The fourth review in the "Cinematic Hell" series from Hal Astell takes us to madness... Reefer Madness.
Somehow I've managed to avoid seeing Reefer Madness up until now, even though I probably own half a dozen copies of it in various public domain box sets and I have seen a number of its peers. It's an important film, generally seen as the benchmark of the educational exploitation films of the thirties and forties, the standard by which they're judged. Unfortunately it's somehow neither particularly good or bad and so has attained its lofty and legendary status through a salacious history and a particularly delicious form of irony. Financed as a cautionary tale by a small church group, it is most popular with the very people it warned against, thus it amazingly achieved the precise opposite of what it aimed at and continues to do so over seventy years after its initial release. Beyond that irony, it apparently improves in quality the more stoned you are. To be truly entertained you need to be so high that it becomes topical humour.
Yet another brilliant review from Hal Astell of "Apocalypse Later" in his new series "Cinematic Hell" with a peek at Plan 9 From Outer Space.
I couldn't resist watching Plan 9 from Outer Space after Manos: The Hands of Fate. It's the film most usually regarded as the worst ever made, but there's really no comparison. Harold P Warren didn't know how to make a movie in the slightest, but Ed Wood did. Sure, he chose to do so in his own very outsider way but he was capable nonetheless, hardly the no talent hack movie history tries to make him out to be. Outsider art is an acquired taste that surely isn't for everyone, and Wood can only be fairly contextualised as an outsider, especially given that his films, which like Tarantino's movies are patchwork quilts of everything he had seen and thought was awesomely cool, are undeniably his. You simply can't mistake an Ed Wood movie for anything else, just as you can't mistake a Russ Meyer movie for anything else.
Reviewer Hal Astell of "Apocalypse Later" continues his new series "Cinematic Hell" with an in depth look at Manos: The Hands of Fate.
Ask any random moviegoer what the worst film of all time is and they'll generally throw back Plan 9 from Outer Space because they just don't know any better. It has to be the mostly widely seen really bad movie of its era, it features more outré celebrities than any John Waters movie ever made and it got special attention in the high profile Tim Burton/Johnny Depp biopic of its director, Ed Wood, so it's simply the easiest choice. Ask people who actually know about the really bad films, though, people like the writers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and films that make Plan 9 from Outer Space look like Citizen Kane (well not quite but you get the picture), and they'll come up with a whole bunch of other suggestions. The one that tends to sink through all the dross to the very very bottom is this one, Manos: The Hands of Fate. It's supposed to be a horror movie but Quentin Tarantino, who owns what may be the only 35mm print of the film, calls it his favourite comedy of all time. Now I've finally seen it, I can understand why.
Reviewer Hal Astell of "Apocalypse Later" unveils his new series "Cinematic Hell" with a look back at the cult classic The Beast of Yucca Flats.
How bad can a movie be when it begins with a surreptitious yet entirely gratuitious nipple shot? Well, the answer is really, really bad. This is the worst film I've ever seen, currently ranked 22nd on the IMDb Bottom 100, though bizarrely that still makes it the highest rated of the three features that Coleman Francis wrote and directed. It's a sheer joy to see it again, to remind myself of how truly awful it was while simultaneously torturing members of my family in the process. I simply couldn't think of a better choice to begin a set of reviews of the worst of the worst films to ever escape from Cinematic Hell and disgrace us with their presence. It's also hardly a coincidence that my hosts at Cinema Head Cheese have shot an unauthorised sequel almost half a century later, Return to Yucca Flats: Desert Man Beast.
The Cinema Head Cheese crew does the commentary for Teenage Mother featuring Fred Willard. This Code Red DVD Double Feature also includes Teenage Graffiti.
10k Bullets loves CHC: "This is another hilarious audio commentary that ends up being more entertaining than either of the two films included with this double feature release."
Click here to read the entire review.
CHC received a glowing review from DVD Talk: "...you get the feeling that you're sitting down watching a movie with some friends as they periodically spout off amusing observations about the movie and those who made it."
Click here to read the entire review.
Jeff, David, and Kevin delve into the Euro skin flick Secrets of Sweet Sixteen on this Double Feature from Code Red DVD.
The CHC trio dissects the spectacular ridiculousness that is Don't Go in the Woods on this Code Red DVD Double Feature.
10k Bullets says good things about CHC: "Fans of tongue and cheek humor are sure to thoroughly enjoy this audio commentary."
Click here to read the entire review.
