Well this is the last part of this little horror show, so it's time for things to go off the rails completely. Where better to start. Part corporate marketing satire, part The Blob, part frozen dessert nightmare, you just can't get enough of The Stuff. After a mining crew find a mystery substance coming up from the ground and uh... decide to taste it... (as you do) a new mystery product appears on the shelves, one that is outselling ice cream even if nobody knows the secret. Well it says there are no artificial ingredients, so at least they're being honest about that.
But in a shocking twist the contents are a little more alive than your average pro-biotic yoghurt. Soon people start turning into addicts and later it gets even worse than that. The plot is basically all over the place and the acting varies from bad to acceptable ham as an ex-FBI agent, and an advertising executive race to do something about the popularity of the treat. The effects are fun for what they are in a strangely bloodless but still grotesque feature, but the pacing kills it in the third act when it rushes to a dumb conclusion. Overall this is a mixed bag, but it's memorable.
Basket Case does a similar job of sneaking in some interesting elements into a very silly concept. I'm pretty sure that the eponymous term does not actually refer to someone in living a basket, but now it's less clear. Like Frank Henenlotter's creature feature come addiction story Brain Damage, this is a grim and unsettling horror with a few choice pokes at society along the way. It's weird and gross but it still has some depth you probably wouldn't expect.
Weird loner Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) goes on a journey of revenge against people that deemed his misshapen twin brother Belial a freak. The effects lack any kind of finesse and the characters are all over acting oddballs, but it has a certain filthy charm about it. Even if the nastier moments towards the end go a little too far. Still as sibling rivalry goes this is certainly a ... different take on the idea.
On the other hand I have no idea what Spontaneous Combustion is trying to say. Radiation is bad I guess? What is really says is the full name of the mysterious occurrence was too long for an effective movie poster. The human part in this case is Brad Dourif who does a great job of playing a guy who slowly finds out that his life is not quite what it seems, and that the things that upset him may also become a fire risk. And he gets angry pretty frequently. He's the real reason to watch this, as with many horror films he features in.
I guess we're coming full circle with yet another Tobe Hooper film that's not so well known. The bulk of the plot involves 1950s nuclear testing and anti radiation drugs, protests against a power station and shady doctors that seem to be watching the main characters. It's a convoluted way of getting to what the end results inevitably bring but its effective for the most part. It's nothing special but for an effects movie and an effective central performance check it out.
Since this last round is a total mixed bag of random ideas and crazy scenes we might as well go out on some animal brain experimentation I guess. Monkey Shines is a lesser George A. Romero picture but it still has a lot of '80s charm. Thanks to the subject matter it also manages to include some emotional engagement despite the ridiculous plot. After a car accident a quadriplegic man gets a new helper in the form of Ella - his new monkey assistant. But this is no ordinary animal therapy and things start to become pretty sinister.
The intro text notes that this a real thing just in case you weren't aware of it. Though in real life I'm mostly sure they aren't using animals have been subjected to brain drugs that drive them to kill. That's right, when wheelchair bound Allan (Jason Beghe) gets angry his new friend starts to act against anyone who upsets him. The idea of animal and man swapping roles as he becomes more aggressive and Ella becomes more cunning is interesting. But it soon there are weirder plot developments about telepathy that are far less effective. You get some good drama as things fall apart, but it's an uneven ride with imaginative ideas clashing with predictable elements. I guess that sums up this whole marathon...
PART 1 - PART 2
