Great Scenes from Shit Films, Part 5: Hobgoblins. Share

As with yesterdays entry into the hallowed halls of shit cinema fame, this entry came to my attention through the stellar work of the crew at Mystery Science Theater 3000. This film was in what is possibly my favourite of the Mike era episodes, in fact it would probably be my favourite of all episodes if not for Manos. Everything about this episode is great, the riffs, the host segments with classics like Crow’s ‘In Search Of…’ style programme about women to the cardboard cut-outs of the crew singing about Hobgoblins. One particular scene of note is the ‘interview’ with director Rick Sloane during the films end credits.

Still, this isn’t supposed to be about MST3K, it’s supposed to be about the movie itself. It’s about a number of small beasts from space who can make peoples fantasies come true with TERRIFYING consequences.

The film begins with an elderly security guard and his young helper doing a check of the old movie studios where they work. They go their separate ways and the younger of the two gentlemen opens a vault. Inside he suddenly finds himself on a stage where he begins… well I guess you’d kinda have to call it singing really. Suddenly he falls from the stage and dies. The older security guard, Mr McCreedy, discovers his body and shuts the vault door.

Our… well I guess you’d kinda have to call him hero really, Kevin takes the dead dude’s job so he can impress his frigid bitch of a girlfriend Amy because as every man knows, nothing impresses a woman more than taking a job which means you’d have to spend most of your nights away from them and most of your days sleeping. Good thinking Kevin.

After his first night he comes home and finds Amy hanging out with uber-slut Daphne and effeminate Kyle. Daphne is a classy kind a girl, wearing a condom in a packet around her neck and Kyle is a stylish fellow in his little red shorts. Amy is dressed like she doesn’t want to have sex with anything. Ever. Daphne’s boyfriend Nick, a soldier type, arrives later and challenges Kevin to a fight. The weapon of choice? Garden utensils! In what was rated as the most epic fight scene until Gladiator came along, Kevin and Nick duel it out for some time until Nick just manages to get the upper hand. Nick gets his reward by fucking Daphne in his van, whilst Amy takes the piss out of Kevin. In the background Nick’s van can be seen bouncing up and down with hilarious cartoon bouncing sound effects! Rick Sloane is a cinematic genius.

The next night Kevin chases a burglar into the vault that the dude had died in earlier unwittingly releasing the titular Hobgoblins! Oh Noes! WTF? I can has Cheeseburger?… Sorry, not sure what happened there. Anyway McCreedy provides the creatures back story and explains they can make people see what they most wish for though they do kinda accidentally kill them in the process. And so our mighty hero Kevin goes to stop the evil beings and save the friends that frankly no man deserves!

The Hobgoblins head straight for Kevin’s house, perhaps wanting to leave him a thank you note for freeing them after all this time or perhaps smelling Daphne’s rancid pheromones from miles away and they are just looking for an easy lay after such a long time in the vault. Either way they happen upon Kevin’s chums whilst they are…well I guess you’d kinda have to call it partying really. The hobgoblins manage to lure Daphne out of the house with an exact replica of Nick’s car horn. Having never met the man and having been locked in a movie vault, I can’t help but wonder how they know the sound of his horn or where and when they purchased such an item. Anyway, one of the hobgoblins tries to kill Daphne but she fights them off with a rake. Garden utensils would have made Lord of the Rings way more awesome.

Meanwhile, Kevin is calling a phone sex line, when he is told the woman he’s talking to is right outside. He takes her to the make-out spot of the city, with signs denoting where people should park depending on what kind of sexual activity they plan on engaging in. I’m sure the city council are very pleased with such a well organised make-out spot. The woman tries to push the car off of the make-out spot cliff with Nick still inside it until Kevin shows up and kills the hobgoblin generating the fantasy. The car still goes over the edge and the two characters are left standing there, watching the terrible fire which seems to have all the intensity of two torches being shone into the actor’s eyes.

Whilst this is going down, Amy heads to Club Scum to become a slutty, slutty stripper. (Point of interest: The man who plays Club Scum’s host would go on to voice Cosmo in the Fairly Odd Parents.) She demands to be degraded until Kevin and friends show up to kill the hobgoblins. The club is thrown into chaos and Nick begins to fantasize that he’s in combat. He manages to set himself on fire by jumping on a grenade… damn that’s stupid.

The surviving friends go to tell McCreedy that they’ve killed all the hobgoblins but Kevin is confronted by the burglar he chased before. A fight breaks out and Kevin wins, impressing Amy at last. Maybe now she will have sex with him. Good for them. But what’s this? The burglar has a gun! He’s going to shoot Kevin! Will he never get his end away? Thankfully McCreedy shoots the hobgoblin which is causing Kevin’s fantasy and the future conquest of Amy by Kevin seems assured. Kyle makes a move on Daphne who seems willing, probably because she’s a whore and not even little red shorts will put her off. Unfortunately for Kyle, Nick shows up covered in bandages. He and Daphne retire to the van which begins bouncing with those same cartoon sound effects and the future conquest of Kyle by Kyle’s hand seems assured.

The rest of the hobgoblins run into the vault and McCreedy blows up the studio, a plan the old man who spent his entire life guarding them for the sake of mankind must have really wished he’d thought up earlier. The End.

Well there you have it. Once more, as with yesterdays pick, I recommend you only watch this film with the appropriate MST3K riffs. Doing otherwise will release the hobgoblins. Oh an rest assure, the hobgoblins will ride again regardless with the soon to be released, direct-to-DVD sequel, Hobgoblins 2. Hooray!

So, what scene? Well there can only be one choice really. Enjoy.

Great Scenes from Shit Films, Part 4: Manos: The Hands of Fate

Like most people out there who have seen Manos: The Hands of Fate (Translation: Hands: The Hands of Fate) I became aware of it through Mystery Science Theater 3000. The episode is held in high regard amongst the shows fans and rightly so. It is, after all, awesome. Some of my favourite riffs I heard in the shows history come from this episode, as do some of my favourite segments. Such a thing is only possible with the just the right film, and Manos is just such a film.

Every frame is such exquisite crap, that you just can't help but laugh. From the inexplicable scenes involving two teenagers making out to Torgo's chilling theme music, everything here is so ripe for a riffing that if MST3K hadn't done an episode with it then there would have been a public outcry... except that no one would have heard of the movie.

The plot then if it can indeed be called such. A family made up of husband Mike, wife Margaret, daughter Debbie and dog Peppy are travelling somewhere for some reason. Meanwhile two teenagers make out in a car until a cop tells them to piss off. The family reach a house and are greeted by every one's favourite satyr/housekeeper Torgo. He takes care of the place while the Master is away.
Mike asks Torgo is his family can spend the night at the house and, after a little hesitation, Torgo agrees.

Later that evening, Peppy runs outside the house and is later discovered as a corpse dog by Mike. Margaret wants to leave and Mike demands that Torgo put the luggage back in the car, which is a very rude way to treat someone who kindly let you stay in house even though he had reservations. What a bastard. It's not Torgo's fault they can't control their fucking dog. Torgo does as he's told before catching Margaret alone. He informs her that the Master wants her for a wife but he can't have her because Torgo wants her for himself. He then 'fondles' her in a way that demonstrates just why Torgo is considered a ladies man without equal.

Meanwhile, the two teenagers continue making out until being told to move on by the police again.

Now Debbie runs outside of the house and, rather than being found as a girl corpse, her parents find her with a big evil looking dog. When asked where the dog was found, she leads them to a chamber which contains the Master and several women (his wives) dressed in white nighties in an apparent cryogenic stasis, though without the cryogenic part.. The family run back to the house and try to find Torgo.

Torgo, though, has gone to the chamber himself where he does a little more fondling, this time of the Master's lovely ladies. That Torgo, what a lovable scamp! Torgo then knocks Mike out and ties him to a pole. Suddenly the Master and his wives awaken. They argue about the families fate, some wanting to kill 'em all, others wanting to keep the wife and daughter. The Master, however, has his own plans. He's pissed at how Torgo always seems to get more pussy, even though the Master has well loads of wives. So he decides he's going to sacrifice him to Manos! It should be pointed out at this point that the Master is wearing a fetching poncho with a hands motif. It's lovely. He leaves the chamber and the wives carry on arguing about the fate of the family which devolves into a wrestling match in the sand. A long one. Like several minutes long. It's really painful viewing at this point.

The Master finds Torgo and tells him he's going to be well dead. Torgo tries to fight but the Master puts him in a trance or something. Meanwhile one of the wives finds Mike and kisses and slaps him while he's unconscious but by this point of the film you will have given up hope that anything in life will ever make sense again. The Master brings Torgo to the tomb, puts him on a stone tablet whilst tying up one of the wives. The wives give Torgo a massage for some reason, the Master burns his hand and Torgo runs away, presumably to his death. He then kills the wife tied to the pole for good measure.

Mike wakes up and joins his family as they try to escape. Unfortunately they encounter a stock footage snake which impedes their progress. of course it's not like they are in a wide expanse of desert affording the option of walking around said snake and giving it a very wide berth so Mike decides to fire at the snake. This gunfire catches the attention of the policemen who shooed the teens who were making out so they go to investigate. These are clearly crack crime fighters as there investigation involves moving away from their car, staring into the darkness before giving up and going away. To Protect and Serve!

The family, unable to make their way through a maze of stock footage wildlife, decide to return to the house. It just makes sense. The Master attacks, Mike fires at him and the screen fades to black.

The next scene shows two women who are travelling somewhere for some reason. They reach a house and are greeted by every one's favourite human/housekeeper Mike. He takes care of the place while the Master is away. Next we see that Margaret and Debbie have joined the army of wives in stasis, which it pretty disgusting when you consider that Debbie is a little girl. Chris Hansen needs to take the Master's ass down a peg or two.

The credits are followed by the scariest scene in the entire film when the words 'The End?' flash up. That question marked has plagued any and all who have seen this film.

So there you have it, the 'plot' of Manos. Now for a few fun facts:

1) The camera used to shoot the film could only shoot for thirty seconds at a time and everything was filmed without sound. The voices were dubbed in later!

2)The film had a budget of $19,000!

3)The driving sequences at the beginning of the film were supposed to have the opening credits over them, but the director forgot to include them!

4)John Reynolds, who played Torgo, sustained permanent damage to his kneecaps because of the apparatus on them. He was constantly on painkillers up until his suicide, due to the injury he had from this movie. It's believed that his kneecaps were damaged due to the device being worn backwards... I'm sorry, that probably shouldn't have been included in the 'fun facts'. Let's move on.

This movie is among the very worst ever made. Simple as that. Plan 9 from Outer Space is awful, Hobgoblins is an abortion but in my opinion this film tops them all. If you have to see this film, and you have to, make sure you watch it with Joel and the Bots from MST3K. Doing otherwise is hazardous to your health.

As for the scene I've picked from this treasure trove of awful, I've decided upon Torgo charming the pants off of Margaret with his suave fondling. Enjoy.

DocuMental: Zoo

Ok, I’ve been watching a hell of a lot of documentaries lately and so I shall review them. Wow, that was an awful opening sentence. Never mind, let us continue regardless. The world of documentaries has always fascinated me. I love fictional films, obviously, but there’s something different about a really great documentary. Unfortunately what I’m reviewing today is not a great documentary.

Zoo is a 2007 film directed by Robinson Devor. It concerns the 2005 death of Kenneth Pinyan, referred to in the film by his username ‘Mr Hands‘, a 45 year old man who was fucked to death by a stallion. That’s right, he was literally fucked to death by a horse. A horse fucked him, punctured his colon and he was dropped off at hospital by another horse fucker and died there of his injuries. The death resulted in the passing of a law which made it illegal to have sex with animals in Washington… I honestly can’t believe that this was legal in Washington until 2005. I now have a horrible feeling that Bill Clinton wasn’t the only one to engage in sexual discretions in the White House. After all, Nixon REALLY loved his dog Checkers but I digress.

Essentially the story goes that there was a farm in Washington owned by an old couple who loved there horses. They had a guy working there for them who also loved horses. He loved them, however, in a different way. The kind of way were you allow yourself to be mounted by said horses. He thought it would be fun to invite other people over to the farm who were also interested in such activities when ever the couple went away and so he did via the world wide web, mankind’s greatest invention when it comes to enabling deviant sexual behaviour. Hooray!

So people would come out the farm, have a few drinks, eat some food, watch TV and then go and get fucked by a horse. You know, just a regular night in with the lads. So anyway, one night Kenneth goes out, does the usual and starts to complain that he’s not feeling right. It soon becomes clear that something pretty bad has happened so one of the other guys dumps him at a hospital and drives off. Unfortunately for him, a number of CCTV cameras track his car and it’s journey. The media are soon flying over their farm in a helicopter, police are called in and religious folks try and save the animal fucker’s souls. The couple who actually own the farm are shown some footage of the actual manimal loving, and so unfortunately is the viewer, but no one is actually charged because at the time it’s not against the law.

That’s the story. In the film it’s almost exclusively told in recreations for obvious reasons. The problem that I have with the documentary, other than seeing the act on screen even if only fleeting glimpses, is that it’s told in some weird, experimental storytelling format, something the film has been praised for. It doesn’t seem to have any real structure until the last half of the film which made it really difficult to get into. The first half seems to just throw random parts of the story in, interviewing the woman who rescued the animal who caused the man’s death, a man explaining how he got into bestiality and several others, all just jumbled up together with no semblance of an order.

The worst thing though, the worst fucking thing, is that every scene seemed to be shot in slow motion. It’s like the ‘300’ of dude fucked to death by a horse movies. At least in three hundred there were times when this was kind of Ok. In this however scenes of people walking, running, watching TV and answering the phone are all in fucking slow motion and though the music in the film wasn’t particularly bad, it was not particularly great either. In fact, sometimes it made the scene seem even slower than they were already.

The strangest part of the film, and that really is a claim when talking about a film in which a man is fucked to death by a horse, comes at about half way through. Suddenly we’re introduced to a man, sitting on a stool in a white room who is just talking. It turns out that this man is one of the actors in the film. This really confused me for a second because I suddenly thought that maybe I’d been watching a documentary on the making of Zoo for 45 minutes. Maybe that explained why they hadn’t really touched on the story that I thought the film was actually about at this point, but no it turns out this man felt that he could somehow relate to this story because he once tried to help a drowning kid at a swimming pool and failed. I honestly didn’t fully understand the connection and still don’t now.

Oh, and to top it of they geld the horse who killed the dude. They castrate the fucking horse so that no one who is interested in having sex with it will come to try and adopt it. That’s just wrong in my books. How about they just don’t let anyone adopt the fucking horse and let it keep it’s tackle?

Overall, I just didn’t like this film. The strange story-telling style definitely had something to do with it. I just felt it was unnecessary and really detracted from whatever plot or point they were trying to get across. I guess ultimately I just was also kinda disappointed that this film wasn’t as funny as I felt a film about a man being fucked to death by a horse should’ve been. It was just kinda dark and disturbing.

Now, in honour of my favourite documentary, King Of Kong, I shall give each documentary a review out of five Kongs. Zoo receives 1 Kong out of 5. Now, if you don’t mind I must go muck out the stables.

Great Scenes from Shit Films, Part 3.

Jaws is one of my favourite films of all time. It is awesome. Unfortunately sequels were made. Terrible, terrible sequels. Ok, 2 wasn’t so bad but 3 and 4 are awful. Jaws 4, aka Jaws: The Revenge, is easily one of the worst films of all time.

Martin Brody is dead. Ellen Brody visits her son, Michael, is working as a marine biologist… I think. It seems like an odd choice of employment for someone whose family has such a constant problem with sharks. His younger brother Sean is a cop or at least he was as he’s despatched by a shark fairly early on in the film, the event which prompts Ellen to visit Michael. She believes that the shark purposefully attacked Sean because it seems that she’s gone bat-shit crazy.

Whilst in the Carribean she meets and becomes romantically involved with Michael Caine, a man who clearly needed cash desperately at this stage in his career. There is clearly no other explanation for his appearing in this film. At some point Ellen’s granddaughter goes on a banana boat which is attacked by a shark. The granddaughter survives but she’s traumatised by the experience. Perhaps she’ll become a marine biologist.

Ellen goes to find the shark, which she believes is the same one that ate Sean because she’s gone bat-shit crazy. Michael Cain flies Michael and his friend Mario Van Peebles out to find herwhen the shark attacks the plane but they manage to get on the boat. Mario Van Peebles uses a little box that makes the shark jump out of the water. The shark attacks Mario Van Peebles and drags him under the water. It then resumes jumping out of the water, becuase it’s clearly gone bat-shit crazy and believes itself to be a dolphin. Ellen rams the boat into the shark, causing it… to… explode....for some reason. Ellen believes the curse of the shark is lifted and everyone lives happily ever after, except for Sean. Mario Van Peebles, on the other hand, survives though badly mauled.

The film is shit, makes no sense and makes me physically sick. So which scene will it be? The inexplicable death of the shark, a death that for some reason causes the shark to explode. It is awesome. Not only does the shark just blow up for no reason but they even have the gall to include scenes from the first, infinitely superior film. Enjoy.

Great Scenes From Shit Films, Part 2.

In 1989 a strange creature was unleashed upon the world, a strange hybrid beast, not quite an advert, not quite a movie. It starred a young Christian Slater, a younger Fred Savage and that dude who’s in lots of things. You know the one I mean, whatshisname. Yeah, him. The “film” was called the Wizard and it’s best known for being the western world’s introduction to Super Mario Bros. 3, one of the best selling video games of all time.

I don’t think I need to tell you that it’s terrbile. Well, not terrible… fucking awful may be a better description. Filled with Nintendo games, Father/son bed sharing, the first appearance of a young Tobey Maguire and the odd paedophile joke thrown in for good measure, the film tells the unfollowable story of Jimmy, a little kid who is retarded in some way but is really good at Nintendo games like Rain Man if he was sponsored by a large Japanese electronics industry giant.

Something bad is going to happen to Jimmy for some reason and so his brother, Corey, breaks him out of the care home he lives in. Jimmy wants to go to California and to do that they need money so Corey decides to pit Jimmy against middle aged buisness men, who haunted the arcades back in the late 80s, for money. Jimmy wins, they get cash. They meet Haley, a street smart girl from a poor family and make their way across the USA.

Meanwhile Corey’s brother and father are trying to track them down as is Putnam, the villain/comic relief, a private investigator hired by Jimmy’s mother and step-father. God just writing this is making me angry. Blah Blah Blah, video game contest, blah blah blah, funky tie, blah blah Mario 3, blah blah blah Dinosaurs from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.

The important scene in this film is one in which the characters meet up with LUCAS! LUCAS! is the Nintendo God of his quiet desert town. He owns all the NES cartridges, is awesome at all of them and he has a secret weapon. Something so awesome that to gaze upon it is to break down in tears, shit your pants and know that there is a God, thy name is LUCAS! What is this holy Nintendo relic? The Power Glove, of course. With it LUCAS! shall surely crush all who dare defy him! It comes in a case with his fucking name on it! Seriously, how do you out-awesome that?

Now, if you’ve ever actually used the Power Glove you know it’s a total piece of shit, unresponsive in every regard of the word. Though it does apparently allow you to land the plane on Top Gun, something I failed to do as a kid with a normal controller. Still the fact that the Power Glove is played up so much in this singular scene makes it that much funnier. So enjoy and I do reccomend the actual film to be honest, I love the Wizard. It’s so bad.

Great Scenes From Shit Films, Part 1

With the revelation that I do indeed own several hundred fucking awful films on DVD, not just Mac and Me, I’ve decided to do regular blog posts about them, or to be more specific, regular blog posts about great scenes within these otherwise reprehensible cinematic abortions.
So today, why not start off with that film I’d really rather forget I own, “Mac and Me”. First some background.

In 1982 Steven Spielberg released a little film called “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (Slightly redundant if you ask me, but I guess no one is.) The film recieved rave reviews and launced the career of Drew Barrymore, eventually launching her into rehab by the age of 13 and finally launching her into her latest role as a chihuahua in the Disney film “Beverly Hills Chihuahua”
Deciding to cash in on the popularity of the film, Orion Pictures/McDonalds decided to release Mac and Me a mere six years later. The film follows a familiar plot and since I refuse to watch the film again, this synopsis is mostly from memory.

A family of aliens is living on the moon or Mars or somewhere, drinking strange liquids from beneath the planets/satellites surface with straws before getting sucked into a NASA probe and accidentally brought back to Earth. The youngest alien accidentally get seperated from the rest of his family and somehow ends up befriending a kid in a wheelchair, who I shall now refer to as Wheels. Wheels calls the alien Mac, apparently standing for Mysterious Alien Creature though I always feel as though there should be the word Big at the beginning of his name.

Mac then puts on a bear costume and dances in McDonalds before going to find the rest of his family with the help of Wheels and his brother, in a desert whilst eating McFlurry’s, except for Mac who can only drink Coca-Cola through a straw due to his disturbing blow up doll mouth configuration.

They find Mac’s family who are seriously dehydrated but thankfully some Coca-Cola sorts ‘em right out. I also think wind farms are important for some reason. Anyway, in a scene that really freaked me out as a child (And I admit I still have some trouble watching it today) the father alien gets a gun and starts shooting at shit for some reason. I’m not sure why this scared me so much, but I think it’s something to do with the father’s odd, shambling, writhing gait, like some kind of zombie made of snakes… Oh god, it’s horrific.

Anyway, everything is all sorted out and the aliens are officially made citizens of McDonald Land, I mean the United States of America, probably because the father was so pro-gun rights.

To sum up even quicker, the fucking film is an advert for McDonalds, Coca-Cola and various other commercial enterprises. The trailer even has Ronald McDonald in it. Seriously look it up.
The film is a travesty and actually causes a condition known as Sand Paper Lung, in which the sufferer, having lost the will to live, actually reconfigures their DNA, causing their lungs to transform into actual sand paper and as they breath, they slowly sand away their innards until no thing is left but a gaping hole in their chest.

Despite this there are two scenes which really stick out. The first is the afforementioned dancing in McDonalds scene, which I may feature in some future blog post. The second is the following scene, affectionally called “The Infamous Wheelchair Scene.” Enjoy!