Hospital Massacre (1982)

Hospital Massacre or as it was called in the version I saw X-Ray is a 1982 (some would say '81) slasher film that has a holiday theme.  This time the holiday is Valentine's Day which is perfect for this time of year.  Even if it may or may not be the perfect film for the job.  Starring is Barbi Benton (Deathstalker and Playboy fame) as Susan Jeremy a divorced mother who is starting a new job but before she can start she must pass a physical and apparently there is an issue with the results of her checkup.  While there she meets an intern named Harry (Charles Lucia who also starred in Society and Tank Girl) who seems to think someone has tampered with her results just to get her to stay in the hospital.  The same hospital where someone just happens to be going around killing patients, doctors, and nurses alike.  The first person she suspects is her ex-husband Tom.  But is it him?  The rest of the cast is mostly unknowns but there are a couple I wanted to mention simply because of the part they play here.     

 

 

 Barbi's doctor is played by John Warner Williams that's him up there watching her undress before her exam.  Not only is he creepy that way but he's even creepy as he slowly examines her.  Way too slow and way too handsy plus if a doctor ever makes that much eye contact with me as he's examining me we're gonna have a problem.  For fuck sake the way he takes her blood sample even feels a little like assault.  Then we have a hospital room where all the people in it are in some sort of traction and seem to be writhing in agony.  This feels like something out of a David Lynch film.  Somehow there's a hospital drunk walking around as well.  Not sure how the hell that happens but this is back in the time where you could smoke in a hospital!  Even if your a patient in the hospital!  There's one other room I need to talk about and that is the one that Barbi is put in when they decide to keep her for observation.  This room has three old ladies also in it with her, but one is played by a man.  

Don't ask me, I'm not the director, speaking of which, that honor belongs to Boaz Davidson who also directed The Last American Virgin and Going Bananas.  Who is the killer and why does it seem like Barbi is the main target of the killer and has been so from the beginning is something Barbi will have to find out or die trying.  Now, we do have a "Tait" alert (for more on that see my review of Corona Zombies here: http://themanholecover.blogspot.com/2023/01/corona-zombies-2020.html ) I mean with Barbi and her breasts how could there not be?  The Taitometer goes off at around 33 minutes.  Of course it's during the physical exam so it's super awkward.  An interesting fact about this one is that it was filmed in an actual abandoned hospital.  More bloody then it is gory for a slasher, it's just a really odd movie and while I was entertained (some of the time), I was nearly equally bored.  Which is never a good thing.  Again, another film that would really fit into the two and three quarter range but we don't do quarters here so I'll round up.  Three Jack in the boxes (you'd get that joke if you saw the film) out of five.  But it's a weak, confusing, and bizarre three.  

 

 

 

 

 

   
 

 

Corona Zombies 2020

 

 

Goddamn it Charles Band, you have stoked the fires of our love hate relationship once again and to make matters worse you did it in the middle of a global pandemic while poking fun at the very same pandemic. And I didn't hate it.

Corona Zombies is mostly a pieced together Frankenstein version of a horror comedy but at least he MSTK's all the dialog from Hell of the Living Dead. The parts taken from Zombies vs. Strippers was used as is. The rest of the film is a few short new scenes made for the film and actual news footage mostly taken from news conferences from the beginning of the pandemic from March/April of 2020. Which gives us a clip of Trump reassuring the country that we will all "probably be all right" even if we were to get the virus.

 

 

 

There are so many jokes and one liners dubbed over the original Hell of the Living Dead, several of which pay homage to previous zombie films. Some of the jokes are hits but some miss. We find out some of the "footage" of the zombies attacking strippers is to from the Tits and Giggles strip club in good old downtown Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Now as someone who literally lives in the next town over from Cherry Hill I have to say this is a misstep as there isn't nor has there ever been anything closely resembling a strip club in Cherry Hill. That's what Pennsauken is for! Anybody from southern New Jersey knows that! But I'll give him a pass for that and chalk it up to another jab at Joisey!

Yet another jab comes from the Scrambles Soup Company, where the virus originates, after they roll out their new variety of soup: Bat. Scrambles of course is a reference to Campbell's Soup company which has it's headquarters in Camden, NJ which is another of the towns bordering my own.  Cripes, according to Charles Band, I live right in the middle of ground zero for this version of the pandemic. 

 

Now, I want to add something new here for the 2023 year and that will be the addition of the Taitometer. What the hell is that, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. My Horror Homie Cerpts (here on blogger: http://landofcerptsandhoney.blogspot.com/ ), the Horror Honey, and I get together and watch movies (mostly horror) and we always make a point of checking to see how long it takes for the first flash of a bare breast to grace the screen. 'Cause you know, what good is a cheesy, low budget horror film if it can't feature a few sweater puppies being freed in their natural habitat (or is that habi-tait)? It's called the Taitometer because us being Jersey boys we see a woman topless and the first thing we yell is "Hey look at the taits on that!" in the best stereotypical Garden State accent we can muster. So for Corona Zombies we have the inaugural Tait-O-Meter (maybe that's a better way to feature it, hey it's still a work in progress and I also apologize for all of this chauvinistic behavior which, yes, we know it's chauvinistic behavior, do we care? not one bit we are poking fun, not parting of) score and that is 12:30. Yes, at approximately 12 minutes and thirty seconds into the film we get our first flash. A modest showing for a horror film even more modest for a Charles Band horror film. I've seen some that scores mere seconds into the film.
 

Scoring the film is a little bit of a mine field this time for me as it's mostly a clip show of recycled material which I usually hate. I especially hate it when cartoons do it, but at least here, this is a little different in that all the lines (at least from Hell of the Living Dead) are re-dubbed with different dialogue to repurpose the original scenes. Think What’s Up, Tiger Lily? and you're on the right track. The news scenes are ironic, the new scenes are mostly meh, and the stuff used from Zombies vs. Strippers is OK, I've never seen it so I'm not sure how impactful those scenes were if the situation was different. I liked Hell of the Living Dead so it has that going for it, a couple of the new lines made me laugh out loud, the new scenes had a few good moment (who showers with a bra on though, that was a bit odd), and the first half of the film is way better than the second half but the film clocks in at around an hour so twenty five minutes isn't too painful to sit through at least once. When I do all the math (and there's more than you might think I'll tell you) I come up with something in the neighborhood of three Wuhan ("I love that group!" ~ Barbie) viruses out of five. Be forewarned that with this one the term "Your Mileage May Vary" carries substantial weight.
 

 

Violent Night (2022)

 (Santa contemplates retirement as he takes a break in a London pub on Christmas Eve)

 

Very rarely do I know little to nothing about a film before I watch it. When it came to seeing Violent Night I knew very little. This is what I knew: the guy playing Santa was from Hellboy and Stranger Things, of which I've only seen Hellboy. The only other thing I knew was I had seen one other film Wirkola had directed, that being Dead Snow, which was OK at best. 

Now, what I thought this film was and what it actually ended up being were two drastically different things. I've seen Silent Night Deadly Night, parts one and two, Christmas Evil, Silent Night, and others, so I've seen my share of Santa goes crazy and kills a bunch of people films which I thought this was. Well, Santa does go a little crazy and he does end up killing a bunch of people but the people he kills are the bad guys. So I was pleasantly surprised with that aspect.

 

(Three of the annoying family members that I could have done without)

 

Usually in a Christmas horror film I don't expect to get very much story if any at all. This one has some. It also does something I never saw coming and that is it attempts to explain some of Santa's magical abilities although admittedly by Santa himself, he's not really sure how it all works and while some might find that to be a cop out I find it a little charming. I enjoyed how the film gives Santa a bit of back story and something like an origin tale (not much of one but wait, there's more in the sequel, I hope) that adds a bit to the story as well as some Santa lore. The Cult of Santa is very much alive in this one. All you have to do is believe.

Harbour is great as a disenfranchised Santa who is ready to call it quits with Christmas in the beginning of the film. He has one more alcohol fueled Christmas Eve in him and then he's quitting. I liked the interaction shown between Santa and his reindeer, there's history there and even though he's ready to quit, he still has his standards he's trying to enforce. Enter the Lightstone family and their yearly Christmas Eve party.

 

(Santa helps save the Lightstone family and little Trudy helps to save Santa as well as Christmas!!)

 

 

Held at the private estate of the matriarch of the family Gertrude, expertly played by Beverly D'Angelo who isn't new to the Christmas film genre. The party is tense and uncomfortable as not one member of the family wants to be there. Alex Hassel and Alexis Louder play Jason Lightstone and wife Linda who are estranged but are spending Christmas together for the well being of their daughter Trudy. Trudy is played by relative newcomer Leah Brady who by the way very nearly steals the movie and anyone that knows me knows that me saying that about a child actor is saying a great deal. 

Most of the "bad guys" are peripheral characters that are just there for fodder for the killing machine that is Santa Claus. John Leguizamo, usually I can either take him or leave his in most of his films (To Wong Foo being one of the exceptions), does a decent enough job as "Mr. Scrooge", the leader of the bad guys.  All the bad guys have Christmas themed code names.  There's also André Eriksen and Mitra Suri who play Gingerbread and Candy Cane respectfully who go looking for Trudy who has escaped into the mansion and is in contact with Santa via a walky-talky type radio. For a few minutes a very graphic horror version of Home Alone ensues and man, I didn't know I needed an horror genre version remake of Home Alone until right now!

This is a very graphic Christmas horror comedy that I enjoyed more than I thought I was going to. A couple of the characters are annoying and some of the fight scenes felt a few minutes too long which is what keeps this one from scoring higher than it does but if you asked me what I would have graded this going into it I would have guessed two and a half stars with it getting three stars if it was really good. A nice post New Year's Day surprise as I tossed it over and almost gave this four stars but three and a half is a surprise to me so I'm satisfied and am glad I didn't wait nearly a year to see this at home next holiday season.