Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) (1969)

Best bad quote: "It was a day just like any other day......... which doesn't say much."

I've never really been afraid of vampires. Out of all the movie monsters, death by vampire always seemed the best way to go. Sure, some vampires have been written as monsters, but, I find that more often than not, vampires are portrayed as sympathetic, almost human creatures who, unfortunately, have to drink blood to survive. Or, they are portrayed as so mysterious and sexy that death by vampire might as well be called la petite mort. Vampires, and especially Dracula, are not often portrayed as lecherously lovable goofs with thickly stereotypical Jewish accents. So, let's hand it to Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) for being the first.

This movie is a joke. I don't mean that like "Oh, this movie is so bad it has to be a joke!" I mean, literally, this movie is a joke. All of the dialogue is dubbed, and has been so in a way that seems as if the narrators are lampooning the film. A lot of the time it sounds as if their lines are being improved. And, most of the time, the narrators speak even when the mouths of the actors are not moving in order to wrench in something funny. The movie seems to originally have had very little dialogue, but with the dubbing it now features lots of funny internal soliloquies that almost make it seem as if the narrators are riffing the movie Mystery Science Theater 3000 style. 

The nonsensical, outrageously redundant opening narration is a good gauge as to the strange hilarity Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) has to offer you during its 69 minute runtime. Newspaper reporter Mike is sent to meet a Mr. Alucard, (that's Dracula spelled backwards, as the movie helpfully points out several times, even going as far as to put "Alucard (Dracula spelled backwards)" in the opening credits) who lives out in the middle of nowhere. But, for Mike, "death lurked behind those beautiful hills, behind the beautiful hills, behind the beautiful hills." Well, not death, really. More like a dopey Dracula who decides that Mike should become his half-bear, half-rat, all-furry rubber masked henchman, whom he dubs Jackalman. Irving Jackalman. At night, Mike changes to Jackalman and then must capture sexy girls for Dracula to teleport to his mine shaft lair. There Dracula ties them up, strips them, rubs his weird face all over their bodies and then bites them on the breast, all the while saying the most ridiculous things.

 

The film isn't all fun and camp, however. There's a rather brutal rape scene where Jackalman finally gets to have a girl of his own. The narrators try to make the scene funny by riffing on what's happening on screen, but it just serves to make the scene more disturbing, even if it does manage to twist a couple of laughs out you due to the ridiculousness of the dialogue. There is an even more ridiculous rape scene later, where a randomly masturbating woman cuts to having Jackalman going down on her. And, despite having her eyes open and looking down at Jackalman's nappy mask it takes her quite a while to realize that the wolf creature is not, in fact, her doughy boyfriend.

Mike, as Jackalman, ends up capturing his own girlfriend to give to Dracula, but then decides that he wants her. Stripped naked, she sort of tries to escape as they fight. She giggles a lot and takes a rest after only jogging a little way and is thus promptly captured. Dracula is defeated via his own stupidity as it turns out his lair is right at the mouth of the cave. He decides to take a step outside during he and Jackalman's fight and is then turned to dust. Jackalman is turned back into Mike and then he and his girlfriend decide to screw right then and there in a painfully long, very softcore scene on Dracula's dirty makeshift bed.

The moving picture part of this movie isn't the main attraction. It's the dubbing that makes Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) worth watching. It's almost like you are watching a commentary track for a silent film where the actors decide to make fun of the shitty movie they were in. I haven't been able to find any information on the original script, but I know that the reason it was dubbed was because there were serious sound issues. I find it highly unlikely the finished product that I watched, with its goofy accents and ridiculous lines, was what the filmmakers originally intended. But, without the ridiculous dubbing, this movie would have just been another boring, sleazy exploitation film for kids at drive-in theaters to not watch while making out in their cars. But, with it, Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) turns into a strange joke of a film that, surprisingly, works. 

You can go to Something Weird Video to check out this movie.

Rating: 5 out of 5 Rape Faced Jackalmans

       

Blood Gnome (2004)

Best bad quote: "You can't kill me; I'm a cop! What the fuck you gonna do with body?"

I steeled myself for this one. I mean, come on. Just look at that cover up there. And the title. Seriously, it looks terrible. I expected to be miserable five minutes in. But, ten minutes in, Blood Gnome had kept me waiting. The movie had yet to descend into a sarlacc of suck.  And, I kept waiting for the moment when my palm would meet my forehead in Picard-ian disbelief. I kept waiting for Blood Gnome to commence with the pain. But, as we took our journey through what looked like a colonoscopy image tunnel to where the credits finally rolled, I knew. It didn't suck. Hallelujah! It didn't suck!

Blood Gnome is a micro-budgeted  film that works with its limitations, not outside or against them. A lot of micro-budget films have serious issues with sound and video quality that often render them virtually unwatchable. Though here it's painfully noticeable that you are watching a movie made with a tiny budget, the sound and video quality are excellent. The director/writer, John Lechago, succeeded in creating a polished finished product with very few imperfections.   

  

Our hero is Daniel, a mumbly, awkward Bill Pullman look-alike. Though he may not seem like hero material, I found his absolute dorkiness rather charming. Having recently been put back to work after a stint in a mental hospital, Daniel accidentally captures a Ghoulie-looking Blood Gnome on his very sensitive infrared camera at two murder crime scenes involving BDSM. Knowing no one would believe him if he tried to explain without proof, Daniel decides to learn more about the BDSM angle of the murder while waiting for some special film for his camera. He calls gorgeous Divinity, whom he met at the scene of the first murder, to help him understand the BDSM world. 

Meanwhile, we already know the villain from scene one. Elandra, Divinty's mistress, keeps a tentacled thing in a box, a thing that's possibly just a giant vagina with a bad case of dentata. This thing births the Blood Gnomes from its toothy vagina and Elandra extracts from the squealing puppets a potent substance that she sells to the BDSM community. The Blood Gnomes target those who take the drugs and engage in bloodsports in order to feed themselves and their mother. I assume. We don't actually see them really eat anything, just lots of hacking and slashing. But, I'll let that slide, because the Blood Gnome puppets are pretty cool. And creepy. 

After the Blood Gnomes set Daniel up for failure at work by removing the film that allows him to see them before taking pictures at a crime scene, Daniel starts to spiral into insanity. His insanity is justified, however, as the Blood Gnomes are taunting him and just waiting for him to fall asleep so they can kill him.  This sets up one of the most hilarious scenes in the movie, the first fight scene between the Blood Gnomes and Daniel. The Blood Gnomes threaten Daniel via Generic Instant Messenger (under the screen name blood_gnome) and he retaliates by stomping some heads. Literally. He even goes as far as to bash one in its non-existent balls. It's a great scene, full of plenty of intentional and unintentional hilarity. Soon after comes the final showdown, where doofy Daniel must not only destroy the Blood Gnomes, their mother and Elandra, but he must also save his love interest, Divinity.

 The movie's biggest strength is probably its directing. As I've said, director/writer John Lechago works hard to make sure we get, at the very least, a watchable product- which is more than I can say for other low budget films I've reviewed. (Yeah, Skeleton Key 2, that means you.) Scenes with dialogue are always filmed up close to the actors' faces in order to compensate for, most likely, lack of proper audio equipment. The filming locations are small, as well- tiny rooms, usually- and thus the director focuses close on the actor in the scene.  This gives the film a bit of a claustrophobic feel that I think ends up working to its advantage. 

The writing is fairly tight as well. There is never an attempt to explain the Blood Gnomes' origins, and that ends up working as well. Any story we got would probably come off as insubstantial, idiotic, or both. All we need to know about the Blood Gnomes is already present in the film. The story is a fairly simple slasher. But, you know, with invisible killer gnomes who target the subset of the BDSM community involved in bloodplay. 

If you are willing to give Blood Gnome a chance, I promise you will have a good time. Despite the ridiculous sounding premise, the film is fairly solid. And campy. We mustn't forget that camp is often what makes B-movies so fun.  

Rating: 5 out of 5 Baby Blood Gnomes 

Skeleton Key 2: 667 Neighbor of the Beast (2008)

Best Bad Quote: "This is hot sauce. And you'll dip your balls in it." 

 

Unbeknownst to me as I began my journey into the madness that is Skeleton Key 2, this was not the sequel to the 2005 Kate Hudson film The Skeleton Key. It took me about a minute to realize that I'd made a very grave mistake. I felt fear grip me as I discovered that this was not a terrible direct-to-DVD sequel capitalizing on a decent, if a bit insubstantial, horror film.

Skeleton Key 2 is a terrible, independent micro budget horror spoof comedy. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with independent, micro budgeted films. No, the key words here are horror spoof comedy, a trifecta of words that, if uttered together, automatically create a vortex of unfunny suck that threaten those who watch a film with those descriptors with permanent insanity.

Skeleton Key 2 is a film within a film. You, yes you, have been tied up and forced by a prancing, squealing man-child to watch Skeleton Key 2. In this moment you have no mouth and you feel you must scream. But, you have a hand, right? You can turn off the movie. No, you can't. You can't turn away from the horror before you. It's the best and most terrible train wreck you will ever see. And, you must watch. 

Your descent into madness continues as the hero, Howard (writer/director John Johnson), explains to you (yes, you!) that he is a new man. Because he wears a tie. It's like watching an unfunny sketch comedy show. You can't laugh, because it's so painfully not funny. However, you can't laugh at the awfulness of it either because it's not absurd enough. So, you cry. I did.

Nothing in the film makes sense. It randomly rips off Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, classic video games and TROLL 2. Though I never figured out what was really going on in the film, I do know that Howard had been summoned to the infamous town of Nilbog to rescue his attractive Indian friend, Cornelius. Nilbog might be goblin spelled backward, but in Skeleton Key 2 Nilbog is overrun with Smurf-faced zombies. Along the way, Howard is terrorized by a leprechaun, shadowed by a Hulk-ian demon, and becomes a participant of several orgies. In one scene, two women standing behind old washing machines are milked and the black woman produces chocolate milk. Really.

At one point, you manage to change the channel to a USA Up All Night type show called Cinema Insomnia while your man-child kidnapper is occupied. The host of the show lampoons Skeleton Key 2 with a scathingly accurate review saying it's a good thing for director/writer John Johnson that other people made movies with good ideas in them or he wouldn't have been able to make Skeleton Key 2 at all.

That John Johnson includes this is a real kick in the gut. Not only are you watching a movie that is pure, undiluted excrement, but then John Johnson reminds you that it is you who is the fool, not him. He made this filth, not caring if it were good, or even entertaining, and released it onto the unsuspecting world. And now you've wasted two hours (yes, two hours!) of your life not being able to turn away, slowly feeling as if you have descended into madness. Surely something could not be this bad? But it is, it truly is. Skeleton Key 2 is the worst movie I have ever seen. 

Rating: 0 out of 5 Demons Wearing Pink Foam Cowboy Hats

See this review also at badmovienite.com. Link.