Our first movie is Don Coscarelli's new movie John Dies At The End and as Joe said after it was over, it's like a comedic Donnie Darko. I know what he means. If you don't, you might want to experience Donnie's story sometime. It's quite interesting albeit slightly depressing. This is a much more comic, yet dark and deadly, type of story. People die, crazy shit happens. Don is the creator of the Phantasm series and his last film was Bubba Ho-tep. That was ten years ago. I hadn't seen Don's first two movies Jim, The World's Greatest and Kenny & Company. YouTube also has Don's The Beastmaster and the trailer for Survival Quest with Lance Henriksen.
In John Dies At The End a young slacker dude narrates a story of drugs, death, demons and dimensional travel. The narrator is David Wong, who shares a name with the writer of the book the movie is based on, and his pal is John Cheese, who shares a name with cheddar. John is the first of the two to take a drug called Soy Sauce. More than a super hallucinogen, the viscous black 'living' drug alters reality and gifts the user with a precognitive ability. Much of the story is told in flashback to Paul Giamatti. He's a reporter who gets involved in the wrong story. It doesn't end well for him. In fact, he doesn't even exist. It's that kind of movie.
Glynn Turman plays a detective investigating the strange deaths in a trailer in a trailer park. You might have seen him in one of the many movies he's done, like Gremlins, Cooley High, How Stella Got Her Groove Back and tv shows like The Wire. What you might not have know is that George Lucas considered him for the role of Han Solo. The possible backlash of a black man and a white princess kept it from happening. You'd think he could have tossed him the Lando part. Glynn was also married to Aretha Franklin for 6 years starting in 1978. Who knew. Clancy Brown shows up as a tv psychic. He teams up with Doug Jones to help send David and John through the portal to another place.
The movie twists around and there's plenty of odd things happening. The guys have to fight an animated man shape pile of meat which isn't something that you see all that often. More stuff happens and eventually the movie ends. Not for everyone but I enjoyed it. Something I would add to my collection.
I had seen Kuroneko before, about 12 years ago, but no one else had. The international title translates as Black Cat. Yabu no Naka no Kuroneko is the long Japanese title which translates as A Black Cat in a Bamboo Grove. It's a 1968 Japanese horror film that put half of us to sleep. I wasn't one of the snoozers but I could see how it could happen. It's a slow moving ghost story set in feudal Japan. A young woman and her mother live in a house by a bamboo groove. The two are sitting down for a meal when some samurai turn up. They're hungry, so they take the food. Not satisfied with their snack they rape and kill the women then wander off leaving the house to burn down. That feudal Japan, such a fun place. The two women return as cat demons bent on revenge. They look like pretty ladies in kimonos. They lure samurai from the nearby Rajōmon Gate and take them back to their nice ghost house for some saki, snacks and smooching. The 3 s's are followed by some vengeful throat ripping. The husband of the young ghost woman had
been kidnapped by the local lord's army and taken off to war three years before. He returns with the head of his enemy wrapped in a cloth and gets some good praise from the local lord. Then he gets a new job. The lord wants him to kill the monster that is ripping the throats out of his samurai. He finds the ghost ladies right away but it takes him a while to figure out what really happened. Now he has to kill his wife and her mom. Damn, huh. It's all pretty tragic and lots of people die before it ends. The movie has a nice look and there's some interesting scenery and sets. It won't appeal to everyone but I liked it.
I love the subtitle on the Mexican poster 'El Groto del Sexo". That's the ghost ladies and the husband having some saki and snacks. They'll be some smooching in a bit, then things go badly. Cavorting with ghosts never turns out well. The movie is directed by Kaneto Shindo who's directed a lot of films. The only other movie of his that I have seen is Onibaba. That's an other good ghost story. Both are out in the US from Criterion. Worth a look.
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