Thriller

The Fanatic (2019)

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The Fanatic is a 2019 film directed by Limp Biscuit (I refuse to spell it like that) frontman Fred Durst. Working behind the camera and off the stage, Durst embodies the roving spirit of changing career lanes, turning him into the thinking man’s Rob Zombie.

That being said, he is a terrible director and his movie, The Fanatic, is worse.

Sadly not based on The Fan, the Wesley Snipes/Robert De Niro baseball fandom-film from 1996, the movie is all about the crazed fandom (femidom?) of movie nerds, comic-book geeks and very stinky horror fans in general.

It depicts L.A. as a land of celluloid dreams caustic shithole that drearily gleams in the broken spotlight. John Travolta, on his third or fourth comeback, is Moose, a street performer with Hollywood’s version of autism. In his bad haircut, he is a “celebrity” impersonator as a London “bobby” policeman.

But, in reality, he’s the No. 1 fan of genre actor Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa). He is fanatical about him, if you will.

Moose meets Dunbar at a Hollywood memorabilia store for an autograph that, in Moose’s mind, is a meet-cute moment. Wiping the fantasies away, he is a truly pushy fan — but Dunbar is just as worse as a B-grade celebrity.

They have words, which end with Dunbar saying he will autograph a dejected Moose “with his fists.” Ow. Wanting a do-over, Moose starts stalking him, using a star map to find his house.

Eventually, after attempting to strangle a dirty magician, he accidentally kills Dunbar’s maid. Though sad about it, Moose — or, perhaps, Travolta — runs around with fake antlers, takes a dump, uses Dunbar’s toothbrush and takes a selfie while kissing Dunbar’s sleeping head, which I guess is kind of sweet.

Realizing that Moose has been in his house, Dunbar pumps the Limp Biscuit (once again, I refuse to spell it like that) in his car. Much like one of Durst’s unlistenable songs, the finale is well-done trash, but in the end, it’s still trash.

This film was made with the association of Redbox. Not wanting to spend the $1.99 for a rental, I saw this on Amazon Prime for free and, well, it was interesting to revisit Travolta’s career … Durst’s, not so much.

Either way, someone owes me $1.99.

While most of the actors are grocery-store brand, Travolta is a big name brand, but one on the clearance shelf. His unwanted performance is a hilarious to both the clinically sane and mentally ill people, feeling like one long joke that no one gets.

But as a director, Durst is dangerously terrible to all people. The movie plays like it were Durst’s vapid handshake to the “meaningful” world of prestige pictures, yet everything about it takes it to broken levels of comic derision because, well, it’s Fred fucking Durst.

In other words, this Fanatic needs to go back to his mom’s basement and shut the door, playing “Break Stuff” while ferociously masturbating. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Action

Blind War (2022)

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As often happens to the sightless in the movies (Blind Fury, Daredevil, Don’t Breathe, et al.), a positive side of the disability manifests: a preternatural sense of hearing. Such is the case for former Special Forces Capt. Dong (Andy On, Black Mask 2: City of Masks) after he’s blinded by a grenade flash in a courthouse siege. That complicates Dong’s first civilian mission: Rescuing his kidnapped daughter, a violin prodigy, from auction on the dark web. Villains number many, with Jane Wu (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) sexing things up and standing out in a too-brief role as the Dragon King.

Frequent On director Suiqiang Huo (Demon Sealer Bureau) appears to relish in the potential of the script’s setup. It’s Taken ripped from the pages of the Braille book of revenge. However, he fails continuously to give consistency to Dong’s aural power. The guy can dodge bullets by listening for the slightest trigger click … yet somehow fails to notice the oncoming van speeding toward him in an enclosed parking garage. 

Blind War can’t its find way to a satisfying whole. The action sequences can delight, but not all do. Among the most memorable involve a chain-and-dunk-tank contraption that could come straight out of Saw and, at the end, the ol’ ticking bomb our visually impaired hero must defuse. On the downside, not enough story beats exist to fill the gaps, and the back-half inclusion of a bumbling detective (a debuting Dao Dao) sits way too far on the Inspector Clouseau end of the comic-relief spectrum.

All in all, the Chinese film is a case of the blind leading the bland. It’s not the fault of its star, who brings his easy likability and striking physicality to the role. Selfishly, I just wish he’d brought his gorgeous wife (and Zombie Fight Club co-star), Jessica Cambensy, too.  —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Sex

Shantytown Honeymoon (1971)

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Originally known as Honey Britches, Donn Davidson’s Shantytown Honeymoon is best known under the name Troma slapped on it in the VHS heyday: Demented Death Farm Massacre. Even with Troma’s appended John Carradine prologue, the retitling is misleading for what more or less plays as a feature-length version of a dirty joke.

After a high-profile jewel heist, four criminals — whose erudite leader, Philip (Jim Peck, Pet Sematary II), resembles early SNL fixture Michael O’Donoghue — need to lay low. One downed plane and stolen Jeep later, they stand at the stoop of the rural ramshackle home of age-disparate spouses Reba Sue and Horlan, respectively played by porn actress Ashley Brooks and horror host George Ellis. She’s a real cutie patootie in her sexual prime, whereas he looks like he placed fourth in a Sid Haig lookalike contest he didn’t even enter. 

Philip’s got his hands full trying to keep the hands of a fellow felon (Mike Coolick, Can’t Stop the Music) off Reba Sue’s full bosom, plus the hands of horny ol’ Horlan off their own lovely ladies (one-timers Pepper Thurston and Trudy Moore). This being a sexploitation confection, Philip fails marvelously. This also being a hicksploitation effort, the opening and closing credits are chalked on a wooden fence.

Davison (Blood Beast of Monster Mountain) gives this cheapo Honeymoon doses of crude gore à la H.G. Lewis: a bear trap to a leg, a pitchfork to a neck, a corn liquor jug to a forehead, and so on. Its best effects are the chest objects, but you’d be surprised how Shantytown is more about teasing the T&A than showing ’em — hardly an issue when the redneck romp’s lackluster acting, bathroom-wall scripting and scene-to-scene discrepant pacing amount to a good time, despite your better judgment.

Granted, the movie is about half as much fun as it is stupid. But, folks, this one’s mighty stupid. —Rod Lott

Get it at dvdrparty.

Horror

Exhuma (2024)

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Operating somewhere between science and superstition, a shaman and her protégé (Kim Go-eun and Lee Do-hyun, respectively) acquire the case of a wealthy client (Hong Seo-jun) whose newborn son won’t stop crying. As the shaman determines, the baby and father are part of a lineage in which all firstborns are haunted, thanks to an ancestor having a tantrum.

With assistance from a mortician (Yoo Hai-jin) and an aging, vaping geomancer (Oldboy himself, Choi Min-sik), the solution exists in an exhumation ceremony. Or so they think. 

Told in chapters like a thick, chewy novel, Exhuma is a slow burn of high order, almost to the level of The Wailing. The way writer and director Jang Jae-hyun gets into the story is intoxicating, giving his audience a good 15 minutes to determine on our own whether the principal characters are believers or scammers.  

Following up his first two films, the acclaimed Svaha: The Sixth Finger and The Priests, writer/director Jang Jae-hyun completes an unofficial trilogy of religious-based horror. Rather than merely use the themes as a crutch or entry point, Exhuma positively drips in adherence to rituals, as well as man’s ability to set aside skepticism in times of desperation.

While the movie maintains an ominous vibe for more than two hours’ time, breaking tension only for masterfully constructed scares, its best scene is when our protagonists set out to ease the restless spirit in the excavation rite. We see it in full, step by step, including fire, knives, drums, dance and five impaled pig carcasses — all carefully choreographed in such a massive production it could take Broadway by storm. We accept it because the actors sell that their characters do; their incredible and realistic chemistry goes a long way, too.

Even if my knowledge of Korean culture isn’t up to the level the movie assumes, it doesn’t matter. I also can’t deny the mastery at work. With a few surprises up its sleeve — or in the ground and within mirrored surfaces — this is horror on an epic scale. Resist the urge to pause and rewind to confirm what you think you just saw. At least give yourself over to one full viewing first, the way it’s intended. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Comedy

Invaders from Proxima B (2023)

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Looking like Oscar the Grouch made from your Memaw’s discarded fur coat, an alien named Chuck lands in the backyard of the Howie Jankins family. Chuck’s made this pilgrimage to save the human race because he says Earth is up for auction to the highest celestial bidder. He simply needs to swap bodies with Howie (Chillerama’s Ward Roberts, dressed in full Bespoke Church Bro mode) for a couple of hours to secure the planet.

Simple, right? Not when Chuck’s also being pursued by a dreadlocked conspiracy theorist/influencer (Sarah Lassez, The Clown at Midnight), a religious nut from animal control (Jeremiah Birkett, CB4) and two nitwit intergalactic bounty hunters (Office Space’s Richard Riehle and The Mortuary Collection’s Mike C. Nelson) in — wait for it — Hawaiian shirts! Ho-ho, let the wackiness begin! 

Despite its kid-unfriendly title, Invaders from Proxima B is a family-friendly sci-fi comedy, what with its cartoon sequences, ninja lizards and the ALF-esque Chuck. As Proxima’s writer and director, Roberts overloads his passion project with lowest-hanging-fruit jokes on farts, poop and Howie’s wife (Samantha Sloyan, 2016’s Hush) having boobs. I don’t mean to imply the movie is offensive; it’s not.

But it is strikingly unfunny. Like the puppet at its hollow center, Invaders bares no teeth. While its attempt at satirizing YouTubers suggests an intended bite, the overall comedic vibe is physical and slapstick. When Chuck and Howie swap bodies, Roberts’ worst impulses to manifest Jim Carrey circa 1994 are not only realized, but cringe-inducing.

Rugrats might be more open to such silliness, as well as the effects and action — well-staged, if a bit too Sam Raimi-cribbed. However, children also may be confused trying to keep track of all the swapping, as everybody trades bodies with everybody else. It’s like the movie’s grooming youngsters for key parties.

That last line’s a joke, to be clear. But this is not: In terms of enjoyment, I expected Proxima B to at least surpass Nukie. That shouldn’t be so much to ask. —Rod Lott

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