Fun Box Monster Podcast

Fun Box Monster Podcast #76 Watchers II

It turns out that the government thought that this dog-infiltrates-enemy-base, monster-hunts-dog weapons program was a strong enough concept to warrant a second go. This time they renamed it the Aesop Project, after rapper Aesop Rock, because he also removes people's eyes when he kills them. This time around the monster is a reused rubber suit from an earlier film, and the star power is Mark Singer, best known from the inescapable TBS stalwart, The Beastmaster. This movie features a driving dog, a living room swing set, and some of the bluest lighting this side of an Eiffel 66 video. Join Matt and Tristan as they splash LA sewer water into the giant open wound that is, Watchers 2. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #75 Watchers (1988)

When an explosion in a secret government genetics lab and monster training facility releases a dog hating Sasquatch and the hyper intelligent golden retriever that he's psychically bonded to, there's only one person you can count on to round him up, Canada's scariest bald guy,  Michael Ironsides. The government's Sasquatch wreaks havoc across the country side until a final confrontation in Corey Haim's ancestral hunting cabin. So get in your antique truck, feather your mullet, and join Matt and Tristan as they track down the Scrabble playing super-dog that is, Watchers. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #73 Cameron's Closet (1988)

Do you want to know what lives in the closet? Well, it's a bit complicated. He's a demon that little Cameron summoned with his psychic powers. But he only did it because his dad had an idol with his image on it that he gave Cameron because he was too cheap for a Skeletor figure to fight his unlicensed He-Man knockoff figure.

While Cameron is slowly manifesting this demon into the real world, he's blowing through father figures like Kleenex. Once he's down to the last father figure in the box (Sam) he finally decides to use his godlike psychic powers to send the demon back to hell. Probably could have done that in act one...but that's cool. At least one of the people the demon murdered totally deserved it.  So get yourself a knockoff Pazuzu statue, your mint condition Champion and Deceptor action figures, and join Matt and Tristan in Cameron's Closet. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #72 Popcorn (1991)

Popcorn is like Phantom of the Opera, but instead of Opera, it's got movies about killer mosquitos. Instead of Andrew Lloyd Webber music you get reggae. And where there was once a tragic performer haunting the theater and singing beautiful duets with a talented new Prima with whom he shares a bond deeper than life itself, you have a guy named Toby who keeps a sink full of faces. Better right? Obvi. Grab your ceremonial dagger, your box full of stink pellets, and join Tristan and Matt as they zip-line their way into one of the best meta horror movies of the 90's, Popcorn. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #71 DEMONS (1985)

Demons is a cautionary tale about the dangers of skipping class and going to free movie screenings. Also, it's a cautionary tale about not naming your child Urbano Barbarini, which nobody can convince me is not just Italian for Urban Barbarian. When two college girls skip class because a man with a half-metal face gives them free movie tickets, they wind up getting sealed up in a cursed building overrun by both demons and broad stereotypes. Goop flies six ways to Sunday, faces are ripped, fingers eaten, and a dirt-bike katana demon battle unlike any other ensues. What's up with the computerized projection booth? Who's mask is that? Why is there a dirt bike and katana in the lobby? Who walled them in? Why wall anybody in if your whole plan is to overrun the world? Why did the helicopter fall through the ceiling? These and many other questions will never be answered, so just deal with it. Grab your grapple gun, tear off your shirtsleeves, and join Matt and Tristan as they discuss the Urban Barbarian's finest hour, 1985's classic Italian horror masterpiece, Demons. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #70 American Gothic (1987)

If you think that this is just another movie about a family of middle-aged murderers, most of whom believe themselves to be children, living on a deserted island, who kill off a group of campers who's plane has gone down unexpectedly while they were on a vacation trip to take their friends mind off the death of her infant son, think again. Featuring, swing murder, children's skipping rope murder, and a basement full of corpses that little Fanny calls Big Dolls, this is not a run of the mill slasher. Put on your best party dress, cram your two seater seaplane with your five closest friends, (Plus, pots and pans, SCUBA gear, three tents, radio, a cooler of beer, food for several days and clothes) and kiss the mummified baby that is 1987's, American Gothic. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #69 Ice Cream Man (1995)

"But who will bring the ice cream?" The innocent words of a young Clint Howard, as he eats a pushup next to the body of yet another ice cream delivery professional struck down by vicious gangsters in a scene that is becoming all too familiar in suburban neighborhoods. In this brave film, we are given a rare opportunity to see the world through the Ice Cream Man's eyes. A world where not every day is a happy, happy, happy day.

Once he has finally left the asylum, which may or may not be run by clowns, Ice Cream super-fan Gregory buys an Ice Cream truck and takes over for the Ice Cream King whom he saw gunned down as a child. Gregory spices up The King's old boring recipes with human remains, live mice and dog's blood. Plus, he makes his own waffle cones right on the truck!

Some kids, a dog, a dad and a floozy all go missing, and everybody in town gets bent out of shape. Look out Ice Cream Man! This town doesn't deserve you! So get a batch of Butter Brickle, (Do you know how long it takes to make Butter Brickle???) a prosthetic forehead (on your real head), and a waffle cone full of the American Werewolf in London and get ready for two scoops of madness with Matt and Tristan as they slow-churn the classic 1995 film, Ice Cream Man. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #68 : Shocking Dark (1989)

In the future, Venice will be a toxic hellscape of mutant monsters and zombie-like crazies with guns. But not to worry. Megaforce, the greatest fighting team ever assembled, is here to protect what I believe to be an abandoned power plant. Many mutants will be dispatched, many dummies will be thrown over railings, and many copyrights will be infringed.

In fact, for more information about the plot and dialog, just go to IMDB and look up the plot to Aliens. It's almost verbatim. 

Remember when that middle school class put on production of Aliens, and Sigourney Weaver went and everybody was so enchanted? This is like that, but on a lower budget, and with much worse acting. Oh, and eventually there's a Terminator. So strap on a bunch of little plastic boxes, get on your best chest bursting outfit, and call your copyright lawyer, as Tristan and Matt toss themselves over the power plant railing that is, Shocking Dark.  

Fun Box Monster Podcast #67 : Deep Space (1988)

If you ever saw the movie Alien and thought, "Why isn't this a low budget buddy cop movie?". Fred Olen Ray has you covered. In what looks to be a 15 minute short film stretched to feature length using scenes of lab guys saying things like, "Shut it down!," and "It appears to have gone dormant." We have our hero shooting kids for stealing halloween masks, stealing alien eggs from the scene of a multiple homicide, having an inappropriate office romance with a woman approximately six-hundred years his junior, and abusing the tough guy cliche of using scotch as a bullet remover. Grab your sexiest bagpiping outfit, and a jam-jar full of deadly poison as Matt and Tristan talk about the 1989 piece of alien fan-fic, Deep Space. 

Fun Box Monster Podcast #66 Witchtrap (1989)

Although the titular trap is mostly forgotten until the end, it does indeed trap witches. Or ghosts. Or the ghosts of warlocks if you're being specific. But not well. And technically it vacuums them up. So, although this may have the same director, same villain, and same premise as the Witchboard movies, I think of it as really more of a prequel to the Luigi's Mansion games.

So grab your beeping ghost-vacuum, the heart of an evil warlock, and drink down your favorite jar of cremains with neanderfucks Matt and Tristan as they spring 1989's classic film Witchtrap.