Loony In The Woods - A Modern Video Nasty

Loony in the Woods
2013
D: Leo Leigh
W: Leo Leigh

S: Leo Leigh, Oliver Maltman, Dean Puckett 
Unrated - Approx 70 Min
Troma

Taglines:
 - If You Go Down To The Woods Today.....

Alternate Titles:
None

  "Can I have the lamb stew?"
                                      -Fanny

Nice gloves!

You know, there is an amazing phenomenon that occurs when you are going down the rabbit hole that is Amazon Instant Video.  For instance....when you are searching for films, say by genre, you are given the option to check out a list of films that are similar to the one you are currently looking at.  If you start doing this long enough, you will end up in a place that contains films like Loony in the Woods.

Loony in the Woods was originally filmed in 2007, where it then sat on the shelf for 6 for six years until it was discovered by Troma and picked up for distribution.  Troma decided to make Loony in the Woods a VHS only release and it went on sale in 2013.  Somewhere between then and now, it became digitally available on Amazon Instant Video.  

Working out with Bouffe!

Meet Buttons!

The film follows a rather misogynistic  fitness instructor named Bouffe and his pals as they take a camping trip to - where else?- the woods!  Bouffe's brother wears a strange contraption on his neck that allows him to communicate.  It's a like a jacked up, homemade voice box......though it seems to speak for him....his mouth never moves...which is fine because you can't understand a damn thing the machine says anyway.  His name is Buttons.

As for the rest of the cast, there's a big breasted chick who likes to manhandle dudes (and she may or may not have some sort of psychic powers, there's a meek blonde and her shy redheaded friend.  Some dude with brown hair that seems to do the majority of grilling.......and that's about it.  The characters are there simply to serve as fodder.  

This is weird.  Really weird.  I mean like way beyond Devo and Yes mixed together weird.

It's the Loony!

The film is only just over an hour, so we don't have to wait long for the carnage to begin.  As a matter of fact we're treated to two murders before the opening credits!  A girl is choked to death and a guy takes a hatchet to the back of the head. The first night goes fine for the group, except for a very strange guitar/electronic beatbox tune played by Bouffe and Buttons.  It's totally off the wall and totally goofy and I think that I very well may make it my ring tone.  I may use it to make those record-your-own-message-greeting-cards and send them to friends and family.  I think they'll like that.  

Who am I kidding?

Eye see you!

That is going to cause a massive headache.....

Anyway, when the gore hits, it's balls out ridiculous ultra low budget gore, and I'll go more into detail in the designated GORE section at the end when I run the film's totals.  For now, I'll suffice to say it's extremely cheap and hilarious and it goes a long way to lending the film a certain charm.  Strangely after each murder, as the shot lingers on the corpse, the screen itself turns red.  Kinda weird.  Kinda pointless, but hey...whatever.  

LitW does a great job of emulating the type of films that would have been labeled Video Nasties back in the 80's.  The whole package has a great retro feel to it....as a matter of fact when I first started watching, I thought I might have actually stumbled across some lost British SOV slasher flick!  I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that this flick doesn't get seen to often.  I've yet to find an actual review online (YAY ME!  FIRSTIES!) and the IMDb page doesn't even have complete information on it.  

He looks like he could use a hand.                Too soon?

What the fuck happened to her???!??

No Buttons, No!!!!!!  This scene was shocking. 

It's like I'm now part of some ultra elite and secretive club that's seen this movie.  If there's not a club then there should be and I'm just the guy to start it.  We're gonna have a secret clubhouse, with a secret password to get in.....secret handshakes, decoder rings, t-shirts....the whole nine yards!  You are SO going to want in on this one!

GORE
Oh yes, there is gore!  A man gets his arms chopped off after having his face slammed down on a blazing hot grill.  A girl has fireworks strapped to her head and ignited.  There's a head impalement complete with eye poking out of the head, a nasty electrocution and another victim (shown on the box art) has their face completely removed, leaving a nasty, bloody mess.

T&A
Nothing!  We get to see some women exercising in Bouffe's class, but that's about as racy as it gets.....oh except for a brief make-out scene between the big breasted manhandling possibly psychic chic and the brown haired grill guy....but still....no skin.

MONSTERS
There's a Loony in the Woods!  Said Loony wears a too-large for his head ski mask, a plaid shirt, and pants with rope used for a belt.  We DO get to see his face at the end.......and he's just some redneck dude.  Huh.  Go figure.  


FINAL THOUGHTS
Like I said before, the film does an excellent job of emulating the SOV slasher flicks of the 80's that would have filled up video shops of the time.  I could absolutely see this being added to the list of Video Nasties.  It's not a good film by any means.  The plot is threadbare.  The actors are about on par with local access TV and the sounds is absolutely atrocious.  You can barely make out what people are saying most of the time.  HOWEVER!  If you're in the mood for that sort of thing, then you're probably going to get a kick out of Loony in the Woods.  Definitely a flick to watch with friends over beer and pizza.  Add a little MST3K style commentary and a good time should be had by all!
\

Shadow of the Loony.

                                     

Terror Eyes - Campfire Satanthology

Terror Eyes
1989
D: Eric Parkinson, Michael Rissi, Steve Sommers
W: Eric Parkinson, Vivian Schilling

S:  Vivian Schilling, Daniel Roebuck, Lance August
Not rated - Approx 90 Min
Park-Schilling Productions Inc.

Taglines
 - No more films... no more horror... what's the Devil to do?

Alternate Titles:
None









"It was wonderful, just wonderful....superb....just lovely....double thumbs up.  Just like the Wonderful World of Disney.  Let me ask you all a question:  Where's the guts?  Where's the gore?"
                                                          - Richard (while possessed)

Terror Eyes was a blind buy off of Amazon.  I was hunting around for random VHS tapes, just for kicks and giggles.  Terror Eyes popped up for 99 cents.  I figured, "What the hell!  Why not!" and plunked it down (virtually of course) with the rest of the tapes in my cart.  That was a few years ago.  I finally got a chance to sit down and enjoy this little ditty in my new media room/office (Yeah, I'm moving up in the world!) and I've gotta say, I was quite surprised!

This is an anthology film, comprised of three separate stories and of course the obligatory wrap around story. The wrap around revolves around a young advertising executive who is assigned to write a horror screenplay for a horror film during a writers strike.  Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves though.

Troy is playing poker with a stuffed monkey.  Seriously.  He is.

ROEBUCK!

Late nite snack attack?

The opening story is about a young couple, Starla and Troy, who receive a mysterious book (called The Book of Life) by a shady car-salesman-looking-guy (played by Daniel Roebuck) that contains their entire life history and future.  Unfortunately for Troy, that future is not going to last very long.  According to the book, he's going to kill himself soon.  Troy (being your typical,  testosterone fueled dude) forbids Starla to read the book anymore.  Starla (being your typical, defiant type) just can't leave it alone.  Troy decides to put an end to things once and for all, first attempting to throw the book out in the dumpster.  When he gets back into their apartment the book is back sitting on the table.  He tries to rip the pages out, but to no avail.  He tries to burn the book, but it won't burn.  Finally he decides if nothing else will work he will dissolve it with acid.  Naturally, I won't spoil the end of the story...but "Starla" wakes up and we discover it was all a dream.

Starla's real name is Eva and she is the advertising executive.  The shady guy that gave her the book is (in waking life) her husband Richard.  Eva is frustrated because she isn't a writer and doesn't have the first idea how to write a horror screenplay.  She was hoping maybe she could use her dream but after waking she couldn't remember it.

ROEBUCK!

Hmmm....something is off about Richard.

Eva and Richard go on a camping trip with some friends and while sitting around the campfire, having a a grand old time, Richard goes off to take a leak in the woods.  It's there, in the dark of the woods, taking a leak that he is possessed by a demon (or Agent of Hell as he's called in the film).  When Richard returns he starts acting like a total Dick (see what I did there?) and is trying to force Eva to come up with a horror story.

Their friends (none of whom seem to notice that Richard has changed from a sweet, caring type to a major douche nozzle) attempt to help Eva out by telling stories about scary stuff that's happened to them.

Mannie doesn't know what he's getting into....

Neither does his bookie!

The next story involves their friend Mannie (played by Dan Bell.  You might know him better as Neil in the Wayne's World movies or as Smiley in Darkman!)  Back in the day, Mannie had a bit of a gambling problem (especially when it came to betting on horses) and ended up owing his bookie a lot of money.  Instead of breaking his legs in twelve places, his bookies offers him and alternative:  Steal money and jewels from his wife's safe and they will split the loot.  Not really having much of an alternative, Mannie agrees.  What follows is a twisted sort of time travel/Groundhog Day tale in which Mannie keeps reliving the same day over and over again as his bookie continues to murder his wife and attempting to murder him.

Hey, she found Bobby Fischer!

Hey now, my kinda video game!

Never bring your fists to an axe fight....

The final story is about a woman named Alex who wins a chess championship and publicly announces that she will be using winnings to fund a campaign against a video game company that sells games that glorify rape, murder and other unsavory acts.  She is kidnapped by the head of the video game company and is placed in a real life game of life & death where she must solve a series of puzzles before ultimately ending up in a ghost town where she must play a final cat and mouse game against the crazed gamer designer, old west style.

This game is can get a bit dicey.....

She's heading for the 90's living in the wild, wild west!

The wraparound concludes with the Agent of Hell revealing himself, some carnage and then of course the obligatory feel good ending....which is fine cause we're not really here for the wraparound anyway.

DEMON ROEBUCK!

I've heard of FLASH mobs, but this is ridiculous!

Gunned down by a demon with invisible guns.....

GORE
There's some red stuff, but not a lot.  There is a pretty nice melting flesh effect in the Book of Life story.  In the Groundhog Day segment, there are some gun shot wounds, and the same goes for the Video Game segment.

T&A
No skin in this one, amigos.

MONSTERS
The Agent of Hell is an interesting make-up (also rendered on the box art) with horns coming out from behind his eyes.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I had an awful lot of fun with this one.  It's a hell of a lot of fun and the performances are all extremely campy, especially Daniel Roebuck who wrenches up his performance to an eleven once he's possessed.  Terror Eyes (to the best of my knowledge) has never been released on DVD.  This VHS only gem is well worth hunting down a copy and firing up your VCR.  You could also watch the film in it's entirety on YouTube, but I think that would be far less fun.  VHS OR BUST BABY!

Back of the VHS box.  Just don't make 'em like they used to!

Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland - Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Camp.....Again!

Sleepaway Camp III:
Teenage Wasteland
1989
D: Michael A. Simpson
W: Fritz Gordon & Robert Hilzik
S: Pamela Springsteen, Tracy Griffith, Michael J. Pollard
Rated R - Approx. 80 Min.
Double Helix Films

Taglines
 - She's back to Slash last year's record.

Alternate Titles:
Nightmare Vacation III (USA)
Sinister Camp 3 (Brazil)
Bloody Camp 3(Spain)
Dormant Camp 3:  Teenage Waste (Poland)
The Camp of Terror 3 (West Germany)





"Good thing you're dead 'cause in a couple of years your breasts would have been sagging something terrible!"
                                                                                               -Angela

As I mentioned in the last review Parts II & III of the Sleepaway Camp series were shot back to back in six weeks.  Sure it may mean that it was a bit of a rushed production, but we're not talking about Gone With The Wind here.  The Sleepaway Camp sequels were done fast, cheap and by the seat of everyone's pants and you know what?  I wouldn't have it any other way!

This round we find Angela assuming the identity of an inner city youth (That she runs over with a dump truck in the middle of a large city in the middle of the day!).  Camp New Horizons has been built upon the ruins of Camp Rolling Hill (it's kinda hard to keep a business open when all of your clients end up dead!) and it's mission is to group privileged kids with under privileged kids in an effort to teach diversity and understanding.

The camp is run by an older couple named Herman & Lilly.  Ha ha, get it?  Like as in The Munsters!  As a matter of fact this go around everyone seems to be named either after characters from The Munsters, The Brady Bunch or (strangest of all) West Side Story!  Tony, Maria, Anita, Marcia, Bobby, Peter......they're all here and they're all fodder for Angela!

Herman is played by Michael J. Pollard, who you may recognize from bit parts he played in Scrooged, House of 1,000 Corpses as well as being the voice of Psycho on The Toxic Crusaders cartoon.  He's a dirty old pervert in this flick, so you KNOW he ain't gonna last long!

Also on hand as a counselor is Barney, who was one of the arresting officers during Angela's first killing spree.  He doesn't recognize her due to the fact that she is older and she's had.....erm.....well let's just say surgery, so as not to spoil the first film.  

The campers are split into three different groups (there are 12 campers in all) four per counselor.  This makes it especially easy for Angela to move back and forth between groups, taking out her victims without anyone becoming the wiser.  The body count is up in the teens again as is the flesh on display.  Boobs and blood...ya just gotta have 'em in these types of flicks, ya know?
Just as Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers was a tongue in cheek horror flick, the same goes for part three.  Absolutely nothing in this film should be taken seriously.

So long as you're not looking for anything new in this one, you'll have a good time.  It follows a formula:  Most of the campers are absolutely despicable people that you don't give a rats ass for.  A few are okay and there's usually one or two that are likable (and are usually the final girl).  Angela is still making her quips and one liners with each kill, which are rather amusing.  Such as the quote listed before the review started.

GORE
Not as much as in Part II, but there's still a fair amount of blood.

T&A
Well, of course!

MONSTERS
Angela's hairdo is pretty terrible in this one.....I guess you could say it's monstrous!

FINAL THOUGHTS
The Sleepaway Camp films make for a fine rainy afternoon or even better Friday night with pizza, beer and friends.  If you're a fan of the Friday the 13th flicks, the Meatball sequels or camping flicks in general, there's a high probability that you'll find something to like here.