Really Awful Movies: Ep 240 – Johnny Gruesome

On this episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, Johnny Gruesome. This is the latest offering by Greg Lamberson, who brought us what is essential viewing if you’re into urban scum/exploitation horror flicks, Slime City. It’s a site favorite here, along with Street Trash.

In this one, Johnny Grisholm is a long-haired drug-fueled hell-raiser. He’s perpetually wasted, and is the product of a broken home, and alcoholic dad. One night, with friends in tow, he’s lead-footing it down the highway in his roadster. He’s driving so erratically, they begin to fear for their lives. His buddy Charlie puts him in a choke-hold, the vehicle swerves into a guardrail, and Charlies finishes the job – asphyxiating his pal.

The remaining friends protest, but concede that Johnny likely would’ve killed them all had there not been such a violent interceding.

Then, as the IMDb summary aptly has it: “he returns from the grave as a revenge crazed supernatural creature.”

In Pledge Night, the antagonist is a victim of a college hazing ritual, and returns to exact revenge. Here, in a similar fashion, Johnny emerges from the grave a posthumous one-teen wrecking crew.

Johnny Gruesome has keen attention to the high school environs, and accurately depicts headbanger/dirtbag culture. Hell, one half expects Ben Affleck to saunter in from Dazed and Confused to kick Johnny’s skinny behind.

Tune in to this episode (and every episode) of the Really Awful Movies Podcast. We love genre film, particularly horror, and getting down to the nitty gritty of what makes these films so darn fun.

 

 

Really Awful Movies: Ep 239 – House

House. Here we go. We’re back to the 80s on this episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast. It’s House, which stars three stalwarts of the TV world:William Katt, George Wendt, and Richard Moll (The Greatest American Hero, Cheers and Night Court).

Katt portrays a novelist, Roger Cobb, who needs a place of quiet contemplation to get some writing done. You’ve heard that one before, right? He takes over the domicile of his late aunt, whose suicide he’d witnessed as a young lad.

Soon, “his friends” start to join him (as the poster says).

One night while investigating a noise coming from his late aunt’s bedroom, the author is attacked by a deformed, hideous monster that’s been lurking inside the closet. Soon, more attacks occur: Cobb is attacked by levitating garden tools, and he begins to see visions of his ex wife and missing son.

Eventually Cobb discovers an entry into a sinister PORTAL TO HELL.

His jovial neighbor (and devoted fan), Harold (Wendt) offers a kind ear as he’s melting down.

House is best known for its poster, and yet it inexplicably spawned numerous sequels. Why? It’s because that was the thing to do. Especially if Sean S. Cunningham was involved.

House was directed by Halloween H20 director Steve Miner (interested folks can check out our discussion of that film). Is he up to the task?

What is the meaning of a homestead?

Where does this one fit in the haunted house realm?

Join us!

 

 

Really Awful Movies: Ep 238 – D.O.A.

What would you do if you had 24 hours to live? If you were in the 1950 film noir, D.O.A., you’d get down to the business of solving your own murder.

What?

Yes, that’s the incredible can’t-miss premise: an every-man accountant stumbles into an LA police precinct to report he’s been poisoned. And there’s no antidote. That man is Bigelow. And he has roughly 24 hours to retrace his steps, and try to figure out what happened to him – a road that leads from San Fran, and then on to Los Angeles.

And like many a calamity, this one began in a bar. We all know how that happens. Bigelow has his drink swapped for another, containing a toxin.

And the one clue Bigelow has when he wakes up in a stupor, is that a distant business acquaintance had been trying to get in touch with him, desperately. Who was this guy? Bigelow needs to find out, but unfortunately, the guy dies before Bigelow can press him for details…

On the Really Awful Movies Podcast, we celebrate genre film, predominantly horror and action. However, up into this point we’ve delved into women-in-prison (WiP) flicks several times, yet not once covered that classic mid-40s-mid-50s genre, film noir.

We both came to this film through the remake starring Dennis Quaid.

On this episode:

  • How we got into film noir
  • The city of San Francisco in film
  • Notable film noir classics
  • Fatalism / doom in film noir
  • Film noir sensibilities

Join us every week for a new discussion!

[Editors’ note: we mistake Don McKellar for Atom Egoyan. Please forgive us, we got  our Canadian directors mixed up]