Beukey on Pop Culture

This blog will focus on pop culture, with an emphasis on views outside, overlooked, or ignored by the mainstream. I may veer off-topic. We are all grown-ups, so don't act shocked at occasional bad language. This blog is not the place for those of you who stood in line to see "The Lake House".

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Another Movie That, Despite All Common Sense, I Have To See

Hola, Amigos. It's been a long time since I rapped at ya. But, as those of you who know me know, I'm splitting time between two cities, and it doesn't leave a lot of time to blog.

Those of you who know me also know how much I can't stand Tarantino. But I have to see Grindhouse.

The true grindhouse experience is long gone. (Click on the title to see someone's really good list of "grindhouse" films). To be honest, it was long on its way out where I lived before I could see an R rated movie. I managed to catch a few double-headers at the drive in where they played 70's movies (like Don't Look In The Basement or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) but those aren't really considered grindhouse films.

So if I don't like Tarantino, and if I can't feel nostalgic for something I didn't really experience, why is it that I have to see this movie?

My guess it that I think this movie can do something that few movies today do, which is, surprise me. Surprise me by doing something extreme. Surprise me by doing something unpredictable. Surprise me by doing something original.

So many movies, especially big event movies, are utterly predictable. Anybody expecting anything out of the ordinary from Spiderman 3? Shreck 3? Anything 3? Yet these movies will probably make $300 million.

I did try my best to catch up on some of the "classics" in the VHS era. But I was limited to what the video store stocked, or what way-out movie played at the drive-in. Although the following list doesn't consist of "grindhouse" films, it will tell you what unusual things I did manage to see, with a brief comment. And I was (am) a big horror fan.

Bloodsucking Freaks a.k.a. The Incredible Torture Show (good), Barbed Wire Dolls (awful), Three on a Meathook (awful), Last House on the Left (not impressed), Make Them Die Slowly (surprisingly interesting), Evil Dead (good), Evil Dead II (silly, but Bluey and I had fun talking back to the screen), Bloody Birthday (another one I saw with Bluey, awful, but for some reason this was showing in a regular theater in Altoona 5 years after it was originally released), The Gates of Hell (the only Lucio Fulci movie I have ever seen, it was so-so) The Blood-Spattered Bride (on TV, I'm sure it lost something), Demons (bad), Night of the Demons (bad), Deathdream a.k.a Dead of Night (good, and an anti-Vietnam movie from a time when such movies were rarely made), Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (not scary, but off-beat), The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (strange, and Exhibit A for the type of movie that would never get made today), My Bloody Valentine (worst horror movie ever, I actually saw someone the other day call this a misunderstood masterpiece).