| Hey… have you seen the trailer for Monster House (2006) yet? "The house is…alive!!!" Cue spooky old mansion reaching out with its tongue-like entranceway carpet and devouring a police car like a toad swallowing a fly. Cool! This upcoming computer generated kiddie horror flick looks quite promising to me, but then I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for "inanimate objects run amok" movies. Who needs killer animals when you can have killer appliances, furniture and foodstuffs? This week, the Video Vulture takes a look at flicks in which ordinary household items come to life and do evil.
· I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990) – A charming story about a possessed motorbike that runs on a mixture of unleaded and AB negative. Watch for appearances by Anthony "C-3PO" Daniels and Bert "Cato" Kwouk.
· Death Bed: The Bed that Eats (1977) – Despite the lurid title, this oddball flick aspires for art-film surrealism and has won over its share of devoted fans after being rescued from obscurity in 2003. A comfortable looking canopy bed offers death to any weary travellers foolish enough to slip between its sheets, as a mysterious figure trapped behind a painting on the wall observes and narrates, unable to warn the victims. The film drifts along at a languid pace and the dreamlike images of skeletal victims floating in a hidden sea of fizzing digestive juices prove quite memorable.
· The Lift (1983) – How about a killer elevator? Dutch filmmaker Dick Maas gives us this cult favourite about an evil lift that suffocates, decapitates and occasionally just drops people. The hero is an elevator repairman. Director Maas must have had more to say on the subject of killer elevators, because he remade the film in 2001 as The Shaft, starring James Marshall, Naomi Watts, Michael Ironside, Dan Hedaya and Ron Perlman.
· The Stuff (1985) – If an elevator repairman seems like an odd profession for a movie hero, how about an industrial saboteur? Michael Moriarty is hired to find the secret behind the latest trendy low-fat dessert and discovers that it’s actually an evil amorphous life form from the Earth’s core. Writer-director Larry Cohen satirizes consumer eating habits with this off-the-wall horror fable. Once the public is told that their favourite snack treat is actually an evil monster, the bad guys simply start over again, marketing a "safer" product that contains 30 per cent less "Stuff!"
· Night of the Living Bread (1990) – More killer foodstuffs! This time, the heroes are under attack by vicious slices of Wonder Bread. Look for this short film on Elite Entertainment’s superb "Millennium Edition" DVD of George Romero’s original zombie classic, Night of the Living Dead (1968).
· The Mangler (1995) – People get killed by a possessed garment-folding machine. Seriously. Based on the short story by Stephen King, this flick was followed by two sequels.
· Over-sexed Rugsuckers from Mars (1989) – Cheap, cheap, cheap… and proud of it. You’d have to look pretty hard to find a shoddier-looking flick than this shot-on-video barrel scraper. A living vacuum cleaner goes on a killing spree and mates with humans, leading to a bizarre climax in which a woman gives birth to a dustbuster. Oy.
· The Refrigerator (1991) – Any apartment in New York City that rents for only $200 a month must have something seriously wrong with it. In this case, the refrigerator is actually a carnivorous portal into hell. That’s pretty bad. But on the other hand, $200 bucks a month is pretty sweet… hmmm. How often does it have to eat people? What if I just duct-tape the door shut – would that work?
· The Twonky (1953) – Viewers seem divided on whether this cautionary sci-fi horror/comedy is worthless or brilliant. Hans Conried receives an unwanted television set possessed by an even more unwanted alien intelligence called a "twonky." The bossy thing immediately begins taking over the hapless owner’s life, zapping intruders with laser beams and walking around awkwardly on its stiff wooden table legs. Many consider this film to be a brilliant media satire, but it’s sadly difficult to find today.
· Dial: Help (1988) – Oh wow, is this movie ever stupid. Charlotte Lewis (from Eddie Murphy’s The Golden Child) is utterly, utterly gorgeous, but she can’t act at all. Here, she’s menaced by supernatural forces when the telephone falls in love with her. You heard me – the telephone falls in love with her. Charlotte’s friends start getting strangled by phone cords or pelted with change from pay phones (!), but the ditz never clues in to the fact that she’s in danger. Despite her friend’s frequent and well-founded warnings, she starts embracing phone receivers with an alarming level of passion. At one point she even strips down to her skivvies and rolls around in the tub ecstatically while the telephone serenades her with alphanumeric bleeps and blurps. It’s a terrible movie, but it’s hilarious. And kinda hot. |
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