By Trent Drake (This column is aweek late. It was stolen by the

Phantom of the Poultry-House, a horribly disfigured turkey who hides his face behind a white porcelain mask. Smitten with lust for our managing editor Carol Schneider, the horrific fowl stole the disk containing her favourite X- Press feature in hopes of winning her love. Carol has since turned the misguided bird into Thanksgiving leftovers and returned the col- umn to us.-- Editor) This Week: Slightly belated Horror Hall of Shame!

Darkness has fallen, and can’t get up. The full moon rises, a big white thing against the deep blue sky. And the creatures of the night, werewolves and vampires and demons (oh my!), begin to stalk like corn. A scream of. terror, a wet sound, and red liquid gushes across the floor... and you know how Ragd.it is to remove a ketchup stain. It’s Hallowe'en (or, it was, last week) and evil is throwing @ wild party! And that means it’s time for the annual Turkey Dinner Horror-a-thon! Three terrify- ing (orjust plain gory) shocking slock slashers!

First up is the directorial debut of Stephen King, in the ever-popular Maximum Overdrive. : The story goes like this: a rogue comet, Rhea-M, suddenly appears and Earth passes ough its tail. At first, nothing much hap- pens... but then machines start running amok, ausing terror and carnage. Lawn-mowers become people-mowers. Pop machines spit out ans at bullet-like velocity. Video games liter- ally fry people’s minds. Instant tellers insult

the director. And then, most terrifying of all, huge transfer trucks come to_life#ind start flattening everything.

A small band.ofsurvivors gather.af the Dixie Boy trucksstop for protection, Stupid move! The truéks are angry... and thirsty. They, lay siege 46 the diner until a ridiculous plot contrivance allows them to blow up a Couple trucks and escape. :

_ Acting (or Lack Thereof): The star of this film is supposedly Emilio Estevez, but he gets totally upstaged by the great supporting Charactéfs. Pat Hingle (think)tirns in a braveifa performance as the redneck truckstop owner from the Boss Hog mold. And all of them get upstaged by an incredibly whiny but hilarious Yeardly Smith.(most famous for her Lisa Simpson). Her annoying little asides are $0, perfectly placed that shé makes_even ‘thc gore seems funny. é;

Stiff to. Watch For. For thegore fans, there are plenty of splattery high=speed colli- sions. For the monster truck fans, there’s the feader of theevil trucks: a big, black, toy- hauling,rig with a huge, grinning Green Gob® lin head%gn the front grill. For heavyemetal fans, theré $the background music by AC-DC. And for thosé,of us who.love.overthic-top directing, King supplies us with neat camera angles and some really funmy set pieces: A laughing bulldozer grindsa Chevy Malibu into dust. The Green Goblin truck appears to get a nosebleed. But my two favorite scenes come near the beginning of the film. In the first, a bank machine calls Stephen King an asshole.

Pulp Fiction

Directed by Quentin Tarantino Starring John Travolta, Uma Thurman Samuel Jackson, Bruce Willis

After Reservoir Dogs and True Romance, Tarantino fans have been dying to see his next huirky saga of people so screwed up that it’s impos- sible not to love them. Well, it’s here— in the form hf Pulp Fiction. For an ordinary guy who used to Work in a movie store, Tarantino has achieved some pretty impressive show-biz clout. Gathering stars d moulding them to fit into almost insane roles akes some talent. Actors suchas Travolta, Jackson, d Willis owe big thanks to arantino for providing them with € most interesting roles they’ ve

ad in ages. This dark, mesmer- ving tale takes you on a fast ride d doesn’t slow down; well, aybe enough to let you see John Tavolta dance again.

The movie is actually shown in clips; short Cerpts that intertwine with each other and overlap € frames. The film starts off with Vincent and les (your everyday normal LA hitmen) driving own the freeway, discussing what Big Macs are riled in France. We find out that these two thugs ave been hired to kill some punks who ripped off

“ir boss’s briefcase. So while engaging in rapid-

©, they exchange ideas on the relative cleanliness

' Pigs and dogs, and the significance of foot mas-

rss. Tarantino uses this scene like his play-

ound he shapes it to fit his world, his view of ‘t a mob hit should be like.

The second episode of the movie involves

Butch (Willis), who is ordered to throw a fight but instead keeps the money and tries to escape with his spaced-out girlfriend. Of all the characters in the movie, Butch is the sympathetic hero. He’s the one you can cheer for without feeling any guilt or shame. The third episode has the most comic con-

tent. We find Vincent and Jules dealing with a problem that (I feel safe in saying) is quite unique. After arriving in suburban LA, Tarantino finally makes his appearance (Tarantino always has a small role in his films). Enter Winston Wolf (Harvey Keitel), who helps the boys clean up their mess and sends them merrily on their

‘ way. N a Pulp Fiction keeps you guessing

every step of the way. You always think you know the boundaries a di- 5 rector won’t cross in a film. How- & ever, Tarantino crosses these borders and makes new ones, and then crosses those. The characters are so well-written that you become intoxicated with them. Their dialogue is so thick with f—s that it almost becomes poetic. The pleasure of the film is that you never know what these nuts will do next.

The real star of Pulp Fiction is Tarantino, for his undisciplined filmmaking technique, how- ever, the movie’s best acting comes from Jackson. With his silly hair and holloweyes, his performance is the heart and soul of Pulp Fiction. Jackson plays aman trying not to be bad but who can’t help it; just

like Quentin Tarantino.

(A-) -- David Ramsay

oe

Andethe»second is a marvelous car wreck Sequence that efisues when a drawbridge starts fisig,during rush hour With cars still on it... and if yowwlook quick, there"s@@ameo by AC- DC! . And is it just me, or are Mgt of the smashed cars:Chevrolets?

The. Bottom Line: Watch it! It’s great, Sick fun for everyoiie, and while it won't make you, whiz in your pants, it will make you Paranoidabout crossutg the street... ‘Or going near your VCR##o/get the tape out. And that grinning black truck will haunt your dreams, I guarantee,

Available at; That’s Entertainment, Belvedere Avenue location.

Would: you go out and rent a horror movie just because Tawny Kitean was.in it? You remember Tawny: the brunette. co-host of America’s Funniest People for the last two years? Would you rent. a movie just to see her dead?

I did; and I got disappointed. Fortu- nately, there was plenty of other weird stuff in Witchboard to keep me happy.

A» ocroupof friends gather for a party. One of them brings a Ouija board, whichdsa medium for talking to spirits (for more info, tead a dictionary). It so entrances one young woman (Tawny Kitean) that she starts using it When she Salone. Bad move! The spirit in the Ouija starts 16 take over her mind, using a caiipaipn of terror to force her to keep using the board until he can posses her. Meanwhile, her friends have figured out what’s happening to her. Setting aside old feuds and their disbelief, they investigate the spirit’s origins to find a way to stop it... but they may already be

And finally, let’s talk about my favorite creatures of the night, the werewolves. We get no respect, you know. While blood-sucking vampires hog the spotlight with their fine manners and leech-like dining habits, us lycanthropes are relegated to cheesy B-movies and endless Howling sequels. Makes you wish Lon Chaney Jr. was still around, don’t it?

Well, after a long search, I finally found @movie that treats us with respect and even reverence. It’s Wolfen, a low key, low profile hoffor flick that really creeps up on you.

‘, When a wealthy industrialist, his wife, and ‘his bodyguard are brutally murdered in a park, the police are baffled. No witnesses, no evidence, and no sign of struggle. The detec- five on the Case (well played by Albert Finney) is evénmmore confused when a similarly muti- lated corpse shows up in a slum across town. He and tis partner, a young female psychia- trist, Wind their way through a twisted and baffling»chaih of evidence, false leads and Spooky encounters before they finally confront the monsters responsible... and discover they themselves are equally monstrous.

StuffTo Watch For: \ feel kind of guilty for lumping this movie in with a bunch of inferior films, but I just had to review it. The moody, rich direction builds a sense of horror even though there’s less grue on display than usual, partly because of an intelligent and weird script. There’s some gruesome and thought-provoking dialogue from the coroner about severed heads and other things too hor- rible to contemplate; some low-key but effec- tive stalking sequences; stock footage of wolf shootings that’ll get the environmentalist in you raging; a wonderfully nerdish little guy

The moody, rich direction builds a sense of hor- ror even though there less grue on display than usual, partly because of an intelligent and weird script.

too late.

Tawny doesn’t get killed. But she does get possessed by the spirit, who turns out to be an axe-murdering psycho. The scenes where she runs around swinging an axe are so hilari- ous they almost destroy the mood of the movie.

Stuff to Watch For: There’s not as much blood in this film to keep gore-hounds happy, but there is a gruesome ketchup scene. Also watch for the spirit’s locked door cam- paign, which helps build a mood of gradually creeping horror... which is almost completely destroyed by an unconvincing (but hilarious) beheading and clumsy directing in the climac- tic battle scene. And keep an eye out for the psychic investigator: picture, if you will, a cross between k.d. lang and Steve Urkel!

Bottom Line: I hate Ouijaboards. They scare the hell out of me. What that means is, even with the bad acting, silly directing and stupid script, I still got a nasty scare out of this movie. If it wasn’t for all the unintentional comedy, I’d have had nightmares for a week.

Available At: Plaza Video

with a wolf fetish; a gripping scene where Finney confronts a man who acts like a wolf; and some terrific animal acting in the climax.

If there’s a sour note it’s the special effects used for the wolfen’s point of view. The computer colouring attempts to create a sense of wolfish night-vision but usually just suc- ceeds in confusing the viewer during the chase scenes. It’s also hard to build suspense in a stalking scene when you see it through the stalker’s eyes.

Bottom Line: Wolfen is a good mystery and a satisfying horror movie. You’ll have to watch it twice to understand all of it, but when you do you'll find yourself thinking... and that’s a rare trait in any movie. Don’t read the review on the tape case, it’ll just wreck the movie. Enjoy!

Avaiable at: Plaza Video

Next Week: Thud. Thud. Thud. THUD.

THUD. CRUNCH! It’s the long-awaited review of Jurassic Park!

|November 8, 1994