80’s cheese horror

GHOULIES

01/10/2013 by Dan-e-Gory in 80's cheese horror, Monster Movies | Comments Off on GHOULIES

They’ll get you in the end

ghouliesHave you ever sat through a movie and thought as the credits roll “What the fuck did I just watch?”

Well, that’s Ghoulies all over. It’s a film about the occult, but known for the little ghoulie monsters on the movie poster, even though the film could have been made without them at all. We get a killer puppet that, well, doesn’t actually kill, evil midgets that aren’t very evil and a killer zombie that…you guessed it, doesn’t kill anything!

The movie starts with a group of cultists sacrificing a baby for, well; it’s not really made clear. The baby is spared at the last minute and saved by Wolfgang, I guess an on the spot reformed cultist. Years later baby Jonathan inherits his father’s (The leader of the cult) home, and finds his books of the occult. In the middle of possibly the worst party in the world, Jonathan decides that a good party game would be to perform an occult ritual… as you do.

What follows is a mess of an occult film with no actual direction, very little plot and some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen.  Nothing really makes any sense and for a horror film supposedly about killer ghoulies, fuck all actually happens! We even get a freeze screen cliffhanger ending. The only horror in the cliffhanger is the fact that they were funded to make sequels, and they assumed they would!

In all honesty, if you want a light mini-monster movie, stick to Critters or Tremors. At least you’ll get a coherent plot, with the monsters actually doing something!

I have to say, I hate saying bad things about anyone’s artistic vision, but Ghoulies really is a load of old bollocks! I wouldn’t bother with it.

skull logo

THE BRAIN (1988)

08/08/2013 by Icky Vicky in 80's cheese horror, Icky Vicky | Comments Off on THE BRAIN (1988)

 

It’s as brilliantly awful as you expect.

thebrainIn searching for last minute and unexpected Christmas gifts for my better half, I came across The Brain on a random internet site. The terrible clip on YouTube told me I had to get it for him, so I bothered the seller till he agreed to send it to me super fast.

Only then did it occur to me that I was probably going to have to watch it too.

With a boyfriend obsessed with Grindhouse, horror independents, Troma and anything Simon Pegg and Nick Frost ever touched, I’ve seen my fair share of low budget, tongue in cheek horror films. I’ve seen tubs of ketchup-covered jelly explode, frighteningly realistic cocks bitten off (see Fathers Day) and know more about the different types of zombie than I care to mention. And yet the moment when you can actually see the legs on the man in the brain costume still tickled me.

This film is unbelievable, lacks coherent plot or narrative, and offers no explanation. It’s fantastic. There’s hypnosis and mind control, mad doctors, giant living brains with faces, bleeding teddy bears and some of the best fake screaming I have ever heard. It all centres around a controlling, malevolent scientist/doctor, and one mans attempt to restrain from its grasp. There are some awesome hallucination scenes, as the brain/doctors grasp takes hold, and, although the film in itself makes no sense, you definitely get behind the protagonist in his quest to save everyone and foil the brains plans, especially as everyone including his family and the police turn against him, poor guy. It hints at ideas of a ‘big brother’ police state, with mind control and conformity a central theme, but never really gets into it, perhaps they were too busy making it look like a giant brain was eating people.

I won’t ruin the ending, that’s not what we do here at Gore Store, but I will tell you it makes absolutely no bloody sense. Watch this film, it’s 80’s low/no-budget horror at its best, the only downside I’d say is that there is little to no blood, (perhaps due to keeping the certificate low?) despite some serious wounds and injury – like being thrown out the window by your own hypnotised mind, controlled through a mad doctor, by a GIANT BRAIN.

skull-logoVK