Far From Home - Trailer Park Psycho's In Love

Far From Home
1989
D: Meiert Avis
W: Theodore Gershuny , Tommy Lee Wallace 

S: Matt Frewer, Drew Barrymore, Richard Masur 

Taglines:
 - There is no one you can trust...least of all the one who loves you.
 - Growing up can be murder.
 - One boy wants her love. One boy wants her dead.

 - On the other side of innocence lies fear.

Alternate Titles:
Germany - Lolita Kill
West Germany -Wilder Sand
Finland - Nightmare in the Desert
France - Bad Meetings
Greece - Seduction and Rape
Hungary - Desert Serial Killer



"My first and last night in Banco, Nevada....probably the shittiest place in the whole world."
                                             -Joleen

It wasn't a very good day yesterday.  Nothing terrible happened, really, it just wasn't my day.  So after the Mrs. turned in for the night I decided that I'd settle in with some cocktails and catch up on some of my DVR.  After watching a couple episodes of Freddy's Nightmares (thanks to the El Rey Network!) I came across this flick, which I had completely forgotten that I recorded a while back.  What a pleasant surprise!

First off, what a great cast!  Drew Barrymore!  Matt (Max Headroom) Frewer, Richard (The Thing) Masur, Susan (Big Top Pee-Wee) Tyrell, Dick (Gremlins) Miller & Jennifer (Bride of Chucky) Tilly just to name some!  I mean, come on, that's pretty damn good!

Joleen (Barrymore) and her father Charlie (Frewer) are returning home to Los Angeles after a cross country vacation.  They run out of gas and end up stranded in the small desert trailer park town of Banco, Nevada.  Seems the gas delivery truck is running late and nobody in town has any gas to spare or sell.  Duckett (Masur) is the eccentric, but helpful gas station/repairman who is anti-government and no longer worships the mighty dollar, helping people simply because it's the right thing to do.

Chalie rents a trailer for the night and that's when things start going south.  Joleen meets Jimmy, who is a rather intensely angsty teen (played by Andras Jones...who played Rick in Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master!  Man this flick is full of peeps!) who clearly is interested (probably a bit TOO) in her.  Jimmy has one hell of an attitude problem, which of course 14 year old Joleen finds attractive.

After settling in and going for a swim in the surprisingly clean trailer park swimming pool, Joleen meets another boy named Pinky who seems to be the complete opposite of Jimmy.
Ooh, rival action for Joleen's affection!

That night Jimmy's mother is murdered via an electric fan in her bathtub.  Jimmy (being a complete dick) is of course our prime suspect.  The next day, Jimmy takes Joleen to a car junk yard and then swimming in a pond where he tries to rape her.  Pinky comes to the rescue however and they hide out in an old abandoned apartment building that Pinky uses as his hideout.

I'm not going to go any further into the plot because I'm not a spoiling kinda guy.  There are more murders, however and it becomes evident that there is a psychopathic killer loose in the park and no one is safe.  I was quite surprised by the film and enjoyed it quite a bit.  It's a tight little thriller with a  heck of a cast, so check it out!

GORE
There's a little bit of blood here and there, but not a whole lot.

T&A
There's a little bit of T&A on display during a raunchy little sex scene between two trailer park residents as Joleen is looking through their window.

MONSTERS
One psychotic killer on the loose!

FINAL THOUGHTS
I really don't know how this one managed to slip by me because this definitely looked like something that my sister and I would have rented back in the day....or would have seen on HBO late at night.  At any rate, it's a great flick with a great cast.

Midnight Matinee - Late Night Slasher

Midnight Matinee
1989
Directed by Richard Martin
Written by Richard Martin
Starring  Ron White, Gillian Barber & Jeff Schultz

British Columbia Film
D Slayer Productions
Image Organization
Malofilm Communications Inc.
Odyssey Pictures
Summit Entertainment
Thomas Howe Releasing
Téléfilm Canada

Not Rated (TV Movie)  -  Approx  93 Minutes.

Taglines:
 - Every mystery has a beginning




Alternate Titles:
La séance de minuit  (The Midnight Screening)  Canada
Keskiyön arvoitus  (The Midnight Mystery)    Finland

Bei Vorstellung Mord   (In Notion Murder)   West Germany

"Enjoy the film.  Get the shit scared out of yourselves."
                                                                             -Heath Harris


There's a killer loose in the movie theater.  Ah yes, that old chestnut.  While Midnight Matinee is not the first and certainly not the last film to use the plot device, it is the only one that I know of that features William "The Cigarette Smoking Man" B. Davis as a horror film producer!  I'm getting a bit ahead of myself though so let's start from the beginning shall we?

At the first annual horror film fest, in the sleepy little town of Holsten, B.C.,  a teen is murdered in the theater.  The killer is never caught.  Two years later, another horror film fest is being put together and many of the locals are not happy.  The police station is flooded with angry letters of protest.  Among the letters are mysterious type written letters.

Police detective Al Jason has transferred here from the city, hoping to find some peace and quiet.  Bad luck for him! Marilyn is the projectionist at the theater is the mother of the girl whose boyfriend was murdered two years earlier.  Her other daughter, Sherri is the popcorn girl.  Her estranged husband, Heath Harris, is the aforementioned William B. Davis who will be on hand to unleash his latest horror opus on the rowdy crowd of teens.  Detective Jason is sort of dating Marilyn. Sherri is dating a guy named Lawrence that everyone hates.  Bobby is another theater worker who is a complete asshole punk and also has the hots for Sherri.  How's that for a set of red herrings?  Not enough?  Okay...then let's throw in the trashy newspaper reporter, Warren who has an extended history with Detective Jason.  Also let's throw in Geoff, the extremely eccentric theater employee.  Whew!   I'm sure that was almost as exhausting to read as it was to write.  Still with me?  Groovy.

As you may have well guessed when the film fest gets underway, so do the murders.  Everyone one is suspect and I was surprisingly unable to figure out for myself who the killer was until about 10 minutes before the reveal.  I don't know if that's a credit to the film or if I was a bit drowsy and not fully paying attention....but my guess is the latter.  For a slasher film, this is quite talky....even for a TV movie slasher film.  That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it....but even at about 90 minutes it could have been about 20 minutes shorter.  Having said all that, I did enjoy some of the cinematography quite a bit and there were some interesting cuts and transitions used.  My favorite bits (as is usually the case with these type of films) were the film-within-film bits.  It always amuses me to no end watching the film's creator's idea of a cheesy horror flick.  I can't tell you how many times I've wished that these faux films were real.  The ones included here are no different.

Midnight Cinephile Tally

Death Toll:  Five.  I suppose that's not bad for a TV Movie.....but there was an AWFUL lot of talk (and time) between kills.

Nude-O-Meter:  We get one pair 'o boobs in the very beginning and a naked butt.  Something tells me that was added later for video release....being a TV Movie and all.  Interestingly, the scene which this takes place in is one of the film-within-films and it's pretty much a shot for shot remake of Kevin Bacon's death scene in the original Friday the 13th!

Things That Go Bump In The Night: In addition to our killer, we are treated to a couple different killers in the films the audience is watching at the film fest, which is a nice little bonus.

Favorite Death
I've gotta give this one to the Friday the 13th copycat scene!

Final Thoughts
This little slice of Canadian horror is completely new for me.  I ran across it on Netflix and being a sucker for Killer at the Movies flix, I had to watch it.  Like I said before, it could have been a bit shorter, but there are certainly worse ways to spend your time.  This one feels right for a rainy night when there's nothing else on.

Final Rating
Two out of Five Pizza Rolls