Despite being very rough around the edges, and at times shoddily edited, “Chubbies” is a film that has its heart in the right place. It’s “Ghoulies” meets “Sorority Girls in the Slimeball Bowl o Rama” and it has a fun concept to follow its mixing of sub-genres. “Chubbies” left me laughing, rolling my eyes, and gazing in sheer disbelief at what director Chris Hartman was able to pull off. In the planet Snerd, sex has been outlawed and all forms of sexual stimulation are illegal. When a group of sex hungry aliens known as Chubbies break free from their jails, they crash land on Earth. They end up at the local Bowl-o-Rama where a group of friends are having their very own Halloween party after hours.
Category Archives: Halloween Horror Month
Critters 2: The Main Course (1988)
With the original “Critters,” the producers adhered to a certain kind of formula that made the monsters from space seem like twisted cousins of “E.T.” With “The Main Course,” director Mick Garris is able to go beyond the limits of the concept and widen the mythology of the Krites and their bounty hunters. What’s more, Garris is also able to get so much more creative than the first film, as well as offer a better variety of Krites, and how they’re capable of devouring humans when they crash land on Earth once more. One of the best moments of “Critters 2” involves the krites working together as a hive and forming a gigantic ball that goes rolling through town.
Critters (1986)
Stephen Herek’s “Critters” is a fun and gory horror science fiction film that knows exactly what kind of movie it is. It’s neat a mix of a monster movie and a tongue in cheek action sci-fi movie. As well it delights in doling out a lot of gruesome kills and fun nuggets of very light comedy that will arouse some chuckles, but never ruin the momentum of the movie. Up in the space in a prison space ship, the Krites have managed to escape their cells and are now on the run. They’ve taken hold of a ship of their own and are headed for Earth. The alien overlords hire two skilled bounty hunters with blank faces, urging them to find the krites before they reach Earth and wreak incomprehensible havoc on the population. With the bounty hunters on their tails, the Krites have crash land on a farm in the middle of a rural town in Kansas.
Hobgoblins (1988)
If you think you’ve seen the worst of the worst “Gremlins” knock offs, 1988’s “Hobgoblins” is the crème de la crème of the copycats. In the eighties, every single studio wanted their own “Gremlins” cash cow and very few were able to pull it off well. “Hobgoblins” seems to have absolutely no money to work with and tries to make out like a bandit with their own weak “Gremlins” wannabe. The problem is that “Gremlins,” despite the big budget, has competence, and depth, and magic, and an interesting mythology. Not to mention the monsters in the film do so much more than stand around cackling.
Tamara (2005)
Taking off from classic teen revenge horror flicks like “Carrie” and, to a lesser extent “Urban Legends 3,” “Tamara” is yet another ho hum female fueled revenge horror entry about a brutally scorned woman coming back to strike at her killers. Young Tamara is a constant target for the jocks and popular kids in her high school and mocked on a daily basis, especially now that she’s written a controversial article about drug testing in the school which further gives them a reason. To get back at her, they play a very cruel prank which goes very awry giving her a bad case of death. And because she’s secretly a witchcraft practitioner, she comes back from the grave as one pissed off, undead, sexy avenging angel.
Other Shorts from Brooklyn Horror Film Festival [Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2016]
Gwilliam (USA) (2015)
This flat out gross short follows a recently released criminal looking to get off. From there it goes in an unexpected direction. Written by Victoria S. Cook, Brian Lonano, and Kevin Lonano and directed by Brian Lonano, this short is odd and aims to either gross out or make the viewer uncomfortable or possibly both. This is the kind of short that you just can’t look away from, you want to but you also want to see how far it will go.
Lights Out (2016) [Blu-Ray/Digital]
For three years, David F. Sandberg’s short horror film “Lights Out” rocked the internet and became a viral hit. It was a very short and to the point film with excellent framing, brilliant editing, and a shocker of a surprise ending. After years as a viral hit, we’re given the full length adaptation of “Lights Out,” which is a pretty great extension of the terror that Sandberg spreads out for his audience. Thankfully while the spirit of the original film is kept in tact (with the original star making a welcome walk on appearance), “Lights Out” is transformed in to a complex and wrenching horror film about mental illness, abandonment, and family. I was a bit hesitant to believe “Lights Out” could be expanded in to a feature length film but while it isn’t perfect, it’s a damn good horror film with some genuinely dynamite moments.