Trash Menagerie

Dir. Bernard Launois Trash cinema is an acquired taste. It’s not fun for everyone. What some see as singular visions from outsider artists, or happy accidents of low budget incompetence, others (most people) just see as boring or offensive or both. But occasionally there are films so uniquely batshit, so compellingly alien, so hilariously baffling, that they are accessible to trash aficionados and casual viewers alike. I like to call these films ‘face-melters’; movies so kinetically entertaining that you just can’t help love them as they strap you into a roller coaster that goes off like a bullet train to Awesometown. Films like Raw Force (1982), Death Spa (1989), Miami Connection (1987), Lady Terminator (1989), Ninja III: The Domination (1984), Chopping Mall (1986), etc. Then there are films called ‘brain-melters’; movies that are so inept, so bizarre, and so glacially paced that they feel like you’re watching someones fevered nightmare more than you’re watching an ...

 Dir. James Cummins A small scale zombie flick that doesn’t really follow too many zombie movie mechanics, so it’s really more of a creature feature/monster movie if you care about semantics, The Boneyard is a fun romp through a mortuary if you can make it past the first half of it. The film begins with two detectives breaking into what appears to be a derelict house. The younger detective (who looks like Hoover from Animal House ) encounters a blanketed figure who smacks him with a pillow; so naturally he pulls out his gun. It’s the kind of overreaction that would be funny if policing in America weren’t what it is today. Anyways we learn that the figure, and owner of the house, is Alley, a medium the detectives want to recruit to help them solve a child murder case. Alley, having been scarred by the last child murder case, initially refuses, but later accepts after having a dream about a decrepit zombie girl giving her a hug. After we learn that prime suspect Chen ha...