Really Awful Movies: Ep 299 – Poltergeist

We’re BAAAAAA-CK. We had a brief book-related hiatus and are back to our regularly scheduled programming. So, here goes. Poltergeist. 

The Tobe Hooper-directed (with lots of help from Steven Spielberg) effort from the early 80s is one many of us hold in very high regard, despite it being from a horror sub-genre that’s personally not our cup of tea.

It’s undoubtedly memorable, especially young Heather O’Rourke as the iconic kid who is sucked into a television, a portal to some nether-region. With Craig T Nelson as the uber-dad, this is a solid ensemble effort, acting wise, and the twin directorial team (har har) pull out some pretty choice practical effects and imbue this with a lot of heart and story.

Apologies in advance for some technical difficulties on this discussion of the Really Awful Movies Podcast. Thanks to the global pandemic, we have not been able to get together and don’t have our fantastic equipment at our disposal (big shout-out to Yeti mics). The quasi-new show is a work in progress as we try various means to record ourselves without sounding too too lousy.

Join us for new episodes of the show, to which we will return with full gusto now that Mine’s Bigger Than Yours! The 100 Wackiest Action Movies is in the can.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 298 – Mortuary

On this episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast: Mortuary! This is an underseen 1983 quasi-slasher starring a young Bill Paxton.

There’s a mortuary (duh) and two young guys start poking around. One of them goes missing. The other? He goes to the roller rink to ask where he might’ve gone. Ah yes, seeking answers from the oracle that is the disco roller rink

His girlfriend’s father was murdered. And she suspects that his demise has something to do with the local mortuary.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

There’s a figure clad in black, skulking around with a trocar, the cannula device used to extract bodily fluid. Jeez, I wonder who the perp could be? Could they be in some way connected to…a mortuary?

An all-over-the-map misfire, there are still fun elements to this one.

Join us!

Really Awful Movies: Ep 297 – Friend Request

Marina is a social outcast at a made-up California university. She sits in the back of her psych class and pulls her hair out, and wears a hoodie and is gothed up – so you know she’s messed up.

She’s at the heart of Friend Request, this being just an expression as this is a movie with no heart, or soul, or passion for that matter. What we describe as “aggressively mediocre.”

Marina soon starts stalking a popular girl on social media, through a Facebook-like platform (it’s like Facebook and not actual Facebook, as Mark Zuckerberg did not take too kindly to this movie using his copyright).

Tied into all this is some witchcraft backstory, some unspectacular deaths, some cyber-bullying. It all amounts to a big, fat zero.

Join us for some chat about social media horror movies! And subscribe to the Really Awful Movies Podcast.