This is a sturdy entry in that genre of horror film where stuff is either way too big or way too small. In this case, you’ve got a bunch of people shrunk down by a mad doll maker instead of giant puppets running around killing people like the title tricked me into believing I’d be seeing!

As directed by Bert I. Gordon (master of cheap movies about giant and small creatures harassing one another), this film is a bit of psychological thriller about a dude who has gone around the bend since his wife ran away with some other guy. Why would a woman want to leave a guy who makes his living playing with dolls? Didn’t she know she could get all the special edition Barbies at a discount? Continue reading “Attack of the Puppet People (1958)” →

As soon as you see Psycho Cop eating a donut in slow motion at the beginning of Psycho Cop Returns, you know the Psycho Cop series is on the way up after an initial outing that was by turns unrelentingly bad and blandly forgettable. The scene in the diner where Psycho Cop eavesdrops on a couple of office drones planning a bachelor party establishes that everything we loved about Psycho Cop (he’s a fat pig!) will remain, while ditching the dumb stuff (college kids on vacation at an isolated mansion), and adding a new and exciting nemesis to battle the evil fatty fuzz (strippers!).

Then, as if to confirm that this isn’t your slow-witted step-brother’s Psycho Cop, the opening credits play! It’s a rocking tune with police sirens as one of the instruments and the credits are interspersed with shots of Psycho Cop’s cop car. There’s all sorts of satanic symbols painted in blood in it! Body parts are freaking everywhere inside! I don’t even know how Psycho Cop had room to sit down in there! Especially with his fat ass! His license plate is even attached upside down! All of us strong Satanists recognize that as the ultimate salute to the Horned One! Continue reading “Psycho Cop Returns (1993)” →

Movies like Psycho Cop depend on their villains being super cool instruments of death, dismemberment, and destruction! They need to look like a bad ass, they need to demonstrate cunning and power, and while they don’t necessarily need to speak, when they do, they need to be able to deliver those vicious one-liners with convincing bile.

Here, we have a fat guy in a cop suit who moves like his night stick is rammed up his ass, insists on wearing a goofy expression that calls to mind a simpleton whose biggest concern is where his candy bar went, and gives us the lamest and most predictable cop talk imaginable. You don’t even have to see the movie to imagine him stumbling around and babbling about the right to remain silent while killing a guy. And that was his best effort! Continue reading “Psycho Cop (1989)” →