Fun Box Monster Podcast

Fun Box Monster Podcast #141 Octopus 2: River Of Fear (2001)

       There's a big octopus attacking people. For a full synopsis see the wikipedia entry for Jaws.

       Just kidding. This movie may have a big Fourth of July celebration that a big carnivorous aquatic animal is threatening, and a quixotic cop who is hellbent on stopping it, a mayor who's more concerned with the bottom line than the safety of the citizenry, a bunch of children in peril, and a denouement where the animal explodes, but the similarities to Jaws end there. There's also some really boring scenes in steam tunnels and our protagonist cops are absolutely horrible people who routinely shake down the houseless population and smash their meager possessions to get information they don't even use! Fun!

     So get on board New York City's only rowboat, grab some Mad Dog 20/20, and join Matt and Tristan for the most original concept since Jaws: The Ride, Octopus 2: River of Fear. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #140 Route 666 (2001)

This is not you're daddy's route. Not the "Mother Road" as Route 66 was once known. Certainly not a place to "get your kicks" as songwriter Bobby Troup once wrote in his famous song. This is more the Highway to Hell, as crooned about by famed Australian troubadours, AC/DC. But not the movie Highway to Hell, which is a different movie. 

When the aptly named criminal Rabbit flees protective custody he's brought back in by the two toughest names in action movies. Lou Diamond Phillips and Lori Petty. They run from some Russian assassins and find their way to a haunted highway that isn't on any new maps...for reasons. Ghost reasons. There's twists and turns, dated stereotypes, and really incompetent civil servants and maybe a few...ggggghosts???

So grab your Macguffin dog tags, rev up your cardboard jackhammer, and jump into the haunted asphalt with Matt and Tristan for 2001's Route 666. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #139 Retribution (1987)

When frustrated painter George tries to do himself in, he’s brought back from the brink of death by the glowing head of a gangster who was killed by a cabal of meanies who shot and burned him to death over a debt that wouldn’t have paid off the average car loan. The head took this execution poorly and hijacks George and sends him out on a grizzly mission of revenge and stoned museum visits. So get the cheapest haircut imaginable, pour yourself a giant milkshake, and join Matt and Tristan as they gaze into the bleeding Easter Island statue that is, Retribution. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #138: Gate 2: The Trespassers (1990)

When you just barely survive engulfing the world in darkness by summoning a bunch of adorable demons, what's your next step? Doing it again...Duh! Terry, now seemingly cured of his heavy metal interest, is intent on reopening the gate. This time he's ready, as evidenced by his rental P.A., headset mic, and cool purple robe. Sadly some bullies interrupt the ceremony and the only demon that manages to squeeze through the gate is one of the little adorable minions from the first movie. Turns out he was less dead than previously though, and he starts granting wishes. When the wishes turn to literal poop, they realize they need to close the gate...but will they make it in time?  

So toss out all your Sacralix records, ditch your best friend who might later appear in a Blade film, and get ready for the best molten poop-Corvette of all time, Gate 2. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #137 : The Gate (1987)

Model rocket enthusiasts rejoice, for your day has finally come! The Gate is the true story of how the Estes Model Rocket Corporation of America saved the world from a million years of darkness, with a little help from the band Sacrifix. 

Our sad kid Glenn is noticing the world pass him by. He's still launching model rockets, while everyone around him is getting in to cool stuff like parties, and worshiping Satan. Until one day when lightning strikes his treehouse, opening a gate to hell, powered by natures most evil stone...the geode. They fight demons, play the death of a dog for laughs, and finally conquer hell with the help of a rickety model rocket. So put on your Killer Dwarves battle vest, your best rainbow druid robe, as Matt and Tristan light the fuse on one of the greatest hole-based horror movies of all time, The Gate! 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #136 Trucks (1997)

This is a clever idea. Remake a movie that was already perfect but take away anything enjoyable. That's bold. And that's the Trucks promise. 

Trucks takes the explosions, insane, bold, cartoonish characters, high budget set pieces, gore, and incredible AC/DC soundtrack and replaces it with four broken down farm trucks and a gravel pit. Contrary to everything you might expect, this formula fails create an entertaining film. So grab all the Canadian film tax credits you can find, a potato truck from the seventies who's odometer flipped three times, and join Matt and Tristan for the high school for the criminally insane's reenactment of Maximum Overdrive, Trucks. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #135 Death Spa (1988)

When I'm looking to get buff, the first question I ask any potential gym is, "Am I going to have to lift that little key on the machine that changes the weights?" Inevitably these losers tell me I will. I storm off in a huff and swear off exercise forever. But at Starbody Health Spa they've fixed this. All you have to do is carry around a credit card and swipe it in the machine, probably talk to the guy in the computer room on an imbedded mic. He puts you in a cue of people who need similar help and he gets to you after a few minutes, setting the machine to the proper weight. Things were going great until the computer got possessed by the philandering owner's dead wife who is the sister of the computer tech. She started burning people with acid, exploding folks in the bathroom, killing people with fish, the whole thing. Long story short, it's all here in this tell all documentary. (I was Fred). So grab a five-gallon jug of Joe Weider's Protein Shred Nuclear Muscle Blast Powder, a cup of carob coffee, and join Matt and Tristan for a film that goes down smoother than a limp piece of asparagus, Death Spa. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #130 Alligator 2 : The Mutation

The usual way a filmmaker tends to approach a sequel is to take what was successful about the first movie and amp it up. Alien had one alien, Aliens has a pile of aliens. Right? This concept is turned on its head with Alligator 2, where the Alligator seems to be considerably smaller than an average alligator, and the movie is free from blood or any other exploitation elements. 

The plot plays very much like a double episode of an eighties action tv show, but just add an alligator. Corrupt land developer, dumping poison, buying up land cheap to build condos. A super cop who doesn't play by the rules goes against his chief and the mayor to stop him. Look out! You're going to cause a cave-in with all this new ground they're breaking. Anyway, the alligator isn't really part of the movie that much? If everyone who died had died from exposure to the poison in the water, it literally would have been the exact same movie. Anyway, despite it's many failings I somehow still love this disaster.  So put your favorite forced perspective gator puppet on a little wagon and invite your favorite reptile lady to your local house-selling-carnival, and join Matt and Tristan for the toxic bowl of sewer gumbo known as, Alligator 2: The Mutation. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #129 : Ghostkeeper (1981)

When you check in with the Ghostkeeper, your blues don't stand a...GHOST of a chance!

It's a non-stop laugh fest when three wacky snowmobiling funsters crash a cannibal family's secret mountain ski lodge! When the stodgy old cannibal Ghostkeeper tells them that she's closing the cannibal ski-lodge to make room for cannibal condos, those nuts from snowmobile house come up with a plan for a topless ski-contest that might just save the lodge! 

Check in for the night...you'll Wendi-GO away laughing! 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #128 Bloody New Year (1987)

When an experimental aircraft using time altering technology as a cloaking device crashes into an island resort celebrating New Year's Eve in 1959, the explosion traps the partygoers in a never-ending Groundhog Day style party. We don't see that story though. We see a 1987 group of teens arriving on the island and almost able to see the time-ghosts wandering around. Unsurprisingly these teens get picked off one-by-one. Then they become time ghosts too I guess. I'm not really sure. This thing is wacky as hell. The movie may not make much sense, but damned if it isn't full of fun nonsense.  So grab your hastily made snow globes, your human body sized pressure cooker, and your best wind up Santa, and Join Matt and Tristan for my new favorite New Year's horror movie, Bloody New Year.