Zombie Rampage (1989)

 

Director: Todd Sheets

Screenplay: Erin Kehr & Todd Sheets

Cast: Dave Byerly as Tommy / Mime, Erin Kehr as Dave, Stanna Bippus as Sheila, Beth Belanti as Sherry, Brian Everad as Pusshead, Deric Bernier as Hammerspike, Lisa Cottoner as Fox, Laura Young as Tracy, Larry Hodges as Piggy, Danon Park as George, Jason Ayers as Roger, John Welch as Jason, Ed Dill as Brian

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Kicking off with a metal cover of Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky as rival gangs of punks, one in a suit, beat each other up, it is for Todd Sheet's feature length debut, after a series of shorts, a good opening to a career which lasted for decades. Whether the original cut or the Director's Cut I had watched, I do think however, with sincerely, even he might view this as a mess. As a veteran micro budget director who visually showed improvements over time from this first film, even if it has the perfect (and goofy) opening to a career, it is an acquired taste to witness despite the fact this actually has some higher production value, and at least locations in use, than some of the films he made later on. It is an erratic film to say the least.

Premise wise a gang leader, looking like a white collar middle manager in a tie and grey suit, but with a prominent left ear ring, acquired a book to be able to resurrect a recently slain member from the graveyard, even if it cost the group their beer money. The other gang they were against, with another copy of the book, make the mistake instead to use the text, this accidently causing an undead epidemic. Even though this is set up, Zombie Rampage does not properly established the undead hordes appearing until abruptly into itself part of the way through, and does feel like huge chunks of the plot are missing. My younger self would have called this one of the worst films ever made, and even now able to appreciate this and micro budget cinema in its flaws, this one definitely requires a patience to be able to appreciate this as it feels like a mass of ideas and fragments placed together.  Clearly, Sheets had some production value it hand with this, with extensive scenes in a variety of buildings and streets, unlike ones in the few years after confined to one location, but it also feels like a stream of consciousness. The loose nature of micro budget cinema, when allowed to drift, is felt at an extreme here when even the zombie outbreak central to the film is abruptly introduced, instead focusing on a side character we will never see again go on a deranged tangent about his dog named Butthead.

I will be more sympathetic to Sheets’ debut than most, unlike the first time I saw this, as much because I have seen him over his career climb in terms of craft with these films, and also because, with no expectations, there is a joy I can now have watching a film like this which is literally a collage of pieces which jut and stick out from each other. This feels like it had to be improvised over weekends, and was a mad editing nightmare, with audibly noticeable voice over added for dialogue and harsh edits which feel, even in a battered VHS copy, as if the tape was failing. The cool Italian horror inspired synth in the score notwithstanding, it feels like a half remembered film, half dreamt, in ways I have to honestly say in the negative if I am still going to say positively I still enjoyed this. A lot of this is because, despite the zombies being the centre of the film, this feels like a disconnected take on its own premise, even in mind that zombies are an easy premise for any low budget film to work with. It was ambitious beyond its means, and thus becomes a barely cohesive form, where it will be a struggle for those who would appreciate later Todd Sheets work like Moonchild (1994) where the technical quality and pacing, still with the homemade quality, are noticeably improved. This debut’s ambition goes as far as even taking advantage of the public domains status of Night of the Living Dead (1968) to borrow its radio announcer, but in wanting to recreate the ending of Return of the Living Dead (1985) without access to stock explosion footage, you also see the flaws when you have the most abrupt conclusion possible too.

A random serial killer of women is among the cast, random figures will talk about their arguments with family about inheritance whilst in fear of their lives from zombies in a basement, and grandpa will be talked of having chewed on grandma, all whilst this begins Todd Sheets’ use of organ meat from butchers, combined with the fake blood to the point here it would permanently stain wash denim bloody red. Random abrupt nudity, when an older female patron offers herself to a bar keep to pay the tap, who has no interest, and Todd Sheets gets to rock out his metal hair as a rival gang leader despite his gang disappearing from the film entirely. There is one moment which is pretty striking, in which a mother with her baby in a pram are got by zombies, which is pretty extreme even for this type of cinema, but tonally the rest of Zombie Rampage is goofier, intentionally and not, for its length. There are also plenty of things which are pretty random, such as the mime faced guy in a baseball cap, possible based on the baseball furies from The Warriors (1979), which just emphasises the chaotic mix of the resulting product. Zombie Rampage is not a film I would recommended unless you were used to Todd Sheets’ work, as I am, and prepared for its messy nature. Sheets would return to this theme of zombies in other films, so he was able to rework this as his skills would improve. This is just a curiosity which proves that everyone begins somewhere, and your first attempt can sometimes show this.

Moonchild (1994)

 

Director: Todd Sheets

Screenplay: Todd Sheets

Cast: Auggi Alvarez as Jacob Stryker; Kathleen McSweeney as Athena; Julie King as Rocky; Dave Miller as Talon; Kyrie King as Weasel; Stefan Hilt as Cabal; Cathy Metz as Dr. Andronymous; Carol Barta as Medusa; Jody Rovick as Captain Simpson

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

There's no debate about your fate. You're tomorrow's lunch!

An aerial shot from a helicopter over a cityscape, followed by a man climbing a barbwire fence to a Slayer-like thrash metal song in the score, sets up the ambition to be found here, especially if you have seen older Todd Sheets films before this, where he has jumped in scale from the films he made from before, drastically, in his shot-on-miniscule budget works even within the pre-opening credits here. There is a moving pick-up van stunt, jumping in to the back of one and someone then being thrown out, and a car chase with pyrotechnics and three vehicles involved. It is not as elaborate as a Hollywood production, but in context as a micro-budget film from the early nineties, this is a bold and challenging set piece to have pulled off, and only a clear superimposition of a car in front of a moving train shows the strain of a micro budget, something you would need a significant production to pull off and now may be done in blockbusters by green screen.

Aesthetically Moonchild feels like a digitized Mortal Kombat rip-off like Way of the Warrior (1994) for the 3DO Multiplayer System, which is an apt comparison as Naughty Dog's video game, long before they made The Last of Us franchise and released the same year as this film, was homemade without a true green screen and costumes including part of a Burger King packaging; here though with Moonchild, with its mix of ninja and samurai costumes out of context, and a post-apocalypse premise where the lead Jacob Stryker (Auggi Alvarez) had his DNA spliced with lycanthropy abilities, you do not have to just appreciate it as a historical piece of ambition, as whilst Way of the Warrior is as stiff as a board to actually attempt to play in modern eyes. Moonchild is from a director who once made Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death (1991), a film to enjoy if you accept it is a film where nothing happens, and over the three years afterwards gained so much from making films over the short time which passed in terms of pacing and keeping the audience entertained. The premise feels like one you would have gotten in a Sega Mega Drive/Genesis game, and Bleeding Skull tantalised with their review describing Moonchild as "an adaptation of an unreleased Sega Saturn game combined with backyard wrestling"¹, so there was a lot coming into this even without my interest in Todd Sheets as a filmmaker.

Truthfully, Moonchild is too ambitious, a plot that would require the budget of at least an Italian post apocalypse film to try to pull off, with way too many characters and plot points to juggle, but I cannot help but admire Moonchild as a gold standard for a micro-budget film to gun for this level of ambitiousness. It is a film which was made with fun from the crew but making sure to keep the viewer intrigued, where there are the little details like when a minor henchman produces a saw from their mutant stomach and Sheets has an actual motorized saw blade as a prop. Following a plot of Stryker, who was part of the evil dictatorship's project of creating a werewolf army, rescuing his son with a band of helpers including a female underground leader named Athena (Kathleen McSweeney) and her kid sister, this tries its hardest at every single moment, trying to keep at a pace even when the dialogue can linger on exposition, as Stryker learning he has a bomb implanted in his small intestine has only a 72 hour time limit after escape to get this goal finished. They have martial arts scenes even if there are few of the cast trained, and the werewolf effects, bladder transformation effects indebted to Rick Baker, are applaudable in how they were pulled off. It is certainly distinct for a micro-budget film, where it is one of the few post-apocalypse tales where the underground rebels have a nice cafe to plan within, and the Medusa figure among the villains' gallery is an older woman who, far from out-of-place and stealing the film, such as when she is threatening actual children in the cast with a finger spike in the brain for information.

Probably the only real surprise is that, barring one scene where a hand comes out of someone's mouth and rips a man's eye out, this has none of Todd Sheet's trademark gore from the time and later career, the one oddity in the film in production. This was homemade in the best way aside from this, with pyrotechnics when androids are defeated, alarmingly close to cast at times, and it only stands out because it has been something Sheets embraced as a trademark, especially as there is content here where that would have made sense to include, such as how Chicago is full of mutants and other androids who practice cannibalism, and the abrupt lead villain with "666" branded on his belly. What cannot be denied is the jump in craft however, as you see Todd Sheets leap, ocean sized in distance, in technical improvements and the beats in making entertaining genre films he would watch himself, full vim and vigor shown. So much so, you will not be disappointed you only once see a full werewolf transformation including a wolf man suit on furry steroids.

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1) Bleeding Skull 50: The Best Shot-On-Video Films, written by Joseph A. Ziemba and Annie Choi, and published on January 2nd 2022.

Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death (1991)

 

Director: Todd Sheets

Screenplay: Todd Sheets and Misty Wolfe

Cast: Kelly Hodges as Tiffany; Lisa Krueger as Beverly; Holly Starr as Liz; Laura Fuhrman as Kelly; Craig Wilcox as Jimmy; Jenny Admine as Muffy; Veronica Orr as Sherry; J.T. Taube as Chuck; Matthew Lewis as Tommy; Liz Marchicello as Sandra; Carles Monroe as Mr. Ray; Emmet Brennen as Hank; Carol Barta as Bertha

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Fuzzy VHS print, teased out eighties hair for a female demon exorcist who looks like a member of a female glam metal band, and micro budget gore can only open up an early Todd Sheets film. Sadly however, alongside the fact that character never returns, and is apparently from the early 20th century despite being dressed like an extra in a Mötley Crüe video, this is the one film as a fan of Todd Sheets even I have to admit needs to be approached with caution, even as someone who appreciated films like Goblin (1993) to Nightmare Asylum (1992) in spite of their flaws.

And yes, this is meant as a tie-in to David DeCoteau's Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988) in name, which is apt as he is an executive producer here, having produced a few of Todd Sheets films from this time. Unlike DeCoteau's film, where a sorority initiation ceremony at a bowling alley conjures up a genie, here a sorority initiation is going to happen, to stay at an abandoned collage all night, and someone made the bad idea to buy an old crystal ball for the pyjama party and hold a séance. The crystal ball smokes before they even get there, knocks the sorority members out and, confused waking up, now have problems other than what to do that night at the party. Two guys trying to get in will be dragged into this scenario, and an elderly heterosexual couple, regretting the crystal ball being sold from their antique store, look at get it safely back.

I think even diehard fans of Todd Sheets would admit this is a difficult film to appreciate if they have watched this, Sheets' career a prolific one from 1984 where, barring from 2005 to 2013, he has been making films for multiple decades with his earliest work the most micro-budget of homemade regional horror films in the VHS medium. Those early films are acquired tastes, but even next to Nightmare Asylum, one of the more difficult films from this era, this is a dry and improvised film at even only an hour long. Charm is found appreciating the director's personality onscreen, including Enochian Key providing the music (barring the public domain classical pieces), but this is a languid film of plot and a lot of dialogue. There is some moments here for me as someone able to appreciate these films, such as the humour in an ordinary older man, who inherited the crystal ball, talking in a banal shooting location about his grandmother accidentally summoning a kandarian demon as if it is a normal conversation piece, or a non-copyright infringing version of the game Twister called "Bimbo Twister", with person shaped pads like Warrior Green or Bimbo Brown.

There is however a lot even I struggled with, not even the randomness (and production and sound issues) of Nightmare Asylum in hindsight as difficult as this could be. There is a lot of talking, even Wayne's World references, heavily improvised and with the sense this film seems not fully formed.  There is even the sense of this with Todd Sheets being compromised, as the premise of a possessed sorority member stalking people in an abandoned collage is far less elaborate than Zombie Rampage (1989), an earlier film from him. I come to this wanting to see this film for years but it is really an odd duck where the one consistent aspect to any of this is being a self mocking micro budget film that teases jokes about micro budget horror films. It is amusing at times, such as the sorority member obsessed with movies about homicidal ice cream men who turns the lights off for a joke at the worst time, but it also has an ominous hindsight to it as if the film is admitting self defeat at its lack of success and is mocking itself.

My youngest self would have despised this film, and in terms of exploitation too, there is not a lot here too. Despite the passing reference to "gazoongas", I would not expect nudity from a film like this from its female cast, trying their hardest, but more surprising is the lack of gore. It is not needed either but with Todd Sheets, who is a proud fan of horror cinema, one of the charms of these early films was the pure throw anything at the wall sense of fun they had, even if it was animal guts from the butchers as improvised human intestines. The closest here is a stake through the mouth shot with it behind the actor's head in the right place with no gore, or the possessed using the primary schoolyard trick of how to show you have taken your eyeballs out to let someone know you have turned. Again, it feels like Todd Sheets' hands were tied behind his back or something was off. People not used to these films would even hate Goblin, full of splatter, but now a production like that has an additional goofiness and charm to appreciate.

What you get here is ultra minimalistic, a lot of improvised talking, and you can even hear someone (likely Sheets himself) say "Cut!" at the end of a scene, which becomes something not to mock but actually a memorable moment by accident. What is on purpose when it occasionally happens can be amusing and why I like these types of films, such as the possessed with a cheese eating grin on her face pogoing herself in a door repeatedly, or accidentally confusing saline water for corns on feet for holy water. Even for those prepared for a film like this thought, I still have to warn them about the sluggishness of the film, as well as anyone with epilepsy as the final exorcism scene will be an issue for anyone with this. I was prepared for years that Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death was a challenge, but I still feel disappointed that this was the case. I hoped it would gain a perverse entertainment against its clear flaws. It is a film worth preserving in Todd Sheets' career in terms of how unpredictable it is as an independent micro-budget filmmaker at the time, as it belongs to the delirium of his earliest work, but I would approach it sadly with the patience of a saint.

Dominion (1992)

 

Director: Todd Sheets

Screenplay: Todd Sheets and Misty Wolfe

Cast: Carol Barta as Elizabeth; Frank Dunlay as Roger Williams; Auggi Alvarez as Clarence Theopolis; Charles Monroe as Stan Lotus; Tonia Monahan as Jamalia; Jody Rovick as Gazelle; Ray C. Merrill as Asmodeus; Veronica Orr as Mistianna

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Some Todd Sheets for a quick shot-on-video fix is a pleasure for me. These "SOV" films from the USA are still a niche, least when you are English and they rarely get a release in the United Kingdom barring American Genre Film Archive titles or when they are available on line legally. These films are an acquired taste, but I admit there are within them, including the ultra low budget titles of the digital era into the 2000s, a compelling aesthetic them. With VHS shot titles themselves, with their video produced opening credits and a format, VHS haze, which I have no nostalgia for, and will not view as superior to Blu Ray or even DVD, there is yet for these productions something compelling to watch within them because of this sheen. Todd Sheets, his older films let alone new ones, are as much their own fascination in this territory.

Clearly Dominion is going to be a vampire film from the Salem's Lot (1979) reference in the first scene, of the scene from Tobe Hooper's TV adaptation of a person floating outside a window, though the police here at least consider the recent spree of blood draining killings involving at least a person who thinks they are a vampire, rather than waste time baffled by the bizarre murders, having drained thirteen people by the opening scenes. Alongside an older woman who is clearly a vampire expert, as she keeps a stake in her luggage, the police find themselves having contend with a vampire cult living underground led by her brother, a young boy where the child actor himself is gunning for scenery chewing in how he reads his lines.

As an early Todd Sheets film, those of a certain time period are separate to the others, their productions likely to be (with affection for them) ramshackle or at least silly, this not taking itself too seriously when these vampires have low targets - wishing both to dominate the world but also grocery shops, one female vampire wishes to rule the cosmetics world to fix her pale complexion. They plan to resurrect the boy's master through the Satanic power of rock, Todd Sheets' in-house band Enochian Key, not just having a score credit but onscreen as Enochian Key, playing demon worshippers who eat human flesh. It is fascinating, knowing he was ending even the goriest of films from this time with a thanks to Jesus Christ, that Todd Sheets does pastiche the Satanic Panic on rock and metal music from the eighties here, and that he has the religious zealot mother, formerly a hippy, for a brief scene as an antagonist even though her daughter's decision to go to the Enochian Key concert proved her mother right. These early films, truthfully, are lacksidasical, but they have a charm from this. An actual long form plot may be unlikely in this case to draw out, only scraping through its plot points over nearly seventy minutes, including the least expected romantic melodrama between two older supernatural experts which is barely scratched upon. But this is an aspect of all these early films, as it would not be a Sheets film from this time without a lingering scene or two with gore and animal organ meat as practical splatter effects.

It is a delight, considering they are tied to Todd Sheets into the modern day, I got to see Enochian Key performing onscreen (in character) rather than just in the score, as a homemade metal soundtrack. Soundtracks to Sheets' films, even in the rougher films from this era, are always interesting, and whilst moody at times, one or two pieces do sound like a Philips CD-I lounge track from composer Matthew Jason Walsh. That is neither a ultra obscure joke at a games console few can even emulate either as, alongside tracks which evoke Italian horror composer Fabio Frizzi, not just his pieces from Zombi 2 (1979) but the tropical cuts from that soundtrack, a banger in this case, but there are moments in Dominion which evoke Jim Andron's score for the Philips CD-I version of Tetris (1992). Made available in the modern day as a soundtrack in the streaming era in 2020, it is amusing, especially in a scene for a romance where the crew hired a horse and carriage, how similar they sound, coming from the same year, to the point I did wonder, with no accusations at either side, if any of these tracks from both accidentally blurred similar notes on their synthesizers unintentionally.

Sheets' films from this era do end up being messes as mentioned, which is a warning, as by a Clownado (2018), even with that ridiculous title premise, he fixed his cinematic style and pacing with considerable decades of work, having worked over the years baring a fallow creative period between 2005 to 2013. The early "primitives", to give them a name, have charm though. Some ambition is there - the close-up of keys being thrown to someone, with the camera behind them simulating their travel across in the air, is inventive. There is the gore and the horror fan here behind the camera too - with another least expected moment, that being the least expected chainsaw scene, with limb removal, transpiring because they wanted the scene. The sense this does not follow what is expected, by accident, of what even a low budget horror film should do is also here - it abruptly ends, not with the conclusion of the story, but randomly on two female vampires snacking on a john. This is to be expected with Todd Sheets' films from this era, and I love them now as much for this.

Nightmare Asylum (1992)

 

Director: Todd Sheets

Screenplay: Todd Sheets

Cast: Lori Hassel as Lisa; Matthew Lewis as Spider; J.T. Taube as Jimiah; Mike Hellman as David; Jenny Admire as Melissa; Charles Gooseman as Pops; Jerry Angell as Sonny Boy; Deric Bernier as Shlooby

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #260 / An Abstract Candidate

 

My aching banana!

I have wanted to see Nightmare Asylum for a long time, knowing this would be completely unwatchable for most viewers. For context, Todd Sheets from 1985 onwards has been a prolific micro-budget filmmaker who, baring an absence of 2005 to 2013, has been working into the 2010s onwards. He himself has negated anything before Zombie Rampage (1992) as actually being films, those before an embarrassment for him, so this era does come with mind of his own opinions of it¹.

Yet, the likes of Nightmare Asylum exists, with David DeCoteau of Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988) as its executive producer no less, a film shot entirely in a haunted house, as we begin with a woman named Lisa (Lori Hassel) running in corridors from a masked man. This improvised location is suggests to be an openly surreal nightmare realm, as she encounters a man with his legs trapped in a giant mousetrap, eating raw meat until he is chain sawed, the film improvising its location's existing props. The other immediate aspect is that the sound design is terrible, some of the worse technically you can encounter and what you have to deal with even before the content for the entire hour long film. Dialogue is barely audible; the music is in one channel which significantly louder. The music is constant throughout, be it an attempt at a Goblin score, openly borrowing part of the Fabio Frizzi soundtrack of The Beyond (1981), and a lot of Gustav Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War, the most famous part of his composed the Planets Suite. You will hear Mars, Bringer of War many times, even over a man getting a pike up the rectum, making this at least a perverse audio experience to hear even if most will find this unbearable, let alone digest the actual content of Nightmare Asylum. Certainly, Holst would have not expected this when he composed the Planets Suite.

The plot is also vague and really non-existent, more a series of incidents and gore scenes where the haunted house realm is full of weirdoes, such as the family of Spider (Matthew Lewis), a young man who rescues Lisa from that masked figure and introduces her to his home, lived in by men who are savaging for any food, even severed human feet. On the other side and more dangerous is a group of psychopaths led by Todd Sheets. Sheets is recognisable as a more bulkier David Mustaine, the lead musician of Megadeth, with a giant mane of blonde hair. He shouts a lot, sings a bit of the song from Herschell Gordon Lewis' Two Thousand Maniacs (1964), part of the film's clear genesis from a horror fan, and sometimes talk about his aching fruits and kumquats. His group, as Lisa is pulled around a lot as an innocent bystander to this world, will maim people for the hell of it.

It is an excuse for many low, low budget splatter scenes - nails forced into mouths mimed, a tongue being cut without seeing it clearly - which was a staple of his work at the time like Goblin (1993), but is toned down in places when other films had a heavy emphasis on real organ meat being fondled. To a viewer who may roll their eyes at all this, I can say Todd Sheets worked and worked until he could make a film like Clownado (2018), which is not as ironic as that title suggests but is a solidly made micro-budget film in comparison to this. He would improve into a competent low budget horror filmmaker with a taste for quirks, taking his splatter film mentality onwards and, with a film like Clownado, making a film aware of its limitations but able to be more interesting than films thrice its budget. It is the case, whilst many are harder to find nowadays, his earlier work like Nightmare Asylum did get proper releases, and were always going to be a yard stick to work from when this is clearly of an entire spectrum of filmmaking with its own acquired taste.

Instead, I come to this entirely as an amateur production which has a likable energy in spite of its hellish technical issues, where even the haunted house itself is the work of nerdy horror fans, such as fake gravestones for Stephen King, John Carpenter and Wes Craven in one scene when someone is dragged into graves. There is, if you can partake or absorb this, the chaos of something delightfully gaudy even if I am one of the few people willing to partake in this. It has the mentality where no one bothers to hide the haunted house's "Exit" signs, instead referenced as a one way direction to a worse form of Hell to avoid. The haunted house itself is a thing of lurid beauty, a public environment one could only hope to enter with its elaborate rooms, such as a morgue, alongside props like bloodied mannequins and even a replica of Linda Blair as the possessed version of her character from The Exorcist (1973) which is cut to multiple times. All shot in green and purple darkened lighting, with fog Lucio Fulci would be proud of, the location shines even if the production is haphazard and feels semi if greatly improvised. In fact, imaging this is the equivalent of a live theatrical performance with splatter, transpiring inside a haunted house, is probably the best way to digest the film, even in terms of the home recording of it being far from perfect. Even in terms of a film made within this world that, frankly, is one of the biggest messes I could come across, I was immersed and entertained by access like this.

It is the best and the worse of micro-budget filmmaking, the participatory nature of the film a good thing, even if suffering from barely audible dialogue and music, where there is a knowing absurdity even in the lack of gore in this particular film, improvising with spaghetti seemingly used at one point as improvised human insides. This is a film on a different hand too however where someone did, to their credit, figured out facial bladder effects, even if for someone randomly becoming a she-demon, showing this sense of people trying even if failing. That sense of it being barely stuck together is its greatest flaw but at the same time, it compels me. There is a least of sense of trying and unpredictability even if this was a futile project from the get-go, never boring at least. It is only an hour, and even the twist ending, that this was all a dream only to try to trick the audience, gave a sense of being erratic and trying to get the viewer pulled in. It is to be approached with caution, but I was glad to have seen this.

Abstract Spectrum: Erratic/Psychotronic

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

 

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1) I have probably referred from this interview, from the podcast No-Budget Nightmare, before, but it perfectly sums up Todd Sheets' own views of his earliest work as bluntly as possible.

Goblin (1993)

 

Director: Todd Sheets

Screenplay: Jerry Angell and Todd Sheets

Cast: Mike Hellman as Jerry; Bobby Westrick as Larry; Jenny Admire as Tammy; Kim Alber as Sherry; Dana Cheney as Dorothy; Tonia Monahan as Jodie; Matthew Lewis as Jeff

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #213

 

Quit acting like a bimbo in a b-movie!

It should be pointed out that, in a rare case of a director reflecting negatively on their career, micro budget filmmaker Todd Sheets has dismissed his own work up to Zombie Bloodbath (1993) despite starting in 1989, finding embarrassment in the likes of Goblin¹, one of many projects in the early nineties shot-on-video market which was produced by J.R. Bookwalter, another genre film maker, and one of many Sheets made in a very short period of time. Goblin itself does feel like an acquired taste even if you are not as harsh on it as Sheets himself is, a production that, whilst it is explicitly referencing Lucio Fulci in dialogue and in a scene of prolonged eyeball trauma, feels like an offspring of Herschell Gordon Lewis for a micro budget, with its "El disgusto blood effects", and long scenes of organ fingering and blood which looks like the drippings of meat defrosted in a freezer.

This premise strung on the idea of a couple of people at a housewarming party being terrorised by a killer goblin, freed from a well  and looking more like a dishevelled King of the Landfill troll that is visibly wearing jeans under the costume. Said gore scenes in-between are legitimately gross. A lot of actual organ meats from a butcher's store (or a slaughterhouse) are used, which with the dull grey washout of the film, and a tendency to go longer then even Lucio Fulci on them, creates an incredibly repulsive effect that, credit due, is more horrifying than slicker made horror films in their gore scenes. What is the appeal of a film like this? Honestly, viewers can have very basic pleasures, no matter how prurient, with a lot of this created from a fan of horror films who wanted to make something to escape from the ordinary world, which may seem weird with a film like this until you think of the gore scenes in this being to gross out than to actual horrify. One scene probably crosses a line, of a female character getting a sickle to an intimate place, but this is equal opportunities production with a man getting a pole up the anus through the guts. Even this type of description may seem problematic, yet the context in the film all of this come off as a spectacle which is completely unrealistic and meant to cause people to feel gross, literally flinging real meat off the actors when it is impossible to do so to a viewer through a screen.

The organs are not human, and do not have anatomical accuracy as they are even extracted from a man's head through the ear hole, instead the equivalent of sticking one's hand through a mystery box and thinking there are brains inside only for it to actually by jelly or a stand-in. We have forgotten that believing cinema should be narrative driven first is a hold-over from literature and other mediums, and even this type of film emphasises on the fact that any motion image is as much its form and image as the content having a structure to grasp. Goblin is definitely not a high bar to technical skill in the slightest, beginning with the fact it feels semi-improvised throughout. Dialogue is difficult to here at times, and there are huge tangents in-between a string of gore scenes. The lead group of individuals do speak in monotone and do incredibly dumb things, like walk up a ladder backwards when there is a killer goblin around, or think acquiring a ride-on lawnmower to run into it seems a wise idea, only to be stuck trying with a hand push rotary hoe against it. The sense of improvisation is found in how Todd Sheets himself, with a magnificent mane of hair and leather jacket, is a character completely separate from everything, for over what feels like ten minutes searching for an empty house before the goblin gets him in his own little scene. Whilst amusing to see the creator killed by his own creation, it does feel like a necessary to get the film to a feature length and only for that reason.

It is also a film which, as it feels like the film has ended with a happy conclusion, suddenly includes an abrupt and nihilistic ending with zombies which is out-of-nowhere and does feel abrupt, among the moments where dialogue from an unknown voice (including the director himself) can be heard occasionally to make sense of a scene. To an outsider, it is sluggish production, insanely sluggish, a reminder that whilst I have come to admire these films, Goblin is an example of these films having to be appreciated in spite of their huge issues per subjective experience. Sheets himself reflects on the fact that he strived to make better films as he went on¹, which would make a film like this not really a blueprint but a film from a different time he would prefer to move away from.

One with charm, its self reflective nature in referring to pop culture before that was commonplace is found throughout, and it never feels like it is dragged out for too long if you have a taste for these types of film. It is an acquired taste only for a few however, as not only would some be put off by its grossness and aesthetic look, but its structure is repetitious to an extreme. This is, as a result, an outlier from a very early period in his shot-on-video era, where he clearly learning and having to work in a very difficult scenario with minimal resources. So I do not viewing Goblin with as much harshness as I could have given it. The irony that this was the first of his films I have seen, due to how difficult they are to see in the United Kingdom would probably just cause him to shake his head in disbelief if anything if he read this review.

 

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1) The podcast No-Budget Nightmares, covering Goblin, includes an interview with Todd Sheets where he admits this. The episode can be found HERE.

 

Additional Notes: Comments that were not included in the review in a stream of consciousness.

Mars Bringer of War by Gustav Holst is a constantly used music cue for gore scenes for the better.

Music by Enochian Key is also used, the director's own band which is also fun and means we also get his own singing as well as his filmmaking.

Tonia's feet and eye get their own end credits. The credits for various parts of her are odd and I do not know if they are mean or not.