Ghostkeeper (1982)

Directed by Jim Makichuk 
Starring Riva Spier, Murray Ord, Sheri McFadden 

“Put the gun down and come to mother.”

This is one of the most effortlessly atmospheric horror films I’ve seen in a while. I mean, this thing is all mood, snowbound and claustrophobic and suffocating. An estranged couple, Marty and Jenny (Riva Spier, Murray Orf) and their hotsy-totsy blonde friend Chrissy (Sherri McFadden), head out on a snowmobile trip in the Rocky Mountains (actually Canada) but get sidelined by a snowstorm and end up at a seemingly abandoned lodge. Guess what? It’s not abandoned at all! First though, Marty and Jenny have some awkward conversations and break up a few times, and then Chrissy tells inappropriate sex stories before taking a bath. Naturally, she is unceremoniously dragged out said bath by some freak and fed to some other mutant freak in a shed. Meanwhile, the couple is contending with a crazy old woman who lives at the place and sabotages their snowmobiles so they can’t escape. And if that’s not bad enough, Marty cracks under the pressure almost immediately, rubs grease on his face, and leaves Jenny to die in the snow. She is forced to find her inner warrior and take on the murderous loonies and the blizzard all on her own.

It may or may not help that this was supposed to be an abominable snowman movie. It never gets there, but I’m not mad about it. Here's what I like about Ghostkeeper. First of all, this was one of those tax shelter deals, so it wasn’t even really meant for release. In fact, they ran out of money before it was finished, so any hopes for special fx were out the window (that will be obvious when you’re watching it). Since the director couldn’t shoot it as written without any dough, they just made the second half up as they went along. Ghostkeeper is not even meant to be, and yet it is. And despite its throwaway origins, it could easily be a low-key haze-horror cult classic, not unlike its spiritual cousins The Witch Who Came from the Sea or Let’s Scare Jessica to Death. Like both of those films the acting is good but has a distinct “real people” vibe, like some private-press loner-folk album from 1972, you know what I mean? It feels less like a movie and more like you’re just watching somebody’s loopy acid-reflux dream. And I also like the snow. It’s everywhere. Half the movie is Marty and Jenny struggling to stand up in waist-high snowdrifts. It’s basically snowing the entire time. I don’t think Jenny even takes off her snowsuit in the whole movie. I think she even sleeps in it. I mean this snow is relentless. Anyway if you like the aforementioned movies - or Innkeepers, which shares a similar slow-rolling dreamy vibe - I recommend you check this one out.

BTW, there is a blu-ray available with a new 2k scan; the version I saw on Amazon Prime is kinda smudgy and has a ton of surface noise, like a crackly vinyl record, which actually added to the atmosphere.

- Ken McIntyre

Breaking All The Rules (1985)

Breaking all the Rules (1985)
Directed by James Orr
Starring Carl Marotte, Carolyn Dunn, Rachel Hayward
Rated R
Canada

"Just relax. And be heavy."

I would just like to say that even though I very much enjoy films that take place in amusement parks (Carny, The Funhouse, Rollercoaster, etc), I never liked actually going to them. I get terrible motion sickness, so the rides are out, and the goddamn games are clearly rigged. I remember spending hours in the summer of ’81 trying to win a Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell mirror at one of those booths where you shoot water in a clown’s mouth until the balloon pops and the balloon never fucking popped, no matter how much I tried to drown the clown. And most of the time you win something that’s impossible to lug around successfully anyway, like a giant banana or a goldfish. Also, how are you supposed to meet girls there? You don’t look very cool puking or lugging around a banana. But I digress. Breaking All The Rules is a fun, frothy teen romp made in Canada by an innocuous director known mostly, if at all, for writing Three Men and a Baby and Sister Act 2. He’s clearly not into confrontational or controversial filmmaking, and you are not gonna get it here. What you do get is an hour and a half of breezy summer fun and a couple fetching young Canadian lasses to ogle. Which is alright with me.

You should know at the beginning that there's a raffle going down in a few days at the Fun Park. The  winner gets a $50,000 diamond, which I can’t really see happening, even at a funpark in Canada in the mid 80's. Our hero, Jack (Carl Marotte, who was probably 25 at the time, but has the muggy face of an old Jewish comedian from the Vaudeville days), works at the park as a maintenance man, and often spends a good portion of his morning fantasizing about all the chicks he'd bang if he had that diamond. He should have been paying more attention because  on this fateful day, a trio if slimeball thieves – a fat stooge, a butchy chick in stretchpants, and a ringleader who looks just like Wile E Coyote - steal the fuckin' diamond. The alarm goes off, so they sew it into the belly of a stuffed mouse and tack it up at one of the midway games, planning on getting it later. I know, that's an idiot fuckin’ idea, but that's the way we did things in the 80's.

But never mind all of that, because its the last day of the summer, and Jack is determined to make the most of it. Across town, so does Debbie (Carolyn Dunn), a ridiculously hot blonde from the upscale side of town who is having an identity crisis. Later on it will be somewhat important to know she's wearing "I Love U" underwear, which is why we meet her ass first. No complaints here.

Anyway, Jack sees her flashing her panties in the street and is smitten, but at the time he's accidentally crashing some stranger’s car, so who knows if he'll ever see her again?

After the car accident – he accidentally runs over the diamond thief - Jack buys a dicknose mask from his favorite joke shop and then heads over to his buddy David's house to cheer him up.

David (Thor Bishopric) is kind of a drip.

Meanwhile, we meet Angie (Rachel Hayward) and her perky Canadian boobs.

She eventually gets dressed and heads out to meet Debbie, who chopped off her hair and is now sporting the most 80's fake punk look imaginable.

All four end up on the bus and they're all into each other, although really the girls are both into Jack and he has no idea the phony punk chick is the I Love U underwear girl. And anyway, they blow it on the bus because they're all teenage idiots. So what the hell, they go to Fun Park. Its got an “F and U and K in it”, after all.

Cue the amusement park antics montage over the title AOR jam by one Paul Booth. it's pretty awesome/horrible, as Canadian AOR jam soften are.

For some reason this fun park has a burlesque show, so Jack takes David backstage to see some boobs. Then they climb down a drain under a water fountain so they can see up girls' skirts. Good times.

Jack goes to see his boss Charlie (Walter Massey) to get his last check. Charlie’s guzzling booze because somebody stole the fuckin’ diamond and now he might have to go out of business. Clearly, it’s up to Jack to save the day. But first, you know, chicks.

The fellas run into Debbie and Angie again and Jack wows ‘em by winning stuffed mice for both of them. Guess which one Debbie gets? The guys think they’ve got this one in the bag, but Angie has a sudden change of heart and gives them both the kiss-off. So wait, you can’t win a girl’s heart with ugly stuffed animals? Alert all men immediately.

Oh hey, remember the rat-faced jewel thief and his motley crew? They're back. And they want that mouse. But which one is the right one? How did this foolproof plan go awry? Fuck it, they just buy them all and start tearing them open, looking for the diamond. And they can't find it! So they skulk around the park, snatching every stuffed mouse they see and ripping it open.

Meanwhile, things are not going well in the summer romance department. Angie's with Jack, and she hates him. Debbie's with David, and she hates him. It's a summer bummer. Eventually they figure out their incompatibility issues and Jack finally gets to make out with somebody. Debbie's down to bone him right there, behind a tree, but it turns out he doesn't actually know how to have sex. That’s weird. Don’t they have health class in Canada?  To be fair, he’s supposed to be 16. He just looks 37. Plus, his zipper’s broke.  Debbie tries to open it with her teeth. Jack is in way over his head with this kooky chick.

Meanwhile, David and Angie ride the merry go round and lament the fact that they're both  virgins. They're actually having a pretty good time until her old boyfriend Vince, you know, the football king or whatever, shows up and snatches her away. Bummer, dude.

But wait, then she comes back! And so do the goodtimes. Thank Christ. Cue amusement park antics montage number two.

Oh yeah, the diamond. Debbie hits the bad guy in the face with her mouse for threatening Angie and David, and the diamond tumbles to the ground. Jack grabs it and takes off with Debbie, the jewel thieves hot on their trail. As they climb up the fire escape of a building to get away, Jack sees Deb’s underwear and realizes she's the same girl from this morning! Swoon! But then they fall off the fuckin’ building and they both die. The end.

No, they land on a trampoline and haul ass out of there. Why is there a trampoline next to the building? Fun Park, motherfucker!

I dunno what happens, the bad guys get the diamond again somehow, and Jack gets arrested for the crime. It’s up to mousy David and the girls to get the diamond back from the creeps and clear their bud’s name and save Charlie's bacon using every Scooby Doo-esque amusement park gag you can think of.

Do they do it? Maybe. Probably. I'll tell you this much: breakdancing is involved. And balloons and confetti and making out. But that was always happening in 1985, even at funerals or executions.

As hazy and breezy as day at the beach, Breaking All the Rules is aided greatly by the easy charm of its four young leads and the dreamy backdrop of the amusement park with all its bells, whistles, calliopes, and clopping merry-go-round horses. Even with the shoe-horned diamond thieves’ subplot, it rides on a wave of sunny optimism. You know from the first frame that everything’s gonna turn out alright, and everyone’s gonna get laid. This is the sort of summer adventure you always hope to have. It’s not the one you’ll get – I mean, nobody even fuckin’ sweats in this movie – but, you know, don’t stop believin’.

Not liking this move is like not liking boobs or ice cream, it’s just impossible. Ding!

- Ken 

Stacey says:
This movie is a lot like cotton candy... sweet, light and fluffy. A crazy 80's caper, antics, bad haircuts and good times for all (except the diamond thieves). Ding!

Killer Party (1986)

Directed by William Fruet
Starring Joanna Johnson, Elaine Wilkes, Sherry Willis-Burch
Rated R
Canada

"It's Goat Night!"

Here's the thing with Canada, at least in the 80's. Basically they would take some chunk of American culture, from heavy metal to horror movies, and they would make it as lame as possible. Killer Party is a prime example. As the legend goes, the film began shooting in 1978,  but then it went over budget and production was shut down until 1984, when it was finished. But it still didn't get released theatrically until 1986. I don't remember it being in theaters, and I went to see alot of dumb horror movies in the 80's. It was directed by William Fruet, who has mostly done TV shows like like Friday the 13th and Goosebumps.

Killer Party opens with a funeral. Only four people show up. One of  the mourners gets sucked into the coffin and then gets cremated alive!

No she doesn't. It's just a movie playing at a drive-in. One of the drive-in patrons, a blonde with crimped hair, goes to the concession stand for popcorn. There's nobody there! When she goes back to the car, her boyfriend's missing! And then a psycho attacks her while White Sister plays at the abandoned concession stand! It basically turns into a White Sister video with zombies, which some other chick is watching on TV. What the fuck is going on here?

By the way, the movie was originally called April Fools, which is why White Sister play a song called You're No Fool, which is a song about a girl named April.

Pheobe - the White Sister fan - heads off to college on 10 speeds with her two pals, Vivia and Jennifer. By the way, if you are interested, Phoebe is portrayed by Elaine Wilkes, who gave up acting in 1988 (if she hadn't already given it up while making this movie) and now has a PHD in "Naturopathy", AKA alternative medicine, which is not a real thing. Sherry Willis Burch is Vivia, the only other film she ever made was another 80's slasher, Final Exam. And Jennifer is Joanna Johnson, who went on to a lucrative career in soap operas. Anyway, they have lots of girl-fun along the way while a bad Bananarama rip-off song called Best Times plays on the soundtrack. They're going to pledge a sorority! At least that's the plan. But when the pass by a creepy old house, Jennifer starts getting second thoughts.

But forget all that for now, because we've got sorority girls to frolic with. They lounge in a hot tub together and discuss whether the old frat house is going to open again or not after being shuttered for 20 years. That's the creepy house.

And then Virgil shows up to deliver some champagne, and steals their doorknob. Turns out he's a front for a frat-gang  who terrorize the girls by throwing a jar of bees into the hot tub. Then they film the screaming, bee-stung,  half-naked coeds with a super 8 camera as they frantically try to get in the house, which they can't, because Virgil stole the doorknob. What a prank!

And then the frat mother or whatever they call it, walks over to the haunted house and starts talking to a gravestone about how the girls are using the house for "goat night" and that he should just take it easy. Then she goes in to check things out. Naturally, she gets clubbed to death five minutes later.

Then the girls meet the evil frat girl who initiates them with various humiliations.

She tells them they have to go steal some t-shirts from a fraternity. By the way, one of the girls, Vivia, wears paper clips for earrings. Seriously, look at those things!

Also, Paul Bartel is a flustered English professor. In the movie, I mean. He's a dead actor in real life.

The girls sneak into the frat to steal the shirts, but someone's watching them. Who? No time to ponder, because they've got a heist to pull. Jennifer distracts one of the frat guys with her tongue while the other two abscond with the shirts.

And then she goes home and walks around braless, which is nice.

She's on her way to take a shower when Martin the nerdy Freshman shows up. He's the stalker! But is he also a killer? Dunno. Maybe. Probably not.

Finally, it's Goat Night!

The girls are blindfolded and forced to swallow goat eyes whole. Don't worry though, they're just grapes! And then they pour raw eggs into the mouths and making then spit them up into glasses. And then they get paddled! Pretty kinky, esoteric shit, man. Also there's a point in he middle where it appears that Jennifer is possessed by an evil spirit, which I assume is the dead guy in the backyard. And poltergeist shit starts happening.

Vivia goes into the basement and cuts her own head off for laughs. It was her all the time! She pranked the pranksters. The next morning, she gives her severed head to Martin, who gets so upset he crashes his car. Then they play "Best Times" again. "These are the best times...of our lives..."

The girls get accepted into the sorority but the chief sorority girl or whatever tells Vivia she's got to pull the same prank on the frat boys. Fair enough. And then Paul Bartel gets a promotion, which allows him to explain what happened at the old abandoned frat house. It's the usual humiliation and murder bullshit.

The girls show up to set-up their prank. Jennifer freaks everybody out with her urban legends. Or are they?
They are not. They never are. Who knows why, but Paul Bartel is sniffing around in there too, and he gets electrocuted to death. Also there's a corpse or two mouldering away down there. But whatever, because it's time for the big April Fools party, which is sort of like a Halloween party in that everyone is in costume. Only a couple of the costumes are actual things, though.

Anyway, just when the April Fool's King and Queen are supposed to get crowned, the doors all slam shut and the party-goers are assaulted with balloons! And then a couple of the frat boys start wailing on each other and one of 'em gets stabbed to death. Or does he? April fool's, ladies and gentlemen! Everybody's having an awesome time, really. Except for Jennifer.

Turns out she's right. Somebody in a deep sea divers helmet starts moidering all the party goers. And since there were only about seven of them in the first place, their ranks thin very quickly.

Pretty soon, everybody's dead except for our plucky trio. And there's a good chance one of them isn't who she used to be!

Things get weird from there. Exorcist-y, even. Also, the finale offers up a difficult conundrum. What do you do when your best friend is possessed? Also, the ending is way more grim then the rest of the movie.

Killer Party is a sorta- fun, definitely stupid 80's slasher with terrible music and leotards. Sure, it could have used some gore and more tits, but you never got everything you wanted in the 80's. That's not what  the 80's were about. That's not what Canada is about, either. Therefore, thumbs up.

- Ken McIntyre

Tart (2001)

Written and directed by Christina Wayne
With Dominique Swain, Bijou Phillips, Brad Renfro, Mischa Barton, Lacey Chabert
Rated R
Canada


"Sex, Drugs and Study Hall".

Don't be fooled by the tag line. I didn't see one dissolute brat in this misguided goulash of teen flick clichés crack a book. I know we are all dying to see a movie wherein a character played by vegan crumpet Dominique Swain expounds on "Heart Of Darkness" or "The Communist Manifesto", but it doesn't happen here.

The Canadian title for "Tart" was "Naive", which is exactly how you'll feel if you fall for the breathless hype on the box and rent this crap. Or the preview which shows Barton and Swain in a bubble bath together, like THAT goes anywhere. (Given the highly sapphic--in a "Maxim" magazine sort of way-- relations every girl in this movie seems to have with each other, I was honestly surprised to find out that a woman wrote the script).

Like "Home Room", this movie seems to be an honestly well intended stab at telling it like it is. The characters are hyper-wealthy spoiled New York teens whose parents don't spend enough time with them. But unlike HR, it's impossible to give even the faintest damn about any of these little rotters who spend all their time back stabbing, drinking, drugging and generally behaving badly.

Swain plays the main character, a listless teen with the highly unlikely flash metal suicide name of Kat Storm. She isn't given much to do by the script, except drift from scene to scene with her trademark liver and onions pout, wrinkling her little nose at every misdeed or snub committed by her compatriots. Said comrades in arms include the monumentally tiresome Bijou Phillips (cast shockingly against type as a rich, fucked up drug addict with--get this--a screwed up family) as well as Brad Renfro, the soon to be superstar Mischa Barton and Scott Thompson. (Late of "Kids In The Hall" and totally wasted in this garbage).

Despite her almost disgustingly photogenic qualities, Swain has proven to be an able actress in other movies, "Lolita" and "Pumpkin", specifically. But if she keeps frittering away her time in films like this and the equally abhorrent "Smokers", she'll only make a name for herself as the Parker Posey of bad teen movies, that is if she hasn't already.

With all the purposefulness of a stoned teen, "Tart" picks ups various plot lines and then drops them when it's attention span wanders. Is the movie an East Coast version of "Less Than Zero"? Hmm, could be. How about an upper crust "Rivers Edge"? Yeah, that too. (It doesn't take too much guesswork to figure out which character gets the celebrated rock to the head). How about a nod to "Class Ties" or even "Gentlemen's Agreement" with a riff on genteel anti-Semitism? Might as well throw that in as well.
I always find it hard to despise any movie that's heart seems to be in the right place, which is the one thing that you can say in defense of "Tart", but it isn't enough to keep it afloat.

- Sascha

White Lies (1998)

Directed by Kari Scogland
Starring: Sarah Polley, Tanya Allen, Jonathon Scarfe, Lynn Redgrave
Unrated
Canada

Who would have thought that the Canadians, our kinder, gentler cousins up north, the Stepford Wives of the Western world, would have the same problems with white power goons as we do? I guess wherever you put a bunch Caucasians together, crosses will eventually get burned, and bad punk rock will fill the air. And so it goes in White Lies. Originally a made for TV movie, it tells the strange and terrible tale of Catherine Chapman (Sarah Polley- the Canadian Uma Thurman), an idealistic high school student who begins to notice a disparity in the treatment of whites and minorities in Canadian society, particularly in hiring practices. She was looked over, you see, for a job at McDonald's because she didn't speak Korean. Never mind that there are half a million jobs a Korean born woman living in Canada would lose out to her- she wants to flip her goddamn burgers, and she's willing to join a neo-nazi group to do it. By the way,  Canadians call them "Nutzis".

This group is called the National Identity Movement, a shadowy activist group led by Lynn Redgrave (!). Catherine begins airing her vague grievances on their website. Eventually, they ask her to start writing for their newsletter, and she becomes a poster girl for white power, even going so far as to date the lead singer for one of those awful skinhead punk bands. It's interesting that she gets sexier as she gets more evil, going from cornsilk wallflower to red and black racist glam in one church torching. Eventually, though, saner heads prevail, and Catherine has a last minute change of heart, but not before much havoc is wreaked on the streets of Ontario as a result of her big mouth.

Belying it's TV origins, the language in White Lies is pretty subdued for a movie about nazis, but otherwise, it's a tightly wound ball of racial tension that speeds to it's climax with an escalating series of atrocities and rampant stupidity from the NIM camp and plenty of scenery chewing from Redgrave and smoldering sex appeal from Polley. The only problem with this film is the same as any movie about white power movements- it's never really explained just what 'white culture' these jackasses are trying to preserve. Country music and baseball? They can have it, man.

This DVD edition of White Lies also features a wordy but smart 'making of' featurette that, at the very least, will show you how to successfully film a giant cross burning in a rain storm. Who knows? It might come in handy someday.

- Ken