Big Man Japan (2007)

April 21st, 2019

Directed by: Hitoshi Matsumoto

Written by: Hitoshi Matsumoto

Starring: Hitoshi Matsumoto, Riki Takeuchi, Ua

Quote: "I feel a sense of responsibility about that....  I never really know when work will pop up. I have to always be on call.... I just accept that's the way things are."

Trivia: It was announced in 2012 that Neil H. Mortiz (producer of "Prison Break") was set to produce an American remake of the film.


Growing up watching daytime television in the eighties and nineties I watched a lot of bad soap operas and infomercials. Occasionally, I would find a cool monster flick which became my favorite movies. I loved (and still love) Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans (God bless Ray Harryhausen). I also really liked the old Universal monster movies, especially Frankenstein and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. However, every now and then, there would be one of the Japanese dubbed monster movies from the fifties and sixties. Godzilla. King Kong. Mothra. Giant spiders. I love the over-the-top nature of those Japanese films, the cheesy special effects, and poor acting. Big Man Japan is homage to those Japanese Monster movies, formally called Kaiju films. Big Man Japan is a mockumentary about a superhero who is tasked by the Japanese government to fight the monsters that are trying to destroy Japan. It is ridiculous in a very deadpan way and has an absolute perfect ending that is completely unexpected.

The Burning (1981)

April 22nd, 2019

Directed by: Tony Maylam

Written by: Harvey Weinstein, Tony Maylam, Brad Grey

Starring: Brian Matthews, Leah Ayres, Brian Backer

Budget: $1,500,000

Trivia: The film's composer, Rick Wakeman, was originally offered a percentage of whatever profits the film made but he had decided to opt for a fee instead as he felt the film had no chance of being successful. The film ended up being the biggest grossing horror movie in Japan.

Quote: "Man, this guy is so burned, he's cooked! A fucking Big Mac, overdone! You know what I mean? And, it's a miracle that he's still alive. If it was me, I'd prefer to be dead. No way I'd want to be this freak. He's a monster, man!"

The Burning is yet another of the dozens of slasher movies made after the huge success of Friday the 13th and it is abundantly clear that the movie was heavily inspired by Friday the 13th (even borrowing Friday the 13th's special effects artist Tom Savini). And while some Friday knockoffs are duds, The Burning actually kicks ass. It is based on the urban legend of Cropsey, a maniac who supposedly massacred children at a summer camp on Staten Island. I decided to check out the film after watching Madman (review here), another slasher made around the same time based on the Cropsey legend. I must say that The Burning blows Madman out of the water. The Burning is a classic slasher movie with some great kills, a great weapon (pruning shears.... brutal!), and some great characters, including a performance by a young George Castanza (Jason Alexander) as Dave, the horndog counselor who talks about jerking off way too much. The film is also the first movie the Miramax pictures put out, even being partially written and produced by Harvey Weinstein (the horndog producer with multiple sexual assault allegations).

Madman (1981)

April 19th, 2019

Directed by: Joe Giannone

Written by: Joe Giannone, Gary Sales

Starring: Gaylen Ross, Tony Fish, Harriet Bass

Quote: "Lore of the campfire telling of his horror, Lost in the woods with the madman and the stars. Don't laugh at the tell, heed if you call him. The legend lives, beware the Madman Marz. The legend lives, beware the Madman Marz."

Trivia: Paul Ehlers's son Jonathan Ehlers was born during the shooting of the movie. Paul received the news that his wife was in labor while filming a scene in full Madman Marz make-up. Paul went immediately to the hospital and held his newborn son for the first time while still wearing some of his Marz make-up and overalls covered with fake blood.

Madman is a film from the early days of the slasher film heyday. While Halloween started it all, it was 1980's Friday the 13th that really taught filmmakers that an insane amount of money could be made on a small budget by having a masked person hack away at teenage kids. Following Friday the 13th came hundreds of ripoffs. Some of them better and some of them worse. Unfortunately, Madman is one of the latter. On paper, Madman has everything that should make it a solid early 80s slasher: a mythology built around the killer, secluded camp woods location, brief nudity, gruesome kills, and a dope score and theme song. However, none of it really plays on the screen. The acting is bad. The story is drawn out. The killer looks silly. There are plot points that have nothing to do with the story and only distract. I first saw this movie a dozen or so years ago and remember really wanting to like it. The intro had all the makings of a potentially great film: a black and red still screen with the great theme song playing. However, I remember nearly falling asleep during this first viewing. Luckily, this was another Joe Bob Brigg's Last Drive In movie, which gave me the perfect opportunity to rewatch it. Joe Bob (of course) goes way in depth on all the finer points of the movie. Unfortunately though, the movie is just as bad as I remember and generally I agree with Joe Bob on this one, so I'll keep this review short.

Q: The Winged Serpent (1982)

April 5th, 2019

Directed by: Larry Cohen

Written by: Larry Cohen

Starring: David Carradine, Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark

Budget: $1,200,000

Quote: "Well, I figure something fell out of one of the windows from the floor up above. Hit him. Sheared his head clean off. A shard of glass or something like that... Oh shit! Maybe his head just got loose and fell off. Look, whadda' you want from me?"

Trivia: The film that Larry Cohen was fired from before starting production on this movie was I, the Jury (1982). It cost 8 times as much as Q (1982) but only made one quarter as much at the box office.

Joe Bob Briggs and The Last Drive In are back! The second episode in his new weekly show had a double feature showing Larry Cohen's monster movie, Q: The Winged Serpent and the sexual gore fest Society. I had already seen Society, but, Q, was new to me. I am familiar with a lot of Larry Cohen's other films (God Told Me To, Blue Sunshine, The Stuff) and was excited to see another one of his films. It also helped that Joe Bob said this was the best movie ever made giving it four stars. While I liked the film, it didn't think it was all that much greater than C.H.U.D. (reviewed here), which Joe Bob ripped apart the previous week. David Carradine and Michael Moriarty played great parts, especially Moriarty (Do I hate him? Love him? Pity him?). And I liked the the cop drama parts, but the monster parts were cheesy and, for a monster film, surprisingly didn't really add to the film. I hate to disagree with our Patron Saint of movies, Mr. Briggs, but I give it two stars (maybe two and a half).

A Field In England (2013)

April 4th, 2019

Directed by: Ben Wheatley

Written by: Amy Jump

Starring: Julian Barratt, Peter Ferdinando, Richard Glover

Budget: £316,000

Quote: "Then I shall become it! I shall consume all the ill fortune which you are set to unleash. I shall chew up all the selfish scheming and ill intentions that men like you force upon men like me, and bury it in the stomach of this place!"

Trivia: The film was released on 5 July 2013 on multiple platforms simultaneously, including cinemas, home media and video on demand. It was also broadcast on Film4 on the day of its release.


A Field in England. The movie that answers the question, what would happen if Alexandro Jodorowky made a historical movie about the English Civil War? It's incredible that the filmmakers were able to create something so vile yet beautiful and enchanting with only a relatively small budget (around $400,000 US). The film incorporates a plethora of visual and auditory effects to build the surreal hallucinatory feel of the film and like Jodorowky's movies, the film uses surrealism to tell a story. However, while Jodorowky used surrealism primarily to explore the subconscious of the individual and humanity, the filmmakers of A Field in England use surrealism to explore a historical event. Upon first viewing, the film may seem like a bizarre collection of psychedelic images and incoherent events as a four bearded guys wander around a field killing each other. However, this is one of the few times in my life that my history degree comes in handy. What this film is, is actually a fairly straightforward retelling of the First English Civil War. But if you're not a history nut like me, it's also a pretty great way to spend ninety trippy minutes.

The Stepfather (1987)

April 2nd, 2019

Directed by: Joseph Ruben

Written by: Donald E. Westlake

Starring: Terry O'Quinn, Jill Schoelen, Shelley Hack

Quote: "Wait a minute, who am I here?" "Jerry?" "That's right. Jerry Blake. Thanks, honey."

Trivia: Director Joseph Ruben originally wanted Jerry Blake to whistle the Barbra Streisand song "The Way We Were," but the rights to the song proved to be too expensive.


The slasher movie craze began in the seventies but really amped up in the early 1980s following the release of Friday the 13th. By the time the mid- to late-eighties hit, there were literally hundreds, if not thousands of slasher movies. So the difficulty for slasher movie directors became how to continue to make successful movies in a genre so over-saturated? Some movies chose to go with the given formula and just amp up the violence or add in comedic elements (which usually fails). Others, like The Stepfather, chose to go a different route. The Stepfather adds a surprising depth to its characters while playing on an old cliche, the abusive/crazy stepfather. While it has a great performance by Terry O'Quinn and has one of the greatest openings in a slasher movie, The Stepfather leaves a lot to be desired. The first five minutes and last fifteen minutes are exciting, but unfortunately that leaves nearly seventy minutes in the middle where the film is more or less stagnant.

Us (2019)

March 25th, 2019

Directed by: Jordan Peele

Written by: Jordon Peele

Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss

Budget: $20,000,000

Quote: "hey look exactly like us. They think like us. They know where we are. We need to move and keep moving. They won't stop until they kill us... or we kill them."

Trivia: The Bible verse that continuously appears in the film (Jeremiah 11:11) reads: "Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them."


Jordan Peele has once again created an original and excited new entry into the horror genre. I cannot believe that half the comedy duo of Key & Peele (which had a really funny show on Comedy Central) has become one of the most exciting new voices in the horror genre (and soon to be science fiction as the new host of the rebooted Twilight Zone). Like his first movie Get Out, Us also looks at identity, individuality, and what it all means in the broader social context. However, Get Out leaned more towards the psychological thriller genre (despite the very bloody ending), even being classified as a comedy by the Golden Globes (which it simply is not). Instead, Us places both Peele and the movie firmly in the horror camp without any reservations. Us is bloody, intense, and thought provoking. It also boasts incredible performances by all the actors particularly Lupita Nyong'o who absolutely steals the movie. There are dozens of theories about the social and socioeconomic meanings behind the film. There is a lot of merit in these broader implications. But theories aside, the film is a bloody fun ride that never lets up as soon as it begins.