My First Time, Please Be Gentle
A SPECIAL FRIDAY NIGHT/SATURDAY NIGHT B-MOVIE REVIEW SPECIAL
Part One: Pre-B-Fest
While I was looking around on the internet for B-Movies galore, I stumbled upon B-Fest and I fell in love with the idea and I wanted to go. But I'm the only one within my "clique" that liked that kind of thing. Until this one dude named Adam e-mailed me one day out of nowhere late December. I use to go to school with him and he saw my "B-Movie Central 5000" project and contacted me right away.
It was later, sometime in early January, that he told me he was going to B-Fest and if I wanted to come. I said, hell yeah, boy!!! Ok I didn't say it all ghetto but still...
So I took the days off of work, got myself ready, and bought all the stuff I needed to make the next 24 hours seem like only 23 and a half hours. That stuff included: Pringles, Oreo Barz, some Lunchables, and a six back 24 oz. of Dr. Pepper. If I really wanted to, I can make one of them last me about 5 hours. So away I went...to Adam's house. Then to pick up the other two guys coming with us, Rick and Jared. Then we hopped on I-94 and we was rollin...oh we stopped...ok now we're rollin...ok this guy in a truck is blocking the toll...ok now we- ok I think you get the hint.
After what felt like 3 weeks, my bladder reached that point where you start wondering if you can live a whole day with wet pants, but we finally made it to where B-Fest is held every year, Northwestern University, which I'm told snobby rich people go to. But that's just what I heard.
We ran in, got our tickets, I emptied my bladder, and we found some seats right away, the very last row in the back. It was all ours. Mu-hahahaha...
Ok, I still haven't gotten much sleep. The fest started at around 6 PM.
Part Two: B-Fest Movies & Shorts
Yay, the movies and short films that we suffered through for 24 hours. And away we go!
(Note: The times I put down next to each movie are the times that are listed in the program. These times aren't exact, especially towards the end. I'll get to that.)
6:05 PM-The Brain From Planet Arous
Starring John Agar! You know this is going to be good. He stars as Steve, some scientist who, along with his partner Dave, follows some mysterious things happening on...Mystery Mountain. So they go up there and some giant floating brain takes over Steve's body, kills Dave, and is really horny for Steve's girlfriend. A good version of a giant floating brain tells the girlfriend and her Ronald Regan-ish father that the one that took over Steve is some outlaw who wants to rule the universe. Who hasn't heard that one before?
7:15 PM-Robot Jox
I was in the bathroom for the first five minutes, and the people in this movie had weird ass names. Pretty much, this dude who looks like the human cop from "Alien Nation" is a "Robot Jox" in a future world, the robot being this 300 foot tall robot. He fights this Russian dude. There's also some super skinny chick named Athena who tries to kill the "Robot Jox" and takes his place. And there's a traitorious china man and the Texan who kills him. It's Rocky IV meets Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots!
8:40-The Beatniks
Done on "Mystery Science Theater 3000", this tells the story of a dude who can sing pretty well but can't escape his "posse", which includes the nutcase Manson-esqe Moony. Moony kills himself a "Fat bar keep" and he attacks the singers manager. But somehow the singer goes to jail along with Moony. Kinda weird.
10:00 PM-The Beast with Five Fingers
The reels got mixed up for this movie, so I can only give you a basic idea of this movie. This dude who looks like Vincent Price only has one hand and is/was a pianst. He lives with his girlfriend Jenny, his son/brother/gay lover (hell if I know or remember) played by Peter Lorre. The one hand pianst (hahaha) dies and somehow (this was when the reels got messed up) his hand goes around killing people. Then it's revealed the Peter Lorre character isn't quite right. Shocking I know.
11:30 PM-Sweepstakes
As usual I didn't win anything.
11:45 PM-The Wizard of Speed & Time (Short)
Apparently, a very popular short film played every year. It's only about 3 minutes long and it has The Wizard running super fast all around, then he falls on some film canisters and he rewinds time and then the rest of the short plays like the end of Peter Gabriel's video for "Sledgehammer" with camera equimpment. I thought it was alright, but everyone goes nuts when it comes on. And then afterwards, they play it backwards and upside down. No, I don't know why.
Midnight-Plan 9 From Outer Space
This is also played every year, the Ed Wood classic. In the off chance you don't know what it's about, aliens come to Earth and raises the dead, well three dead people, played by Vampira, Tor Johnson, and Bela Lugosi. Well correction, Bela and some guy who sort of looks like Bela, but covers his face. The three dead people walk around obeying the alien's orders, when Bela (I think, I'm pretty gone right now...) tries to kidnaps a pilot's wife. The pilot gets all mad and goes after the aliens. They tell him and this General guy that there is one step beyond the H-Bomb, having something to do with the sun and gasoline...it's kind of silly really. But the pilot manages to blow up the aliens. This was fun cause anytime the movie showed the flying saucers, everyone got to throw paper plates, cause the flying saucers were made from paper plates. Ahh, thank you Edward D. Wood, Jr.
1:20 AM-Monkey Hussle w/Short
Monkey Business
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076404/
Short-God, you don't wanna know. Pretty much, monkeys running around riding ponies and then some weird animation trick has them talk and sing. It's UBER DISTURBING!!!
Movie-Monkey Hussle...well, it's a blaxpoitation movie. And it takes place in the 70's, in Chicago. And it features Rudy Ray Moore as a pimp named Goldie. And there's a dude who steals boxes or something. I was really getting tired at this point, and I couldn't keep up with the plot. I do know there's a crooked cop, some dude that looked like Huggy Bear, and a cat fight between two sistas. Yay!
2:50 AM-Alice In Wonderland
If there was a movie that woke everyone up, it was this one. This is the classic Alice in Wonderland, but done as a live action musical...oh and it's a porno. Yep. No, Alice is a grown woman. Sheesh... Pretty much, she follows a white rabbit (Listen to Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" for this reference) but she needs to shrink to fit in the door, so she loses her clothes (Now why didn't Disney think of that?), meets some cats, played by women, who "lick" her, meets up with The Mad Hatter where she "Kisses" his, um, you know what, helps Humpty Dumpty "rise" up again, and then things really get weird. She has sex with the king, the queen wants her to give her head, Twiddledee and Twiddledum, brother and sister, have sex with each other...yeah. Anyway, Alice learns not to be a virgin and has sex with this guy who bugs her at the library where she works. This was just an X-Rated version, but there just might be a full blown porno version out there. Adam is on the hunt. And he's hungry like the wolf.
4:10AM-The Spawn of The Slithis
This is a pretty horrible movie. A renegade school teacher investigates some grizzly murders going on in town, finds out some thing called The Slithis is killing people and, well, it's like a bad rip off of Jaws and Creature of The Black Lagoon. The best part though was the Police Chief, some bald, long bearded man who overacted and just HAD TO YELL EVERY ONE OF HIS LINES!!!!!!! WITH SUCH FORCE!!!!! RAAAH!!!!!
5:40 AM-Devil Girl From Mars
I only caught the beginning of this movie, I fell asleep in the middle. From what I saw, all these British people were in a hotel and a flying saucer lands with a Devil Girl From Mars on it. There was also some guy who escaped from prison and a scientist who didn't believe anything that was going on.
7:00 AM-Airport '77
One of the famous "This is George Kennedy, I'll talk you down" movies. Too bad I didn't get to see the entire thing. I saw the beginning, which I noticed starred Jack Lemmon, George Kennedy, James Stewart, and Monte Markum.
9:00 AM-Breakfast
Yummy...Oh, I forgot to mention, sometime during Beast with Five Fingers (I think) two more friends of Adams, Karen and Mike, showed up and joined us. They were next to me but when I woke up for breakfast, they were gone. Then Mike noticed he lost his cell phone, which we spent almost the entire time looking for it.
9:30 AM-The Forbidden Dance
Greydon Clark directed this movie about the Lambada, the Forbidden Dance. This hot girl from Brazil named Neesa (I think that's how it's spelled) came to L.A to stop her village from being destroyed. Instead, she ends up being a maid, then she goes out with her employer's son, Jason (Wha?!?). Jason (Wha?!?!) falls for her, but his bitchy girlfriend Ashley won't let up. Apparently, they were suppose to dance together on TV or some sort of plot like that. Of course, things turn sleazy when Neesa quits being a maid and works in a sleazy bar where guys have the option to sleep with the dancers. Jason (Wha?!?! ok, I'll stop) saves her, they dance on TV, and everyone boycotts the destruction. A movie that dares to show the dark side of doing the Lambada AND have an ecology message in it. Wow.
11:10 AM-The Beast of Yucca Flats
Coleman Francis wrote and directed this movie, which features Tor Johnson walking around with bad makeup on his face in the desert while some cops search for him. A family also gets lost in the desert, some kids are roaming around and Coleman himself narrates. "Flag on the moon...how'd it get there?" my favorite line.
12:15 PM-Fortress
Starring Christopher Lambert, NO!!!!!!! It's the future and he and his wife did something bad apparently and they get thrown in a jail, the "Fortress" if you will, which is run by the guy who plays Red on "That '70's Show". Red (Not his name in this movie but I can't recall it now) falls for Christopher's wife and he makes him do mean things while holding her hostage. Finally, Christopher had enough and breaks out, which isn't easy. Boy, tell me about it.
1:50 PM-H-Man
This is where things kind of get screwed up. The first half hour of H-Man started, where absolutely nothing was going on. Then the film broke much to the delight of everyone, so we watched the following shorts to pass the time until the next movie:
Monkey Business..AGAIN!! NO!!!!
A TV Guide (To Something, the title card went by kind of fast)-Pretty much a short telling us that everything on TV is fake. They should've showed this when stupid kids were burning themselves after watching Beavis and Butthead.
A Guide To Being Courteous (Or something like that)-It's a generation race to the finish between the kids and the adults to find out who's the most curtious. Of course, we have to judge the winner. Boo!
The Wizard of Speed & Time Again. I went to get Pizza this time.
3:10-Magnetic Monster
There really isn't a monster, just some dull scenes with scientists trying to find out why everything in town is being magnetic. They find this old guy was going around town with this radioactive stuff which become a magnet for some reason. So this one really dull guy wants to blow it up. In Canada. YAY!!!!
And finally...
4:45 PM-The Big Brawl
Starring Jackie Chan and the chick who played Alice in the Alice To Wonderland porno. Jackie is Jerry...really, and his dad rents his shop from some gangsters, who Jerry wants to beat up. The boss of the gangsters make a deal with Jerry: enter this "Big Brawl" in Texas and win, and they'll leave him and the father alone, plus release his brothers girlfriend...whom the brother hasn't seen in person...I don't get it either. Guess how it ends? Yeah.
Somewhere in the 24 hours...
There was this short, done in french, with a french title so don't expect me to remember it. It was this midget who wanted to sit and eat an apple but another midget wouldn't let him for some reason. So the first midget kills the second midget, stuffs him in a table "Rope" style, and....yeah. Oh, there's no talking and there's nothing but violins playing...yeah...
Part Three-Post B-Fest
Well, I survived my first B-Fest. I survived in a cramped seat with about 2 and a half hours sleep, ate nothing but Pringles, cheese, ham, crackers, and Oreo Barz, with Dr. Pepper, and watched 15 bad movies plus 6 short films. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I wanna go home. But we have to get out of Evanston first...which took about an hour. And now I'm here writing about it......hey why is the rool swirling....zzzzzzzzzzz......