wait a second, why are all the businesses in Raven’s Fair closing now? Didn’t all that shit take place in 1941? Or, Why does Jamie’s father have his ex-wives painted out of the family portraits? Why doesn’t he just take the paintings off the wall? Or, Does human flesh really take seventy years to decompose? Or, If Jamie is such a loving husband, why did he bury his wife in the world’s creepiest cemetery? You get the idea. Throw down seven dollars for any other movie, and it might leave your consciousness the minute it’s over. Spend a couple bucks on Dead Silence and it will stick with you for days. You’ll definitely get your money’s worth.

Hellgate (1989)

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what it would be like to see Arnold Horshack go down on someone, look no further than Hellgate--and, for the love of Bog, seek help. (Whether that’s my indictment of anyone who would ever fantasize about Ron Palillo’s bony white ass, or my extrapolation on the inevitable effects of witnessing such a foul waste of celluloid as Hellgate, I’m not entirely sure. In either case, you’re going to want to find a good listener, plop yourself down on a comfy chaise longue, and get a few things off your chest). Since this came packaged as a b-side to a DVD double feature with the entertaining The Pit, I was perhaps hoping for too much by expecting that goodness to run over to the flipside.

"I know the answer to your question, Mister Kotter. Pick me. I insist."

Hellgate even starts out somewhat promisingly, with a bunch of people in a cabin by the fire swapping scary stories. For some reason--perhaps because I feel I missed out on something by never having gone to summer camp as a kid--when a movie begins like this it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, as if I’m about to be treated to a chilling yarn spun by a master raconteur. I mean, hell, it worked in The Fog. But all comparisons end there--the chick with the short hair and gaudy earrings, it turns out, is no John Houseman. The Fog delivers on its chilling promise. Hellgate on the other hand, gets more and more muddled, going off in a number of directions, each one more inane than the one before it.

I’m not going to focus on the plot because I’m not entirely sure Hellgate has a plot. In lieu of this, I will discuss certain elements of the movie. I would use the term plot elements, but, you know, that would imply that the movie has a plot--all right, I will admit that the movie does have a plot, I’m sure someone with a reasonable amount of intelligence and patience could point it out to me. What I’m trying to say that Hellgate does not have a coherent plot, or (in the remotest case that someone could prove me wrong by pointing out a coherent plot,) a plot worth following.

Element number one: The dumb-ass crystal. At some point in the movie a crystal is unearthed. The crystal seems to be an important part of the story--it’s found underground and it makes bad stuff happen. It does a couple of remarkable things, seemingly at its own bidding rather than that of its bearer. The crystal shoots a blue laser beam that 1) Brings the dead back to life, 2) Makes stuff explode, or 3) Brings the dead back to life and makes it explode. Handier than a Swiss Army Knife, eh?

"What do you suppose this thing does to goldfish?"

Ka-Zap!

Ick . . . as in ichthyophthirius multifilis!

Element number two: The cleanest motorcycle gang in history. These guys are great. It’s totally obvious by the spotless, shiny denim (guess they couldn’t afford to spring for leather) jackets of the riders that they had never been worn prior to shooting. Never mind the two-thousand miles worth of road grime any other gang would accumulate, these fun-loving sociopaths are spotless. I love how they show up, intimidate all of the other diners into leaving the restaurant (without settling their bills,) and then the waitress waltzes up to take their order as if nothing at all had happened.

The Immaculate Riders divest the poodle skirt from yet another debutante.

And, most annoyingly, element number three: the confusing-as-hell setup. The frame story structure creates too much noise. The story the young woman tells takes place in the doo-wop 1950s. When the freshly-laundered motorcycle gang absconds with the young woman, they head for Lucas Carlisle’s Hellgate (a clunky phrase the storyteller insists on repeating throughout the film: Lucas Carlisle's Hellgate this, Lucas Carlisle's Hellgate that . . . I honestly had no idea who this Lucas Carlisle person was. My best guess, since the third billed character on IMDB is named Lucas, that it is the person who turns out to be the crystal-wielding villain), an 1890s-themed ghost town tourist trap. The result of this chase and the run-in with the girl’s father results in some of the movie’s most hilarious moments. For instance, the slow-motion hatchet-and-chain-tossing battle between the gang’s leader and the abducted girl’s father, a sort of poor man’s John Astin. Many of the movies violent scenes are shown in slo-mo, but as the film drags on it loses its humorous effect and just becomes tedious.

The Flaming Hatchet: Mankind's Ultimate Weapon

So what we basically have are a bunch of people in dated late 1980s fashion sitting around telling a story that took place in the 1950s--though in large part in an 1890s themed ghost town. Then the storyteller and her friends join the action, revisiting the diner (which looks exactly the same even thirty-plus years later--must be one of those 50s retro joints,) and Lucas Carlisle's Hellgate. Are you following all this? Because I sure as hell am not. Just by watching it I felt as if I had been involved in some sort of mix-up with a time machine--did I plug my coffee maker in wrong again? Was Philip K. Dick transcribing my mindfuck from the great beyond? By mindfuck I do not refer to the type in which a great light is shed, providing insight, in which all past events cohere into a sphere of shimmering clarity, rewarding the viewer tenfold for his patience with a something akin to a low-grade satori. Hellgate’s mindfuck is the type that drags you deeper and deeper into the mire of its own ineptitude. You’ll feel worse for the wear, as if you had just spent a week on the couch with a bong, a self-replenishing bag of potato chips, and a remote control with a sticky channel change button. On the eight day, you run out of pot, spill the bongwater into your bag of chips, and the Great Digital Television Switch* renders your set useless. What the fuck happened? you ask yourself. Make no mistake about it--this is no time travel flick, but if you think Primer left you with a case of the wobblies, treat yourself to this cubic zirconia-studded turd. I found myself fearful that I’d step on a butterfly at some point during my viewing experience and at my next login be faced with the banner: Garbidge Dey! A selabrayshun uv oll thingz garbidg-ee . . .

Funny, I wore a similar expression while watching this movie. Bottle sold separately (but highly recommended).

Trust me, it's a stroke of mercy.

It seems this movie was thrown together in order to utilize every set the filmmakers could get their hands on. It's part ghost story, part zombie flick, part haunted house tale, part love story, part sideshow, part vaudeville, part Western, part road movie, part crystal fetish porno, part roman-a-clef . . . well, maybe not the last thing. There's a little bit of everything and the end result is an artlessly crafted chirashi bowl that will keep you on the toilet for a week if you’re foolish enough to take a bite. Perhaps what bothers me most is that, since the movie is called Hellgate, I was expecting, gee, I don’t know, perhaps a gate to hell or something. Nope, the titular Hellgate is nothing more than a reference to Lucas Carlisle’s Hellgate. Yes, a bunch of bad shit does go down there, but if it is in fact supposed to be an actual gate to an actual hell, the filmmakers do nothing to make it clear.

I’m convinced that I’m missing some important aspect of the big picture. Am I judging Hellgate too harshly? Truly, I believe that I am incapable of judging anything too harshly--particularly Hellgate--and that the words the English language has provided are indeed inadequate. They are like a silencer put on the gun barrel of my hatred; they can only dampen the report of my rage. A proper review of Hellgate would involve something akin to primal scream therapy and would be ill-suited to the blog form.

I watched the trailer, hoping it might shed some light. “From the creators of Hellraiser and Hellbound,” touts the voiceover. What was all this fascination with Hell? I seem to remember Hellraiser and Hellbound, though no masterpieces, being far better films. But films is all they were and all they ever will be. I believe Hellgate is something more. Hellgate is not a movie to be watched. Hellgate is an experience. It is the video tape from The Ring. It is the gaze of the gorgon Medusa. It is the dizzying nausea of which Jean-Paul Sartre had only scratched the surface. The DVD itself is the gate. Yes, ladies and gentleman, watch Hellgate and experience the terrors of Hell firsthand.

Warning: Magic Crystal may cause sea turtles to attack!


* I have every reason to believe that the June 12, 2009 switch to digital television will be the start of the real Y2K catastrophe. Enjoy your remaining months of life-on-earth-as-we-know-it. Do all those things you ever dreamed of doing (I'm reachable via email). And remember: You heard it here first.

Good Girl Gone Bad; or, Her Anus Tightened

Of all the great volumes that line the shelves in my study, my most valued is a leatherbound first edition of Karin Tabke’s “Good Girl Gone Bad.” “Good Girl” is the story of ostensibly brilliant investigator Philamina Zorn and her sexy lieutenant boss, Ty Jamerson. Their names, like the book’s dialogue and plot twists, are about as subtle as a slap in the face with Ty’s dick.

Phil, formerly an Internal Affairs officer, is assigned to work undercover at a strip club to investigate a series of kidnappings. Before taking on her new assignment, she’s just like any other hardworking cop who’s gorgeous and has huge jugs. Phil is completely repressed and has a textbook’s worth of sexual problems, partially due to having been date-raped as a teenager, but after a few nights of stripping, her confidence comes rushing back. As the title implies, the virginal-yet-sexy Phil takes to the job with enthusiasm, and soon she’s doing lap dances in the back room. The book’s climax (heh heh) takes place when she does an onstage strip dressed in – get this – a police uniform. Dude!

You’re not going to believe this, but although supervisor Ty is a hard-bodied stud on the outside and a hurt little boy on the inside, Phil is immediately attracted to him. Despite their love/hate dynamic and feverish power struggle, Ty returns her feelings but he is incapable of maintaining a committed relationship. Why would an attractive, intelligent, adult male who’s so successful in other arenas be a failure in his romantic life? Fortunately, the author provides a sensitive, nuanced analysis of a man torn to pieces by forces both internal and external. Wait, I’m sorry. I was thinking of a different book. Ty’s mom was a slut – that’s why he’s so fucked up. But once he starts boning a repressed, neurotic woman, all of his problems are solved – just like in real life!

Throughout the book, I found myself hoping Ty, or maybe Ty’s dick, was behind the kidnappings. That was not the case. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but there are only two major characters in “Good Girl” besides Ty and Phil. Solving the mystery doesn’t present much of a challenge, even to those of us without a background in criminal justice.

For that matter, Phil seems like kind of a lousy cop. Why has she only been assigned to one case? She’s more like that person you work with who walks around with file folders in hand and stands at the copy machine but doesn’t seem to really do anything. Sure, she has a subscription to “Cop Talk” magazine and she sorts through file boxes once in a while, but she has an awful lot of down time for a Bay Area cop. It didn’t surprise me that Phil came to zero conclusions on the kidnapping case, stumbling upon the offenders in a very silly ending reminiscent of old Scooby-Doo episodes. I was surprised the culprit didn’t rip off a mask, shake his fist, and bellow “If it wasn’t for you snooping cops . . !”

The story itself is lame, but nothing is as cringe-worthy as the writing. The dialogue in this book is so bad, you can see stink lines rising from the pages. Phil’s favorite pickup line is “Fuck me till the cows come home.” Of course it’s a huge turn-on for Ty, but in real life a line like that would cause, at best, the giggles, and at worst, permanent impotence. Some other choice phrases:

Ty: I can give you more than my dick, Phil.*

Phil: Please – I’m working.

Ty: You’re working, all right – working me into a lather.

While “Good Girl” doesn’t disappoint in the unintended hilarity department, my biggest letdown was how dirty it wasn’t. The cover says, “Even good girls can be bad . . . very bad.” Well, maybe they can, but not in this book. Phil doesn’t even have sex with Ty until page 263, and despite their alleged psychological / relationship problems, they form a stable, monogamous relationship. They don’t even do anything kinky – they’re like an old married couple. I’ll admit I was shocked when “Phil’s anus tightened” on page 326, but that was because I didn’t think it was possible for her to be more of a tight-ass.

But I don’t care – it’s funny. There’s the part where Ty looks like “liquid danger.” And then there’s Phil’s “traitorous nipples.” And then there’s her lips, which Ty wants to “suck right off her face” (hot!). And then there’s the part where he sucks on her breasts “like a starved babe.” Actually, there’s a few times where he’s likened to a starved babe. And then – oh, Jesus, go read it. You won’t be sorry.




*He doesn’t, though.

The Paperboy (1994)

First of all, in order to avert any possible confusion, IMDB lists this Canadian chiller as The Paper Boy (note the space). I’m not sure whether this reflects the proper Canadian terminology for a person who delivers newspapers or if the original story was in fact about a young man made out of paper and along the way some fat-cat Canadian producer butchered the screenwriter’s original vision beyond recognition, changing it into the story of an eleven year old boy with a paper route who occasionally murders people. I can only speculate, but I will say that the story of a boy made out of paper has far greater potential for thrills than those contained in the ninety-odd minutes to which I have recently subjected myself.

He couldn't possibly be a killer with a charming, old-timey font like that!

The Paperboy starts strong. I was expecting a slow, Canadian build, but within the first two minutes our villain with the sing-song silly name Johnny McFarley (Marc Marut) has dispatched an elderly woman by suffocating her with a plastic bag. From his idyllic Canadian neighborhood we cut to a stock shot of the Boston skyline and from there into the classroom of the attractive Ms. Thorpe (Alexandra Paul). It isn’t long before we realize that the murder is a cruel ploy concocted by Johnny McFarley to draw Melissa Thorpe northward to her Canadian homeland to deal with her mother’s estate.

Beauty, thy name is Ms. Thorpe.

Johnny is a considerate killer, if nothing else. He does Ms. Thorpe the service of suffocating her mother on the last day of classes, so that she can enjoy an extended stay in her mother’s home without it interfering with her teaching job. Ms. Thorpe brings her daughter Cammy along for the journey (I can only assume she’s named after her mother’s favorite lace camisole). We learn through a conversation between Cammy and her cousin that her mother is divorced and that her father lives in Italy. “Where’s that?” the cousin asks. “On a map,” Cammy replies. This is only one example of the three or four gems of sharp dialogue strategically placed throughout the film.

"'Lo, mum. Johnny McFarley's me name!"

From here the plot unfolds at a breakneck pace. Johnny, the perfect archetype of the smarmy Fauntleroy that instantly fills one with disgust and admiration, quickly ingratiates himself into the family by putting on the guise of a helpful, caring little twerp. (“The eagle scout has landed,” quips Ms. Thorpe’s sister at Johnny’s sudden appearance.) There is a genuinely creepy moment at the funeral as Johnny, in a phony show of bereavement, leans over the corpse and kisses it on the cheek, only to be pulled back by Ms. Thorpe.

Grody to the max!

Johnny seems to inhabit the house next door alone. We learn that his mother passed the year before (I’m sure it would shock you to learn that there is some mystery surrounding her death) and that his father travels a lot, selling “golf stuff.” I wondered if in fact Johnny had also offed his father until, somewhat later in the film, his dad drives up to the house with a trunk full of . . . golf stuff.

We've all heard the old saw, "You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family." Well, Johnny McFarley's not having any of that noise! Johnny’s plan becomes clear rather quickly. He is trying to piece together the perfect family, with Cammy as a sister and Ms. Thorpe as his attractive-yet-nurturing mother. Enter hunky, bearded Brian (William Katt, of The Greatest American Hero fame) a high-school football star who dated only cheerleaders back in the day (though, he confesses, Melissa’s debate club stylings were not of such dowdy magnitude to keep him from harboring a crush on her while he nailed every girl on the pep squad). Brian is quick to pick up on Johnny McFarley’s ulterior motives and the wedge he drives in the relationship between Johnny and Melissa results in two broken plates with hissy fits to match. I should note that whenever Johnny gets angry, the pre-pubescent tone of his voice is ramped up to such an extent that it would be utterly comical if not for its fingernails-across-the-blackboard quality.

"I may have traded in my cape and tights for a modified argyle sweater vest, but I still kick ass!"

Johnny soon embarks on a killing spree, offing anyone who stands in the way of his plan to recreate his idea of the perfect family. Some of his plots are rather ingenious: He deprives the elderly Mrs. Rosemount of her inhaler, then stages a traumatic experience in order to trigger a fatal asthma attack. (But here, as an asthma sufferer, I must digress. Why is it in movies that asthmatics are over and over again portrayed as sickly individuals walking around with their inhalers constantly clutched in their hands? What’s even more ridiculous is that they are puffing them in every shot in the movie, thus giving themselves a massive dose that goes far beyond the boundaries of safety. It just seems cheap and lazy to me. In some instances it’s used for comic relief--asthmatics are nerds, we get it, ha ha. And I must admit that in this movie it’s a valid plot point . . . But, still, it’s overused. I’ve been told by doctors that if you’re using your rescue inhaler more than once a week, you really should be seeking some other form of treatment. Establish that someone has asthma, sure, but don’t have them sucking on their inhaler every time they’re on camera. Christ, I keep expecting an onscreen o.d.!)

Keep suckin' it down, granny.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Johnny’s murders. For every ingenious murder he commits, there are two that are just plain sloppy. Poetic justice aside, Johnny offs his father by giving him a solid whack on the head with a putter. Then, to make it appear as if his father is on one of his golf-stuff selling business trips, he parks the car in the garage! Genius! Later, to cover up his bludgeoning of the irresistible Brian, Johnny douses his workshop with gasoline and throws a road flare onto the puddle. That ought to fool the police: It seems that this man died of massive head trauma inflicted by an accidental fire. Case closed.

Live by the golf stuff, die by the golf stuff.

One aspect of The Paperboy that I found particularly funny was Johnny’s sudden, brief religious awakening one hour and ten minutes into the movie. Though there had been no previous allusion to the Bible or any religious inclination in Johnny’s past, one solitary scene, in which Johnny catches Ms. Thorpe in a lie, is replete with religious dialogue: “Thou shalt not lie. That’s the ninth commandment, remember?”, “My mother’s in heaven because she’s good!”, and, finally, “Jesus doesn’t take bad people.” This particular facet of Johnny’s character never comes up again. This either 1) reflects the consummate skill of the screenwriter in showing us exactly how fragmented is the psyche of young Johnny McFarley, or, 2) reflects the consummate lack of skill in a crappy screenwriter who just threw this scene in for the heck of it, perhaps in the hope that it would give Johnny depth or make him more creepy.

Despite his ability to turn on the false charm like it’s water from the tap, Johnny gets his comeuppance and is dragged kicking and screaming (and protesting in his grating, girly voice) into the backseat of a car belonging to some of Canada’s finest (It would have been much cooler if the Royal Canadian Mounted Police showed up and, like, tied him to a horse or something, don’cha think?) I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say this: What kind of fool thinks that he can kill The Greatest American Hero? (Such an oversight perfectly illustrates the limited scope of the Canadian mind.) You have to give young Johnny McFarley some credit, however. If you’re going to nurture a sick oedipal complex, go out and get yourself an attractive mom. You may as well do it in style.