Buying Cheap Horror Flicks :)

[kybearfuzz]

There is nothing like buying a cheap, beyond-discount horror movie. While I was back home for Thanksgiving, I bought a DVD collection of vampire movies at Sam Goody's. It was on sale for a little over $5 and had five 1960-70's horror flicks in it. Naturally, I purchased it, but didn't get around to watching any of them until tonight.

One of the movies is a Canadian zombie movie called Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972). The movie is funny because it is so cheap, so overacted, and they are wearing 1970's striped pants and clothes that are so bad. I watched this movie for the first time when I was a teenager in the 1980's. I swear I think I rented it, but it could have been on USA "Up All Night." Who remembers...

The movie centers around a troupe of bad actors who go to a cemetery island by boat. The troupe leader, an ass named Alan, with goatee, neckerchief, and horrible striped pants, has set up a nice dramatic ritual spell casting, which at first does nothing. Naturally, it eventually raises the dead or else the movie would be over. The special effects and makeup are poor, but there is a bit of atmosphere to it that makes it enjoyable, if not really scary. Sadly, the one cute guy in the movie gets killed early before we get to see him shirtless and Alan shows his true colors by basically hiding behind a girl and pushing her into the zombie crowd. The latter is a play on the "it's not that I have to outrun the zombies, I just have to outrun you" idea. So bad that it's entertaining.

I did some looking on the IMDB and found that the guy who wrote it also wrote Porky's and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, the latter of which is more of a true horror. And believe it or not, he's remaking Children Shouldn't Play... for release in 2006. You just know I'll have to watch it.

Comments

[kennydoug.livejournal.com]

Bob Clark is also responsible for the perennial favorite A Christmas Story. Can't wait to see the remake...

If you happened to pick up WLEX in Lexington during the 80s, I know that Monsterpiece Theatre with Millicent B. Ghastly showed the movie. That's where I first saw it.

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's hilarious that he wrote A Christmas Story and Children Shouldn't Play... I did used to watch the local horror show on WLEX back then. :)

[jprtoronto.livejournal.com]

Don't forget he also did A Christmas Story

My co-worker's brother does all the music for his films.

And don't knock Porky's -- it's Canada's highest grossing (dollars) film.

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

Oh, I would never knock Porky's. The shower scene in that movie is ABSOLUTELY CLASSIC :D

Now that Superbabies flick, that just looks horrible.

[rixtur.livejournal.com]

I remember that movie "Children shouldn't play...." when I was a young teen late at night. I remember it being scary then, im sure its very dated now. I also remember seeing "Motel Hell" and "Zombie" very young too, gave me night mares. There was also a movie in the late 80's that freaked me out called "From Beyond", I cant seem to find it on DVD or even VHS. Im sure that would seem dated if watched today.

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

I think Motel Hell was one of those freaky movies. The movie had a young John Ratzenberger from "Cheers" as one of the bikers that they bury in the garden up to their necks.

As for From Beyond, I had not seen that one. There is a listing for a movie with that title on the Internet Movie DataBase (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091083/) where it states the movie is available on VHS. :)

[martini-tim.livejournal.com]

You think Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068370/) is a bad movie? Try watching Dracula 3000 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367677/). But don't say I didn't warn you. It is one of the worst movies (http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom) I have ever seen, and I have watched Manos: Hands of Fate (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060666/)!

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

LOL! All you have to do is look at the cast list for Dracula 3000 to know it's a bad movie: Casper Van Dien, Elena Eleniak, and Coolio. It's Baywatch in space.. with vampires.

I love that worst movie list, some of those titles are hilarious. I did notice that The Fog 2005 remake made the list. Hee hee...

[cincy-dave.livejournal.com]

I've seen "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things"

My friends and I in high school used to always go to the drive in and see really bad horror films.


The only one that really sticks in my mind was "I Spit On Your Grave". Now that's a classic.

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

Oh, I would love it if the theaters here would play really B-grade horror movies sometime.

I saw "I Spit On Your Grave" too... that bathtub scene with the knife sends chills up any man's spine. Maybe, that's where Lorena Bobbitt got the idea.