runningscared: cosmic horror icon (cosmic)
Movie: Galaxy of Terror (1981), directed by B. D. Clark
Watched on: HBO Max
Ran: 8.13 miles, 8’46”/mile, 01:11:18 (recovery run)
 
Galaxy of Terror (1981)I’m not the world’s biggest science fiction fan, but apparently folks of that persuasion are currently shouting “FEAR IS THE MIND-KILLER!” because they’re all hyped up for the new film adaptation of Dune, which they feel will be more faithful to Frank Herbert’s novel than the 1984 version. I can’t offer any input on that, other than to say that the last time I saw Dune it made me want to crush my own skull in a vise. Granted, this was decades ago during an all-night college sci-fi marathon, and I allow that if I were to see it again today with these wiser (and presbyopic) eyes, I might feel differently, but frankly, I’m not that keen to try. Besides, “fear is the mind-killer”? C’mon, that theme had been run into the ground three years earlier in Galaxy of Terror.
 
Yes, believe it or not, despite having endured Bloodsucking Freaks the night before, tonight I voluntarily chose to watch another film from the 50 Worst Movies Ever Made list, because apparently I did a genocide or three in one or more previous lives and have decided to cash the karma check all at once. I started the movie with trepidation, true, but then imagine my delight to see soon-to-be horror mainstays Sid Haig AND Robert Englund in the opening credits! But wait, that’s not all: order now, and we’ll throw in a free Ray Walston and a bonus Erin Moran! That means that if you’ve ever dreamed of seeing Captain Spaulding and Freddy Krueger on a spacecraft crew with Mr. Hand and Joanie Loves Chachi, this is your chance, hotshot. What a time to be alive!
 
Of course, after the opening credits the movie all went to crap pretty much immediately, as one might well expect from a Roger Corman production. You wouldn’t necessarily guess it from the basic plot, which is uninspired, but has enough bones to support a decent movie: sent to investigate a craft that crash-landed on the distant planet Organthus, the crew of the spaceship Quest finds only corpses. Before long, the Quest crew are picked off one by one in various mysterious and brutal ways. Worse yet, an energy field prevents them from leaving, which leads them to explore an ominous black pyramid in hopes of securing their escape. Cue more deaths, a slowly (ohmigod SO slowly) dawning realization, and a final boss battle, then roll credits.
 
But the plot sketch doesn’t do justice to what actually appears onscreen. Here’s a partial list of what you’re in for if you actually tune in: colorful characters, such as a near-mute spiritual warrior with crystal throwing-star-thingies! A psi-sensitive who announces that she is, indeed, psi-sensitive! A mysterious energy-blob-headed Planet Master who could not possibly turn out to be evil! A reckless and damaged female space captain who was the only survivor of the Hesperus Massacre, and who is DEFINITELY NOT supposed to be Ripley after she piloted herself home after Alien!
 
Come for the characters, stay for the grisly deaths: someone’s head explodes when crushed by tentacles! Someone has to cut off his own arm, which proceeds to kill him and then sprouts maggots! One of those maggots grows to enormous proportions and, in an infamous scene that is more or less this film’s entire cinematic legacy, proceeds to rip a woman’s clothes off, cover her in slime, and rape her to death! You get all this AND MORE!
 
But Galaxy of Terror’s cardinal sin is that, even with such bonkers-sounding ingredients at hand, the overall dinner is so bland and uninspiring I fell asleep face down in my soup. (Well, not literally. Soup is difficult to eat while running on a treadmill. NEVER AGAIN!) Judging unscientifically based on my memory of the viewing experience, 71% of all dialogue consists of crew members asserting that they’re the ones in charge here, while 43% of the camera time is split about 50/50 between stern looks and slow-motion rock-climbing (which, amazingly enough, is just as boring to watch no matter what planet it’s happening on). And forget about fear—the REAL mind-killer is just how long it takes the crew to figure out what’s going on. When one character suddenly says, apropos of nothing in particular, “boy howdy, I sure am scared of X,” and shortly thereafter dies of X, and then another character says “well that was certainly a shame but at least he didn’t die of Y, which is something that I, personally, am SUPER-terrified of,” and then that character dies of Y, you’d think maybe everyone would go “hey, WAIT a minute here” before literally only two crew members are left standing.
 
I know that Galaxy of Terror is (somehow) held in high regard by fans of horror B-movie schlock, which explains its current availability on HBO Max, but frankly, I just don’t share the love—and I AM a fan of horror B-movie schlock. Everything about it looked good (well, “good”) on paper, but I found the execution lacking. More than anything, I got the distinct feeling that no one involved in the production was having a good time, as if this entire endeavor were nothing more than a contractual obligation and/or a paycheck. And that’s the biggest mind-killer of them all.

1.5/5.0 bloody severed feet
runningscared: bloody hands (bloody hands)
Movie: Bloodsucking Freaks (1976), directed by Joel M. Reed
Watched on: Shudder
Ran: 6.30 miles, 8’49”/mile, 55:35 (recovery run)
 
Bloodsucking Freaks (1976)I’d never seen Bloodsucking Freaks, though I’d certainly heard of it—most horror fans probably have, as it’s one of those infamous titles that gets thrown around as an example of a Z-grade movie that would be too sick to stomach were it not so laughably inept. I hadn’t heard any details about it, though, and wasn’t even aware that it was a Troma film—you know, the folks who brought us The Toxic Avenger? But it turned up on a list of the 50 Worst Films Ever Made that I’d stumbled across in my travels, so I checked around, and, yep, wouldn’t you know it, it was available on Shudder. So I gave it a shot, and it was both not at all what I expected and 110% EXACTLY what I expected.
 
First off, I should probably get this out of the way: it’s an extraordinarily ugly film. It’s vile. It’s contemptible and gross, and not just because of the gore. Basically, you really don’t want to watch this unless you have a VERY strong stomach—not for blood, nor even for graphic violence (the effects are poor enough that I doubt anyone’s going to be much put off by them). The thing about Bloodsucking Freaks that will really get to a lot of viewers is a streak of misogyny so far advanced it’s essentially a gangrenous limb that fell off, became self-aware, and is happily living out its days as a self-sustaining infection.
 
Let’s talk about the plot. Oh, you heard there wasn’t a plot? So did I—I was under the impression that Bloodsucking Freaks was little more than a series of unconnected scenes of gory violence—sort of a Faces of Death dynamic—but I was laboring under a misapprehension: it’s actually a series of scenes of gory violence connected via an ACTUAL STORY, albeit a thin and preposterous one. Master Sardu, assisted by the diminutive Ralphus, has an off-off-Broadway “theater of the macabre,” basically a Grand Guignol nudie show in which naked women are brutally tormented and killed onstage. The audience thinks it’s all fake, but nope, it’s real. Sardu, who funds his theatrical endeavors via international white slavery, craves validation from the art world, and thus takes exception to some harsh words from critic Creasy Silo. Sardu has Ralphus kidnap both Silo and renowned ballerina Natasha Di Natalie to star in his grand vision of a ballet of torture and death. Natalie’s boyfriend, pro football player Tom Maverick, enlists the help of crooked cop John Tucci to find the missing Natalie, while the opening night of Sardu’s twisted vision draws nearer…
 
…Aaaand while all that’s going on, Sardu and Ralphus are happily gambling with severed fingers, decapitating schoolgirls and having sex with the remains, giving women to a demented doctor so that he can drill into their heads and suck out their brains with a straw, etc. etc. etc. It’s an ever-escalating list of outrages that reminded me of how Pink Flamingos keeps upping its shock value, except the outrages in Bloodsucking Freaks almost exclusively deal in the torture, rape, and murder of naked women. If I thought that this was strictly because the filmmakers knew it would be the easiest way to shock their audience, that would be one thing, but that is not at all the impression I get. Everything about the violence-on-women scenes feels… mean-spirited, I guess? Like, the film could have taken a satiric approach, or even just remained repugnantly neutral about it all, but instead somehow you get the very palpable sense that this movie is taking the plausibly deniable but ultimately unmistakable stance that raping and dismembering women for fun is the bee’s knees.
 
One could imagine that position to be slightly at odds with the movie’s attempts at social commentary. What’s that? You also heard that Bloodsucking Freaks doesn’t have any social commentary? Well, it doesn’t have much, but surprisingly, it does make a distracted and feeble attempt at it. For one thing, you do get a sense that at least on some level you’re watching a satire of the ’70s New York City art scene, with the critics as haughty gatekeepers that suppress “true art” in favor of what’s safe and commercial. For another, you’ve got Sardu, a rich white guy with a posh accent, taking visible delight in both literally and figuratively bleeding the rest of humanity dry while he satiates his deviant desires. I don’t mean to say this film is an intentional satirical indictment of capitalism, but hey, one can dream. Oh, and let’s not forget how the cops are portrayed: Sgt. Tucci flat out tells Tom that the NYC police won’t lift a finger to help unless he hands over $10,000. And who can forget the scene when Tom first calls 911 to report Natalie’s disappearance, and gets an answering machine? So yeah, it has things to say, though not overly much and not especially well.
 
That said, though, there is definitely more to Bloodsucking Freaks than I had been led to believe, and when I caution people about seeing it, it’s more out of concern for viewers’ sensibilities than because I think the film ought not to be seen. If you do watch it, though, and you’re not completely irredeemable, be forewarned that you might need six or eight Silkwood showers before you start to feel clean again.

2.0 bloody severed feet

December 2020

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welcome to my nightmare

I run literally every day, but I'm not supposed to be outside while the sun's up (for, um, reasons), and also there's a pandemic on and running in a mask sucks. On rare occasions I chance a late-night run on unlit and deserted paths, but maybe 85% of the time these days, I run on a treadmill in my living room.

Running on a treadmill for an hour is boring, though, especially day after day. My solution? Watching horror flicks. I queue up a scary movie and let the miles fly by. The speed boost of an adrenaline rush is just an added bonus. Allow me to share with you the myriad wonders of... RUNNING SCARED.

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