B Horror Bonanza: Lake Placid

A dark, mysterious and deadly force is lurking at a lake deep in the Maine woods. It terrifies wildlife, preys on visitors and loves nothing more than mayhem.

Betty White in Lake Placid

I speak, of course, of Betty White — and her role as a crusty Maine native in the film Lake Placid.

If you’ve ever wondered what we New Englanders are like when left in each others company, then consider the non-stop dissing and sarcastic commentary by the characters in this film as your first lesson.

Lake Placid, the real one, actually has nothing to do with this movie. It takes place on Black Lake in Maine, named so because “we wanted to call it Lake Placid, but somebody said that name was taken,” the local sheriff, played by Brendan Gleeson, explains.

The film, one of my favorites in the funny horror flick genre, kicks off with the action fairly early on, when the sheriff and a Fish and Game official spend an afternoon out on the lake with the aim of tagging beaver.

Unfortunately for the Fish and Game guy, though, while he’s diving in the murk he comes across an unseen force in the water — could it be Betty White? — and he gets munched in half before the sheriff can rescue him.

In response, the sheriff brings in another Fish and Game guy, Jack Wells (played by Bill Pullman) to help him investigate the attack. But Wells is skeptical that any sort of water borne creature could be responsible.

Maybe he thinks it’s Betty White, too.

“Bear attacks?” Wells asks the sheriff when they meet.
“Bears don’t attack under water,” the sheriff tells him.
“Probably a beaver then,” Wells replies.

This gets an eyeroll as the sheriff mumbles “whole sentence sarchastic,” describing Wells’ personality.

Soon, our duo is also joined by Kelly Scott (played by Bridget Fonda), a paleontologist from a New York museum sent there to check out a tooth found in the victim.

Scott, who’s never been in the woods before, is apparently a paleontologist that doesn’t do field work and is afraid of bugs.

Uh, yeah.

Our sheriff’s take on her? “Rude sarcastic.”

Typical New Yorker.

Not quite sure why she’s been sent to help them, the sheriff turns to Wells and adds “We’re saved. The Museum of New York just sent us some additional backup.”

Fonda, Pullman and Gleeson in Lake Placid

Before heading out to the lake to look for dangerous predators, though, the intrepid adventurers first go to pay a visit to Mrs. Delores Bickerman (played by White), who is the only person that actually lives on the lake.

Expecting to meet her there with her husband, the group learns that the husband has died — although the sheriff tells her the nearby town has no record of that.

“Incomplete records haunt me so,” Bickerman responds.

When asked what happened to him, she tells the group he was chronically ill, so “I hit him on the head with a skillet and then buried him under the bulkhead.”

See, I told you she was dangerous.

The group shrugs her off as a harmless eccentric and doesn’t question her story much, despite her admitting to murder. Instead they head off to the lake, where they run into Hector Cyr (played by Oliver Platt), a “rich kook mythology professor who treks the world looking for crocodiles.”

The group decides to let him stay and join in the hunt, because he has expensive tools and a helicopter — just what every monster hunting expedition needs.

And after a bumpy canoe ride and possible crocodile encounter while searching the lake, the group comes back to the camp site, where they find more of the original Fish and Game guy — his big toe, specifically.

Oliver Platt in Lake Placid

Cyr, holding the toe up to the sheriff, hopes the sheriff can identify the toe “Is this the man who was killed?”

“He seemed taller,” the sheriff replies.

It’s tempting to go through all the dialogue in this movie, because it’s just so damned funny. But I won’t spoil it. Needless to say, there are many many lines that will have you rolling around laughing as the group tries to hunt down the mysterious deadly creature in the lake.

And there’s nothing like watching White say things like “if I had a dick this is where I’d tell you to suck it” to law enforcement officials.

White has a few choice words for our intrepid monster hunters

And now, the drinking game:

First: Take a small sip anytime anybody hits you with a sarcastic one-liner. This, alone, should get you good and lit by the end of the show.
Second: Drink when you see any decomposing part of a dead animal or person.
Third: Drink every time the sheriff calls Platt’s character “a mental” or when Betty White swears.
Fourth: Chug a whole drink when anybody gets caught in a crocodile trap.
And Fifth and Finally: Finish your drink whenever Fonda’s character is hit by a severed head.

You can find the DVD Lake Placid at Netflix here.

Enjoy!
-SueVo

B Horror Bonanza: The Stuff

Summer’s just a few months away, and with it comes the urge to diet. So with that in mind I have a special movie treat for you that will just melt off the pounds — at least it might if you get nauseous easily.

It’s called The Stuff, released in 1985, and it’s one of my all-time favorite B cult horror flicks.

I mean, how can you go wrong with a film about mutant ice cream that eats people? You can’t.

In the film, The Stuff — a product that its producers claim tastes like something between ice cream and yogurt — is discovered by a miner in some random snowy part of the world.

The miner, while walking around outside, finds a patch of bubbling white creepy-looking material coming out of the ground. So he naturally does what most of us would do in that case — he picks some up with his fingers and eats it, exclaiming “what the hell is that? Ooh. Smooth. That tastes real good. Tasty. Sweet.”

Who wouldn't want a mouthful of this?

Fast forward in time a bit, and The Stuff has been successfully mass-marketed to the public as the next massive desert fad, which drives those evil, devious ice cream companies right into the hands of industrial spy David ‘Mo’ Rutherford, played by Michael Moriarty.

The ice cream moguls want Rutherford — who goes by Mo because, he says, “whenever somebody gives me something I always want more” — to discredit The Stuff, and to find out its secret formula.

Some of the executives seem dubious about Rutherford’s ability to get the job done, though, that is until he reveals that he placed a bug in one of their pockets the previous night and has been spying on them.

That nets him a back-handed compliment from one of them: “You know, Mister Rutherford, I don’t think you’re quite as dumb as you appear to be.”

Rutherford is quick with his own response: “No one is as dumb as I appear to be.”

Never underestimate Mo Rutherford

As Rutherford takes the job and starts his investigation, though, he discovers that there’s more to The Stuff than just successful marketing. In fact, he finds that the creepy desert product has the ability to move on its own and zombify those that eat it.

This is further confirmed when Rutherford comes across a kid, played by Scott Bloom, whose family has become quite fond of — and addicted to — said desert product.

After the kid, Jason, sees The Stuff moving around in his refrigerator one night, he goes on a spree in the grocery store trying to destroy every container of the product, yelling “It’s gonna kill you! It’s gonna kill you all!”

Rutherford finds out about Jason’s grocery store adventures through a newspaper story — remember those from back in the 1980s? — and goes to find him after meeting with The Stuff’s distributor, who tells Rutherford that “I don’t know what it is. Nobody knows what it is. Nobody knows what it wants.”

The distributor knows, though, that as an industrial spy, nobody will listen to Rutherford if he tells the public the product is dangerous. So instead of threatening, he offers to give Rutherford $25,000 to become his head of security.

Rutherford takes the money, then takes the kid, and also takes off with The Stuff’s marketing director Nicole, played by Andrea Marcovicci, after she realizes she’s been marketing zombie food to the masses.

They go on a nice family outing to find out more about what’s really going on.

But of course, what they find is more Stuff zombies, abandoned towns and conspiracies.

A Stuff zombie. Say cheese!

The film is chock full of 80s silliness, including a few choice shots of leg warmers, a spoof on the “Where’s the Beef?” Wendy’s commercial and some conspiracy talk about communists invading the United States by altering the fluoride in people’s toothpaste.

Horay for leg warmer commercials for The Stuff

And while I’d love to run through the rest of the action with you, you know that’s something I can’t do because it would ruin the film and, more importantly, the drinking game.

What I will say, though, is that you haven’t lived until you’ve seen white marshmallow blood spurt out of a Stuff zombie.

And now, for the drinking game:

First: Drink every time Mo Rutherford pretends to be somebody else — such as an oil mogul, magazine reporter or, yes indeed, a male secretary.
Second: Drink whenever you see the stuff move or bubble.
Third: Drink whenever the stuff comes out of somebody, or when it flows into somebody.
Fourth: Drink when you see anybody stockpiling The Stuff in a back room.
And Fifth and Finally: Chuck a full drink whenever you see a new commercial for The Stuff (there are several different ones in the movie)

Being a cult favorite, The Stuff isn’t too hard to get a hold of. Netflix has it available on CD here if you want to put it in your queue.

Enjoy! And thanks for reading!

Cheers,
-SueVo

B Horror Bonanza: Mister Frost

Back by popular demand — well, OK, one person asked me — I bring you my return to writing reviews and creating drinking games for bad B horror films.

Bad movies can be like a fine wine, especially when you drink a lot of cheap wine while watching them — and they are a ready vehicle for you to practice both your chugging prowess and your wit.

It’s been 13 years since I wrote my last one of these, and believe me, a lot of bad movies have come out since then. But before delving into new material, I thought I’d kick off with an oldie, but actually a half-way decent flick — Mister Frost, starring Jeff Goldblum.

The film, which came out in 1990, is available to watch instantly on Netflix — so there’s no need to fret about not being able to find it, unless you’re a total Luddite.

So cover your mouth, or let somebody else do it, and get ready for some good old fashioned devil drama.

Kathy Baker and Jeff Goldblum star in Mister Frost

Our film, Mister Frost, starts out as a lovely tale of two friends enjoying an afternoon motorcycle ride across the English countryside.

Er, what?

Yeah yeah, it’s true, but don’t give up yet.

As the day winds down, the riders come to a majestic estate and decide to go for a stroll, into the garage of one Mister Frost (played by Goldblum), to steal his Aston Martin.

After spending a few quality minutes inside the mist-filled garage, they open the car door — and out pops the arm of a random dead guy.

So, being very civic minded robbers and all, they leave the place and go tell the police.

About a week later — but fortunately only a few seconds in movie time — one Inspector Detweiler (played by Alan Bates) shows up, complete with one of the most bizarre looking hairstyles this side of 1976.

I’m serious. The guy has a grayer than gray beard coupled with blacker than black flowing locks. Can you say toupee? If it’s not a toupee than surely the devil really has worked his magic on this film.

Anyway, the good inspector shows up to find Frost hanging around in his back yard with a shovel. He had to take a break from preparing baked Alaska in order to bury the body, after all.

The inspector and Frost avoid the subject of mass murder in favor of casual conversation first, though, as is proper English custom, or so I’ve been told.

But after a while the inspector — good God, what is with his hair? — politely mentions the tale from the two would-be robbers.

“Oh yes, the body. I just was finishing burying it when you showed up,” Frost tells him politely.

“Yes, that’s just the kind of answer I was expecting,” our British friend with the weird hair replies.

But soon enough inspector hair realizes that Frost isn’t kidding — especially when the arm of another body flops out from behind a chair.

They really need to make better storage areas for those estates. Where is one to put 24 bodies?

Frost, after a dreamy glimpse of him with sinister-looking crosses in his pupils, is taken into custody, where he remains silent for two years as he’s transferred between various European locations.

When we return to him, we find the inspector still has really baffling hair, only he’s no longer an inspector — he’s become God boy, and he’s telling everybody who will listen that the mass-murdering Frost is, in fact, the devil.

But of course the scientists and psychologists at the asylum where Frost has been transported don’t believe in the devil, or God — only in research and study.

Fortunately for their intellectual advancement, though, Frost decides to break his two-year hiatus on speaking by trying to convince Dr. Day (played by Kathy Baker) to be his therapist.

She’s the most scientific of the scientific types, after all, which is what he’s after.

The devil wants to convince her to believe in him — and kill him — in order to destroy science’s hold over man.

“You (scientists) took a few years and undid centuries of effort,” he tells at one point. “You couldn’t care less about the human spirit. I must reveal to the world your impotence in the presence of the age old power of the wild thing.”

God I hope he doesn’t mean the same Wild Thing that Tone Loc once sang about.

Anyway, when he tries to impress her by melting her ring in his hand, all he gets is a typical blow off reply:

“Bravo, you’re going to be a smash at our little Christmas party,” Day tells him.

What follows is a lot of creepy, close-in eyeball shots of people falling under Frost’s spell, a host of random odd and sometimes murderous behavior by fellow patients and staff, and a parade of really bad clothing and hairstyles from the late 80s and early 90s.

Did we really look like that back then? Eeek.

I can’t reveal the ending or whether she decides to off him in favor of 17th Century justice, but fear not — for I do have a drinking game for you all to follow as you enjoy the movie.

First: Drink a gulp whenever the director closes in on any character’s eyeballs.
Second: If you see crosses in anybody’s eyeballs, finish your entire drink.
Third: Chug anytime you find yourself wondering about the inspector’s hair. If you get up from your chair and find yourself typing “Alan Bates” and “hair” into a search engine — finish two more drinks.
Fourth: Drink any time you hear the words devil, Satan or anything else along that vein.
And Fifth and Finally: Drink every time you want to backhand the head shrink, Professor Reynhardt (played by Roland Giraud). I didn’t mention him in the review, but he’s hard to miss.

Enjoy! And happy Drinking!
-SueVo

If you have Netflix, you can find Mister Frost available for instant play here.