Movie lists suck, especially horror-themed
lists.
Be it a well respected publication or some basement-dwelling
nerd’s “podcast” (that word alone makes
me run screaming in terror, tears in my eyes, vomit crusting
around the sides of my mouth), nearly every list you find
will be flooded with 1,000 well-worn subjects that you’ve
already seen a million times. Yes, we’ve seen Jaws pop out of the water. Yes, we’ve seen Linda Blair vomit
split-pea soup. Yes, we’ve seen Janet Leigh get knifed
in the shower – and yes, we still pretend that she didn’t
deserve it.
Let’s examine something slightly different this time.
This is a collection of films that don’t belong in
a horror movie list. In fact, most of these films have nothing
to do with horror whatsoever. Sure, some of them intentionally
create uncomfortable situations, but for the most part they
shouldn’t even be anywhere near the word “horror”.
However, every single movie on this list has moments, even
fleeting, where they’ve managed to give me the absolute
goddamn heebie-jeebies.
So let’s celebrate those uncomfortable, stomach-churning
moments. These aren’t ranked in any particular order,
but if you have a fastidious need for organization, pretend
this is a list that ranks things from “unpleasant”
to “unpleasant,” or vice-versa.
Pee
Wee’s Big Adventure
Starting off with the most well-known
movie on the list, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure tells the story of a man-child and his love for a bicycle.
When that bicycle is stolen, Pee wee sets off into the world,
where he encounters scene after scene the studio deemed “wacky,
fun adventure for the whole family,” but I deem “the
possible point in time where I started to fear all of my surroundings.”
 With
its sickening, funhouse mirror visuals and intentional slides
into sick imagery, this movie can be a horrific shocker when
you see it as a child – and an even bigger shock as
an adult when you see how it’s about a million times
more mind-melting than you thought it was as a child. The
whole package is an assault on the mind, from Tim Burton’s
direction down to Danny Elfman’s intentionally ear-splitting
score. Yes, most children’s programming is absolutely
condescending, but that doesn’t mean you have to go
off the deep end and create something that resembles a combination
of a Sid and Marty Krofft production, a snuff film and your
worst childhood nightmares.
DEFINING MOMENT OF TERROR:
The most amazing thing about video technology is that I no
longer have to embarrass myself or the people around me when
I clench my fists, bury my head into my pillow and cry like
a four-year-old girl every time that goddamn Large Marge speech
happens in the film. The more knowledgeable side of me wants
to go, “Large Marge is one of the more distinct creations
the Chiodo Brothers have ever worked on and I can sit here
and appreciate this wonderful, pre-CGI work,” but by
the time her speech ends with “AND SHE LOOKED JUST LIKE
THIS,” I’ve already stuck my head under the blanket.
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:
Even doing the screen captures for this review creeped me
the hell out. Let’s move on.
Double
Agent 73
The bizarrely endowed Chesty Morgan
helps fight crime by rubbing out the mob one-by-one, taking
pictures of them via a camera that was implanted in her breast
by the government. But, oh no! If Chesty doesn’t get
back to headquarters in time, her titty is set to self-destruct!
What will Chesty Morgan’s breasts do?!
 After
watching Doris Wishman’s opus to criminally large breasts
for the 5th or 6th time, I have come to a conclusion. And
that conclusion is that homosexuality is not genetic. However,
surprisingly, homosexuality also is not caused by broken homes,
molestation, which gender you choose to play doctor with as
a child, whether you drink Coke or Pepsi, or religious upbringing.
I hold the firm belief that when the first theatrical showing
of Double Agent 73 finished rolling off the
screen, there had to be a single man in the audience who threw
up his arms in sheer terror and said to the person sitting
next to him, “Fuck it. I’m growing a moustache.”
And thus a new subculture was born.
I could watch the animal violence in Cannibal
Holocaust on an endless loop with pins
taped under my eyelids and I still wouldn’t blink. But
sit me down in front of a movie starring Chesty Morgan and
I’m ready to confess where I hid all that Nazi gold
(under the floorboards in the closet, by the way). Equipped
with acting talent that could easily be upstaged by a mannequin,
tits the size of a young baby (and just as squeezable) and
outfits so hideous it would make a straight man wince, Chesty
is more damaging to the soul than your parents sitting you
down to tell you they’re getting a divorce.
DEFINING MOMENT OF TERROR:
There is a point in this movie where Chesty Morgan punches
a man out with her breast. No, she doesn’t smother him
with her bosom, she actually picks up her breast and flings it at the man.
CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
Just think, in the days before easily-accessible hardcore
pornography, people actually masturbated to Chesty Morgan.
And sure, I like a bulbous pair of breasts from time to time,
but Chesty Morgan is like going to a restaurant and ordering
one of those five-pound slabs of beef that you get for free
if you eat it all in one sitting.
Showgirls
Nomi Malone (whore/crank head/stripper/testicle-kicker)
finds herself in Las Vegas, where she quickly moves her way
from low-rent stripper to a high-class hotel stripper in a
story about backstabbing, dancing, backstabbing, chip-eating,
fucking, Kyle MacLachlan’s hair and more backstabbing.
 If
you’re ready to ask me “What isn’t scary about Showgirls?” please go away.
I have yet to find another movie as fully entertaining as
this piece of crap. Sure, the general population’s opinion
of the film is that every frame in it is packed with the desperation
and dread horror movies wish they had, I find it to be a fun
romp through Las Vegas, hosted by a psychotic woman whose
only talent seems to be the ability to gyrate her pelvis in
an extremely mechanical fashion and to recite lines with an
aplomb that’s comparable to Chesty Morgan in the previous
entry. Needless to say, this just might be my most watched
film next to D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.
DEFINING MOMENT OF TERROR:
Just like the saying goes: “It’s all fun and games
until someone loses an eye,” and Showgirls has one hell of a gouger when Molly, the only moral character
in the film, is sexually assaulted by her musical hero, Andrew
Carver, and a few of his henchmen in a genuinely uncomfortable
scene that has no business in the film. How am I supposed
to laugh in a hip and ironic fashion when the movie’s
only nice character is presented to you with a face full of
fist and an ass full of rape?
…the answer is “drunkenly,” by the way.
BONUS POINTS:
When Molly manages to hobble out into the party afterwards,
she falls to the ground in a heap of pain and bodily fluid.
Notice the odd, dark purple dripping down her leg –
it’s as if she was raped so hard, even her blood got
bruised.
Jam
Starting off as late-night radio programming
(Blue Jam), Chris Morris welcomes you to every episode like
a psychotic Rod Sterling with a combination of sketch comedy,
ambient music and feelings of true  unpleasantness
that would make Ricky Gervais (The Office)
run out of the room weeping. While not a film, this late night
British sketch “comedy” show deserves the highest
accolades for featuring some of the most bizarre, surreal
and downright disgusting sketches I’ve ever seen. In
fact, the series was considered so offensive that it ran commercial
free – no advertisers wanted to be associated with the
show.
Not only is the content easily able to put a few people off
their lunches, a special note must be given to the way the
show was filmed. Loaded with weird-ass special effects, including
desynched audio/video, intentional blurring and distorting,
and (my personal favorite) filming the sketch being played
on a television, the show recreates what it feels like when
you’re sick with the flu, hung-over after drinking an
entire bottle of NyQuil, and have had your head stuck under
a down comforter while sleeping for 18 hours straight. Also
included in the DVD package (thankfully all region, but PAL
formatted) is the re-edited, remixed, more spaced-out version,
aired on late night television called Jaaaaam.
DEFINING MOMENT OF TERROR:
The sketch titled “Shredder Vengeance” on Episode
2 features Mark Heap as a vengeful ex-boyfriend who records
a video tape “gift” for his girlfriend. The tape
features Heap in a tuxedo jamming himself into a wood chipper
with the spout pointed directly at his ex’s bedroom
window. The camera moves over to the window, which features
a woman screaming in terror as she gets a face-full of her
boyfriend, who is gurgling “I’M COMING BACK”
in between absolutely ugly sounds of Heap choking on his own
blood while laughing. The only thing that might be scarier
than the sketch itself is how much I identify with it.
DIALOGUE EXCERPT:
“When dancing, lost in techno trance… Arms flailing,
gawky bears… Then find you snagged on frowns and slowly
it dawns… You’re jazzing to the bleep tone of
a life-support machine that marks the steady fading of your
day-old baby daughter…” Lighten up kids, it’s
a sketch comedy show!
 The
Apple
Alphie and Bibi are two lily-white
cracker-spawn from Moose Jaw, Canada who make their way down
to the States to star in a 1994 music competition. While the
two are belting out a sappy love song (with a guitar that
apparently has a drum set and a string quartet inside it,
too), Mr. Boogalow is behind the scenes, orchestrating the
whole event and making sure that his own protégé
gets the reigning spot in a film that could easily be called George Orwell’s Disco ‘84.
What’s a list about unintentionally scary movie moments
without a musical? It’s also very easy to see through;
obviously I’m running out of steam, which is ridiculous
seeing as how this article has only five entries. But don’t
let this fact bring this essay to a grinding halt; The
Apple is obscenely awful and is punctuated with more
horrific moments than the previous movies combined, from the
whole future angle (in the future, all of our drinking glasses
will be triangular!) down to the music, the direction, the
acting, the costuming. Everything. However, watching this
film might be worth it for the insanely retarded ending, which
features God coming down from the heavens in a flying Cadillac
(I’m assuming it’s a Cadillac, since I know nothing
about cars. Anything made before 1980 is a Cadillac to me)
to take hippies not to heaven, but to another planet. This
movie left me feeling so morose, I put Stop Making
Sense into my DVD player right afterwards as a aural
palette cleanser.
DEFINING MOMENT OF TERROR:
While it’s hard to pick out a single moment in a film
so consistent in its terror, The Apple’s
title musical number is particularly painful. The song makes
its way through blatant reference to The Bible’s story
of Adam and Eve, then stops being allegory and becomes adaptation.
However, The Apple manages to one-up the
Bible by featuring disco, deformed black men, vampires and
Napoleon.
FUN FACT:
Renting this from Netflix, I looked at the back of the disc
and noticed that it was sparkling clean and without any scratches,
almost as if it had never been rented since the last time
I rented this monstrosity.
So, Where Does This All Leave Us?
Well, if there’s anything this list serves as, it’s
a warning to never let me write another article ever again.
It also serves as required viewing for you. Yes, the movies
on this list range from actually good (I shot tea out of my
nose while watching Pee Wee’s Big Adventure)
to the type of movie that’ll drive you to drink –
but don’t let that stop you. All of these films have
little moments, short bursts of sheer inane spectacle that
make these films compulsively watchable.
Okay, I’m just bullshitting you. I just don’t
want to be the only one who has seen The Apple more than once.
Thank you and goodnight!
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