B-Fest Blues...

Five films down. Nine films to go...

We all have our limits, and we can usually see the brick wall a-coming as we physically and mentally push ourselves closer and closer to this make or break threshold. And at that point, you usually have a few options. One, you can be smart and shut it down before you hurt yourself. Secondly, you can surge over or around it and leave it in your wake. Or, you could do what I do, and put your head down and plow right into it, and then bang away until you either break through it like the Kool-Aid man on Crack or bludgeon yourself unconscious.

Which brings us to the B-Fest overnight. Time means nothing inside that theater once the doors close, and as the seconds turn into minutes, minutes into days, and hours into weeks, some folks wisely shut it down for awhile; the crowd thins out, people start dropping like flies, bivouacking in the lobby, or sleeping where they sit or collapsing into the aisles. Others press on, fully aware that we ain't even half done tampering in God's domain yet. 

Foolish? Probably. Crazy? You bet. Worth it? Oh hell yeah.

Mystery Short: Rap

a/k/a Another Round with Grab-Fannie Annie

When the next short spooled up, I recognized it as one they showed last year about the gal trying to find her proper place in the world by basically running around and playing grab-fannie with everyone she meets, then winds down with some men's gay porn magazines. So, with my stomach still in full rebellion over the fetid jerky I ate earlier, I decided to skip it and abandoned the theater for a few minutes to clear the baffles -- if you know what I mean.

When I came back, the short was over and the emcee was on stage, warning us ahead of time that the next film's print probably wouldn't hold up, and to bear with them as we limped through it. No sweat, we all said. How bad could it be? But they needn't have worried, the print was the least of our worries. And as it played out just fine, with nary a break, we all got one big, stultifying dose of...

Invasion of the Star Creatures

a/k/a Wanna Know What a Sucking Chest Wound Feels Like?

Nope. Not one little film break. None. Nada. Just one big old can of suck better known as Invasion of the Star Creatures. 

Long and the short of it: Two snafu-prone army privates get lost while on a recon patrol and wind up in a cave. Said cave turns out to be the staging ground for an invasion by a planet of hostile Amazons. Seems their master plan is to turn all the men-folk into an army of carrot-monsters (or something), and the only thing standing in their way of world domination are those two aforementioned dopes. Sound intriguing? It isn't. Nor funny. Nor...Wait, did I mention this was a comedy? Well, I think it was supposed to be a comedy, but it turned out to be an anti-comedy; a rare species of film, indeed, where the anti-comedy is to comedy as what anti-matter is to matter. And we all know what happens when those disparate particles come into contact, right? E'yup; a really big boom, triggering a chain-reaction that could unravel the entire universe, and then all life as we know it would cease to exist. Luckily, for all of us, all the players involved were up to the task and not one iota of actual comedy appeared in the film, sparing us all from certain annihilation.

And on one other positive note, we also found out the threshold where odious comedy relief becomes malignant comedy relief. And for the record, it was during lap 36 of the Scooby-Dooesque cave chase.

Next!

Mystery Short: A Chairy Tale

a/k/a Sitting 101

Next came A Chairy Tale, a gift from our friends, the National Film Board of Canada, that was either a morality play on cooperation when a stubborn chair rebels, or some Ritalin-addled idiot who doesn't know how to sit properly. Unfortunately, a tired crowd gone surly after Star Creatures tended to buy most into the idiot theory, as demonstrated when the short ended and, I believe, Marissa took a chair on stage and proceeded to beat the living crap out of it.

The Hypnotic Eye

a/k/a I Cannot Look Away. I Cannot Look Away...

If it wasn't obvious by the tone of the recollection thus far, at this point, after Savage Sisters tanked and Star Creatures sucked my soul dry, I was on the verge of cracking up. B-Fest had stretched me over the forger's anvil and was ready to bring down the hammer of Street Trash and smite me most verily. But then the mercurial schedule shifted and The Hypnotic Eye came to my rescue:

Seems a rash of morbidly bizarre and disfiguring accidents have been plaguing a certain city; a few of them fatal. As an example, we see a gal lather up her hair to wash it, and then stick her head into the open flame of her gas range to rinse! All the victims are female, none of them can remember why or what they did, and the only link to be found by Detective Obtuse and Inspector Oblivious is they all went to see The Great Desmond, a famed hypnotist. Detective Obtuse's girlfriend does a Lois Lane and gets in over her head on the old snoop and scoop and succumbs to the power of THE HYPNOTIC EYE. Will they be able to save her before she takes a long walk off a very short backstage catwalk? Who am I to spoil it?

The Hypnotic Eye is a pretty good little, noirish pot-boiler that, unfortunately, is sorta derailed in the third-act by a fifteen-minute sidebar when Desmond works his magic powers on his audience -- and, hopefully, the theater audience, just as the plot was beginning to sizzle. And by the time he's done making us all cluck like chickens, the momentum had drizzled away and the film sorta belly-flops over the closing credits. Kudos to Chris from Stomp Tokyo for providing the balloon props for the follow the bouncing HYPNOTIC EYE-ball-along, although Brother Ragnarok, from the Brotherhood of Bad Movies, and I spent most of the film using ours as flatulence simulators.

Street Trash

a/k/a Beware the Hair of the Dog

However, the film kinda lost me when they inexplicably abandoned the exploding bums about halfway through. (I'm thinking the budget ran out.) And for the life of me, I can't remember how this film ends. I seem to recall a funny bit with the mob-boss/hit-man disintegrating while that dude from Frankenhooker cracks wise over the credits. Beyond that, I got nothing.

Tarantula

a/k/a John Agar Goes on a Date Part II

Thinking Krull was up next, I decided to give my knees and rear-end a slight reprieve and vacated the theater to stretch my legs for a bit. (No offense to Krull, it's just takes a full half-hour before it really gets going.) After a quick circuit of the lobby and then stretching out on one of the benches, I suddenly overheard the familiar bombastic chords of Herman Stein coming from the auditorium. The hell? Fearing I might have blacked out, or been abducted by aliens, and missed the entirety of Krull all together, I checked my watch. Nope, no lost time; turns out they just switched the schedule again. Ack.

Back to my theater seat I went, post-haste, to catch up on the native dating rituals of the Great American Desert Agar. Not much different than your average Coastal Agar, really, but if you pay close attention there are some subtle differences in the wooing process before the eventual lip-locking and slobber-knockering. Meanwhile, a Professor Deemer's vision of a future Thanksgiving Dinner with eight drum-sticks instead of the customary two goes awry when one of his irradiated experiments escapes and skitters off into the desert where it continues to grow, and grow, and then picks the country-side clean of livestock and stock country-bumpkins. But the Agar tears himself away from Mara Corday long enough to investigate several large pools of bone-riddled spider-poop, and then manages to piece it all together and calls in a napalm-packing Clint Eastwood before the whole world becomes giant spider-kibble.

I giggled as the film played out because it was the exact same ravaged print that they showed a few years back -- I know because the exact same noticeable chunks were still missing. Didn't matter. Great, great flick. And the B-Fest Prop of the Year award goes to Sean for engineering that Spider-XING sign. That, my friend, was nothing short of brilliant.

Krull

a/k/a It's Better out of Order. Trust me.

This time, I waited until the opening credits of Krull actually started up before I vacated the theater. Still feeling the ill-effects of my rancid snackage, I went in search of some fresh-air. Since it was after nine, the Norris Center was unlocked so I took advantage with a leisurely stroll outside and aired out for awhile. After which, refreshed and recharged, I returned to theater ready to close this thing out. 

To catch everyone up on what we missed, a mythical kingdom is plagued by some demon-thingie who sends his Stormtrooper knock-offs to kidnap the bride to be of our wooden hero, hoping for some nuptials of his own. To get her back, the hero must first go on a quest to retrieve some magical doohickey -- a high-tech throwing star, basically -- that's the only thing that can put a dent in the bad guy. Along the way, he collects an entourage of high-rent British character actors who probably don't list this film on their résumé any more. Together, they have to go on several more mini-quests as they battle a swamp witch, a giant-spider, and then have to round up a bunch of "Fire Mares" to even reach the bad guy's castle for the climactic showdown -- where we realize that almost everybody we've met who we liked has died most horribly, while those who were annoying as all hell get to move on and live happily ever after.

Man, there's a lot of questing in this movie. And when I say questing, I mean moving -- no, make that trudging from point A to get to point B to get to point C -- and none of those stops are all that interesting, but we get to watch their progress. Every. Step. Of. The. Way. In all fairness, I think Krull's heart is in the right place; the set-pieces are nifty, the effects are more than passable, but it's ultimately sunk by it's plodding pace. Although that pace did get a significant boost during our screening when three of the last four reels were shown out of order. First we jumped ahead, skipping the whole spider-cave sequence, and wound up smack dab in the middle of the Fire Mare charge -- this was about the time I came back in. And then we almost reached the ultimate climactic point of the film, when the cosmic doohickey was buzz-sawing through the monster's defenses, only to jump back for the reel we missed to find out how they got there. And you could almost feel the audiences' apprehension ooze and crackle as that missed reel played out, fearing we'd have to re-watch a reel of questing again. To all of our relief, the film ducked into another wormhole, and when the next reel popped up, zapping us back to the climax, the audience absolutely roared their approval.

The Lunch Break

Invasion U.S.A.

a/k/a Chuck Amuck

Did you know Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer? Too bad he's never cried. And it's a good thing Chuck's a good guy, because if he broke the law, the law would never heal. Yeah, Chuck's on our side, and a good thing, too, 'cuz a bunch of a-hole terrorists have infiltrated the United States and are bound and determined to ruin Christmas by using RPG's and C-4 plastique as stocking stuffers. Of course, Chuck returns these gifts with much prejudice -- lethal prejudice. Then, armed only with a couple of uzis and his chest hair, he declares a one man war on the Richard Lynch led bad guys. Man, those terrorists don't stand a @#%*ing chance.

Final score: Chuck: 873. The Terrorists: 0.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Ah, another gonzoid entry of mucho macho mayhem and carnage from producers Golan and Globus -- in whose cinematic universe dwells the likes of Paul Kersey, Joe Armstrong, and James Braddock doing their best to clean up the gene pool -- and this one ends with a Mexican stand-off between two men armed with bazookas. Are you kidding!? What's not to love? And the Best Joke of B-Fest Award goes to Tim, whose return to the festivities after a little sick-leave was like getting a giant B-12 shot, who led us all in a rousing chorus of "Silent Night. HooOhly Sh*t!" when the terrorists took out a bunch of Christmas bedecked houses on Norman Rockwell Lane. Well played, my friend.

Seriously, they just don't make them like this anymore. And whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is a decision we all must make on our own. But choose wisely. Remember, Chuck is watching. Always...

At last, we come to the film I helped sponsor through the fledgling Black Hole of Des Moines Appreciation Society. E'yup, this one's all our fault. Sorry, everybody. Still, I did feel a quick, dry-fart of pride when our transparency made its quick flash on screen. And then the film started...

Okay, at this point, thoroughly saturated with caffeine, sugar, and a terminal lack of sleep, I wasn't really in the right frame of mind for this tale of an all girl gang, called the Tarantulas, who turn on one of their own. Thinking member Bonnie has killed her second in command, the head arachnid, Helen, plots with the others for a little biblical payback. And it was at this point, thanks to my unstable condition, while we're given brief glimpses into the home-life of these street urchins, I'm reduced to a blithering idiot when shown a mewling three-year-old, abandoned, half-naked, and starving in filthy flop-house. Brain-buzzing, dazed, confused, mumbling "Give the kid a cracker, dammit," I never recovered after that. Neither did the film -- even the startling appearance and shrill antics of odd-duck Estelle could snap me out of my funk. Crass, bleak, dark -- as in I can't see anything, what the heck is going on? -- and a major bummer, Roger Corman and Charles Griffith lather the morality molasses on a pretty thick as the girls chase Bonnie around town, and then top it off with a group-hug ending that was shooting for profound but missed the mark by, oh, seven or eight miles.

Well, the film had a pretty steep hill to climb with this crowd, anyway, when it opened with the following disclaimer:

A warning to vandals and hoodlums! This theatre is reserved for people who came to watch and enjoy the show. If you engage in any destructive acts or noisy conduct, we don't want you here! You'll not only be asked to leave, if your actions justify it, you will be prosecuted. Remember this warning and guide yourselves accordingly.

The Management.

Bleaugh! And I don't think I was alone in my opinion. Why? Well, as several audience members came to give us a group, forgiving hug for the film, we also received several knees to the groin.

Mystery Short: Rendezvous

a/k/a Monster Ballads Rawk

"Doobie-doobie doo. HmmmMmmMM. Strangers in the night..."

...Aaaahhhhhh!

As the latest manned space probe tours the rings of Saturn, a radiation burst from the sun refracts of those rings, killing the entire crew -- save one; but he ain't doing so hot. Somehow, they manage to get the survivor back to Earth in, more or less, one piece (and I assume record time -- unless we've already invented warp-drive). The problem is, he's, very messily, melting away, and apparently the only thing that will slow this process down is terrorizing girthy nurses and amorous old couples, then killing and eating them. Hot on the Melting Man's trail is a smarmy General Perry and an even smarmier Dr. Ted Nelson, who do their best to cover-up their clandestine space-man shenanigans. Tracking the trail of gooey body parts to some factory, the Melting Man attacks and takes out Perry, and the cops are not all that impressed with Nelson's credentials; and despite his vehement protests that I'm Dr Ted Nelson!, said cop shoots him in the head -- much to the audience's delight! Hooray! Shoot him again!

As for our monster? Well, his metamorphosis complete, what's left of him is scooped up into a bucket by a janitor and deposited in a waste disposal unit. Fine. A trash can; rendering about 9/10ths of the plot null and void. 

I believe it was a wise old B-movie philosopher who warned us that Strolling Monsters was a genre best avoided. Sage advice, unless you're stuck in the room with one. At least none of us were alone. Plenty to heckle here -- oh, lord, the avocado earth-tones, and the slow-motion charge of the screaming nurse WHEN NOTHING'S CHASING HER!, and a few technical difficulties when the audio went wonky helps us limp through it. And yes, I can't stress this enough, the entire film was justified not by the gelatinous F/X work of Rick Baker, but by the actions of that heroic police officer who took out "I'm Dr. Ted Nelson." That guy deserves the medal of valor.

King Kong vs. Godzilla

a/k/a Whatever You do, do NOT go to Hokkaido

Still, thanks to the new format we got to see King Kong vs. Godzilla. (And I soooo want that model pictured above.) While searching for a steady supply of some kind of narcotic berries, an expedition stumbles upon a really big piece of fauna on the coveted flora's native island -- King Kong! After making a grand entrance, Kong beats the snot out of a giant octopus and then celebrates the victory by getting snockered on berry juice, and then promptly passes out. While he snoozes, a plan is hatched to raft him over to Tokyo as the brand new mascot for the company marketing the new medicinal berry juice. Meanwhile, Godzilla manages to defrost himself outta the iceberg he was trapped in, takes out a UN sub, and makes a B-line for Japan. The Japanese defense force goes into action, and after Operation Dig a Big Hole fails to stop the beast, they prepare to initiate Operation Drop Big Rock (I'm just logically assuming here), but everything's put on hold when Kong escapes the raft and swims ashore near Hokkaido, directly in the path of the rampaging Godzilla.

The first round goes to Godzilla and his atomic halitosis, which drives off Kong long enough to find himself a Fay Wray -- until he's recaptured and air-lifted to Mt. Fuji for the rematch. The rumble renewed, the playing field is evened out when Kong is charged by lightning, and when amplified by his shag-carpet pelt, the resulting static-shocks nullifies Godzilla's advantage. The smack-down continues until both monsters, asses over elbows, plunge into the ocean. Only Kong surfaces to swim away.

Man, there's nothing like watching two guys in rubber suits beating the holy hell out of each other. Keep you damn CGI, I'll take the rubber-suited mayhem any day of the week. That was awesome!

The next morning as we packed up an prepared to depart, the TV settles on one of the Superstations showing Total Recall -- just in time to see Arnold the Barbarian grunt and pull that brain-ball out of his nose. Watching Arnie be Arnie in this turd-burger, somehow, triggers all three of us to spontaneously imitate and regurgitate anything said or seen in Schwarzennegerese the whole way home. As for B-Fest 2008?

"Ah'll be back."