Kicking off this new feature I was torn over how to handle it. I want it to be more than just a review of a movie. And also, it’s really hard to look at each letter of the alphabet and choose just one movie to represent. So there will be a few.
Starting with April Fool’s Day. A little background first. I was 15 when this movie came out. And this cover absolutely grabbed me. The hair braided into a noose. Fantastic. Then I watched the movie and it tickled all the appropriate areas of my brain (and the inappropriate ones as well!) Also, I am wholly disappointed that my DVD copy is the split case with My Bloody Valentine, and therefore a different cover art.
We start with a rather large cast, like 10 people attending a private island party for rich girl Muffy. As they approach the dock, a little prank on the trip over results in a couple guys in the water. One of them is a deckhand and needs to rope the ferry to the dock. Trying to do so from the water puts him in a dangerous position and he gets smashed between the boat and dock, resulting in a traumatic head injury. He is immediately put on a speed boat and taken back to the mainland.
And so the stage is set for a weekend of unexpected incidents. Starting with joking and general college hijinks, but taking a twist when people start dying.
I was thrilled to have an excuse to rewatch this movie in order to kick off this feature. And I would be remiss to not mention the closing credit song. This song is better than a marvel stinger, so stick around for it!
Back when I was doing Horror-Web, this movie was something I got for a review. It is the debut movie from Steven C. Miller, who has gone on to much bigger and better things. I also rewatched this. And I hate to say it, but it doesn’t hold up very well. And Bloody Disgusting is overly generous in their quote.
There is a lot of shakey-cam footage in this. The sort of thing that can be over used. And absolutely was. This is essentially a high school zombie flick. But really inconsistent. At times the zombies have super strength and can rip someone’s head off. Then another scene has one wrestled to the ground and pushed onto a shard of glass to kill him. At times they run like cocaine fueled idiots, and sometimes they just kick back and wait patiently for someone to enter their “kill zone.” And in one scene three teens enter the gym to find bodies strewn everywhere. Once they get halfway across, the zombies all sit up and become aggressive. It was like each scene was a zombie skit independent of being part of a movie.
The one thing I recall and have always had in the back of my head is that this movie ends on a cliffhanger. More than that though, the cliffhanger fades to black with “To be continued” popping on the screen.
And I’ve patiently waited 20 years for the second movie. But I have a feeling it will never surface.
And wrapping up my A portion of this month long event is Audition. I plan to have a subtitled movie for each letter as well. And this is an amazing film.
It actually starts off with a pure drama storyline, as the main character is a widower whose son encourages him to go out and date. A friend suggests they do a fake tv show audition to find a good woman for him.
And this setup actually gets us halfway through the movie! I have often said that I would love to see the dramatic conclusion to the story. Don’t get me wrong, the horror story is amazing and if you haven’t seen it, you should.
While I realize this is still a bit of a review, I didn’t give ratings on anything. So let’s fix that.
April Fool’s Day for me gets a 10 star rating. I would watch this anytime, and if I found one, I would buy the movie poster in a heartbeat.
Automaton Transfusion gets a 3 star rating for the movie, but a 5 star rating for the cliffhanger. And then -1 star for every year I’ve been waiting for part two! That puts it around -15.
Audition also gets a 10 star rating. Higher maybe, because if there is a second movie in there… I give the setup a 10, and then the horror ending a 10, and the unmade drama ending I can only give a 7 to because I have an idea of what may happen, but without it existing it’s hard to really quantify it with a rating. But 27 seems pretty damn good for a scale of 10 (although with the previous one getting -15 on a scale of 1-10, it seems my ratings have been day drinking today.)
Cthulhuville 