"John Dies at the End" (2012) d/ Don Coscarelli

It had been seven years since director Don Coscarelli (Phantasm (1979) et al) served up the "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" segment for the Masters of Horror series, and ten since he memorably brought author Joe Lansdale's Bubba Ho Tep (2002) to the big screen, giving genre nuts new The Chin-as-Elvis lines to walk around repeating ad nauseum. By 2012, we were relatively sure of two things, that Coscarelli was due for a return to the big screen, and that whatever it was, would most likely be pretty outrageous. The film he gave us, John Dies at the End, certainly fits the bill, an excellently crafted, oftimes surreal, horror/sci-fi/comedy starring the likes of Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes. Paul "Sideways" Giamatti just reminds me of Gavin McInnes for some reason. Like a future variant McInnes that time traveled back to now or something. Maybe it's just me.


"Like, don't take one step further, breh, we're vegans."
After relieving a skinhead zombie of his namesake body part with an axe (Didn't know him) and waxing philosophically about it, David (Chase Williamson) arranges a public rendezvous with a reporter named Arnie (Paul Giamatti) to reveal the undeniably strange turn his life has taken lately. To quell Arnie's skepticism, he recalls when he and his titular pal, John (Rob Mayes) offered psychic aid to a girl who's being stalked by her dead beau, but when both young men perceive her differently, it's a signal that she's bound to explode into snakes, then assemble herself into a terrible beast comprised of frozen meats. The meat-beast demands a showdown with Marconi (Clancy Brown), a television psychic, who, pressed for time, vanquishes it over the telephone. It all started, it seems,  at an outdoor concert that John's band played at, where the dog of a female amputee named Amy (the dog is Bark Lee) has bitten a Jamaican drug dealer/ psychic named...Robert Marley (how apt), and run off. While David is looking after Bark Lee, he receives a phone call from John, who's bought a substance he calls "soy sauce" off of Marley, that allows him to perceive alternate dimensions of being and time. You with me so far?


"I've got a shirt on, Reggie. Keep it in your pants, Mr. ice cream."
Naturally, David accidentally pricks himself with a syringe of the infernal stuff while driving, lending to hallucinations of interdimensional travelers and giant slugs. A detective takes the young men in for questioning, explaining to David that he is the sole survivor of a drugfest gone awry at the Jamaican's crib, and that his friend John has died. Only John calls his phone and orchestrates his police station escape when the detective leaves the room. At the goopy Jamaican crime scene, he and his friends are kidnapped by a possessed wigger named Justin, who takes them to a local mall that happens to have a ghost door that can only be accessed by a phantom limb like Amy's, and it's not long before the demonic collective (it has a name too... "Shitload") is hopping from person to person, and our heroes cross over into another dimension, as run by Korrok's pragmatic tentacles, one of disciple sacrifice and knowledge absorption...you get the idea, I'm sure. As you can imagine, the movie turns off of Unhinged Avenue and onto Deranged Boulevard in the final reel, and I'm not about to spoil all the fun for you. See it.


"You're going in the Sunday sauce, fucker. You kiddin' me?"
Though this might be the only time Paul Giamatti gets mentioned on Wopsploitation, you'll no doubt remember Clancy Brown from his role of Viking, the juvenile detention bully who gets a boom box exploded in his face in Bad Boys (1983), or from his turns in movies like Pet Sematary Two (1992), Starship Troopers (1996), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). Back to the movie itself. Like Phantasm on crystal meth. If you thought that movie was strange, then you'll probably consider this one certifiable for a straight, white coat and laceless sneakers. If you're in that infinitesimal percentage of movie buffs that didn't like Phantasm (I've never personally run across anyone like that in all my years, but I'm assuming they do exist...somewhere...that sucks), chances are you'll like this one even less. I'm of the opposite camp, and enjoyed it a great deal. Three big ones on the scale. Grab a copy.


As a straight, toxically masculine, cis-gendered, white male dudebro/shitlord/caveman who especially loves women when they're naked, I couldn't resist using this screenshot. Sorry, Anita Sarkeesian. #TitArmiesMatter

"Phantasm"(1979)d/Don Coscarelli

I'm sure you won't mind that I went the selfish route and took a couple of "me" days over here;I did some light partying,saw Ted Nugent for the umpteenth time live in the Poconos(I hope I can rock balls out half as much as Uncle Ted if I make it to sixty),wrote off some possibilities,and explored a few new ones,but once the smoke clears(and it rarely does around a guy like me) as always,I'm back to serve up some choice genre stuffs for your reading pleasure.We're at the front end of what looks to be a run of several classics in a row here,and I mean that in an all-time favorites kinda way.Over the next several days and nights we'll be examining some of the best films the horror genre has ever offered,in my opinion anyway(and they're all from the seventies,what does that tell you?),and unless you subsist in a shack on pork n' beans and find your own sister powerful handsome,you'll probably agree with me here.Not much of a stretch,but hopefully,I'll do some justice to most,if not all of these fan favorites.Wait a second,was I just doing humble?
When I met Reggie Bannister,my favorite character/actor from tonight's review(sorry,Mr. Scrimm comes off a little too dramatically for the top spot),we jawed at great lengths about the profound effects that Coscarelli's practically self-made(he directed, written, photographed, co-produced and edited here,ferchrissakes)first excursion into the horror genre with such original,terrifying imagery had on a ten year old Wop,among other things,when suddenly Bannister was approached by a towering,grinning she-dork,stretching the measuring tape to about six foot three,and bearing a hastily produced token of her affection for the actor."You rule,Reggie!"she guffawed,as she handed him a single piece of computer paper with three images from "Phantasm" printed on it.He wasn't even in two of the pictures.Reg,not missing a beat,took the offering,paused for a moment,and said in his inimitable Cali-drawl,"You know....I'm gonna put this in my room of really cool stuff from my fans!"The nerd seemed satisfied with that and lumbered off.Once she was out of ear shot,not missing a beat,I asked,"Room of really cool stuff,eh,Reg?Is that what you're calling the wastepaper basket these days or what?"Yeah,I'm a dick.

"The funeral is about to begin....SHORTY."
Tommy(Bill Cone)is getting laid in Morningside cemetery(apparently the local hot spot),when his partner,the Lady in Lavender(Kathy Lester) suddenly transforms into a tall man,who abruptly shanks him in the labonza with a switchblade.I hate when shit like that happens.At Tommy's funeral,Jody(Bill Thornbury)and Reggie(Reggie Bannister) grieve for their friend,and discuss Jody's younger brother,Mike(Michael Baldwin),who's hiding in the bushes with binoculars,managing to catch sight of the same Tall Man(Angus Scrimm) singlehandedly lifting Tommy's casket and slamming it into the back of a hearse as if it was nothing.Unnerved by the whole experience,Mike visits a blind,old fortune telling mystic who materializes a black box that eats Mike's hand until he learns to let go of his own fear.The creepy old biddie has a good laugh until her granddaughter visits the funeral home,and something horrible pulls a scream out of her.At home,Mike,at thirteen,a bigger gearhead than his brother(who lets him work on and drive the car anyway),works on Jody's Hemicuda,and overhears his brother's possible plans to leave him with relatives.Since their parents untimely deaths,Mike follows Jody everywhere,often spying on him,with the fear of abandonment fresh on his mind. That night,Jody unwittingly picks up the Tall Man's alter ego,but at the cemetery(seriously,what's with that?)his coitus(and subsequent labonza-shanking) is interrupted by Mike,screaming his head off and running for his life from something...small,brown,and low to the ground.It probably wasn't the retarded kid,Timmy,from up the street.Mike returns to Morningside,and breaks in,only to be captured by a caretaker,when a flying silver sphere that has been chasing the boy through the hallways,slams into the caretaker's forehead with twin knifeblades,before a drill bit emerges and drains the poor bastard's blood and grey matter,shooting it out the other end.

If a long,painful screw between the eyes was on the drink menu,I'd stick to Moretti.
The Tall Man appears and gives chase,but in the melee,gets four of his fingers slammed in a door and cut off with a hunting knife by the boy,who takes one of the yellow,gooey digits as proof to show his older brother,but when he produces the box back at the house,the finger has turned into a really angry looking enormous fuzzy bug,which they dispose of in the trash compactor,to the dismay of Reggie,who caught the tail end of that madness.Jody then visits the mortuary himself,and is attacked by one of the hooded dwarves that Mike told him about,but dispatches it with a bullet and escapes to Mike waiting at the main gate,driving the Hemicuda.As the two drive off,they are chased by a hearse that seems to be driven by no one.What's crazier,the hearse having no driver,or keeping up with a fucking Hemicuda,draw your own conclusions.Jody produces a shotgun and blasts the hearse from the sunroof,whereupon it crashes,impaling one of the dwarves on a tree branch,revealing that the dead half a motherfucker in question is their dead friend Tommy.After much preparation,the brothers enlist Reggie and descend upon Morningside to discover the Tall Man's fiendish secret:He's been squashing down the local bodies of the recently deceased into undead dwarves,sealing them in bulky black cannisters and sending them off through a dimensional portal in the mortuary to become his slaves.The portal itself reminds Reggie of his tuning fork from his hot-as-love guitar jam sessions with Jody,and when he touches both metal bars at the same time,he turns it into a vacuum,which causes the whole place to implode upon itself.The brothers manage to trap the Tall Man down an abandoned mine shaft,but Mike awakens to find that the whole thing was just a bad dream,caused by his brother Jody's death.Reggie offers to take him on the road with him,but when the boy excitedly runs upstairs to pack a bag,the Tall Man is waiting in his room,and his dwarves pull Mike into the mirror.

"Dude,if I,like,touch both of these at the same time,I bet it'll produce some totally forked up results."
Released under the alternate and decidely goofier title,"The Never Dead" in Australia so the audiences wouldn't confuse it with the earlier sex comedy "Fantasm"(which also had a sequel,mind you),tonight's cult classic has spurred on three mostly enjoyable sequels to date,and originally drew an X rating from the board over the silver sphere violence and aftermath(which made Bravo's list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments),though it was eventually released as an R movie,thanks to the unlikely championing and efforts of a Los Angeles movie critic.The characters herein all have a believability rarely encountered in movies,due to being specially written for the actors who play them.The soundtrack by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave is excellent and atmospheric,and there's even a disco version of the main theme floating around somewhere.Coscarelli won the Jury Award in 1979,and the film was nominated for Best Horror Film at the Saturn Awards the following year.Perish any doubts from your minds,droogs,this movie kicks much ass and is always a good time when screened.It rates four wops from yours cruelly,and comes highly recommended.

"Did your granny knit you that groovy afghan,boooooooy!"