Pandemonium (1982)

Strong and Moving!

Admirable film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Since today is Thursday, September 12, I thought I'd watch a movie I knew was originally was supposed to be called Thursday the 12th. This was a horror spoof I remembered being promoted on HBO back in the early '80s but for some reason, I didn't get to see this until now on YouTube which retained the original HBO "feature presentation" opening sequence from that time. Anyway, it opens with a football game from 1963 where a murder happens afterwards, then goes to 19 years later when some others will take place. I'll stop there and just say this was very funny to see perhaps because of the way many horror movie references were used to comic effect and the way the performances were gleefully over-the-top the whole time. Depending on your familiarity of many movies and TV shows, you may also get a hoot of how many of the players were recognizable though I was surprised one of them, Phil Hartman, was so small in screen time. I did know he was an associate of another player here-Paul Reubens, best known as Pee Wee Herman-and he hadn't had his big break on "Saturday Night Live" yet so that was probably why his was just a cameo. Anyway, on that note, I highly recommend Pandemonium.

The first time I saw this was as a teenager and now 20 years later it is still just as funny. Tommy Smothers, Carol Kane, a very young Judge Reinhold, and the young man that became Jimmy Olsen in the 1970 version of Superman Marc McClure. If you want a to spend a little time with a movie that is laugh out loud funny and makes you want to take a milk bath (chocolate chip cookies included) then this is the film for you. It is a true culmination take off of all the really good horror movies that you know and love. This movie is also billed as one of Paul Rueben's(Peewee Herman) movies. Tab Hunter as the killer is awesome and who wouldn't like a piece of the furniture produced by the inmates at the hospital. Well, worth a look see especially for those Canadian Mounties!!!

This is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, it's just brilliant! It is full of classic smothers brothers/airplane-esquire humor that you just can't miss. I wish this movie was out on DVD! They don't even have it at any of my local video stores, so I haven't seen it in probably 4 years, when it was on HBO for about a week.The humor is blatant and the plot/script simple, but that just makes it all the better. It is the type of movie you watch when you just want to laugh for about an hour without even the possibility of the humor going over your head, :). It's very clever and witty and is sure to make anyone laugh.I highly recommend this movie, it's a classic. If you can find it, don't pass it up.

In the wake of the monumentally successful "Airplane!" came dozens of parody/spoof films in the same vein (or attempting to be in the same vein.) This one has to count as an attempt, and a fairly poor one at that. Someone has been killing cheerleaders for decades near the town of It Had to Be, Indiana. (Thus giving the film makers the opportunity to have a university called It Had to Be U.....) It falls to Smothers, as a Canadian Mountie, to crack the case. Azzara has just begun a cheerleading camp (with participants Candy, Sandy, Mandy, Andy, Randy and Glenn) and, before too long, the killer starts to pick them all off. Also on the loose are a prison escapee and a mental asylum escapee. The plot is deliberately slim (and even then doesn't really make much sense) to make way for the various (mostly horrible) jokes and sight gags. Among the many stabs at humor, only a scant few things emerge as even remotely amusing. What makes the film palatable, if it is at all, is the cast of familiar faces (some quite surprising along the way) and the general amiability of the film. Meant as a spoof of "Friday the 13th" (it was even called "Thursday the 12th" in pre-production), it lacks the graphic violence and vulgarity of that film and its sequels and opts for a kinder, more coy approach. This disappoints fans of the actual slasher movies and is aimed more toward an audience who probably doesn't even really watch such films! Smothers (headlining a feature film in 1982?) doesn't really have a lot to do, but does fit his role well and utilizes his deadpan style admirably. (His horse tends to get more laughs than anybody!) Reubens, as his assistant, basically does an adult extension of his Pee Wee Herman character to middling effect. Most of the high school cheerleaders are (as an in joke to the genre) pushing 30 and they all try to bring a lot of energy and spark to the proceedings, but they have been left out to dry with substandard gags and even more substandard direction. The jokes and potentially humorous visuals are often filmed with minimal creativity and impact. A few amusing things slide through such as a trip to a (really!) greasy spoon diner and a planeload of Japanese (who employ an unexpected and ludicrously funny stewardess.) If one doesn't expect much and gets enjoyment out of intentionally stupid humor (and checking out some stars before and after they were stars), it isn't that hard to get through and is mercifully brief. It pales mightily next to anything Jim Abrahms and the Zucker Brothers did, though. Hunky Hunter, as a football star, shows more animation here than he did during his whole career as a contract actor! Arden looks terrific, but should have skipped this. "Grease" was one thing, but... Many other notable character actors turn up briefly with varied results.