Extreme Limits (2001)Dir. Jim WynorskiGenre: Xtreme Action!

 

"...I don't have to believe in it to kill for it."

Remember that time in 1999 when the reality of living in the year 2000 seemed like science fiction fantasy talk? A time in which we all believed that if somehow, the human population managed to make it through the next ten years, either we'd all live on the moon or the Earth would explode in a meteoric catastrophe?  Or, at the very least, all computer life would cease to exist because obviously the internet cannot reset its internal clock for a decade that only time-traveling robots have seen?  Then came the night that that lit up ball dropped in Times Square at 12:00 AM on New Years Day and we realized, "Wait as second...hey, I'm still alive!"  Well, unless you were a person that died on that day, but for everyone else, it's totally the futuristic 2000's! We're going to move to Mars!  Meet Big Foot!  Invent a time machine and kill the dinosaurs! Find Jimmy Hoffa!  Solve the Jesus mystery!  Sure, as of 2013 none of that has happened (YET), but back in our optimistic years when 2001 rolled around, we may not have had flying cars or machines that can materialize "Earl Grey, hot" on demand either, but there were still a butt-load of monumental important achievements in science and technology arising!  For examples:

Xtreme breath leads to 
Xtreme sex, bro!

1. I graduated from high school (go whatever that team mascot was)!  Plus, I had to sit with a straight face through a graduation ceremony that featured a Vitamin C song that brought tears to at 200 young people's eyes.  Gross.
2. A pre-Scientologied Will Smith declared the decade the 'Willenium' and cemented this fact with the help of The Clash, Eva Mendes and the fact he still appeared normal at the time.
3. Inflatable plastic furniture and silver lipstick become all the rage!  Ugh, shouts David Bowie!
4. Boy bands are back with a boner-inducing VENGEANCE.  Thanks, Florida!   
5. Finally, everything everywhere began kicking it into higher gear and going to the...XTREME!

Deodorant (Right Guard XTREME), soft drinks (Do the Dew, BRO!) and extreme sports (skateboarding, small bicycling and *ROLLAH BLAHDES)!  But of course, of all these strange new inventions and ways of living, the most extremely extreme pioneer of all things to the limit on the edge of the breaking point was, obviously, none other than soft spoken non-leading man actor, TREAT WILLIAMS!  That's right, Treat "Fairy-Tale-Theatre-Dead-Heat-Straight-To-Video-Softcore-Erotic-Thriller" Williams (as he's known in most social circles)!

I've got a sweet Treat for you class!

In 2001, a beat-down Treat set out to do his dew and give helicopter-flying/train-crashing/mountain-climbing action flicks the 'Treat'ment' with 2001's Xtreme Action Adventure flick, EXTREME LIMITS (aka Crash Point Zero).  Check out the pulse pounding, fire-shooting, car-crunching, doomsday-devicing, government-conspiracy-building trailer below!

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In case the plot isn't GLARINGLY obvious in it's entirety in the trailer, EXTREME LIMITS tells the harrowing, white-knuckle, bare-chested story of the not so world-renowned Dr. Maurice Hunter (John "Passions" Beck) and his daughter, plain-faced Nadia (Julie "What did you say?" St. Claire) who dabble in antiques (and possibly wilderness living/mountain climbing, this is never confirmed). After a nefarious organization of fleece-wearing terrorists finds out that Dr. Maurice is an expert in all things written from books of historical bullshit, he and Nadia are kidnapped by some gun-toting thugs who force the pair into aiding and abetting the bad guys to find a long-lost doomsday weapon thought to be made of only myth and legend. On a side note, now do you see what they did there with the main-ish character's last name? Maurice Hunter? You may have found it banal at the time, but now IT ALL COMES TOGETHER. Reminds me of how every time Stephen, Go-Gurt and I (I call George Lucas Go-Gurt, it's no big deal, just a funny pet name between college roommates, you wouldn't get it) have brunch together every third Sunday of the month and I'm always reminding them that my only real complaint about that Indiana Jones franchise was that main character's name. So plain! What exactly does this guy do? What is he, a porn star? Your neighbor? How about Indiana AncientArtifactFinder? Now there's a real action hero with a doctorate in archeology! I mean, come on, have some goddamn imagnation you lazy fucks! But, I digress.

"Stand back!  It's electrical!"

Thankfully for the micro-fleeced, small pony-tailed terrorists in EXTREME LIMITS and the gas money they had to have spent on the trip, according to EXTREME LIMITS lore, famed electrical engineer, Nicola Tesla, did IN FACT, build a "death ray" which he did INDEED not-so-smartly hide in the Siberian Mountains! What are the odds? Also, what is a 'death ray'? Well, this deadly futuristic weapon, also known as 'Tesla's Death Ray,' (though it was referred to as 'Tesla's Folly' until he proved it could actually work...just a little antique dealer/archeologist humor there for you) has the power to vaporize any and all fleece wearing thugs in your general vicinity, while thankfully leaving the user and all animals/scenery therein unharmed.  Its the power of ELECTRICITY!  Or at least that's what I gathered from the special effects.  Dr. Hunter quickly figures out how to activate the ray and proceeds to massacre his captives, allowing he and his daughter to escape to the safety of the endless snowy mountains they are stranded on!  Oh wait, I think a couple of guys with guns survive and give chase...eventually.

Finally, fashion you AND
your much older Aunt can enjoy!

Either way, somehow Dr. Hunter and Nadia make their way back to a Siberian airport where they plan on heading "safely" home with the 'death ray' in tow.  I guess the airport security is pretty lax in Siberia.  Meanwhile, their new barely introduced ally, a government agent named (meh, I forgot, but he looks a lot like a poor man's Alan Rickman so we'll call him Alan) Alan proceeds to introduce the back stories of their fellow plane passengers to them while they wait at the boarding gate.  It's pretty much your average group of misfits: the young, ill-tempered pill-popping high fashion model (who looks 42 and apparently, based on her wardrobe, models for the catalogs of your local Fashion Bug), her sexist and not-so-secretly in love with her spiky-haired male manager, the fiesty silver foxed widow (with her eye on Dr. Hunter, but her heart firmly in the grip of her dead husband's cold dead hand), the mysterious guy who blends in and goes mostly unnoticed...until, a diabetic who forgot his medication and a young woman who according to Alan:

Alan: "...She got to see our Russian mafia quite accidentally.  We machine gunned her mother to death." 

Oh.  Okay.  That Russian mob.  Always making HORRIBLE first impressions!  Well, enough with this motley crue, let's get on with our safe, non-threatened trip home!  The plane doesn't gets more than an twenty minutes or so in the air before a group of thugs takes control, the pilot is found out by the viewer to be in cahoots with the baddies and a bypassing plane pulls this sweet maneuver where it hooks a rig to the passenger plane in order to transport....wait a minute....this sounds super familiar...haven't we seen this very realistic terrorist scenario before?  Was it in Bosnia?  Russia?  The Olympics?  Oh wait...I remember!

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That shit TOTALLY happened in CLIFFHANGER!  In fact, this scene in EXTREME LIMITS not only reminds me of CLIFFHANGER, but it looks EXACTLY like the actual scene that is actually in CLIFFHANGER!  Wait a second...isn't that Stallone's body double!  Why are they transferring suit cases full of money that they didn't have on the plane before?  Why does it smell like John Lithgow in here?  Before your heads explode Enemaniacs, I did the cinematic scientific digging for you and turns out, by the magic of movie-making, several of the action scenes in EXTREME LIMITS are not only stock footage from other explosions and landscapes, but ALL of the major action sequences are clips ripped straight out of other, more well known action films.  No, I'm serious.  If you take moral issue with this Hollywood film-making technique, stop your DVD here.  You have been warned.  For those ready to rock, let us continue on our journey of enematic discovery!

"Good thing I was wearing my microfleece."

So just like in CLIFFHANGER, some old guy (in this case, Dr. Hunter) foils the plans of the terrorists by knocking them over with shear brute old man force and the plane inevitably crashes on top of a snow-capped mountain.  Luckily, all of the key characters were in the front, undamaged part of the plane and survived.  Who cares about the back part of coach that fell off and burned to pieces with all those extras screaming their way to an early, fire-engulfed grave?  None of them model for FASHION BUG.  The survivors at first, huddle, discuss global terrorism and then decide what move to make next.  Let's look at the choices.  Should they:

A. Attempt to climb down the mountain as a group?
B. Drink the remainder of the pilot's booze and "get to know" each other?
C. Talk about their dead spouses?
D. Talk about their dead mothers?
E. Attempt to fight a stalking grizzly bear with a stick and a syringe filled with liquid Tylenol?
F. Separate, have Nadia run off alone with 'Tesla's Death Ray' and a gun-toting thug on her trail, have the able-bodied passengers head down the mountain with the unknown terrorist spy pilot while leaving the remaining old people/diabetes sufferers behind at the stranded plane stalked by the killer bear? 

If you chose any of the above answers, you were right!  They do all of those stupid ass things!  Eventually the able-bodied group dies in an avalanche (another scene straight from CLIFFHANGER), Dr. Hunter and his lovely widow turn each other on with sexy stories about their dead spouses, the scared old guy at the plane is killed by a bear, Nadia makes it to a cabin with the 'death ray' and opens some whiskey and the diabetic man is pretty much slipping into a coma.  Then, wait, who's that guy, oh yeah, the "star" of the movie, Treat Williams shows up!

"Sorry guys, I had to finish shooting
the last episode of Everwood."

Just as Nadia and her doomsday device settle into their new mountain cabin oasis, government agents break down the door!  Or, at least, one seemingly nice alleged CIA officer barges in and demands the 'death ray.'  Nadia is oddly quick to comply, then suddenly more CIA officers, Agent Jason Ross (TREAT!) and Agent Douglas (the adorable "Jump to Conclusions" guy from Office Space) enter the cabin!  Who is an agent and who is a terrorist?  Who is to be believed and who is just another character actor?  Also, where the fuck has main star, Treat Williams, been this whole time?  Technically, he was slightly introduced in prior scenes as he and other agents tracked the plane in some government secretive plane tracking station, but still, I am not satisfied with this soft blow intro of our main action star!  Where is his dirty, unkempt bachelor pad?  His pet iguana?  His one night stand he throws pants at and tells to get the hell out?  His introductory pours beer in his cereal scene?  How are we supposed to know this guy means business if we don't know how recklessly he lives his personal life or how many meaningless sexual encounters he participates in?  WHO ARE YOU, AGENT ROSS AND HOW WILL YOU SAVE MY WORLD?  

Neither the viewer or Nadia have too long to decide because before Agent Douglas can finish one of his patented gentle ribbings of Agent Ross, a helicopter starts to hella shoot up the cabin!  Oh no, it's ANOTHER rogue government agent (Jesus, what is the screening process for these people?)  Agent Ross acts quickly enough to save Nadia, but not the poor initial agent or his partner of who knows how long, sweet, puffy, old Agent Douglas.  He's only allowed one more JFK conspiracy joke and then he dies of bullet wounds.  Sad.  Now, on to more borrowed action!

A helicopter and car chase from NARROW MARGIN!  A train crash and bridge explosion sequence from A LONG KISS GOODNIGHT!  In fact, the only quasi original material in any following scenes involve classic quips, of course!  Here are some choice picks!:

Agent Ross!:

Agent Ross: "...Who's paying their rights for the end of the world?"

Valid question!

A thug!:

Thug: "...Did you know the Chinese invented pasta?  We thought they'd like to add this bit of chow mein to their arsenal."

Wow.  I did not know that and okay!

When Nadia and Ross fall into the hands of the bad guys, they briefly think they will be saved by some government agents that show up and then, duh, they are bad guys too:

Terrorist Ring-leader: "...Are you Indian?"
Agent Ross: "...What does that matter?"
Terrorist Ring-leader: "...It matters if you're an Indian because they're with me, Chief."

Ha!  I see what you did there!  Sort of.

When Nadia asks what happened to the Tesla Death Ray after the bridge explosion:

Agent Ross: "...It's history."

TOUCHE.

Now that I'm thinking xtremely hard about it, I don't believe there is a better way to extremely recommend this extremely recycled action movie other than to mention the very important, top 10 moments where EXTREME LIMITS takes movie-making limits to the EXTREME, so here they are in the order I remember them!

Mega rum raisin!

1. XTREME BEAR HUNTING!: Two old guys attempt to kill a bear by stabbing it with a syringe full of headache medicine taped to the end of a small stick!  Why are they being stalked by a lone grizzly in Canada in the middle of winter?  Good question!  Please see 'science' for the answers you seek! 
2. XTREMELY RUM RAISIN MATTE LIPSTICK!: All the ladies wear it!  In a movie borrowing everything from other movies, they also manage to borrow fashion from the '90's and $60 from the make-up and wardrobe department to go CRAZY in the Bartell's cosmetic section.  Pharmacy store shopping spree to the XTREME!
3. XTREMELY LONG WAIT FOR THE MAIN STAR!: No, seriously.  Where the fuck is Treat?
4. XTREME CLIP RIPS!:  Right?!  See everything else written above!
5. XTREME JFK CONSPIRACY JOKES!: Agent Douglas makes at least three quips about knowing who killed JFK.  Unfortunately, since Agent Ross is shitty at protecting his partner from gunfire, the world may never know the real truth. Xtremely disappointing.
6. XTREME CONFUSION ABOUT THE INTERNET!: Understandably, the internet was in it's early stages of regular use when this film came out, although I'd like to think the CIA had a more comprehensive understanding of it at the time.  Regardless, several agents make references to "...I checked the internet," "...I found it on the internet," "...the internet said," and so on.  I guess the internet is where they found all those CLIFFHANGER clips.
7. XTREMELY LONG CONVERSATIONS ABOUT DEAD SPOUSES!: As the old people wait in the stranded half-plane hoping for some kind of make believe rescue, Dr. Hunter and old lady get into long drawn out stories about their passed on past loves.  REALLY get into.  In fact, they apparently fall in love with each other while sharing anecdotes on what her dead husband's favorite bourbon was and how Dr. Hunter was never there for his dead wife.  Xtremely hot dead spouse talk!
8. XTREMELY OLD STOCK FOOTAGE!: Not only does this movie use scenes straight out of other movies (some of which are are ten years old at the time of it's release), but it also uses stock footage of trains in motion, train stations and landscapes which are clearly from the 1970s-1980's!  The film quality is visibly different and it becomes even more xtremely noticeable when the people at the train station are clearly dressed like it's 1982 and it's no big deal, meaning a crew of extras that happened to have just returned from an 80's party is out of the question.  Xtremely lazy!
9. XTREME HISTORICAL INACCURACIES!: So, Tesla.  One time, he built this thing and called it a "Death Ray."  What does it do?  Oh, it like, blows up people.  Whatever.  Go back to high school.  It's in those books.
10. XTREMELY CONFLICTING STORIES!:  According to the trailer, there is a doomsday device.  According to the DVD packaging, it's highly sensitive explosives.  According to both, Treat Williams is the star of the movie.  According to the movie, that's not true.  Xtremely confusing!      

Times Douglas mentions JFK: 4
Borrowed Clips: 8-17
Mentions Of The Internet: 6
Random Possible Ethnic Slurs: 3
Amount Of Times Nicola Tesla Invented A Death Ray: 0 1   
Dead Spouse Stories: 5
Successful Bear Traps: 0
Minutes Before Treat Williams Is On Screen: 23
Dummies Thrown Off Cliffs: 2
Death Ray Is Used: 2
Flashbacks: 3 or 4?
What Did You Say?: 7
Best Head Shot Ever Provided To The Internet By An Actor Starring In EXTREME LIMITS That Is Not Treat Williams: 1

You're welcome.

*Xtreme Rollah blaadhin' is also known as "Soul-Skating."  See the Disney Channel for more info.

The "Nevermind, Rewind" Turd Of The Week

How many cats is too many cats?  Let's say you met someone at a bar, bistro or Barnes & Noble, head back to their place for a night cap (meaning intercourse or a movie, depending on your religious beliefs) and that person happens to live alone and own FOUR cats.  Is that enough to be off-putting?  What about SIX cats?  Is six cats the line you draw in the cat sand?  I suppose everyone is different, but for us at TEC, it's two.  Two is too many cats for a single person to own.  If you don't agree, then you don't realize how bad your apartment smells every time we come over.  It's gross.  What if your hypothetical new found friend owned 1,000 cats?  Like an entire outdoor prison-like courtyard of screaming cats that he/she presided over in a silk bathrobe while his/her crusty butler massaged his/her toes?

What's that you didn't say?  This no longer sounds like a hypothetical real-life scenario, but instead the scripted plot of a Mexican-sploitation horror movie?  Well, then you'd be fairly right.  Some time in 1972, director, Rene Cardova Jr. asked himself this very same cat question and not only did he come up with possibly the least reasonable amount of cats to own, but an entire horror movie plot surrounding this imagined king cat creeper of all cat creeps!  That's right, Enemaniacs.  Get your inhalers ready, for tonight is, THE NIGHT OF 1,000 CATS !  No, really.  If you are allergic, some of the scenes in this movie will make you itch.  You have been warned. 

"Why does it smell like tuna and cat pis... 
ooh, did you say wine?"

With a title and premise like, THE NIGHT OF 1,000 CATS (LA NOCHE DE LOS MIL GATOS), this film clearly and initially and understandably had butt-loads of promise.  Made in glorious and rustic, 1972, but released in the United States in 1974, the plot revolves around a young millionaire playboy named Hugo, who picks up beautiful women and brings them back to his sprawling, ancient estate only to murder them and feed their corpses to his collection of carnivorous cats.  With a story like this, what could go wrong?  He is aided in this nightly endeavor by his face, his helicopter, his sweet motorcycle and his hump-backed, google-eyed old Torgo-esque butler named..."Dorgo," (possibly).  I'm sure there is some sort of metaphor there, but who cares.  When the film opens, Hugo is flying back to his castle in his helicopter with a lovely lady at his side.  This helicopter ride is somehow important to the plot, I'm assuming, because it lasts 12 MINUTES LONG.  We get it.  He has a helicopter.  The woman seems pretty impressed by the helicopter and even more so by the mansion (once they finally land there), but becomes immediately put-off by the mutant butler.  What is he deal and who grows humps anymore?  She inquires about Dorgo and his hump, to which Hugo replies:

Hugo: "...Dorgo is an excellent butler.  He's as obedient and faithful as a cat."

Wait, "obedient" as a cat?  Is that a thing?  Hugo then begins to blabber about his "special" and "unique collection" that will surpass that of all of his ancestors who he refers to as having "...had a mania for collecting."  This is probably when his female guest should be wondering if that collection involves pretty lady skin suits, but sadly for this lady, Hugo is just way too charming and the wine is just way too tasty and beautifully aged so she soon overlooks the clear warning signs of a maniacal murderous millionaire (i.e, a deformed servant, a barely inhabited ancient castle, the mentions of an "unusual collection," the sounds of a beast horde howling for flesh somewhere on the castle grounds, etc.).  Good wine is good wine, you guys.

A couple of sips later, Hugo's guest inquires as to whether anyone else lives in the mansion.  Hugo responds:

Are your eyes itching yet?

Hugo: "...Some very charming and silent guests.  You'll meet them after we've had dinner."

This turns out to be a lie for at least two reasons.  One, she ends up meeting a guest during the dinner, rather than after, when the charmer literally flies out of nowhere and punches her boobs with it's paws, promptly scaring the shit out of her (this scene is mostly hilarious).  Two, "charming" and "silent" are inappropriate and misleading adjectives for a large outdoor cage of 1,000 feral cats.  Of course, our poor dinner guest never does get to meet the cat crew formally.  Instead, she's strangled by Hugo and dismembered, then presumably ground into hamburger meat and thrown off a balcony to be eaten by Hugo's courtyard of scratching, screaming, roommates.  This part of the movie involves the very first cringe-worthy Milo & Otis animal cruelty moment, when Hugo picks up a cat from the ground and CHUCKS IT HARD off of the balcony.  We are shown a long and drawn out Million Dollar Man slow motion scene of a cat, attempting to land on it's feet, but is most likely falling to its death.  Thanks, Mexico.  Afterward, we're treated to another helicopter cat food run that involves Hugo flying over women's houses and backyards, deciding whether or not they would make adequate short lived dinner dates before he makes them dinner...on that date...that he takes them to dinner...just forget it.

Who wouldn't suck down a free
chardonnay from this guy?

This next long helicopter ride of aerial shots and close ups is really where I gave up on this thing.  I was hoping to maybe hold out for the possibility of a large mutant momma cat, genetic cat experiments or perhaps learning what the cat-alyst (ha!) was leading Hugo to a life of cat-related crime, but between these long unnecessary helicopter rides and artsy attempts at cocktail framed face shots like the one to the left, I was reminded why I've always preferred dogs.  If you can make it through this one, let me know if Dorgo turns out to be some inbred-dog-DNA'ed mutant who eventually turns on his master when he falls for one of the kidnapped women who teaches him life isn't meant to be lived on your knees and sacrifices himself when fighting the cat horde to the death to save her and finally destroy his master?  Though that ending would be sexist somehow, I'll be sad if I miss it.                        

Shock'Em Dead (1991)Dir. Mark ReedGenre: Rock n' Roll Horror

"...Every fuckin' retard thinks he's a rock star."

Turns out, the Devil, as in, Satan, totally loves hair metal.  A lot.  This is a safe assumption I've made based on several debatable facts I've learned from straight to tape movies.  This is where most facts are safely hidden.  Seriously, the Devil obviously loves hair metal so much that he's willing to teach a lot of people how to shred an axe/play guitar good in exchange for their drunken, bandana-laden and extremely flammable souls.  The logical conclusion to be taken here is there must be awesome free rock shows in Hell.  Although, since it's hell, they probably charge some really shitty cover at the door.  Anyways, there have been a bevy of b-movies about the satanic art of rock, especially in the 80's when hair metal was at it's height of unironic goodness.  With so many amazing shitty satanic rock movies to choose from, 1991's SHOCK EM' DEAD has a few things that makes it stand out from the average bargain bin video pack.

A.  It's seems like the 80's, but it's the 90's.

B.  Co-stars recent porn retiree, Traci Lords.

C.  There is a lot of neon green slime in it.

D.  It is actually pretty good.

"So my penis has like, three heads."

SHOCK EM' DEAD has everything thing you could want from a shitty rock n' roll hell film.  Boobs, the aforementioned neon slime, puke takes, boobs, blatant racial insensitivity, zombies, women's blouses passed as bad ass male rock t-shirts (see Rock n' Roll Nightmare (1987), a hot tub, giant wigs, double headed guitars, ladies boobs, awful music, scenes in a pizzeria and murders!  Tons of murders.  Plus, the devil!  Plus, a possibly gay disco queen lead singer who dispenses amazingly shitty one-liners!  SOLD.

Martin decides eating soul dust
has to taste better than cheese bread.

In case you skipped the trailer, SHOCK EM' DEAD tells the story of this guy Martin (Stephen “The Fight Professor” Quadros).  Martin is a nerdy guy that wants to become a rock star.  The only thing in Martin's way is his brokeness, his aforementioned nerdiness and his inability to play guitar.  The only naked ladies he sees is his co-worker when she changes bras in the break room through a peep hole he carved in the wall.  Sad and a little rapey.  He even attempts to try out for a local "rocking" band, Spastique Kolon, (with aforementioned disco queen singer) whose band manager happens to be boner-inducing Lindsay (Traci Lords) and get's completely shit on.  These circumstances would normally crush the Motley Crue inspired rock dreams of most thirty somethings working at a pizzeria and attempting to learn the guitar in order to have sex with people, but luckily for Martin, he happens to have an run in with a random racist stereotype of a voodoo lady that knows the witchery of the Devil.  The Devil.  She senses Martin's rock n' roll plight with her voodoo powers and makes a deal with him.  He will become a rock god, but he has to sell his soul.  Since Martin has clearly already sold his soul to the corporate machine, he has no qualms with this.  Voodoo lady then stabs him in the chest, causing one of soon to be many moments of neon green slime to ooze from something.  Martin screams in pain and opens his eyes to find he's in some weird cheap Thriller music video set where he bares witness to a faceless large haired man playing a two-headed guitar while ladies stroke his legs and stuff.  Also, there is fog.  Lots of fog.  What the fuck is going on?!? 

"Hey.  I'm here to pick up
your daughter, Traci."

Suddenly, Martin wakes up in a somewhat expensive looking Hollywood Hills home with two half naked ladies laying in bed with him.  What the what?!?  Also, they're pretty cute.  Huh?  And he has lots of hair and piercings now.  Get out!  Plus, he totally knows how to shred on the guitar, like, HARD.  Holy shit!  He's a rockstar now!  A rockstar of the Devil!  The girls clue Martin in on a couple catches that have come with his new wig and penis.  Pros, he's a rich rockstar with endless funds, guitar playing abilities and a hot tub!  Plus, his wardrobe is full of pre-ripped tees and leather pants and his new lady friends sold their souls to the Devil in order to be beautiful, so their purgatory is to have sex with him until the end of time!  Party!  The cons are as follows, first con, he's actually totally dead.  Second con, in order to stay "alive," he'll need to regularly murder people and breathe in their neon green mist/soul.  Third con, his true self will be revealed in reflective objects, so, avoid those!  Pretty sure all these things are worth have hot tub sex with Traci Lords.  Or, at least in 1987 it would have been.

Sometimes hangin' with Angel is fun.
  Sometimes he has too many Grasshoppers.
  It's really embarrassing.

Martin, now going by his new good guitar playing name, Angel (get it), uses his new found Devil rock powers to try out for Spastique Kolon again (aka Devil induced nerd revenge) and not only does he get the gig for the upcoming Battle of the (40 year olds) Bands, he ends up replacing and soul sucking the spazzy lead singer!  Plus, he pukes green ooze on the crowd at the show for some reason.  This is not explained.  Anyways, thus begins the rockin' rampage of Angel and his angels who throw the most killer house parties in town!  Cause they eat people.  As Angel starts killing off strangers and rivals left and right, he also attempts to woo Lindsay (Lords) away from her douchey beau, the always overlooked, band bass player.  After several deaths and awkward moments in which Angel refuses to eat pizza with them, the band gets suspicious and realize he's a Devil person!  Sadly, for actual nerd Martin/Angel and his groupie club made of actual burn victims and cancer patients, since the whole Devil deal thing and murdering people essentially overshadows their initial good intentions, they are all defeated/sent back to hell by Lindsay and her boyfriend.

Traci awakes from one of her many
ongoing Ron Jeremy nightmares.

SHOCK 'EM DEAD is essentially a documentary about bullying and what it can lead to.  I mean, Martin would have never made that deal with the Devil if he wasn't tormented so badly, right?  It's actually a very sad statement about the lack of acceptance in the society we live in.  Thankfully, it is also filled with green slime, big hair and naked boobs, so who cares!!  Just remember, it's better to accept who you are rather than make deals with the Devil.  Hopefully for you that person is already Traci Lords!                  




Shitty Rock Song Covers:1
Breast Implants: 3
Half Shirts: 5
Pepperoni Peep Holes: 1
Zombies: 2
Double Guitars: 2
Glowing Green Eyes: 10
Actual Electric Shocks: 1
Boobs: 6
Air Guitar On Real Guitar: 9
Guitar Play Face: 2
Dead Bodies: 4
Puke Scenes: 3
Dildo Drills: 1

Occupy The Body Shop! It's B-Movie Mall Madness!

"Can you play Tears for Fears?"

Even though I'm generally occupied with beer, string cheese and a stack of whatever bad movies had "apocalypse" in the description that day, I find the time to be aware of how shitty the current American economy is.  Pabst Blue Ribbon should never cost more than $8 for a six pack.  Anarchy!  Anyways, I may not have a T.V. box, but I do ride the bus which has been re-routed several times due to the current Occupy Seattle movement.

"ZOMG!  Sale at Mr. Rags you guys!"

I completely agree with the politics of the movement, but pooping in a bush and listening to bongo drums in the rain really isn't my deal, so to do our part here at TEC, in the spirit of taking down evil corporations and criticizing mass consumerism during the holiday season (unless you are consuming mass amounts of PBR and string cheese), I give you my list of the best of the worst horror movies involving mall murder and department store death!  Okay, so the criticism on consumerism here is pretty poorly conceived, we're not talking Dawn of the Dead metaphors, but it's basically the idea with just more boobs!  So break out your pepper spray and let's shop till we drop...our corporate bank accounts in favor of local credit unions!!!  Fuck yeah!

5. THE INITIATION (1984)

B-Movie Genre: Horror/Slasher
Criticism on Consumerism: Vapid, spoiled, rich sorority girls are mall murdered
Mall Madness/Department Store Death Score: 4 out of 10

Kelly Fairchild (metaphor!) is a wimpy emotional rich girl.  She is portrayed by actress/Druish Princess/Melrose Place resident Daphne Zuniga.  These are all parts of this film's plot.  I think.  Anyhow, Kelly has this weird fear of seeing people catch on fire due to this persistent nightmare she has been having since childhood of seeing a guy (who might be her birth father) on fire and possibly burn to death.  This dream is portrayed in a dream sequence shown several time throughout the film in order to helpfully remind us she is a crazy person.

Since Kelly is already socially stunted due to these crippling burning man night terrors, she decides to head off to college and pledge a sorority.  In case you don't know, sorority girls are bitches.  Or at least that's the general rule of movies involving sorority girls.  It might seem odd that a bunch of women that hate other women would choose to live in houses full of women, but you're going to have to remember that the key to great film fantasies like this is to suspend all disbelief.  I think.

Even when written in murder blood,
turn out Kelly is still not a menacing name.

Anywhos, so Kelly and her fellow pledges and soon-to-be sorority sisters at Delta Ro Kai have several discussions in over-sized t-shirts and underwear leading up to the ultimate unnecessary initiation dare that involves her breaking into a department store located in the local mall.  Omigod.  They are SO bad!  Good news, her dad owns the store so this the feasible worse thing that could happen, would be an extended grounding more than jail time.  Bad news, nothing equals a more permanent "grounding" than mall murder.  God, I love puns.  Also, turns out sometimes when you break into secure buildings, you can accidentally activate a lock down mechanism that prevents assumed criminals from leaving the premise.  Trapped in a mall, what's a thin, attractive girl to do!?!  Wait, you mean free ear piercings, Sbarro pizzas and Cinnabon's for me and all my friends?

"Omigod, Teresa, you spaz!  What did I say
about borrowing stuff from my room!"

Okay.  Maybe I don't know what attractive thin girls do at malls.  What I do know is that stolen mini skirt from Wet Seal isn't going to look that good on your totally dead body (death makes you gain like, ten pounds) since there is some killing killer person intentionally trapped in the mall too!  From this point on, Kelly's "friends" are slowly stalked and murdered by this "unknown" mall maniac culminating in a massive climax involving...STUFF!  Actually, I'm not too sure.  I started paying only half assed attention mid-way through the movie when she started some awkward romance with a professor's aide after being submitted to a sleep study psych ward.  Bored yet?  Me too.

 4.  NIGHT OF THE COMET (1984)

B-Movie Genre: Sci-fi/Horror/Comedy
Criticism on Consumerism: Southern California, the land of fake boobs, movie magic and asshole celebrities, is destroyed by a passing comet which turns the population into dust or slowly dying brain dead zombies.
Mall Madness/Department Store Death Score: 6 out of 10

Regina "Reggie" Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart) is a disillusioned twenty something whose life consists of working at a small movie theater, boning her mediocre boyfriend, dealing with her teenage little sister and maintaining the top score on the arcade game Tempest.  Everyone in the city is gearing up to watch the passing of a famed comet with the hopes of having something to do or being amazed by flashing lights or whatever.  Reggie remains uninterested.  The night of the comet (HEYO) she discovers that her Tempest score has been usurped by some dick fart with the initials, "DMK."  Feeling as though her life has obviously lost all of it's true meaning, she decides to have a "I just want to forget" fuck in the projection booth at work with her boyfriend.  Luckily for her, the steel lined walls protect these two horny kids from the unpredicted zombie radiation of the incoming passing comet.

"So, do you think ALF is like, cancelled now?"

After the fateful night the comet passes, everyone in SoCal has now become lifeless red dust or brain dead zombies.  Like, literally instead of like, metaphorically!  Reggie's BF is pretty much immediately murdered and eaten by an attacking zombie (see, mediocre), so she sets off to find her sister Sam (Kelly Maroney) who also spent the night in steel for some reason and has survived.  The rest of the film consists of the two of them fending off zombies, meeting a Mexican, Mary Woronov and shady scientist types.

Sam reflects on the untimely passing of her parents.

Most importantly and why this film is included, Reggie and Sam eventually find refuge inside a mall.  A sequence in which they dance around and try on different uns, slap bracelets and scrunchies while listening to Cyndi Lauper's feminist pop hit, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."  Cause when your friends and loved ones have been fried dead and the crying is done, oh girls, girls still want to have fun!  Will they be able to fight off the zombified mall staff?  Will the identity of DMK ever truly be revealed?  When are they ever gonna live their lives rai-ight?  Oh Daddy dear you know, the answer to all of those things is, like, obviously.         

3.  HIDE AND GO SHRIEK (1988) 

B-movie Genre: Horror/Slasher
Criticism on Consumerism: Misunderstood cross-dressing ex-con/crazy person and furniture store employee hunts down spoiled teenagers who break into the store to spend a night partying and boning.
Mall Madness/Department Store Death Score: 8 out of 10

Let's say it's 1988.  Leave out your past regrets, I'm just setting a scene.  You and your white attractive (this word was more loosely applied in the 80's so it's okay) friends want to celebrate your upcoming high school graduation.  What do you think?  Cabo?  Palm Beach?  Six Flags?  If you thought of any of these things, you are NOT concentrating on 1988 like I totally just TOLD you to DO!  GAWD!!!!  Anyway, why do something as gay as roller coasters or sandy beaches when you can break into your friend's dad's furniture store for a night and party?!?

"I call the bunk bed!"

That's right.  Endless beds and beer?  Um, yes!  You mean my best friend and I can lose our virginity in adjacent beds in the same room while our unattached friends stand by in awkward silence?  Awesome!  I hope we can give birth to our first children this way!  So as I just made clear, a group of wacky teens decide to do just that and break into one of their dad's furniture store to spend graduation night.  While some of them wrestle with their moral upbringings in deciding whether or not the stage is set and the lights are right to finally become a woman, the rest of them just fuck each other.

Dear LGBT community,
Sorry.
Love, TEC

Meanwhile, an ex-con/store employee/cross dressing/crazy person is secretly living in the store's basement after receiving consensual permission from the owner who feels sorry for the poor guy.  After he hears the ruckus created by the teens, lots of misunderstandings happen that lead to a fated game of hide and seek and a cross dressing murder spree!  By the way, I'm not suggesting being a cross dresser makes you crazy, but if you are a man that dresses in women's clothing (which is totally your business) and stalk the streets at night looking for prostitutes to murder mid-bone than you are probably crazy.  Moving on, one of the stand out parts about this film that helps it to earn an 8 out of 10 for department store deaths, is the fact that it includes one of the greatest decapitation shots in an elevator ever.  Also, it manages to ball every inappropriate old horror cliche/80's social stigma into one killer by making him a gay, cross-dressing, punk rock, murdering, ex-con with tattoos.  Bravo HIDE AND GO SHRIEK.  Bravo.           

2.  PHANTOM OF THE MALL: ERIC'S REVENGE (1989)

B-Movie Genre: Horror/Comedy/Romance
Criticism on Consumerism: Local Mayor is bought off by corporate giant who burns down a young man's house when he refuses to sell in order to build a giant mall on the property.  Dicks.
Mall Madness Score: 9 out of 10

One time, in a year far far away, someone that was French wrote a novel called Phantom of the Opera or the French equivalent anyway.  It tells the romantic story of a disfigured composer who stalks a young opera singer and tries to woo her with murders and kidnapping.  Or is that the musical?  Or the movie?  Or, who cares?  Well anyways, PHANTOM OF THE MALL: (spoiler alert) ERIC'S REVENGE is similar in the way that he wears the half mask, is disfigured and get's creepy with a non-disfigured girl.  Eric (Derek Rydall) is a young and hunky house owner dating young and girl hunky Melody (Kari Whitman).  A corporate honcho has been pressuring him to sell his property so he can tear down Eric's house and build a gigantor mall.  Eric, knowing how hard it must be to find cheap housing in the Valley, refuses, thus setting in motion his path to disfigurement and phantoming.  The corporate big wig sends a thug out to Eric's place to set it on fire.  Unfortunately, Eric and Melody are inside at the time involved in romantic coitus.  As the fire envelopes the house, Eric risks his life to save Melody's, pushing her out of a window as the house falls on top of him.

"Nobody murders in my mall
I built on murder.  Nobody!"

Cut to a year or some more later - the corporate guy succeeds and the Midtown Mall is erected on Eric's previous property.  The whole city, even Mayor Karen Wilton (Morgan Fairchild) have come out to oversee the opening of the new mall.  Melody, still alive and unscarred, comes to the mall opening with her friend to look for a job.  If you're wondering why she hasn't been suing the fuck out of these people who obviously murdered her boyfriend, it will become obvious.  This character we are supposed to find sympathetic and meek is actually a heartless asshole.  This is not implied, but obvious to any normal person who has ever loved and lost someone to a murderous fire mid-coitus.  Just saying.

Pauly Shore works hard to pay off
all he owes for nugs, weezin and grindage.

So as the film progresses, we see a shadowy figure with a half mask climbing through air ducts, spying on Melody, petting pictures of her face and murdering the fuck out of anyone who harasses her.  This becomes obvious pretty quickly that it is Eric.  Technically, the title sort of gives it away.  Melody is eventually hired at a murder mystery themed mall restaurant.  Oh the obvious, trying too hard irony!  The corporate guy and his thugs soon recognize Melody and try to do her in during her day job.  Thankfully, poor, crazy, confused, and burn scarred Eric is there to save her every time.  We are eventually introduced to Peter (Rob Estes of Silk Stalkings), a young reporter who gets involved in the mystery of Eric's death and falls for, but mostly just wants to bone Melody.  We are also introduced to a young Pauly Shore who is named Buzz in the film and plays Melody's friend, a frozen yogurt shop employee who eventually shows us his butt.      

"Geronimall!"

After several life saving situations, romantic notes, flowers and secret gifts, Melody finally puts together that the phantom might be, omigod...Eric?!?  To confirm this, she and new soon-to-be boyfriend Peter dig up his grave which is, WHAT?  EMPTY?!?!?  I don't think you can actually get away with this at a mortuary without anyone knowing, but I'm no death expert.  Following the grave disturbance (pun!), the thugs attack Melody again in which Eric finally whisks her away to the lovely mall catacombs where they are reunited.  He professes his love to her.  Melody on the other hand makes no mention of, "Oh my God, I'm so glad you weren't burned to death," or "Thanks for saving my life which has caused you to sacrifice your mental well being and physical appearance," or "Thanks for saving me all those other times," instead she just becomes grossed out and asks Eric if she can leave.  This rightfully pisses him off and he flips out, deciding to blow up the mall and all the assholes that tried to murder him within it.  Peter finally makes his way through the air ducts, finds Eric's lair and grabs Melody.  They run away and clear out the mall of all the innocent vapid people that don't deserve to be blown up.   

Mayor Karen decides to STICK around!
Ha! God, I'm funny.

Eric comes face to burned face with his murderers, including the, SHOCK, girl mayor.  All the bad guys and girls, besides assholes, Melody and Peter, who are now in love for some reason, escape the mall bomb Eric sets off.  Don't worry, no Pauly Shore butts were harmed in the bombing of this mall.  This movie gets 9 out of 10 for a Mall Madness score because the entire thing happens in a mall, plus actual legit 80's mall stores such as B. Dalton Books, Sam Goody and Miller's Outpost are shown.  Oh, the pointless memories!  It only comes shy of one point for making the lead characters (not including the mall phantom) some of the most unsympathetic dick weeds ever.  Long live Eric!          

1.  CHOPPING MALL (1986)

B-Movie Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi
Criticism on Cosumerism: State of the art robots placed in the local mall for security purposes go rogue and murder sex-having teenagers.
Mall Madness/Department Store Death Score: 10 out of 10!!!

For B-movie lovers, this is the most obvious go-to non-shocking pick for #1 mall-related horror films.  Though it was an easy choice, tt simply can't be topped.  CHOPPING MALL is the Holy Grail of all bad mall murder!  Starring Kelli Maroney (Night of the Comet), Tony O'Dell (Head of the Class) and Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel reprising their roles from Eating Raoul!  Plus, killer robots!

Okay, so if you don't know, CHOPPING MALL tells the story of four teenage couples who decide to stay after hours in the furniture store some of them work at in the Park Plaza Mall for what else...a night of beds and beer!  Unfortunately for their as yet unlasered butts and unblown up heads, the mall has just installed a new (painfully 80's) state of the art security system involving futuristic robot guards (who laser butts and blow up heads)!

"You dickweed!  You totally messed up my hair!"

When a bumbling janitor spills water on the robots, they some how get rewired and go rogue, murdering the janitor with lasers and trapping the as yet unsuspecting couples inside the mall.  Once the couples figure out about the deadly robo-murdering going on, it's all out mayhem as half naked girls run from robots only to have their heads blown off!  Need I really say more?!?  Occupy the CHOPPING MALL and get me one of these killbots for Christmas!  

Twisted (1986)Dir. Adam HolenderGenre: Thriller

"...Do you squat when you piss?  Get down on your knees."



"Is your life perfect?"

Being a teenager like totally sucks!  First you get your period or you don't get your period, then you have to start wearing deodorant, then hiding porno mags from your mom, then skinning cats and wiring audio throughout your parents house so you can blast your English translations of German Nazi propaganda music properly in order to scare your sixty year old babysitters...just the pits, I tell you!  The pits!  Don't even get me started on the acne!  If you're Christian Slater at 15 who has just moved to a new affluent suburb after you made things weird for your parents at the last one, you have to deal with all this stuff and more, but mostly the last couple things I mentioned.  Other than acne.  Christian Slater owns flawless skin.  Yet for some reason, the dates aren't coming for young Christian.  It might be the glasses?  Or the cat's blood.  So much cat's blood.  It's probably the glasses though.  Those are so weird.

"Hitler would never ground me."

In the nail-biting 1986 thriller, TWISTED, young Christian plays young, rich and misunderstood Mark Collins, whose parents drink and fuck a lot and whose adorable little sister is little and adorable.  Pretty typical for white people so far.  At some point before the movie began, little Mark became twisted.  Like tah-wisted, twisted.  He got tired of all the drunking, fucking and adorableness and began acting out.  He hates his rich parents that are self-absorbed, attractive and paid for the audio equipment he uses to constantly listen to Nazi music.  What assholes.  Thank God he knows how to fence.  And to talk like a pre-pubescent Jack Nicholson.  That helps the creep factor.  Probably the best thing about this movie other than all the cliche cat violence is the opening music.  It's a totally tah-whisted rip off of the Friday the 13th breathing score, but this time the narrator (or the Devil) is whispering "...MAAAAHHHH......KAHKAHKAHKAH..."  Tah-whisted!!!  If you are intrigued which I'm sure you are, the film is available in it's entirety on YouTube.

After another night of high suburban society partying, Mark's parents return home to find his babysitter, shock, lying dead at the foot of the stairs.  It must be an accident obviously.  I can't imagine how a fat old woman crashing down several hard wood stairs to her scream-filled, terrifying death would in any way wake up people sleeping in other parts of a normal-sized house.  I mean, come on.  It's not like their kid is twisted or anything.  The parents, obviously being as astute as I am, call the police, report the accident and think nothing of it.  No seriously, they don't really give a shit about this dead woman at all.  Their only concern at this point is getting a babysitter for the next backyard BBQ since Mark's mom doesn't want to miss her not-so-secret sex date with his dad's boss.  Oh Mom, you're incorrigible! 

"Come on, Biff, science is fun! Now you try!"

Meanwhile, in another part of this boring white suburb, a crazy sixty something year old lady named Helen Giles (Lois Smith) is talking to family members in a house.  Plain faced and sixty old something?  Uh oh.  This is Mark's prime slice when it's comes to acts of pushing!   Anyhow, Helen is returning home after "time away."  I can only assume this is rehab or she killed somebody time.  Her twitching and everyone's general level of uncomfortable body language when she's around implies this.  I know what you're thinking.  When are these two totally tah-wisted goofy youngster/oldsters ever going to assemble their crime-fighting crazy club? Don't worry.  This doesn't happen, but other wackiness does.  While grocery shopping at the local bodega, Mark's little sister's adorable face be-friends our clammy-handed weirdo sixty something year old lady Helen.  Due to said kid's adorable face, child voice or perhaps Helen's clinical psychosis, she agrees to babysit this child stranger.  Lucky for her, Mark must be babysat as well since he's home grounded for third degree burning a jock at school during chemistry class.  Again, an obvious accident.

Helen's two favorite activities include
wearing sweaters and sweating in them.

 Upon Helen's awkward bicycle arrival to the Collins' home, she discovers an unseen horror to the eyes of the video viewer, but something in the woods that seems to seriously freak her out as she picks up a lone kitten.  I can only assume more cat violence.  When she greets the Collins' and friends on their porch, she is sweaty, belligerent and mumbling about the rest of the kittens being mutilated or something.  Side note: If you do not like cat violence, this is probably where you should stop watching this movie.  Even though she is clearly disturbed, the Collins' just brush this off and tell her to go inside so they can get to drunking and fucking somewhere else not around their gross kids.

As this night of bad adult decisions wears on, Helen and little sister are having a grand time talking, dancing and feeding the kitten survivor.  For some reason, babysitter Helen is not concerned where Mark, the other minor she is responsible for, is.  Don't worry girl, he's busy calling the jock who he third degree burned in order to challenge him to a duel.  The jock tells Mark that he'll meet him anywhere, anytime to which Mark replies:

Mark: "...Dueler's choice.  Pistols or swords?"

Random jock looks confused.  Is this some sort of homo lingo?  Either way, he decides on switchblades because that's what he's carrying in his pants.  Meanwhile, Helen and little sister continue to frolic about the house, enjoying finally being cared about by another human being until Mark crashes the party and starts blasting that darn Nazi music, scaring the shit out of everyone.  As Helen confronts Mark in a very passive way, he gets all crazy-eyed.  He grabs Helen's purse as she uncomfortably begs him to leave it alone.  He then asks her a round of fairly common follow up questions like:

Mark: "...What are you hiding?  A dirty book?  A picture of your lover?  Is it a dyke?  It's coke, isn't it?  I could tell you were on something."   

"At least his skinning cats at home
instead of out on the streets."

First of all, what are you, a cop?!?  Second of all, did you not notice Helen's sweaters?  I don't think she's trying to hide her sexual orientation or her $5,000 a week coke habit.  Anyhow, the purse ends up containing no porno, but a bottle psycho pills which Mark naturally uses to force feed his sister so she will die.  This begins the hiding throughout rooms in the dark fight to the finish between crazy kids Mark and Helen.  As the massive amount of tension builds, the random jock from school who Mark has been prank calling since he third degree burned him, shows up for his switchblade revenge.  What timing!  Then a switchblade fencing fight ensues.  Yes!  Also, more cat violence, Helen sweating, pants pulling, Nazi paraphernalia and booze showers.  All culminating in a really annoying ending with foreshadowing.  Ugh.  Foreshadowing.  Foreshadowing, shitty parenting and booze shower ending aside, I completely recommend this tah-wisted tale of teenage turmoil.  Not only for the ridiculous score, but for the intense level of acting a young Christian Slater attempts in this one step away from a TV movie.  It's like he knew this was leading him to bigger things like Gleaming the Cube and Kuffs!  Watch and enjoy, but don't invite your cat.

Ominous People Are Going To Be Killed Music: 4
Helen Getting Crazy-Faced: 7
Times The Collins Mentioned Being In A New Town: 6
Barely Legal Christian Slater Butt Shots: 1
Nazi Music: 8
Dead Bodies: 4
Slo-Mo Slater Shots: 1
Times I Thought, "I Get It, He's Twisted.": 10
Cat Violence: 4