Dark and Stormy Night (2009)

Charles Ludlam, late founder of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, once wrote a play the dialogue of which consisted of the punch lines of old jokes. No, I don’t remember the title. Jeez, do I have to do everything around here?

Larry Blamire, creator of one of this century’s great cult classic films, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, pulls off something just as challenging and funny with Dark and Stormy Night, in which everything is a dark-old-house spook-movie cliché: plot, characters, props, setting — everything. The dialogue is a thing of beauty, comprised almost entirely of stream-of-unconsciousness non sequiturs. One character asks the butler to provide sherry for the guests, and “Bring me an iced tea sandwich.”

The relatives — and assorted strangers, servants and one guy in a gorilla suit — have gathered for the reading of the will, then they start dropping like lead bon mots. Blamire’s usual gang of thesps, with a quartet of guest actors who have been in movies you’ve actually heard of, deliver their senseless lines as if any of this had any meaning beyond tickling your nostalgia for Hollywood Poverty Row thrillers until it hollers, “Uncle!”

Blamire’s talent for absurdist burlesque is immense and I’d like to see it rewarded with mainstream recognition, but if that meant he’d have to stop making these low-budget masterpieces, well, screw that. A wider multiplex audience could never love him like we do. —Doug Bentin

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Alien from L.A. (1988)

It’s not hard to appreciate the impulse to turn supermodels into movie stars, despite the fact that it has never actually worked. Here you have someone who is already famous and who has already shown a tremendous ability to look fantastic in front of camera. What could possibly go wrong?

To answer that question, I give you Alien from L.A.

There is no doubt that Kathy Ireland had an arresting onscreen physical presence. The word “hot” in this case would be most à propos, especially if it was preceded by the words “goddamn” and “fucking.” But, just like many famous silent-era stars whose careers ended when talkies took over the medium, the power of Ireland’s charisma is tragically undone each and every time she opens her mouth and does us the tremendous discourtesy of allowing words to escape from it.

Cursed with the kind of voice that causes dogs to howl in misery whenever she speaks, her is further diminished by a script that requires her to essay the role of the whiniest protagonist in the history of narrative storytelling. At times, the dialogue suggests that this was a deliberate choice on the part of director/co-writer Albert Pyun. Forced to cast Ireland as his lead, he obviously decided to turn her greatest weakness into the film’s main running joke, but chose to do so in a way that only makes watching it more of a chore than it might have otherwise been.

The nominal plot concerns a California waitress (Ireland) going to Africa in order to find out more about her absentee (and presumed dead) father, only to fall down the same hole he did and become trapped in the underground city of Atlantis. To say that Alien lacks dramatic momentum is something of an understatement. The only memorable scene comes at the very end, where Ireland is finally shown in the kind of outfit that got her the role in the first place. It’s almost worth the previous 90 minutes, but in this day of Google, you can easily find similar pictures of her in similar outfits and never once fear that she might ruin it all by saying something. —Allan Mott

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The Last of Sheila (1973)

You just have to look at its credits to appreciate what a one-of-a-kind movie The Last of Sheila is. Co-written as a lark by legendary Broadway composer/lyricist Stephen Sondhiem and Psycho star Anthony Perkins, the script was directly inspired by the intricate parlor games they both enjoyed devising for their friends.

Beyond their famed intelligence and love of brainteasers, the two men also shared a gleeful fondness for bitchy gossip, which compelled them to cast their mystery with characters based on real-life Hollywood personalities, albeit just loosely enough to avoid lawsuits and inspire some fun guessing games (except in the case of Dyan Cannon’s character, who is so obviously Sue Mengers, you don’t even have to know who Sue Mengers is to figure it out).

In the movie, James Coburn plays a games-obsessed producer who has gathered a group of fellow industry folks (including Cannon, Richard Benjamin, James Mason, Raquel Welch, Joan Hackett and Ian McShane) for a weeklong trip on his private yacht. All of his guests have two things in common: They harbor a potentially embarrassing secret their host knows about, and they were all present at Coburn’s house the night his wife, the titular Sheila, died under mysterious circumstances.

To give away any more of the plot would spoil the fun, but it does say something about the confidence and chutzpah of Sondheim and Perkins that the solution to their cinematic puzzle can actually be found directly in the film’s title. As fun and entertaining as The Last of Sheila is, however, its uniqueness adds a touch of melancholy to its existence. Watching it, you can’t help but wonder what other wonderful games its two famous scribes might have allowed us to play had they decided to work together again. —Allan Mott

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The Hills Run Red (2009)

Before the title even appears in the opening credits, The Hills Run Red lets you know exactly what it’s aiming for, as a young man calmly cuts the skin off his face with scissors. The film is about a film, a 1982 slasher by director Wilson Wyler Concannon (William Sadler), who never was heard from again, and whose movie — also called The Hills Run Red — never saw release. No prints exist; all that remains is a trailer and some still photos.

Obsessive and pretentious film-geek blogger (is that all redundant?) Tyler (Tad Hilgenbrinck, in a terribly amateur performance) eschews his girlfriend’s offer of sex — fiction! — and goes in search of the missing movie for a documentary project. His first stop is Concannon’s daughter, a smack-addict stripper named Alexa (Sophie Monk and her boobs). With his bland girlfriend (Janet Montgomery) and über-annoying best pal (Alex Wyndham) in tow, Tyler takes Alexa into the woods where the film was shot.

If you think they’ll discover the film’s villain of the doll-masked Babyface there, you’ve seen more than one horror movie! These Hills aren’t exactly original — in fact, they’re downright predictable — but that has to be all part of the plan, paying homage to down-and-dirty conventions of the slasher genre in its heyday, while bringing it into the present with an unrated amount of gore, much of it made possible by the creative use of barbed wire.

Director Dave Parker delivers a sick, slick package, which is a miracle considering he wrote House of the Dead, one of the worst movies I’ve ever had the displeasure of paying to see in a theater. From his prose work, David J. Schow seems like a smarter screenwriter than to craft dialogue like “Fuck me sideways!” and “C’mon, fucker!,” but he’ll give you what you want in the senseless-slaughter and demented-daddy departments. The Hills Run Red — that, they do. —Rod Lott

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Confession Stand with Megan Ward

Actress Megan Ward has starred in Joe’s Apartment, The Brady Bunch Movie and the TV series Dark Skies, whose complete run is now available on DVD from Shout! Factory.

FLICK ATTACK: Hi, Megan! So where are you today?

WARD: I’m at home today. I just put away, like, eight boxes of Christmas decorations in the back shed, and I feel like I deserve a cocktail or something for it.

FLICK ATTACK: Drink up!

WARD: No, it’s a little too early. But I swear, it was exhausting! So if I’m a little out of breath, that’s why.

FLICK ATTACK: I forgive you. So I was doing last-minute IMDb research and I learned that we both have daughters named Audrey, and you and my wife have the same middle name, so obviously, we share excellent, impeccable taste.

WARD: Oh, my God! Exactly! I don’t know when your wife was born, but it seems like around the time I was born, it was a very popular name. It seemed like I had no less than five friends who have the middle name Marie, so it must’ve been the trendy name of the time.

FLICK ATTACK: However, I have not had a guest role on Party of Five. So that’s where the similarities end.

WARD: Yeah. You didn’t die of a drug overdose. Didn’t devirginize Bailey, no.

FLICK ATTACK: Speaking of IMDb, it says you speak Japanese. Confirm or deny?

WARD: True! I do!

FLICK ATTACK: Say something.

WARD: No, it’s gone!

FLICK ATTACK: Oh, come on.

WARD: こんにちは。おはようございます。私の名前は Megan。どのようにですか?あなたの名前は何ですか?

FLICK ATTACK: And what’s that mean?

WARD: “Hello. Good morning. My name is Megan. How are you? What’s your name?” I grew up in Hawaii and every school offered Japanese. I had started modeling at the age of 9, so it seemed like a practical thing for me to learn. I wasn’t 100 percent, but I could read and write it. I could get around! But that was a long time ago. When I got to sushi restaurants now, inevitably, by the end, I go, “I know what he said,” but it’s far back and covered with dust.

FLICK ATTACK: Onto Dark Skies, since that’s what we’re supposed to be talking about. At the time it aired, serialized shows weren’t exactly in vogue. But after the success of Lost and 24, do you think it would do better nowadays?

WARD: Oh, my God, yes! It was completely ahead of its time. Part of its tragedy is that it was compared to The X-Files in that people felt it was ripping off X-Files. And the only way it was similar is that it involved aliens and a male/female lead. Other than that, it was a very different show and very much like all the shows that have been on now. I don’t know what it’d do — you can’t make these predictions on what will hit — but it’s very of-the-now. It’s very subversive, it’s very complicated, it involves historical events. Imagine now, people could be Googling and going to Wikipedia during an episode. Historically, it was all accurate, and that’s what made the intrigue and the twist on the story cool, and the more you knew about that, the more interesting it would be. It would be very timely to do that now.

FLICK ATTACK: Which was scarier for you: the alien creatures or the period hairdos you had to wear?

WARD: Um, I don’t know. That’s a really good question! Or the Playtex bra, or the girdle. I have to say, I really like the period stuff, I really like becoming a character, but you’re very limited to the person who’s doing your hair, the way the director wants it, the way the studio wants it. It was a bit of a struggle about the size of it and the shape of it. Somedays, it was great, and other days, I couldn’t believe it got so big. I just wanted them to trim it down somehow, with CGI effects.

FLICK ATTACK: You’ve been acting for 20 years now. Going back to the beginning, out of the four films you did for Full Moon Pictures — and I’ve seen them all — did any of them buy you a tank of gas?

WARD: Exactly! Well, yeah, sure! Charlie Band gave me my first job, which was Crash and Burn. And I think I had done one or two guest spots right before that. It was a feature film and a three-picture contract, even though it was just paperwork — it didn’t guarantee anything. It felt like a much bigger deal than it probably ended up being professionally, when you look back on it: “Oh, yeah, these are straight to video.” But they were all distributed by Paramount and it was great. He had quite the machine going there. He took a shine to me and really believed in me and I owe a lot to him! He gave me a bunch of movies there I feel like I cut my teeth on. Even though it was a small production, I feel very fortunate that that’s where I got my start. It was real moviemaking.

megan ward nudeFLICK ATTACK: This isn’t much of a question, but did you know I watched Amityville 1992: It’s About Time just because you were in it?

WARD: No, but I’m really flattered!

FLICK ATTACK: And would you believe I’ve seen it three times now?

WARD: Noooo, you’re kidding!

FLICK ATTACK: No, I’m not.

WARD: Those movies are fun. Those movies are so fun. They’re genre movies: You kinda know what to expect, and it’s fun to take the ride. Even though it was a small movie, again, and there are bits that are silly, I suppose, but it’s a legacy, the Amityville series. “I’ve been in an Amityville film.” You know, that’s pretty cool, I think! I like that I can say that.

FLICK ATTACK: Is it strange that when a lot of people hear your name, they automatically picture you attached to Blossom‘s older brother?

WARD: I wish they did, because then they would’ve seen the movie! I nearly killed Michael Stoyanov on that movie, Freaked. First of all, he came from a sitcom, so he was used to this really easy work schedule. Such lazy work, let me tell you. So he was getting used to these long hours and crazy locations, and we’re strapped together the entire time. He quit smoking and was getting married as soon as the movie was done. So he was under so much pressure! I was going to be the death of him, I know. He was annoying, but he’ll admit to it. I loved him then and I love him now, but he could be a pain in the ass. There was a rule that we couldn’t be strapped together for more than 20 minutes at a time before a break.

FLICK ATTACK: Within a span of two years you worked with both Pauly Shore in Encino Man and Jeremy Piven in PCU. Did SAG’s health plan cover the therapy bills this had to have cost you?

WARD: You know, they were both really, really good to me. They were really sweet. It’s funny now to me how famous they become. Pauly was very kind. He never pulled any diva stunt with me, but we weren’t that close, either. Jeremy was so our team captain on that one. We were all kids — I mean, Jon Favreau was in it, David Spade was in it — and we were all crazy and on the loose in Toronto for two months. He was a good leader.

FLICK ATTACK: You were on General Hospital. Did your time there coincide with James Franco?

WARD: It’s funny, because my character actually introduces his character, but because I was working on something else, I couldn’t be in the scenes where he was supposed to show up.

FLICK ATTACK: You got robbed, basically.

WARD: Yeah, yeah.

FLICK ATTACK: And our 15 minutes are up.

WARD: Ohhh …

FLICK ATTACK: It was a pleasure to talk with you.

WARD: Yes! And thanks for watching Amityville! And thanks for knowing Freaked, too!

FLICK ATTACK: Well, I have to admit I’ve had a crush on you since the ’90s, so …

WARD: Aw, that’s very sweet! And now, look, we have a daughter, Audrey! —Rod Lott

Additional questions by Allan Mott.

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