The Rev. Baron Librarian Eric () wrote:
Okay, I’ve not been having much luck daring you to watch movies you can locate (a situation likely to have been exacerbated by your skipping town), but here goes:  watch Neon Maniacs.
I’d say this was the bastard inspiration for M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, but then I’d have to concede that M. Night Shyamalan is capable of being inspired.
The copy on the original VHS box for this one was truly inspired, however.  And
against all odds, this one has been reissued on DVD (by Anchor Bay’s prolific
Questionable Standards Division), so you may be able to hunt it down.  Good luck!

Neon Maniacs - Dir. Joseph Mangine 1986

So, I had this movie in my possession for about a week before I watched it. The trailer was fantastic, but I really wanted company for the actual viewing. No such luck. Everybody is smarter than me, apparently. I thought it was going to be good. Let me tell you something, this movie is a complete waste of time. It had good monsters, good make up, lots of stupid and/or sex-crazed teenagers, and a music sequence like you ain’t never seen (if you’re ever walking by a high school auditorium and you see a flyer for a battle of the bands between Jaded and the Outlaws Kids, I suggest you go). Still stunk. Big time.

The Plot: The Neon Maniacs (there’s like 30 of them, with personality traits not unlike those of the Garbage Pail Kids Movie characters) live under a bridge and come out when it’s not raining to kill teenagers and cops. When it rains they go away.

You know what this movie didn’t remind me of? Hatchet. This is a relatively new DVD release that I watched this evening, and it was bad ass. Sweet looking monster, lots of sex-crazed teenagers, good make up, etc. It was all of about 80 minutes long. During that 80 minutes, we get cameos from both Robert Englund and Tony Todd. We get several scenes of vomiting–one of which I’ll never forget. We get Bourbon street at mardi gras. We get some really good gore and an ending that makes me understand how much the universe loves me.

Hatchet is billed as a return to “old school American horror”, and i must say that, in a very literal way, it delivers. If you want to see things like this:

or even things like this:

Hatchet is the way to go.

What makes it watch-able: Neon Maniacs or Hatchet? Neon Maniacs has a great trailer. I’d put it up there with the trailers for “Dominique is Dead”, “Assault of the Party Nerds”, and “Mistress Frankenstein”. Do yourself a favor–just watch the trailer and leave watching the actual movie to studs like me. Hatchet, i think, has already been built up enough. If you’re into horror and are sick to death of these PG-13 Japanese rip-offs and the screwball antics of the “horror/comedy” genre, give Hatchet a try. At worst, you’ll have only wasted about 77 minutes if you don’t watch the credits.

Times I averted my eyes: 0
Better things i could have been doing with my time: umpteen
Overall rating from 1 to 10: 3

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