If you happened to check this MOVIE OF THE WEEK you all ready read my ranting about Drive-In Movies. But, fear not, for faith was restored. Maybe I can't see crappy B-Movies at the Drive-Ins anymore, but now, thanks to the wonder of DVD, I can re-live the drive-in experiences of yesteryear in my very own living room.
This week's crappy Worst of the Worst movie is a Drive-In double feature:
THE KILLER SHREWS and I BURY THE LIVING
Now these two flicks come on one DVD from the hip kats at MADACY VIDEO as part of their Killer Creature Double Feature line and not only do you get the movies, you get all the Drive-In goodies you ever wanted (except the chilli dog). There's Trailers before the movies and a Gumby cartoon for the intermission.
Now the KILLER SHREWS has always been a favourite of mine. People trapped on an island with dogs in cheesy costumes....er I mean giant man-eating killer shrews on a carnivorous rampage, how cornball can it be. Still this one is so cool as suspense builds from a scientist holding a mouse-sized regular sized shrew explaining how it must eat three times it's own body weight, until it peeks as the giant voracious shrews over-run the compound.
Things look tense for the humans, but they fortunately have a couple guns and plenty of booze (I mean it, a good drinking-game to play is to watch this movie and match the characters drink for drink)...and they have James Best helping them stave off the attack and escape: too bad he wasn't as successful as he was here with them darned 'Duke Boys' (he later went on to play Sherif Rosco in that lame TV series).
Cheap looking, yes; cheesy, in the extreme; stupid, well hell; but what do you want for two weeks shooting and a budget of $123 000 back in 1959?!?!
The gumby cartoon has a very important moral too it so at least it is of some redeeming social value. The moral? Well, don't use robots to do work around the house while you slack off....
I BURY THE LIVING, I hadn't seen previously, but you have to like the title. And despite the title (I was expecting Zombies for some reasoin) is does turn out to be a rather cool little psychological thriller.
There is this map of this graveyard, and they mark the plots with pins. They put one color pins in the occupied plots, and another color in the plots that are owned but not used cause the owner is still alive. So they retire the caretaker, and our hero takes over. And of course he inadvertantly sticks a few pins of the dead colour into some graves of the living and sure enough, the owners of the grave die...now that would really put the zap on your head if it happened to you now wouldn't it?
And sure enough it does, and I'm gonna stop here so I don't give the rest of this one away cause, even though it's a bit slow moving, it is rather neat...
Afterward I checked out the Website and discovered a whole mess of these DVD Creature Feature Double Features, so I bet this won't be the last one I own.