Freaky Tales (2024)

April 1, 2025 Rod Lott Leave a comment

Clearly filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden didn’t work out all their 1980s love on Captain Marvel. The decade’s aesthetic — from green neon to VHS tracking fuzz — is all over Freaky Tales like an infection. No can of Bactine stands a chance against the interlocking foursome of stories set in ’87 Oakland, California. (But bookended by unapologetic Nazis and sports stars’ homes robbed mid-game, the movie could take place in ’25 Anywhere, America.)

A simple siege of a peaceful punk club by skinheads, the first story establishes Freaky’s darkly comic, heavily violent tone. The second concerns a different type of war: one of words in a rap battle between Too $hort (Symba) and two young ladies (Normani and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s Dominique Thorne) who might be set up to lose. This bit would be entirely incidental, if not for introducing the movie’s ultimate villain (Ben Mendelsohn, Ready Player One) as an ultimate piece of shit.

Things pick up considerably in the third segment, fronted by Pedro Pascal (Wonder Woman 1984) as a freelance enforcer on what he promises to his pregnant wife is his last assignment … until suddenly, he’s willing to work overtime for vengeance. (Psst: Somewhere within those ellipses, a surprise A-list cameo awaits to delight.)

Tales reaches its cathartic crescendo in sharing the legend of NBA player Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis, Top Gun: Maverick). Although the former Golden State Warrior is a real athlete, the night depicted here sure isn’t as Floyd takes grisly, glorious revenge upon a house party of Confederate scumbags for misdeeds against his family. This bravura sequence not only feels like a kung-fu cousin to the thwarted Manson murders in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood …, but practically doubles as a bid for Ellis to front that long-gestating Blade reboot.

Befitting a Tarantino reference, Freaky Tales often plays like chunks from a weekend’s Blockbuster Video binge — say, oh, Repo Man, Heavy Metal, Wild Style and Game of Death — vomited back up in a fever dream. Scrappy and strange with infrequent bursts of energy, this mishmash tries throughout to reach the level of fun it continually teases, until achieving near-nirvana in that fourth and final chapter. —Rod Lott

Opens in theaters Friday, April 4.

Reading Material

Art! Trash! Terror!: Adventures in Strange Cinema

March 31, 2025 Rod Lott Leave a comment

As a painful chapter in my life ended several years ago, I nonetheless found myself having four addresses in as many months. Among the casualties of that chaotic string of pinballing moves was Chris Alexander’s Blood Spattered Book. Although overpriced for a mere 104 poorly laid-out pages, the 2010 paperback offered enjoyable criticism of exploitation films from the horror and fantasy realms.

Luckily, a good chunk of its contents exists in the former Fangoria/current Delirium editor’s newest collection, Art! Trash! Terror!: Adventures in Strange Cinema. And this time, I don’t have to cart it around in a dangerously flimsy cardboard box, which is extra-wonderful because at 460 glossy pages, this book is heavy. And because it’s from Headpress, publisher of Alexander’s acclaimed Corman/Poe in 2023, we also don’t have to deal with ghastly design.

Worthy of its punctuation, Art! Trash! Terror! touts 25 interviews, including Werner Herzog, Joe Dante, Caroline Munro and, most welcome of all, Richard Benjamin. But the book’s main attraction is more than 100 movies reviewed at length, each examined with introspection, know-how and wit (and an overuse of “a marvel” and “full stop”). Flicks cover the gamut of cult, with titles such as The Vampire’s Night Orgy and Godmonster of Indian Flats rubbing elbows and other extremities with Abby and Psychomania, plus newer fare like The Love Witch or Alien: Covenant (not to mention 10 Twilight Zone episodes).

With the exception of 1975’s X-rated Helena, there’s no film here of which I wasn’t already aware. But don’t you dare let that register as a complaint. Alexander’s greatest skill as a writer is connecting his reviews to his personal life, most especially recalling the experience surrounding that initial viewing — whether quietly watching a verboten tape as parents slept or acquiring pneumonia by trekking across town in Arctic temps to catch a Hammer double feature. Given streaming’s everything-everywhere-all-at-once availability, such stories are becoming rarities deserving of record.

That could be why the author chose to fill the book strictly with only plaudits, no pans. The essays herein have convinced me to give several lambasted flicks a try, like 2020’s The Turning, the Dean R. Koontz adaptation Hideaway and even James Franco’s Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? remake for the Lifetime cable channel. In the rare cases I disagree (say, William Friedkin’s The Guardian), I appreciate Alexander’s passionate defense; were I to be prosecuted in court for my viewing tastes, I’d want him to represent me.

Among all these Adventures in Strange Cinema, only one recommendation strikes me as a bridge too far: “Night Patrol is probably the funniest movie ever made. You should see it.”

Nah. But you should read it. —Rod Lott

Get it at Headpress.

Horror

Uncle Sleazo’s Toxic and Terrifying TV Hour (2022)

March 23, 2025 Rod Lott Leave a comment

In its seven-word title, Uncle Sleazo’s Toxic and Terrifying TV Hour promises a lot. It even overdelivers on that last word by running an extra 28 minutes. Still, it comes up short in the one word that counts most for a horror film: “terrifying.” It’s anything but that.

Now, what the title doesn’t signal is that portions of the pic are funny — better, even intentionally so. We’ll get there shortly.

Lucky Cerruti’s anthology comes positioned as a horror-hosted show à la Elvira. Armed with equally awful puns in “boils and ghouls” mold, the eponymous Uncle Sleazo (first-timer Jordan Hornstein, outfitted to be one foot too close to a schoolyard) intros three “movies.” These include a tiring werewolf tale in black and white, a one-note psychic romance and a sci-fi-tinged slice of body horror that, while slow, at least closes with a terrific gross-out visual.

All three segments share a core problem: They’re neither scary nor suspenseful; frankly, each exhibits weak plotting and dreadful pacing despite minimal running time. Serving as something of a saving grace, however, are the commercial breaks in between. This is where the jokes come in, from a cartoon about a Basket Case-esque vestigial twin to a musical with a talking, singing puke puppet.

Whether these inspired bits toss you a fake trailer for the movie Clown Cop or an ad for Dahmer’s Apartment Playset, the influence of Chris LaMartina’s WNUF Halloween Special on Cerruti (2020’s Freak) is apparent. I could go for a full feature of them. Now, whether these smatterings of humor belong sandwiched between stories we’re asked to accept at straight-face value depends on your tolerance for tonal whiplash.

To diminish their weaknesses, the three stories could stand to be more zippily paced, even if it brought Uncle Sleazo’s closer to that titular Hour. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Thriller

Locked (2025)

March 19, 2025 Rod Lott Leave a comment

Within 12 months’ time, Bill Skarsgård has marched into theaters as the lead of three films: Nosferatu, The Crow and Boy Kills World. Here’s a fourth if you want it.

In Locked, a seedy-looking Skarsgård plays Eddie, an irresponsible part-time father and full-time vapist. He’s angling for quick cash to get his van back. By minute 8, Eddie’s plunked his ass in a luxury SUV he finds unlocked in a parking lot.

It’s a trap! A soundproof, bulletproof, signal-blocked, leather-upholstered trap with six built-in cameras and an untold number of torture methods, from tasered seats to yodel-based polka — all the remote doing of the car’s elderly owner who mocks Eddie through the stereo system (Anthony Hopkins, literally phoning it in).

“Fuck this car!” shouts Eddie, and I’m inclined to agree. All that roomy interior means squat when the script dilly-dallies its way through all the scenarios that come standard for being stuck in a small space. But this is not a single-setting tale, so that time spent cooped up feels like stalling. In the second half, when the car finally starts and moves for a self-driving joyride, so does the movie. Then Locked idles again until Hopkins shows his face for a scene, ultimately yielding to a too-simple resolution and equally hasty coda.

With thrillers, producer Sam Raimi usually exhibits a golden (or at least silver) touch, recently including Crawl, the Don’t Breathe duology and Netflix’s Don’t Move. He’s so known for it, the poster practically treats Raimi’s name as the third lead. With his involvement and Locked representing the third country to remake Argentina’s 4×4 from 2019, it’s not out of the realm for viewers to expect a killer concept. Brightburn’s David Yarovesky directs with high energy for the opening montage, yet the story of Locked arrives uncharacteristically monotonous.

More could be done with its warring perspectives of the haves, the have-nots and the had-it-up-to-heres. Recommended if you’ve longed to see Hopkins toke up or Skarsgård down pee. —Rod Lott

Comedy

Rock ’n’ Roll High School Forever (1991)

March 16, 2025 Louis Fowler Leave a comment

A movie like Rock ’n’ Roll High School — one of my favorites and with an awesome Ramones soundtrack — should have a riff-blowing sequel. Should have.

See, when I noticed Rock ’n’ Roll School High Forever at my video store in the early ’90s, I was quite ecstatic and, of course, I rented it. And watched it.

And became visibly sick.

My preconceived notions rubbed out like a GPC cigarette on the wet pavement, I took the tape from the VCR — being nether kind nor rewinding, natch — and dumped it back into the shop’s return box, thoroughly disgusted at what I’d seen.

Thirty-plus years later, the sequel is one of the bonus features on the original film’s 45th anniversary edition in 4K Ultra HD (my 10th time to buy the movie). I popped in the disc and, like a fetid stream of A/V puke, once again dropped out of Rock ’n’ Roll School High Forever.

It starts out somewhat promising, with the re-named Ronald Reagan High School and various teenagers plotting a PG-13 rock ’n’ roll insurrection. But as once-popular star Corey Feldman turns directly to the camera and sneers, “Are you ready to rock and roll?,” I guess we’re not ready at all.

Instead, in his standard and strange Michael Jackson mimicry, Corey overflows the school toilets and tears off the skirt of a comely student, all as the title theme by The Pursuit of Happiness (whoever they are) warbles on the soundtrack. Ha-ha?

The plot, as it stands, is about Corey and his “band,” The Eradicators, trying to play their substandard covers of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” and Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’” at the school dance. Meanwhile, the school gets a new vice principal in ~~Miss Togar~~ Dr. Vadar, reprised (?) by Mary Woronov. To be sure, she rules with an iron fist — and a robotic hand on her left.

With needless help from the apparent heir of illustrious scrounger Eaglebauer (no relation to Clint Howard) and the Spirit of Rock ’n’ Roll (Mojo Nixon in a low-budget fantasy sequence), Corey and bad company crash the prom. Utilizing dated sequences from the first movie, they take ~~Togar~~ Vadar down and burn down the school.

By the time the credits roll, it’s apparent that rock, finally, is dead.

With the combined failed efforts of director Deborah Brock (Slumber Party Massacre II), whichever distribution outfit Roger Corman had at the time and the sheer ugliness straight-to-video movies at the time were going for, Forever remains was an unmitigated disasterpiece. With Feldman on the soundtrack, the deceased Ramones are defiantly spinning in their graves. Gabba gabba nay. —Louis Fowler