Last week I shared a post on Facebook and Instagram about MOVIEDROME – the long-running (1988 – 2000) BBC series that introduced me and many, many others to the joys of cult movies. Over more than 80 episodes, we got to watch the most incredible selection of films that would otherwise likely never have been screened on the BBC. It opened my eyes to many of the filmmakers, genres and styles that thrive outside the mainstream, and fully ignited my already burgeoning love of film. As you can see from my embedded post below, plenty of people seem to feel the same way. Lots of folk responded, many sharing a collective memory of avidly watching on small-screened portable TVs in bedrooms on Sunday evenings!
After scanning the list of films that were screened as part of MOVIEDROME and reading the recommendations in the comments left in response to my post, my ‘to be watched’ queue has pretty much doubled in size. It’s come at a good time, not least because I’ve watched more than my fair share of lacklustre big budget blockbusters this year, and as a result I have a renewed hunger for movies that take risks and don’t exist purely for profit. With that in mind, this week I’d like to (kind of) recommend a film known simultaneously as PEOPLETOYS (which I think is a great title), DEVIL TIMES FIVE, and THE HORRIBLE HOUSE ON THE HILL (which I think is an awful title). Brace yourselves.
After five mentally defective children survive a van accident in the snow, they make their way to a lodge where they start killing adults who offend them or are rude to them.
This movie is EXACTLY as rough and exploitative as you’d imagine, and it’s ridiculously enjoyable. Despite some very weird editing choices, clunky slow motion, awkward sexual encounters, and several scenes that are underwritten, badly acted, and overlong, it’s loopy as hell and uncomfortably engaging. This is no zero budget indie movie, though. Check out the trailer and behold 1970’s teen idol LEIF GARRETT, as well as SORRELL BOOKE who went on to find fame as BOSS HOGG in THE DUKES OF HAZZARD.
The story is next to non-existent, the characters are wafer thin and the dialogue is cringeworthy, but there’s a madcap energy at play here, and some of the kills are wildly inventive (killer fish in the bath, anyone?). Violent, rude, and wrong – give me a ropey grindhouse movie like this over a polished comic book blockbuster any day. Scene by scene, there’s more to recommend in this film than, for example, the predictable mega-budget racing car movie I sat through at the cinema last week, or the dinosaur flick that I dragged myself to see a couple of days back.
PEOPLETOYS, DEVIL TIMES FIVE, or THE HORRIBLE HOUSE ON THE HILL – pick the title you like best and dig this one out if you want to experience something completely different and off-kilter. You can currently catch it streaming on FAWESOME. I’ve added the film to that special section of my recommendations page reserved for movies that are so weird you’ll wonder how they ever came to be made.
