Another Schlocktoberfest has come and gone much like a majestic toucan that lays its eggs in your throat while you’re sleeping and expects you to raise them while it flies back to Sicily or wherever it is that toucans come from. Let’s review!

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 1: The Funhouse

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 2: Cujo

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 3: The Poughkeepsie Tapes

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 4: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 5: Graveyard Shift

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 6: I Spit On Your Grave

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 7: The Howling

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 8: Silver Bullet

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 9: Island Of Death

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 10: Alice, Sweet Alice

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 11: Salem’s Lot

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 12: Dead & Buried

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 13: Friday The Thirteenth – Part VII: The New Blood

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 14: The Dark Half

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 15: Cannibal Holocaust

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 16: Death Spa

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 17: The Dead Zone

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 18: Anthropophagus

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 19: Guns Of El Chupacabra

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 20: Dreamcatcher

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 21: Mardi Gras Massacre

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 22: The Mutilator

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 23: The Mangler

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 24: The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 25: Blood Rage

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 26: Christine

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 27: Unhinged

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 28: Tourist Trap

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 29: Maximum Overdrive/Trucks

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 30: The Last Horror Film

Schlocktoberfest VII – Day 31: Student Bodies

In order from best to worst score:

1. The Poughkeepsie Tapes (9)
2. Christine (8.5)
3. Cujo (8)
4. The Dead Zone (8)
5. Student Bodies Average Score: (7.3) (Jim: 9.5) (Brian: 5.5 ) (Brad: 7)
6. Dead & Buried (7)
7. I Spit On Your Grave (7)
8. Tourist Trap (6.75)
9. Cannibal Holocaust (6)
10. The Dark Half (6)
11. Blood Rage (5.5)
12. Salem’s Lot (5)
13. Silver Bullet (5)
14. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Part 2 (4.75)
15. The Funhouse (4.5)
16. The Howling (4.5)
17. Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood (Average Score: 4.25) (Jim: 5) (Brian: 4.75) (Brad: 3)
18. Anthropophagus (4)
19. Death Spa (4)
20. The Last Horror Film (4)
21. The Mutilator (3.5)
22. Dreamcatcher (3)
23. Alice, Sweet Alice (2.5)
24. Graveyard Shift (2)
25. The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue (2)
26. Mardi Gras Massacre (2)
27. The Mangler (1.5)
28. Unhinged (1.5)
29. Island Of Death (1)
30. Maximum Overdrive (1)
31. Guns of El Chupacabra (0.5)
32. Trucks (0.5)

Brad’s Thoughts

A man once said: “I’m getting too old for this shit.” and the wise mage Daniel Glover was absolutely right. We’ve been torturing ourselves for 7 years now with these poor excuses of celluloid entertainment yet there’s no end in sight and truth be told it’s the highlight of the year for all of us on the site. (Well maybe no more for Brian, who seems to have an uncanny knack for picking the worst flicks on average)

We kept our promise to stay clear from the month-long horror theme this year because the past 2 years we’re exceptional brutal. Although in hindsight, Rock Out With Your Schlock Out gets funnier each time I re-read our stuff. However, I should correct myself since both Jim and I stayed within a somewhat theme this year with Video Nasties and Stephen King adaptations, respectively. I’ve said it a few times in the past 7 years that I haven’t really been the biggest King fan and my opinion still somewhat stands. Seeing some of these movies for the first time or for the second, made me appreciate him a little more. Well, his movies anyway. I cannot vouch for his prose yet.

Most Pleasant Surprise: Based on my scores, I would have to say Christine. All these years I’ve always considered this one of Carpenter’s weaker forays in cinema but I may have to change my tune now. Maybe I’m just getting softer in my old age though since I don’t want to hate too much on Prince of Darkness either. Maybe I’m just lamenting how much better the horror atmosphere was back in my youth as opposed to the crap made nowadays. Cujo also was up there for me.

 

Most Disappointing: Tough call. On one hand I want to say Dreamcatcher since it had the best amount of creative talent involved. But on the other hand I want to say Salem’s Lot since it is considered a classic yet I didn’t care much for it and it was way too long. But my final answer will be Trucks. Because I was hoping that it would either be better than Maximum Overdrive or way worse in a So-Bad-Its-Good way but it failed miserably on both fronts.

Favorite Villain: Tough to beat Mr. Voorhees for a villain role. However, since he neither fits my theme this month nor was he in a half-way entertaining flick of his series, I will choose Cujo. Runner-up: Arnie Cunningham and his Plymouth Fury girlfriend, Christine. 

Least Favorite Villain: I had so many inanimate or non-living entities be villains this year I just realized. Plus a few animals so picking villains ain’t so easy. But based on giving fear or intimidation I’d have to go with the Mangler. Fuck you Mangler. Runner-Up: Mr. Gray from Dreamcatcher. What a poof!

 

Best Kill: See, this is really tough since King isn’t known for the blood and guts and never really has any interesting kills. And most times his kills in the films are implied and shown off-screen. However, I said it in my review for Trucks that the ridiculous RC Truck ramming the mailman to oblivion is hands-down one of the most entertaining kills I’ve ever seen. Runner-Up: THE SLIGHTLY OH SO MENACING SPARROWS pecking Timothy Hutton to death. *If only The Mangler actually showed the aftermath of the laundry folding machine did to the victims.

Worst Kill: Robert Prosky getting slowly crushed in the front seat of Christine. 

Stephen King trope I’m sick of: He seems to have a penchant for vehicular homicide and telekinetic kids. I can do with not seeing another one of those for a long time. I’m still dumbfounded that he, himself was a victim of being hit by a large vehicle and nearly died. So weird.

Stephen King movie I wished I reviewed: I actually watched Firestarter this past month but it ended up not being schlocky enough for Schlocktoberfest (I’ll review it at a later date perhaps). I couldn’t very well review Carrie, Pet Semetary, Creepshow, Misery or The Shining since they are examples of great King horror movies. And I sure as shit wasn’t going to spend over 3 hours watching his other mini-series like The Stand, The Tommyknockers, or The Langoliers. I did watch Gerald’s Game on Netflix and actually enjoyed that as well. Still haven’t seen the remake of It though. Again, mainly due to time.

Favorite Review of Brian’s: Death Spa. I thoroughly enjoyed his review of that one and I probably laughed the most and wished we watched that one together instead of The Funhouse and Guns of El Chupacabra. Although if he watched Guns of El Chupacabra by himself I’m afraid he may have stuck his head inside his oven.

Favorite Review of Jim’s: Island of Death. Equal parts intriguing and repulsing. Just like Jim himself. I keeed. But out of the 10 films he reviewed that I haven’t seen yet, that one I want to actually check out now.

Brian’s Thoughts

Well, I did go back to basics this year by not going with a theme and watching movies that I thought could possibly be “hidden gems,” at least to me. With a few exceptions, they were neither hidden nor gem-like in any way. In fact, almost everything was in the 4-point range, meaning a month of pure mediocrity, which is the worst kind of ocrity.

Most Pleasant Surprise: Oof. I suppose The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 for not being the worst movie of all time like Guns of El Chupacabra was?

Least Pleasant Surprise: Mother fucker, I nearly had erased Guns of El Chupacabra from my memory. Thanks a lot, recap.

Most Disappointing Movie: I’m gonna give this to Death Spa, which should have been a hell of a lot more fun than it actually was.

Runner-up: The Howling, which turned out as shitty as possible for a Joe Dante werewolf movie.

Favorite Villain: Hands down Telekinetic Leatherface from Tourist Trap, who was spooky looking and made mannequins with wide mouths to satisfy his sexual desires.

Runners-up: Actual Leatherface from TCM2; Terry from Blood Rage; Gunther from The Funhouse.

Best Kill: Not much makes me cringe in my advanced age but the giant hook through the wizard sleeve from The Mutilator did the trick.

Runners-up: The dick sword through the gut in The Funhouse; the pec machine death in Death Spa; the Old style hand chopping in Blood Rage.

Worst Kill: Whatever they were shooting at offscreen in Guns of El Chupacabra, although whatever it was they probably didn’t kill it.

Runner-up: Everyone’s career in Student Bodies.

Favorite Character: How could you not give it to Malvert? That guy tied himself in knots for our entertainment, which likely killed him some years later!

Least Favorite Character: Hands down Jeff from The Video Dead. Yeah that was six years ago but I still hate him. This year, definitely the guy with the dumb sunglasses in the car at the beginning of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, who was as pleasant as a barbed-wire buttplug, and would probably rank above Jeff but Jeff had way more screen time.

Runner-up: The Breather’s breathing in Student Bodies.

Best Achievement in Casting: Robert Z’Dar, Julie Strain, David Heavener, and Joe Estevez in Guns of El Chupacabra.

Worst Achievement in Casting: Everyone else in Guns of El Chupacabra.

Best Achievement in Special Effects: The severed head Thanksgiving ornament from Blood Rage.

Runners-up: The Mutilator being chopped in half in The Mutilator (how did they do that???!) Franklinstein’s face in The Funhouse; Tanya Roberts’ top staying on in Tourist Trap.

Worst Achievement in Special Effects: The “plaster” used on the girl’s face clearly being pizza dough in Tourist Trap.

Runners-up: The glaring lack of gore in Friday the 13th Part VII; Dennis Hopper’s obvious body double just for chainsawing a log in TCM2.

Best Line: “I’m Beta, you’re VHS.” – A guy that has to be implying that he’s gay, right? What else could that mean? That’s fine and all, but why not just say, “I’m flattered but also very gay”? from Death Spa.

Best Writing by the Best Writers: Brad’s Christine review because it was nice that he enjoyed something for a change.
Jim’s The Poughkeepsie Tapes review as it brought back memories and smells of the Hudson Valley.

Jim’s Thoughts

Schlocktoberfest Lucky Seven, holy shit. Seven years. Time does go by at quite a clip doesn’t it? You don’t think so? Well, put it to you this way: the Pamela Anderson sex tape is now categorized as vintage porn on most sites now. That alone should give me the motivation to get my belly button closer to my spine, and dye the couple of grey streaks out of my beard. Nah, screw it; I’m not here to talk about me, so let’s move on to my seventh All Saints’ Day re-cap shall we?

Most Pleasant Surprise: That will go to Dead and Buried. My review for this was only the second time I’ve seen it since I bought the DVD way back when, and unlike Kiss’ 1996 world tour – it was a happy reunion. I mean seriously, how else would I be able to make a Melody Anderson reference without having to mention Flash Gordon or Manimal?

Most Disappointing Movie: Without a doubt The Last Horror Film. As stated in my review therein, this was a movie I had heard a lot about and upon finally viewing; it was as welcome as getting Adele lyrics texted to you out of fucking nowhere from a girlfriend you haven’t heard from in seven years at two in the morning. Or you know…something like that.

Favorite Villain: Do you even have to ask? Jason Voorhees from Friday The 13^th Part 7: The New Blood. Michael Myers didn’t show up this year, so I will always go with second banana.

Favorite Final Girl: Toby from Student Bodies. Legend has it she never acted again, but apparently was in a band at one time? She looks like Todd Rundgren in this video – but it was cool to see her with Lita Ford 80’s hair.

Ms. Schlocktober 2017: Laura Misch Owens from Mardi Gras Massacre.

Best Kill: A four-way tie to the kills Jennifer (Camille Keaton) executes in I Spit On Your Grave.

Funniest Kill: Mr. Dumpkin’s demise at the hands of The One. The only. The classic, Horse-head bookends from Student Bodies.

Best Nude Scene: Laurel Munson and Sara Ansley’s scene of cleanliness through togetherness in Unhinged.

Favorite Joke I Wrote This Year (An Exercise In Self Indulgence): I Spit On Your Grave – “This movie does for secluded cabins what The Accused did for pinball machines.”

Best Soundtrack: Cannibal Holocaust by Riz Ortolani. Never in a million years could you equate such a lofty and poetic score to a movie where dicks are cut off for dinner willy-nilly (no pun) and women impaled naked on a stake ass first.

Nastiest Video Nasty Moment That Was, Indeed, Truly Nasty: Probably a tie between Anthropophagus’ fetus eating and Island of Death’s goat raping. Seeing an unborn fetus being ripped from the womb and eaten is truly awful, but that was Klaus’ journey. The goat wasn’t trying to get a job in show business, and in no way deserved to be treated like she worked for Harvey Weinstein or Harry Knowles. Fuck you two fat assholes by the way. That’s about as topical as I can be without it being too dated for future readings, or until Google caches it.

Most Deserving Death: Hmm, hard choice this one. There were plenty of cinematic scumbags this year who you really couldn’t wait to be offed. But like Lou Gramm once said, life is simple; it’s either cherry red or midnight blue. So I’ll have to go with Christopher’s demise in the lye pit from Island of Death. The only way I would have made it better was to have Patricia come back to life and piss on the lye to activate it, then have the goat he raped look into the pit and ask, “How do you like me naaaaahhhhh?”

Best Movie That Wasn’t A Video Nasty: The Poughkeepsie Tapes. I’m glad I finally got to review this one since I was a champion of it for so long. I have yet to see the official blu ray release, and really hope there’s a decent making-of doc on it. It’s not always jokes you know; sometimes I share genuine thoughts.

Am I Tired Of Typing The Word “Nasty”: Yes.

Best Reviews From The Partners In Crime: These awards go to Brad’s Salem’s Lot and Brian’s Guns Of El Chupacabra. The latter because of it’s sheer venom and outrage, and the former because The Lot is such a favorite of mine I like to see the insights of someone whose favorite it ain’t. As a wise man once said: your God is not everybody’s God, that’s why there were four solo Kiss albums to choose from. One man’s Ace Frehley is another man’s Peter Criss.

There’s One Movie I Haven’t Mentioned Yet, So I’ll Make Up A Category For It: My most sincere apologies to The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue. Sorry to leave you out for so long, but I guess you didn’t make that much of an impact. Let’s see, like Mardi Gras Massacre I rated you at a 2, the only tits you had in it were ripped off by a zombie; and I refuse to get into a debate about that goddamn petrol station again. There. That should do ya.

Best Captain Obvious Statement Of This Recap: Really amped up the nudity this year.

Number Of Adult Beverages Consumed While Writing This: 3 so far. You can tell where the jokes get not only funnier, but a soupçon angrier. Next year I want to have whatever the fuck Brian did while he was writing for Guns Of El Chupacabra.

Favorite Movie I Made This Year (An Exercise In Self Indulgence Part II): 2015’s Going Forward in Reverse. I think I missed my calling as a music video editor in 1985. Fire up the DeLorean.

Endgame: Well, that about does her. Wraps her all up. Things seem to have worked out pretty good for Brad and Brian, and there were some pretty good reviews, don’t ya think? Made me laugh to beat the band. Parts, anyway. I didn’t like seeing some of our old formatting go. But then, I happen to know that there’s another Schlocktoberfest on the way. I guess that’s the way the whole darned horror comedy keeps perpetuating itself, down through the generations, westward the wagons, across the sands of time until… aw, look at me, I’m ramblin’ again.

Well, I hope you folks enjoyed yourselves.

Catch ya later on down the trail.

 

Thanks for reading, everyone! See you next year for Schlocktoberfest Ate: Bone Appetit!