Manos: The Game of Fate

Manos: THOF video game cover art

Manos Mania continues to sweep the nation and the latest to hop on the bandwagon is Freakzone Games with its retro-style video game based on the movie Manos: The Hands of Fate.

In it, you play as the character of Mike, husband and father of Margret and Debbie who along with their dog Pepe are lost on vacation. Mike must search for Valley Lodge so that he and his family have somewhere to stay. Along the way, he encounters strange creatures and must battle Bosses at the end of each level.

The game is a typical side-scrolling adventure that was the norm during the eighties. It's also extremely difficult as was the case also with classic 8-bit games. I purchased the PC version and found it impossible to get by the boss in stage 2. To be fair, I am using my keyboard for the controls and I think I would have a much easier time if I was using a USB NES controller. I get too mixed up using a keyboard. I'm also not what you would call a gamer. Even in my youth I was a casual player at best.  More serious gamers might have more success than I have so far. I do plan on buying a proper controller and having a real crack at this game. The weapon you start out with is a revolver which you can replace with a shotgun however it is extremely difficult to hang on to it. Once you are hit by an object or creature (which I have trouble avoiding), the shotgun reverts back to a revolver.

Since I haven't managed to get very far, I can't very well give a complete review of this game. Have a look at the gameplay trailer for a better idea.

The Life & Crimes of Hercules 2

Hulk Hercules shields himself from film critics

Recently, I had the pleasure opportunity to watch 1985's Hercules II (The Adventures of Hercules). This is of course, the sequel to 1983's Hercules, starring The Incredible Hulk himself, Lou Ferrigno.

What can I say about this movie?

Well, for starters, the film's poster has much better acting and special effects than the actual movie. Second, Ferrigno's voice is dubbed by another actor as I suspect many of the other roles are as well.

However, I don't want to dwell on the quality of the movie. After all, if you enjoy campy B-movies, you might enjoy this one as I did even with it's many flaws.

Instead, I would like to focus on the crimes of Hercules II.

Hercules II, you stand accused of the cinematic crime of stealing from other films. You face nine counts of theft as the following evidence will show. Should you be found guilty, you will forever be branded with the mark of the Movie Vigilante. That's bad news for you Herc because I am your judge, jury and executioner. I'm also the prosecutor. Your film fate hangs in the balance of vigilante justice. Your daddy Zeus can't save you now.

Read the extra vigilant evidence following the video.

Save Psycho Pike!

Paddle vs. Pike (from Cottage Life magazine)

If you've never heard of the movie Psycho Pike, you can hardly be blamed. That's because the film has been lost for twenty years. How's that for obscure? Were it not for the excellent Canuxploitation, I would never have known about this "Canadian cottage cult classic" as its director once described it.

The film was shot in Wiarton, Ontario, Canada in 1992 with Sky Lake portraying the fictional Lake Shippagew. Wiarton is most famous for hosting the annual Wiarton Willie Festival, celebrating Groundhog Day, similar to Punxsutawney Phil. For reasons not entirely clear, the movie disappeared from public view almost without a trace. The only evidence of its existence seemed to be an old article in Cottage Life magazine on the making of the movie which is spelled as Psychopike. After that, it was the one that got away.

Psycho Pike is about a group of cottagers that are terrorized by a vicious fish which has gone mad as a result of toxic waste being dumped in the local lake.

While I'll admit that the plot sounds like a cliché, run-of-the-mill mutant monster movie, the film's mysterious history has aroused my curiosity. Yes, it's a low-budget horror flick. Yes, we've seen killer fish before, namely Jaws and Piranha. However, being denied the opportunity of seeing this film is similar to being told you can't have something. Even if it's something you don't desire, once someone tells you that you can't have it, you want it all the more. Not that no one would desire Psycho Pike but you get my point, don't you? What I mean to say is, I would have loved the opportunity to see it and judge for myself. If it's no better than a B-movie, so be it. Who doesn't love a campy B-movie, anyway?

All is not lost though, even though I said it was. Remember when I said the movie disappeared without a trace? That's not entirely true.

It is possible to watch Psycho Pike by way of a screener copy if you're resourceful enough. Even though any kind of copy would be better than nothing, what I'm more interested in is an official DVD release of the film. Aren't you? If you answered yes, quit talking to yourself and read on.

Dinner 'n' a Movie: The Return of Mother's Pizza

Mother's new 2013 logo for its restaurant

A couple of years ago, while browsing the internet, I found out that Mother's Pizza (formally Mother's Pizza Parlour & Spaghetti House) was being revived. This is after having gone out of business in the early '90's. At its peak, the popular restaurant chain had approximately 120 locations across Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. I was excited by this news because as a young boy, my parents took me and my brothers and sisters to Mother's several times. We'd always order a large pizza but their menu had a lot more to offer. For a beverage, I would always have a large root beer in a giant mug. Sometimes I would have a root beer float. The waitresses were dressed in red and white checked aprons which matched the tablecloths. They also wore bonnets. The throwback uniforms were in keeping with the old-fashioned decor of the restaurant. Everywhere you would look, there were reminders of days gone by. The walls were filled with vintage black and white photographs. The restaurant also had swinging parlour-style doors, antique-style chairs and Tiffany lamps. The whole atmosphere was warm and cozy. Mother's went to great lengths to make you feel at home. They even had their own pie wagon!

What does all this have to do with movies, you ask? As it turns out, quite a bit. As a matter of fact, Mother's Pizza is partly responsible for my love of silent movies. Although I didn't know it at the time, it was the start of my film fanaticism. Let me elaborate.

The famous Mother's waitress uniform and pizza pedestal

In addition to the great food it would serve, Mother's showed black & white, silent movies for the patrons to watch. Dinner and a movie! Most of these were short films, many of them from the great comic actors of the silent film era. As a young kid, I got to see Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and the Keystone Cops all perform their brand of slapstick humour. I would always laugh as they would do pratfalls and be amazed when they were running on top of rail cars or hanging out of windows of high-rise buildings.  There might have been some early Our Gang and Laurel and Hardy shorts shown also. The average film would probably run fifteen to twenty minutes in length so there was always time to watch at least a couple of them during each visit. I can't quite remember if full length features were ever shown. In any case, once the meal was finished and the bill was paid, every kid was allowed to pick out a free sucker out of a basket next to the cash register, if I recall correctly. It didn't get any better than that!

A few years later, one by one, Mother's restaurants began to close and the memories began to fade away with them.

Fast forward to the present and you'll find that Mother's Pizza is back in business.

We. Are. Open. WE ARE OPEN! Welcome back to Mother's, everyone! #MothersIsBack
— Mother's Pizza(@Mothers_Pizza) April 1, 2013

Before any of you skeptics out there zero in on the suspicious date of that tweet, let me assure you it's not an April Fool joke. The first restaurant did indeed open on April 1st in Hamilton, Ontario, where it all began.

Teen Wolf: Ri-dickless Rumour

Teen Flasher?

It's time to file my first report on a cinematic crime in which a specific behaviour must be beaten up. I mean beaten up real good! Today's entry involves the urban legend concerning the movie, Teen Wolf. A lot of simpletons have been spreading this rumour like peanut butter on bread and its time I took the law into my own hands and crammed some facts down their virtual throats.

I think you'll find all you need to know in my report.


CRIME REPORT
 

• Crime: claiming an extra in Teen Wolf exposes his Peen Wolf in bleacher celebration scene 
• Offender(s): countless gullible morons on the world wide web 
• Enablers: Family Guy, KFAN FM 100.3 
• Punishment: a lifetime sentence of watching former U.S. Vice President Cheney's C-Span interview on a loop since they really want to see a dick

There are a lot of lemmings in this world. By that, I mean there are a lot of people who will take the word of a cartoon character as gospel and follow it over the edge of a cliff.  I'm referring to The Family Guy episode, Something, Something Darkside in which the Yoda character says "there was a guy in the end in the back of the stands with his dick out". This is in reference to a popular myth about the movie, Teen Wolf. Those who bask in ignorance love to point out that there's a male extra in one scene of the film where he exposes his penis. Some even say that he masturbates. None of it is true.

I've got news for Family Guy fanatics. IT'S A FICTIONAL TV SHOW! Not to mention a cartoon one at that. It's not meant to be taken at face value, sheeple. When the Yoda character utters that line, it's art imitating life. In other words, Family Guy is just mocking how these absurd rumours get started and spread around recklessly from one dolt to another.

You may be wondering how I know that this is a myth. Perhaps it's because a peen is nowhere to be seen. This might have to do with the fact that the movie extra in question is a girl, not a guy, so subtract one penis. Why are her pants unbuttoned and her zipper down? That I can't answer. What I can say is that the young blonde-haired woman seems to be caught off guard and quickly tries to zip up, realizing her white panties are visible but nothing more.