#vacation of terror 2: diabolical birthday | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

analogscum · 7 years ago

Text

SCUM IN THE AISLES #1 (Vacation of Terror 2: Diabolical Birthday)

Sometimes, in order to seek out the weirdest discarded slices of celluloid trash that cinema has to offer, one must leave the confines of their crappy apartment, and go to an actual movie theater. This is a column recounting my excursions into the b-movie wilds. This is Scum in the Aisles!

I walk out the front door of my building in scenic Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and within less than 45 minutes, I am in cinephile nirvana: the Alamo Drafthouse. Located on the top floor of a shiny new shopping center and dining hall that sits conveniently atop the DeKalb Ave. R stop, the Drafthouse has become a sanctuary for freaks like me since it opened two Halloweens ago. Has it spoiled moviegoing for me forever? You bet it has. Once you have a theater experience where the tickets and food are reasonably priced (for New York City, that is), the seats are comfy and offer impeccable views wherever you sit, the movie choices range from the newest tentpole blockbusters to the most obscure arthouse and genre faire imaginable, and most of all, your fellow audience members respect the sacred rites of moviegoing just as much as you do and don’t goddamn fucking talk through the entire movie or goddamn fucking stare at their goddamn fucking smart phones through the entire movie, then you can never go back to the Regal Bowtie Halliburton Googleplex with the rest of the riffraff who bring screaming three-year-olds to R-rated movies or yell “OH I DIDN’T KNOW HE WAS IN THIS” at every name during the opening credits, or conduct mid-movie Skype conference calls with the home office (I’m not joking, I’ve actually seen someone do this, props to the asshole who ruined the first half hour of The Witch for me!)

Point is, I’m at the Drafthouse whenever time and money allows. So, on this particular Monday night, I found myself in a packed little theater for this month’s installment of Video Vortex, the series that shows the films that are too bizarre to be shown anywhere else, and that includes Weird Wednesday, a series that literally has the word “Weird” in it. I was especially excited because this month’s installment was presented by Annie Choi of Bleeding Skull. To say that Bleeding Skull has been a huge inspiration and influence on ANALOG SCUM would be the understatement of the century. Simply put, without the thoughtful, scholarly, clever writing done by Annie, Joseph Ziemba, and Zach Carlson for that site, ANALOG SCUM would not exist. Perish the thought!

On the menu for the evening was a ridonkulously bonkers Mexican horror chiller with the incredible title Vacation of Terror 2: Diabolical Birthday. Don’t worry, as Annie helpfully explained, this was a Troll/Troll 2 situation, as in the sequel has nothing to do with the original Vacation of Terror. Hell, there isn’t even a vacation in this movie, although true to form, the birthday does become mighty diabolical. The only returning character from the otherwise totally unrelated first installment is Julio, a sassy antique store owner. He flirts with a customer who turns out to be Mexican teen pop sensation Mayra, played by real life Mexican teen pop sensation Tatiana. He gives her some crappy looking vase that’s supposedly worth 60,000 pesos for free, which he figures will buy a trip to la zone de bone, but instead she just invites him to her little sister’s birthday party the following evening. How do you say “friend zoned” in Spanish? Oh, you don’t, because the concept of the friend zone is patriarchal bullshit that implies that men are entitled to sex for being nice to women and that their friendship is somehow some sort of punishment and we need to smash that way of thinking forever? Ok cool, moving on!

So as it turns out, Mayra’s sister, lil’ Tania, has this creepy doll. It looks like if they made a Cabbage Patch Kid based on Bob Dylan’s stage getup from the Rolling Thunder Review tour. You know it’s no good because suddenly this old dude barges in to Julio’s store and starts smashing everything in site while ranting nonsensically about the evil doll. Then he runs out into the street, where he is promptly hit by a car and dies. We then see Julio head over to the trusty public library, where he looks up some books on demonology. Now it’s time to par-tay! Mayra and Tania’s dad, Don Roberto, is a famous movie director. In fact, he’s planning on using Tania’s spooky-ass doll for his next movie. Tania’s birthday party is being held on the backlot of his movie studio, and it’s a Halloween-themed birthday party, even though it’s not Halloween, but who cares, because who WOULDN’T want a Halloween-themed birthday party?! Orrin Hatch, I bet.

Anyway, the party provides a perfect excuse for Mayra to take the stage and sing her latest smash hit single, “Chicos, Chicos, Chicos.” That’s “Boys, Boys, Boys” for those of you who don’t hablo Español. Guys, we need to talk about this song. First of all, it is catchier than influenza, or affluenza, for that matter. I’ve included the clip from the movie below, but just know that by smashing that PLAY button, you are going to have this thing running through your head for at least the next week, if not longer.

youtube

Now, I couldn’t find a version with subtitles, but the VHS tape (yup!) that was screened for us was subtitled, and these lyrics…holy mackerel. It’s been awhile since I took high school Spanish, but I’m not sure if these translations are accurate, or if they’re like the equivalent of BabelFish or something equally lazy. Anyway, here is the first verse of the song as it was translated for us:

Boys!

Monday, a snack

All the way

Bands and running

Clouds

Speed

Step on the gas

This is war

Great attention

Traffic jam downtown

Nervousness

Danger of rebellion

Boys, boys, boys

Clumsy and aggressive

Poor boys

Neurotics, all lost

Super guys

Surprised by Sunday crisis

See, I told you! Just have Kim Gordon whisper those words over some droning guitar feedback, and ta da, you’ve got a Sonic Youth song that nobody likes!

So what better way to follow up hearing your new favorite song than to have some birthday cake? Don Roberto wheels this puppy out, and it is spectacular! First of all, it is bigger than most tables, and it sports a sugary tableau of Halloween fun: a haunted house, a cemetery, a witch, etc. But for some reason, Don Roberto decides that it’s totally acceptable to hand a seven-year-old a giant sharp knife and let her cut the cake herself. Guess what, Tania slices her finger open, and gets blood all over that fondant witch. Then things take a turn: seems as though that creepy doll is actually alive. Whoops. It steals the bloody fondant witch, eats it, and promptly turns into a murderous demon.

Luckily, Julio shows up. He’s wearing a black trench coat and his power mullet is pulled back into a ponytail, because he’s a demonologist now. After one night of breezing through a book from the library. From here, we’re treated to all sorts of madness involving some silver coins, a laughing jack-o-lantern, Don Roberto sporting a shotgun whilst wearing a Canadian tuxedo, and a incongruous poster for the movie Cocktail. Now, it’s not all great. There are some really slow scenes. There are surprisingly few deaths, and they often happen offscreen. Worst of all, the filmmakers blatantly break the “keep your monster hidden” rule; this demon is all over the place, to the extent that he stops being threatening after like three scenes. Of course, it also doesn’t help that the demon just slowly waddles around and makes noises that are supposed to be spooky, but instead sound like sleep apnea. But only a chump would deny that this movie is one of a kind bizarro fun. How fun is it? Guys, the movie ends with not one, but TWO triumphant freeze frames!

Props to Annie Choi, Bleeding Skull, and the fine folks who make the Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn the best place to watch a movie in the whole darn city. I’ll see you in the aisles, Scumbags!

0 notes