Gringo Fantastico is a retired luchador presenting Troma films from the safety of a deteriorating recreation center tucked into chaotic Tromaville. He is begrudgingly accompanied by the French-Canadian demon piñata Francois who criticizes and disparages Fantastico throughout each episode. This week’s special guests are the Adams family (Wonder Wheel Productions). New episodes release on the first of each month on Troma NOW.
Chapter Tres
Fantastico Disasterpiece Theatre returns for Chapter Tres with “Hellbender and the Mixologist’s Mirror.” Initially premiering on October 1st, Gringo Fantastico (Nate Turnpaugh) hosts Charles Kaufman’s Mother’s Day (1980). The film is based around a rape-revenge plot and is Toby Poser’s personal pick because the “vengeance in it is satisfying.” This one very much deserves a content warning for being a prime example of a Troma film.
Behind the Mask
Cutting into footage that once again feels ripped directly from the past, the episode begins with Fantastico apologizing for his prior poor behavior. Rather, he emphasizes he has been “told to apologize.” Things appear to go well before agitation kicks in and Fantastico attacks the interviewer. Better luck next time, I guess.
Fantastico’s anger is once again centered around his mask. Audiences can feel the growing desperation to free himself from his alias. Throughout these segments, Turnpaugh crafts a surprisingly emotional look at Fantastico’s psyche. Who among us hasn’t wanted to rip off the socially-acceptable mask they’ve created to reveal the feral human beneath it? I never thought I’d relate to a luchador so much.
Humor and Hijinks
Entering Tromaville’s recreation center, the audience can see Halloween decorations. These touches help the set feel lived-in and create mental images of Fantastico and Francois bickering over their placement. Bringing in another Halloween tradition, Fantastico looks into a mirror and repeats “Bloody Mary” three times. Imagine my surprise when he walks out with an actual bloody mary. Which Francois promptly turns to “just a goddamned V8.”
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Speaking with Turnpaugh, he reveals the entire episode’s script came out of him thinking of this particular joke. “I’m not going to waste this joke just as a throwaway gag.” When his wife learns of his intentions, she apparently says, “That’s really funny. You’re really stupid.” The joke expands and changes throughout the episode, and leaves me laughing each time.
Humor and fun is a key tenet when it comes to Turnpaugh’s production style. As he puts it to his crew, “We need to do it and we need to do it well, but it needs to be fun for everyone.” His primary concern with production is always ensuring he’s meeting his crews needs. With this episode in particular, he wanted his guests to have the best possible experience. He even calls in a mutated janitor to set up their chairs.
The Adams Family
Toby Poser, John Adams and Lulu Adams are three-fourths of the family which makes up both the film company Wonder Wheel Productions and the band Hellbender. Zelda Adams is unfortunately unavailable to join the rest of the family for their interview. When Fantastico asks how they made it through Tromaville to the rec center, they assure him they’ve had plenty of “inoculations.”
The Adams family has previously been interviewed on The Last Drive-In, albeit in a different configuration in season three. Toby, John and Zelda are present for that interview and it is Lulu who is unable to attend. Turnpaugh’s interview style gives Joe Bob’s a run for the money when presented with a comparison between the two. The most notable difference which works in Turnpaugh’s favor, is his choice to have all present members of the family together from the start of the interview.
Hoosier Hospitality
The family does seem to be a little too excited to be in Indiana, where Turnpaugh films Disasterpiece Theatre. John says, “We’ve driven through Indiana so many times and we have to look at it. Now we’re part of it.” Turnpaugh reveals in our interview he had treated the family to a full course of Hoosier hospitality in a very short amount of time.
“I had a one day window to get them in, shoot them in, and ensure they got back in time,” he says. After picking them up from the airport, they all go to a restaurant for what should be a quick meal before bed. It instead turns into a three-hour conversation over food and drinks. When the family is in need of good coffee and tea the next morning, Turnpaugh knows just where to go.
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“I drive them out and I take them to my parent’s house.” He describes the ensuing encounter much like any between family friends, despite just meeting each other. Lulu plays with the family dog, John discusses carpentry with his father, and Toby and his mother share conversation. “My parents have been big supporters of this show, which helps.”
Good Bones
All of this culminates into a fantastico interview with the trio that feels like a good conversation between friends. The family fully buys into the conceit of the show, often throwing in references to Tromavilla and jabs at Francois. At one point Toby offers to kill Francois for Fantastico and the demon piñata is actually speechless.
As the family answers Fantastico’s questions, they build effortlessly off of each other. They tell stories about their family, past travels and productions and future plans. It is obvious they have a solid foundation of admiration and respect for each other. Wonder Wheel Productions itself gets its name from a series of sentimental family moments which they share in the interview. When they need more bodies for their films, they joke “How many cousins do we have?”
Future Releases
Toby, John, and Lulu also discuss their upcoming works Where the Devil Roams under Wonder Wheel Productionsand Hell Hole under Blood and Honey Pictures. Where the Devil Roams is a film “with more our DNA in it” according to Toby, while Hell Hole is the largest production they have worked on.
Where the Devil Roams was originally set to be a Tubi exclusive, but it appears it will be premiering in independent theaters on November 3rd before becoming available to rent/buy the digital version on November 7th. Release information for Hell Hole is not yet available.
Punk Rock is an Attitude
This episode marks the first in-person guest interview Turnpaugh has done as Fantastico. He and Toby have built a friendship over time, and Toby believes Disasterpiece Theatre is “like watching your favorite band in a dive bar.” The show is punk-rock as fuck.
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I can’t agree more. In its absolute defiance of normalcy, it is endlessly entertaining and informative. Fantastico’s development as a character is paying off and Turnpaugh’s abilities as showrunner, producer, host etc. continue to shine.
My rating for Chapter Tres of Fantastico Disasterpiece Theatre:
(4.7 / 5)
Follow @realfantastico on the platform formerly known as Twitter to know when to join in with the rest of the Fantasticats as they live-tweet each episode.
Kait (she/her) haunts the cornfields of the Midwest after being raised in a small Indiana town built on sickness and death. She consumes all sorts of horror-related content and spits their remains back onto your screen. You can follow her on Twitter at @ KaitHorrorBreak, where she live tweets The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs and posts other spooky things.
There are a lot of holiday horrors with the phrase Silent Night in their title. So, to help keep things straight, Silent Night Bloody Night is the one that no one should waste their time watching.
The story
Released in 1972, Silent Night Bloody Night is the story of an abandoned house. When it’s inherited by a man named Jeffrey Butler, the town tries to buy it from him. He sends his lawyer, John Carter, to negotiate. What follows is a Christmas-time revenge killing spree in the house that used to be an insane asylum and is now just a gross eyesore. Much like in Halloween, a prodigal son came home and started killing. Unlike in Halloween, viewers can’t bring themselves to care.
What worked
I would like to give credit where it’s due when I can find it. There were some legitimately creepy scenes in this movie. Two of them, to be precise.
The shots of the escaped inmates are well done. The makeup, dull facial expressions, and zombie-like movements were truly unnerving. In what is maybe the only well done scene in the whole movie, an inmate walks into the dining room and slowly drains a glass of wine. He then breaks the glass and uses the broken piece to rip out a doctor’s eye.
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I also enjoyed or was at least unnerved by, the phone calls the killer makes from the house. They were great little eerie moments.
What didn’t work
I first need to point out that the production value of this movie is ass. I’m sure I could have shot a better movie on a Tamagotchi.
The whole thing is grainy, dark and dull. Even scenes with bright colors have all the brightness of a mechanics wash rag. And there are parts where the physical film was corrupted, leaving big black splotches.
Maybe I’m being too hard on it. I mean it was released in 1972. It’s not like they had access to advanced filming equipment. Like, for instance, The Godfather or Deliverance.
Oh, wait. Both those films also came out in 1972. And they sure as hell don’t look like this. Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory and Twelve Chairs came out the year before and they look great.
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Granted, those films were preserved, digitized, and treated like the works of art they are. Silent Night, Bloody Night was apparently kept near a furnace, in the hopes that it might catch fire and never trouble anyone again.
None of that would matter, though, if the movie was any good. But it’s not. Let’s start with the voiceovers because that’s what the movie starts with.
Voiceovers are great when they add context or interesting commentary. A Christmas Story has voiceovers through the whole thing, and that’s great. This commentary, however, is a cautionary tale against telling not showing. It fails to be interesting or give additional information. It’s just bad.
What bothered me most is that not one shred of joy seems to have gone into this film. Unlike Mercy Christmas, which we talked about last week, nobody is having a good time.
The music is morose rather than eerie. The acting is lazy and half-hearted. Even in the most dramatic scenes, everyone delivers their lines like they’re reading off a list of instructions to build something they don’t care about building. And the effects are just horrific. We don’t see a single blow in any of the fight scenes. We see people wincing in pain, and weapons being raised. And that is it.
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I suppose we might say this is to stave off the censors. But my God, that’s not what a Christmas horror movie is for. And it still has an R rating, even though we see neither boobies nor an axe biting into flesh. If you’re going to get stuck with the R rating, earn it.
Overall, Silent Night Bloody Night was devoid of anything joyful. It wasn’t fun to watch, it didn’t leave me with anything to ponder or savor. It was just a bad movie, from start to finish.
(1 / 5)
Christmas time is here! It’s time to listen to the same five songs until your ears bleed, spend time with people you’d fake your own death to avoid the rest of the year and stuff yourself with way too much food. And, it’s time for my favorite holiday tradition, watching horrible Christmas movies to tell you all exactly how god-awful they are. Let’s start with Mercy Christmas, a film about a family with a unique set of holiday traditions. And, a unique holiday menu.
The story
Our main character is named Michael Briskett. He’s a lonely man working a dull job with an abusive boss. But he’s doing his best to have a good Christmas. He even throws a party for everyone at his work.
No one shows up, though, except for the boss’s beautify assistant, Cindy. Together they have some drinks, and eventually, she invites him to her family’s Christmas celebration.
Personally, if a woman that beautiful had asked me out, I’d assume she thought I had money. But poor Michael is so swept up in being included that he jumps on the chance.
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When he arrives at the family home of the Robillards, he finds two nasty surprises waiting. The first is that Cindy’s brother is Andy, his horrible boss. The second is that the family intends to eat him and three other people throughout Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.
After that is, Michael finishes up a work project for Andy. Because it’s not bad enough that he will be eaten, he also has to work over Christmas.
What worked
There are two kinds of bad Christmas movies. The ones that are actually bad, like Gingerdead Man, and the ones that are bad in all the wonderfully right ways that make them a real holiday treat. Mercy Christmas was one of the latter.
First, no one is taking a single second of this seriously. The writers sure didn’t, when they wrote a scene in which Michael and Eddie are tied together by Christmas tree lights to battle the Robillards. The actors didn’t. Half the time you can see them holding back a mighty laugh with all of their might. The stunt coordinators, the costume department, and the effects team were all doing their very best to make this movie as hilarious as possible. Because at every moment, every detail was selected to be funny and festive rather than serious. Cindy wearing a cross to church service. The pineapple on the roast leg. Grandma insisting that they do stockings at her specific time, as though they haven’t got three strangers tied up in the basement. All of this was funny as hell, exactly as it was supposed to be.
Every single person involved with Mercy Christmas was having a fantastic time. As I mentioned, the whole cast felt like they were about to start laughing. There is so much joy in their faces, even when it’s not exactly a joyful scene. But it’s the attention to comical detail that makes it clear that this movie was a labor of love for everybody.
Finally, I adore that the Robillard family acts exactly how we all picture people behaving at a big family Christmas. At least, if the family has money. Everyone’s arguing over food, talking about how they miss their mom, and fussing at each other. But everyone is also doing their little part to make Christmas great for their family after suffering the loss of their beloved mom.
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If they weren’t eating people, this could have been a Hallmark Christmas movie.
What didn’t work
All of that being said, there was one thing that bothered me about this movie.
Over and over, we come back to the fact that Mrs. Robillard died. It’s brought up often enough that I thought for sure that it was going to be a bigger plot point. But it isn’t. That just seems to be window dressing for the family.
This felt like failed misdirection. When misdirection is done well, we don’t care about it anymore after the sleight of hand is accomplished. But there is no sleight of hand here. There is no misdirection. We’re just left wondering why the hell the mother was brought up so often if nothing was going to come of it.
All in all, Mercy Christmas was a fun, bloody movie with some incredibly satisfying moments. And while I don’t know if it’ll make it on my list every year, I can see myself coming back for seconds.
To a lot of fans, this is the film that killed the franchise. It says a lot that the next installment is yet another retcon. Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers attempts to explain Michael’s unrelenting evil, which lead to mixed opinions from longtime fans. There are two cuts of the film, theatrical vs producer’s. For a lot of people, the latter is the only one worth mentioning. Aiming to be as accurate as possible, I will be talking about the producer’s cut. Let’s begin!
Plot
We start Halloween VI with a six-year time jump from part five. Jamie is now barefoot and recently pregnant, running away from Michael as he wants her baby. While she manages to hide the little one away, Michael finally gets his hunger satiated by killing her. The moment is one of the most brutal ways in the franchise up until that point. Rest in peace, Jamie, you held your ground for as long as you could, the sequels were just too relentless.
The movie then cuts to a whole different scene going on. We have a new family living in the Myers house and their youngest child is hearing voices telling him to kill his loved ones. Tommy Lloyd is watching the family, played by none other than Paul Rudd in his first-ever theatrical role. Tommy still carries trauma from the events all those years ago when Laurie Strode was babysitting him. So when he finds Jamie’s baby, his part in the story becomes even more essential.
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Dr Loomis also stars in what was Donald Pleasance’s final role before his passing. He and Tommy try to stop Michael once and for all before the cycle can repeat itself. As it turns out, Michael is a victim of a druid cult which makes him want to kill his family members every Halloween. Thorn, the cult in question, thinks they can control Michael and make him do their bidding. This results in catastrophe and Michael goes berzerk and kills all the cult members. Once again, it’s one of the most gruesome montages for the franchise up until that point.
Tommy and Kara are left to face Michael on their own which they manage to do with some corrosive liquid and good luck. However, nothing stays dead in this franchise as it’s soon revealed Michael somehow escaped and this time Dr Loomis might not be so lucky…
Overall thoughts
I would say for me personally Halloween VI definitely ranks somewhere near the bottom. The whole point of Michael is that there is no rhyme or reason to his killings and this film tries to go against that. I am glad the mistake was rectified by the upcoming installment. There were still some good things about it, such as Paul Rudd’s acting that reveals some raw talent as far as I’m concerned, as well as some direction choices and musical score. However, I also think it absolutely deserves all the criticism that it gets.
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