Tag: terrible movies

Really Awful Movies: Ep 334 – Bats

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The title says it all: Bats.

In this animal attack flick from the late 1990s, La Bamba Lou Diamond Phillips stars as a small town Arizona sheriff called in to investigate a strange homicide. The coroner is befuddled during the post-mortem.

A chiropterologist is on the case too, as the deaths are linked to the flying furry mammals.

Soon, we find out there’s some sinister scientist up to no good that’s caused this mess to happen. Surprised? No? After all, this is a pretty popular cliché of the genre.

Still, there are some decent enough performances in this. And it’s smarter than it appears, even if it’s not the greatest in terms of execution.

Tune in!

 

Really Awful Movies: Ep 332 – Angel Town

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Ah, the City of Angels…La-La Land…Whatever you wanna call it, Los Angeles conjures up a lot of images in people’s minds, whether it’s Charles Bukowski, Hollywood movie stars, hair metal, smog, plastic surgery, the nascent gangsta rap scene of the 90s, urban sprawl/decay…and of course…Latino stereotypes! Angel Town is all about the latter two, and stars Olivier Gruner, real-life French kickboxer extraordinaire as Jacques, a would-be engineering grad student who finds himself experiencing the ultimate culture shock when he arrives to hit the books (and finds out he’s hitting more than that!)

Lacking local campus student accommodation, Jacques has to go further afield, and on two feet to boot in a city not exactly known for its highly developed wonderful public transit. He eventually rents a room in the middle of the barrio/hood, and soon finds himself battling Chicano gangsters threatening his landlord and her family with uzis, firecrackers, knives, fists, you name it.

Scary stuff!

Luckily, Jacques is not your ordinary number crunching booksmart grad school nerd. He can spin kick with the best of them. Soon, he’s mopping the floor with a bunch of t-shirt wearing “ese” and “homes”-dropping ethnic stereotypes. And this Frenchman is not to be trifled with. The French haven’t kicked this much arse since Napoleon Bonaparte.

Today on the podcast, a look at Angel Town, it’s debits and the film’s considerable charms. At least to us.

You gotta love Gruner, eh?

Given that this is an action film, there’s a crappy dojo, a tearjerker subplot, but of course at its heart, people getting punched and kicked in the face. What more could you ask for?

Really Awful Movies: Ep 331 – Night Killer

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Mystifying, beguiling. These are just a few terms which could accurately use to describe the bonkers 1990s Italian horror, Night Killer.

Directed by two giants of Italian crap cinema, Claudio Fragasso (Troll 2) and Bruno Mattei (Rats/Hell of the Living Dead/Shocking Dark) Night Killer features an antagonist who is a bit of a cross between the Toxic Avenger, Klaus Kinski’s Nosferatu and Freddy Kruger, with none of the charm or scariness of any of them. Quite a feat.

The killer in question, who it should be pointed out, doesn’t kill at night, hunts down a bunch of dance students in a pathetic third-rate theatre. He also murders a woman in an aquarium for the sole purpose of her being there, and this being filmed in Virginia Beach. She seems to have been a complete afterthought. Much like the script. Or the plot. Or the mise en scene.

Night Killer is really really bizarre stuff. But of course, it’s right up our alley as hosts of the Really Awful Movies Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, and pick up our books to support the show.