It Came From the Five-Dollar Bin: Transform and Roll Out

I've got a big post that I'm working on that ties directly into the latest episode of Eclectic Mayhem. For those of you not already in the know, that would be the podcast I started up with Derek [Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks], Miss M [Diary of a Dorkette], and Jason Roberts [Nerdy Life of Mine] a few months back. The related post has turned into a much larger project than I was originally anticipating, and I figured I'd do a smaller one in the meantime, so the blog doesn't have another large gap between content.

So!

My local comic shop has been a boon when it comes to finding great deals; everything from the dollar-bin comics to cheap trades, mystery grab-boxes and tons of carded action figures at low, low prices. One of my favorite spots to peruse is a large box tucked aside near their wall of toys and collectibles. It's just a large, generic cardboard box with a printed out sign that exclaims, "Five Dollar Blow-Out!". Or, well, something like that. The long and short of it is the fact that everything within that box is only five dollars.

I thought it might be nice to start doing a semi-regular feature where I highlight some of the stupid, sorta'-cheap items that I pick up from the aforementioned box. So, let's take a quick look at today's five-dollar find.

The Loyal Subjects is an art toy company that focuses primarily on releasing 3-inch, vinyl figures from preexisting, licensed properties like G.I.Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Transformers. I don't normally collect their stuff, mostly because I'm not really into modern-era collectibles, even when they represent an iconic brand from my childhood. I will occasionally make an exception, particularly if I can get a solid deal on them. When I noticed a couple of their Transformers Series 2 Blind Box sitting there, for a measly five bucks, there was no way I was gonna pass on one of 'em.

Each wave contains an equal amount of Autobots and Decepticons; Series 2 features four characters from each faction. I was really hoping to unwrap one of the bad guys, since I've always preferred the conniving Decepticons to their heroic Cybertronian peers, but after glancing at the package, I would have been satisfied with any one of the eight figures.

Or so I thought.

Ah, Sideswipe.

He wasn't quite the one I wanted least [that honor belonged to Mirage], but when the other Autobots in the wave included a Dinobot and Prowl, well, I feel a little gypped. Plus, despite Sideswipe actually being a pretty cool character within the G1 Transformers continuity, it's his Generation 2 aesthetic that I love the most. Something about him in jet black, with ridiculous neon green decals, it just reves my engine more than his traditional red n' black color-scheme.

Oh well.

I shouldn't complain, because normally the Series 2 Blind Box retail for twice what I paid for him. It just doesn't feel like Sideswipe will find a permanent home in my collection, though.

He Wants You... Dead: Uncle Sam (1997)

Happy Fourth of July, all.

I'm sure most of you are out and about, enjoying fireworks and barbecues and spending time with family, but some of us have mixed up priorities. Some of us like to spend our Independence Days watching nearly twenty-year old horror films with murderous patriotic icons. Actually, I'm pretty sure that it's just me and maybe a deranged ex-video store clerk hellbent on recreating the perfect summers of yesteryear. And even that ex-video store employee might be me, too.

I'd never seen Uncle Sam (1997) before today, but I do remember it vividly from my days working at Video Showplace in the late '90s. I can still picture it sitting on the shelf, its lenticular cover beckoning, practically commanding that I go over and check it out immediately. Quietly telling me to ignore the thousands of other tapes that surrounded us. To take it home and watch it repeatedly, never-ending, until the day I die.

Obviously, that didn't happen.

My appreciation for the horror genre was still in its infancy, and I had bigger and better films to embrace before giving Uncle Sam a chance. If I had paid attention to the talents involved in the movie, however, it's possible I wouldn't have waited nearly two decades to finally watch it. The director, William Lustig, is perhaps best known for the cult-classic Maniac (1980), as well as his later films, Vigilante (1983) and the original Maniac Cop (1988). And the film's writer, a regular collaborator of Lustig's, is none other than the great Larry Cohen. I've become a huge admirer of Cohen over the years, especially his work on Q, The Winged Serpent (1982) and The Stuff (1985).

Plus, the cast includes a who's who of fantastic character actors, including Isaac Hayes, P.J Soles, and Robert Forster.

Based on the crew assembled, you might think that Uncle Sam is some under-appreciated classic, perhaps lost in the shuffle of a post-Scream world of meta-horror, simply waiting to be rediscovered. Unfortunately, that isn't quite the case. I'm not suggesting that it's a bad film; it's definitely worth watching, regardless of its reputation on sites like IMDB or Letterboxd. The material isn't anything ground-breaking, but the combined abilities of genre stalwarts in Cohen and Lustig definitely raise the film higher than many of its peers from that particular era of direct-to-video slashers.

The premise is a fairly basic one-- after Sgt. Sam Harper (David Fralick) is killed by "friendly-fire" during a mission in Kuwait, his body is returned to his hometown for a proper, heroic burial. Through some unknown means, the recently deceased soldier rises from the grave to seek revenge on those that he deems unpatriotic. What starts as punishing the corrupt and immoral, however, quickly transforms into a murderous rampage that will spare no-one. It's revealed over the course of the film that Sam wasn't the all-American hero that his nephew, Jodi (Christopher Ogden), believed him to be, but instead an abusive, kill-crazy maniac. Jodi must work with his Aunt Louise (Anne Tremko) and a former sergeant, Jed Crowley (Isaac Hayes), to finally put Uncle Sam to rest.

I doubt watching this film will become a yearly tradition, but I certainly won't hesitate to see it again from time-to-time.

Flea Market Finds: Whatever Happened to Dead-Eye Duck?

My Sundays off are mostly spent at the local flea market, a few towns over, twenty minutes or so from home-base. Attending so frequently, well, I don't usually find anything big enough worth sharing here. The vendors rarely change, their wares even less so, but I still go a couple times a month, more out of habit than anything else. This weekend, I was able to deviate from my normal, boring routine, thanks to the semi-annual Rotary Flea Market at the nearby Marshfield Fair Grounds.

This is the first one I've visited in several years; the last one was a particularly rainy Sunday, with few sellers and fewer attendees, and it kinda' soiled me on revisiting. Until today, where I spent a fair amount more than I was expecting to, but also walked away with quite a lot more goodies than I could have anticipated. We're gonna take a look at what exactly I scored, broken down by vendor.

The very first table to grab my attention, maybe five minutes in, was mostly knick-knacks and worn dinnerware, but stacked up on the far end were several board-games and puzzles. That pile happened to include three of the four G.I.Joe Mural Puzzles from 1987. The woman selling them said that she couldn't guarantee that they had all pieces accounted for, a detail I told her didn't matter, especially when she asked for two-bucks a pop. I was tempted to grab all three, but decided to settle on getting just one, because I'd only just arrived a few minutes before. No need to piss away what little cash I brought along on my first find of the day.

Of course, I picked the puzzle that happens to include one of my all-time favorite Cobra agents, Croc Master.

Table two was located directly across from the first, and I almost passed it by. It appeared to be just another seller with tchotchkes to spare, but sitting at the end of the booth, nearly tucked away under a table, was a storage bin full of loose action figures and vehicles. What you see above is the small selection that I secured for a mere seven dollars. A couple of them, Casey Jones and Walkabout [both from the original run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles], are duplicates for me, but I couldn't pass them up for so cheap. Likewise, I wasn't super-interested in the generic Kung-fu master in the yellow gi, not until the seller named his price. Turns out that Mr. Karate Man is actually from an old Remco line called Secret of the Ninja. You may see more of him in a little bit. 

Snout-Spout, alias Hose-Nose, is obviously from the tail-end of the Masters of the Universe line, and he's actually a figure I was sorta' hoping to find today. I don't actively collect vintage MotU toys, but he's one of the few that I had to have. Another childhood favorite once more in my possession.

That just leaves Guile from the Street Fighter sub-set of G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero circa the early '90s. Sonic boom.

And here's the mini-haul, the bulk of what I purchased today, all snagged from a single seller. His booth was the most enticing at the show, with a complete set-up of vintage Star Wars and Space: 1999 toys to draw in collectors. I discovered that he also runs a comic and toy shop in the same town the flea market took place, and given the deals he cut me, I'll be stopping in sooner rather than later.

I wanna take a better look at this odd-ball menagerie, so bare with me as I discuss homicidal sheep and four-armed ducks in closer detail.

Power X-Treme!

I was a huge fan of The Centurions animated series back in the day, but was never able to score any of the accompanying toy-line. They were a little too expensive compared to smaller scaled contemporaries like GoBots or M.U.S.C.L.E, and I was content to collect cheaper stuff in bulk. Today, for a single dollar, I was finally able to add Jake Rockwell, the team's Land Operations Specialist, to my collection. I doubt that I'll ever be able to find any of his module armor for cheap, but I'm happy to settle for this guy sitting on a shelf as is.

I wasn't sure what this pair of Greaser-esque dinos actually were; I was, however, entirely enthralled at the mere sight of them. Completely ridiculous with their mohawks and sunglasses, looking like the cast of ABC's Dinosaurs recreating Happy Days, I couldn't leave them behind. A little bit of research revealed their identities, Crank and Tarr from the B.C Bikers line, originally released by Ace Novelty in 1993. I thought maybe figuring out who they were would jog my memory, but somehow this series managed to evade me during my pre-teen collecting years.

This guy I recognized immediately, but really, who could forget the true face of evil?

The Overlord was the main antagonist on the old Blackstar cartoon, Filmation's precursor to He-Man and The Masters of the Universe from the very early '80s. Again, here's a toy-line that I didn't collect as a kid, but have a total appreciation for these days. He'll look good hanging out with Skeletor, Mumm-Ra and the rest of his bad-guy brethren.

It's no coincidence that I keep mentioning Masters of the Universe and here we have one of Remco's many knock-offs of Mattel's blockbuster brand, Arak, Son of Thunder. He was part of a collection called The Lost World of Warlord, which featured several characters from DC Comics' Bronze Age fantasy titles line-up. I've somehow owned the first sixteen issues of Arak's self-titled series the last few years and have yet to read them. It looks like that is about to change, though.

Or, well, maybe not.

I told you before that we hadn't seen the last of Remco's Secret of the Ninja. Here's another master of ninjitsu, this one garbed in black, that I probably would have passed on if he hadn't been so damn inexpensive. There's, uh, not really a lot more to say about him outside of his cheapness. Cheap, I think, perfectly encapsulates Remco's toys as a whole, and especially this unnamed ninja warrior.

Oh yeah. 

Playmates Toys claim to fame may have been TMNT, but they produced a slew of equally bizarre and brilliant toy-lines during the same period as Ninja Turtles original run. Barnyard Commandos hasn't stood the test of time as well as their mutant peers, but it's a series that I was absolutely obsessed with for a brief time. I had a complete set of Series 1 figures, as well as a couple vehicles, but they quickly fell out of favor when I got more into comic books and video games. I remember selling them off at a family yard-sale, an act of betrayal that I wouldn't regret until a few years ago.

It's not a series that I've set out to reclaim, but when I saw a complete Woolly Pullover, the R.A.M.S resident would-be Rambo, there was no going back. He's easily one of my favorite finds from today.

Hooves down.

The number one position actually goes to this guy, Dead-Eye Duck, gunner extraordinaire and ship-mate to Captain Bucky O'Hare. Another series that owes its existence to TMNT, the Bucky O'Hare line was based on a small-press, black-and-white comic book created by the legendary Larry Hama and artist Mike Golden. It's also another staple toy-line from my youth, one I've slowly been rebuilding in secret the last couple years.

Like Snout-Spout, Dead-Eye was one of the action figures I was hoping to find while rifling through the cheap bins. He cost me a dollar, but I gladly would have paid twice that to take him home.

Moving into new territory, we're now looking at my finds from the last table I hit before calling it a day. The seller didn't have much, a half-box of .50-cent comics and some odd, loose collectibles. The two pieces that I had to have were a vintage G.I.Joe thermos, featuring the Class of '85 [which includes fan-favorites like Shipwreck, Quick-Kick and "Commando" Snake-Eyes], and an absolutely incredible Darkwing Duck night-light. The two packs of Dinosaurs Attack! trading cards were added to the mix to sweeten the deal, even though I already own a complete set.

I also grabbed an issue of Weird War Tales, because I can't resist The Creature Commandos facing off against Hitler. I like to imagine a retroactive continuity where The Commandos end the war after tearing Adolf limb-from-limb, and I'm hoping this comic somehow knows that.

Oh, right, the A-Team Action Activity Book. Yeah, despite being a huge fan of the TV series as a kid, I'm not particularly nostalgic for B.A and the gang. The guy only wanted a half-dollar for it, since I'd already bought the other items, so I handed him a couple quarters and wished him a good day of selling.

And the night-light works, which is probably the greatest thing ever.

Total Trash Tuesday: The Grim Adventures of Avengers Grimm

Join Earth's Mightiest Heroes as they battle an ancient evil hellbent on plunging the world into darkness.

Actually, no, sorry, wrong film. This is actually the one where Little Red Riding Hood becomes Casper Van Dien's mindless pawn in his war against Snow White and Rapunzel.

Yeah, by now, we should all be familiar with The Asylum and their unique brand of low-budget film-making. Best known for throwback monster-disaster hybrids like Sharknado (2013) and Mega Piranha (2010), their other claim to fame is an ongoing series of "mockbusters"; films that attempt to cash-in on the popularity of bigger budget, Hollywood-produced movies. Stuff like Snakes on a Train (2006), Transmorphers: Fall of Man (2009), and Atlantic Rim (2013).

Avengers Grimm (2015) falls into the latter category, obviously.

Released two weeks before Marvel Studio's Avengers: Age of Ultron, the film features a team of heroines, not ripped from the pages of comic books, but instead Grimm's Fairy Tales. A quartet of princesses, led by Snow White (Lauren Parkinson), are confronted by the evil of Rumpelstiltskin (Casper Van Dien), and they must save two worlds from his devious plot. Also along for the adventure is the non-princess Little Red Riding Hood (Elizabeth Peterson), whose only agenda is getting revenge on the creature responsible for killing her entire village, The Wolf (played by former MMA fighter, Kimo Leopoldo).

The bulk of the plot revolves around The Magic Mirror, which is able to open portals to the real world, a world without magic, a world that Rumpelstiltskin wants to claim as his own. Due to Snow White's interference, both herself and Rumpel end up stranded on Earth, and the remaining princesses must travel across dimensions to find their friend and put an end to their wicked enemy once and for all. Red's there, too, much to the others' chagrin, constantly on the hunt for The Wolf and somehow getting mixed up with a random gang led by "Iron John" (Lou Ferrigno).

It wasn't bad enough that The Asylum was ripping off The Avengers' name, they also had to include the original live-action Hulk in the proceedings to take it one step further. Still, it's probably a good thing that Lou was all too familiar with ridiculous body-paint throughout his career, because about half-way through the film, well, Rumpel's magic literally transforms him into an "Iron Man". Complete with shoddy make-up that makes him look sorta' like Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin (1997).

 Oh, and the magically-adept princesses all have their own special abilities. Snow White can control cold and form ice-daggers, naturally, because her name is Snow. Cinderella (Milynn Sarley) is able to transform items into other items [no idea why], and Sleeping Beauty (Marah Fairclough) casts spells that instantly put people to sleep [duh].

Also, Rapunzel (Rileah Vanderbilt) has long hair that's, like, a weapon, I guess?

I don't know, but she uses it to fight Iron-Hulk a few times. It's, uh, it's all pretty stupid.

Look, no one is going to argue that there's anything artistically redeeming in any of Asylum's output, least of all this particular entry. I doubt that anyone willing to subject themselves to Avengers Grimm (2015) is looking to discover some new cinematic masterpiece, but instead the opportunity to shutdown their brains and enjoy watching some harmless fantasy fluff. If that's what you're looking for, sure, there's probably better places to start, but the film is entertaining enough and mostly harmless. And with a brisk run-time of only 87-minutes, it's worth checking out at least once.

The short and sweet is that it's competently made and far from the studio's worst offense, which is about the best you can ask for with this sort of thing.

The 13 Days of Friday the 13th: Day Thirteen

Happy Friday the 13th, all.

Despite a few bumps in the road, we've finally arrived at our final destination; back to Camp Crystal Lake where it all began. The place where a young boy drowned once upon a time, and the monster known as Jason Voorhees was born.

Actually, that's not entirely true.

The part about Jason and Crystal Lake is totally true, but it's the talk about arrivals and destinations that's pretty much false. See, my own journey through the Friday the 13th series might be over, but the real adventure is just getting started. I should be, at the time of this scheduled posting, somewhere about half-way between my home and Cherry Hill, New Jersey. What's waiting for me there is Monster Mania XXX, a weekend long celebration of everything macabre.

Sean Cunningham, the man most responsible for creating the series, will be there. Kane Hodder, the most famous actor to portray Jason, will be there, too. So will the franchise's very first "final girl", Adrienne King. Oh, and let's not forget Ari Lehman, who was the original, water-logged, kid-version of Jason. There may also be a Tommy Jarvis or two, but since Corey Feldman won't be there, well, who cares?

Nah, I'm just playing, John Shepherd. You did the best you could with Part V.

So, obviously, with me away and no films left to cover [except for the ones I watched and neglected to write about?], today's entry is a festive place-holder. I'll be back from Monster Mania on Sunday, and I'm hoping to have lots to share following a weekend of horrors, cosplayers and Judge Reinhold.

Stay tuned, kids, and I hope you have the merriest of Friday the 13ths..!

The 13 Days of Friday the 13th: Day Seven

You may have noticed the sudden drop in posts, the daily updates that stopped several days back. I'll admit, I wasn't expecting The 13 Days of Friday the 13th to be such a daunting task. Really, how tough is it to watch one movie a day and then write a little something about it? Probably not that difficult if I'd been mixing up the play-list a little, but when you're tackling a twelve-film franchise, one where the basic formula doesn't change much from entry to entry, it gets old fast. I could only take so much murder and mayhem, so many jump scares and final girls and, man, that theme can get repetitive and obnoxious really fast.

So, yes, I cheated a little bit and skipped a few days. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) was viewed on Saturday, but I left a draft unfinished into the next day, and then the next one, and here we are on Day 12 and I've got to try and wrap this series up.

The rest of my day today will involve watching the remainder of the Friday the 13th films. I'll be posting about them later, though it will all be encompassed in a single entry, and it'll probably just be some quick thoughts and impressions. The idea was to familiarize myself with the entire series before tomorrow, because, well, I guess you'll just have to wait and see why. I promise not to skip out and leave you high and dry.

Oh, and here's what I had for Part VII so far.

--

Here we are, the seventh day, and we've reached the last of the series that's brand-new to me. Continuing on through the remainder will be retreading old territory, though it's been several years since I've watched the majority of them. Oddly enough, it's Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) that I knew the least about going into. Except for the addition of Tina Shepard (Lar Park Lincoln), the girl with psychic abilities that put Carrie's to shame, I didn't know what else to expect.

Stunt-man turned actor, Kane Hodder, finally tackles the role of Jason Voorhees, picking up the mask and the machete for the first of his record four appearances. Where he's always been terrifying before, it's this particular entry that Jason becomes a much more intimidating physical presence. Hodder adds this weight to the character, his every step, and every swing of an axe or knife, feels heavy, powerful. Despite his decayed appearance, Jason has finally reached the pinnacle of his transformation through the series, becoming the unstoppable undead monster with superhuman strength.

No wonder the filmmakers had to give poor Tina her own special abilities in order to stand up to and to survive Jason's wrath.

The 13 Days of Friday the 13th: Day Six

Despite having never seen Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) before today, the version of Jason Voorhees presented here is the one most familiar to me. Sure, he may have donned the trademark hockey mask a few films back, but it wasn't until his unnatural resurrection that he would become the Jason from my childhood. The undead killer with superhuman strength, impervious to pain and completely unstoppable. A shambling corpse, hellbent on murder and mayhem, who refuses to truly die.

The filmmakers, director Tom McLoughlin and the producers at Paramount, decided to ignore the events at the end of the previous installment. Tommy Jarvis is back, this time portrayed by Thom Mathews, but instead of picking up where he left off in A New Beginning (1985), taking up the mask and the mantle, instead he's determined to destroy the evil once and for all. Digging up Jason's grave in an attempt to burn the body, Tommy accidentally brings the killer back to life.

Hilarity ensues.

Actually, that's only partially untrue. I mean, really, talk about your drastic tonal shifts from film to film. Where Part V bordered on unpleasant, here the viewers are given an almost goofy, tongue-in-cheek slasher. It's still drenched in gore and death, but there's definitely more humor on display than any of the previous entries. There are even moments of breaking the fourth wall, like when the graveyard caretaker questions "why they had to go and dig up Jason" while looking directly at the audience.

It's all very meta.

One of my favorite elements is the inclusion of Sheriff Mike Garris (David Kagen) as one of the main characters. His daughter, Megan (Jennifer Cooke), fills the role of "final girl" for Part VI, but the sheriff himself is more than just another victim for Jason to slaughter. And while, no, he doesn't survive until the film's end, Sheriff Garris is the only adult in the franchise so far to truly take a stand against the relentless horror of Jason Voorhees.