This was watched because it looked like a cheesy mix between a vampire movie & Cocoon and because John Saxon always adds a touch of class to a movie. The trailer was that kind of uninspiring middle-of-the-road schleppy that can sometimes be the snuggly sci-fi horror blanket you need.
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There is a truth, often spoken uncontested, that Rawhead Rex is an utterly shitty film. Much like James Corden, it has become a byword for badly made, uninspired, and derivative trash. Thus, as a fan of all flavours of cinema (including the super-sour), I never bothered to track it down and only watched it because it was free, I had nothing specific to watch, and the algorithm spotlighted it for me. I was expecting a mild hate watch, and instead, I was just angry at all those who had pointlessly berated this perfectly acceptable film for internet points.
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Also known as ESC, Darwin, and Confinement, which are a fine collection of highly evocative titles, the trailer I saw for this appeared to be an attempt to cash in on Covid-19 fears, even though it was made a solid 6 years before The Pandemic kicked off. Which is a shame, as it’s far better than the kooky conspirasphere fable it was trying to pass itself off as. Then again, it’s a film that’s in a curious little world of its own so it’s not too surprising that they tried everything they could to market it.
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As is the tradition, the final movie of 2022 put through the Trash or Treasure group watching was the Christmas-themed low-budget shonk-fest with the craziest premise that could be found. This time we were promised monster elves, Nazis, and some chap called Dan Haggerty. There was also the prospect of impressive hairdos, because it’s from the late 80s and that Ozone Layer wasn’t going to massacre itself.
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Apparently, the title of this film was chosen as people kept on mistaking the original 1997 film by writer/director Michael Cooney for the 1998 Michael Keaton film also called Jack Frost. That was a touching romantic comedy, the one we’re interested in is a nonsense story about a killer snowman. Then again, both of the snowmen on the covers look sinister and I haven’t seen either of them so maybe they are as interchangeable as Hallmark movies. Continue reading
The high-concept pitch for this is “Santa rescues a rich family from the clutches of armed criminals from the cut-and-weld version of Die Hard & Die Hard 2”. And if the recipient’s instant reaction wasn’t “KA-CHING£$!” they need to be fired. David Harbour is Santa McClane, and that covers half the bill by itself.
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Once again the nights are drawing in, the country is a death trap because it snowed for one day of snow, and Trash or Treasure is doing its annual Christmas Onslaught of seasonally themed exploitation movies. The first present out of the chimney is a 2005 “what if Santa was a psycho?” comedic effort from director and writer David Steiman, which stars Goldberg from back when he had just quit the WWE. It’s also got a sleigh drawn by a pissed-off buffalo, which has the cutest little nose.
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Renowned curmudgeon and author HP Lovecraft is dead and, unlike many other popular franchise creators in a similar situation, his works are in the public domain. It’s a mythos that you can have great fun with so writer/director Ansel Faraj decided to make a genre-bending movie based that asks two important questions: “what if Lovecraft wrote about things that are real” and “what is a father was coming to terms with his son being…. an artist!”
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It’s another micro-budget genre movie, this time rocking it at a tight $15,000 AUD (I’m not converting that into GBP, because by the time I’ve finished this review the figure will be horribly wrong) gathered by crowdfunding. It stars a gaggle of reasonably talented people, including writer Rita Artmann and writer/director Joe Bauer, and it has a bloody silly title as google keeps going “Did you mean Australians?”. It’s also funnier than Bouncer being drop-kicked by Skippy, and about as polite.
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When the credits start and you see the same name, in this case, Harry Bromley-Davenport, for the producer, director, writer, and composer roles it is traditional in psychotronic circles to brace yourself for impact. In the case of this sci-fi horror fever dream, it won’t do you any good, as its wanton disregard for explaining itself to the likes of its audience means you are just not going to be ready for this face-thumper.
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Trash or Treasure 