Mr. Boogedy and Bride of Boogedy

Sorry for the delay, intended to have this up saturday night but had some technical difficulties. Tonight's movies are the classic Disney Channel made-for-tv horror movies Mr. Boogedy and Bride of Boogedy. Disney channel used to air these constantly around Halloween from 1986 until about 1999 or so, so this used to be a big part of my childhood. Problem: I haven't seen this since 1999 or so, and can't actually remember that much. So, we'll see just how well these two films hold up!



Sadly, right off the bat it's obvious this is super low quality. We enter upon a fictional family that is largely made up of recognizable people. The dad, Carleton Davis, is Clark, bearded creepy dog handler from The Thing, as well as Stanley, the adult version of Seth Green, in Stephen King's IT. The son, Corwin, is Bud Bundy from Married with Children. The daughter, Jennifer? The original Buffy, from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. Their youngest son, R.E.? That little boy from Alf. I'm already amused.



They move out to a stereotypical haunted house, where they meet John Astin of all people, dressed as some 1800's creepy guy. If the name doesn't ring a bell, John Astin was Gomez in the original Addams Family TV show, and was the crazy inventor guy from Brisco County Jr, among many other things. Also I'm realizing within five minutes this movie has no understanding of pacing in the slightest. John Astin's being as crazy as he normally is, and warns the family that the obviously haunted house is haunted by the "Boogedy Man." I fucking love Astin, he's great at playing wacky, hammy characters. Also we find out that the dad's business is gag items, which is fitting if you consider who he played in Stephen King's IT.



The family spends a few nights in their obviously haunted house, and a few of the kids end up experiencing the paranormal. Most hilariously, the daughter ends up blacking out after seeing him, and apparently clicking her heels together and infringing on L. Frank Baum's copyright. They also find slimy footprints on the walls, but they can be peeled off so the dad just assumes it's just a prank being pulled on them. There's also the fairly obvious poltergeist activity, hearing voices, a toaster jumping around and becoming superheated, etc. Keep in mind, this house is in crappy condition, cobwebs everywhere, and looks so cartoonishly haunted that it's not even funny. Cue the kids having to handle this on their own!



The kids seek out John Astin, who gives them a super low budget, hilaribad history flashback about William Hanover, a clown amongst puritans in early US History who became Mr. Boogedy, a jerkass puritan that hates everyone and loves scaring kids. Since he's telling them this from a pop-up book, the live action dramatization of this is covered in a thick white fog, the backdrops are crudely drawn, etc. Mr. Boogedy sells his soul to a very campy Satan for a magic cloak to help him get the woman he wanted, but ends up blowing up his house, taking himself, the woman he wanted, and the woman's child, Jonathan. That's a terrible story, Mr. Astin.



Back at home the kids try again to explain to their dad that the place is haunted, but he still refuses to believe. The house apparently gets fed up with his skepticism because suddenly it goes poltergeist heavy on him, and a fucking mummy comes to life and starts dancing around. This makes the dad believe, but he still seems very hesitant to move, and I'm suddenly filled with flashbacks to the Simpsons parody of Poltergeist and Amityville Horror from the very first Treehouse of Horror episode. That's something I need to do soon, just marathon all the Treehouse of Horror episodes.



That night, since the family decided to stay, the mother sees a vision of the woman Mr. Boogedy wanted who tells her that she needs to destroy Mr Boogedy's cloak. The kids end up encountering the ghost of Jonathan, who is kinda like a mix between a lightning being and the spirit of a Jedi and is described as feeling like one of their dad's joy buzzers. The family also finally encounters Mr. Boogedy, who is some big green ghost thing in dark robes that zaps people. Problem, the zapping doesn't actually hurt anyone, it just makes their hair stand up. Also he repeatedly says "Boogedy boogedy boogedy", which just sounds retarded.



If that wasn't wacky enough, Mr. Boogedy magically makes a vacuum chase the youngest kid around, but the kid ends up using the vacuum against him by sucking up his cloak and leaving Mr. Boogedy powerless, causing him to vanish. The ghost of the woman and her child are apparently at peace now, so they vanish, and all appears well, although Mr. Boogedy proves he's still around by talking and making a sign wink at the dad. Still, the family doesn't care, and neither does the movie apparently because that's where this ends.



Altogether this... was really different than I remembered. I remembered loving this as a little kid, but didn't remember how damn silly and immature it actually was. You could say it's because I had different tastes as a kid, but for the most part I hated a lot of kid's films for that even when I was little. That's actually what got me more into horror films. I didn't want to see crappy, wacky comedies where most of the humor came from people being clumsy or acting goofy, so I just watched my grandfather's VHS collection, which was largely made up of the same kinds of b-grade horror films I still watch to this day. I still kinda detest what most companies put out as kids movies these days, save for Pixar who I highly respect. Still, this is only 45 minutes, so I'd recommend giving it a viewing, especially if you vaguely remember watching it as a kid.



Bride of Boogedy follows the same family from before, only now for some reason the daughter is played by the lead chick from Wishmaster. Not that I'm complaining, Wishmaster was pretty awesome. The film starts with some guy in a privateer costume telling a bunch of kids the story of Mr. Boogedy around a campfire. I don't really get why this guy dresses like that, but he wears this outfit for the whole movie, so get used to it.



We cut back to the family from the first film who have invited a fat guy over just to scare the crap out of him using ghost costumes and a giant fake costume. I know that's how -I- like to spend my Halloweens. They're apparently all preparing for the Lucifer Falls Festival. I find it amusing that a film introduced by that douchebag Michael Eisner was allowed to mention Lucifer as many times as this movie does. The fat guy's there to tell the dad that he stands to be promoted, but he'd have to move, and he'd rather stay in Lucifer Falls. The daughter runs into the house, claiming she saw Mr. Boogedy. Her family mocks her, because they got rid of him, despite Mr. Boogedy revealing to them that they didn't at the end of the first movie. They go outside to prove she's crazy, and by that I mean the little kid throws a rock at a cat, and they all just laugh at the daughter for being a coward. Why did the family suddenly become a bunch of jackasses?



We cut to some city council thing where Eugene Levy is trying to dick over the Lucifer Falls carnival because he's angry that years later he's going to be stuck doing some of the worst films I've ever sat through in my life. Honestly, I'd be pretty god damn angry too if I starred in The Man too. He gets oneupped by Carleton Davis who inspires the town to tell Eugene Levy to suck it, so they're gonna continue with the carnival anyway, because fuck the American Pie sequels. So far the pacing in this movie is a bit awkward, but it's at least not as bad as the first film. This is, of course, because for some reason the second Mr. Boogedy film is 1h40m whereas the original was only 45m.



The parents check out some stuff for the carnival and meet up with some crazy witchwoman that implies that Mr. Boogedy isn't defeated. We also get more of Carleton being wacky, which keeps making me think back to Stephen King's IT again. Seriously, it's the same fucking character played by the same fucking actor. How has he not told his kids the story about he and his friends made a train with some girl and defeated a spider-like eldritch abomination in a sewer? It turns out Eugene Levy is just the town jerk who runs an old timey general store, and seems to hate everyone. The kids try and put up a poster for the carnival, but after they notice that he seems to have Mr. Boogedy's outfit on a coat rack, he rips their poster up and sends them out on their way.



The two boys of the family wander about at night until they end up in a spooky, fog machine covered graveyard where they run into Mr. Boogedy, who kinda reminds me of a larger version of Yogurt from Spaceballs now that I think about it, and the ghost boy from the first film tries to warn them. But, it's all a dream! They wake up and try to tell their dad, but their dad is for some reason super skeptical even after the events of the first film, and even though the fucking first movie ends with Mr. Boogedy revealing to him that he isn't defeated. Seriously, fuck this writing.



After some more drama with Eugene Levy being a whiny jerk, the kids wander back to the graveyard where they run into Vincent Schiavelli of all people. He shows them the grave of Mr. Boogedy, and for some reason they decide to take him to go see their parents. I guess if I bumped into Vincent Schiavelli I'd also want to go bragging to everyone about it. We get a seance with some stereotypical fortune teller, the random privateer guy from the start of the movie, Vincent Schiavelli, and the kids. ...and they use a fucking plastic toy kid's telephone in it to talk to the dead, seriously. Anyway this somehow ends up unleashing Mr. Boogedy from the statue on his headstone.



Carleton wanders around outside with a flashlight thinking that Eugene Levy is behind all of what's been going on, only to be attacked and possessed by Mr. Boogedy and told to find his cloak. Meanwhile his daughter is repeatedly writing in her journal that nobody ever listens to her, just as her dad passes by the door, hovering in midair on his back while making chattering noises and laughing like a maniac, because Mr. Boogedy sucks at subtlety, but he tries to act normal around the mother, so only the kids become suspicious.



The kids go to the privateer guy to try to tell him about what all's going on, which he tries to claim is normal at first just because their dad -is- strange. I don't care how strange someone is, strange people do not just levitate and glow green. We find out that Mr. Boogedy is after Carleton's wife. He gets her to dress as a puritan, repeatedly calls her Marion, and then... ...makes himself super fat for some reason while repeating Boogedy. Seriously. He inflates like the fucking blueberry girl from the original Willy Wonka movie and then starts flying around like he's Baron Harkonnen or something, making his wife realize something is going on.



The family brings over Mr. Privateer and the fortune teller chick who tells everyone shit they already knew, doesn't provide any help or anything useful to the movie, and then leaves. Well, that was pretty pointless. Later that night, Carleton, while possessed, finds Mr. Boogedy's cloak in the basement and puts it on, making him completely glow green. Cue him chasing them around the house, flying while repeating "boogedy boogedy" over and over while Eugene watches from outside, not finding any of this weird. Meanwhile, a man in a gorilla suit carrying a briefcase sneaks into the house! The plot thickens!



The possessed Carleton corners the family and the gorilla in a bedroom, where he begins covering everything in flowers and shooting bubbles out for some reason, in a scene that maybe I'm imagining because this movie has eaten away at what was left of my sanity. This is gonna turn out to be like Candle Cove and I've just been staring at a blank screen this entire time, isn't it? Well, Carleton is no longer possessed due to the actions of the gorilla, who it turns out is the fat guy they pranked earlier in the movie. They decide to burn the cloak once and for all to prevent this from ever happening again, but Eugene Levy is a ninja and somehow walked into the bedroom, grabbed the coat, and got out of the room and down the road all within about two minutes without anyone noticing. How did a man that skilled get stuck appearing in awful movies?



The next day at the carnival, we get the scariest thing across both movies: Vincent Schiavelli with a ventriloquist dummy. Seriously, this is unsettling as fuck. It reminds me of the minor character he played in Batman Returns, y'know, the organ grinder with the monkey. Eugene Levy shows up wearing Mr. Boogedy's robe and whines at Carleton about how since he's come to town nobody cares about him, and how he used to cloak to do it. The family offers to be his friend, but he decides they're lying, but then Mr Boogedy shows up and demands his cloak back!



Possessed Eugene Levy uses his green lightning powers to make a bunch of Halloween decorations that were totally not obviously just people in costume come to life and wander the carnival, including a werewolf, a pig-nosed vampire, and... some safari guy! How scary! Possessed Eugene Levy then heads towards the cemetary where he gives the statue of Mr. Boogedy its cloak back, causing Mr. Boogedy to completely return from the dead in physical form, as... Yogurt in a pilgrim costume mixed with the evil judge from that god awful Dan Akroyd Chevy Chase movie that escapes my name at the moment. Also, there's something hilarious about seeing Carleton, yknow, Stanley from IT, in a clown costume.



Mr. Boogedy heads over to the carnival where he starts shooting stuff with green lightning that uses stock lasergun sound effects that are corny even by classic Battlestar Galactica standards, and generally just causing chaos. He then takes over Carleton's wife, who I feel I need to point out is wearing The Bride's hair as a wig, err, that is, The Bride from Bride of Frankenstein. Because they had to make the title a bit more literal.



The remaining family members, Eugene Levy, and fat guy in gorilla suit meat back up with the privateer and fortune teller to hold an emergency seance, which summons the ghost of the little kid from the beginning and tells Carleton to use a key he has on the statue of Mr. Boogedy in order to get his wife back. Doing this opens up a portal, but Mr. Boogedy appears with Carleton's wife to say that it's too late. Mr. Boogedy turns out to be a retard though, because Carleton's daughter manages to trick him by offering herself up instead, and then running away after he lets go of her mother, allowing them to trap Mr. Boogedy in the portal. ...seriously. That was fucking retarded.



Bride of Boogedy is pretty awful compared to the first film. It's an hour longer, but it's a lot less entertaining, a lot less funny, and most of what makes it longer is just pointless filler. Still, if you liked the first, go ahead and watch it anyway. You can always probably just find
something better to watch I guess, but both movies aren't the worst thing to be on Disney Channel during the 90's, and you have nothing better to do on the big series of tubes we call the internet, besides maybe read things that are written in bold.

Demon Wind

Tonight's film is one of those situations where the box art alone made me need to check this movie out. I've seen a lot of interesting and hilarious looking box covers, but there's just something especially funny about this one. Seeing a cartoony demon burst into a room that uses so many pastel colors that one can only assume it's about to attack the cast of My Little Pony. It also looks more like a mid 80's film from the box, despite it apparently coming out in 1990.



Zooming in on a burning person crucified on a slanted cross, that's how a movie should begin! We pan over another corpse before getting some creepy psalm music about how it's holy to be drenched in the blood of a lamb during the opening credits, before we cut to some awesome shit I can only compare to Evil Dead. Some old, witchlike woman is trying to keep demons out of her cabin, when she discovers that the man she's with has been possessed, and spews blood at her. ...causing the farmhouse to fucking explode. I shit you not. -That- is how you fucking start a movie. You're doing good, Demon Wind, keep it coming.



We flash forward to Corey some woman in a car, driving down a vast empty plane before Corey flashes back to his old drunk father... then quickly we go back to them in the car! That was pointless, movie. They bicker a bit, because the woman's upset that Corey meeting his father wasn't better, and how it's left them silent. Meanwhile a creepy dark eyed girl points a stick at their passing car while ominous synth music plays, for about a minute and a half, seriously. This lets us know this kid is evil. If that didn't clue you in, she also pokes a skull with the stick, before smiling evilly.



They stop at a gas station, which Corey feels like he's been at before in a dream. Cue him... in a dream, at night, standing infront of the gas station naked for a couple of minutes, before cutting back. Corey, why can't you have more important dreams and flashbacks? The gas station's pretty much abandoned save for a gumpy old guy, and some woman that runs the diner. If you were put off by the random man-ass a few minutes ago, Corey's girlfriend/wife/whatever shows off hers as well. So far everyone in this film save for her seems... randomly grumpy, tired, and afraid. It's like a town with a secret, only Corey acts like that too.



In walks Dell and his girlfriend. Right off the bat Dell seems like he'll be our jock doucebag for the movie, as he wastes no time at all making sexist comments. We also get Jack and some girl he came with, Jack seems like he'll be our quirky annoying guy, but he also dresses like he's a 1930s college professor, so who knows. They all sit around a dinner table, and we find out they're all there because Corey's dad killed himself after meeting him. So that's why he's grumpy. We get some back story detailing that his dad's family vanished one day at that farm, so he and his friends are going to investigate! Cue one of my favorite horror cliches: Grumpy old guy warns them to avoid the farm. This time with a twist, as this grumpy old guy actually whips out a gun and tells them to get out. Apparently he witnessed the incident, or at least the aftermath, and doesn't want anyone else to get hurt. The gun's not loaded though, so he's not as crazy as I expected.



Want some more crazy? In comes a crazy kung fu magician. He does some tricks, goes kung fu on a beer can, etc all set to a synth version of Ride of the Valkyries that reminds me of the version played on the AfterDark flying toasters screensaver. Really, what horror film doesn't need a kung fu magician as a supporting character? I can think of many films that would instantly be improved. You know all those dull, uneventful moments in Paranormal Activity? Y'know, 95% of the film? Well now imagine that nagging housewife was actually married to a kung fu magician. There, I just made Paranormal Activity better. I find it funny that everyone in this film came in pairs. Three pairs of what I assume are lovers, and the magician brought his male assistant.



The group of eight explore around the farmhouse, which is still furnished and everything since it was destroyed. On top of this, the only thing left on the outside is just one wall and a door, yet on the inside the house appears to be pretty much normal. This farmhouse was obviously made of the same material as the Tardis. Sure, on the outside it appears to just be a wall with a door, but on the inside it's an entire house! And they don't seem to find this that creepy!



One of the women reads aloud some Satanic Latin chant that causes shit to hit the fan: Fire leaping out of the fireplace, furniture throwing itself, knives flinging into walls, etc. 18th Century Professor Jack however thinks it's simply a group hallucination, even after all of their car batteries die en mass. Skeptics in horror movies are funny like that. They're like the atheists that pop up in Discworld books.



They wander off a bit, but a fog comes in and teleports them back to the house! Suddenly three little girls are teleported in with the same visual effect putties use in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers when they teleport, except now it's also got a cheap synth sound effect added on it. They tell them, in a super creepy voice, that they can't leave. One of the little girls grabs onto one of the women in the group, then vanishes before turning her into a baby doll... that bleeds, and then sets on fire... and explodes. Wow. Also the guys don't seem to really react much to this. The lead guy even says the things aren't trying to kill them, just warn them. Well then what the fuck just happened to that woman? Seriously! She's dead now! She turned into a doll, bled, burned up, and exploded! I'd say she's pretty fucking dead, and the only one that seems to react in the slightest is Jack, the guy she drove in with!



Somehow they decide it'd be a smart idea to stay in the farmhouse for the night, wherein Corey starts exploring for clues about his family. They left him a journal detailing some oddities such as how their ancestors followed a preacher by the name of Enders who believed he could summon Satan near the farmhouse. The non-Satan worshipers ended up burning Enders and his followers alive inside of the house. Years later, Corey's family starts vanishing mysteriously, which is why it came down to just him and his dad, and why his dad got rid of him. Also they left him some daggers, similar to the ones those religious guys used on Damien, that was kind of them.



The magician and his assistant are looking outside when they see a hot topless blond chick calling them out there. Thankfully they're genre savvy enough to know to at least carry a shotgun with them, and be suspicious. She turns into a creepy flying deadite thing, so they open fire on her, attracting the attention of more deadites, all dressed like turn of century farmers. Thankfully they've got an assload of ammo, so they manage to shoot a bunch of them dead. Sadly, the assistant ends up randomly coming down with a slit throat, so the magician is left to ROUNDHOUSE KICK THE FUCKING HEAD OFF A ZOMBIE WOMAN. Seriously, that is fucking awesome. Too bad he dies shortly after, because seriously that guy was awesome. The rest of the living group wake up and see their bodies outside, and -this- time react. Apparently the magician and his assistant were way more important than the pink sweater girl.



The next morning, apparently the film sent out a request for two additional characters since they've lost three so far. In comes a really super fucking 80's couple. Seriously, the guy's got like, blue khakis, a white jacket, one really feminine earring that dangles from his ear, and some pretty damn 80's hair. He looks like he could just whip out a keytar and defeat the undead with some kick ass 80's tunes. That may sound silly, but then again this movie had a fucking kung fu magician.



Dell and his girlfriend walk off into the night when the fog surrounds them, turning his girlfriend into a demon that... stabs him through the skull with her fingernails. It's really hilarious looking, like he's just got these tiny stab woods in his skull that a fountain of blood leaks down from. His dying words are seriously a very unemotional sounding "But I loved you." I seriously love the bad acting in this film. You can tell most of them are just half-assedly reading from the script, as there's several instances of them reading out what seem to be typos and grammatical errors in the script. In some films that'd be a negative, but it just adds to the fun with this movie.



The rest of the group check out the barn that got mentioned multiple times in the journal. where they find a tiny human skeleton with a big cow skull up top. One of the ladies finds it to be beautiful, so she goes in for a closer look only for a gigantic tongue to shoot out of the skull, wrap around her neck, and pull her in so tht skull can slowly eat her head in an extremely bloody way. This film really reminds me a lot of Evil Dead, the original film, but in a good way. The deaths are cheesy, the makeup and blood effects are surprisingly good, and the writing is hilariously awful.



Zombie versions of the magician and his assistant come out and attack the group, but get their ass kicked. They lose track of 80's Guy for a moment, until the zombie version of the chick that got her head eaten pops up with his decapitated head. Corey finally remembers that he's got daggers on him, so he stabs her with it, causing her to vanish like... well, I'm sorry but putties come to mind again. Blame the little girls from earlier, they gave me nostalgic flashbacks. The three remaining people hold up in the farmhouse, where apparently his grandma's spells are still protecting the place, zapping the zombies with electricity so they can't come in. This doesn't last though, as somehow with no explanation the zombies break the spell anyway.



Corey forgets yet again that he's got a zombie killing knife on him, so he takes to just shooting the zombies that try to enter with a shotgun. Not that I'm complaining, way more entertaining to watch. Elsewhere in the house, separated from the group, Jack gets bitten by a zombie on the arm, causing him to hallucinate and see Bonnie, the pink sweater girl that nobody seem to give a shit about earlier in the film. Of course, this turns him into a zombie dressed in turn of the century professor clothing, which is awesome looking. He fondles the lone surviving girl's breasts for awhile, not really attacking her, before he stabs him in the eye with one of the magic daggers. Which... causes him to turn human, de-age into a baby, and then turn into a dove. ...for some reason. Seriously, what the shit? That didn't happen last time someone got stabbed. Does the dagger do random things? Is this like fucking Lego Island and the effects of the dagger vary from whoever is using it? Hmm... Lego Island with zombies...



Enders, the preacher referenced earlier, shows up and calls all of the zombies forward in a way that makes me think back to Vincent Price's bit in Michael Jackson's Thriller. He merges with all of the zombies to turn himself into one big monsterous zombie. Also this somehow causes Bonnie to show up, who he proceeds to bite into, aging her as he does so, until she's nothing but a skeleton. He's also got a really corny sounding distorted voice which just makes him all the more awesome.



Corey and his girlfriend/wife make a chalk symbol on the floor, he says some magic words, and turns into a cheap version of one of the guys from Alien Nation so tht he can fight the super zombie, who shoots laser and lightning effects at him. This ends up seeming kinda pointless because the super demon still ends up killing him by... burning points into his forehead? Thankfully none of that matters, because it was all a dream! Corey wakes up to find out everyone's still alive and in the cabin. ...only it's not, as they're all horrible zombies, and even his lover's been turned into a monster! He keeps leaping around like Sam Beckett, traveling back to see his dad slit his own wrists, then start beating him. But he can't beat him, because he's not afraid! ...err. Since when did any of that matter? Apparently the super zombie's biggest weakness is people not fearing him, like he's IT or something.



Alien Nation Corey flies into the super zombie like some reject from Dragonball, distracting him while his lover, turned human again, recites some incantation which sets the superdemon on fire. Because really, no matter what, fire kills everything. Seriously, it just burns to death and a bunch of souls come out of it. The house ends up becoming thin cardboard and collapsing on them, but due to how light thin cardboard can be, they aren't injured in the slightest. Also Corey's back to being human. They decide to drive off back home, but not before making a quick stop at the gas station to blow up the woman that works there with a magic blue laser. The film ends as their van speeds off and we get a look at the evil little girl from the start of the film, who turns towards the camera to reveal that she's also a zombie... or Rocky Dennis, one of the two. Sequel hook, perhaps!? Sadly, no.



Altogether this was a pretty fucking awesome movie, despite how bad the acting was, how cheesy the script was, etc. If you like the original Evil Dead movie, and the Night of the Demons movies, you'll love this. It's got a little bit of both merged into one fun b-grade flick.



This weekend, expect some nostalgia on here as I've gotten my hands on a relatively rare Disney made-for-tv horror movie they used to show around Halloween back when I was a kid.

Shakma

A few articles back someone recommended Shakma and Demond Wind, so I wasted no time grabbing both. Shakma won me over almost immediately when I saw Roddy McDowall in the credits. If the name doesn't bring a bell, he was the flamboyantly gay sounding British ape from the bulk of the Planet of the Apes films, and for the younger readers out there, Mr. Soil from A Bug's Life. Just imagine a mix between Niles Crane from Frasier and C-3PO. That's Roddy McDowall, and he was awesome.



Shakma, as one would expect from the title, begins with emergency surgery in a teaching hospital set to dramatic cheap synth music! After this we get some medical lab tech nerd showing off walkie talkies he's set up so that the players can't talk to each other, only the game master. ...I don't think you understand how D&D works, movie. He also references how the other player is scared of losing, suggesting that it's somehow a competition. ...You really don't understand how D&D works, movie. Oh well, at least it isn't that god awful Tom Hanks movie. We also get some really hilarious computer noises that sound more like something from an Atari game.



It turns out Shakma's the name of a baboon they've been experimenting on, trying to make less aggressive. We get a good look at this redassed aggressor, which I can't believe is going to be our killer. Roddy McDowall comes in and has them pump the baboon full of more anger juice to make it less angry after it attacks one of the students, and probably just ponders to himself how he got stuck doing movies like this. The baboon ends up dying, but McDowall wants it to be left out so he can do a necropsy on it a few days later.



The setup for this is unique, a bit, I'll give it that. A bunch of college age types LARPing in a hospital with a killer baboon on the loose, with Roddy McDowall as the dungeonmaster. Now if only this was, instead, a very special episode of the Dungeons & Dragons animated series. "I've got a bad feeling about this!" The summary for the film called the game they were playing Dungeons & Dragons, but it's quite obviously not that. It's something very competitive, apparently. They've got one person waiting on one level as a queen, and one person wandering around as "the nemesis", wearing a vaguely apelike monster mask. They're randomly assigned characters on top of that. As a GURPS fan, I refuse to accept any character creation I can't die during.



The bearded nerdy guy that handled the walkie talkies wanders around the hospital, getting Riddler-like clues off chalkboards, and talking... erm. Okay. The way he talks into the walkie talkie towards McDowall sounds like he's trying to flirt with him. Or he's being evil and cheating. I can't really tell. Maybe both? Maybe he's sleeping with Roddy McDowall in exchange for him rigging the game? Anyway he thinks he hears the "Nemesis" somewhere, but not in the room the Nemesis is supposed to be in. He enters the animal testing room and finds that the baboon has eaten all the caged animals. It throws a little hissy fit, pounces him, and the camera cuts away, leaving us to assume he's dead.



Roddy calls the lead guy over walkie talkie to have him go check on Beardy McGlasses to make sure he's okay and to tell him his walkie talkie's dead. Meanwhile the guy in the Nemesis mask wanders around boredly, and we see the baboon... playing with a cute stuffed monkey. Nemesis finds Beardy McGlasses's bloody walkie talkie, as well as his corpse, apparently the baboon tore his throat out and then decided to leave him alone. The baboon tries to pounce Nemesis, but he closes a closet door on himself to protect himself. Cue the baboon making a mix of stock ape and stock rabbit noises as it throws itself at the closet door to get to him. Seriously, was it that hard for you to just record the noises the fucking baboon makes? Was it really? After awhile of doing nothing, Nemesis opens the door, takes a few steps out, and... the baboon pounces him and attacks his throat. Maybe instead of Shakma they could have just called this movie "The Baboon That Hated Necks."



Male lead stumbles upon his love interest, they talk to Roddy who tells them to stay put while he tracks down Richard (Nemesis) and Beardy McGlasses since he can't contact either of them. They apparently take this moment to either make out or have sex off screen. Well, it's a horror movie, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Elsewhere the princess is in her outfit, and apparently also has the hots for the male lead. Okie doke.



Roddy stumbles upon the corpse of Richard/Nemesis, which has been ripped to shreds. I guess the baboon hates more than just throats. We get some really hilariously bad dramatic synth music playing as the baboon runs up and pounces Roddy as he's running for the hospital, and then the camera quickly cuts away. I'm noticing a trend now. The two lovebirds start wondering where he is and go to the elevator on the upper floor, but it doesn't come up. The camera cuts down to the floor below showing Roddy's mutilated body is blocking the door. By my count, this leaves token black guy, the two lovebirds, and the princess left alive.



The two lovebirds wander around trying to find everyone else, but instead just find bloodstains, which doesn't seem to cause them to panic as much as they should. That is, until they stumble upon the baboon, which attempts to kill them before they close the door on it. It still makes a bunch of non-baboon noises. So, the baboon decides to wander back to Richard's corpse and take some more pieces out of its face, until it hears them moving around. It's actually kind of a cute baboon, I like it's reactions to things. I seriously cannot take it seriously as a movie monster. Also the screaming sounds it makes are just ridiculous. It doesn't sound like a baboon, and it never stops looping the same sound over and over. I think any animal that was seriously this freaked out for this long would have had a fucking heart attack or something. Seriously.



They try to distract the baboon so they can explode around the hospital, and this sequence is just hilarious. The baboon attacks anything that makes a noise, headbutts doors, etc. while Sam and Tracy, the two lovebirds, wander about the hospital trying to find other people. We were told Shakma knows how to open doors, but mostly he just headbutts them a lot. This combined with how cute the baboon looks half the time makes it that much harder to take it seriously. They try to make it scarier by throwing in an assload of scenes of the baboon just jumping around and breaking shit, but it really doesn't work.



Gary, the token black guy who hasn't really been given any attention beyond the fact that he's wacky and is poorer than everyone else, calls up the elevator, despite being told not to by Tracy. It turns out the baboon understands elevators, and presses a few buttons to call Gary up to him. Baboon enters the elevator, attacks him on camera, ripping him to shreds until he dies, then chases after Tracy now that it's on her floor. At least the camera didn't cut away for this one, like it did for all of the others.



Tracy ends up trapping herself in the bathroom with it, and tries to escape via a very, very tiny vent that looked really, really fake. Right down to a flimsy, plastic vent cover. It's small though, and she can't fit inside, so the baboon ends up killing her offscreen. That's a bit surprising, at least. Wouldn't have expected her to die in this kind of movie. Or such a lame death. Seriously. On the bright side, she put up more of a fight than anyone else did.



Sam meets up with the princess who he was supposed to be rescuing, tells her all about the killer ape, and they venture off together wielding kitchen knives. Richard's girlfriend arrives at the hospital, waiting for her boyfriend to get done with the game. They try to scream out the window at her but she's the kind of bitch that stops her car outside and plays music so fucking loud that you can hear it clearly while you're indoors. I have nothing but the deepest hatred for people that do that, so I eagerly await her death. Coincidentally, as I write this, there's some dumbass outside with his car stereo so fucking loud the bass is like an earthquake. It's not much of a coincidence, though, I guess. They're as common as pigeons in CA.



Sam stumbles upon the bloody corpse of Gary, and decides that it'd be a good idea to venture off alone to find his girlfriend, leaving the princess alone on an upper floor. He explores around the bathroom before finding his girlfriend's bloody corpse in one of the stalls, causing the actor to try his hardest to act. Meanwhile the princess is digging around upstairs looking for clues and crap that Roddy left around, which leads her to some marbles that she begins throwing at Richard's girlfriend's car in order to get her attention. She's still listening to really shitty synth sax music though, and can't be bothered to notice that until the princess stars flashing a flashlight at her. Her reaction? "Stupid game," then drives off. Seriously, what a dumb bitch.



Back on a lower floor, Sam moves the corpses of Gary and his girlfriend into the hall for some reason, takes Gary's key, and then goes up to the seventh floor. All to more cheap dramatic synth music! Seriously, the music in this film reminds me less of a film from 1990 and more of a film from the early 80's. He finds out that the princess is a dumb bitch and has gone off to a lower floor to find Richard all by herself. She's wandering around the corpses of the first victims when a cat spooks her, because I guess the baboon didn't eat all of the animals. This ends up attracting the baboon, which of course pounces her and forces the film to cut to the next scene.



Sam finds her corpse, and everything goes slowmo as he carries her corpse elsewhere to dramatic fucking synth music. I don't get why, he did this earlier to Gary and his girlfriend, both done in a slow and overly dramatic way as Sam's actor tries desperately to act but ultimately fails. At this point, Sam ends up having the bright idea to fucking call 911. They pick up, but he doesn't fucking say anything, then hangs up. Why? Instead he grabs a flashlight and some pole thing and I guess decides that he needs to go all Rambo on the baboon's ass. In real life, the cops would normally come by anyway, send someone out to investigate the call if nobody said anything. The synth music also briefly turns into the music from Ocarina of Time's Forest Temple for a brief few moments, which amused me.



Like a retarded version of the kid from Home Alone, Sam lays out four wires, super thin ones, and soaks them in water as part of his plan to kill the baboon. Seriously, this guy is a fucking retard. I think the fucking baboon in this movie is smarter than any of the actual characters. Somehow, due to magic, this ends up electrocuting the baboon off screen, which unleashes an extremely non-baboonish scream that can apparently be heard far outside of the hospital. Seriously, fuck you movie. Those tiny wires couldn't electrocute shit.



Apparently the baboon was just playing around, as it ends up tackling Sam and taking big bites out of him... before just... stopping. Sam screams at it, and the baboon just sorta... stands up and walks away, cutely. What the fuck just happened here? Am I taking crazy pills or something? What the fuck is even going on anymore? Here's some advice, movie. Stop letting the baboon walk on two legs, it's just adorable when it does that. Anyway we get some retarded Wiley Coyote shit where the baboon leaps at Sam, but it turns out it's leaping through a mirror and into an incinerator where it gets burned to death.



The film ends with Sam passing out, telling a monkey plush that he won, and then slowly bleeding to death. Seriously, what the fuck did I just watch? The baboon was adorable, Sam couldn't act worth shit, and the final fourth of the film was a confusing mess. Still, I can at least say that this was one of the better killer ape films I've seen. Sure, it doesn't beat Congo, but I've still seen far worse. If you want a hilariously awful horror film about a cute killer red-assed baboon, give this a viewing. If you love seeing big name actors stuck in awful horror films, come watch this for Roddy McDowall, it's about on par with Laserblast, another low grade film he popped up in (if you've never seen it, just watch the MST3K ep version. It's easily one of my favorite Mike era episodes.)