31 Nights of Terror #18 - Redneck Zombies (1989)

Redneck Zombies (1989)
Director: Pericles Lewnes
Starring: Lisa de Haven, WE Benson, William Decker, James Housely
Format: DVD (Troma)

- This is the 20th anniversary DVD.
- A quite funny Kaufman's Kultural Korner bit before the movie starts, with Lloyd Kaufman (one of the most fun men in movies) and director Lewnes.
- Troma movies without a drum of nuclear waste are like porn without nudity.
- Great country music credits song.
- Most of the acting so far is of the usual hammy Troma kind, but Bucky Santini is genuinely funny as fat good ol' boy Ferd.
- Lewnes is also good fun as a gay bearded redneck named Billy Bob who wants to be called Elly May.
- Jed always getting his sons Junior and Jethro mixed up is a fun bit.
- For a bunch of dirty rednecks the Clemsons sure do have a clean and tidy pickup truck.
- Nice homage/riff on the hitchhiker scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
- Two rednecks watching porn on TV. "I like knockers". "I like knockers too". *knock on the door*. "Someone's knocking." "Yeah, I like knockers too". Top notch comedy right there!
- Man, that scene was trippy as all hell.
- Moonshine in the baby's bottle. That's just wrong.
- The makers of this must have had some fun doing the gore effects. They're pretty damn good for a low budget indy flick.
- Somehow I don't think Andy is as interested in the girls as he makes out.
- It's not hard to see why Lisa de Haven gets top billing. She's actually got some acting chops. Terrible pants though.
- The autopsy scene is hilarious.
- Love the scene with Bob pretending to a zombie but giving himself away. In fact, Bob starts out as one of the lamest characters (mainly due to the acting) but gets funnier as the movie goes on.
- Great ending!

Overall thoughts: As I've admitted before, I'm not much of a fan of Troma movies. And one of the reasons for that is I usually don't find the comedy in their stuff to be very funny. So I had low expectations going into Redneck Zombies, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it, and how funny I found it. Make no mistake, the humour is as low brow as you would expect from a redneck movie, so if you're looking for clever jokes, look elsewhere. But if the concept of nuclear waste getting into a moonshine still and turning hillbillies into zombies makes you chuckle, you might want to check Redneck Zombies out.

31 Nights of Terror #4 - The Toxic Avenger (1984)

The Toxic Avenger (1984)
Director: Lloyd Kaufman
Starring: Mitchell Cohen, Andree Maranda
Format: DVD (Troma)

- Alright, so this is the Director's Cut DVD. Not sure what that means, other than there are a few "deleted scenes" in the special features.
- Special DVD intro by Lloyd Kaufman, Mr Troma himself. As he says, this movie is what "built the house of Troma".
- Disclosure: I'm not really a fan of Troma movies. I prefer my horror a little less, well, silly I guess. I enjoy Class of Nuke 'Em High and a couple of others, but most Troma flicks do nothing for me.
- More disclosure: I haven't seen any of the sequels, and it's been close to 25 years since I saw this one. I remember quite liking it back in the day and I think it was probably one of the first gorey movies I ever saw.
- Digging the totally gnarly 80s soundtrack.
- Toking sit ups. That seemed so badass when I was 13.
- Nothing says 80s (or 70s) like naked breasts with tanlines.
- The Toxie transformation effects are actually pretty decent for such a low budget.
- Bad, bad overdubbing when Toxie speaks. Was that in the original, or is it some Director's Cut meddling?
- I am not surprised to read on IMDB that actor Pat Ryan, who played Mayor Belgoody, died at the age of 44. Boy was he one obese dude.
- Hey look, a one-armed bandit!
- Nice head-crushing scene. I guess that was the one it mentions on the cover of the DVD?
- A lot of the humor is lame, but I love the montage where Toxie does good deeds, like opening a jar for an old lady.
- Gratuitous car chase/crash sequence for no reason.

Overall thoughts: After a rough couple of days at work, tonight I needed some good old fashioned escapism. To switch my brain off and watch something that didn't take any thinking. So what better than a Troma flick right? As I mentioned above, I haven't watched The Toxic Avenger since the late 80s. I liked it when I saw it way back then, but how did it hold up to the test of time? Well, it was okay. A lot of the humor fell flat, but overall it's got a certain low budget, underground charm to it. Definitely a movie that appealed more to 13-year-old me (lots of boobs, toilet humor and gore) than 36-year-old me, but I'm glad I revisited it.