Month: April 2017

Really Awful Movies: Ep 176 – Nightmare

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Nightmare is also known in some circles as Nightmares in a Damaged Brain.

It’s a 1981 horror film, made during the height of the slasher boom, and seems to have been forgotten amidst all the titles that were being churned out during the period.

Directed by Romano Scavolini, the lurid low-budget affair gained instead street cred when it was added to the Video Nasty list in the UK, and its distributor jailed for failing to remove some of its violent content. Still, when compared with others of its ilk, Nightmare is fairly tame.

The film also courted controversy by adding special effects man Tom Savini to its promotional materials, despite it being a movie Savini denies having worked on.

In the film, George Tatum (Baird Stafford) is given an experimental drug treatment by psychiatrists. Then, on the lam, he sojourns back down to his home in Florida.

Along the way, he has recurring nightmares (hence the name) of a violent incident from his childhood, which forces him to spree kill.

On this episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, Jeff and Chris discuss:

  • how we came to watching this film
  • the peep show circuit in major cities (a phenomenon that’s since disappeared)
  • the involvement of Tom Savini in Nightmares
  • mommy issues in horror films
  • daddy issues in horror films
  • depictions of New York City in horror, and other types of films.

Join us, as we delve into (say it with us) NIGHTMARE. There’s even a Bette Midler reference!

Every week, we upload new episodes of the Really Awful Movies Podcast. Send us an email if you like what you’re listening to.

 

 

Really Awful Movies: Ep 175 – Fun in Acapulco

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Elvis Presley. The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Here he is, or was, at near the peak of his powers (or just about to level off) in one of the many, many terrible movies he appeared in, FUN IN ACAPULCO.

The massive pop culture icon plays Mike, a former member of a flying trapeze circus act, who finds himself lost in…Acapulco, and needing to find work to make ends meet.

Jeez, that old yarn.

He gets connected with a little kid, who becomes his manager, landing him singing gigs at all the best hotels/clubs in the Mexican town, usually accompanied by horrible mariachi singers. Along the way, there are a couple of love interests (one of whom is played by Bond babe, Ursella Andress) and of course, a fierce (well, not really) rivalry between gringo Mike and a competitive cliff diver (again…once you’ve seen one mano a mano tilt between a lounge singer and a competitive cliff diver, you’ve pretty much seen ’em all).

On this episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, Jeff and Chris break down the phenomenon of Elvis Aaron Presley with a discussion about:

  • Graceland
  • The period when Elvis left to join the army
  • How we came to become familiar with The King
  • The movies Elvis made
  • Colonel Tom Parker
  • Graceland
  • The “27 Club.”
  • Whether Fun in Acapulco has any good songs
  • Fat Elvis, the Vegas years

And much, much more.

So thank you for listening…and…thank you…thank you very much.

 

Really Awful Movies: Ep 174 – The Sentinel

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The Sentinel is a 1977 American horror film based on the 1974 novel of the same name (which we haven’t read). The source material is courtesy of author Jeffrey Konvitz (who assisted penning the screenplay). His co-writer was the film’s director Michael Winner. Winner wowed us with, if you’ll excuse us, a real “winner” in the Death Wish Series. That one is pretty darn awesome.

And here, we’re back in New York City (although in Death Wish, as filming there became cost-prohibitive later in the series, it started to look less and less like anything resembling The Big Apple). The Sentinel is about a young NYC model who’s on the market for a pad (And this was before the days when you’d have to fork over $2500 / month for a studio the size of a sedan).

She finds a place to rent! It’s Brooklyn Heights shambolic mansion that has been converted into different apartments, each populated by a bunch of weirdos, including a fay Burgess Meredith traipsing around with a budgie.

The guy residing on the top floor though, is an excommunicated priest…and the building is…wait for it…A PORTAL TO HELL!  People, always check the rental agreements…Between that an a landlord asking for an illegal security deposit, it’s a tough grind out there for a tenant! Please see, Roman Polanski’s…uh…The Tenant.

The Sentinel stars a bunch of pretty notable folks: Cristina Raines, Chris Sarandon, Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith, Sylvia Miles, and Eli Wallach. The film also features Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, John Carradine, Jerry Orbach, Martin Balsam, Tom Berenger, and Beverly D’Angelo.

On this episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, we always love it when we can discuss a good, tense, terse, solidly put together supernatural horror film. It’s definitely our least favorite genre, but when it’s done well (as is the case here) boy are the goods delivered.

The Sentinel holds up terrifically well. It’s worth checking out, as is our podcast, uploading EVERY FRIDAY for your listening pleasure.