Comedy

Cool World (1992)

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As hot as sex kitten Kim Basinger was/is, the cartoon version of her in Cool World, Holli Would, might be a bit better, if only for the way she cockteases anthropomorphic dogs, cats and a young Brad Pitt. Yowza! According to the ads, “Holli would if she could …”

Ralph Bakshi’s Cool World really adapts the video of the Rolling Stones’ “Harlem Shuffle” by way of a cheap skin flick, leading to a great good okay movie. Coming out of the clink for, I guess, murder, artist Jack (Gabriel Byrne) drives around his comic studio and comic shop, letting all the early ’90s nerds know graphic artists drives girls crazy, especially Holli.

From his mostly drawn Cool World, Holli entices Jack to cross over into our world primarily by using sex as a weapon (to be fair, so was Kim Basinger). On her tail is Pitt — whose acting talent was apparently not always there — as a 1940s cop who has to take her down, as well as a few abrasive — but very Bakshi-lite — cartoons.

The breathy intonations aside, trailblazing animator Bakshi created a new playground in 1992, but sadly, everybody instead was watching progeny like Tiny Toon Adventures, The Ren & Stimpy Show and other post-ironic viewing. Meanwhile, Cool World was a smutty sex comedy, as was the custom in ’92. Monkeybone vibes, anyone?

Byrne is mostly fine and Pitt is all about the baby blues, but the selling point is the miniskirted Basinger, animated or not. But what I really dug was the closer tune, “Real Cool World” by David Bowie; maybe the movie should’ve been about some puppets? —Louis Fowler

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Sex

Mega Manor (1987)

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Attention, salesmen the world over: One particular bank in Scotland has an incentive program that bests any “president’s club” event. In exchange for your hard work, it buses you to a weeklong retreat at Mega Boob Manor — so named because it’s staffed by women with royally large chests.

The butter-faced ladies pamper and pleasure the guys. They play squash and they squash. They ride exercise bikes and they ride. They soak in Jacuzzis and they soak. They squirt water guns and they squirt. You get the picture. Because individual literal fantasies are catered to, we witness a burglary during a shower, a licking of “fruit and cream from the body of Sally” and an old man’s face getting bitch-slapped by 10 heavy bags of hanging flesh.

Meanwhile, the men’s suspicious wives rightly assume the worst and take revenge by bedding their husbands’ boss. He mercifully puts this wicked monstrosity of mammaries to bed by breaking the fourth wall: “Oh, no, that’s the end.”

All of the above occurs as hamster-wheel instrumentals by The Pync Brothers (whoever they are) blare; just imagine if The Art of Noise were commissioned to score a children’s educational video on farm animals.

Also known by the titillating title of Miss-Adventures at Mega Boob Manor, Mega Manor is the movie equivalent of second base. Despite being directed by UK hardcore pornographer Peter Kay (Carrie Potter and the Philosopher’s Bone), sex is absent from this slab of erotic comedy. There’s so much breast-squeezing, the guys likely got carpal tunnel syndrome. Only three actors — Pat Wynn, Lynda White and Janie Hamilton — allowed their names in the credits. I can’t imagine why. —Ed Donovan

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Moonfall (2022)

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When I read Michael Crichton’s 2002 killer-nanotech novel, Prey, I thought it would make a great movie. Now that I’ve seen Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall, featuring a similar villainous swarm, I second-guess my decision.

Ten years ago, while arguing over Toto lyrics, Space Shuttle astronaut Brian Harper (The Conjuring patriarch Patrick Wilson, born to look the part) lost a fellow crew member to an attacking cloud of sentient particles that put the “AI” in “hentai.” Now a disgraced former space cowboy and current deadbeat dad, Harper gets a shot at redemption when British and bearded conspiracy theorist KC Houseman (John Bradley, 2018’s Patient Zero) notices something NASA has not: The nanotech has forced the moon’s orbit outta whack!

Corralling Harper’s former partner (a wasted Halle Berry, Catwoman), they embark on a world-saving mission: Nuke the nanotech. All they need is a Space Shuttle; good thing a decommissioned one sits in an abandoned museum, if you don’t mind “FUCK THE MOON” graffitied on the fuselage. They don’t.

As stupid as all of this is, Moonfall is fairly watchable in its first hour, wringing a money shot out of the orbital shift triggering an L.A. flood. The second hour — the one in space — is where the movie becomes one big Moonfail. Emmerich sends our heroic trio into the moon’s craters, where what they find makes Mission to Mars’ much-derided “PowerPoint” climax look distinguished by comparison. Emmerich stretches his reveal into full-blown prequel potential with unneeded mythology that unspools like Stargate fanfic.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, family members in Colorado flee inbred rednecks in a chase sequence so overblown, it’s remarkable F9 hadn’t already laid claim.

Hoping to relive his box-office glory days of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, Emmerich recycles every page from his playbook: fractured family drama, meteorological porn, a melting-pot cast, regular-dude heroics, unspeakable dialogue (“I’m an astronaut, not a soldier!”) and, of course, upturned U.S. monuments. It’s all too much and yet not enough. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

TV Gothic: The Golden Age of Small Screen Horror

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Two things about the title of TV Gothic: The Golden Age of Small Screen Horror could limit the trade paperback’s potentially fervent audience. First, “TV Gothic” suggests it only covers Gothic horror, whereas author Howard Maxford covers horror in general.

Second, “The Golden Age” suggests it covers only a finite range of years — possibly the 1970s, based on the Salem’s Lot image adorning the front — but in truth, Maxford truly scours tube history for seemingly every relevant show to hit the airwaves shortly after the medium’s inception. A boo show here and a boo show there, everywhere a boo show — many more exist than you think, and while some may merit a mere sentence or two, inclusion is the name of Maxford’s game. If the subject interests you, roll the dice!

Now, if you’re hoping for an episode guide of the genre’s most prominent series, don’t, because TV Gothic is not that book. (However, that book already exists, as John Kenneth Muir’s Terror Television, highly recommended and also from McFarland & Company.) It’s also not an encyclopedia as Maxford’s 2018 book, Hammer Complete: The Films, the Personnel, the Company (yep, McFarland again), was.

So what is this one? Reading TV Gothic is akin to sitting Maxford in the comfiest chair possible and asking him to tell you the complete story of the previous millennium’s cathode-ray chillers. The result: a fact dump that might annoy if it weren’t so damned thoroughly, meticulously researched. He includes everything you expect: Dark Shadows, those wonderful ’70s made-for-TV movies, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, all the anthologies, The X-Files, the UK Christmas ghost stories and the kiddie cartoons. Each short-lived show I recall from my youth — Cliffhangers, Darkroom, et al. — is covered.

Along the way are more shows since forgotten, if you noticed them at all — Shirley Temple’s Storybook, anyone? TV Gothic is such a wealth of information, it should be unbelievable … yet here it is. My largest point of dissent is that Maxford stops at 2000, other than including a list in the appendix. Certainly I’m not the only one wanting to reminisce about Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and Harper’s Island? —Rod Lott

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Horror

Two Witches (2021)

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Pierre Tsigaridis makes a knockout directorial entrance with the two-fisted Two Witches, a wickedly delightful pair of interlocked tales involving the devil herself — yes, her — and the titular women who do her bidding. To paraphrase the kid at the Gas ‘n’ Sip on a Saturday night in Say Anything …, “Witches, man!”

Not since Rosemary’s Baby has a young, pregnant woman gone through as much trimester trauma as Sarah (Belle Adams, The Manor), the center of chapter one. After an unkempt “boogeywoman” (Marina Parodi) gives her “the evil eye” in a restaurant, Sarah grows more anxious and nauseated, not to mention plagued by nightmarish visions. It’s all made worse by a visit to friends who dig out the Ouija board.

The second chapter illustrates why having roommates is a living hell. For grad student Rachel (Kristina Klebe, 2007’s Halloween reboot), her difficulties amount to the waifish Masha (Rebekah Kennedy, 2011’s Season of the Witch) being needy, manipulative and, well, a witch.

One of Two Witches’ strengths is Tsigaridis’ script isn’t concerned about explaining the witchery, which makes it all the more chilling. Another is how far mere facial expressions can go in creating fright in viewers; he relies on that as much as the ol’ standby of contact lenses that make its wearers look as though their eyeballs have been swapped with freshly peeled hard-boiled eggs. (I only wish he had more trust in his audience; we don’t need flashbacks to understand characters appearing in the second story are the same key supporting players we just saw a few minutes before in the first.)

Highly influenced by Eurohorror, the witches are terrifying, fitting alongside the coven from Dario Argento’s Suspiria. Going further, in emphasizing scares over style, this is the witch movie you likely hoped Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake would be. I can see it becoming a perennial favorite from Halloween to Christmas, given the second half takes place at that supposed most wonderful time of the year.

From subliminal flashes to unflinching scenes of violence and the vile, Two Witches works hard and pays off, begging to be seen in a crowded theater. Bow to the new queen. And stick around after the credits. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

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