Jarv’s Schlock Vault: The Pit and the Pendulum

I’m sorry, mistress, that you weren’t properly able to confess. There just wasn’t enough time to torture you. 

Jarv’s Rating: 2 Changs out of 4. Not a classic, but not awful at all. 

This is a momentous day. I have nearly scaled the North Face of Stuart Gordon, in that I’ve almost seen every film he’s done. This, I feel is some achievement, and as I near the summit, I would like to pause before I take on the last film, King of the Ants, and have a look at the treacherous incline that I just navigated unscathed. As I sit here, touching distance from the peak, enjoying a quiet smoke, I have to say that I’m actually quite impressed at the consistent level of goodness that he’s turned out. There’s only really Stuck that’s dogshit, while everything else has been good to excellent. The Pit and the Pendulum is no exception

Jarv’s Schlock Vault: Robot Jox

We are already dead. We are Robot Jox!

Jarv’s Rating: Two and a half Changs out of four. Fundamentally crap, really, but still damned funny on more than one occasion and it’s about people in big robot suits battling over the territory of Alaska. And to be honest, I’m never going to rate a film with a premise as incredibly stupid as that one with less than two changs.

GIANT ROBOTS PUNCHING EACH OTHER!!!! GIANT FUCKING ROBOTS PUNCHING EACH OTHER!!!

Actually, I wish, but there’s still plenty of stupidity to be laughed at here.

The Underrated: Castle Freak

Recently, for reasons I can’t really put my finger on, I decided that the answer to my current mood with films was to attempt to watch every film made by Stuart Gordon. Now, don’t ask me why I decided to set out on such a foolish quest, but I seem to remember it having something to do with H. P. Lovecraft and that of the very few successful adaptations out there of his work, Gordon has done 2 of them. I originally, arrogantly, said that the sum total of good Lovecraft Adaptations was one: Re-Animator, which barely counts as a Lovecraft-sourced work. However, since then, I’ve seen both From Beyond and now Castle Freak and both of which are, much to my surprise, excellent.

Jarv’s Schlock Vault: From Beyond

It ate him… bit off his head… like a gingerbread man!

Jarv’s Rating: 3 Changs out of 4. Considering that this is based on H.P. Lovecraft, it really is a fantastic monster movie with a splendid beast, boob, gore and general giggles. And I thought that it couldn’t be done.

I feel a bit silly now. In the Re-Animator review the other day, I said that it wasn’t possible to adapt Lovecraft to the big screen, and that Re-Animator was the closest anyone could get and only managed it by taking enormous liberties with the source material. In my defence, I hadn’t seen From Beyond at the time, and I wasn’t even aware that it was a Lovecraft Adaptation. Still, ignorance is no excuse, and I would like to say that I’ve learnt a valuable lesson from this, but that would be a flagrant lie. I clearly haven’t.

Jarv’s Schlock Vault: Re-Animator

What would a note say, Dan? “Cat dead, details later”?

Jarv’s Rating: 3 and a half Changs out of 4. A fucking absolute classic of its kind: gross, irreverent and frequently hilarious, this is an absolutely essential zombie film.

Re-Animator, or “How to get a head in medicine”, is notable for a few reasons. Firstly, it is arguably the only successful Lovecraft adaptation out there (don’t give me that shit about Dagon being anything more than worthless), although I will take Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness as  a Lovecraft-inspired film. Secondly, it also spawned several sequels, the first of which: Bride of Re-Animator is a gross and hilarious reworking of Bride of Frankenstein tied in to the Re-Animator mythology. Thirdly, Re-Animator represents a career high for almost everyone involved in it, certainly Jeffrey Combs will never put in another performance even remotely in the same league as his turn here, and finally, it’s just fucking gold from start to finish, combining some midnight-black comedy with excellent practical effects, and a skyscraper high level of entertainment. This is a storming film.